The scroll is heavy and thick. Unfurling it, Angela is baffled by the complexity of the instructions. The many lengths and angles were a far cry from the simple IKEA instructions Angela was used to; clearly it would take some time to decipher.
From what she had learnt, Angela could see that in order for her to be able to build the full construction she would first have to break it down into smaller pieces to work on.
The overall image looked sort of like an oversized bird bath but the base was an intricate runic pattern that had to be assembled manually. With how long she had slept, as well as her foray into the island, Angela had just over 16 anima. With material and tool cost 16 should be enough but if she needed more she could always deconstruct a plant or two.
Drawing from all of her DIY experience Angela knew that the first step to any project was making sure that all the pieces were present and organised. Angela Creates a pencil and a saw in the creation menu before turning to the blueprints to make a protractor. Now fully equipped with her tools Angela creates a few wooden planks and begins to plan out the pieces she needs.
Once all the pieces are drawn out Angela begins to saw away, merrily humming a tune to herself. Piece after piece is created while the pile of sawdust creeps ever higher and after multiple hours of work, she has almost 30 different pieces with varying sizes.
Next comes the tricky part, first she needs to make something that will hold the pieces of wood together. For this Angela is thankful she spent so long registering plants as many of them had the adhesive properties she needed. The plant she chooses is called the honeydew stem; a plant named for its sticky sap.
For the adhesive strength of the sap to reach the required level Angela would first have to create a water supply. She does this by creating a block of clay, ignoring the mismatched appearance of her living area, and hollows it out (using the excavated clay to build up the walls). After hollowing the block Angela goes into her creation menu and selects low grade water source, embedding it in the makeshift pool.
Low grade water source: a small marble capable of converting anima gathered from the surroundings into water. Produces one litre of water per hour.
cost: 10 anima
With the creation of the water source Angela's anima was beginning to run dry and since she also needed to search for the honeydew stem it was a good opportunity to use the deconstruction menu.
Angela searches through the shrubbery for honeydew stem while also sacrificing some of the useless plants to the deconstruction menu. After twenty minutes Angela has collected a sizeable amount of both anima and honeydew stem, putting her at 11/101 anima.
Returning to the 'construction site' with her arms full of plant Angela dumps her spoils onto the ground next to the pool. By this point the water source had been hard at work, producing almost half a litre of water.
Most adhesive substances would be diluted upon contact with water; the sap of the honeydew stem, however, binds to the water in a unique way that gives it strength akin to superglue. A reaction not found in anything Angela knew of back on Earth.
Starting with the outer rim pieces Angela dipped two of the planks into the water before cutting the top off of one of the stalks and squeezing it like a tube of toothpaste. A glob came out of the top and Angela dragged it across one of the planks; making sure not to get any on her hands. An unfortunate side effect of water increasing the adhesiveness is that it is almost impossible to get off without losing skin.
Once the plank is suitably slathered Angela takes the two planks and puts them together and ensuring that the edges meet perfectly. She holds them together like that until her arms start to hurt by which point the glue is sure to have dried.
Angela repeats this process until she has a large octagon. The next pieces would require more calculation as they are placed at different lengths and are not always at direct angles. Each piece would have to be measured multiple times before being placed.
Sweat running down her brow Angela places piece after piece, she was all too aware that a single mistake would ruin the entire thing. Finally she places down the last piece and lets out a deep sigh.
The 'stem' of the pool is simple as it is just another octagon of planks but one that extends upwards to about waist height. The basin however was a bit tricky, it required a cross section much bigger than the planks created through anima. Angela pondered between jerry-rigging one together and cutting down a tree but decided not to take the risk of the project failing and created an axe, heading into the island.
There is a suitable tree not far in and Angela readies her axe. She is not sure what the best method to chop the tree down but she decides to just go for it and starts hacking away. Angela very quickly runs out of breath, huffing and puffing as she inspects how far she has gotten. A feeling of despair sweeps over her as she realises that she is only about 20% of the way through but she pushes through it. After several breaks to recuperate Angela finally hears a cracking sound and shrieks as the tree comes crashing down, landing in the brush with a resounding thud.
Now that the tree had been felled Angela wearily gets to work on sawing through a section large enough to fit her needs. Thankfully, though the sawing takes much longer it doesn't require as much effort and so Angela doesn't have to take as many breaks. After a lot of sawing Angela finally has what she came for, a heptagonal board big enough to stand on with room to spare.
After fixing the board to her current progress Angela only has the lip of the basin left to of which is even easier than the edge of the base as it was much smaller and has less pieces. Angela steps back, exhausted, and proudly harrumphs at her creation.