Alex watched the townspeople work. They had made a mason’s lodge and were burning sea shells for some reason.

  The magical girl approached and was surprised to see a familiar face “Handverk?” Is that you?”

  “H.Hello Magical Girl Alex.” The stone axe craftsman stammered.

  Alex gaped. “It puzzles me that you didn’t stick with the chief when he fled. I thought you were loyal to him.”

  “No ma’am” The tribal man straightened. “It was fairly obvious who the stronger leader was.”

  Alex looked around and made a pathetic attempt to flex her arm. “Can’t say I’m very high in the strength stat. But thanks anyway. Also, magical girl is not a leadership css.”

  The crafter shook his head, looking stressed. “That’s not what I meant, no offense intended.”

  “So what are you up to?” Alex changed the subject, noticing that she was making him uncomfortable.

  “Making cement.” He gestured to some big areas where they were burning things.

  “You know how to make cement from scratch?” Alex boggled at the concept.

  “Now I do.” The crafter sounded a bit proud. “Some of the new people knew how to do that. It is just that in Yvne’s barony the resources to do it were too expensive. But here they are plentiful.”

  “What are you using?” Alex looked over the setup.

  “We use ash.” He made a wide arc. “There is a whole lot of ash on this isnd. And we use sea shells.”

  “Sea shells?” Alex inspected some white powder in a keg.

  Handverk nodded. “After crushing them, you add water, then let them dry out.”

  “How do you crush them?” Alex looked around for sea shells.

  The crafter gestured to a rather rge mortar and pestle.

  Alex had an inspiration just then. “I bet we could automate that with toys.”

  “Pardon?” Handverk looked a little scared.

  “I’ll be right back.” Alex took off.

  Inspired by the sky isnd's conveyor belts, Alex designed a series of dolls for a shell-crushing operation. One station would crush seashells, followed by another where a doll with an oversized spoon would mix water from a tank into the crushed shells. Finally, the mixture would be rolled into a storage area capable of holding dozens of bowls, allowing the mixture to dry.

  Within a few days, with the help of the townsfolk, a doll production line simir to the isnd's gear production system was set up. Seashells could be loaded into a hopper, and a child-like strength was all that was needed to turn a knob to wind it up. Two dolls, wielding hammers, would then smash the shells.

  The seashell smashing required some adjustments. Since the dolls were wielding weapons, their actions were initially considered attacks, and Alex’s attacks were based on cuteness. To prevent damage to the stone beneath the seashells, they switched from hammers to softer mallets.

  Lastly, a raised tank with pipes and geared valves would dispense the precise amount of seawater into the crushed shells. A wooden doll, geared like the others, would then mix the paste for a set duration before it was moved to a storage area. Complex mechanical systems ensured that the spots in the storage area were filled in order.

  Of course, Merumeru came in and did the plumbing for this little contraption. “Meruuuuu.”

  “That’s cute.” Ariel-the-fairy floated around, watching the end product. “But I’m not sure it is actually quicker than a mason using their skills.”

  Alex retorted. “Yes, but that is the beauty of it. If a mason doesn’t have to use skills then they can be doing something else. And I can make more of these. They can be made faster than we can make new masons.”

  “I’m sure the people appreciate your helping them, but Alex, how is this going to help with the demon problem?” Ariel pressed.

  “Come back in a few days and I’ll show you.” Alex teased a scheme.

  After catching up, and further attempts to get Alex to spill the beans, they parted ways to seek out more treasure.

  Ariel and Merumeru found quite a lot of things, but their hope to find a salvageable vessel hadn’t come to pass. Anything further than eyeshot from the shore that sank would be in waters too deep to see without light or some other way to navigate in complete darkness.

  When they came back the next day Alex and the crafters had the start of a nice little project going. The weavers hut got upgraded with an extra cute carding machine and matching spinning wheel.

  “I can’t believe this actually worked.” Fufi admired the crazy setup in the weavers hut.

  “You are the one that said to believe in the power of cuteness all those times.” Alex sounded smug.

  “What’s going on here?” Another fmingo was the first of Ariel’s group to enter.

  “Cousin look at this?” Fufi cheer.

  A middle-aged townsperson ran scraps of metal through the extra-cute carding machine. And what was a shard of steel and rust came out like steel wool.

  “Are you trying to make tools for cleaning extra tough stains on dishes?” Funi sounded confused.

  “No no, look at the loom cousin.” The fmingos moved over to the adjacent table.

  A different weaver took the steel wool and was spinning it on a spinning wheel. Gray metal fabric came in, and a nicely wound spool of wire came out the other side.

  The next station had what looked like a toy boat. But it was made completely of woven wire together. It had a really big draft and a ft top.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Funi asked.

  “Follow me.” Alex picked up the wire-toy boat and headed back to the mason’s lodge.

  “I hate working with concrete but this is just a proof of concept.” Alex grabbed some tools and started filling in the wire mesh with concrete.

  Ariel showed up then. “What’s going on here? Are you really considering making a boat out of rock?”

  “It’ll just sink.” Funi agreed with Ariel.

  “Not if you do it right.” Alex protested. “They did this back in my world for a while but it was never popur. I’ve never actually done it before though.”

  “I was going to say, I thought you were a lumberjack not a shipwright.” Fufi ughed at her little joke.

  With hands full of icky gray cement muck, Alex filled up the area between the wire mesh with cement, carefully squeezing it tightly and running a trowel across it to make it smooth. With the help of her toymaking she was able to complete the outer hull of the toy boat in around an hour.

  “Now we just need to let it set and dry and in a day or so we can float test it.” Alex cheered.

  The next day, the float test commenced. The first problem was that even for a toy boat, the amount of cement made it too heavy for Alex to carry. Several of the burly men had to help drag it to the pier and set it on the harbor. At first things went well but after a while some small amount of water started to seep through the cement.

  “Darn it.” Alex thought this was so simple that it would be really obvious. “I don’t know why this didn’t work.”

  One of the masons went down and touched the little toy boat. “My css skills are telling me that the issue is the cement mix. It is too porous.”

  “Can it be fixed?” Alex asked.

  The mason shook his head. “Not this one, but we can try it again with a slightly different mix of cement. I think it can be done. You are close but it might need a couple more tries.”

  It took them two more days to get the test hull to float. The second time was better but it still leaked. The mason got the idea that the trick would be to not let the cement dry out so quickly. Which stunk, because watching cement dry was incredibly boring.

  The third time, they used salt water to help with the cement curing. This was a bit weird because water would ruin the cement mixture, but the mason’s expert technique was able to somehow get the cement, salt water and iron mesh to work together and finally create a watertight hull.

  The next step was to fit it out. Alex skipped the sailing parts for this boat. It would be as low to the water as possible. So she just made a screw propeller, one of her fancy enchanted wheels that could be spun up like in her sea-elf doll. There was a very slightly elevated windowed area for navigation, a rudder for steering and some areas for supplies.

  After a few days of getting the toy boat going, they tested it out. It was very slow because of the deep draft and heavy weight but it was hard to see in the water. They took it out into the open ocean with one of the smaller sailor dolls. The waves overtook it but it didn’t sink. Strong currents were hard for it to overcome but if they scaled it up and got enough supplies for a journey at 4 knots for 100 miles they could make it in a day and a night.

  “This is a really tanky boat.” Ariel piloted the boat from the inside. Her being a tiny fairy made the toy boat an ideal fit for her. “I bet we could make a bigger one and get to the mainnd with a little supplies.”

  Another week passed, and they got a 20 foot long hull set up. Alex and the other crafters used the toy boat to make the stealthy boat fitting out. They set up some bunks, a big tank for fresh water and some areas for storing food and supplies. Merumeru built the head for the boat. It had a hand pump instead of a proper flusher so it was incredibly retro.

  Merumeru purified some obsidian to make the windows so that there would be light from the deck and a few port holes in the side. She couldn’t get rid of the slight dark tint, but the boat could still be seen through.

  The best part of the boat was that it had very little lumber in it. The deck was cement so hopefully it could take a whole lot of fire demon attacks without catching fire.

  Ariel took a big part in decorating the ship. She made it look a bit like an orca with the etching and gave it a bck and white paint design.

  “What do you want to call her?” Ariel liked this ship and really wanted to take it out and kick some demon’s butts.

  “How about the SS orca?” Alex thought the white underbelly and bck top made the answer obvious.

  “What does the SS mean?” Fufi inquired.

  Alex had to think about that one for a moment. “Steam ship? I suppose she isn’t a steam ship.”

  “A steam ship?” Ariel sounded interested. “Sounds powerful.”

  “I don’t think we will be doing steam ships, they use a lot of fuel to run.” Alex shook her head. “How about the Orca?”

  “Sounds good.” Fufi and Funi agreed.

  So they christened the ship Orca, without the SS, and Ariel, some people that took sailor csses took her out for sea trials.

  melchi