“Were you avoiding me?” Elrhain asked.

He was currently sitting on top of Alleigh’s fluffy back with Agwyn. Eluned sat behind them so that the children didn’t fall and injure themselves.

Bromwyn, the Pengyte’s master, scouted the forest trail ahead with his team of hunters for any rogue dangers on the way.

All manners of howls and screeches sounded from the deep jungle around them, as the adults carried back pile after pile of animal carcasses, or Ahnmigheists as they called them here. It took only minutes to bleed, butcher, and bind the meat and bones into leafy bags.

Which they then secured to the Kaloxen while expert shovellers simply buried the waste parts in the ground. Strangely enough, they were throwing away a large portion of the meat too alongside the waste, which confused Elrhain.

But what interested him more were the varied uses of magic spells from the entire Ahnmigheist processing steps.

‘I need to record all the diverse uses of magic.’ Elrhain added to his to-do list.

With the cacophony of nature and Eluned’s melodic humming as a backdrop, the two children whispered to each other in their faux-telepathy about this and that. They had practised over the years to make their whole secret conversation gig subtler. Now they could talk nonsense outwards in Uorian, while the actual communication superimposition itself in Earth Common.

“No! It was just so bloody embarrassing.” Agwyn frantically waved her hands at Elrhain’s question. “Hells below, we were saying such c-cheesy lines. Imagine if our parents could actually understand us.”

Elrhain flinched, his face too blushing wildly. He definitely shared her sentiment. No matter how passionate and pink the moment was, suddenly shouting high school level love comedy quotes was always a big no-no.

‘Middle school,’ he corrected himself, squirming in mental agony.

“Don’t bring it up, ever, I beg you. I feel like dying every time I remember that.” Elrhain pleaded, deciding to change the topic. “B-By the way, did you see the suns?”

“Deal.”, Agwyn nodded furiously, playing along with Elrhain’s attempt. “And suns? There’s only one though.”

“Nope. If you look closer, you will see another two concentrated specks of light on the bottom-right edge of its corona. And a big one on the upper-left. They are so close together that they look like one big, if unevenly spherical, sun to the untrained eyes. I think Uorys Diosca is like the 30-Ari-A quadruple star system.”

“Huh? How did you see all that without shades or a telescope? And, I heard mommy call it the respected Sohwl, and how it rains down fire whenever the Dhionne and the Faediaga contempt the disc.” Agwyn muttered, glancing up. She wanted to get a better look at the four suns just to be sure.

But only a portion of the sky peaked out through the thick forest canopy.

So the Sohwl, which was now westward from its midday position, couldn’t be seen clearly.

“Come to think of it, the only time we could see the suns was during noontime when we were playing in the courtyard garden.”

“Yeah, the clouds always covered it otherwise,” Elrhain shrugged. “Yet no strange swirl of clouds to be seen now. Just another enigma of magic we need to figure out.”

They went on chattering about odd things they noticed along the way. Their convoy of beasts moved through the lush mountain trail, passing one peak after another. Their short journey also took them by myriads of mystical lakes, caves full of growling beasts, and actual floating islands, making the two positively wow out loud till their jaws went sore.

Right now, they were on the fringe of a mountain full of tall bamboo-like trees, going downwards.

They could see a misty valley in the distance, with the splashing sound of waterfalls getting louder by the minute. Many other mountains surrounded the same valley, creating a foggy, dreamlike scenery, like the adobe of hermits in tales of eastern mythology.

The blushing awkwardness from before was nowhere to be seen. Or it was still there, and they both tactfully ignored it, much to Elrhain’s relief. The journey itself had been quite pleasant, which helped him no small amount in calming down.

The trail under Alleigh’s feet was well paved with rubble and stone with very few bumps. Occasionally, they would come by groups of large huts made of mud and stone, with straw and branch roofing.

Dhionne people, each with one or two strange physical features, were scurrying about their everyday tasks. Each time, a team of natives would join the convoy, decked out in ceremonial clothing such as gaudy gheist-pelt robes or kilts, fang and bone ornaments, and jewellery made of beautiful rocks. Their heads donned feather headdresses and bone crowns, with painted totems on their faces and bodies.

Most of them had skin colour the shades of honey brown or olive green, generally of the milder tones. Some had tails, with others sprouting antlers and horns.

Elrhain even spotted one extremely old Dhionne man who had clawed fingers on all of his scaled reptilian limbs. He reverently came to greet Bromwyn with a band of Dhionne following behind.

After a conversation with exaggerated body language, they too joined the convoy, bringing in their own set of beasts of burden.

“Dhionne Villages?” Elrhain asked.

“Don’t you think it’s too tiny to be a village? There are only 30 or so people in so few houses, most of which are adjoint. Maybe a family home? Those Dhionne all have identical scales as that grandpa.” Agwyn observed.

Elrhain supposed it was possible. At first, he thought their courtyard was utterly remote. Were they banished or clan outcasts? That didn’t sound plausible either, with how reverential the servants were towards their family—especially Cyra, Bromwyn and Thundham.

Now he concluded that the distance between one family’s house to another’s was simply absurdly far.

“Annie, how do you reckon they keep security? I hear a lot of monsters, em, gheist roars in this area.”

Agwyn thought for a while, then pointed at the bone and stone weapons being carried by the Dhionne people. Some even had metal swords of a bronze-ish glimmer.

They knew metal was rare in this world. It was exclusively employed for weapons, shields, and armours. Never for tools.

“See how even the children are strutting around with spikes? They probably welcome animal trespassers since it means free dinner. For christ’s sake, look at that one with the spear! She looks even younger than me!” Agwyn said, waving at a particularly curious little girl who was staring at Alleigh with drool dripping from her mouth.

The girl jolted awake like a bunny as if feeling Agwyn’s immoral gaze and ran away to hide behind the claw handed grandpa.

“Hng, so cute.”

“Now that I think about it, those Gheists your father and his men caught don’t look particularly monster-ish either. So each family handles their own safety in this relatively safer area?”

“I assume so, yes! Besides, I think Alleigh might also have a part in it.” Agwyn gently leaned forward and patted the patch of discoloured fur on the Pengyte’s forehead.

The magical husky—and Elrhain would fight with anyone who said otherwise—jerked his neck around and stuck his tongue out. A few good-natured giggles from Agwyn made him woof in glee.

“They all have several tamed Gheiststrums or… or stronger Ahnmigheists in each family. Do you see how packed that eight-legged Iguana is? And look at that rhino! Oh god, it has beautiful grass patches growing on its hide and blossoms on the horns.”

Agwyn started at the latter in wonder, “How magical. Do you think it’s a fairy?”

“Ew, no way.” Elrhain peered away from the monstrosity. “Any chance they pee around the houses to mark their territory to keep interlopers out? Like wild tigers back on Earth?”

Agwyn gagged at the image and thwacked Elrhain’s shoulders. “Stop being weird! Those are tamed beasts, pets! They should have designated spots for excreta!”

“I disagree; a litter box sounds like a concept too advanced for these tribal folks.” He observed all the gheists in convoy, including Alleigh. “The mounts don’t have saddles or harnesses. On that note, I have seen no fabric clothing or threads as of yet.”

He then pointed at one of the Kaloxen, “No wheelbarrows, wagons, or carts either. They paved this road so well with stone. Why simply tie the bundle to a beast and not some sort of wheeled carrier? This all looks inefficient.”

“Err, let me consider.” Agwyn closed her eyes to concentrate, rubbing the sides of her skull with her fingers, “They have stone-paved roads, but it could be for the mounts, right? Some of these beasts don’t look like they were built for trekking the unstable mountain hills. However, our Earthling ancestors invented wheels in… I don’t know. But it should be before paved roads, right?”

“Yes. It was in 5500 BCE on Earth, 1500 years before the first paved road was made in Mesopotamia. And wheels were first used in pottery, I think. Speaking of sticky mud,” Elrhain rubbed his nose, “Our courtyard was built with stone, timber, and some sort of grey adhesive lime, right?”

“Oh, cement then? When was that invented?”

“Probably not the modern kind, which was invented around the 1800s. But yes, a cementitious composite. Like the roman limestone and volcanic ash version, used in the early 300 BCE. There are some serious technological discrepancies with this world.”

“… Or maybe they are in use, just not here in the valleys and mountains? Don’t you think you’re overthinking this?”

Elrhain laughed and brushed Agwyn’s squishy cheek. Physical contact had turned into a casual habit for them with thirty Earth years of constant crib-company. “I suppose so. But those are just some of the weirdness I noticed.”

“Such as?” Agwyn blinked. She had tossed a chunk of dried meat at Alleigh just now, and the Pengyte was contentedly chewing on the meal.

“I’ve never seen any papyrus, vellum, let alone paper, being used in the clan. Only very roughly processed parchment. All the language ‘books’ I found were actually animal-skin scrolls. Yet they have intricate bone-made fountain pens with removable cartilage nibs and ink cartridges that use minerals from rocks, ash, and actual blood for ink!” Elrhain exclaimed.

Elrhain then explained why those kinds of pens should not even exist in this time period.

On Earth, the first ink pen was invented in the 1820s. Before that were the dip pens, quill pens, and even earlier were reed pens. In fact, reed pens were developed around the same time as the papyrus. Though at first, they used it as a cuneiform stylus for clay writing.

Later, they invented ink from grinding minerals and noticed reed pens could be used to write on papyrus, much more logistically viable than large clay slabs, which had to be dried afterwards. They were even more precise than human fingers.”

Agwyn slowly bobbed her head, “Come to think of it. None of the dwellings here uses fired bricks either. Not even our fancy courtyard. Yet they can smelt metal swords.”

“That! I asked that to grandfather when I first noticed all of this. He didn’t even know what a brick was.” Elrhain excitedly nodded. He rather enjoyed discussions like these.

“So I’ve been using the lucid dreams to jog my memory. To get hold of the specifics and nitty-gritty details, if by chance I had ever read a book, article, or watched a video on any of these topics. Luckily, I watched a few good documentaries on the history of pen and paper.”

“Is that why you were so tired lately, even though you sleep more than me?”

Elrhain nodded, averting his eyes from her narrowing gaze.

“Ellie… Didn’t you say you’ll do it in moderation? You’ll turn into one of those virtual reality junkies at this rate.” Agwyn grabbed his head and turned it her way. “Look at me!”

“But I was!” Elrhain defended himself. “Can I get back on topic, please? I was just getting to the good part.”

“… we are not finished, you know? But sure.” Agwyn snorted.

“Excellent!” Elrhain cheered, intentionally ignoring her stink eyes before going back to his lecture, “We can either attribute all this to magic and sorcery. Perhaps the denizens of this world simply chose another path of development.

Perhaps they spent all their intelligence pursuing magical or martial strength and neglected all other sciences. But the discrepancy is still too glaring. There must be something we are missing. You get me?”

“Duh,” Agwyn chided, “We are barely a meter tall, and this is our first trip outside. You need to get some first-hand knowledge to come to a real conclusion.”

“Yeah, haha.” Elrhain scratched his head.

“You’re right. But I have a suspicion that my guess is not too far from the truth. No matter the civilisation, there is always a specific flow in inventions, from simple to complex, like papyrus necessitating reed pens as an ink-scribe tool. Yes, this flow gets broken a lot as the application of an invention is limited only by our imagination. But never to this large of a margin. Just consider the case with the bone fountain pens I mentioned earlier.

Let’s look at it from a historical perspective. Experts have hypothesised that while some ancient human tribes in the Palaeolithic age used dried animal skin for painting murals, similar to cave art, it was exceedingly rare. Ancient parchment scrolls, like our clan’s, were used for writing for the first time in the same period as papyrus.”

Elrhain stopped to catch his breath and organise his thoughts. Agwyn attentively listened with her cheeks resting on her palms.

“But when papyrus got widespread with exports from Egypt, parchment virtually vanished because of its complicated manufacturing process. It was only popularised again thousands of years later when papyrus production dwindled as the reeds used to make them were over-harvested.

After that came vellum, then books. The Chinese invented paper independently during the 2nd century BCE. Yet, it only replaced vellum entirely throughout the known world during the 11th century CE. It was 500 years after the paper was first exported out of China in the 600s.”

“You said the fountain pens even had internal ink reservoirs?” Agwyn picked up the key point.

“Yes.” Elrhain nodded.

“Even at the earliest estimated period when vellum was first widely used, and not the badly processed animal-skin parchments like the clan’s, they were using quills at best. Not even a dip pen is possible, which was only used after pigment-based ink was invented, like India ink.

Fountain pens came even later, and they could never use pigment-based ink like the clan’s gheist blood properly since it would clog the pen in no time: only water and dye-based. Yet here…” Elrhain looked towards Agwyn for her opinion.

“Indeed, that is a large skip in generations,” She agreed.

“What’s weirder is how they make the pens and why they don’t clog or corrode. Or even though they don’t process the parchments to accept ink better, they still work well.” Elrhain shook his head in defeat.

“Mommy told me there are storytellers in the clan township in the valley, and a shaman she called the ‘Keeper of the Archives.’” Agwyn said. “Maybe you can get more clues there?”

“Well, it’s just a peeve of mine.” Elrhain nodded before smiling mischievously at Agwyn. “If nothing, now we can become the mysterious and knowledgeable Wisemen of this era, who can bring out witch-craft far stranger than magic from their tiny little noggins. Such as chemical fertiliser! Or ice cream!”

“Or muskets and gunpowder! Maybe even modern eco-friendly biological weaponry!” Agwyn beamed.

“… let’s limit ourselves to ice cream for now.” Elrhain shivered, trying to push the evil thoughts away from Agwyn’s head by repeatedly whacking it.

Agwyn awkwardly laughed after shoving away his hand, “I was just kidding. A joke, hey! Why are you looking at my hands? I promise I didn’t have my fingers crossed!”