4.6

Brad

*Holy disco balls but [Mindfulness] is a useful skill*, Brad thought. Within moments of deliberately using the skill, the impotence and rage that had begun to cloud his every waking breath noticeably faded from its primacy in his thoughts. The rage did not exactly decrease; it would be more accurate to say that it got out of his face, allowing him to once more set his mind to finding useful questions.

Those questions included things like: How much did the statistics on their [Status] screens reflect their present reality? How much did those pretty numbers instead influence their present reality? Why did skills raise stats? Why was this system so … cludgy? Candy loved to quote Einstein's Simplicity Principle: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Should he even attempt to apply that here? What benefit could there be to this set of Aspects, Designs, Skills, and Statistics?

He had started out with some variant of these questions, but frustration had built upon frustration until he lost touch with the resolution to learn as much as he could about this new world and this mana force.

He gained another skill point and he felt - not balanced, but less frazzled, less harried by his circumstances.

While Lena led him through a guided meditation (he had needed the help to begin), Candy emerged from her thoughts, seeming her perky self once more.

His meditation session ended with her first words. "I'm picking up that you have a boy-girl liking for me, and I have no clue how to respond. I respect you and I enjoy the person you are, but I have no clue what to do with serious boy-girl liking stuff. I don't want you seeing my confusion as playing mind games with you, or blowing hot and cold, or any of the other ways guys bitch about women they want to have sex with. Now that I've told you where I stand - which is pretty much confused as all get out - what you do is on you."

She had turned to Aaron, straightening out of his semi embrace and placed her hand on top of his. Her eye contact was this side of aggressively direct, and Brad wanted to face palm so badly he felt the loss of one of newly regained Will Points spent on suppressing that urge.

Aaron turned redder than a ripe cherry, sucked in a breath, held it a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Fine. You don't know what you want? Let's explore the options. I do find you attractive, I like the person you are, even when you bring up something that should be a more private thing between the two of us in front of everyone like this."

Candy winced, shooting Lena, whose holograph was face palming, a worried glance. She only cringed further into herself on seeing her cousin's reaction. She opened her mouth, and Aaron waited a few moments to see if she would say anything.

She didn't, so he did. "Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing to have deeper emotions pointed out in front of a bunch of people who aren't really involved in those things. Worse when it sounds like a 'not you, but me' kiss off speech. Fortunately, I do know you, Candice, and I know that you meant exactly what you said - you don't know what to do. So, if you'll be kind about my screw ups, I'm not going to hold yours against you. Unless you stop telling me what's going on in your mind."

Brad got a notice about skilling up his [Sense Motive] as he practically felt Candy's fear of social situations dragging her off to Stupids-ville. "Good God, Girl! Say yes!" he ordered, getting the pair's attention. Ignoring the hostility in Aaron's stare, he locked gazes with Candy. "Bravo boyscout here is offering to be a safe person to explore with, not saying you have to jump into everything feet first and full bore to mayhem! He *knows* you, Candy! Not every concept and detail, but he knows enough that he's not turning into a sodding prick from emasculated ego, like the last three arseholes whom you did flat out turn down!"

Candy opened her mouth, her face squeezing into an expression best described as not-fully-comprehending-but-what-the-fuck. "Who are you talking about?" she asked.

"Jerome Porter, Caleb Kiss-My-Muscles, and let us never forget Tyler Harris With the Neck Beard."

Rob asked, "Did you have to point out his facial hair?"

"Yes, because there were two Tyler Harrises in our class, Neck Beard and Full Beard." Brad answered without looking away from Candy.

"Ah," Rob said, lost for words after that.

Candy's head tipped to the side, her gaze losing focus for just a moment. "Oh," she said. "So that's why they went from jerks to butt faces." Then she turned to face Aaron again. "Is Brad right, that you're not saying let's jump into the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing and see where it goes from there, but more let's not rule out that possibility while I figure out if I even want to try dating?"

Aaron rolled his shoulders back, his blush faded and the tension in his face easing. "Yeah. No assuming things on either side. We establish the parameters of whatever we're trying out and stick with them, the first constant being that both of us always have a no-arguing-with right to stop anything we're trying for any reason or no reason at all."

Candy, too, relaxed. "Okay. I can do that." She turned back to sit properly on the couch and said, "So, Brad, what's your [Tapestry Synchronization] up to?"

"My what now?" Brad asked.

"Oh. Well. Would you please use the Tapestry command [Share Status] with me?" she asked.

Brad took the opportunity to review that information while he complied.

*** *** ***

INSERT_STATUS_SCREEN_HERE

*** *** ***

The barest tip of Candy's tongue poked out of her lips, one of her habits when closely reading something.

"Alright. Let me get you set up with access to my Lab level, then we'll roshambo over who gets to pick whose brain first. Does your type of golem need sleep, or downtime or the like?"

"The body, no, but I think I'll start [Meditating] while everyone else is asleep." The benefits of just the little he had done so far were like night and day for his mental state, and Brad was not a man who had to be shown simple things twice.

*~*~*

Jason

Two days had passed since Brad's arrival, and the [Prison] level was still locked up tighter than a rust-welded nut that had been screwed to its bolt so tightly the corners had been stripped.

«Lena, am I not your Liaison? Shouldn't I be part of these contract negotiations?» he asked, again. He had yet to find a better opening salvo, and it was pissing him off. He did not like this impotent feeling he felt at the knowledge that she was actively blocking him from doing his job.

Again, she said, «No.» Unlike the last few thousand times he had pestered her, she did not tell him how she empathized with his frustration, how she felt she had screwed up with forcing the initial contract on Dibbs, and that she was pretty sure Dibbs wouldn't be able to trust any of them if they were part and party to whatever contract they did finalize.

They were all decent points, but Jason didn't care. Not only was this their lives, too, being affected, but Jason had the intuition that something more than her own self recrimination was driving Lena and *that* was making his every nerve and instinct scream to *do* something.

He drew in a deep breath, pivoted on his heel, and headed for the [Physics Lab]. Maybe Candy had tuned her plasma rifle to the point where she would lend it to him and he could just go force his way into the [Prison].

Jason ignored the ping-like request for attention that flowed over the G.C. to him. It was Corporal Ignemrot, and the man could wait. This was more important.

That was, until Lena sighed over the G.C. and responded herself. «Corporal, I hear you.»

The oddity of Lena's greeting stopped him. The corporal's response had him cussing under his breath and turning to go deal with the neighbors.

«Design Lead Lena Marie Weston, I am honored. The Council has granted their permission for Crafts Master Gilvillian to open limited negotiations with you regarding the use of the [Hall of Crafting] level you have built.»

Damned inconvenient timing on their part. Worse when Lena said, «Oh, wonderful! Would you mind if we held the negotiations in the level Lotrot's military is leasing?»

Keeping a tight focus on his use of the G.C., Jason said to Lena, «They aren't *leasing* that level, we're being neighborly and letting them use it as a good will gesture!»

«Uh huh. Close enough,» Lena said back, a trace of amusement in her G.C. voice. «You want to come do your job here, or leave me to give away the farm for the magic beans of their crafting secrets?»

*~*~*

Several hours later, Jason led Crafts Master Gilvillian into the [Hall of Crafting]. The negotiations had been fairly simple: the issue of the Studio providing consumable materials for use in finished pieces was set aside for the time being, and Lena's help in making the work areas and tools was contingent on the Guild's help in teaching her how they used their tools.

This tour was also Jason's first chance to do more than glance around the area, so he found himself pleasantly surprised by a lot of the items Lena had pre-installed.

The portal deposited them in a lobby area, much like the lowest floors of a fancy hotel on Earth. There were seven conversation areas, couches grouped with armchairs and a low table comfortable for laying down plans the size of a large wall poster. Scattered among the conversation areas were a handful of bistro style tables. A counter near the portal entrance currently served as the lounging place of a fluff ball that was slightly larger than a house-cat. A quick [Inspect] revealed that the creature was a Fox (Domestic Companion). Three large archways led further into the level at the back of the lobby.

The gnome smiled at the room. "What purpose this?" he asked.

The phrasing struck Jason's ear strangely, but he let it go as a linguistic oddity and said, "The most amazing things built in our world were never made by a lone individual. We've had individuals with great ideas, but those ideas go nowhere without help, and the best ideas have a pattern of being discovered and refined by groups of people working together. Getting help when no one knows you need it, that's stupid levels of difficult, so here's a place for people to just talk about their crafting ideas, recruit that help, or find that bit of advice you can't learn from a book."

Gilvillian looked at Jason with a curious expression. "What's a book?"

Lena's avatar, looking close to her Earthly appearance, barefoot and dressed in jeans with a loose peasant shirt, glided in from the center of the back archways. Her voice echoed from the stone around them. "Something like a scroll box that's easier to jump between parts." She pointed toward the counter with the lounging fox. "There's a guest registry in book format under the counter, and some improved ink pots and pens, both with nibs and brush tips."

Gilvillian eyed the fox. "Will your fox guard permit the disturbance?"

"Kato's here because he's a bit too tame for the other foxes that have taken to Aaron's level. If you'll permit him to sniff your hand, to get your scent, he'll likely want to be rubbed behind his ears."

Jason led the way, demonstrating what Lena meant by offering his fist to the fox, who sniffed it before licking his knuckles.

With an offhand manner, Lena said, "Oh, the button there releases a pop out ledge to make it easier for individuals of shorter stature to staff the counter. It's a work in progress, so if there are improvements you think would make it more useful, please do let me know."

The Crafts Master came around the counter and pushed the button, wisely standing to the side of the counter and not directly behind it. A click and the ledge popped out about 4 cm.

«Pull it out, please,» Lena asked Jason over the G.C.

He leaned around, reached down and drew the ledge out to its full extension, some 40 cm. As he pulled it out, legs slid down at an angle, dropping foot first from the edge and slotting into place only when the ledge was all the way out.

"How did you do that?" Jason asked.

"Channels in the underside, yo-yo pullies and elastic cording for drawing the legs forward in the channels. I'm still working out a mechanical way to reset them, but it's a start, you know?" Lena's voice came from her avatar, now most of the way across the room.

Crafts Master Gilvillian had given Jason a mildly condescending amused glance at his question, but surprise wiped the look from his face at Lena's answer. "This is a mechanical ledge?" he asked, not bothering to hide his surprise.

Lena nodded. "Mostly. I cheated by using a [Reset] technique triggered by pushing and holding the release button to make it retract, but the initial push releases the catch holding the ledge in place. There was a step stool to make getting onto the ledge easier, but the dryad who claimed the garden I put in for Kato keeps stealing them and turning them into flower pots."

Gilvillian blinked and listed a little to the side. "There's a dryad on this level?" he asked.

Lena nodded. "She's obsessed with weaving, especially twigs and vines, and said she would be happy to help wood shapers who respect her space. We had a very long discussion about what it would mean for her to reside on this level and what she is and is not allowed to do. She's about as smart as the younger harpies, which is why it was a long discussion."

Jason held in a frown. Why hadn't he been told about there being inhabitants on this level already? Ignoring the sense of being shut out, he quickly found the registry book that first brought them around the corner and displayed it to the Crafts Master.

The book was in between an European A4 and a US Letter size, with seven signatures, each consisting of seven solid sheets. Jason didn't notice that for himself. The information came as a sub-thought message along the G.C., along with Lena's artsy satisfaction with the numbers. He did notice that the pages had a woven texture and had faint horizontal lines drawn about 0.7 cm apart.

Gilvillian examined the book and nodded, a lively smile suppressed around his mouth but showing near his eyes.

"I originally thought of separating the work areas by the types of dangers they present. We can easily change that up. The far arch leads to the fire-danger area, so forges, furnaces, and the like. The middle area is for crafts that require good ventilation. I can improve the venting if I connect the system to the one for the forges, but I don't know how flammable some of the gases released in tanning can be, and I wasn't sure what other crafts might involve toxic fumes. The nearer arch is for crafts that are more dangerous because of the sharpness of the tools needed for them, or the weight of those tools. Which would you like to look at first?" Lena asked.

They went from far to near. Gilvillian eyed the open forge room with a considering gaze, but his attention quickly riveted to the forges. Jason's [Diplomacy] skill provided him with a small insight. In English, the difference between a forge and a furnace was more linguistic than anything else, with the slight distinction that a forge might also encompass the whole of the building given over to smelting or smithing. For gnomes, the words they were using for forges referred only to the furnaces used for the detailed fancy work, after the smelting had been finished. What Jason thought of as furnaces were strictly about smelting metals, and the foundry was the building that housed the smelting furnaces. Smithy was how he should refer to a smith's workshop.

"Are the small doors in the wall keeping heat in the forges?" Gilvillian asked.

Lena rocked her hand back and forth. "The three different height forges at each workspace share a temperature control. I noticed that many of the sapient chimeras — that is how the people of Rhofhir refer to the taurgonauts and beast kin, right? — anyhow, they range in height from a little under a meter to about two and half meters. I wanted each workspace to be able to accommodate as many species of crafter as possible. Long made short, roll aside the door to the best height forge for the smith currently at work, and don't worry about burning your body hair off by standing too close to an opened lower forge."

"Ah. May I?" the gnome asked.

"Be my guest," Lena answered.

Gilvillian wore a frown on his face after looking over the forges. "How does one control the temperature? And what about the air blasts?"

Lena shrugged. "I don't know as much about forging as I know about sculpting and painting, so I can upgrade these after I get some more input on what the folks using them will need."

The furnaces for firing clay and annealing glass were more impressive to the gnomish crafter, and he had little to say about the vented areas. However, Lena understood power tools, and she and Candy, with Sha'lanadi's help, had figured out how to make and use mana batteries. The wood shop had planers, sanders, circular saws, routers, drills, drill presses, lathes of varying sizes, rotary tools, and all the bits and bobbles Jason could hope to use with them. It also had several sets of hand tools ranging from rasps and hand saws to chisels to screw drivers.

After Gilvillian had poked and prodded all the pretty moving pieces, Lena walked with them back to the lobby area. Her final offer, at least, was something she had discussed with Jason before. "As far as I know, Rhofhir doesn't have a precision standard as yet. As happy as I would be to supply you with standardized screws and nails, those count as material components. However, any blacksmith working in the Studio is more than welcome to use the measurement tools here, which I can assure you are accurate to the width of a strand of human hair. Should you be kind enough to share how you prefer to measure weight and volume, I can produce the means of measuring those, too."

Gilvillian nodded. "I will keep that in mind," he said.

Lena smiled, glancing mischievously at Jason, and said, "Well, I'll take my leave then and leave Jason to helping you with the details of moving in."

"Oh, one last thing, Design Lead, please. Where is the garden?" Gilvillian asked.

Lena grinned and pointed to a hole a gnome would have to crawl through, located behind the counter. "Through there. The dryad wants a chance to get to know her new neighbors before inviting you into her home.