Pink Salmon

Production settled into a steady, satisfying rhythm within the first few weeks. Nettle's sixty guild members handled most of the glasswork and panel assembly, while roughly twenty dwarven smiths kept the adamantium frames coming in behind them. More importantly, the numbers were finally becoming predictable. Finished panels were arriving at a steady enough rate for Bram to stop treating production as an experiment and start treating it as a supply chain, while the growing stockpile gave them enough breathing room that construction wouldn't grind to a halt the moment the first crew eventually went into the water.

A couple of the finished panels had, however, somehow made their way into public circulation. More specifically, a couple of the ones still officially classified by the system as Adamantium Riot Shields.

Arista discovered this through the forums.

[Thread: I tried using the dome panel as an actual shield and it's honestly not terrible]

2.1k replies

"my guy strapped a 5 meter hexagon to his arm and went and tanked a boss fight with it, video attached"

"it's absurd but it WORKS, the surface area straight up blocks half the arena"

"someone's gonna get banned for this eventually right"

"nah Strawberry made it, this is basically canon now"

Arista scrolled through the clips with open, delighted amusement. One player had apparently decided that having enough Strength to carry a five-meter hexagonal wall meant there was no compelling reason not to bring one into a boss fight, and the resulting strategy looked every bit as ridiculous as the inventory loophole that had created the shield classification in the first place.

"...I mean, the system did classify it as a shield," she said.

Bram looked over her shoulder. "That doesn't mean you were supposed to encourage this."

"I didn't."

"You're smiling."

"That's unrelated."

Arista saved the video before closing the forum, filing the whole phenomenon away as exactly the kind of harmless chaos she'd come to expect from anything she built.

The actual construction logistics occupied considerably more of her attention.

They still hadn't recruited the underwater building crew, which Bram had insisted was deliberate. There was no point calling seventy or a hundred people to the docks just because Arista was excited if the production line couldn't keep them supplied once work began. Better to build a reasonable stockpile first, prove that fresh panels would continue arriving at a reliable rate, then recruit around what the project could actually support.

That part, at least, was finally starting to look healthy.

The next problem was keeping those future workers useful once they were actually underwater.

"...Even if we only recruit people with enough Strength to handle the pressure, they're still going to have to come back up constantly," Arista said, leaning over the planning table with Bram and Claire. "The depth isn't the only limit. Stamina still drains while they're doing heavy work, and they're going to need air."

Claire nodded. "How long does full stamina recovery take?"

"About fifteen minutes from empty, assuming they actually stop and rest. That's fine on land. Less fine when every rest period also means swimming a hundred and fifty meters back to the surface."

Bram glanced over the schedule she'd been sketching. "So the problem isn't that stamina takes too long to recover. It's that the recovery period happens in the wrong place."

Arista pointed at him. "Exactly."

Claire looked at her. "You already have a solution."

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"I have an underwater break room."

Bram sighed. "Of course you do."

Arista pulled her notebook closer. "Diving bells. Old real-world technique. Open-bottom chamber, lowered into the water with a pocket of air trapped inside. Put one near the work site and the crew can climb into it whenever they need to recover stamina, rest for fifteen minutes, breathe normally, then go straight back outside instead of surfacing every time."

Claire studied the rough sketch as Arista drew it, then tapped the upper half of the bell. "You'll need fresh air supplied from the surface if you expect several people to use it repeatedly."

"Then the bells become part of the rotation too," Arista said. "Bring one back up when the air needs refreshing, lower another in its place, keep enough moving that there's always somewhere usable at working depth."

"Mount them off Nettle's ship," Arista said. "Her hull's already proven itself at sea, her crew's already supporting the project, and I really don't want to build another vessel just because this one needs underwater break rooms."

"How many?" Bram asked.

Arista considered it for a moment. "Six."

Bram sighed. "Of course it's six."

With several bells cycling between the surface and the construction depth, the workers wouldn't need to make the full trip themselves every time they stopped to recover. They could climb into whichever bell was currently available, rest until their stamina returned, then go straight back to work while the bells themselves handled the air-refresh rotation.

Nettle arrived in time to catch the tail end of the discussion, listened to the proposal, looked over the sketch and considered it for all of about three seconds.

"Sure."

Bram blinked. "That's it?"

Nettle shrugged. "Six metal boxes on cables."

"Open-bottom diving bells," Arista corrected.

"Six metal boxes on cables," Nettle repeated. "We've built stranger things."

Arista grinned and turned the sketch toward her. "Three each side, probably. Keep them cycling so there's always at least a couple at working depth while the others are being raised, refreshed and lowered again."

Nettle studied the arrangement, already fitting it mentally to the deck. "That should work. My people can handle the winches."

"Perfect."

The bells joined the growing list of things that needed to be ready before Arista posted any recruitment call, which suited Bram just fine. Panels first, stockpile second, support infrastructure third, then workers. Arista privately thought the order was offensively sensible, which probably meant it was the correct one.

Fen made the whole plan better a few days later by showing up with a small vial full of bright pink liquid.

"I've been tinkering," she announced, setting it on the table.

Arista looked at the vial, then at Fen. "Those words are becoming increasingly threatening."

"They shouldn't be. I brought you something useful."

"What is it?"

Fen smiled. "Pink Salmon."

Arista stared at her.

"Slogan's 'Pink Salmon gives you gills.'"

Arista burst out laughing. "...Really?"

"No. It doesn't give you gills. I just really like the slogan and refuse to let factual accuracy ruin good marketing." Fen tapped the vial. "What it actually does is increase stamina regeneration by thirty-five percent for an hour."

That got Arista's attention immediately. "Thirty-five?"

"Thirty-five. Tested properly, small batches first, same discipline as the boiler compound. Stable, safe, repeatable."

Arista did the arithmetic almost automatically. A player recovering from empty normally needed about fifteen minutes of actual rest. With the potion active, that dropped to a little over eleven.

"...That's genuinely useful."

"I know."

"If the diving bell crew is recovering several times in a shift, that's almost four minutes saved every full cycle."

"Exactly."

Arista turned the vial over in her hand. "No catches?"

"One small side effect. Whoever drinks it develops a soft pink hue across their skin for about an hour. Completely harmless, purely cosmetic. I couldn't remove it without weakening the stamina effect, so I stopped trying and leaned into it instead."

Arista grinned. "So the buff lasts an hour, and the person turns pink for an hour."

"Slightly pink."

"That's actually useful too. You can see who's still dosed without checking their buffs."

"That occurred to me after I'd already decided I liked the name."

Arista uncorked the vial and sniffed it experimentally. Faintly sweet, vaguely fruity, nothing alarming. "Can I try it?"

"That's why I brought it."

Arista drank it in one go. Within seconds, a faint warmth spread through her body as the effect settled in, and her skin gently shifted toward a soft pink tint.

Bram walked in at exactly the wrong moment and stopped dead in the doorway.

"...Why are you pink?"

"Stamina potion," Arista said cheerfully, holding up the empty vial. "Thirty-five percent faster regeneration. Very temporary."

Bram stared at her for a moment longer, then, without further comment, simply turned around and walked back out.

Fen watched him go. "...I think that means he approves."

"That absolutely means he's seen enough weird things from me that this barely registers anymore."

From somewhere outside came Bram's voice.

"I CAN STILL HEAR YOU."

Arista grinned and added Pink Salmon: +35% stamina regeneration, one hour duration, cosmetic pink tint beneath the diving bell notes. Between the steady panel supply, the growing stockpile, the six bells now entering construction and Fen's potion cutting a full stamina recovery from roughly fifteen minutes to a little over eleven, they were getting close to the point where asking people to actually build the dome would make sense.

Not yet.

But close.

For once, Arista was going to wait until the infrastructure existed before recruiting the people expected to use it.

Bram would probably call that growth.

Arista preferred to think of it as learning exactly how much preparation was required before doing something ridiculous.