“This is going to be tricky.” Alex eyed the mini submarine, sitting on stands that held it off the ground on either side. “I’m not sure there is a whole lot we can take apart without cutting into it.”
“Can you not cut into it?” Fufi stood on top of the little submarine.
“The hull is mostly unibody.” Alex ran a finger along the smooth curves. “And this thing goes underwater. Keeping the hull intact is super important I’d think.”
“Can you just make it cuter?” The other fmingo, Funi, gave her a bright idea. ”That usually works.”
“I don’t see why not.” Alex considered. “But for something to be underwater, it has to be sleek. If we put heart charms and wrapped it in a bow that would just slow it down. I’m not sure how fast the cruising speed is, but from what I’ve seen I don’t think it goes too fast.”
Ariel knew this one. “Cruising speed is 3 knots in ft water, more if I use my skills.”
“You can make the submarine go faster?” Alex should have seen this coming. “That is good to know.”
“That is the only thing that kept us from getting swept away by the currents.” The little fairy shuddered. “We wanted to explore the whole coastline but it just wasn’t happening.”
Alex hummed and bent over to look at the guts of the vessel. “Could you hand me the phillips?”
“What’s that?” Ariel looked confused.
Merumeru hopped into the carriage and got the screwdriver, returning and handing it to Alex. “Meru!”
“Thanks Merumeru.” Alex didn’t turn around but used the hand tool to remove some screws and take off a steel pte. “I need to write down where these go.”
Merumeru retrieved a notebook and pen, writing utensils that had been brought from the cabin to the carriage. Merumeru found them cool but anticipated being sad when they were all used.
As the day progressed, numerous ptes, poles, and gears were removed. Alex diligently pced them on tables, ensuring all parts remained together, cleaned, and organized.
“You’ve done a really good job of keeping the hull clean on this thing.” The bck-haired magical girl chuckled when they got the pew pew pod stripped to the magic spring. “I just realized there isn’t even anything living in the low spots either.”
“Meru ru ru.” Merumeru expined, drawing a rectangle with her finger in the air.
“That’s interesting.” Ariel mused at Merumeru’s comment. “Living things don’t go in the card, so if there is a barnacle then it falls off when turned into a card.”
“I’m finding magic doesn’t quite make sense.” Alex pondered. “Maybe Merumeru’s card works differently but some of the nymphs we met in the woods were excited about the seed that the carriage picked up from the floating isnd. We had to turn it into a card every now and then and it never left seeds or fruit behind.”
“I think we are getting a little side tracked.” Funi gestured her beak around. “How can we improve the pew pew pod?”
“I’m not a trained enchanter. The most obvious parts that are magical are the weapons and the spring, so we shouldn’t mess with those.” Alex gestured to the magical parts of the sub’s interior. “But the idea here is to make the sub faster. There are two ways. We can either make the propeller bigger or we can make it rotate faster. Although, I think that the pew pew guns could be gimbaled to give better aiming ability. But I’d rather not test that out. We maybe could build a different sub some other time when we have more resources and perhaps a shipwright. Every new ship build needs a shipwright right I’ve been told several times. Let's just focus on one thing, for sanity’s sake.”
Alex pointed to the shaft and the propeller.
“Which is the better way?” Ariel sounded out of her depth. “I’m used to sails so this is new to me.”
“You’d need someone that actually has a good understanding of this sort of thing.” Alex shook her head. “If the human shipwrights only make wooden sail boats then who would have experience?”
“Gnomes.” Ariel answered..
“Gnomes make this sort of thing?” Alex looked a little surprised. “That was supposed to be a rhetorical question.”
“I’ve seen them make submarines before.” Ariel nodded. “They made airships as well, but switching to underwater craft makes a bit more sense because they can avoid demons better. It is easier to hide underwater than in the sky.”
“Have you met a gnomish shipwright?” Alex asked the fairy.
Ariel shook her head. “The gnomes are extra reclusive. Other than a sea trial there isn’t much of a reason for them to be out, those are done close to shore. And they have gotten better and better over the years at pying hermits.”
“I was going to ask, do you know where we could find a gnomish settlement?” Alex hoped that they could get access to a gnomish shipwright. That would be a big win.
“There could be one right below our noses.” The ice fairy did a loop in the air, wings buzzing. “They started sealing themselves off shortly after demons expanded rapidly and the hero gave up. Before, they mostly traded for food because farming underground is possible, but even when tended to by high level mushroom farmers the yield couldn’t be enough to feed a sizable popution.”
“Maybe their submarines are for fishing?” Alex blurted out her first thought.
“Perhaps, but my interactions with them have always been short.” Ariel frowned. “Communicating with someone who lives in a can is troublesome. I was hoping to get some gnome crew to fight the demons in one of their contraptions once but they just told me I wasn’t worthy of touching their sacred machines or something like that.”
“Anyway,” Alex chuckled. “Can someone ask Cecil if we can get some help with making a new propeller and a gearing for it? I got an idea but my skill is in toymaking so forging a new propeller I’m thinking maybe double the size would be difficult for me. Someone who can lift that big of a lump of metal without a winch would be a big help.”
Funi went and fetched Cecil who came back with a familiar face.
“Hello magical girl Alex.” A familiar tribesman said.
“Handverk?” Alex gaped in surprise, looking up from some drawing of new gearbox and bearings system to allow the propeller to spin freely. “I didn’t think you were still here.”
“Haha,” He ughed nervously. “I’ve been trying to y low.”
“Is something wrong?” Cecil felt the tension in the room. “Funi said to fetch someone that is good at tweaking existing things. The people at the smithy said that Handverk has the best skillset for that kind of thing.”
Alex gaped, apparently Cecil didn’t know how they met.
“Hopefully nothing is wrong. But I can help.” Handverk gnced at the drawings. “May I?”
Alex reluctantly handed over the drawings. “I don’t know if this will put too much strain on the shaft but I think we should be able to increase the speed by enchanting the propeller and letting it run free of the spring. The spring should run down much more quickly but then it’ll spin the propeller for a set amount of time and allow the pilot to wind it back up.”
“I think I can make this.” He looked at the drawing and then the parts strewn about. “Can I give an observation?”
“What?” Alex sounded a little more annoyed than she meant to be.
“How does your enchanting work?” The stone-ax crafter carefully asked. “This might have the same quirk that your airboat does.”
“It keeps things spinning for extra time.” Alex simply said. “Maybe there are more creative ways to use it but that is the most obvious.”
“Okay,” the man said. “It is stopping that might be a problem then. Because would putting the gearing in reverse even work when it won’t stop spinning?”
“Something terrible might happen.” Alex paled. “If the momentum has to be maintained then it might break the gearing, shaft, or if none of that start the sub spinning like a top.”
“Can something be done to stop that?” Handverk carefully looked away.
“We could add more propellers.” But the magical girl shook her head. “I just don’t know. This is something that goes underwater. To add more propellers we’d have to put more holes in the hull. We could mount them outside, but then it ruins the shape and would slow it down I would think. I’m not an engineer so making more than one change at a time really concerns me.”
After approximately one week, with assistance from Handverk and the town's smiths, the internal components of the "pew pew pod" sub were completely revamped. It now featured a propeller twice the size of the original, resembling a flower more than a traditional propeller. Despite Alex's limited knowledge of hydrodynamics suggesting that varying bde pitches were a poor design, the presence of two fmingos and a cheering crowd advocating for increased cuteness led to the addition of sugar, spice, and flower petals to the mixture when the propeller was cast in the newly constructed forge.
Once everything was reassembled, the sub was transformed back into a card and presented to Merumeru.
“Are you ready to test it out?” Alex gave the slime girl a smile, hoping that she wouldn’t sink to the bottom of the ocean.
“Meru!” Merumeru stood up straight and accepted the card. She tossed it into the water right at the edge of the pier and it summoned the mini sub. She hopped into the open hatch and secured the gss dome that encased the cockpit.
“Be careful.” Alex urged. “Don’t go out of the harbor, for this first test just do some circles and come back.”
Merumeru wound the key, and let the throttle loose. She did loops around the harbor for about 10 minutes, then stopped, bobbing up and down right below the surface.
“What happened?” Fufi sounded concerned.
“I think the enchantment ran its duration.” Alex told the fmingo. “She’ll have to wind the key back up and run it again to move.
“Oh.” The fmingo sighed. “I was worried she’s stuck out there.”
Alex shook her head. “I hope not, we should be able to tell in a minute.”
Soon after, the slime girl's sub resumed its movement. She steered it towards the dock, running parallel at a slow speed. However, as the sub couldn't stop instantly, it overshot the dock. Fortunately, this time she didn't accelerate the propellers as much, allowing them to sso the sub on the second pass and secure it until it came to a halt.
“Probally a good 9 knots.” Ariel whistled. “That is way faster. I bet if I was on board we could get way into the double digits.”
“We should take it out and inspect it for stress cracks.” Handverk mentioned, ever the voice of caution for this project.
Alex agreed. “There is still time. Merumeru, can you take it out of the water and pce it down on the dock so we can inspect the propeller?”
“Meru!” Merumeru popped the hatch, hopped out and summoned the sub back into a card.
She then threw the card on the dock and the sub appeared there, out of the water. It took her no time at all.
Handverk, losing his composure for a moment, ran to inspect the back end of the submarine.
“How does it look?” Alex suppressed a chuckle at the tribal crafter’s eagerness.
“My skills don’t detect any damage.” Handverk knocked on the flowery propeller. “Are there any leaks inside?”
Merumeru shook her head.
“Gd we didn’t ruin any seals by pulling the propeller shaft out.” Alex let out a sigh of relief. “Not knowing how the sealing for the thing works completely makes me really nervous messing with it.”
“Can I join Merumeru now?” Ariel vibrated with excitement, bits of snow forming around her. “I bet we can make it all the way around the isnd before dark.”
“Be careful if you do.” Alex warned. “I’m sure modifying it is going to make some extra quirks, expect it.”
Ariel bobbed up and down in the air. “Every ship has its own little personality. You just have to get to know it.”
The magical girl privateer and slime girl boarded the mini-sub and dove into the water. They sped off at a shallow depth at a faster speed than the test p that left a line of cavitation bubbles from the dock to the open ocean.
melchi
