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    Kress Chapter


    The Competitors: Kres, Borgick, Midnight, Stan, Ellenell


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    "SO LET''S GET STARTED! The judges will start arriving an hour before your time is up, so you can ask them any questions you want then," finished Thyme. Everyone was staring around so Thyme pped their hands together, "Well? Get going! You''re burning time just standing there. All the areas have big copies of your face floating over them. If you want, I can teleport you there right now. You''ll see a copy of me in the corners if you need anything else,"


    "Teleport me and my team please," said Kress not wanting to waste any time. Blue red at him as they were teleported. "One moment Blue," Blue crossed her arms and red. "Agent Timmy, it is your mission to find as many colours of rock and sand that you can in five minutes, and then make it back here to deliver your findings. Use any means necessary, including magic. Just no magic inside the square ok? In fact, if you can dump any colourful sand just north of the square that would be great,"


    Kress Timmy saluted and then vanished on the spot. Once they were gone, Kress turned back to Blue and said, "Right, that way we''re not wasting time. Sorry for the quick teleport, but there was no reason to stick around, and I want to get started on work as soon as possible. I''ve debated the merits of various structures, but I can''t think of a better idea then building a nice castle up on a ''hill'' and then building out a little town around it. Do you have any problems with that,"


    "Um… not a problem per say… but why is that your best idea? You came prepared for this, so I''d have thought you''d know some secret," said Blue.


    Kress shrugged and said, "Right, so the big problem is the time limit. If we pick anything other than the castle and town idea, then we''re running the risk of not finishing in time, or wasting it. If we pick something that can be continually added to, then we can make the best use of what time we have. I thought about big monsters, murals, and variations on theme, but they just won''t work out as well. Now, we can do some interesting things with the castle town, and I''m happy to go over them, but I need to know if there are any major issues with it,"


    "Nope… ah… yeah I''ve got nothing. I''m willing to follow your lead here," said Blue.


    Kress nodded, not having expected any other answer before responding with, "Right, in that case, we''ve still got a few options. The first is just keep it basic. Standard circr castle, with walls if we can manage it, and a few nice details. Then we work on the town. Bunch of simr houses to start with, and then a few unique buildings if we can manage it.


    "Second idea, is to make things undersea themed. That might rely on getting some coloured sand from Timmy, but we can build things up in basically the same way, but we make more use of shells from the beach. Shells instead of roof tiles, more coral like structures instead of trees. No sticks or anything of the sort.


    "Thirdly, we could spend some time carving out a massive groove through the sand, and then drawing little houses and what not into the walls. It might save us some effort for a big effect, but we''ll need to do a lot of digging and it might limit us in unforeseen waves. Perhaps a mix of things might be best if we go for this one.


    "Fourth idea, is that we pack on the sand, and split the area in two. Have two of everything, two towns, two castles, two sets of everything we make. It''ll be a lot of running back and forth, but we can put army tents or something in the middle to give the whole scene a bit of spice. Now, which of those seems the best to you?"


    Blue looked a bit dazed after Kress'' rapid-fire series of examples but she managed a response, "Um… ur… what about going with abination of the third and second ideas? We can get Timmy to make a bunch of little trees, and the big groove can have part of the town fallen down inside it. Of course, if we don''t have time to flesh it out we can skip it in the end… but it would give us something unique, I think,"


    Kress nodded along, "Yes that''s sound reasoning. Are you willing to start mixing the sand and water now? If not, we can make do for a bit by just using the buckets we''ve been provided,"


    "What bucket?" asked Blue.


    Kress pointed to the two buckets and shovels that were sitting beside Blue. "Those buckets,"


    "When the heck did those get there?" asked Blue as she looked them over.


    "They were there after we exited the teleport, so I assume Thyme put them there as part of transit. Now, where do you think we should the castle? I''m thinking either the centre, or the top. If we have it in the centre we can build out in all directions… but if we put it at the top you can hopefully send the water up topside and we can mix sand there for a bit. Can''t start too close to the beach sadly because the tide ising in and certainly going to encroach on our square before we''re done," said Kress.


    "Oh… um… maybe start at the top and work down then?" said Blue unsure.


    "Can you pull sufficient water? When Timmy gets back we''ll use him to dig a big whole for it, and then I''ll be putting you in charge of mixing sand while Timmy and I start to build up the base of the castle," said Kress.


    "Um… yeah lifting the water shouldn''t be too much of a problem. The gaps between the squares should be more thanrge enough. How long till Timmy gets back though?" said Blue.


    Kress scratched at his chin, "Still a minute or two I imagine… so we can start drafting ns out I think. The first thing is that for the little identical houses we can ask Thyme for a bucket that matches the shape closely and build off of that. Maybe we can even ask for it to open up with a hinge so that we can get the roof the correct shape without much fuss,"


    "That sounds… useful," said Blue hesitantly.


    Kress shrugged and said, "Time will tell if that''s going to work. The other thing we need to decide is what big buildings we can feature across the town. I''m thinking… library, church, maybe some docks if we have time… but I doubt we''ll get that close to the sea. Maybe if we have time, we can get Timmy to make a miniatureke for us and build docks on that… but I feel like that''s more of a st hour'' type of project.


    "Hmm… what else… guard posts probably? I can see them making goodndmarks to break up the monotony. Parks and trees, obviously. Though I doubt we can manage smaller segments of water. It''s not worth doing the work for those. Hmm… what else… an auction house maybe? But I don''t know how to design a little auction house. And ideas Blue?"


    "Um… we could do like a coliseum or an amphitheatre?" suggested Blue.


    Kress nodded, "Yes… yes that could work well. Hmm… we might also be back on for the rivers or ponds of Timmy can find some blue rocks to crush up into sand. Maybe even an aqueduct if he finds a lot of them. Do you think we could manage market stalls?"


    "No… probably not," said Blue.


    Kress nodded and said, "Yeah… Timmy might be able to manage it if we can build a bigger copy of a few and then ask Timmy to make copies… but I don''t see us taking the time to get a proper bazaar going. Keep it in mind though. We''ll have to see how good Timmy is at the delicate work before thinking of that sort of thing,"


    Blue nodded somewhat awkwardly. *Hmm… Blue is still clearly overwhelmed. I''ll just keep quiet until Timmy gets here then. Wouldn''t do to overwhelm her further. I need her mind operating at peak efficiency so that she can mix the sand well. Timmy and I can focus on the castle first. It''ll need to be MASSIVE. Though I''ll probably limit the tallest sections to my own height. if it''s too much of a struggle to work on then it''ll eat up too much time. Once that''s done we can work on the town. Probably try to put down one uniquendmark every few metres, but we''ll have to see what size we make the houses. That and see what Timmy brings back. That could change everything*