Chapter 101: Make Tea for Them All

Author's Note: And welcome back to DWBS. B3 is going to be an awesome journey. We promise.

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Arthur woke up with a crick in his back. The light of a brand-new world trickled in through his window. Or a brand-new part of the world, as it concerned the demons. He stood up and rolled his neck around a few times, trying to find the magic combination of movements to unlock the tight knot in between his shoulders. After several repetitions, it did get a little better.

At least I’m not freezing anymore, Arthur thought. He shimmied out of his bedroll, stood up from the cold, hard ground, and found his jacket. The first few weeks in this valley were spent in a tent that leaked heat faster than the magical space-heater could replace it. During that time, he had to sleep in whatever winter gear he had. After his first night in an honest-to-god structure with solid, heat-retaining walls, he could confirm houses were much better than tents.

Lily’s new non-permanent home came first. Of all the new settlers, she was the smallest, weakest, and by far the most cute. One of the perks of being a recently adopted orphan was that there wasn’t a Demon on the entire continent who wouldn’t work their hands raw to make sure Lily was comfortable. Despite her protests that she was fine, Lily hadn’t spent a single night in a tent once they reached their new home.

The next highest priority was the hut for the girls. It made sense, especially taking in Arthur’s sense of chivalry. Milo, Arthur’s adoptive brother, was a little more egalitarian in spirit, but considering that one of the three women in the settlement was his girlfriend, he wasn’t going to push for full equality-in-suffering. And Spiky’s relationship with Leena was so shiny-new that Arthur was surprised he didn’t lobby to get her home built before Lily’s.

Arthur couldn’t judge.

As he finally got himself buttoned up in his warmest clothes and cracked the door of his hut, he was greeted with the sight of his own personal brick-laying motivation. Mizu somehow looked elegant and graceful in her heavy-grade cold weather gear. Her blue skin was set off by the white of the jacket, and he was mesmerized by the sight of it all just long enough for her to notice him.

“Arthur!” She waved him over to where she stood, shovel in hand. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

He trotted over, joining Mizu’s side at the mouth of a long trench several yards from the thin ribbon of river that cut through the valley they had recently come to call home. She was digging a well, something her class was focused on, and had opted to do so by building a gradual slope moving deeper and deeper into the soil rather than digging straight down. She said, and he believed her, that it would save a lot of time when she began her water-processing enchantment work.

“That’s getting deep,” Arthur said.

“Yes.” Mizu looked down with glee. “Very deep. But that’s not all. Watch.”

She shouldered her shovel, bounced down into the hole, and dug a few shovelfuls of earth out, flinging them out of the trench at the top of each stroke. They looked wetter than the rest of the pile, which gave Arthur his first inklings of what he was about to see. He kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to ruin her big reveal.

Her hand shot up, all of a sudden. “Come down now. Look.”

He jumped down, looking at the dirt and seeing nothing obviously special about it. “I can’t see it.”

“Get closer.”

He did. Once the dirt was a few inches from his nose, he spotted it. The dirt was seeping water, slowly dripping moisture into the hole.

“That’s great! So that’s as deep as you need to go?”

Mizu shook her head. “Several more feet. You want the well to fill fast enough to keep up with the demand from the demons that use it. But it’ll be easier now that the earth is wetter. I should be done today.”

The new town had been drinking out of the river, which had been just fine. But with Mizu’s well, they’d get a higher quality of water, carrying any number of subtle modifications to improve it for drinking, preparing food, or even cleaning with.

It had taken her a lot of work to get to this point, starting with a week or so of examining the local water table, examining the ground, and divining the best places to dig their initial wells. She said she wouldn’t stop digging for the first year, opting to make sure they had enough water capacity to cover the town’s growth over that time.

“Do you need help? I can grab a sack and help you cart dirt,” Arthur said.

“No, it’s okay,” Mizu said. “It’s important I do as much of the labor as possible at this stage. Just do what you do best. And do it fast. I’m cold.”

Arthur smiled, gave her a little awkward trench-constrained side hug, and climbed out of the trench. Mizu got up very early compared to the rest, but they’d be up soon enough. And when they did, they’d want tea.

Arthur walked over to the logs he had prepared the night before, held a flame to the kindling, and had a roaring fire within a few minutes. A kettle and a pot already dangled over the flames, and a few trips back and forth from the river meant they were full of water in no time. He threw a healthy portion of oats and dried meat into the big pot, and watched as they took on water to soften into the nutrient-rich meal that would fuel the intrepid settlers. Into the kettle, he put nothing. Tea brewing was a process he knew a lot more about, one that he’d handle in much more detail and use much more specialized equipment.

Once the water in the kettle was at a boil, he dumped a load of his own majicka into it. That was a little trick he picked up when he had come to the valley. The majicka was added with the intent of getting the water a few degrees hotter beyond the boiling point, and the extra-hot water went well with the heavy-flavored tea he made in the mornings.

With his majicka-juiced water all ready, Arthur reached for his teapot and leaves, only to find neither were on the rough prep table where he had left them.

“Getting started without me?” Lily said. “You know that hurts the tea.”

Lily had yet to receive the first individual skills for her brand-new assistant class, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t doing anything. They had done experiments, and her mere presence and involvement in a process really did make everything slightly better and faster. Every day, they improved the final output by a few percentage points, all because of her. They could have had a bit more, too, if Arthur asked Lily for more help. He didn’t.

“I do. But there’s more tea to make later, and plenty of work for you to be involved in before you hit your limit,” Arthur said.

“I can do more than you let me.” Lily uncapped the teapot, holding it still as Arthur poured the water, and giving it an expert swirl with her hand before giving it back to him for further infusions. “I’m pretty tough.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Arthur focused on a few focused enhancements to the tea, felt the majicka flow out of his core in a torrent, then set the large pot down. “Eito said, remember? If we rush things, your class will suffer for it. Maybe even more, since you forced it into being.”

Lily had, in her own stubborn way, managed to draw the system into an argument about getting her class assignment years before she was due a class. It had taken the better part of a day, with her locked in a system vision, until she came out victorious. That wasn’t all bad, since her new class had allowed everyone, including her, to come out to the rough-and-tumble new frontier. But it called for caution, and Arthur cared about her too much to let her hurt her own future by rushing forward any more than she already had.

Lily shrugged, giving up on the matter. A few minutes later, they had magically over-pepped tea, packed full of this world’s caffeine equivalent. The food was done a bit later, and Arthur shimmied the pot away from the flames to ensure it wouldn’t overcook while he kept it warm.

“Want to do the honors?” Arthur said, nodding towards an iron loop hanging from a nearby branch.

“Of course. I love that thing.”

Lily walked over to the ring, taking up an iron rod sitting on a hook of a low-growing branch. She went to work with the rod, banging it hard on the inside of the loop and raising a ruckus so loud that not even the heaviest sleepers could ignore it.

Milo emerged from his tent seconds later, fully clothed and ready for his day. Arthur knew that his friend had spent hours at his design desk already, only now emerging for a hot meal and company.

“Gods, that’s loud. I might have overbuilt that thing.” Milo grabbed a bowl and ladled out a healthy serving of oats and meat, adding some salt and seasoning to it from the supplies Arthur kept on the prep table for that purpose. “Of course, as soon as I find some metal, I might upgrade it. We could have a bell.”

“Still no ore? I thought you would have found some yesterday for sure,” Arthur said.

“Nope. That was a bust. I know that it’s out there to be found. Dad’s survey indicated there was, and he’s never wrong.” Milo’s father, Minos, was an explorer and cartographer, and had discovered the area they were now living in on his last trip out through the wilderness. If his skills said there was ore to be had near here, there was. It was just a matter of turning up the right patch of earth to uncover it. “But we can only dig so much a day. Believe me, I’m trying. I want to forge, not mine in the ground.”

As he talked, others emerged from their tents and huts to join them. Mizu got there next, rinsing the mud off her hands and then taking a healthy portion. The rest arrived soon after. There was Spiky and Leena, of course, followed by a very bleary-eyed Rhodia. They were having the easiest time getting started on their work, since the librarian couple were able to get started organizing books and documenting new discoveries in the area as soon as they unpacked. Rhodia was similar, since clay and firewood were plentiful along the river. She was churning out ceramics at an alarming pace, far beyond what they needed at the moment.

And it wasn’t just them. A half-dozen young demons had followed along, augmenting the skills of the core group with different capabilities. They all sidled up to the big food pot, got their share, sat on logs and stumps for just that purpose, and basked in the moments of calm company they could get before the day’s labor started.

There were a dozen of them, so far, but there would be more, perhaps hundreds before the next few years were done, surging into the town and making it even stronger, more secure, more comfortable, and more productive.

And Arthur would make tea for them all.