“Well I don’t want to make anyone mad at me, I just want to get this boat made and get back to where I’m from,” I said, thinking about approaching Mylicious about the plans on the boat making.
“What’s so special about your land, what’s wrong with staying here?”
“More color, everything here is plain, white, not soothing to the eye. I don’t have to travel to see a whole new land.”
“That sounds nice,” Yura sighed, “Maybe I will come with you.”
“That will be up to you and Mylicious to decide.”
“It’s not Mylicious’s decision if I leave or not,” she said sharply, “I can leave whenever I want.”
She got up and stormed off just like Kallik. I didn’t know if I could deal with the moods around there, so I got up and approached Mylicious, “Can you tell me how to start making the boat, so I can get started,” I said rather rudely.
His grin disappeared and he nodded, then got up, “Follow me,” he said, and I did. I was led down the down, the mysterious, center tunnel. It was longer than any other, with multiple rooms, with doors made of wood, with the hinges anchored in ice.
The tunnel came to a split and we took a right. We walked down two more rooms and he opened the door. All the wood from the night before was in there. There were tools all over, saws of sorts, chisels, a weird tool with two handles and a blade between them.
“The wood needs split in half, do your best to make sure it’s equal. I will show you how to do one, take your time, and don’t use your quickness to hurry,” he instructed. He then grabbed a small hatchet, with a large, flat head to it and large mallet. He put the blade of the hatchet in the center of the log and started tapping it with the mallet. The wood started to crack and splinter in the middle. He got so about three-fourths of the way through and moved down, he repeated this process until he was done with the log.
“Once you’re done this, you come to this room,” he said and went into another room, in which I followed him. The room was large, with posts set up. There was a front and back center post with two post on each side, it almost looked like a cat’s eye. “You will have to build a fire over there and put ice in the cauldron. You bring all the wood in here and let it sit overnight. In the morning, you can shape it on the post using a method that I will show you tomorrow. You will have to keep coming back tonight to add ice to the cauldron, it’s crucial, we want the wood to bend, not break, you understand?”
“Might be too hard for me to do,” I said with sarcasm in my voice.
Mylicious just stared at me, “Then after tomorrow, will head back to your land, seeming that you’re still not going to help me with Derium.”
“I’ve told you where his head is at, all you have to do is find it.” I said, not really wanting to hear the Derium shit again.
Mylicious said nothing and walked out, I then started to tend to the log pile. I took his advice and worked slow, maybe too slow, but I didn’t want to mess up the wood because I wanted to get out of there. I gently tapped the flattened part of the hatchet with the mallet and, slowly the wood started to split. Now keep in mind, these were long logs, basically the whole tree, everything we cut down from the day before.
After a few hours of work, my hands were covered in sap, so I stopped and went in the main room where there was hot water going in the cauldron already. I dipped my hands into it, it was hot, but it was needed to get the sap off, even though I had more work to do.
The place was empty, I heard nothing from within, even Kallik and Yura were gone. So, I went back to work and it took a few more hours to finish the rest of the wood pile and I got twice as much sap on me. I decided to start a fire in two cauldrons, one in the room where the wood was going and one in the bathroom. By the time I got them both going, got the wood moved into the next room and had water hot enough to wash off with, I heard howling coming from outside. The moon was shining through the hole in the ceiling over the fire again.
Amka and Amaruq came running by, giggling and laughing, oddly brought a smile to my face, even though I didn’t like the brats. Then came Yura, she was half-changed, walked upright, down the steps. She looked at me with her purple eyes, her breasts were visible and covered in hair and she had two extra sets. I heard some popping as she shifted her weight and dropped to all fours. She finished transforming in front of me as Amka and Amaruq acted like nothing was out of the ordinary.
She turned her attention away from me and I turned my attention to getting a bath going. I ran out, not paying much attention to howling and the odd noises behind me to get two chunks of ice. I ran back down and put one in the basin in the bathing room, then the smaller piece in the cauldron. By the time I got back to the bathing room, it was nice and steamy, and the water probably would have burned the skin off a lesser being, but it felt good to me.
