Kress Chapter
The Competitors: Kress, Borgick, Midnight, Stan, Ellenell
The Assistants: Blue, Marigold, Carl, Gareth, Burgandy
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Kress carefully scraped off more sand from the giant sand mound with a miniature shovel that was slightly smaller than his hand. He'd gotten it from the creepy Thyme in the corner just be yelling, and he'd resolved to stay away from Thyme while they were choosing to look like that.
Working on the castle was both nerve wracking and calming. His first cut, with the large shovel he'd started with would've seen the main tower taking up around half of the sand pile, which really wasn't what he was going for. This wasn't meant to be a 'wizard tower with walls' even if the concept in and of itself wasn't a bad one. No, he wanted a proper castle with a number of different towers attached to a large main building and then work on the surroundings a bit.
The other thing he'd grabbed when asking for his tiny shovel was a large, but squat bucket top hold the excess sand he was scarping off. He didn't want this special blend of sand getting mixed up into the normal stuff around the castle. A little bit was fine, it would hopefully remain within the walls, but he was taking off large chunks at times and they needed to go in the bucket.
Kress found that it was best to draw rough, VERY ROUGH, outlines of what he was expecting to castle to look like. It was mostly just a collection of circles and a few squares that denoted where he imagined the various towers and rooms would be as he was working. They'd be useful later, even if it would be a bit annoying to keep copying them all out.
For now, Kress was focused on the central tower, and he'd just barely managed to perfect the roof. It was more or less a cone, with a slight overhang on the tower itself. There had been a few scary moments where he swore the whole roof was going to just slide down and collapse but in the end it all stayed in place. Kress found himself working on the windows now. Part of him wanted to make a fancy room inside the tower, but that was just wishful thinking. He was pretty good at working with sand, but nowhere near THAT good.
Timmy was back to work carving out that big ravine, but Kress knew the little guy would be finished with it soon, and was going to need to think up a new job for him. While Blue was spending her time working on the houses. Kress wasn't really paying attention, so he could only hope she was making good progress. She'd set up down near the water like Kress had for her attempts, and unless he was really trying, he couldn't see what she was doing.
*I'm not sure what I can get Timmy to do once the ravine is finished. Roads would be ideal… but I don't have the city planned out. Still… maybe I should ask Blue to get Timmy to work on them? No wait, that wouldn't work because we still have to walk over the area so they'll just be ruined. I should make sure to leave space between the houses so that once we're getting close to being down I can assign Timmy to that task.
But what can I get him doing right now? I don't trust him to work on the fine details of the castle. Thyme was really clear that the little guy wasn't any smart. Which I don't exactly believe, because Timmy has managed to find a lot of colourful sand seemingly from nowhere, and perfectly mix the ratios of sand in a bucket.
Which might not seem like much, and is technically a 'simple' order but I doubt your average idiot would get it even somewhat close. That's not even getting into the fact that it has the perfect water to sand ratio, SOMEHOW. Or that it was packed into the bucket just as perfectly. I've only had a few scares while carving away, and all of them feel like my own errors. Mostly due to shaking hands, but still, it's impressive.
Might be best to just let Blue work on the houses and get Timmy to copy them all over the place afterwards… or perhaps I should be getting Timmy to work on the walls? It might box me in a bit but the walls will need little bricks carved into them and that seems like something Timmy could do. If Blue or I start the pattern and make sure it isn't too deep Timmy could surely copy that without trouble.*
Kress finished up with the window, even going so far as to give it a nice window sill around the structure. Once the first was done, it was much easier for him to make four copies around the tower so all the sides match. *Hmm… I could have Timmy work on the bricks of the tower I'm working on? No I'd probably have to lift him up to do that and I can't take a break from the main structures right now. I need to finish before the sand dries out.*
With a nod Kress continued scraping away. He was starting two of the other towers just below the windows of the highest one. To him, that made sense, you wouldn't want to ruin the view from the very top of the tower, so ensuring that all the others were out of sight should be good. The next two towers were a bit easier because Kress knew what he wanted them to look like, essentially smaller versions of the main tower. The windows were going to be annoying to do in miniature though.
*Right so ideas for Timmy… could we get him to go looking for miniature looking trees? Maybe? But I suspect Timmy can just magic those up by standing outside of the circle. Still… if it would take a while maybe asking him to build up a stockpile would be a good idea? In fact yeah, I think that's a good place to start.*
Kress looked over to see what Timmy was doing right now… but didn't see him anywhere. Kress paused and looked properly, scouring for the little guy. No sand was moving in the trench, though it was finished. He wasn't out helping Blue… wait. *Is he just sitting in the trench now it's done? I but he IS because we didn't give him any orders about what to do next. Dammit ok let's just quickly.*
Kress put the little shovel into his pockets and carefully backed away from the sand he'd been carving, then around the bucket he didn't want to kick over before power walking over to Timmy. He didn't want to kick up any normal sand after all. If that got into the bucket or worse, on the sand castle he was carving? Kress would've been pissed. It did mean it took a bit longer then necessary to get to Timmy, but that was a fine trade off.
Kress had been correct in his guess. When he reached the edge of the ravine he saw Timmy just sitting there rolling forward and backward on the balls of his feet. "Right, Timmy, new order. Whenever you finish a previous order, or encounter a problem with a previous order, I want you to report to either Blue or I, whichever is closest," Timmy saluted in, hopefully, understanding.
Kress nodded and continued, "Good. Next order is I want you to step out of the square and set up an area with miniature copies of various trees. They only need to be basic shapes. Sticks with spheres on tops, ones that are cones of leaves with a bit of trunk at the bottom. Other simple designs are fine as well. I want you to do up one hundred of each you can think of, though no more than a thousand total. Do you understand?" Timmy gave Kress a salute and dashed off.
*Right… let's hope that's going to work out well.* Kress headed back over to the sandcastle foundation to return to work… and saw Timmy making rows of little trees right next to the piles of colourful sand. Kress nodded. *At least Timmy is setting up in a good area. Not sure if he'll have any good ideas for trees, but even if only the two I suggested turn out well, we can still use a few of the duds, and then ask for more of the ones Blue and I like.*
Kress breathed out a long sigh. After turning away from the sand castle of course. *Timmy is going to be finished with those trees pretty quickly by the glance I gave him. I give it ten minutes tops before I need to have another way for the little guy to spend time. Damn. I wish I could just assign Blue to thinking of ideas for Timmy or something. Let's hope that the housing bucket is done soon, then I can assign Timmy to that.*
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