“Marina.” Alex thought of a good use for the scout. “You were saying there is a lot of buried stuff down there? I was wondering if we could make a pump suck the water and sand out and unearth things buried in the harbor.”
“There might be good treasures.” Marina agreed. “What are you thinking?”
“The barge is getting fixed up right now.” Alex had inspected the bilge pump and thought maybe with some magical girl power it could be repced with something a whole lot more powerful. “Perhaps with some decorations we could turn it into something that could function well for dredging.”
“What’s dredging?” Marina looked intrigued. “I haven’t heard that word before.”
“It is what I just said.” Alex tried but failed to not make her sound stupid. “Pump from the bottom, then let it out on nd.”
“Where would you put the sand?” Marina ignored the slight jab. “You’d probably need some really long pipes.”
“We could weave something together just to test it. Our favorite plumber would like to be involved in any serious pipe work.” The magical girl considered who best to use for this little experiment.
It took about a day for the barge's hull repairs to be completed. With the help of several strong men, Alex removed the bilge pump. She disassembled the mechanical components and, with assistance from those with the necessary skills, expanded the metalwork. She shared her concept for the same spinning mechanism that propelled her new doll, Tidea. Another day passed, and they installed valves that could switch the pump's function from simply sucking water from the bilge to pumping water from a deeper hose attached to the boat's bottom.
Alex meticulously enhanced the pump's rebuild, incorporating a touch of "sugar, spice, and something nice." She adorned it with seashells collected from the beach.
Despite the carpenters' reservations about adding extra holes to the boat, Alex reassured them by stating that they could refloat it if it sank, which alyed their concerns.
Marina, some of the people who had recently got a sailing css took the now-repaired wooden barge out into the harbor. Using the same pipe that they floated the barge with in the first pce, they added a grate at the one end so that it wouldn’t get plugged, wound up the bilge pump and started it spinning. The sailor kept the spray of water going on the far side of the jetty that marked the end of the harbor. If they were going to pump and dirt out, then it might as well go out of the harbor because having a deeper harbor felt like a good thing.
“Tidea will head down there with you.” Alex held the paldium doll up, but she strained to do it.
“I’ll meet you down there.” Marina jumped into the water and one the sailors lowered a rope holding the rigid pipe further into the harbor.
“Wish me luck.” Alex found a spot on the ship where Fufi could keep an eye on her, plus fly off and keep an eye on the dredging.
“Good luck!” Fufi chirped.
Using [possess doll] Alex jumped into the metal body and everything felt a whole lot bigger again. She checked to make sure her spring was wound tight and dove into the water.
Marina wrestled with the dredging pipe, trying to maneuver it into pce. Alex, using the propellers in her calves, swiftly tched onto the pipe and zoomed forward, yanking it slightly. The scout frantically gestured for Alex to release it.
Alex initially started to zoom deeper into the harbor but remembered to disengage the propellers from the gear. She allowed the flywheel to spin at full speed and slowly sank to the bottom, trudging through the muck to rejoin Marina, who was still busy with the dredging.
Fortunately, the pipe was still functional, and Marina quickly got back to sucking up sand.
After removing a few inches of sand, they discovered their first buried treasure several feet underwater: a rusted steel cable. Marina and Alex pulled on it, but it wouldn't budge. So, they continued vacuuming the harbor, exposing more of the cable until they finally found what it was attached to.
The rusted cable was attached to a davit crane. It took them hours to clear the area around it enough to tie a line around it and get the people on the barge to pull it out of the water.
There were a whole lot of communication problems. Alex couldn’t talk in this doll, let alone underwater and Marina couldn’t speak with people on the surface even though she was transformed into a mermaid. This caused a problem when they kept going deeper trying to find what else was in the spot that had the sunken crane and came across a steel pte. The pipe tried to suck it up but it got stuck on the intake. Because the pump needed to run for intervals of 10 minutes it couldn’t be stopped. Alex tried to pry it loose but just ended up lodged between the pte and the pipe. Luckily, this was an extremely durable doll and it didn’t get crushed. But being trapped like that underwater was absolutely terrifying.
They kept going deeper and deeper but had to stop when they reached about 30 feet. For some reason, the pipe’s suction ability stopped working when they reached that depth. There probably was some physics reason for this but neither Alex or Marina knew.
There might have been a full vessel buried in the sand but without a way to dig it out they’ll have to wait and brainstorm another idea. Perhaps a giant corkscrew drill, or a bunch of buckets on a belt?
“I still am not used to Tidea.” Alex shook herself out of the residual effects of the doll skill. “Whoa, switching back is just as weird.”
“Are you okay?” Fufi flew down and nded next to the magical girl.
“Think so,” Alex stood up and stumbled a bit, her limbs didn’t feel quite right. “I just need a minute.”
They sailed the barge, den with their salvaged treasures, back to the massive, weathered gates of the drydock. The air was thick with the scent of brine and damp metal. With practiced efficiency, they maneuvered the cumbersome vessel into position. Ropes, thick and worn, were thrown to waiting hands on shore, and the barge was secured with the satisfying creak of straining timbers.
Then began the arduous task of unloading. First, the mountain of scrap metal, a chaotic jumble of twisted girders, rusted pipes, and unrecognizable fragments, was hoisted from the barge or nets trailing behind it. Each piece cnged loudly onto the solid expanse of the quay, adding to the growing mound of discarded industry. The true prize, however, was the mostly intact crane. Its long, slender boom, though scarred and weathered, still held the promise of salvageability with a little cleaning magic. Carefully, with winches groaning and chains rattling, they lifted the formidable machinery from the water. It dripped steadily, leaving trails of brackish water on the ground, a testament to its recent submersion. Finally, with a heavy thud, it rested on the shore, an imposing monument to their successful salvage operation.
“Wow, that thing is rusty.” Fufi regarded the rusty crane, sitting on the pier. “It could use a little cleaning.”
Alex smirked, having recovered herself and wielded her feather duster. She hopped off the ship and gave the steel cable a good dusting, restoring it to a nice silver shimmer. She did the same with the crane, getting some of the dock workers to turn it over so she could clean the other side.
“Thanks,” Alex thanked the men.
“It is always awe inspiring to see your magic work.” The man gave a slight bow.
“Hmm.” Alex looked at the mechanical parts of the crane. “Why doesn’t it have a hand crank or something to move it?”
The rge metal crane had what looked like gears, but instead of a motor a cracked crystal was pced.
“It might be magical.” Fufi guessed.
“I could repce it with one of the enchanted springs or fly wheels but I think that having a crane that keeps going for minutes without stopping might be a bad idea.” Alex tried to turn one of the non-cleaned gears but it was too hard to do by hand.
“It looks like the feather duster didn’t get the enclosed areas' rust.” Alex, being a little OCD, proceeded to get a small brush and spend hours taking the gears out and removing the whole length of the cable to get the rust off.
Her phone rang out:
[Cleaning has reached level 4]
Alex jumped, her surprise at appreciating the cleanliness of the rge crane being interrupted by the loud announcement from her pocket.
“I really should have switched to a cleaning outfit.” Alex considered her wardrobe. “But I refuse to dress like a maid.”
She scrolled through the app to check her character sheet.
Name: Alex Parker
Css: Magical Girl
Level: 6
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Strength: 11
Constitution: 9
Dexterity: 17
Intelligence: 13
Cuteness: 26
Skills:
Cleaning: 4
Cooking: 2
Dancing: 2
Tailoring: 4
Toymaking: 5
Feats: Empower Doll
Crafting: Force Imbuement
Possess Doll
Spells: Animate DollMagical Girl Transformation
Lesser Grow Pnts
Traits: Mental Resistance: 4
“Congradutions,” Fufi cheered.
“The maids would be proud.” Alex said ironically, looking around to make sure none of the former maids were watching.
People with [borer] csses transported the cleaned up iron, steel, and bronze bits back to where they had set up the new forge in an area set aside for metal working.
Farmers and ranchers were already busy settling areas on the isnd for agricultural use. The demand for tools was quite high.
Inspired by Merumeru’s small gss creation, one [gsser] had even popped up.
Alex had dinner with Cecil in a newly-built cafe.
“What’s the deal with the kid collecting obsidian and melting it down?” Alex asked the adventurer’s guild leader.
A maid delivered them some tea. “Here is your tea, mistress Alice and Master Cecil.”
Alex winced slightly, even though the maids were freed, they still wouldn’t let the little joke go.
“Thank you.” Cecil took a sip of tea. “As for some of the cssers, we spent some time repairing the big temple before being evicted. Hestia is one of the non-banned deities back in the kingdom of Jass. Everyone thought that the children would have to get csses from Luna, and some people didn’t want a css based on cuteness. So the people who were blessed with csses recently did so by mostly sticking to the known deities."
“I suppose a gss-focused css from Luna would be focused on jewelry." Alex considered the problem.
Cecil nodded. “Or decorating, one of the nymphs back in town became a [flower arranger] Ki really praised her, said that her help made a lot of cuteness points for the barony.”
“I really miss Ki,” Alex sighed. “I suppose we’ll have to wait until the winter court goes away and she wakes up from hibernation before visiting.”
They kept chatting a bit, maids waited on them, but were mostly professional.
Ariel and Merumeru came back in the middle of the night. They deposited their loot on the quay like Alex did and called it a night.
The loot included:
25 rusted iron pipes
1 treasure chest: 50 gold coins, 100 silver coins, 200 copper coins, 5 bottles of rum
10 brass pipes
4 lead pipes
5 stainless steel pipes
2 titanium pipes
melchi
