It took the rest of the day for Alex to get the plumber outfit sorted for Aqua. “How’s that?”

  Aqua posed and smiled. “It looks nice but I’ve got to test something.” She jumped into the water of the grotto.

  Alex winced, subjecting the brand new outfit to submersion felt like an insult to her sense of craftsmanship. A moment ter, the reason for such testing became apparent. The dye of the outfit, bright red and blue bled slightly.

  Alex defted. “Sorry, I guess some fading happens but if you live underwater it happens a lot faster.”

  “You know, I foresaw this problem so I came prepared.” She handed Alex a couple of bottles. One was a clear gss filled with a red fluid and the other filled with a blue fluid.

  “Hmm, do you have a bucket?” Alex asked.

  Aqua led Fufi and Alex to another room. “There you go.” She gestured past the door. It was still a damp cave but there was a big metal cauldron in the middle. Several wooden poles sat against the side. “The thing about making clothing for people that spend all their time underwater is that dying cloth is tricky. It is easier to do it on the surface.”

  Alex nodded and used a bucket to fill the cauldron. Fufi helped by carrying a cup in her beak. Eventually they got it filled up enough to dye the outfit red, and repeat the process with blue in a second cauldron.

  “It sucks that there isn’t any plumbing in your grotto hideout.” Alex compined. “I’m surprised Merumru didn’t put pipes all around here.”

  “Well she did put one big one.” Aqua gestures to the stone pipe on the wall in the main area. “I’ve seen her come and go a few times but she’s been busy with a big project.”

  “What kind of project?” Alex frowned. “I know you can understand her but when you say stuff about her it tends to be really cryptic like you want to leave as much room for misunderstanding as possible.”

  Aqua smirked. “But having things be dramatic is more fun.” The nereid puffed out her cheeks. “But anyway, she said the trick to using the portal pipes is to dress like a plumber. She invited me to go see the castle she was building with magical girl Cosmos.”

  “I thought she was retired. Or at least she couldn’t do anything on Terre anymore, well unless people break the accords.” Alex pondered.

  “Well, if the demons are going to exploit loopholes to make magical girls a thing of the past, why can’t magical girl Cosmos do the same?” Aqua snickered. “I imagine when she retired she figured she’d be passing the torch to the next generation of magical girls. Instead, there are only a few low leveled ones and fmingos that search for a partner but can’t find any on Terre.”

  Fufi spoke up. “If we can reform humanity then in a generation that could change. Children are raised in the wastes like barbarians or in the demon kingdom occupied nds. Either way they are robbed of their childhood innocence, the thing that is needed to make a good magical girl.”

  “Are there no magical girls from other races? We’ve met gnomes for example. I think I got a blessing from a dwarven deity the first few days I was here.” Alex asked the two girls.

  “Dwarves and gnomes both count as longer lived races.” Fufi expined. “It is the same for fey.”

  Alex wondered what the non-humans were doing about the demonic take over of Terre.”Even if they can’t be the best magical girls it is something. Not everyone would turn into Sakura right?”

  “Gnomes and Dwarves are both subterranean dwellers.” Aqua expined. “Fmingos don’t do well underground. The demons have no need to go underground either because humans are not allowed in dwarven holds or gnomish concves for obvious reasons.”

  “Where do these people live? I’ve only met professor copperpot.” Alex mused.

  “Usually inside huge mountain ranges. I’m not exactly sure where anymore because any pces that were close to human nds got abandoned a long time ago. It was just too risky.” The nereid brushed her blue hair back.

  “You’d think they could just delve deeper. I wonder if being far enough away from the surface would make it so that it would be too much of a pain for the demons to seek humans out.” Alex voiced her thoughts.

  “You’re not a miner.” Aqua chided Alex. “If someone goes deep enough they’ll hit water or in some cases worse things. One time there was a dwarven stronghold built into an isnd mountain on an isnd. Many trading ships came to their isnd but as the centuries went on they were running out of pces to chase ore veins so they decided to chase one down, and down and down. They tunneled under the ocean and were very careful to keep enough dirt and rock between their prospecting and the water. But even that wasn’t enough, there was an earthquake and a thousand feet of mine shafts got submerged in water in minutes.”

  Alex gulped. “That is terrifying.”

  “Greedy miners delve too deep.” Aqua sounded sagely. “Smart ones know when to look for another mountain.” Aqua perked up and headed out. She came back dragging a trunk. “That reminds me, I was wondering if you could take your feather duster to this pile of boots.”

  “Boots?” Alex gaped at the whipsh change in subject.

  “Yeah, it is a collection of soggy boots.” Aqua nodded rapidly.

  Alex sniffed and opened the crate. It was filled with an assortment of mismatched, moldy boots. Some of them had seaweed dried on them. “I think most of this will just evaporite if I use my cleaning skills on them.”

  “Can you give it a try anyway? There might be a few salvageable ones there.” Aqua encouraged.

  “Okay,” Alex pulled out her feather duster, picked up a boot that looked like it had been fished out of a river and dusted it off. The footwear evaporated into mist. “The first one is too far gone. Let me try some of the others.”

  Alex spent another hour going through several crates of boots and shoes. For whatever reason, Aqua had amassed a disturbing hoard of footwear. Around 1 in 20 were salvageable and Alex’s skill with the feather duster returned them to pristine condition.

  The water nymph donned a pair that mostly matched. “What do you think? Could I match Merumeru’s outfit like this?”

  Fufi hummed. “It isn’t an exact match but I can see what you are going for. It is hard to tell without wearing the whole outfit.”

  “You should go and make one for yourself and for professor copperpot.” Aqua lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think maybe a magic pipe that requires someone to dress up to be used might be enough to get him to come out of his room.”

  Alex shrugged. “It is worth a shot. Making plumber outfits is not too hard.”

  The magical girl spent another day cutting cloth, dyeing it and sewing together two red shirts and two blue overalls, one gnome sized and one human sized. Throughout the time, Fufi and Aqua gossiped about stuff.

  “Do you think that Miss Julette will ever tell her father that she’s in love with the man from the stone ax cn and not one of the vilgers?” Aqua wiggled her eyebrows.

  “Really?” Fufi gaped. “Is that the same family with the household head that said that there is no way they can trust any of those barbarians who have led their lives traveling the wastend?”

  “The very same.” Aqua made a quick cp. “My cousin saw them holding hands and walking across the dam one night.”

  Amidst the romantic conversation, Alex felt a tinge of unease. Alex’s past dating experiences as a male had left him overwhelmed by the effort required to sustain a retionship. She wondered if being a female would change the dynamics. While the notion of love held allure, the thought of the daily grind to make it work felt like an intimidating price to pay.

  Fufi and Aqua had no shortage of individuals to talk about. There were close to 2000 people that had gathered in what used to be a ruin. While Alex’s track record in being a magical girl heroine didn’t impress, she collected refugees like no one's business.

  Alex sturred the dying pot. “Aqua do you know how many people live in the capitol?”

  “By people do you mean humans or do you mean humans and demons?” Aqua answered the question with a question, not missing a beat on the subject change.

  “Either or, was just wondering how it compared to Ki’s barony.” Alex said.

  “I think before the war there were tens of thousands of humans that lived there.” Aqua looked thoughtful. “But now, maybe about the same if not more but demons outnumber the humans at least two to one.”

  “Mostly imps right?” Alex pictured a town full of half-pint task masters.

  “Yes, though imps tend to come and go a lot there.” Aqua acted very helpful. “The whole culture there makes it so that a higher tiered demon is likely to crush a lower one at the slightest offense. So they have to kowtow to their betters for scraps. Lots of imps enter this world by the demon queen’s portal and they scour the globe for humans and good cultivation opportunities.”

  “But it has to be both right?” Alex was starting to get why things had pyed out after the hero’s fall were extremely weird.

  “Yes,” Aqua nodded. “That is why imps are not breaking down dwarven fortresses. They were brought here with the intention to punish humans.”

  “The demon queen sounds weird.” Alex ran a hand through her bck hair, only to realize that it had dye on it, but shrugged. Dye on bck hair wasn’t a problem. “I wonder what led her to become so jaded.”

  Aqua lit up. “Oh the demon queen, her backstory is absolutely scandalous.”

  Fufi cut her off. “I don’t think Alex needs to hear the juicy details about her upbringing.” There was something in her tone that caused the nereid to back off.

  “Okay then.” Aqua changed the subject. “Want to try out the outfits? Do we just need to dry them off?”

  Alex nodded, the stitches were done. “It is still wet though. Might want to let it dry first.”

  “Some of us have water powers.” Aqua beamed. “Watch this.” She waved a hand and there was a puff of mist, followed by an increase in humidity, but the outfits were dry.

  Alex went off and got changed, put on a pair of slightly mismatched boots, the overalls, red shirt and odd hat. The only thing missing would be a silly mustache but girls having mustaches would be weird. The magical girl walked back into the area they had been before and checked her phone.

  [Plumbers outfit +3 plumbing]

  “Not bad, this gives a good bonus to plumbing.” Alex showed the cell phone’s dispy to the two others in the room.

  “Wow, enchanting clothing is becoming second nature for you.” Fufi cheered. “Maybe you could be an enchanter type magical girl.”

  Alex considered this. Enchanting stuff would be fun, but it didn’t feel quite right. Close but not really what would be an exact fit. It was hard to put into words. “Maybe, but it just doesn’t feel like a perfect fit but something along that track.”

  “Search your heart. Follow your soul.” Fufi sang. “You’ll see, I know it.”

  “Anyway, we should give Professor Copper pot his new clothes.” Alex picked up the gnome sized outfit.

  The trio headed down the hallway and knocked on the gnome’s door.

  Screeching of pigs could be heard in response.

  “I’m kinda in the middle of something.” A male voice shouted back. “Can it wait?”

  “Let me handle this.” Aqua stepped forward and shouted through the crack in the door.

  “Alex and Fufi came to visit.” The blue haired woman spoke loudly. “She made some new clothes for us. They are magical and should let you walk through pipes. I’ll leave it out here hanging on the door handle. Come out and grab it when you are ready.”

  “Um, okay.” The voice from inside the room cracked a bit. “Thank you for the gift.”

  “Baby steps.” Aqua said.

  Fufi and Alex left it at that. Hopefully that would be enough motivation to get the gnome to step outside his room.

  The st thing to check before they left was the portal pipe. The trio headed to the pipe, crouched down and walked through.

  Alex felt disoriented after walking through what looked like a rock wall but came out to daylight. Gravity shifted from one direction to another. She walked into a pipe on the wall and popped out on a pipe that pointed straight up and down. She overcorrected and banged her head on the side of the stone pipe.

  “Oof.” Alex rubbed her head.

  Aqua’s head popped up and did the same thing. Fufi, having the advantage of being a bird with a long neck didn’t have the problem.

  “Okay,” Aqua giggled. “It looks like this works. We can try exploring more ter.”

  Alex looked around, saw a young apple tree, a bunch of other pipes, a rock wall upon which helmeted chicken clucked.

  They ducked down and went back to the grotto.

  “That looks like it comes out at Bob and Martha’s farm.” Alex said. “I bet it confuses the heck out of them when Merumeru appears, spooks the chickens and hops into another pipe.

  Aqua nodded. “I remember them. I’ll have to go stop by and pay my respects at the grotto shrine there. It’ll be a whole lot easier to visit now.”

  “I’d join you but we still have the air boat to take back.” Alex pointed toward the grotto exit. “It won’t fit through the portal so I have to take it back the old fashioned way. Also, I told the maids I’d be there in a day but we spent two here. I’m sure I’ll get scolded for taking longer than I said I would.”

  “Okay.” Aqua smiled. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon, at Merumeru’s castle perhaps?”

  Alex nodded. “Yeah, if one of those pipes leads to her castle it will be easy to get there.”

  After saying goodbye, Alex and Fufi boarded the airboat, lifted the weight and let it fall to get the flywheel spinning. They headed out, skimming along the bog and after a few hours turned north at the river.