Schwab

I see quite often a dip in views on my .2 chapters only to see it rise when it comes to .3. <.< >.> Who's skipping them? You do know that these things are linear, right? You're missing out on 500 words of content!

Nun uncurled around the sticks and handed them to me.

I counted them: ten in all! Most were short and crooked but they would serve my purposes. I patted the monkey on the head.

"Good job," I said. "I think you'll be pretty good at excursions into the forest."

He hissed at the notion that I would send him on yet another trip, but I only smiled at him. Getting to my feet, I said, "None of that now! I'm sure you were great at it. Right, fa-I mean....what are you doing?"

The fairy had one foot in the clay paste, dragging her toes through it and making little shaps with her heel. She quickly extracted the limb when she heard me, but the damage was done. Blushing fiercely, she shook the paste off of her foot and rose a foot above the pile.

<Nothing, mortal! What is it? Are the bricks dry yet? Shouldn't you be working on that?>

I squinted up at her. "Were you...playing in my paste?"

<No!> she lied. <I was just...testing it...>

"Testing it for what?"

<Uh, uh, look!> She flung her hand toward the east. My head snapped that way, my heart hammering inside my chest.

Was it a monster? Was someone coming? What-

Oh, that little trickster! Nothing was there! I looked back to where the fairy had been, but she'd disappeared.

Rolling my eyes, I looked down at Nun. "Fairies are awful."

He grunted in agreement and then lumbered over to his large stone to sit and groom himself.

And monkies are obsessed with hygiene...Huh. When was the last time I took a shower? I looked around to see if anyone was watching, but Nun was still preoccupied with picking tiny bugs out of his fur.

Satisfied I was in the clear, I lifted my arm and sniffed at my pits. The funk I'd been subconsciously ignoring hit me like a freight train. Coughing, I lowered my arm and furiously wiped at my nose.

I made a mental note to add deodorant to my list of ASAP priorities.

Anyway, it's time to get back to work. But first, let's check the project progress.

⌈Clay Kiln progress:

Resources: Stick x10, Clay Paste, Clay Bricks x60

Builders: Sect Core, Nun⌋

"Epic!" I turned to the grooming monkey and cupped my hands over my mouth. "Nun!" I shouted. The monkey jumped, startled. Grinning, I yelled, "We've got everything! Let's get building¹Since I absolutely do not care for writing the process of these two constructing the clay kiln and I can't find the video I watched on how to make it...Feel free to use your imagination!!"

It....was a process. It was easy stacking the bricks but I underestimated just how hard it was to get a monkey to cooperate when all they want to do is play. A lot of the paste had been wasted when Nun had a sudden an unconquerable urge to fling handfuls of it while I was building the darn thing.

Luckily, I managed to save a decent amount by punting him into the river. That got him to stop flinging the paste but, instead, he wanted me to keep tossing him into the rushing water. I thought at the time that this must be what it's like to have children. Little terrors constantly getting in your way and messing everything up.

Eventually, though, I finished making the kiln and it turned out...decently. I think. It was less impressive than I thought it'd be, but that was okay. It wasn't there for visual points.

Well. It kind of was. The form was just as important as the function...

But I didn't have time to mope about how silly my kiln looked. The fairy eventually came back from wherever she'd gone off to hide. When she saw the constructed kiln, she clapped her hands with a squeal.

<You did it! Finally! It took you ages, but you finally did it!>

I rolled my eyes from where I was drying off a shivering Nun with my sweatshirt - I made him promise to pay me back for using my precious article of clothing, though. "Hardy har har. Don't complain when you didn't even bother trying to help."

<Nonsense,> the fairy dismissed my words with a wave of her hands. <My job isn't to help you build the sect; I'm here to guide you through the ways of the system and keep you alive until you can manage on your own! I've done a pretty good job of that, now, haven't I?>

"Debatable."

<Tch. A mortal like you should appreciate the blessing of someone so strong stooping to help you along.>

"Yeah, yeah, gratitude and all that. Whatever. Can you get some logs from the forest or something to bring them here?"

She narrowed her eyes. <You have the monkey for that.>

"I don't think he's strong enough to do that by himself."

Nun snapped at me, growling. I patted his soggy head, calming him down. "Fine, fine. You're a big, tough monkey, aren't you?"

Placated, the monkey settled down in my sweatshirt and sniffed, holding his nose up in the air. Rolling my eyes, I turned back to the fairy. "So can you do it?"

<I better be getting compensated for this!>

"Yeah, sure." Press X to doubt.

She flew off without another word, zipping into the forest with a quick beat of her wings.

Meanwhile, I got to digging up more clay. I didn't know much about pottery, but I had an inkling that the paste I'd made before might be good for my purposes. I did the standard procedure of splashing water and then mixing the stuff with my hands.

Now came the hard part. The bricks had been easy to shape since a rectangle was a fairly easy shape to mold. A circular bowl though was a bit more difficult.

First, I rolled the mixture into a large ball. Once that had been achieved, I pressed my fingers into the top of the ball and pressed down. I made a large impression on the clay; it looked a little like a big dimple. I smoothed out the fingerprints on the impression, simultaneously widening and smoothing out the hole.

When I was finished, I got a weirdly shaped food bowl type thing. It was clearly amateur's work; one side was a little thicker than the other. But pride welled up in my chest as I observed my work. I did it, and that's all that mattered.

The fairy returned shortly after I'd finished, easily carrying 2 small logs over her shoulders. I grimaced as she lazily dropped them by the kiln and looked at me expectantly.

<Well? Does that satisfy you, mortal?>

"They won't fit in the kiln," I told her.

She looked at my construction with a sneer. <That is what you made?>

"Yes," I flushed. "Can you just break them up so I can put them in?"

The fairy huffed and flew down to the logs. She picked one up and broke it in half with a quick flex of her muscles. I gaped as she broke the second one just as easily. She dropped the pieces and dusted off her hands.

<There.>

"How are you so strong?" I breathed.

<Cultivation,> she said. <Body tempering does wonderful things for your strength. Now, are you going to get started, or no?>

I nodded dumbly, picking up the broken logs and dropping them into the large kiln opening. "Would you, ah, do the honors?"

<Of course!>

The fairy pointed at the logs and shot out a small puff of flame. They instantly caught on fire. I felt the heat where I was standing a few feet away. It was absolutely unfair that such a tiny fairy could wield such power.

Shaking my head, I gingerly dropped the bowl into the kiln. Finally, I'd have the offering bowl.