Standing in front of an unfinished house is a woman wearing a carpenter’s apron and holding a hammer.
“Who are you?” she asks.
“Just a traveler,” you answer, “trying to figure out these earthquakes and tidal waves. What do you know about it all?”
She snorts. “I know they scared my assistants so they ran off and left me to finish an entire house. Say, could you use some money? I’ve got a few tasks that don’t require much in the way of carpentry, but I’m too busy to tackle them myself.”
“What are they?”
First off, the owner asked for a square window three feet high and three feet wide. So I drew one into the plan. Now he says it’s twice as big as it should be and lets in too much light—but I should keep it a three-foot-high, three-foot-wide square. I’ll pay you an obol if you have an idea on how to pull that off.
Then I’ve got a tile pattern of squares designed for the dining room. The room is 177 meters by 176 meters, and all the tiles are perfect squares; I need to know the size of the smallest square (the black one) to cut the tiles correctly. Two obols to you for telling me its size.
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