The conversation between two fmingos, a sleepy Nymph and a magical girl continued in Ki’s office.

  “Yvne’s maids are going to be a really difficult problem to fix.” Alex crossed her arms. “Making it to the temple wasn’t terrible because I could fly. But making it back was a big pain. Traveling hundreds of miles across mountains and gciers is no joke. Also, there is some demonic ice cultivator sect setting up shop near the temple of purity.”

  “Yes, though their single mindedness to serve a dy as a maid is discouraging.” Ki frowned. “I don’t think that their safety matters as much as having a mistress. It is a little disturbing.”

  Alex nodded. “Disturbing is the right word. Having been forced into maid training and seeing no way out… well I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “You really should go back to your tree though Ki.” Fumi reminded the Nymph. “This is not a good spot to spend the winter.”

  “I know, I am just worried that without my cousins around this pce is going to erupt into anarchy.” Ki put both of her hands on her face. “Having a bunch of different rival tribes that used to fight each other is bad enough to keep the peace. Now we have the biggest group of humans being primarily non combat csses who also tend to view the people already here as barbarians and weirdos wearing overly cute outfits.”

  “The loot from the dungeon is now limited edition.” Alex chuckled a bit, having burly men with long hair and big beards wielding weapons that looked like something from an excessively girly anime always felt fun to see. “I mean, what is the worst that could happen?”

  “Likely chaos breaking out where one chief decides he is the new top dog only for the winter court to come in, see people behaving like beasts and expunging humanity from the forest.” Ki scrunched up her face and ran a hand through her leafy hair. “They might turn some people into snowmen to set an example.”

  Alex sighed. “I really wish we had someone that could lead.” Alex added an addendum. “Not that you are a bad leader Ki. It is just that.”

  “I know. I’m no longer human so there will always be irreconcible differences.” Ki mented. “It has been a new experience for me as well. This st year, getting my memories back only to realize the life of my childhood is gone forever.”

  Fumi again urged Ki to leave. “You’ve said your piece to our magical girl. Are you okay to leave things to the evergreen nymphs and the winter court?”

  Ki nodded and chuckled. “I really just wanted to stay awake until you got back. I can’t say it enough but thank you for taking care of that awkward invitation I got from dy Yvne.”

  After a heart-felt-almost-awkward goodbye Ki and Fumi used treestride to enter a tree and vanish.

  Feeling a little mencholy, Alex headed down to the warehouse where Charlotte did her weaving. The warehouse was full of goods but the wooden-spider-doll-pnt-creature wasn’t there.

  Getting the attention of a passing human, Alex asked. “Where did Charlotte go?”

  The human looked Alex over, recognizing her after a moment, likely more from her clothing than her appearance. “She’s resting. Most of the wood she was made out of is oak after all. When the trees started losing their leaves she did as well. She rooted by the river and is taking a break.” The woman paused. “Likely for the whole winter my guess. Did you need something sewn? There are already more bolts of cloth here than even the huge influx of people can use.”

  “Thank you.” Alex found a spot to summon the carriage and get to work on some sewing projects.

  Other than some preventive mending, she took upon herself to recreate the toymaking outfit. This outfit was quite complex. Women’s clothing from the 19th century was anything but simple. Trying to match the shirt waist embroidery patterns was very tedious. Also, making a corset wasn’t easy. There was also the slip and the stockings and the pleated ankle-length skirt. Alex even added a cute half-sized hat to complete the Victorian look.

  After checking her phone with the new outfit equipped Alex beamed proudly.

  [Toymaker’s outfit +3 toymaking]

  Fufi looked over her shoulder, sounding impressed. “Wow, not bad. That is much better than the one that you got from the dungeon. Your skills have increased.”

  “I didn’t get a skill by making this.” Alex chuckled. “Anyway, I need a break. Let's go check on Charlotte before working on the hero doll next. I probably should have mended that plushy back in town but put it off in favor of working on janky boat stuff.”

  Fufi and her magical girl headed down to where the spider doll was rooted by the river.

  “Thanks for all your hard work.” Alex patted the stationary wooden spider’s legs. She couldn’t reach the doll’s head because it was too high up.

  Charlotte didn’t move.

  “You’ve made more thread and cloth in months than the whole town, myself included, could have made in a year.” Alex praised the doll.

  She didn’t respond. Alex left it at that, Charlotte never could talk and if she was sleeping then waking her up would be rude. The fmingo and magical girl headed back to the warehouse and got to work on the Hero doll.

  Mending and repcing the stuffing that fell out and got burnt was easy. The bigger problem was the armor that got burnt. It wasn’t salvageable.

  Alex got an eerie premonition while looking into the doll’s eyes. “Don’t look at me with that judging look.”

  Fufi inspected the doll. “The doll doesn’t look any different. But I think he’s more grumpy than usual.”

  Alex searched the doll eyes. “It is like he’s saying ‘shame on you for forgetting something so important.’ But did I forget something? I don’t recall.”

  Alex considered pulling the doll’s string to activate it but thought twice. The doll wasn’t nice and that might be pressing her luck. However, making some better armor would be a good test of her new toymaking outfit.

  Fufi pointed out a bin of metal pnts adjacent to another of clockwork parts. Alex made a mental note to thank Ki or whoever had the foresight to stock up parts that a budding toymaker might need for clockwork dolls. She decided to go with brass instead of wood for the armor this time. Alex read somewhere that brass and stainless steel don’t conduct heat well. However, Alex didn’t know how to make stainless steel and someone had left some brass ptes in the warehouse. Alex felt a little guilty just taking it and not paying for it, but there was more of a communal economy set up. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea in the long term but for now it’d have to do. It was not like there was a coin smith or anyone minting coins. They didn’t even have a mine.

  Heavily relying on the boosted skill, Alex created a fancy set of armor for the hero plushy. Using some vinegar, a greenish patina was on the helmet, chest and shoulders of the armor. Alex added some springs to the helmet’s visor to make it retractable. To get fancy, Alex added some spinning bdes in the gauntlets. They were just a couple of inches in radius but with a string that had a tiny handle on the end they could be pulled and set to spinning. Using sugar spice and something nice, Alex enchanted the tiny circur saw to use the momentum enchantment. Heroshi could use them for carpentry work…. Yeah…

  The next thing Alex created from the metal and watch parts was a doll-appropriate-sized repeating crossbow. This was a bit more difficult. Making a crossbow wasn’t too difficult even with all the tiny parts. Alex was surprised how much the boosted skill helped with this almost too small to see stuff. This was an order of magnitude more complex than the stuff for the airboat. But for some weird reason it was easier. Fufi and Alex stayed up until it got dark out making the armor for the doll. In the end he had a fancy looking repeating crossbow that could shoot 6 bolts and the chamber could be popped out and repced with another bundle of 6 bolts. They even made a bandoleer that could hold 3 extra bundles. Even with the small size it was bulky for the doll.

  Alex tested it out herself and it worked well. Though she felt a little silly pying with a toy crossbow. She had to use her fingernail to pull the trigger.

  Sticking to the give and take rule, Alex made a second toy-sized crossbow and put it on the shelf with some extra bundles of bolts. A projectile weapon that was designed for someone with the hand size of a toddler wasn’t very useful for much other than a kid shooting their eye out but maybe there were some craftsmen in the town that could scale it up to be used in adult sized hands.

  “Okay, let's get some rest. I think that is enough for one day.” Alex dusted off her hands and put the hero doll in his fancy new armor back into the carriage.

  They took the carriage outside into the courtyard of the warehouse and cleaned up before going to bed.

  Wearing her pink robe and ying down on the bench seat, Alex compined. “I would like a home to go back to. The adventurer’s guild was nice when it wasn’t so busy and it was just the three of us but I miss my cabin.”

  “We’ll figure something out.” Fufi curled up for the night. “Maybe that gnome knows how to create magic to heat water.”

  “It would be nice. Burning wood to heat water is a pain. I never appreciated a hot water heater as much as I do now that they are scarce.” Alex compined. “I think they grabbed the magic items from Yvne’s mansion. I didn't really keep track of what went where. Also, I never really had a magic tutor so messing with magic items doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

  “They have magic schools in some of the big cities. But all the human ones are likely heavily influenced by demons.” Fufi frowned. “I wish we could have had better retions with Sakura. She should have been a good mentor for you.”

  “I do too, maybe we’ll run across someone who is a good teacher one of these days.” Alex rolled over and went to sleep shortly after.