An Engineer’s Tale
Chapter 1
Chapter 2 - Memories, Hints, and Hiking
“I grew up in a town by the sea to the east. Marautan, it was called. Usually bustling ports draw some… undesirable characters. Pirates, tricksters, the odd ninja or politician… But our navy’s reputation was known for thousands of nautical blocks around.”
Selvan stares blankly at me. That’s right, it doesn’t rain here. At least, not since I’ve been around.
“Do you even know what water is?” I ask.
“Of course I do. I’ve seen birdbaths.”
“Have you ever seen a real lake? A real river? Even a pond?”
“No,” he admits.
“Would you like to?”
…
We pass the warehouse, the barracks, and the ladder shells of my failed designs on our way to the east edge of town. Finally, the stone path is surrounded by nothing but trees and tall, silky grass. Then the trees surround a dirt path. We’ve reached the Hunting Grounds. Nol’s cabin, which I helped renovate not too long after arriving, hides behind the spiraling branches of a particularly ancient oak. “I wonder if s-… I mean, I wonder if he’s home?” I ask. Selvan doesn’t notice any slip - not that I ever slipped, of course. Nor does he know.
A few falling leaves answer the question. Nol slips out of the pile, surprisingly gracefully for his size. “We were just talking about you,” Selvan says. Nol looks at the ground and gruffly replies, “I know. I have ears.”
“Nol. Did you know that our carpenter here has never seen a single drop of water?”
“I’ve seen birdbaths…” Selvan objects. Nol again looks at the ground.
“Those don’t count.”
At this rate, I thought, it wouldn’t be long before they started comparing whether a carpenter’s saw or trapper’s knife was sharper, and not in a friendly way, either.
“So, well, we were headed to the next township, on the quest to see a pond. Would you like to come along?”
Nol nods. We follow him as he walks to his cabin and pulls out two tents.
“It’s already past noon. It’s a long walk even for me. You’ll take even longer.”
“Yeah, Payten. That’s what happens when you spend your days inside looking at math,” Selvan teases.
“Must I remind you that I wandered this land for ages before settling here?” I ask.
“It couldn’t have been that far.”
“It was pretty far,” confirms Nol. “-I mean, from what I’ve heard, of course.”
“How would you know?’
Nol walks away silently. We run to catch up. The next few hundred blocks of walking were as quiet as Nol himself; nothing of note happened until the sun started setting. “How far is it?” ask Selvan and Nol. I adjust my glasses, take a sighting, move twelve steps to the left, and take another. “Perhaps half-an-hour’s slow walk. Nol?”
“That’s how much sun we have left. We’ll have to set up camp.”
So we do.
/break character
Sorry, this chapter is a bit dialog heavy… as well as severely late. It’s gone through a couple rewrites, and several forgets. But I think it has to be this way - Nol Valen has to be introduced much more subtly. This is partly because of him being a bit less archetypal than the current characters, and also because of future plans. Now forget I said anything, as I’m not giving away the secret yet. Though I will keep hinting at it.
I’d just like to remind you all to remind me that this exists every so often, so that I finish the next chapter before Alpha 14 [4 alphas per chapter is really a bit too much, don’t you think?] and so that I finish this whole thing sometime before Stonehearth Beta 301 is released.