We went camping out by the iron nodes. We made camp. We made a fire. We made tea.

We made conversation.

"I still do not quite understand how things are made in this world."

"It's a process of small changes. Just like what we've been doing with the shed. Measuring and cutting and shaping and riveting."

"Yet there are so many things...so many different things. Pillows and blankets and tools and things. Are all of them made that way? It must take so many people."

"It can, yeah. There's places where you've got lots of people working all the time to make things. Though if they're making a lot of a particular thing they might make a machine to do it for them."

"I am a carpenter. I have made things. Yet what you do with the shed is so different from what I have done. Almost like magic."

I chuckled. "The Eorzean way of making things would seem like magic to people here. I mean, really, how we do things is fundamentally different from how Earth people do things. They're directly making changes to stuff. We're transforming stuff into other stuff."

"You mentioned that before. You called it aetheric manipulation?"

"That's how I see it, yeah. We take aether in the form of stuff, add aether in the form of aspected crystals, and re-form the aether into different stuff. So whatever stuff the aether is in the form of is the idea we've imposed on it. We take iron ore and impose on it the idea of ingots. We take iron ingots and hard leather and we impose on them the idea of a pouch. The important part is having the idea."

"You think."

"I think. It's close enough to how it seems to work that it's my working theory."

She nodded thoughtfully and sipped her tea. Then she brought out of her inventory what I thought at first was a metal squid before recognizing it as an umbrella without the cloth.

"I bought umbrellas. I am trying to make one. I am taking this one apart to see how it works. This is what I wanted steel for."

"Sure. How're you going about it?"

"I am not certain. This is made of parts I do not have recipes for. These metal rods, and this big metal rod, and this metal tube, and these...things that connect the rods."

"Hinged joints."

"Thank you. And this piece of wood for the handle, and the cloth. We have recipes for parasols for lawns that are just cloth and steel, but they do not..."

"Open and close."

"Yes. They do not...work like this does. And they do not have so many parts that move. Still, it is all steel and cloth and wood, so I should be able to make an umbrella by combining these things, should I not?"

"Maybe. But it's a bit of a complex idea, with the parts interconnecting and interacting and all. I might be able to do it because I grew up with umbrellas and I know how they work. You might need to build it up from smaller ideas. Like, steel rods, steel tube, steel hinged joints, cloth cover and wooden haft. Make those things as separate recipes, then a new recipe that combines them together. Guessing goldsmithing for the final step."

She slowly rotated the squid by the handle, watching the parts fall into place. "Is it silly for me to try to make one? Since they are in stores?"

"Not at all. You're trying to work out how to make something new by assembling parts. I'd planned to do the same thing with a bicycle, but this looks like a better starter project. This way we can get used to doing bigger and bigger things and thinking about all the parts that go into them. This is what I want the shed for, for doing bigger things."

"You do want to build airships."

"I would love to build airships, but they'd be kinda conspicuous." I got out my phone and brought up a picture I'd saved. "I was thinking about trying for one of these."

She peered at the picture. "This is a...bus?"

"General terms for it include camper, recreational vehicle and mobile home. This particular one is called a winnebago."

"Mobile home?"

"Kind of a house on wheels. It's got a bed, a bathroom, a shower, a kitchen, a living space and lots of cabinets."

"Can we buy one?"

"They start around $150,000."

"That is a lot of pretzels."

"It is. Which is one of the reasons I'd like to make one. The other is, I'd like to try to figure out how to make mounts."

She tilted her head in thought. "A mount we can live in?"

"And summon and dismiss at will."

She studied the picture again. "This looks like a lot of parts, Husband."

"Yep. A lot of steel, glass, rubber and other stuff. We probably need to do like the airship builders and think in terms of components."

"It will take a lot of time. And recipes. And...ideas."

"Yeah, which is why we should start with something small to get practice. Like a bicycle."

She held up her squid. "Or an umbrella."

"Or an umbrella."

In the morning we collected ash from the remains of the fire and tried to make steel. It was around noon by the time we finally got something we were happy with. We then spent the day mining a ridiculous amount of iron. After all, we need to think big.