Easy recovered and was practically bouncing in place. "As much as I enjoy watching you work without me, enough of that. It's time to get my dad involved."

"Your father? He works with pipes, if I recall?" I was watching the ponies construct the large pipes and get them into position to siphon a considerable amount of the falling water for our purposes. "Smaller pipes?"

"Yes, much smaller than those." She threw her head at the big pipes being worked on above us. "He'll help us get started under the city. You want pipes everywhere, he can help with that, I know it." She thrust a hoof at me. "Permission to go grab him?"

"Are you sure he even wants to come here and work on this?"

Her eyes rolled dramatically. "Oh, hey dad, want to join in a huge project and get tons of bits doing a dream job? No? Alright then." She shrugged softly. "If he says no, I'll disown the lazy bastard. Seriously... He won't say no to this."

I doubted Easy would throw off her dad that easily, but I could imagine her dragging him along by the ear if she got it in her head to do so. "He can do this? This is a big project."

"Not alone, obviously, but he can help plan it and help with the delicate parts. Get him on the team and we'll put the pipes and tunnels in the right place, and get our first fountain spraying fresh water a lot faster." She stomped a hoof down. "Can I go or not?"

"Go on then. How lo--" She vanished before I could finish my thought. Great, she was a teleporter. From what I could remember from Twilight's journey into teleporting, it got easier with practice. Easy would be popping everywhere if I let her keep doing it. That was her choice far more than mine, I decided. She hadn't killed herself doing it the first time, or the second, or the third.

She was likely fine. Insead I waved up at where Work Pants was. He started to come down as I went up. Scaffolding made it easier and safer for us to do, no longer scaling naked cliffs to reach the work and back. "Work, it looks like things are going well with getting the water from this end, but I want to get started on getting it under the city." I pointed out across the metropolis we were to serve. "We'll need it to flow into reserves, water towers, that will help keep the water pressure going and also hold onto water, just in case."

He nodded as he sat down, looking in the same direction I had pointed. "You are full of ambition, Sir. How do you plan to get the water to go up into towers?" He raised a brow at the concept. "Magic?"

Well, that was an option... "I'll explore that idea..." I drew out my phone and got to clicking, checking something right quick. Right... Pumps. Water towers needed pumps usually, and the tech level for that wasn't quite there for optimal water tower usage. Magic?

"I'll go ask about that. Step one is getting the water flowing through the city, think big pipes to get it to all big sections of it, smaller sections to come after. Do we have the means to dig those tunnels?"

"No."

No? I couldn't help but look at him with some shock. "What do you mean?"

"We could be digging for the foreseeable future attempting it, Sir. We may want to look for exterior assistance." He gave the smallest nod, turning away from the city. "We're not on friendly terms with them, but, in my dealings, I hear they have a love for gems, which we have an abundance of."

I slapped one hand on the other. "Diamond Dogs!"

"Y-yes, Sir. You've heard of them?" It was his turn to look surprised. "They're not common."

"But they exist, and if we could get some of them on the team, yeah. That'll speed things up quite a bit." I rubbed both hands together, imagining a team of diamond dogs rapidly digging those tunnels. "How do we get them on board?"

"I couldn't rightly say." He rubbed his hat lightly with a thoughtful look on his face. "I usually only have to keep them in mind as an unlikely but not impossible menace to building projects." He turned then pointing at the castle. "But you have contacts, do you not? It may be time to call on them."

"I'll do that... But first, size. I pointed up at the big water pipe. "That's enough to bring in water, and adding to the water coming in isn't nearly as hard. When we get to waste flow inside the city, the bigger the better. The city will grow, and making the tunnels grow under it? Not so easy. That waste also has to flow away without contaminating anything or ending up where it could poison ponies." I slipped my phone away. "But that's not your problem right now. Your problem right now is finding a good spot for us to start digging. The water has to get into the city, or what's the point?"

"Too right, Sir." He turned towards the work. "Watch yourself!" he called up at a worker. "I swear they're taking turns seeing who can retire first the unfortunate way... I'm on it, Sir. See what you can do." He strode away without a goodbye, for there was much work to be done.

The left me with things to do. I climbed back down to the bottom of the work and wandered off, checking on how other major sewers had been built. A lot of it involved just plain manual labor, having people dig out trenches to be later reinforced into proper tunnels and routes for water and waste to flow through.

The best part was how vague some of it was. I could give ideas, but I would not be saying where to put each pipe, just painting with large strokes and encouraging others onwards. It'd have to be enough, right? It'd have to be... I stuffed my information source away and made firm strides back to the castle.

It was only then that I noticed something.

It didn't stink.

I mean, it did stink. But it didn't stink as much. The streets were clearer. The city was recovering from war time. I could see some ponies actually cleaning their stuff and it made the streets more open. Traffic was flowing better. We hadn't even got on the sewage and already things were looking up.

With a little pep in my step, I bounced up the stairs towards the castle. Maybe we weren't fighting an impossible battle. "Is the head enchanter available?"

The guard nodded softly. "They're in their office, Sir. I can't assure they'll accept a visitor."

But he hadn't forbidden me from trying, so I nodded on the way past and clip-clopped through the hallways with a purpose.

"Sir." Soft was striding alongside me, matching my pace perfectly. "You're back early."

"Not retiring for the day." I held up a hand towards her as I continued. "I want to talk with the enchanter, see what he can do about a little problem you don't have the technology for."

"You keep doing that," she sighed out. "Speaking of works that do not exist as if you have them, or had them. I hope you trust me some day enough to share tales of whatever wonder world you came from." She glanced away and began to veer off. "I will be by later." And she vanished into a room, likely doing things only a maid could do.

I had a door to deal with. I rapped on it with the back of a few knuckles.

"Who is it?" came a familiar voice. "No, I can discern. Mister Langerman, is that you?"

"You are correct." I reached for the handle. "May I come in?"

"You may." When I opened the door, he was looking towards me fixedly. "One of your workers came by with the pipe measurements. The enchanted ring will be ready by the end of the week. Your water will run pure and clean for any that have need of it."

"Fantastic." Not what I had come for, but still good news! I clapped my hands, alien as they were to the unicorn. "I actually came about something else. How hard would it be to make a pump? Something that makes water move."

"Straight forward." He nodded softly. "How much water? How fast? Is this something you would want to last for a short while, or...?"

I couldn't help but smile a little. Magic enchanters were the engineers of pony kind. They still needed actual engineers, of course, but until the industrial revolution took over... "I want something that'll be here long after we're both a distant memory. Is that possible?"

His brows went up together. "Something to last, I see... Do you want the flow to be constant, cyclical, or controlled?"

A great question. "Can it depend on how much water is at the source? Once it goes beneath a certain amount, it stops drawing and lets the water flow out?" I gestured with my hands as I spoke, trying to emphasize what I had in mind. I could see his eyes following the fingers, but I couldn't know if he got anything from it.

"I see... Yes, this is... possible." His horn glowed and a scroll popped free from among many, rolling out to show a drawing of a pool. "Like this."

"A... pool?"

"It is that, but it does what you want." He tapped at the picture lightly. "Whenever the water is high, it circulates it. When the water is low, it allows more water to flow in. It is entirely self-managing. We constructed this model at the behest of the Fleur family, and it has served them well. A larger industrial model is likely what you have in mind, built to outlast anyone involved in its creation."

"Yes! Yes, exactly that." I walked to the window and threw it open. "Imagine, if you will, a tower of water in the city. When there's sufficient water, it should be constantly filling itself to the brim. Whenever the water pressure it's attached to falls below a certain point, it lets the water back out at a steady rate to get it back up to that pressure until it evens itself out or runs out of water, then refills when there's enough water to do so, repeating the cycle."

The enchanter stroked a hoof over his beard slowly. "I... see... You know, I didn't favor you when first I laid eyes on you." His glowing horn casually closed the window. "A foul little upstart, I thought, here to cause trouble, and that you certainly have... But you have such wonderful little ideas, and you trust me to see them through. I can't help but warm to your disturbances. A holder of water that helps water flow past it? How delightful. It makes such sense, now that you've brought it up. I think I've read of ponies doing something similar to that before... Yes... I can design that."

He brought his hooves together in a sharp clap. "It will not be cheap, of course."

"Of course. We are both servants of the nation." I dipped my head towards him. "They'll see we're both paid."

"A call to patriotism?" One of his brows fell, the other remained high. "If I were not already aware you had access to the royal coffers, I might be insulted." He pressed his hooves to the desktop, sitting up tall. "I love our kingdom, do not misunderstand me, but the actions of the council can be slow and if I had to wait on their leave before being paid, I would also wait on my work, for I am no fool. Fortunately, you understand this and will pay promptly, yes?"

Author's Notes:

For king and country! Right? C'mon...

How would you get the Diamond Dogs involved, and WOULD you?

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