Being Hiccup
Chapter 2: Extreme Steam
You all know the drill. I don't own them. I just borrow them for a while.
Hiccup sat by the fire in the Great Hall and watched the lid of the pot move up and down as steam escaped in puffs.
Reaching out slowly he grabbed a part of the pot and pulled it out and up, like the neck of the kettle Gothi used for making herbal drinks. After completing the neck the lid stopped moving up and down. Instead the steam poured out of the neck.
Reaching down he picked up a smaller lid and attached it with a hinge to the end of the neck. Now, the smaller lid rhythmically swung up and down as the steam escaped. After watching this happen for a bit Hiccup replaced the small lid with a heavier lid. The rhythm of the swinging lid slowed down, and the lid didn't swing as far out.
Scratching his chin, Hiccup walked around the large kettle-pot and examined it some more. Finally, he lifted the lid and crawled inside of the boiling device. From the inside he could see the water boiling, disappearing as the amount of steam built up. Finally, once the steam built up too much it pushed the lid aside and escaped.
Crawling back out of the kettle-pot, Hiccup formed the small lid into a cupped shape and crawled back inside. Once inside of the boiling pot he placed the cupped shape in the entrance to the neck and waited. Eventually, the steam built up again and the cup was pushed up the neck and out the end.
Smiling, Hiccup scooped out handfuls of metal from the inside of the pot and formed a dozen cupped shapes, and linked them all together with a rope he pulled from the stew.
With his new linked cups in hand Hiccup held the first cup in the opening of the neck. As with last time the steam eventually pushed the cup up the neck and out the end, but this time as the first cup fell out the end, the next cup was pulled into position at the neck. This second cup was pushed up the neck. The rest followed in the same way.
But then, Hiccup looked at his surroundings and frowned. What good did it do to push something out of the boiling stew?
Hiccup exited the boiling kettle-pot again and studied the linked cups pooled at the exit of the neck. Tapping his foot and walking around the hanging kettle-pot again he viewed it from all angles. Then he thought of the pulleys used for ships. He quickly stretched the linked cups forming dozens more, cut a hole in the top lid, and fed the linked cups into the pot and up the neck. When the first cup came out of the neck, he tied the ends together and fastened the system over a series of pulleys that appeared over the kettle-pot.
This time, as one cup was pushed out of the neck another cup was pulled into the pot to replace it and eventually, the first cup was fed back around. The system would rotate the cups as long as there was steam to push it.
A wide grin split Hiccup's face as he started adding all sort of things to the rotating system: grinding wheels, fans, cranks attached to saws, cranks attached to bellows, and cranks attached to automated hammers.
Hiccup fixated on one of the cups and followed it through the cycle, giddy with the amazing opportunity presented by this wondrous machine. Until he followed the cup into the hole in the lid and suddenly noticed that large amounts of steam were blowing out the hole. Suddenly, the entire machine stopped.
With a groan, Hiccup stopped and looked at the machine again. The cups would have to return to the pot without allowing the steam to escape.
Tapping his foot for a second, Hiccup moved all around his machine. Looked to the cups. Looked to the saw. Looked to the bottom of the pot-kettle. Looked to the fan and froze.
He looked at the fan and then back to the linked cups. The fan, drew his attention more and more. He studied the fan.
Finally, taking a step back, Hiccup removed the linked cups from the entire setup. He sealed the hole in the lid. And shrunk the fan until it was just smaller than the neck exit and placed the small fan into the end of the neck.
Suddenly, the steam started moving out of the neck again, and the fan started to spin. Now, it worked perfectly. There was no need for the linked cups anymore. The fan could run the saw and the hammer and the grinding stone directly.
BANG! A bowl of stew was suddenly on the table in front of Hiccup, and the kettle-pot with its wonderful fan and attachments all disappeared.
Stoick looked at his son and the myriad of papers with sketches scattered all over them. "Here, son, I've watched you stare at that pot of stew for the last half-hour. I figured that someone ought to get you a bowl before you went to sleep."
"Thanks," Hiccup said with a clarifying shake of his head.
Stoick just gave a grunt of recognition. "So, what's all that?" the chief asked with a wave at the sketches of pots with necks and linked cups and tiny windmills and all sort of other items. "Another machine to kill dragons?"
Hiccup, just hurriedly, stacked up the papers and set them aside. "No, just an idea for automating things like sawing lumber and hammering rough casts and grinding and …"
"Eh! Don't waste your time with silly things like that Hiccup. Vikings don't need help doing those things. They already know how to do them."
Hiccup just took a bite of his stew and pulled the papers out of his dad's sight. "Oh … okay."