CH114 Building blue water ships is hard.
202 7 6
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

“Just be careful about the shipping containers.”  Alex told the now-surrounded-by-steel gnome’s tent.  “They only open from the outside so they are not designed to be continuously occupied.  You can put anything you want in them but don’t get locked inside.”

 

Apparently, all the excitement from running the jeep and having a small crowd gathering to watch was enough to make Professor Copperpot not want anymore social contact.  Respecting this, Alex led the others away from the simple camp.

Night had fallen and everyone felt ready for bed after a busy day.  But the cabin didn’t have many places to crash.  Before Aqua showed up, Merumeru had just been slumming around, sleeping wherever.  When Cosmos showed up, she took over the master bedroom.  But when the three nobles showed up, they took the guest bedroom.  Alex thought it was weird for all of them to share the same room but apparently keeping the whole family in the same room kept everyone warm.  A big manor might have rooms for everyone but that wasn’t the norm except for wealthy nobles.

 

“I suppose I can set up the carriage and sleep there.  It still needs some work but I’ll be fine.” Alex then considered the other’s arrangement.  “How about Aqua and Ariel?”

 

“Actually, there are plenty of rooms in the bottom level of the castle.”  Aqua beamed.  “Some of them don’t have ceilings but it doesn’t really matter.”

 

“I’m fine with staying in the castle as well.”  Ariel nodded, waving a webbed hand to show it wasn’t really a problem.

 

“Do you want to stay in the water too?” Alex asked Merumeru.

 

“Meru!” The slime girl agreed.

 

“I’ll see you all in the morning.” Alex headed out.

 

“Have a good night.” Yvne spoke primly.  “I’m sure one of my children can help with breakfast in the morning.”

 

The next day everyone but the gnome met up at the cabin and Seraphina made a breakfast of dried berries and oatmeal for everyone.  Aqua went to deliver Professor Copperpot his food and Cassius, Ariel and Merumeru headed to the workshop.

 

“What do you think of the keel shape?” Alex presented the now-curled board to the sea elf.

 

“It is a very sleek design.” Ariel ran a webbed hand across the wood.  “That is obvious from the model though.”

 

Alex nodded.  “Yeah I don’t know what all exactly makes something a cutter.  But they are supposed to be fast.”

 

“How can we help?”  Ariel asked.

 

“We need to get some more branches that can be cut and shaped into the ribs of the hull.”  Alex scrunched up her face.  “I’m not sure if that is the right term though.”

“Garboard maybe?”  Ariel shrugged.  “I don’t know all the terms perfectly.  The ships I’ve captained have all been captured ones or abandoned ones.”

 

“No matter, let's get some lumber and see what we can find to bend them into shape.  They don’t need to be big because we are building it to 1/10 scale so no need to kill any trees.” The black-haired magical girl grabbed the chainsaw, rope and a wagon and they headed out.

 

Within a day enough branches littered the outside of the workshop to construct the hull of the 1/10 model of the flying cloud.  

 

Merumeru stayed back and Cassius, Alex and Ariel filled a trailer with branches.  Not everything was oak, because those trees were a minority on Alex’s land. The toy ship was really a scaling up of the desk model and a proof-of-concept more than anything else.  The peg-legged sea elf wasn’t very quick at getting around but she could tie rope like no one else.

 

The gas tank still was near full but hauling stuff had dropped the indicator down a little bit.  The trusty jeep wasn’t very fuel efficient.  Instead of the Jeep, using the carriage might be an option, but with the frame made mostly of wood, there wasn’t a great spot to put a trailer hitch on.  The semi truck was also an option but because it was so big, taking it off road through a wooded area wasn’t ideal either.  Also, no one here had any experience operating a big rig.

 

“Merumeru?”  Alex slid the barn doors of the workshop open.

 

“Meru!”  The slime girl chirped in greeting.

 

While the sea elf and two humans were gathering branches, Merumeru was converting scraps into forms for the rib shapes that Alex had drawn out.

 

They spent their rest of the day sawing and forcing the lumber into the jigs that Merumeru set up.

 

At dinner, Alex eyed the disassembled toy boat alongside the ship picture book.  “I’m a little worried about the scale of this.  We might not have enough lumber to build the actual full sized ship without stripping acres of forest bare.”

 

“You can probably work something out.”  Aqua didn’t look phased by the huge problem. “If you need a thousand trees then give them something worth a thousand trees.”

 

“But what would the nymphs want?”  Alex grumbled.  “My experience with the race tells me that nothing is more important than preserving their forests.”

 

“You are right.”  Aqua nodded.  “So the question would be, how can you pay back the forest back with more forest?  What can a human do that a nymph could not.”

 

“They can’t really travel.”  Alex pondered.  “If they want to claim more land then it has to be adjacent.”

 

“There you have it.” Aqua beamed.

 

“But without a lot of help from the system, plants won’t grow in the wastes.”  Yvne interjected.  “Farmers need a high level to even attempt a crop in a depleted land.”

 

“Then plant stuff that doesn’t need good soil.” Aqua shifted her gaze to the former baroness.

 

“Do we have something like that?”  Alex must have missed something.

 

“People have already been doing it.” The nereid waved her hand.  “Were you not there when people came down the river and planted seeds?”

 

The black-haired girl blinked in realization.  “To tell you the truth.  I thought they were just being weird.  I didn’t consider that there was a method to the madness.”

 

“If enough seeds survive, then in the spring when they germinate then that portion of the river will have static defenses against demons poking around.”  Aqua spelled it out very clearly.

 

“Won’t the demons just push through?”  Alex wondered. “I’m a little confused about how they would view this.”

 

“Eventually, but each layer of fortifications is another price they have to pay.” Aqua replied seriously.  “Another first line of defense is always a good thing.”

 

“I’d think that the nereids could spread seeds along waterways.”  Alex sipped some tea. “So, I’m guessing that would be a bit redundant…  Maybe planting some place that is a bit more isolated?”

 

Fufi nodded her beak.  “Spreading seeds from the sky is an option too, provided they won’t break because they are too heavy and crash against the ground.”

 

“Not sure I completely understand but I think we can work something out.” Alex puzzled looking back at the model and ship pictures.  “I’m a little concerned about the finer details of the clipper ship though.  If you look at the display model, it isn’t really a completely accurate recreation of the ship.  The outside looks similar, but inside it is just these bulkhead pieces and the whole interior is hollow.  Ariel, does that look right to you?”

 

The sea elf took a look over Alex’s shoulder and gave a critical eye to the picture and the model.  “No, you can see that there are cabins and decks.  I think it is supposed to have a main deck, a lower deck and a hold just by glancing at the picture.  Also, the placing of the bulkheads is weird.  The companionway doesn’t give access to some parts.”

 

Alex threw up her hands.  “This is too much.  I can probably build the hull, deck, masts and sails but without detailed plans so much of this is guess work.  I’m not an expert.  There is so much that could go wrong.  I don’t want to float thousands of trees down the river and the shipwright tries to make it by scaling up my toy ship only for it to sink or be useless as soon as they splash her into the water.”

 

“Any shipwright that has achieved the rank of master will not be silent about a flawed ship design.” Seraphina took a break from sipping her tea to add her two coppers.

 

“I wish we could just recruit help from a legitimate shipwright.”  Alex frowned.  “I’m so worried that something will go wrong.  This whole plan seems like such a gamble.”

 

“Meru me ruuu, me me.”  Merumeru bounced.

 

“You want to kidnap someone that can help build a castle too?”  Aqua patted the little slime girl.  “If we are going to traffic humans we might as well collect all the ones we might need while we are there.”

 

After all the outrageous proposals, people got back to work.  Everyone except the anti-social professor chipped in helping out in their own small way.  When all the boards for the hull were laid out, Alex got to work on whittling some wooden ball-jointed dolls for the mini-clipper crew.  Yvne and Seraphina liked the idea of making dolls so they also joined the effort in crafting a crew.  

 

The ship having three masts and dozens of sails, not counting the bowsprit ones made it a bit of a nightmare in terms of complexity.  

 

“We are going to need at least a mile of yarn for all the rigging.”  Alex headed into the carriage to check the tailoring stocks.  “Maybe we’ll have enough.”

 

Another day was dedicated to dressing the one foot tall wooden dolls of the crew.  Not sure how many were supposed to crew the ship, Alex made 10 just to be safe.  Also, using possess doll wouldn’t let her control more than one doll at a time.  They were dressed in cute sailor uniforms.  

 

Alex’s phone rang out:  [Toymaking has reached Level 4]

 

When the twenty-foot toy ship was finished enough that it had what looked like a complete hull, deck, working mast, sails and rudder they put her on a trailer and drove her down to the water down by where Professor Copperpot’s camp was.

 

With little fanfare the toy splashed into the water.  Merumeru stood at the bow with her arms out like she was flying.

 

That is when the problems started.  First, the ship with the sails and high mast was top heavy.  Not having a proper lower deck didn’t help much either.  The draft was way too shallow.

 

Merumeru wobbled back and forth, but the list went from one side to the other.

 

Left, 5 degrees.

 

Right 5 degrees.

 

Left 10 degrees.

 

Right 10 degrees.

 

Left 20 degrees.

 

Right 20 degrees.

 

Left 40 degrees.

 

Right… and the boat rolled over on the side, the hold started filling up with water.

 

Aqua hopped into the lake and used her innate power over water to right the floating toy.  With little effort, she got the toy ship back on the trailer and they pulled it out of the water.

 

“Mistakes were made.”  Alex slumped to the ground.

 

“I think you might have rushed this a bit.”  Ariel agreed, helping to tie the ship back to the trailer.

“This is taking a lot longer than I thought it would.” Alex complained.

 

“You did have the help of a number of craftsmen back at the barony.”  Fufi let out another one of her blunt comments.  “Getting some more help up here might be good.”

 

“I think that the actual ship had some kind of weight. In the bottom of the ship to get it to not be so loose.”  Alex grumbled.  “Maybe the townsfolk were right and doing even a toy ship without a shipwright is a recipe for failure.”

 

“You don’t need a shipwright to make a cute toy ship.”  Fufi parroted her manta. “The ship is just not cute enough.  With some more flourishes and sparkles I bet it’ll work right as rain.”

 

The mood became somber, and they pulled the ship back to the workshop after dumping the lake water out of the hold. 

6