“Are you sure you’re willing to risk contaminating this lake with whatever evil stench is on my cauldron?”

Little Spring glared at me. Right. It was better for it to be out here than for it to contaminate our cottage. We slept in there, after all.

I used my access to the space to move Old Smokey to the bottom of the lake, which still hadn’t been named. The spring water bubbled ferociously above where I set it.

Originally, I had wanted to bring a bucket and actually scrub the thing myself but, I wasn’t exactly in a condition where I could do that. Not in the under two hours we had left. There was too much I had to do to get it ready for the tournament and not enough time. So that meant, I had to take shortcuts and prioritize.

Shortcut one. Leave the cleaning to the spiritual lake and hope it worked like a pro, without sacrificing the already limited structural integrity.

I did not have much hope on that last part as I was pretty sure some of the smoke gunk helped fill in the microfractures and increase stability. But I needed a clean cauldron to work from more than a structurally sound one. Clean and not smelling like a thousand fiery chickens all shitting at once.

As much as it amused me to think of distracting my opponents with that smell, I would not be able to stand it myself. It was the type of scent that didn’t improve with increased exposure.

I waited for the bubbles to chill out before pulling it up from the depths. It still stank like a bitch and had smoke stains covering it so I sent it back down for another twenty minutes during which I rummaged around in the old weapon/item smithy. Fortunately, it already had a normal earth flame which I turned on to heat up the forge.

Then I looked around for tools, praying it had the bare minimum. And it did. They were hiding in an alcove I hadn’t seen before. Tongs, big hammer, little hammer, scrap metal, a surprise sanding and polishing spiritual tool that I cried over... I missed the future.

I didn’t really think much about it since getting thrown back to this time period, but —fuck— I missed the future. The tools, the infrastructure, and the people, many of whom might not even be born this time around. If I hadn’t been mentally prepared to leave them all behind when I ascended anyway, I might have gone mad... more mad? Whatever.

I had a shitty patch job to do.

With a wave of my hand, I brought Old Smokey back and placed him on one of the heavy stone worktables. It was completely dry, exactly like I needed it to be. That was just one of the things that made this space so worth the trouble.

The good news was that the super special spiritual spring water —that really was not meant to be treated like the all-in-one cleaning solution we often used it as— had done a fantastic job at removing the vile charred demon-chicken stink.

The bad news was that some of the caked-on smoke stains still remained. Especially the ones inside the cauldron itself... How the fuck did those get there?! Did some asshole decide to set off a hundred mini-bombs or something? I mean, interior smoke stains were expected with a cauldron that had been through several explosions, but this? The fuck was this?