Meanwhile, back at the floating island…

 

“What’s that you are building?” Cosmos asked the blue slime girl.

 

“Meru Meru,” Merumeru explained.  She was half submerged in the creek back where her portal pipe was placed nearby.  She made a gesture along the water.

 

Merumeru had found a good spot to build a small dam.  The duck pond would have been a good spot to drain water to plumb it to the cabin but it had a problem.  The cabin was higher than the duck pond.  But upstream a bit the elevation was high enough that she could make a small dam like they did back at Bob and Martha’s farm.  There were not steep walls on either side so it would have to be wider.  The landscape was a dirt shaped V in the part where she planned to build.  It was only about 100 yards upstream from the portal pipe and duck pond.

 

“I’m not sure what you are trying to do here.” The magical girl furrowed her brows.

 

Merumeru pointed at the intake pipe she had already made.  The pipe was made of stone.  She used her slime powers to bore a hole through the ground and harden it so that when the water levels got higher it would fill the water tank for the cabin.  Merumeru’s first plan was to connect the stone pipe to the existing pipes that came from what she recognized as a well.  However, the pipes that were underground were much different than anything she’d seen before.  They were this shiny material that she couldn’t dissolve.  Instead of trying to break them, something that would be really hard to do while squishing along underground, she just tunneled to the water tank which was thankfully made of metal.

 

Merumeru was a little concerned about where the extra water would flow off to.  The well had this strange contraption on top of it and a pipe that went down and sucked up the water.  When Cosmos saw her inspecting it, Ki mentioned that the thing was a pump and it ran on lightning.  Cosmos directed her to an even more complicated contraption that was behind the house.  She said it burned a special fluid and produced lightning.  Cosmos had figured out how to turn it on and that would draw water up and fill the tank.  However, Cosmos explained that finding the fluid on this world would be difficult and she was only using it sparingly to fill the water tank.  The solution to a lack of lightning would be just to not burn up all the fuel until they could find a lightning source to power Alex’s cabin.

 

“Meru ru ru ru.” Merumeru could fix that problem.  So she told Cosmos that they didn’t need to burn the fluid because she was a big girl who knew how to fill a tank by making a dam and running a pipe.  Luckily there was another pipe that went up and out but didn’t seem to serve any other purpose.  Merumeru could just repurpose the extra opening on the water tank.

 

“Aww, you are so cute.” Cosmos praised.

 

Luckily, the water didn’t drain back down the pipe into the well.  If it wasn’t running the weird lightning-machine-thing kept the water above it in place.  That solved the problem of accidently creating a water spout out of the well and flooding everything.

 

Merumeru started building some bricks to make a wall.  After a day of slowly making a pile Cosmos looked concerned.

 

“Do you need some more bricks?  Are you trying to build a wall?  I could probably portal some from another place.  I just can’t get them from Terre.  That would be a violation of the treaty that the gods made regarding my interference.” Cosmos looked a bit flustered.

 

“Meru me me,” Merumeru nodded in agreement, thankful for any help she could get.

 

“Okay, I’ll be right back.  When I was looking around for Alex’s cabin I saw a pile of really big bricks.  I can just take them and leave something better in return.  That way I don’t have to talk to any bill collectors.” Cosmos floated up into the sky and started sparkling.

 

“Magical girl Cosmos: Transform!”  The space around her twinkled and she glowed with starlight.  With a final flash, she appeared wearing a frilly dress and wielding a wand with a moon on the end.

 

“Puri Puri Portal!” Cosmos chanted and spun her wand in several circles.  A portal formed in the air.

Merumeru clapped and cheered.

 

Cosmos winked and from her eye a translucent star floated down towards Merumeru.  It shattered into sparkling motes that rained down on the slime girl.  Next, Cosmos flew into the portal and it vanished from view.

 

Some time later, the portal opened again and a very large gray brick plopped down.  It was several times bigger than the slime girl and likely weighed tons.  The block was longer than Alex was tall and much wider than a human.  It had a metal hook in the middle with upward notches on the top and one side and concave nooks on the others.

 

Merumeru gazed in amazement. “Meru!”

 

“Will this work? Where should these go?” Cosmos gestured to where the stream was, grinning.

 

Merumeru took a stick and drew a line from the hill that would be the back and a quarter circle to another hill.

 

“Oh, I see what you are trying to do.” Cosmos thought for a moment.  “I don’t think these will work so well unless we place them flat though.  Hold on a moment.”

 

Cosmos flew over the path Merumeru proposed and nodded, making up her mind. “Puri Puri paired portal!”  Cosmos chanted and waved her wand.  A green portal facing down appeared.  A moment later, the end of her wand turned into a blue portal.  Cosmos made a few test swings like it was some kind of weapon.    She flew down and strafed  the ground, holding the portal-on-stick below her.  Dirt, rocks and mud poured down from the other portal with each pass.  Dismissing the paired portals, Cosmos flew back up into the portal she had dropped the block from.

 

The portal vanished after the magical girl left.

 

Merumeru tilted her head, wondering what would happen next.

 

In rapid succession, portals appeared above the flattened area and huge blocks dropped down into place.  

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Gray blocks three high from one end of the hill a quarter-circle to the adjacent high spot.  The blocks were sitting flush together but they didn’t form a watertight seal. It blocked the creek but not enough to raise the water level to the pipe that stuck outside the wall that went to the cabin.  They would need to be more tightly secured to dam up the creek.

 

“Me rururu,” Merumeru explained that she could take it from here.  She was good at dissolving most kinds of rocks and getting them to steal together.

 

After two days of melting the large rocks together, their small dam was finally built.  Even though the dam was a bigger project than the farmhouse, the work went more smoothly.  Merumeru was small, and so she worked slowly on large projects.

The slime girl watched the water levels rise and the pipe dip under the water line.  This was always her favorite part.  She splashed into the water and elongated to fit into the pipe.  She rode the water up the pipe into the water tank.  After reforming into a normal slime girl shape she bobbed along in the completely dark tank.  The water level slowly rose and stopped before it got all the way up.

“Meru!”  Merumeru felt frustrated.  Why hadn’t the tank filled all the way up?

The little girl wormed her way around in some of the other pipes but all the other ways were closed.  The pump didn’t let water pass through it if it was off.  And all of the closed faucets, toilets, and baths wouldn’t let water pass through it either.  The only way out was back the way she came.

“Ruuuu.” Merumeru stopped her little feet.  The dam had filled up and the stream let water fall over the top and continue down to the duck pond.  She had messed things up somehow but wasn’t sure how.

Cosmos floated above the drain that the squishy blue girl poured out of.  “Wow, you can really fit through some tight spaces.  Did your little project work?”

Merumeru shook her head then toddled back inside to the water tank.  The thing was way bigger than her and had a couple of pipes sticking out of it.  One of the pipes went to the well and had a black boxed thing, a valve and some round cylinder thing with a pointer and some squiggles on it.  The other pipe went to the house’s plumbing to feed the water there.  The other pipe went from the tank to the newly-built dam.  The black-boxed thing had some of those slick-string-stuff that went down alongside the tank and to the well pump.  She wasn’t quite sure how that worked but knew that without lightning it probably wouldn’t work at all. But her goal here was to get the water to work without using lightning so that didn’t help.

“Ruu!” Merumeru thumped the dumb tank for being half-filled with air and then stopping.  She poked the black box and the cylinder thingy but it didn’t do anything.

 

“What’s that?  It says something.  Numbers in a circle and a pointer.  I think it is some kind of measuring device.  It says PSI in the middle.” The magical girl poked the gauge.

 

Merumeru couldn’t read.  She didn’t know many numbers and had no idea what a PSI was.  The slime girl glared angrily at the cylinder with numbers and letters on it.

 

“I think that I read something in one of Alex’s books about a PSI.  It is how much pressure something has.” Cosmos looked at Merumeru to see if she was paying attention.

 

Merumeru tilted her head, listening.

 

“You see here on the bottom left that says zero.  Then all the way on the other side it says 100.  Where this little black needle is pointing is how much pressure this tank has.  Right now it says 20 PSI.” Comos pointed at the number that apparently ment 20.  “Pressure, that is when something gets compressed.  Like if you go to the bottom of the ocean the water there presses down on things a lot harder than at the top.  Does that help?”

 

Merumeru shook her head, considering it.  “Me ru ru me.” She explained that there was air trapped in the tank and she wasn’t sure how to get it out.

 

Cosmos pulled on the quarter-turn valve to see what would happen.  Water sprayed all over the room.  “Ooof, that is what that does.  What a mess.”  She quickly closed the valve.

 

Both of them heard some dripping.  

 

This got the plumber slime-girl thinking.  Maybe the solution was really simple.  The air couldn’t go anywhere because of the pressure.  The solution would be to just let all the pressure out so the air could get out of the tank.  She ran into the house and turned on all of those faucets, showers and outside hoses.   Next, she ran back into the room with the tank and saw the needle start to go down.  

 

15 PSI

10 PSI

0 PSI

The water coming out slowed quite a bit.  She started closing valves enough for the tank to start filling up again.  The kitchen sink hissed and blubbered a few times when a mix of water and air came out. When the air stopped sputtering and it just poured water, Merumeru went back into the tank and inspected it again.  There still was some air but a good chunk of it got forced out.  When Merumeru did this again she’d have to be a bit more careful next time.  She expected it to work just like how the plumbing did in Bob and Martha’s house and the adventurer’s guild.

 

Yet another problem showed up.  Even with all of the valves closed and the tanks getting filled it only came up to about 5 PSI.  Merumeru glared at the needle.  Using the lightning pump and a well was cheating.  There just wasn’t a high enough place to build a dam that could get the water to the same pressure that the pump could get.

 

“Meru…” Merumeru gave a resigned sigh.  This would just have to do for now.

 

“Why do you look so glum, Merumeru?” Cosmos asked and glanced at the gauge as well.  “Do you want that water to have more pressure?”

 

Merumeru nodded in agreement.  “Meru.”

 

“It just needs more gravity compressing it then.  You are in luck.  Space and gravity are my specialties!” Cosmos flashed a winning smile and gave a goofy salute. “Here, follow me.”

 

Cosmos led the slime girl back out to the newly-constructed dam.  She waved her wand around and chanted arcane phrases.  A huge magic circle appeared in a wide area around the landscape.  With a thrust of her wand, the ground rumbled and the dam earth broke free and floated into the sky.

 

As the new sky-island ascended, Merumeru could see where her pipe had broken and water dribbled out of it.  She frowned and gave Cosmos a disappointed look.

 

“Haha, don’t worry I got this.  Puri Puri Portal!” Cosmos chanted.  A portal formed on one one end of the broken pipe and another portal formed on the other.  A waterfall came down from the one island splashing all over near where they were standing.  The dam ascended into the clouds and couldn’t be seen anymore.  “Let’s go back and see if that fixes the pressure.”

 

The pair headed back and the pressure rose.  It was about 10 PSI now.  But then it started to drop.

“Hmm, it looks like we are running out of water.  We’ll need some more gravity and a bigger area.  I’ll summon an asteroid to make that other island bigger.”  Cosmos went outside and pointed her wand at the heavens.  “Magical Meteo!”  A big streak of flame streaked through the heavens that could be seen through the clouds.

 

Merumeru cringed, the flaming rock was headed right for them.  She felt like death was coming for her.

 

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not allowed to use these to strike the planet anymore because of the accords.  I’m just doing some little project, nope not interfering with Terra at all.”  Cosmos moved her wand slowly and the meteor slowed down.  It couldn’t be seen through the clouds.

 

Cosmos grabbed Merumeru’s hand and they flew off into the clouds.

 

“Ruuuuu!” Merumeru shouted, her whole body buffeted by the wind.

 

A moment later they arrived at the other floating island.  “There, now if I just magic the gravity a bit this island should get rain constantly.”

 

The hard stone asteroid combined with the earthen island floating in the sky.  The clouds thickened when Cosmos cast another spell.  Cosmos and Merumeru landed on the now bowl-shaped island.  The whole area was covered in mist and a trickle of rain could be felt.  The now drained pond seemed to be slowly accumulating water.

 

“It should take a few hours to fill up again. We can check that pressure after and see if it is the right elevation.” Cosos took to the skies once again, carrying Merumeru back to the cabin.

 

They took some time to clean up and dry off.  When the pair checked the pressure gauge again it sat at a nice 20 PSI.

 

Merumeru felt a surge of something.  She didn’t know what it was.

 

“Oh hey, you are glowing Merumeru.  Congratulations on leveling up.”  Cosmos clapped for the slime girl.