Keggr eventually shuffled back to our reclaimed bakery, hauling a bucket in each hand of a dark gray, thick slurry. He huffed as he placed them down, digging into his pockets and pulling out a lumpy cigar. “Earth king, that’s heavy! Mug, be a treat and light me cigar while I sit and catch me breath. Matches in me pants, don’t be shy now.” Mug dutifully approached and dug through the dwarf's crusty pockets for an uncomfortably long time before finding the matches and lighting the cigar. Keggr sat for a few moments, inhaling the blue smoke of the cigar and spewing it back out like a chimney.
“Good news! There’s a restoration project for an old opera house about three miles from here. They got lots of mortar mixed an’ ready to go right now on account of repairing the fence. Bad news! They want us to pay for it, and now know what I look like so I can’t go back!” He said this all mighty cheerfully, as if stealing construction supplies was the same as a midday picnic.
‘So, you want Mug and I to sneak in and steal buckets of mortar from a construction crew?’ He nodded. “Aye, and best to be sneaky about it, too; they got three different minotaurs and a troll foreman!” As appealing as fighting half-man, half-bull hybrids known for their strength—as well as a troll—sounded, I had another idea. I had Mug toss one of the buckets of mortar into me, then Devoured it.
OBJECT DETECTED: WOODEN BUCKET. OBJECT DETECTED: QUICKLIME MORTAR.
Okay, seems like my internal systems saw them as two separate objects, which was great for me. I used Polymorph to grow a pipe, then activated Alchemical Recycling. I felt the heat build, but didn’t let it fade as I began to pump mortar from the pipe onto a section of brick. Keggr shot up to his feet in surprise.
“Lad! You tellin’ me yer a trashcan that makes stuff? That’s… that’s… why didn’t you tell me before I ran off?” I could understand his annoyance, but it’s not like he had given me time to explain before running off. He took the section of brick with mortar and gingerly tasted it with his tongue.
“O earth king, it’s even better than when I tasted it before. No more quartz, no more feldspar… just good ol’ quicklime with clay. Amazin’.” He took a few more gentle nibbles, rolling his eyes back at the taste. I guess some things were just different for dwarves. He made Mug taste as well, who dutifully took a huge mouthful before giving the polite cough I've come to realize means, 'I hated that thoroughly'.
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After he had enjoyed sampling the goods and forcing Mug to as well, he turned to glare at me. “Don’t just sit there burnin’ daylight, longlegs! Mug, get over here and watch what I do! We’re layin’ bricks today! We’ll start on that hole shaped like a dragon’s arse!” With that, we were at work. I supplied the mortar, pumping it out of myself through the pipe. I had the blueprints for a trowel in my list of Alchemical Recycling items thanks to a broken one thrown into me by the kobolds, and I supplied one for Mug.
Keggr first showed Mug how to do it with quick, easy, deliberate strokes before slowing down his technique so that Mug could follow. I could see that he really was a master; only someone extremely skilled could make it look easy. His mortar went on as smoothly as butter on toast, perfectly even and in one go. Mug’s first attempts looked like the brick had exploded mortar, though after a few (or thirty) tries, it started to look slightly more natural.
With Keggr leading, the repair work went surprisingly quickly. There were plenty of loose bricks from not only our building but the buildings surrounding it, and no one came to protest or stop us. Soon, we had the entire lower level repaired on the outside. True, the windows were still broken, and yeah, it was filled with rats and spiders, and sure, it didn’t have a door. But the walls were indeed walls again, rather than the suggestion of a wall they had been before.
The sun was setting as we stopped, and I took a few steps back to really admire the work. Our new home was in a mostly empty part of the slums, so it was quiet, if you ignored the sounds of fighting coming from a few blocks over. The building was now a patchy smattering of different colored bricks and drying mortar, but the first floor was mostly airtight. Keggr had repurposed a door from a tiny brick home across the cobblestone streets and somehow managed to get it into place, so we had an actual entrance. The second floor was still a mess, and there was no real roof to speak of, but it was definitely a start.
Keggr slapped Mug heartily on the back, sending him flying, and me sharply on the lid, definitely denting it. I was low on mana but still had a magical dagger stored and enough left in the tank to get started on the interior in the morning.
As long as nothing went sideways, we would have a functioning home in a few days.
Which is why it went sideways.
