Fresh grunts, laying on her back as she fiddles around with the piping running through the cabinet in the washroom.

The washroom itself is just a simple, square’ish room. There’s the door to the stairwell on one side and a door to the bathroom on the other. It doesn’t have a lock, but they’ve managed to make it work so far by just hanging a little charm on the door handle when someone is inside. The charm is essentially just a little wooden-chicken on a string that Fresh had made. When entering, the shower is directly ahead to the left. There is no glass wall, curtain or barrier of any kind. It’s just kind of in the middle of the room. All the water runs down into a metal grate, that Fresh hasn’t been brave enough to look down into yet. She assumes it runs down into some pipe that leads to the ocean.

Down there is probably where the pipes are set too. The ones that run up from the floor, towards the shower-head which is firmly affixed and not dismountable. The first thing she did was to craft a crystal-drakonium hose with a few metal-fastenings. Then she attached one end to the pipe and the other end to the shower head. Together with a small mount she had affixed to the pipe, it’s essentially now fully functional as a shower and the shower-head can be taken down and held in one’s hand. This simple change already made the little shower a lot more convenient.

She doesn’t think she’s able to come up with a filter for the sea-water on the fly like this. But what she can certainly do and is doing right now, is adding a heating mechanism. It essentially works exactly like the heaters in their upstairs area. A small metal box, filled with heating beads. Depending on how far the nozzle is turned, a corresponding amount of water runs through the heating box, before mixing back in with the rest of the water coming out of the nozzle.

Fresh grips the nut with a grease-stained rag, turning it tight. She wonders who the previous owner of this house was, to have come up with something like this? Showers don’t really seem like a thing which exist here, in this world. So… does that mean that the person was also another ‘other worlder’? Or were they perhaps just unusually inventive?

It’s hard to say, but whoever they were, she’s grateful for their contribution to her new life. Jubilee and Shamrock probably won’t care too much, but she’s certain that Basil is going to be thrilled about being able to take long, hot, real showers.

Well, long, hot, real sea-water showers, but still.

Giving the fixture a good wiggle, to check that it stays firmly in place, Fresh pulls herself back out and steps to the side, giving the nozzle a twist. Water starts pouring out of the shower-head in a small trickle at first, but then in a full blast of icy sea-water. Holding the shower-head to the side, she turns the hot-water nozzle and waits a moment, listening to the sound of hissing water rush through the new piping. A moment later, she can feel warmth running down her fingers.

The shower works.

Smiling to herself, she turns the water off and hangs the nozzle back up. That was task one done for the day and it only took her an hour or so.

Next up is the crab-proofing. It’s really about time too. It’s a miracle that none of them had gotten snipped in their sleep yet. The crabs seemed to have an easy time getting inside, but once they were in, the poor things seemed to be a little overwhelmed with the aisles and shelves and didn’t quite know where to go. Ironically, the store itself had become their protection from the little critters.

Fresh walks outside, past the counter to where Basil and Jubilee are busy at work. It looks like a big day today. Seeing Jubilee pointing towards the storage room as a customer stands there with a bathing suit, she makes a mental note to do the dressing-room today too, if she has the time.

“Crab-proofing…” mutters Fresh to herself, stepping past a man with a shopping cart as she heads out of the door and leans against the outside wall, looking around the beach. The patio is completely full, even if they only opened an hour ago. Apparently, word has been spreading about their spot and it has, over the course of a few days, already become a very popular hangout for sweaty, sun-burnt adventurers. Jubilee has been buying crab-meat by the buckets for next to nothing and Fresh has been turning that into dried chips, provisions and salted crackers which have been selling strongly and at a high profit margin.

So, anyways… what to do to keep crabs at bay?

She turns her head, watching as a relaxing adventure shoots an arrow at an approaching crab from their patio, without bothering to get up. The arrow seems to be some form of enchanted projectile and the poor crab essentially evaporates the moment that it’s hit.

Maybe she could recruit the fairies? They’re killing crabs all day and night anyways, so why not have them kill the ones here for them? She crosses her arms. Nah. Jubilee wouldn’t approve of her spending money to hire them and besides, as protective as she is of the little creatures, despite everything, she realizes that they need to stand on their own two feet, like Shamrock had taught her.

The new lantern has a repelling effect, doesn’t it? So maybe something like that?

She thinks for a moment longer, looking around. She isn’t ‘allowed’ to make lanterns though. So… what can she make that will chase the crabs away? Fresh crosses her arms, staring out over the ocean as she thinks.

She gasps, realizing and runs back inside, scooting past the customers as she returns to her workshop. Of course!

Though…

She stops, closing the workshop door quietly behind herself. She needs to find a way to make it less conspicuous. They had a lot of foot-traffic, so she can’t just put something outside that could be too closely examined by some magical-artisan, who happened to be passing by. Fresh thinks for a moment, letting her eyes wander around the workshop, up towards the broken segment of roof.

Fresh gets her idea, hurrying over to her workbench. Grabbing a large iron-bar, she flattens it out with an ability.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Metalworking{Flatten}]

Then, from that flattened sheet of metal, she cuts off a single strip, lengthwise that has a width of about four of her fingers together.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Metalworking{Cut}]

That freshly cut off piece of metal, she rolls into a long, hollow tube.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Metalworking{Bend(Roll)}]

Setting that metal tube to the side, she grabs the remaining sheet of metal and holds her hands above it, setting to work as she extracts various odd shapes from the thing, working her way around the metal square until she reaches the end-result she was hoping for. She isn’t much of an artist, but using her abilities to do this kind of stuff certainly helps a lot.

Fresh beams, picking up the sheet-metal cutout of a chicken. “Bakaw!” she says.

After that, it’s a simple matter of attaching the chicken to the rod with a spinning mechanism that allows it to turn freely when force is applied to it from any direction. Using what’s left over of her scrap metal, she makes a cross-section and mounts it beneath the chicken.

[Weathervane](Excellent)

A weathervane. Often mounted on rooftops, it is used to determine in which direction the wind is blowing.

Quality Effect: The metal of the weathervane is resistant to rusting Weight: 0.78kg Value: ???

There. Now it just needs a little pep. This is going to be a little tricky, since she needs to bestow a few different things at the same time for the system to ‘understand’ her intentions for the item. She grabs her moonwater and a fistful of crab-shell dust, sprinkling both of them together over the weathervane. Pursing her lips, she then blows onto it at the same time, while channeling some of her magic towards it.

The metal construct glows brightly with a purple aura that then quickly fades after a few seconds.

[Weathervane]{Holy}{Wind}(Excellent)

A weathervane. Often mounted on rooftops, it is used to determine in which direction the wind is blowing. This weathervane is enchanted with a dual enchantment and is full of radiant magical energies. Effect: Repels all [Crustacean]-type monsters within line of sight, up to a maximum distance of 24m

Quality Effect:

-) The metal of the weathervane is resistant to rusting

-) Attracts [Wind]-type monsters

Weight: 0.78kg Value: ???

Fresh blinks. That last effect doesn’t sound so great… Looking around her workshop, she shrugs. Oh well. It’s not like there are any monsters like that around here to attract, right? It’s probably fine.

Nodding, more than satisfied with her work, Fresh heads out onto the balcony, dragging the table over to awkwardly climb up onto the roof. With a little elbow-grease, some bolts and an extra brick, she manages to secure the weathervane into place.

Looking down at the beach below from her high perch, she watches as the approaching crabs all seem to change their minds mid-scuttle. They begin making their way back down in the other directions, some retreating away into the water.

She sticks her tongue out at one particularly large crab that makes a hasty retreat and she can’t help but notice that it is snipping its pincers angrily back up towards her.