Over the next few days, I found the time and wherewithal to use the purification pill. I also found my missing maidservants. They and other servants were so bored they had set up a gambling den. I dragged my maidservants out by the ears. Two of them anyway, I needed more hands. The handful that escaped the fate of having their earlobes tortured trailed behind with their heads hung low. I told the other servants they better get back to work. The maids nearly ran back to the gambling den when they discovered their first task back on the job would be to help me with a purification pill. As expected, I gained +2 in all stats except luck again after using the pill.
The winter solstice soon came and went. The day was still spectacular of course, but the gifts were more normal: store-bought gifts. I got some gourmet candy from Vivian and new sets of fitting robes from Mom and Dad. They hadn't noticed that my current robes didn't quite fit anymore. Common sense simply dictated that I should've grown a few inches after an entire year at my age. I'm sure they were shocked when they saw the tailor's measurements. Similarly, I had gotten Vivian a box of her favorite pastries.
The solstice celebration reminded me of the promise I had made a year ago and then broken due to being sent to the wilderness. I needed to visit my family members more. Except for Vivian, she already had lots of my time. She seemed to enjoy that I still hadn't grown. She treated me more like a giant stuffed animal than a person sometimes, picking me up and squeezing me without permission. I both enjoyed and hated it simultaneously.
I visited Phineas first. As expected, he was holed away in his tower of dubious construction. I was surprised to see that it was actually quite orderly on the inside. There were many flasks, beakers, and distillation sets lining the counters in here. It reminded me of a college chemistry lab. There was a bin next to the counter Phineas was working at that was overflowing with shattered glass. I wondered exactly how many of his experiments exploded.
Phineas was delighted to see me. His hair was a shocking green today. He picked me up and put me on his shoulder. Again I was being treated like a stuffed animal just because I was short! He then showed me around the lab excitedly telling me what each tool and instrument was for. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was already familiar with chemistry equipment. Well in this case it was alchemy equipment, but there was no difference.
For the next few hours, I became Phineas' lab assistant. He actually had protective equipment in my size. It was clear I had made the right decision to spend time with Phineas. He had been hoping for a visit from his daughter. I also saw some unused protective gear that was Vivian-sized. I was sad that Vivian had never really bonded with our parents. From the complaints to me, I knew that she felt we had absentee parents. I now had a different perspective on the matter. They had provided us with everything we needed and given us the space to grow. They definitely wanted to have bonding time with us, but the only thing they knew were their respective hobbies. Both of them were too shy to ask us to hang out with them. I resolved to convince Vivian to see our parents more as well.
I left the lab with the tips of my brunette hair dyed blue. One of the experiments had released a lot of blue smoke. Phineas assured me the substance was harmless. I looked in the mirror and kind of liked the new look. I was half-tempted to keep dyeing my hair, but even if I could find the right dyes for the job, I knew that hair dye was super uncommon in this world. It wouldn't be good to draw attention to myself, maybe when I was stronger.
After spending some quality time with my pops I headed to my mother's shed. As one of the masters of the house, I had gotten used to entering rooms without knocking. So when I arrived at the shed I walked straight in just like I was used to. I didn't see Nikol straightaway. The room was a maze of shelves filled with gadgets, tools, and scrap metal. It was like a cross between a toolshed and an inventor's workshop. I could hear metal pounding on metal resonating from somewhere within the shop.
I slowly navigated my way through the maze of metal towards the sound. There were lots of jagged and sharp pieces of metal pointed towards the aisle between shelves. Nikol needed to do a better job of storing her stuff. It was dangerous walking through here.
After several minutes I finally got close to the sound. I rounded one more corner and was stunned at what I saw. There was a square ring in the middle of the room like a boxer's ring, except instead of ropes, the edges of the ring were steel plates. Inside the ring was the source of the noise. Without a doubt, two robots were beating each other into scrap here. I rubbed my eyes. Was I still in Eternia? I looked around and really couldn't tell if I was in some nerd's basement back on 21st century Earth or in my mom's shed in the fantastical, but still medieval Eternia. The tools on the shelves all looked very modern. There were even familiar power tools, but they didn't have any brand names, or the spot to place one. My sense of incongruity ended. If I was on Earth, everything would have a brand name on it. Looking closer, despite the power tools' excellent craftsmanship, some flaws indicated they were handmade.
As I snapped back to myself, I stumbled forward and tripped over a metal bar that was lying on the floor. The loud clatter echoed through the workshop. Nikol, who had been standing with her back to me in front of the ring, jumped and squealed loudly as she turned about.
"Aiyeeeee! It's not what it looks like!" Nikol squeaked as she futilely tried to hide the battle-bot ring behind her body while blushing furiously.
I had no idea what she thought it looked like to make such a scene. "They're battle-bots, aren't they?" I asked.
"No, no, no, they're not ..." Nikol started to deny, "Battl... wait, what? You recognize these?"
"Yeah, we had them back on Earth. It was a very niche activity, but I've watched a few matches on TV. I think they're pretty cool," I explained.
Nikol stared at me incredulously.
"Oh, sorry, TVs are boxes we had that could display moving pictures," I said after I realized my mistake.
Nikol continued to stare at me. Just as I was starting to think I may have broken my mom, she responded, "You ... You think battle bots are cool?"
Unexpectedly, Nikol didn't care what TVs were, she was hung up on what I had just said about her hobby.
"Yeah, they're coo ... oomph!" I started to say before getting the air squeezed out of my lungs by a bear hug. I imagine that if were a normal girl, my ribs would've cracked. Nikol was quite strong, probably close to 20 strength points.
"Aiyeee!" Nikol screamed again, this time in excitement. "Why didn't you say so?"
Soon I was picked up and carried to the ring. Again! Why was I so short?! I inwardly cried. While I was bemoaning my cursed stature, Nikol talked rapidly about her battle bots. In just a few minutes I heard Nikol say more than I had ever heard her say in my whole life, including the time before my reincarnation! I only had just enough knowledge to barely keep up with what Nikol was saying. When it came to advanced electrical engineering, however, my eyes started to glaze over. It's not that I wasn't interested, I just had no foundation; she was talking about topics far beyond my ken. If she wasn't talking so rapidly, I might've been able to form some amount of understanding. Now, I was struggling for dear life just to follow the thread of conversation.
Eventually, she turned from the theoretical to the practical and I could finally follow her monologue. She explained that she was preparing for a tournament. There was a battle bot there that she could never beat. It had been crafted by an annoying man named Andy Igorevich. He had been the reigning champion for years. It was also people like him that gave the hobby a bad name. He was repulsive on sight, smelled as if he never bathed, and liked to brag about his superiority constantly. He wasn't the only one either. The sport was plagued with people like him. Technically they were the minority of the battle bot fans, but they spoke so loudly, that they came to represent the group as a whole. Everyone hated them. It was the reason Nikol was so embarrassed when I stumbled upon her.
Nikol started describing the characteristics of the bot she had to beat and I started to have some ideas. I may not know the technical mumbo jumbo, but I remembered a few bits with high success rates. One such bot was a flat bot with a spiked arm appendage. I described it to Nikol and soon she was grabbing scraps from all over the shop to build it. I helped a little, but mostly I organized the shop for her. Her tools were all over in different locations and the sharp scraps needed to be stored more safely. Soon the shop was more organized than it ever had been, and Nikol was impressed. Meanwhile, she had completed the bot. We tested it against her existing bots, and it easily dominated them. We both looked forward to the tournament.