haha so here''s a funny thing


    actually no i can''t be light about this


    i am out of water


    i mean i got water


    but it''s all unfiltered stuff straight from the river and who knows what kind of junk is in there


    also delivery is via teleportal


    extradimensional nonsense could be happening


    who knows how portals work


    yes yes i am good with teleports. it does not mean i know what kind of weirdness happens between point a and point b. could have a whole alphabet of troubles in there. could be like ancient chaos gods fiddling with my water and having a wee in it for all i know. also it''s grotty city river water that giant ants could be using as a sewer. could be full of radiations. i don''t know what kind of postapocalyptic nonsense is happening upstream. factories breaking down. leaking toxic junk everywhere. i''ve watched movies. i''ve read comics. i know how this stuff works. basically what i am saying is that drinking that stuff could kill me. or give me superpowers. either way it''s not a controllable scenario and i do not do well with those.


    right yes i am a superscience genius girl you do not have to remind me of that. i can run tests to see if its drinkable. i can invent filter stuff.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    but i didn''t do any of that because i was busy doing yknow actual fun superscience that i wanted to do instead of eg essential superscience to keep jin alive


    curse my enormous easily distractable brain


    so now my day is spent being thirsty and


    wait there are vending machines around here


    i have fizzy drink


    crisis averted. shut off the alarms. i can just loot drinkables. no problems here. does soda have an expiry date? eh even if it does. so much sugar in those things you could just


    wait without water i cannot make tea


    okay yeah we''re back to crisis mode. put that flashing red light back on. sirens activate.


    get your head down jin


    get inventing filters and junk


    no wait test the water first. figure out what we need to take out before you invent the thing to take it out. a before b before c.


    and calm down for flip''s sake. what is this? amateur hour? it''s like you never ran up against a bad dealio before. have a chip, jin. drink your disgusting fizzy drinks. get those tests started. think about good things.


    like giant ant swords


    and how they are


    *fun*


    so the thing about making a giant sword out of antbits. the really good thing. is that antbits


    in the shape of a sword


    powered by antgutgem batteries


    cut through ants so well. so satisfying. so crunchy. ant goo everywhere. ant legs flying through the air. did some jousting on starfax pimsneyback. just riding along with my giant sword. slicing through ants along the way. like some kind of bonus level or something. had a couple of scavenger drones with me. sucking up them gem drops. i got all the upgrades. minimap working so good. so sweet. it is just really nice when stuff you make does the thing it''s supposed to do and there are no problems or unexpected nonsense. or if there are surprises or problems or whatever they''re the kind where you''re like ''oh okay i can deal with this i know what to do''. that is a good feeling. one of the best.


    okay i got the bleeps. time to go see what kind of wriggling uglies this water''s packed with.