John took a deep breath and looked out at his goblins. They were still buzzing with excitement, their green faces flushed, their yellow eyes bright. The wall was built. They were safe. But safety wasn't enough. They needed more than walls and sovereignty. They needed to thrive.
"We need two things," John said, holding up two fingers. The goblins quieted down, their ears twitching. "Agriculture and sanitation. First course of action? Sanitation."
He paused, scratching his chin. How to say this delicately? He decided not to.
"Look," John said, spreading his hands. "I'm gonna be blunt. You guys stink. Like, really stink. The musk is... okay, it's kind of hot sometimes, I'm not gonna lie. But it's also a health hazard. You're shitting in the woods, right?"
The goblins exchanged glances. A few of them nodded slowly, their expressions confused.
"We... go to the woods," one of them said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "That's where we shit. In the woods."
John pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Mistake number one. You can't just shit in the woods forever. It contaminates the water, attracts predators, and makes everything smell like... well, like shit."
He paced back and forth, his boots squelching in the mud. The goblins watched him, their heads turning in unison like they were watching a tennis match.
"Now, I'm not exactly a civil engineer," John continued. "I didn't go to school for this. I barely passed high school. BUT!" He held up a finger. "I am a nerd. And being a nerd is basically the same thing as being a civil engineer, except one of them makes six figures and the other one has a body pillow of a cartoon character."
The goblins didn't understand the joke, but they nodded anyway.
"So," John said, clapping his hands together. "We need toilets. Real toilets. Not holes in the ground. Not the woods. Actual toilets that flush or at least move the waste somewhere far away where it won't poison us."
He looked around at the village. The huts. The fire pit. The mud. The wall.
"And since none of us know how to make a toilet, and I'm pretty sure none of you know how to make a toilet, we need plumbing."
One of the older goblins raised a hand. "What's plumbing?"
John sighed. "Plumbing is... water moving through pipes. Pipes are tubes. Tubes that carry water. And sometimes other stuff. The point is, we need to get water from somewhere to somewhere else so we can wash and shit without dying of dysentery."
He stamped his foot on the ground. The soil was damp, soft, slightly squishy. He stamped again, harder, and a small puddle of water seeped up around his boot.
"There's water underground," John said, his eyes widening. "The soil is wet. That means there's a water table, maybe a spring, maybe an underground river. That's good. That's really good."
He looked up at the hill where the village was built. They were on a slope, the land rising behind them, falling away toward the forest. Uphill. They were uphill.
"But we're uphill," John said, his excitement deflating. "If we dig a well, the water will be there, but we can't just let waste flow downhill into our own water source. That's how you get cholera. That's how you get the plague. That's how you get everyone dying of horrible, disgusting diseases."
He sat down on a log, putting his head in his hands. The goblins gathered around him, their faces worried.
"Leader?" the femboy asked, tugging at John's sleeve. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," John said, his voice muffled. "I'm just... I'm cooked. I'm absolutely cooked. I don't know how to do any of this. I don't know how to build a septic system. I don't know how to dig a well without it collapsing. I don't know how to make pipes. I don't know how to do ANYTHING."
The goblins murmured among themselves, their anxiety growing. One of them started crying. Another looked like he was about to pack his bags and head for the hills.
John looked up, forcing a smile onto his face. "Hey. Hey. It's gonna be alright. I just need to... do some research. Yeah. Research. I'll be back. Don't worry. Everything is fine."
He stood up, patted the femboy on the head, and teleported away.
---
John appeared in his gaming room, the familiar glow of the monitors washing over him. The system was floating in the corner, his translucent femboy body curled up on a beanbag chair that hadn't been there before, his white hair spilling over the edge. He was reading a book. Something with a title in a language John didn't recognize.
"Don't say anything," John said, pointing at him.
The system held up his hands in mock surrender. "I wasn't going to."
John dropped into his gaming chair, pulled up the browser, and typed into the search bar: "how 2 make gud medevil toilets"
The results were... not helpful. A lot of forum posts from people who were clearly just as clueless as he was. A few articles about Roman aqueducts. A YouTube video about composting toilets that was forty-five minutes long and had a thumbnail of a man smiling next to a bucket.
John groaned. "Thank god for Google," he muttered, and started clicking.
He spent the first hour just trying to figure out what to search for. "Medieval sanitation" led to articles about chamber pots and garderobes. Garderobes, he learned, were basically holes in castle walls that emptied into moats or pits. Not exactly high-tech, but better than shitting in the woods.
The second hour, he dug into the concept of cesspits. Basically, you dig a big hole, line it with stone or wood, and you shit in it. When it fills up, you cover it and dig a new one. Simple. Primitive. Doable.
The third hour, he discovered the wonders of the "drop chute" system. A small building built over a deep pit, with a hole in the floor. You do your business, it falls into the pit, and you cover the hole with a lid. The pit fills up over months or years, and eventually you move the building to a new pit and fill the old one with soil.
"Okay," John said, rubbing his eyes. "That's not terrible. That's actually not terrible."
The fourth hour, he started researching how to line the pits to prevent groundwater contamination. Clay was good. Limestone was better. If they could find clay in the area, they could seal the pits and keep the waste from seeping into the water table.
The fifth hour, he took a break to eat a bag of chips that materialized on his desk. The system floated over and stole a few, crunching loudly.
"Find anything useful?" the system asked.
"Maybe," John said. "I need to figure out how to dig a well without it collapsing. And how to make pipes. And how to build a toilet that doesn't just drop shit into an open pit."
The sixth hour, he found a video about building a "dry well" with stones. Basically, you dig a hole, fill it with large rocks, and then smaller rocks, and then gravel. Water seeps through the gaps and into the ground, while solids get trapped and decompose. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing.
The seventh hour, he learned about "twin pits." Two pits, side by side. You use one until it fills up, then you switch to the other while the first one decomposes. By the time the second pit is full, the first pit is empty and safe to use again. No digging new pits every time. Sustainable.
"This is actually genius," John said, his eyes wide. "Why don't we do this in modern times?"
The system snorted. "Because we have indoor plumbing, John. And sewage treatment plants. And, you know, civilization."
"Right. Right."
The eighth hour, John started sketching. He wasn't an artist. His drawings looked like a toddler's interpretation of a plumbing system. But he had the concepts now. The pit toilet. The twin pits. The clay lining. The stone dry well for groundwater protection.
The ninth hour, he sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"Okay," he said. "I think I've got it. It's not perfect. It's not plumbing. But it's better than shitting in the woods."
The system floated over, peering at John's sketches. "You're going to explain this to them?"
"I'm going to try."
"And when they don't understand?"
"I'm going to build one myself. Show them how it works. And then I'm going to make them build the rest."
The system nodded. "That's actually not a terrible plan."
"High praise."
John stood up, stretched his arms over his head, and cracked his neck. He had been sitting for nine hours. His back was stiff, his eyes were dry, and his brain felt like it had been wrung out like a wet towel. But he had a plan. A real plan. Not a perfect plan, but a plan that would keep his goblins from getting sick and dying.
He looked at his sketches one more time, then at the system.
"Wish me luck," John said.
"You're going to need it," the system replied.
John teleported away.