“Alright, everyone ready?” Shaid announced, “Go, go, go!”

At his mark, everyone involved in building the greenhouse in which we would cultivate the wheat had pushed forth all their strength to raise the final block up using a pulley system Olya had thought up. With this, our oddly shaped greenhouse, which was looking a lot more yellow thanks to the material of the blocks that were being used, was complete!

“Alright, great job everyone! Phew…” He wiped the sweat from his brow, “You too, Olya. We couldn’t have done it without your schematics.”

“Oh please.” He went to grab some rum as a refreshment, “A basic pulley system is the obvious way to go when raising these huge blocks one over the other like this. Although I must admit, opting to go for a pyramid made out of squares is one helluvan’ idea.”

“Right?” Shaid turned to me, “I would have gone for a square shape, personally, but then this guy suddenly got a bright idea, so I just had to hear him out.”

“Yeah, yeah, it was a lot more grueling work to do it this way, but hear me out!” I elaborated on my grand design, “Making it like this allows for a ton of good insulation from the outside elements, but thanks to the multiple trap doors at the very top, we can easily open them up and provide adequate sunlight to the plants. In theory, it’s the perfect desert greenhouse.”

“In theory.” Olya remarked, “But I still think we should have tested it out on a smaller scale just in case. I mean, if it turns out that this design won’t be good enough for the wheat to grow inside, then we would have spent all this time and energy for nothing.”

“I wouldn’t say that now.” Tanathos offered all of us some more rum, “Because even if the structure isn’t good enough for plants, it’s still an amazing place for people to reside in. Remember, there is no such creation that was for naught.”

I see now why he has a Blue Iro, at least. The guy’s seriously peculiar, or at least interesting in a way. He’s got an interest for creation, often explains things using odd analogies, he really doesn’t care that his daughter still refuses to put some clothes on, despite everyone in the quik slowly starting to adapt to the idea of wearing robes, and to top it all off, he regularly goes out into the World to continue his job as a merchant on top of all this. Tanathos is an incredible man, I’d say.

“Well, that’s certainly an optimistic way to view things, old man.” Shaid chuckled as he took another swig of his rum, “Really, I think my theory is correct.”

“That theory being?” Olya inquired.

“This rum the old man lives off of makes the head go fuzzy.” He joked, “Everyone’s an optimist these days!”

Loudly bursting into a hysterical laughter together, the two dolts proudly mock Tanathos, who in turn offers them a pretty harsh ultimatum.

“Alright then, boys.” He cracked his knuckles with a wry smile, “Since you’re both so lively, please tell me which one of you will be accompanying me on tomorrow’s business trip to Cardina?”

“Eh?” They turned to yell the same words at each other in unison, “You go! What? Not me, you! Oh come on, I went last time!”

The joke here, is that both of them are stating the truth. Really, the last time Tanathos went on a business trip to Eastern Entropa, aka that fuckville with all sorts of mini countries in it, those two were so eager to go with that they ended up both going. Of course, this meant that I had to stay back and look after the quik just in case something went wrong, which made me kind of bummed in the moment. Of course, by the time they came back, just one good look at their tired, dead inside faces proved to me just how tough the job of a traveling merchant was.

They kept spouting stuff like “It was horrible!” and “So much counting! We were up for days!” which was honestly pretty funny to hear. But hey, at least now I know that quiksitting is a way better job for your psyche than going around the World selling crappy wares for barely any profit.

“Alright then. Schnell, will you be accompanying me?” Tanathos offered.

“No thanks, I’m happy staying here.” I waved my hand to signify I have no intentions on following him, “Someone needs to help the quikkas here learn how to cultivate the wheat.”

“Yeah, about that…” Olya suddenly raised a point, “So we got the shelter made, and sunlight a plenty, but there’s one other component we’re missing that’s crucial for any plant to grow.”

“Ah shit.” Shaid facepalmed as he realized, “What the fuck are we gonna do now, amigo? We’re gonna need a ton of water for this.”

***

“Alright, let’s think about this properly.” I started spitballing ideas, “It’s about a half a day of traveling by camel to the ocean shore.”

“I’m gonna stop you right there, amigo.” Shaid interjected, “Again, seawater is not good for any life to prosper. It will suck out the nutrients, leading to bad quality bread.”

“Who cares about quality, dipass? We’re looking for saturation!”

“Well I’m sorry, moron.” He shot back a sarcastic retort, “But I consider saturation to be a part of quality. So to answer your question, yes, seawater will lower saturation as well.”

“Alright, alright, no need to get heated over this.” Olya stepped in between us as he suggested another idea, “Let’s just do the same thing we did for the soil and wheat seeds and buy and import water from Entropa.”

“Who’s gonna pay for the customs then, poindexter?” Shaid shot down that idea as well, “Let me just clue you in on the situation – if we went with this solution, we’d need Schnell and I to go there to make the money and you to help us get away with it whilst not getting scammed in the process. On the other hand, we’d need the Old Man to accompany us so that the ship travels smoothly enough not to spill any of the water.”

“Right, then no one would be able to stay back and watch over the quik…” Tanathos struck a thinking pose.

“Exactly.” Shaid pointed his finger at him, “So then what? What would be a good idea to solve this puzzle?”

Standing around in a circle as we desperately wracked our brains to get to the correct solution, one couldn’t help but wonder how stupid we looked right about now. A bunch of grown ass men standing around in a circle in the middle of a desert, rum in hand and thinking of ways to get water so they could water the wheat in their pyramid structure. It’s such a bizarre situation we’ve found ourselves in, and I for one couldn’t be happier. This is all so much more interesting than going around asking my father put the hammer. Wait… That’s it!

“I got it!” I pointed my finger high up into the sky, “The Provincians! If I recall correctly, on the way to their quik, Tanathos marked down an oasis just a couple kilometers away from us!”

“Ah, that. Why yes, I believe that could work.” Tanathos figured, “I for one like the water there. It’s got a certain sweetness to it that I can’t help but find delectable. I second this idea.”

“Yeah, good going, Schnell!” Olya praised me as well.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait!” Shaid tried shutting yet another idea down, “An oasis isn’t an infinite water source though! We’ll run out eventually, and when that happens…!”

“Try shutting down another one of our ideas without providing one yourself and I’ll drown you in the nearest puddle of water I can find.” I threatened.

Gulping from the knowledge that I could easily do what I had warned him of, Shaid clicked his tongue before begrudgingly accepting the idea, thus leading to a final consensus on the matter – Everyone agrees that the best course of action now would be to go to the oasis! We had until tomorrow to acquire the water, because once Tanathos and these two go to Cardina tomorrow, I won’t be able to collect all the water the oasis has to offer myself.

“Hey Lina, how you doin’, girl?” I patted our quik’s steed on the head as I got on, “Yeah, your hooves are doin’ just fine now that you’re back home, eh?”

“Please don’t talk to the camel, Schnell…” Olya was weirded out, “It’s kind of creepy.”

“Hmph.” I got close to Lina’s ear and whispered, “If you ever get hungry, girl, go for this fatty over here. He’s got some good meat on his bones, and thankfully that makes him inept enough at running so that even you can catch him.”

Soon as I said that, we departed Havana and started moving towards the oasis Tanathos had spoken about in his map. From what he says, it should be about an hour or two of walking which all in all doesn’t seem too bad. It’s just a bit more than what it would take to get to quik Provincia, given that we’re kind of straying off to the side of the path one would take to get there.

Moving along, we had eventually made it to the oasis in question, but it appears something was going on there already. There were some familiar faces among those that had appeared before us, one of which being Provincia’s leader. Greeting him kindly, we thought it appropriate to talk a bit and catch up.

“Hello. Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” I greeted him in Entropic.

“Hello.” He parroted the greeting, making sure to keep his sentences short, “¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?”

“We need water.” I replied, “I hope we’re not intruding.”

“…?” He tilted his head at me, “Lo siento, no hablo Entrópico.”

“Amigo, stop fucking with him and talk properly.” Shaid hit me on the back of the head, “Let’s see… Lo siento… por mi amigo?”

“¡No hay problema!” He laughed audibly, “Adelante entonces, indique el propósito de su visita.”

“Necesitamos agua.” Tanathos interjected, “¿Te parece bien si tomamos un poco de aquí? La necesitamos para que el trigo crezca.”

Inquirin’ about the water, Tanathos couldn’t help but feel a wave of anxiety wash over him. This was most apparent in his speech, as he was talking a mile a minute here. On the other hand, it is only to be expected, seein’ as he’s talkin’ to his former enemy. Then again, the leader didn’t at all feel threatened by our company, so he gladly let us take a few containers of water back with us.

“¿Cuantos necesitas?” He asked.

“Mucho.” I shook my head, “Pero compartiremos contigo nuestro trigo si nos das acceso al agua.”

“Bueno, entonces es un trato.”

Again, calmly and diplomatically, we had solved yet another one of our key issues without any problems. Now that we have everything set up, all I need to do is watch over the Havana quikkas and teach them how to do some basic gardening, after that we’ll have all the food we’ll ever need without having to rely on Tanathos going out every couple of days. It’s mission accomplished!