Demon World Boba Shop: A Cozy Fantasy Novel

“That’s great, Lily,” Arthur finally said when Lily finished her big list of updates. “So what’s today?”

“Today is metal. Nothing else that’s big can move on without it. Milo’s making a bunch of molds that Hune says she can pour metal directly into. And she’s making all the iron she can besides that.”

“Already? How?”

“Rhodia made her a bunch of chimney oven things and Karra carried them out to the mine. We have plenty of charcoal that’s just going to go to waste if the monsters trample it, so that wasn’t a problem. And the miners made her a big, big pile of ore. Rhodia asked her how many ovens she needed, and she said she could use as many as Rhodia could make, so I think there’s going to be a lot of iron by the end of the day,” Lily said. The words just kept tumbling out of her like they were fish caught on Skal’s line.

Arthur thanked the gods and the System that they had seen fit to guide Hune to Coldbrook. He very much doubted either the gods or the system worked like that, but on the off chance they did, they deserved the praise.

“So what’s Karra doing, then?” Arthur asked.

“She’s helping Puka with traps and loading ore into the furnaces when they need it.”

“Those two jobs aren’t that close to each other.”

“They aren’t, but since she’s carrying stuff back and forth every time she does it, she’s getting her speed bonus.” Lily puffed up even bigger, to the point where Arthur was afraid she’d go red from the strain. “We are moving so fast now, Arthur. You have to come look.”

He couldn’t come look right away, given that the morning rush was still on. After giving out as much tactically important tea as he could, Arthur finished up by making as much normal, highly caffeinated tea as anybody wanted, cleaned up the shop, and went to look at all the much talked about improvements to the city.

When Arthur had come back into town last night, he had been just awake enough to notice that the walls had changed, but it had been too dark and too late for him to take a closer look. Now he saw that the footings and first several layers of four subsidiary walls had been added, complete with the spear-holes Lily had described.

As Arthur walked through the walls, he watched Karra’s work crews actively building up their heights at a speed so fast he thought they’d probably be done with them in the next few days.

Outside the wall, things were crazier. Puka was suspended from a rope at the highest level of the wall, drilling holes with one of Milo’s crazier apparatus and mounting big, thick metal hooks to them by slipping them entirely through the wall and yelling at some unseen worker on the other side to secure them down.

“Is that safe?” Arthur yelled. “You aren’t going to fall?”

“I should be fine!” Puka waved a giant steel hook at Arthur, grinning like a madman. “The ropes are local-made. The best we can do right now. But they won’t break.”

“How many of those are you putting up?”

Puka was nearing the end of a row of hooks near the top, but he still had tons of the things weighing down his pack.

“Several rows! You’ll see later. I have to focus on this, now!”

Arthur had apparently missed a lot in his time away. Off the main road but starting to branch into it were rapidly growing trenches and pits, none of which were loaded with nasty things yet but all of which he imagined would be in short order. Some of them were sloped in odd ways he didn’t quite understand, or shapes he couldn’t comprehend the purpose of. He figured someone would explain it to him eventually.

“Furnace eight, Karra! A layer of charcoal, then a layer of the crushed ore. Jakk, keep at it. You are doing great. It melts much faster when it’s powder like that,” Hune shouted.

Hune was hard at work running her foundries, but starting to look ragged. It was probably that pushing a dozen iron-melters at once took quite a bit out of her, majicka-wise. Arthur walked up, tapped her on the shoulder, and deposited a drink in her hand.

“Here. It won’t help much, but it will help some,” Arthur said.

“With what?” Hune asked, less out of suspicion and more out of just exhaustion.

“Majicka regeneration. Just drink it.”

Hune ripped the top off the cup and guzzled the beverage, chewing the ice and dumping the boba into her mouth over the lip. Once it was down, she sat straight on the ground and held her head.

“Thanks for that, Arthur. It really is helping. Not nearly enough, but some,” Hune said.

“Can you slow down?” Arthur said.

“I can. I’ll have to in a few minutes. But having the help to really work this many furnaces is addictive. I got an achievement and a level just this morning. Apparently, the system supports your defense efforts.”

“Running a small city’s worth of foundry equipment solo probably helps.”

Hune grinned painfully, then held her head again. “Yeah, probably.”

Arthur glanced at Lily, who pointed at Hune questioningly.

“Yeah, go ahead. No more today, though.”

“What?” Hune gripped her head tighter as Lily sat down, focused on her, and invisibly infused the smelter with most of her own majicka stores. “Wait, what just happened? I feel a ton better. There’s no way this tea is that good.”

“Lily. She dumped her majicka stores into you,” Arthur explained.

Hune’s eyes went wide. “You have a freaking majicka torch here? I thought she was an assistant.”

“A little of both.” Lily held her own head now. “You have big majicka stores, I can tell. Mine won’t help for long. Try to ration it.”

“I’ll do my best. No promises though. I probably have a few hours before I have to drop down to just one foundry.”

“That should just about do it for the big stuff.” Milo was over watching a big sand mold fill with iron, slowly accumulating a large metal plate. “I’m glad we don’t really have to refine for these.”

“No kidding. Any refinery work will be tomorrow. I just don’t have the energy for it today.”

“This is plenty.” Milo dipped a long metal rod into the iron, to which a bunch of random black stuff floating on the top of it seemed to stick. Banging it off on a big rock, he nodded with satisfaction. “Of course, tomorrow we need to make the big block we talked about. I’ll have to figure out how to elevate one of these for that.”

“Can’t you…” Arthur tried to imagine pouring a big block, and there seemed to be an obvious answer on how to do it. “Can’t you just dig out a square hole in the soil, and pour it into there?”

Milo, Hune, and even Lily gave him fishy looks all at once.

“Are you trying to get us killed on purpose, or do you really not know how water works?” Hune asked.

“I guess I really don’t know. That would be bad, I take it?” Arthur asked.

“Real bad.” Milo pointed at the ground. “There’s lots of snow and rain trapped in that soil. It’s wet. If you pour molten iron on something wet, it turns all the water to steam. Fast.”

“It makes a leak?”

“It makes an explosion.” Lily flung her hands apart, pantomiming a huge disaster of some kind. “Melted iron everywhere, burning holes in things. There’s no amount of vitality that can heal that damage fast enough. If you can’t keep it off you, it’s bad.”

“Oh. Don’t do that, then, I guess.” Arthur looked at Lily. “How do you know that? I get the other two, but how do you know?”

“Because I read, Arthur. My class rewards knowledge, remember? I’ve read all of Milo’s smithing books.”

“And you’ll read some smelting books too. I have some. Mostly technical handbooks, but there’s good information in there.” Hune shook her head. “A majicka lantern assistant. It really is quite the town.”

Besides slinging drinks, there really wasn’t much Arthur could do to help. There wasn’t even that much he could learn, besides watching to see what people seemed to be doing. Everyone in town with anything resembling a crafting or labor class was in full swing, their potential unlocked by the arrival of nearly unlimited sources of metal and permission from the town to work on whatever crazy ideas they might have.

Arthur sat and watched for a bit, letting his majicka trickle back up to full before he made the long walk back to his shop to continue doing the stuff he could to help everyone out. As he watched, he suddenly felt a presence appear off his right shoulder. He knew who it was immediately.

“Corbin, you know I don’t mind, but you have to stop doing that. It startles people,” Arthur said without turning.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just in a hurry.” There was worry and stress in Corbin’s voice as he talked. To the extent Arthur knew, he was coming back from a five-day jaunt through the woods, ranging out farther than he had before. With Corbin’s speed, that meant a pretty big scouting loop. “I have news.”

Arthur looked up at Corbin’s face and found it filled with apprehension.

“You found it?”

“I found it.” Corbin nodded. “Not the biggest wave I’ve ever heard of, but not a small one either. We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

“It’s headed here for sure?”

“Yup. Unless something crazy happens, it will hit the coast and find its way here.”

“How far out is it?”

“Three days. Maybe four. The waves don’t move that fast. But it will be here, Arthur. No way around that.”

Arthur sighed. Knowing that the wave was really happening didn’t make his tension higher. Or lower, for that matter. But it did change something in him. There was a feeling of calm in the grimness of knowing that disaster was on its way.

“Okay, then. Come with me. Don’t tell anyone yet. I want to let them work until tonight without this hanging over their heads,” Arthur said. “I’ll get you some lunch and a drink. You’ve earned it.”

Corbin nodded, and re-stealthed as the two of them walked back into town. By the time they got to the plaza, he’d be a little less noticeable in the crowd. People would still see him and know there was news to be had, and they might wonder why it wasn’t being announced yet. But if Arthur could give them another productive day before they had to panic, he’d do it.

“What kind of composition did the wave have?” Arthur handed Corbin a nourishing, restful tea, something that would help him get fed back to normal levels after nearly a week on road rations. “I know some of them are worse than others.”

“Not the best. Not the worst. It’s like the system sent us the most average wave there is.” Corbin slurped some of the drink and took a bite of noodles and meat from his plate. “Some flyers, which isn’t good, but there’s not a lot of them. Lots of diggers, but the slow, weak kind.”

“And big terrifying things, I’m sure,” Arthur said.

“There always are. But that’s what the wall is for. And we have a good one.”

They did. It didn’t make Arthur feel much better.

“You look down, Arthur.” Onna walked up from outside the plaza. “You too, Corbin. Which is less normal. Monster wave, I take it?”

“Yup. Three or four days out.” Arthur sagged as he made Onna a cup of tea. “We’ll have some time to get ready, at least.”

“Lots of it. More than you think.” Onna reached over the counter and clapped Arthur on the shoulder. “I’ve seen how everyone is working. They’ll make the most of those minutes. We’ll be ready, Arthur. More ready than any town of our size has ever been.”

“You think we’ll make it?”

“I didn’t before. But now? Seeing everything everyone is doing? I think we have a fighting chance. We’ll have to get tricky, but we have tricky people. It’s possible. And if we don’t make it this time, we will next time. That’s a promise.”