Chapter 66: Just Another Day in Sigil Lake, Pt. 4

  “Oh, hey.”

  Theo rushed inside the enclosed brewery, finding Wen there with a massive pile of boxes and doodads shaping a cyberpunk scrapheap in a corner of the room.

  “Hey,” Theo responded, slowing his sprint. “Sorry I’m late. Homework,” he sort of lied.

  “Don’t worry, still unloading all the stuff.”

  Theo watched for a few minutes as Wen trod around the room, placing caskets here and boilers there. She dropped them out of her brewer’s space close by to where she thought she should have them, reducing the amount of pushing required later. To Theo, it still just looked like a trash heap. How had they afforded all of this again?

  “Good. Now, a bit more nudging before I’ll need your help with the pipes. Theo, a hand?”

  Theo provided a hand, pushing the barrels closer to the wall behind the vats. Seeing the equipment so close, he could still only guess at each of their functions, but the barrels must be aging barrels, right? Or maybe just common liquid storage?

  Together, they pushed every device this way and that, lining up some while others’ placements looked more chaotic.

  “Okay, now the piping.”

  “Piping?”

  “For distilling. Gas output, like steam. One pipe goes from that to there, so the steam from boiling can cross between them and the water can cool and be emptied from or used somewhere else.”

  “Like an alembic?”

  “Exactly like an alembic! You’ll find some breweries using them, but I find copper piping works best. That way I can move the vats around as I please without having all boilers working at once.”

  “Oh, I get it.”

  “Now, over in that pile, feed me a short-wide hard angle, would you?”

  Theo headed over to the pile of scrap, finding a slew of finger-width pipes wrapped around each other. He looked furiously at the pile. What did she want again? A half-wide whole angle?

  “Ermm…there are pipes here,” he relented.

  “Short-wide, hard angle.”

  “I hear words but don’t understand them.”

  Wen giggled. “An ‘L’-shaped pipe. The stubby end of the shape is the input, and the long end is the output. You’ll find each pipe has slight differences in its locking mechanisms at either end.”

  Theo looked again. It would have to be one of the straight ones poking out of the trash graveyard, then? Some seemed to be just straight pipes, so he removed them from the pile and placed them on the floor. Out of sight, out of mind. Then, upon checking again, he found one stuck into some others, its stubby end requiring some manoeuvring to unlatch from them. Still, he got it loose.

  “This one?” he asked, handing it to the smiling woman sitting on her brand-new equipment while watching the entertainment.

  “Close! This is a tall-narrow pipe. See this valve on the stubby end?” She pointed at a small nozzle-like appendage on the locking mechanism. “You won’t find these on any input.”

  “So, when you say tall-narrow, you mean a tall input and narrow width of the output?”

  “Correct! This piping won’t ever be so convoluted it requires three dimensions, so always thinking about them in two dimensions can be helpful. An input, meaning the flow goes into the pipe despite going out of the vat, will always have to be going up or down, depending on what you’re doing. An output can go either way, but you often have it go sideways towards the intended equipment to drain.”

  “A bit convoluted, but I suppose I get it. Why not just call the input on the pipe an output, though, as it goes out of the vat?”

  “That’s obvious, isn’t it? You connect an input to an output for anything to flow. If there was always just one pipe, it would work, you’d just ignore the pipe since it’s always there and always just the one. Here, pipes will go into extending pipes, and we’ll add junctions or corners to make it all work as intended.”

  Theo considered that. If the vat came with a pipe attached, that pipe would’ve been the output. It would still have to go into an input. Was he just overthinking things?

  “So, short-wide, hard angle. You got the angle, now get me the right pipe!” She was teasing, her boisterous tone dripping with laughter.

  “Hard angle being a ninety-degree bend?”

  “Ooh, flexing your math skills at me? Correct, that’s a hard angle.”

  “Now, I can get behind this system. It’s a bit of a way to work the problem.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Great,” she answered, leaning back and smiling as she watched him.

  Theo found another ‘L’-shaped pipe and pulled it out, but this one was also reversed; a tall-narrow pipe with a hard angle. He couldn’t help but notice Wen sitting smug and doing nothing but watch him.

  “Mind helping?”

  “Yes,” she grinned.

  Theo found another, then another, putting them all in the same pile next to the straight pipes. Tall pipes? He went about this for several more minutes, each one aggravating him just a touch more. Why wasn’t she helping? And where were the frickin’ short-wide pipes?

  Some time later, Theo was sweating, but all the pipes in the pile had been sorted into neat piles, each containing only one type of pipe. There was a pipe with a twirling rise, for instance, and another that split into two outputs. But there were no short-wide pipes with hard angles!

  “Nothing?” Wen asked, her voice a pitch or two higher than normal. Theo turned to find her legs and arms crossed, and a devious grin stuck on her face.

  “You got them in your dimensional space, don’t you?”

  “Hmm…maybe?”

  Theo struggled not to sound as annoyed as he was. “Why?”

  “Because Grace asked me for a favour,” she laughed.

  Of course. Then again, if this was Grace retaliating, it…wasn’t so bad. He’d expected a worse time of it, anyway.

  “You should’ve just shut your trap and kissed the girl, Theo.”

  Theo turned, expecting the words coming from someone else. No one else was around, so he faced Wen again, whose predatory eyes remained locked on him.

  “What?”

  She sat up straight, her arms detaching from each other. “We talk, you know. We don’t always agree, but I consider her my friend. And, while you and I haven’t known each other for long, I consider you one of my best friends. Maybe the best, but I don’t want to blow up your ego too much.” She stuck her tongue out. “When you and I met, you came in like a dashing—confused, but dashing—man with coin to spare, and I thought you’d save Brook Town. I thought you’d save the Barge. Save me.”

  The room echoed with a resounding ‘but’, despite Wen not saying anything else for a short while. The tension built in Theo’s shoulders, a pressure that didn’t release until the end of her next words.

  “And you did. You saved the Barge.” She made a gesture of looking around the room. “It’s better than ever. And you saved me. I’ve a purpose again, one I’ll strive my best to fulfil every day. All it took was you…to not save Brook Town.”

  She made a light jump from the edge of the vat and rose to her feet. She walked to Theo’s side and hugged him tight.

  His shoulders lowered, and he wrapped around her.

  “We had some moments, but I can’t be sure it wasn’t just circumstance pulling us together. I’ve since realised that I might’ve been your first real friend in this world. No one could blame you for finding safety with me. And I in you.”

  She pulled away, smiling even as her eyes had become glittering oceans. She released him and stepped back a few steps.

  “Wen…”

  “Theo…Grace is real. I’ve known for weeks that she’s been drawn to you. Her teasing me and playing coy, it’s just an act. Not to be too prideful or anything, but I can be as observant as Sherblanc sometimes,” she giggled. “She’s protecting herself, and you’ve let her. Now, she’s opening up, so keep letting her do that.”

  “Wen, I—”

  “Later! Now, you and I have some piping to do!”

  Theo gasped, then the feeling welling up inside him turned to roiling laughter. “You’re right. Let’s lay some pipes.”

  “Don’t be nasty!”

  “As if piping is any better. By the way, where are the short-wide pipes?”

  Wen grinned a smug, toothy grin and picked up a tall-narrow pipe from the pile he’d sorted. She then…unscrewed the tip of the output and screwed it in on the other side.

  “Fuck me, I should’ve noticed that,” Theo whined.

  “Now, let’s get working.”

  Congratulations! You have earned the Level One skill Plumbing.

  Plumbing (Level One): Did you pay the piper? All stats +5.

  “Phew!”

  Wen had done most of the work, and was sweating beads by the time they were done. Rather than a pile of copper tubes and metal-touched barrels and jugs and vats, the room now contained a sea of delicate-looking systems and interacting pipes and heaters and liquid storage.

  But, Theo had helped, and learned quite a bit—not enough to learn any specific brewing skills, but he had enough gains to keep a smug smile on his face.

  “Really? You learned plumbing? From this? Fuckin’ typical.”

  Before Theo had time to gloat, another system message popped up, and even Wen’s eyes glazed over to read it.

  Town Notification System.

  Unnamed building has been raised. The building is designed for Personal Residence. No bonuses available with current specialisations.

  “Belle finished the house!” Theo said with enthusiastic gusto.

  “Easy now,” Wen laughed. “There’ll be some uproar about who gets to live there, remember?”

  “Oh. And why isn’t there a bonus? I would’ve thought there’d be a bonus.”

  “Other than morale, comfort, and rest? It would have to depend on the furniture, I think. A good bed might provide a decent bonus to efficiency or rest when placed in a personal residence or a high-quality establishment. Food can help, hygiene…lots of things.”

  “Want to check it out?”

  “You go. I release you from your obligations! But, please take charge and make a quick decision about who gets to sleep there. I don’t know if there are any bonuses to be gained yet, but consider that. There won’t be another house in another two days, after all. That’s if we make it that long.”

  Theo advanced on Wen, placing his hands around her in a comforting hug. “We’ll get through this, and everything that’ll follow. I promise.”

  “Oh, now you’re being handsy,” she responded with a teasing prod.

  “Not that I know what to do myself, but with your blessing, I can finally stop pretending to be so…ignorant.”

  “Oh, you were pretending, were you?”

  She sounded disbelieving.

  “Just tried to avoid trouble. I may have an idea of whom to give their own room. If there’s a bonus to be had, the town will have the most to gain from their increased efficiency. No matter how that would work…”

  “Right, your odd world without any buffs, world-given, magical or otherwise.”

  Theo faux-grimaced at her words. “You know it’s all magical, because the world is magical.”

  “Agree to disagree,” she said, sticking her tongue out in mocking jest.

  “I’m leaving now. Oh, Chef wanted to know if you wanted an exclusive deal on the violetberries or if she could use some. I’ll admit I already gave her some.”

  “You’ve planted the remaining seeds at the Barge plots, right?”

  Theo had…but only this morning. He’d forgotten Wen demanded a plot of violetberries there all for her use.

  “This morning,” he said, shrinking.

  “Good. We had a deal, so any other violetberries than that plot, you’re free to do with as you please.” She smiled at his nervous withdrawal.

  “Okay. Phoebe’s got the rest of them, in case you want to squish and wine, or whatever you’d do with them.” Theo then headed out the door of the brewery and rushed towards the newly completed house up on the hill.

  “Oh, Theo,” Wen sighed long after he’d gone, chuckling to herself. “You think you’ve got women all figured out. Be careful. They’ll be the death of you.”