The soggy, decayed barge spshed and jumped up in the waves. Everyone was worried that it would sink and held their breath. When the boat stayed up people from the shore took action. They tied lines from the rope bridge and strong men pulled it into the dock.
The ship boasted three watertight compartments that opened from the deck. There once were panels that could be secured to the deck to keep water from coming in from above. All of these were missing. Also the crew’s compartment was missing a roof. There looked to be a crushed house in the center of the barge. The lower floor sported a series of bunks that might have been able to sleep 8 crew. The upper floor was completely crushed. Likely that would have been where lookouts, the captain, or whatever important people are in charge of a barge would have their quarters. The width was around 15 feet. So the look was long and narrow. There were some broken beams jutting out of the deck near the cargo holds. Likely, they were masts or cranes of some kind to load and unload the holds. Like the lids for the holds, they were not salvageable. There were notches in the sides, Alex guessed that they were for paddles or poles to push the boat forward. Likely, they could fit 20 people on the deck comfortably, less than that in the holds and a whole lot if people wanted to be shoulder to shoulder for the entire trip up river.
“You know, I thought that your other boats were cking cuteness, but this one has nothing going for it except its size.” Fufi flew a circle around the wreck at the dock.
“With a little cleaning I bet it’ll be okay.” Alex pointed a feather duster at the wreck. “Besides, I didn’t have any say in how this was built so technically you're bming the wrong person.”
A group of townsmen worked to take the debris out of the holds and offload them on the docks. Being directed not to take them off the dock, they left the items for Alex to dust off.
The vast majority of the undefined items just evaporated, being too far gone to not be seen as anything other than uncleanliness by a cleaning skill.
“Hey what’s this?” Alex pulled out a rge iron hook that started as a slimy rusty hunk from the pile. She set it down after holding it for a few seconds, it was a bit heavy for her.
“I think that is a hook,miss.” A longshore-looking man stated bndly. “My guess is for raising and lowering cargo from the hold of that barge.”
“You think we can reuse it?” Alex asked the man.
“You’d have to get one of the smiths to rebuild the crane if that is what you are asking.” Alex looked around, people were watching but she wasn’t sure who did what. “Can you ask for us? I don’t know how long it’d take.”
“Okay, I’ll see what we can do. I don’t know if there is enough wood to remake three cranes.” The longshoreman looked at some of the revived items that had been pulled from the river, then shook his head, conforming his rough estimation.
“Can you cannibalize some structures?” Alex considered. “If this pce is being left behind the buildings won’t matter much longer.”
“We can try, though wood has been in very short supply for as long as anyone can remember.” The man picked up the hook and hoisted it over his shoulder with one hand. “I’ll head out and talk to some people. What are you going to do?” Right, people with certain csses tended to have superhuman strength.
“Now that the boat is secured to the dock I was pnning on cleaning. I think the bare minimum to get this thing going would be to get some poles or paddles and have something to water from filling up the holds. Given that it is autumn, a rain might ruin everything.” Alex pointed to each of the three hold openings on the deck in turn.
After drinking some water, Alex brandished her feather duster and headed to board the vessel.
One of the maids followed. “Miss Alice, I couldn’t help but overhear that you intend to spend some time cleaning.”
Alex figured the maids were just being polite and ignoring the fact that Alice was a fake name. The magical girl confirmed the maid’s assumption. “Yes, I pn to go over the whole barge.”
“Perhaps we maid could help with this task.” The maid primply suggested.
“If you want. But this might take a while.” Alex cautiously said.
“Many hands make work light.” The maid might have a bit of smugness in her tone.
The next few hours turned the barge from a floating hunk of river-bottom sludge into something that looked like a new vessel missing some important parts. Later in the day, craftsmen used the recimed metals to rebuild one of the cranes. It could swing out to the side of the barge. A block and tackle lowered a brass grate tied by ropes up and down. A bronze canopy formed the 2nd floor with a simir treated leather covering the top. Long iron poles sat on the deck that would be used to push the barge forward. They spend the twilight hours loading the holds up with a mix of stuff. Then the barge listed. Then they worked into the night unloading and reloading it. A generous amount of rope got spooled and loaded onto the deck. The piping for the bilge pump was in pieces so it needed to be reassembled after a feather dusting restored it. The pump was also missing some parts that had rusted away too much to be restored. But the smiths were able to figure out how to improvise pieces to get it functional again. The repair wasn’t pretty, but they got the ship into a functional state in a day.
“Sorry,” The longshoreman apologized. “I got this css when I was young and there still was boat traffic. Then the boats stopped coming and this is the first chance I’ve had to use it for real.”
No longer being useful in tasks like heavy lifting, Alex spent her time cleaning off debris that Marina kept bringing to shore. Eventually, it became too dark for her to continue and she called it quits for the night.
The yet-unnamed barge set out at dawn, men with high strength, mostly farmers manned the poles that moved the barge upstream. It advanced at a pace slightly better than walking.
20 people went on the ship, most of the holds were filled with supplies for the ship. There was a heated discussion about how they could fit more people. But the reality that carrying supplies for 20 people for three days would take up most of the hold silenced that line of thinking. Most of the uncssed were evacuated with the barge headed off.
“I’m not happy with your efforts on that boat.” Fufi watched the barge round a corner and go out of sight. “It is one of the least cute projects you’ve been involved in.”
“Hey, we are in a bit of a time crunch here. I’d love to take my time and make something more impressive but we don’t have months to prepare.” Alex frowned. “Think of it this way, now we have almost 5% of the people on their way to a safer pce. I think that with the barge and the small boats that will take around a month.” Alex worried about not being quick enough. She was betting on some kind of reprisal not coming in days. Hopefully, that assumption wouldn’t come back to bite them. Having weeks or months to empty the town of things the townspeople found useful would be ideal. Left unsaid was the fact that adding over 900 people to the popution of former tribespeople that started a settlement less than a year ago would more than double the popution. Luckily, it was harvest season so they were in a good pce as far as food.
“So what do you want to do today?” Fufi poked Alex’s phone in her pocket, not being subtle at all.
“Yeah, you are right. I should stop putting off looking at the gains from leveling up. I’m level 5 now, whatever that means.” Alex pulled out her phone from a pocket in her frilly dress. She really wanted to get changed into something less gaudy but with giving a pair of outfits away to Zeke and Trudy the options were not great. She had the arctic costume, the pink robe and wooden sandals. “I also need to work on the hero doll. He’s in bad shape. Then there is the carriage that needs to be fixed as well. Being here may be the right thing to do but I want to get out of here as much as anyone else. Well, most people I think I bet maybe some people would like for things to go back to how they used to be if they were in dy Yvne’s good graces. ”
What Fufi hinted was right though. Alex should check her notifications. Until something like a new boat being found that could be floated, nothing was pressing that required the magical girl’s immediate attention. Alex pulled out the cutely decorated phone and pressed the notifications tab.
[Level up: Css magical girl increased from level 3 to level 5]
+2 cuteness, +1 intelligence (per level)
+4 added to cuteness.
+2 added to intelligence.
[Completed: Defeat 100 monsters]
[Level 4 feat gained: Crafting: Force Imbuement]
[Ability to craft items of mechanical energy beyond what is physically possible. Springs, weights and other mechanical sources of energy will st 15 minutes longer than their non enchanted counterparts.
Ingredients required: Sugar, Spice, something nice]
[Level 5 spell gained: Magical girl transformation]
[With a cute performance, the magical girl transforms her apparel to any kept in a designated wardrobe, swapping outfits.
Cast time: 3 secondsRequirements: Verbal, somatic]
Name: Alex Parker
Css: Magical Girl
Level: 5
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Strength: 11
Constitution: 9
Dexterity: 17
Intelligence: 11
Cuteness: 24
Skills:
Cleaning: 3
Cooking: 2
Dancing: 2
Tailoring: 4
Toymaking: 2
Feats: Empower Doll
Crafting: Force Imbuement
Spells: Animate DollMagical Girl Transformation
Lesser Grow Pnts
Traits: Mental Resistance: 4
“Whoa, my cuteness stat is over 20 now.” Alex squinted at the phone.
“It sounds like you have surpassed human natural limits now.” Fufi prinned. “I guess you can say that you are superhumanly cute.”
“What does that even mean?” Alex had no idea what the fmingo was getting at.
“You know how some of the experienced combat cssers and farmers can lift things that a normal human from your world would find impossible?” Fufi asked.
“Yeah, how strong and fast some of the people we have come across are crazy.” Alex boggled, remembering some of the feats residents of this world performed that people from her world would consider superhuman.
“It is the same thing, but only with feats of cuteness.” Fufi nodded sagely.
“I think you lost me there. What is a feat of cuteness?” Alex still didn’t get it.
“How to expin simpler, hmm, perhaps making something cute, or being cute would be a good example.” Fufi slowed her speech down, like Alex was slow or something.
“Is that like saying I could do a better Shirley Temple impression than the original actress?” Alex shook her head.
“I don’t know who Shirley Temple is. But let's look at a more recent example.” The fmingo flourished a wing. “You know how fmingos are banned from these nds?”
Alex nodded.
“The ban should be a ruler skill. The king makes a decree and that goes into pce for all the nds in the kingdom. Lords and dies use a stat called charisma that determines how successful their skills are.” Fufi expined.
“But I don’t have charisma as a stat. Shouldn’t that have kept you out?” Alex thought this seemed more confusing than before.
“Yes, many of our fmingo kin were looking for maidens pure of heart in the kingdoms of man. However, we were not allowed access. It is a tricky way that the demon queen made to prevent another magical girl cosmos from coming up from her ranks.” Fufi continued. “However, the suit you made that I was wearing was very cute. Is the king cuter than the stuff you’ve made?”
Alex shook her head, starting to get where she was going with this.
“So, while I can’t go in the armor can, and the skill is not something that can separate the armor from the fmingo. The decree would have to be something more specific and airtight to keep certain people out. Also, there are csses dedicated to bypassing ws. A smuggler for example. A high enough smuggler can’t be kept at bay with a decree. Stealing can be illegal but no noble is high enough level to prevent all theft.”
Alex considered this, looking out over the river. “So, what I get from this is that magical girls can usually win a contest of cuteness, or skills, feats, and magic based on cuteness are incredibly effective against anything that doesn’t have cuteness as a stat?”
“That is about right. There will always be some weird situations where some things csh in unexpected ways.” Fufi nodded.
“And not having charisma as a stat, I guess that makes charisma based skills bad news for magical girls.” Alex pondered. “Maybe that is why you said that magical girl princesses are not good?”
Fufi looked a little nervous, like she was hiding something. “Yes, that among other reasons.”
melchi
