"-No. Just for one to do some work. And preferably in a way where the halfling gets something out of it."

"Probably I could borrow Yin for free - but -" She shrugs, and then also points at the slide-entrance to the cave.

"It doesn't need to happen here either. They could make it elsewhere. I have a bit of wrapped wire left over, too short to be useful, that would show what I need... It was just a thought, though. Not critical."

Belmarniss holds out her hands for the sample.

Four inches of copper wire, wrapped in cloth and sewn shut.

"It's... Deeply suboptimal, but until I get enough chemistry gear to make rubber," She taps her boots, "Or tear these apart, fabric insulation will have to do."

Nod nod. Empocket.

"Want to do a bit of engineering now? Or've you got other things to do? Either way- I'm going to keep on a few minor projects here if you go."

"Fox's Cunning?"

"-Uh, that should be fine to deal with if I'm not in the middle of a fugue. And maybe even in one if I'm expecting it more. I don't really need it for this busywork either though. If anything, it'd help you with the math?"

Belmarniss nods and casts it on herself.

Time to try to explain basic steam engineering and the ideal gas law!

It's fun! Though she doesn't see how it's going to let her become a barbarian-alchemist herself at all!

She is trying to come up with practical uses to talk about, but a lot of this seems to assume one already has a lot of elaborate machines to make making more elaborate machines easier. Also, lots and lots and lots of steel and coal.

And eventually she has to go off and attend to other things, like the classes she's covering for Johysis.

Walta is honestly pretty used to spending most of her time alone, fussing with things in a workshop. The claustrophobia and wrongness doesn't go away, but it's not like everything was perfect and fine in City Frostbound either. But she's turned an empty cave into the start of a rough workshop, and now she has Shroomy. 

...She's weirdly attached to Shroomy, it being the one thing she's at least 99% sure she can trust. She suddenly wonders how her mom is doing, and if they'd- Ask her where she might go. Or if Ulef will give her trouble now that the Spark's presence isn't hanging over her in silent guard.

Hmm. Don't like that thought. Put it somewhere else, please.

Work, work, work 'till you've made the product, then get some fresh materials and work some more... Build the wall, build the tower, build the future, one brick at a time...

Belmarniss brings food every day, supplements the nightsoil they themselves produce while they're in the workshop-cave, and works on teaching her Drow and checks up on the strawberry.

The strawberry plant's progress looks less dramatic than the first day- Five inches high to seven to eight to nine, and it slowly spreads out. Walta actually asks for more chalk and coal well before then- Apparently it's running out of exhalation to convert into plantflesh.

On the fifth day, there is a small pot she made that keeps itself cool via evaporation, which contains thirteen fresh-grown strawberries, plump and juicy and red.

She strikes a pose and grins with the reveal. "SCIENCE! Or to be more accurate, the cheating that is the Spark. Used to grow food instead of blow things up!"

"Seeds?" Belmarniss asks. Or are there plenty left from the first plant?

"More electrical components and a permanent power source is the limiter to growing more plants, rather than seeds. There's plenty of seeds. I tried to get the Spark to- Work on making them better seeds or something- But it wasn't having it."

Belmarniss nods and gently gathers up all the strawberries into a bag. "I'll sell them."

"More tomorrow! Or maybe next day. Plants. You know what kind of stuff I find useful by now."

"What's most best right now?"

"That wrapped copper wire. I'm gonna suck it up and just - make an automatic sewing machine soon at this rate. Decent iron and lots of coal. Acid. Alcohol I can purify. Lye. Lead. Zinc. More sulfur if you can't get acid. Naphtha- A list of alchemist type stuff you can find, actually? This list is getting too long, stopping myself now. Wrapped wire is most best."