I’m walking and drumming. How unusual for me, right? The Indian rhythms Bik is teaching me are complex in a different way than stick drumming. It’s still the weirdest thing to have a drum and be using my hands in so many ways. The interesting thing about the Khol, and I guess the other similar drums, is that there are three layers of the drum face, and there’s the edge/side which is also used. There’s also all the hand positions, ka and kat and na and naa and so many more. How many fingers are you striking with? How spread is your hand? How resonant do you allow the strike to be? I don’t know how I never tried this before. I mean, you have to drop the sticks, so it’s a little weird. And it’s normally played sitting and cross-legged, which is also weird. But this should totally be part of a modern drummer's kit. I mean, I guess the Beatles did it a bit with Love to You and some other instrumental bits, but it's been pretty rare since.

Anyhow, I’m looking for people, or a town maybe. If I were looking for people, where would I look? Sounds like the kinda stupid question mom used to ask. “If you were scissors, where would you hide?” Not helping. I’m still walking and drumming. One of the new things that came out of my time at the river was that I got up to five seconds of sound-recording capabilities between my other work. And so occasionally, I’ll accompany myself. It’s kinda cool to be able to do that. Alhough, getting beats in precisely on the half-beat between my recorded beats is something else, when my fingers are moving at the speeds they do. So far, I’ve only managed it on sets of super-boring straight 64th notes. This would be a lot easier if I'd spent more time in drum circles or somethin', trying to weave in with other drummers.

Do we think people would get together in this world? Almost everyone prefers company. Even Tom wanted company, and he’s about the most self-sufficent person I’ve ever met. But the hottie wasn’t that social. So it’s clearly not everyone. I wonder what kind of folks made it through the trials. I’m sure there were a few of us who were just lucky like me. But on average, it’s gotta be tougher, meaner, more survivable folks. Does that crowd like people? Hmm. I don’t know a lot of people like that. Hope so.

And what direction would they be in? Didn't the History Mystery show have an episode on where people built towns. What'd they say? Come on memory, do your thing. Okay. They said that human settlements from Babylon to Chicago were almost always built by water. But a lot of that is because people drink and so they need water. And now people don’t drink, except when they want to. Even settlements on the ocean are usually settlements by rivers meeting the ocean. And some of the rest of water towns was because river travel was better than land travel. So, everyone built on rivers. Except for Johannesburg, South Africa and Phoenix, Arizona. But mostly, towns appear on rivers.

I turn around and start heading back to the stream where I found the piranhas.

What else did they say? Fertile land. They had to feed the people AND get them water. But now people don’t eat. I don’t think that matters any more. And I don’t know where fertile land is. Oh, right, that’s usually places where the soil gets replenished. I think that means replenished by floods. Maybe there’s other ways. But food isn’t a big deal any more. But thaums are. So maybe they want to build by a thaum source. Which is what? Critters? So like hunting or trapping villages from the old west. Where the hell would that be? Best places I've seen for critters has been forests. Whenever I went hunting with Tom, it was in the woods.

What else? Maybe they said something about trade routes? Some towns pop up by trade routes? Shoot. This is a new world. Trade routes are between other towns, and if there aren’t any, that doesn’t help. Someone would have to build roads or use rivers. Trade routes don't help. Back to rivers and forests.

Hmm. I don’t recognize this area. How can you get lost turning around? Whatever, keep going. I'll find a stream.

Okay; Rivers, trade routes which means rivers, and fertile land which means forests. Is there anything else I can remember? Minerals. Maybe that’s not where they get started, but ones that grow big enough to matter. The ability to get raw materials for industry. But industry isn’t really going to exist. And I think that’s a lot of what trade routes are for too. It's about ways to get raw materials into cities so folks can use them to make stuff. But that’s all external strength stuff anyhow, and god knows Alec talked about internal strength enough.

Maybe this is the forest that I was in? There might be a stream in the middle. Probably is. I don’t remember going over any water.

What else matters in cities? Strategic position. I think that means that they can’t easily be attacked. I think that means by water or mountains. If there’s an army coming from somewhere, they want to only have to defend one side or two, not three or four. But does that work with magic and superheroes?

And who’s building the town? Will someone just build it anywhere? Or are we even looking at permanent settlement? Will it just be a bunch of yurts, and then folks up and move after the animals are cleared from an area? Are we moving back to a forager lifestyle? Or hmmm what was the other word? Nomad? Herder? Nomadic Herder? Will they keep domestic animals? Do they have to be dangerous?

Okay. Found the stream. Now what. I follow it. Which direction? Streams get bigger going with the water. Turn left and follow the river down stream I guess.

How am I going to find the town? I guess if it’s on the river, I’ll run into it but what if it’s off the river? Then I guess I’ll need to hear it? The town might be loud. Or maybe I’ll see a road-thing going to the river. Tom built pipes to move the water to his farm. Maybe I’ll see a waterwheel or something.

What about smoke? That's a really good indication that folks are burning stuff. And I can’t imagine more than five people getting together and not burning stuff; especially with all the forests. There’s also cooking, and steam power. There’s distilling and just staying warm by a fire. Smoke is probably what I’m gonna have to look for.

That kinda sucks. I’m in a forest, and I can’t see very far. And my echolocation doesn’t find smoke very well either. I just sear right through it. Funny how searing and seeing are almost the same, but show different things.

I hope I get out of the forest soon, and can look for smoke better. In here, the best I’m gonna do is smell for it.