The sun didn't rise but rolled over in defeat over Grimsby and threw a grey blanket over the sky.
A good sign, I thought.
No screaming. No feathers. No villagers sobbing while being chased by poultry wielding gardening tools.
Just a mildly depressed sky and the faint scent of yesterday's soup.
"Today," I declared, "we build a toilet."
There was a long pause.
Bento, beneath the table in full soup-pot-helmet regalia, cracked open one suspicious eye. He didn't bark. He didn't wag. He just stared at me like I was threatening civilization.
Timothy raised an eyebrow from where he was darning socks with thread he claimed was made from repurposed mop fibers.
"A singular toilet, milord?"
"A multi-stall latrine. A bastion of hygiene. A temple of the porcelain gods."
"A bathhouse?"
"Don't say it like that," I muttered, adjusting the blueprint I'd drawn on the back of a very official napkin. "It makes it sound less ambitious."
Timothy cleared his throat and said nothing. But he said it loudly.
The System, which had the emotional timing of a door-to-door tax collector, chimed with its usual smugness.
[DING]You have accepted Mini-Project: The Porcelain
: Construct a functioning communal bathhouse before morale hits negative potatoes.
Materials Required:
– Wood (plentiful but probably cursed)
– Nails (rusty, tetanus guaranteed)
– Soap stones (optional but socially critical)
– Dignity (ha ha)
Project Status: UNSTARTED
Villager Trust Level: One Eyebrow Raised
Estimated Project Mortality Rate: 17% (mostly squirrels)
"Excellent," I whispered into my cold tea. "We're already winning."
We called a town meeting.
Technically, I called it by banging a spoon on a soup pot while Bento howled into the well, but it worked. People gathered in the town square, clustered around the slightly tilted statue of me holding a frying pan mid-swing.
Someone had drawn a top hat and monocle on it. Honestly, an improvement.
I stepped onto the podium—a stack of three bricks and a moderately flat gnome—and cleared my throat.
"People of Grimsby," I began.
A chicken feather drifted by. I stared it down until it fled.
"We stand on the edge of a bold new era," I said, arms raised. "A time of cleanliness, privacy, and toilets that do not involve open-air shame or goats."
The crowd blinked.
"Behold," I continued, unrolling the napkin, "The Porcelain Future!"
Gasps.
Okay, it might have been someone choking on stale bread, but I chose to interpret it as awe.
"What is that?" someone asked, peering at the smeared sketch.
"It's a three-stall bathhouse with optional soap storage, a drainage trench, and—" I squinted, "—a small mural of a smiling bucket."
"Where's the money coming from?" asked Old Man Billow. "We haven't had a working economy since the Chicken Uprising."
"We'll barter," I said. "Potatoes, onions, dried soup cubes, emotionally manipulative poetry. Whatever it takes."
"And who's building it?" a woman near the back asked. "Our blacksmith tried to hammer nails with his feelings last week."
Timothy stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back like a war minister announcing plans for a final stand. "We will build it with our own hands."
"Our what?"
The villagers recoiled like I'd suggested they kiss a goat.
"Manual labor?" someone hissed. "Is that even legal?"
The System, traitorous as ever, chose that moment to offer moral support.
[DING]
Tip: Motivation can be increased with hot soup, local legends, or threats of exile.
***
Back at the manor, I set up a construction board in the kitchen. It consisted of a plank of wood balanced on two turnips, a list of urgent needs, and Bento sleeping on top of it.
TO DO:
-Acquire wood (preferably not haunted)
-Find nails
-Convince villagers that plumbing is not black magic
-Secure soap (Timothy claims he knows a "soap witch")
-Prevent Gregory the Squirrel from sabotaging
Timothy handed me a cup of weak mushroom wine and sat beside me.
"You do realize," he said, sipping, "you've declared a plumbing revolution in a village that thinks water buckets are a government conspiracy."
"I do."
"And the bathhouse blueprints were drawn on a napkin stolen from a traveling mime."
"They were laminated," I replied. "That's preparation."
He nodded, solemn.
"Then I suppose we're doing this."
The wind blew gently outside. The manor groaned. A distant cluck echoed from a nightmare far away.
But for the first time in a long while, I felt something close to… forward motion.
Maybe not progress.
But movement.
I stared at the blueprint.
The toilet throne would stand on the east wall, framed by local flowers and soapstone lions. There would be shelves for towels. Hooks for robes. A mural that simply read:
"You Are Safe To Poop Here."
Grimsby deserved at least that much.
The System chimed again.
[Quote of the Day:]
Civilization begins where squatting ends.