Sigrdrífa sighed as she settled into the tub of steaming hot water, the quiet of the bathing room providing a brief haven of tranquility in her sometimes
chaotic household. Piping in the hot spring water had been expensive, but it wasn't a luxury to the paladin's way of thinking, but rather medical
expense to help soothe her bruises and scrapes and provide mental peace and relaxation after battle!
The herbs scenting the bath oils in the water rose around her, helping her relax, and the steaming water seemed to penetrate and unknot each muscle. The paladin laid her head back on the folded towel at the tub's edge, her arms spread along the rim, and started to doze.
Gullveig was terribly excited. She had a million questions! Who was the small one they had brought home? What was wrong with her? Why hot water... HOT WATER! Gullveig rushed back to the kitchen just in time to rescue the kettle from boiling dry, and muttered as she refilled it and set it back on the back of the stove. "I just know there's a way to create a spring driven heater that would let me serve boiling water out of a specially-insulated geothermitron tap!"
Eyeing the plumbing line that came in from the ceiling and served the kitchen sink and the bathing room next door, the gnome looked around carefully -- nope, no one else in the area! Floozwhizzlers and thermoresistors! Happily she eased her inventor's toolkit out from under the kitchen counter, and set to work laying out scraps of sheet metal and ceramic knobs, and cogs and bits of wire...
The gnome girl was giddy with the possibilities... why, she would be famous, FAMOUS! The ceramic would insulate the spigot, and the magnets and cog-driven gears would operate the small heater, and that would run by cross wiring into a droag gazing-orb to provide energy to the spiral of wire wrapping the pipe UNDER the ceramic insulation, which would heat the water to boiling just before it came out of the tap! Now all she had to do was to open the waterline and test it!
Gullveig ran her eye over the apparatus... the copper piping led in water from the hot artesian well, already quite warm, then entered into a housing where copper wire spiraled around and around, carrying power from the gazing orb. The gnomish girl had discarded the idea of a thermostat, planning to control the heating by an inlet valve responding to the elevation of the liquid-vapor interface in the housing. But it probably should be a little better insulated!
The gnome quickly figured a way to use ceramic floozgizzlers in her kit to fit around the heating elements. She used a strong cement the alchemists had invented, the solvent fumes filling the kitchen quickly and making her head spin a little. She set the jar of adhesive aside, not putting the cap on yet, then noted a droplet or two of water leaking around the join on the pipes.
"Drat that!" she exclaimed, and rummaged under the counter until she came up with a hunk of brewer's pitch she'd bought to re-pitch the beer kegs. Melt a little of that onto the joins and they'd hold fine!
Finally all was in readiness! "TA DA!" she shouted, as she reached to turn the water on to the line.... After a few seconds, she unsquinted her eyes and looked. "IT WORKS! I AM GENIUS!" she carolled in glee, dancing around the kitchen.
Now, after all that inventive energy, a gnome deserved a nice hot cup of tea and a rest in her thinking chair! Gullveig pulled down a nice mug, and went to her new tap and dispensed bubbling hot water into the cup, setting in a teabag to steep.
She retreated to her chair and began mentally composing her speech for the Tinmizer Memorial Inventor's Convention - for naturally they'd invite her to discuss such a significant innovation! She was also calculating how to begin some wholesale assembly process once she announced her new work... and she'd be rich! Richer than anyone, even Mephita!
Unnoticed, the tap had not shut off on the heating as planned, and the copper wires glowed ever redder. As the temperature climbed to more than ten times the heat of boiling water, the wire started to melt and a section snapped through, and the whole coiled spring of red-hot copper coil began unspooling, the end striking the cast iron stove. The copper pipes had begun to soften and sag as well. And as the wire hit the stove, energy from the droag orb arced like lightning, igniting the solvent fumes rising from the alchemist's cement and setting the pitch ablaze!
KER-WHUMPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!
The explosion of the fumes blasted Gullveig and her thinking chair backwards. The boiling water tap cracked off and hot water started spraying the kitchen floor, while flames from the burning pitch climbed up the wall, sparking a second explosion from the open jar of adhesive, and catching the bulletin board and cookbooks on fire.
At the same time, the water line that had softened bent, and the pressure of the water down that line began to build, causing the plumbing into the bathing chamber to knock and thrum. Within seconds the pressure of the water caused a gigantic geyser to erupt from the tub and toilet simultaneously, and Sigrdrífa woke nearly drowning.
Freydísa heard the explosion, and heard the little cook screaming. She must be injured! Dísa sprinted down the stairs, her hands already coruscating with the green light of healing power. As she rounded the corner, the fire lit the space in garish colors, water sloshed around her ankles, and Gullveig, her face streaked with black and her hair singed around the edges of her hood, eyebrows nearly completely gone, was hopping up and down and screaming wildly.
"Where are you hurt, stand still!" the healer asked urgently.
"I AM GENIUS! DID YOU SEE THAT?!!! It's the perfect ignition mechanism for a Dreadnever type flying machine! No dragon gasbags! LOOOOK!!!!" Gullveig danced and spun, giddy in excitement, completely unharmed but for a little singed hair.
The bathing room door crashed open and a flood of water poured out. Hulda, who had scrambled to the top of the work bench when the chaos began, gaped in amazement at the naked and scalded Halasian woman washed out of the room in the flood, spitting and cursing vilely in her native tongue. "IS NOTHING SACRED??!!!!" she roared ...
Sigrdrífa splashed over towards the kitchen and seized up a floating bucket, dumped the last of the potatoes out of it, and used it to scoop up water from the flood and hurled a bucketful into the flames. With her size and strength, the flames climbing the wall were quickly extinguished.
Then she turned a baleful eye upon her cook. She started to open her mouth to say something, but all that came out was an inarticulate snarl.
Gullveig backed a few steps, colliding with Freydísa. "Cogmizzenators and terawatt lasers, I am in for it!" the gnome realized with an awful sinking feeling.
Drífa tried again. Her face was going red, her fists clenched, and with visible effort she ground out, "GOING... FOR ... CLOTHES..." Then she stomped away heading upstairs with what shreds of dignity she could muster. She knew she was too angry to deal justly with the situation.
Hulda kilted her robes up into her belt and hopped down from the bench to survey the damage. "Well, we'd best start getting this mess cleaned up." The other women nodded and set about rescuing items from the water and setting them atop counters and benches.
The herbs scenting the bath oils in the water rose around her, helping her relax, and the steaming water seemed to penetrate and unknot each muscle. The paladin laid her head back on the folded towel at the tub's edge, her arms spread along the rim, and started to doze.
Gullveig was terribly excited. She had a million questions! Who was the small one they had brought home? What was wrong with her? Why hot water... HOT WATER! Gullveig rushed back to the kitchen just in time to rescue the kettle from boiling dry, and muttered as she refilled it and set it back on the back of the stove. "I just know there's a way to create a spring driven heater that would let me serve boiling water out of a specially-insulated geothermitron tap!"
Eyeing the plumbing line that came in from the ceiling and served the kitchen sink and the bathing room next door, the gnome looked around carefully -- nope, no one else in the area! Floozwhizzlers and thermoresistors! Happily she eased her inventor's toolkit out from under the kitchen counter, and set to work laying out scraps of sheet metal and ceramic knobs, and cogs and bits of wire...
The gnome girl was giddy with the possibilities... why, she would be famous, FAMOUS! The ceramic would insulate the spigot, and the magnets and cog-driven gears would operate the small heater, and that would run by cross wiring into a droag gazing-orb to provide energy to the spiral of wire wrapping the pipe UNDER the ceramic insulation, which would heat the water to boiling just before it came out of the tap! Now all she had to do was to open the waterline and test it!
Gullveig ran her eye over the apparatus... the copper piping led in water from the hot artesian well, already quite warm, then entered into a housing where copper wire spiraled around and around, carrying power from the gazing orb. The gnomish girl had discarded the idea of a thermostat, planning to control the heating by an inlet valve responding to the elevation of the liquid-vapor interface in the housing. But it probably should be a little better insulated!
The gnome quickly figured a way to use ceramic floozgizzlers in her kit to fit around the heating elements. She used a strong cement the alchemists had invented, the solvent fumes filling the kitchen quickly and making her head spin a little. She set the jar of adhesive aside, not putting the cap on yet, then noted a droplet or two of water leaking around the join on the pipes.
"Drat that!" she exclaimed, and rummaged under the counter until she came up with a hunk of brewer's pitch she'd bought to re-pitch the beer kegs. Melt a little of that onto the joins and they'd hold fine!
Finally all was in readiness! "TA DA!" she shouted, as she reached to turn the water on to the line.... After a few seconds, she unsquinted her eyes and looked. "IT WORKS! I AM GENIUS!" she carolled in glee, dancing around the kitchen.
Now, after all that inventive energy, a gnome deserved a nice hot cup of tea and a rest in her thinking chair! Gullveig pulled down a nice mug, and went to her new tap and dispensed bubbling hot water into the cup, setting in a teabag to steep.
She retreated to her chair and began mentally composing her speech for the Tinmizer Memorial Inventor's Convention - for naturally they'd invite her to discuss such a significant innovation! She was also calculating how to begin some wholesale assembly process once she announced her new work... and she'd be rich! Richer than anyone, even Mephita!
Unnoticed, the tap had not shut off on the heating as planned, and the copper wires glowed ever redder. As the temperature climbed to more than ten times the heat of boiling water, the wire started to melt and a section snapped through, and the whole coiled spring of red-hot copper coil began unspooling, the end striking the cast iron stove. The copper pipes had begun to soften and sag as well. And as the wire hit the stove, energy from the droag orb arced like lightning, igniting the solvent fumes rising from the alchemist's cement and setting the pitch ablaze!
KER-WHUMPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!
The explosion of the fumes blasted Gullveig and her thinking chair backwards. The boiling water tap cracked off and hot water started spraying the kitchen floor, while flames from the burning pitch climbed up the wall, sparking a second explosion from the open jar of adhesive, and catching the bulletin board and cookbooks on fire.
At the same time, the water line that had softened bent, and the pressure of the water down that line began to build, causing the plumbing into the bathing chamber to knock and thrum. Within seconds the pressure of the water caused a gigantic geyser to erupt from the tub and toilet simultaneously, and Sigrdrífa woke nearly drowning.
Freydísa heard the explosion, and heard the little cook screaming. She must be injured! Dísa sprinted down the stairs, her hands already coruscating with the green light of healing power. As she rounded the corner, the fire lit the space in garish colors, water sloshed around her ankles, and Gullveig, her face streaked with black and her hair singed around the edges of her hood, eyebrows nearly completely gone, was hopping up and down and screaming wildly.
"Where are you hurt, stand still!" the healer asked urgently.
"I AM GENIUS! DID YOU SEE THAT?!!! It's the perfect ignition mechanism for a Dreadnever type flying machine! No dragon gasbags! LOOOOK!!!!" Gullveig danced and spun, giddy in excitement, completely unharmed but for a little singed hair.
The bathing room door crashed open and a flood of water poured out. Hulda, who had scrambled to the top of the work bench when the chaos began, gaped in amazement at the naked and scalded Halasian woman washed out of the room in the flood, spitting and cursing vilely in her native tongue. "IS NOTHING SACRED??!!!!" she roared ...
Sigrdrífa splashed over towards the kitchen and seized up a floating bucket, dumped the last of the potatoes out of it, and used it to scoop up water from the flood and hurled a bucketful into the flames. With her size and strength, the flames climbing the wall were quickly extinguished.
Then she turned a baleful eye upon her cook. She started to open her mouth to say something, but all that came out was an inarticulate snarl.
Gullveig backed a few steps, colliding with Freydísa. "Cogmizzenators and terawatt lasers, I am in for it!" the gnome realized with an awful sinking feeling.
Drífa tried again. Her face was going red, her fists clenched, and with visible effort she ground out, "GOING... FOR ... CLOTHES..." Then she stomped away heading upstairs with what shreds of dignity she could muster. She knew she was too angry to deal justly with the situation.
Hulda kilted her robes up into her belt and hopped down from the bench to survey the damage. "Well, we'd best start getting this mess cleaned up." The other women nodded and set about rescuing items from the water and setting them atop counters and benches.
