He walked up to the relaxed chief and extended a hand. “It’s wonderful to be able to see your village once more.” A finger tapped more whilst the other hand met Joey’s, they had a quick shake as the man finally stood up.

“And here, I worried we scared you off. To come so soon though, what exactly can we offer that you need?”

The two smiled, the intention of his visit wasn’t exactly hard to see. He replied, “Can your village produce clear glass?”

“Yes, although it is rarely used. What exactly do you require?”

“A lens, like one for a telescope or eyeglass.” The chief nodded in interest a few times, then looked about the busy hall before locking eyes with some down at the forging area. On the side, neither of the two saw how Diavolo stopped rocking and focused on listening to the twos’ conversation. However, as they moved further down, he returned to the casual action with a single look towards the Reader who had taken a quick glance as well.

“We can make those, however, it is quite a bit of work. How polished must the lens be?”

Joey faltered for a moment. Then said, “This box can tell me if the item placed meets the requirements. If it is acceptable after cutting, I can take it straight away, otherwise I’ll need someone to polish it.” Without releasing too much information, he gave an easy way for both sides to be happy.

“That seems fine. It will take a couple hours for the forge to be hot enough, but after that, it should be ready an hour after. But if it requires polishing…”

“I know, I have quite a few tablet pieces this time.” The two nodded in agreement and continued all the way down the forge. Once there, the chief was able to convene with one of the forgers about the creation of a glass lens. Joey clarified that it only had to be about the size of an eye, and they understood well enough.

For this, they prepared a mixture of sand and some other substances, but he didn’t recognise any by sight alone. Not to mention there are probably hundreds of random chemicals which appear as fine, white powder…

“Those additional things make the glass clear then?” He couldn’t help but ask in interest, hoping to eventually be capable of producing his own glass items.

A female forger who focused on preparing the forge and oven replied casually, “Mostly just alumina and the sap of a Skybar tree. Stops cracking and toughens the glass a bit, also a small secret.” She smirked and it all reminded him of her voice. She was the one who answered his question last time round as well.

“That’s good to know. Thanks for your advice on fire clay last time as well.” The two moved on and Joey returned to discussions with the chief.

As the man held rather high authority within the village, as long as a request was parsed through him it almost always succeeded. From there, Joey learnt of an interesting wall of brambles and thorns near the north. These thorns were fireproof, and when cut down regrow in mere seconds, and as such were mainly used as a source of ash by the villagers. He, of course, saw the value in these for the heart of weeds.

Additionally, the dark forest should contain ivy… But he couldn’t go there without a proper light source.

“One important thing. I need to learn how to tan hides, I’d very much prefer to have more leather.”

“That’s simple. Ah, Averin! Please come here for a moment,” the chief called out to a young woman who couldn’t have looked more than 20, in fact her attitude felt closer to that of a child in his eyes. She walked over gleefully and greeted the chief with respect, but still an almost odd happiness in her eyes. “She’s a rather energetic child. Averin, the traveller wanted to learn about tanning hides and I think you’d be best for such a thing.”

“So you can just walk around without any runes?” He wasn’t at all surprised she asked that first, on his last visit more than a few children asked him that.

“Yes, but I still don’t know why. Hopefully I can figure out some time in the future, but I’m not making any promises.” As always, he remained upfront about the lack of help he could provide. And while his body certainly looked the same age as Averin… he was mentally at least a decade older. Her enthusiasm left him drained, much like interacting with children.

Her smile eased a bit, but didn’t completely disappear. And after a moment of thought, she replied, “I see… What did you want to know about tanning then?”

“So, what process do you use? What do you use to change the hide. How do you… I’ll be honest, I don’t know the words to describe the process.” He simply stated how little he knew about the process and waited for her to explain things in better detail.

“So, you need to clean the skin first. Then remove the flesh and blood, but that can all be done with water and a knife. Oh… Do you know what I’m talking about, or would an example be better?” She frowned for the first time on realisation that Joey might not instantly grasp everything she said.

But he replied, “No, I did that… Sort of. I accidentally cut too deep and pierced the skin itself.”

“That’s far too much then. If this is cow hide, you can leave a little bit of fat as well, just make sure to get rid of the flesh and wash it thoroughly. You can also mix in some wood ash to remove the scent better. Alternatively– We’ll keep this basic, sorry. What did you use to tan it then?”

“Might have accidentally ruined the urine… So I made a slurry from excrement and–” He was cut off before that sentence even impacted her.

“No, no, no… I know why you did that… But it’s so unnecessary. You should’ve come here. You live east of the dark forest, right?” Her suddenly demanding tone caught him by surprise, but since she displayed so much confidence there was no reason for him to question her now. A quick nod allowed her to think for a second before continuing. “It’s not a short walk, but to the far north there’s a forest of trees with yellow bark and pungent, frothy, red sap. Mix those and water in equal parts, then cover the washed hide with it. In about a day it will soften and reinforce it to the point of being a supple leather. You can boil it for 6 hours, then dry, to harden it as well.”

He did his best to note down the quick series of informational points given, and remembered the general idea rapidly. Head north of the prairie, harvest sap and bark, mix with water, then cover the hide with it. Also, throughout he heard her stuttering as though holding back several explanations of various concepts, a thoughtful thing but likely aggravating to her.

“If there’s more you want to say, please do. I’d rather not mess up again… I wasted a full cow hide.” He didn’t hide the matter, and received a ten minute lecture on how to better harvest, clean, prepare, tan, and finish hide from cows and bulls.

At best, he absorbed maybe a tenth of it… But the points alone were extremely informative.

For example, the best parts of the skin for making various armour of varying softness. How to better boil it using slight chemicals, but more importantly, using a light dilution of lime in water to burn off the hairs. Wood ash in water to clean it also helped remove the scent better. And she even recommended various other plants to add to the tanning fluid which wouldn’t impact the result but gave far better smells.

If fresh leather isn’t a scent he liked, that is.

After a short while, she did have to leave and do… Her job? He wondered how much leather the village actually went through, but when seeing the hundreds of pouches for various things, it became a bit clearer. Then he saw the waterskins, and realised that they went through a hell of a lot of the stuff.

“That was very good to know. But back to business, does anyone here know about the Forger mining in the prairie?”

“A copper mine, both our recounts agree with that. We’ve never used it though as our village uses a far closer one to the north.” Joey didn’t mind that, and it meant an even lower competition for resources around here. It was actually rather fortunate that the Forger died and left the workshops inert… If he had to compete with that level of power, he might as well kill himself five times to quicken things up.

“Yes, but beneath it I found out what they were really going for. At the end of the copper mine was a massive pit which descended into the world. Seemingly bottomless.” He still remembered how he trembled at the edge of that pit. Heights never really scared him, but something about the endless abyss swallowing him up didn’t really appeal to him.

“No, we don’t have… I’ll have to confirm with the Reader. Although, this reminds me of a warning I wanted to confer to you. Have you been to that iron mine I mentioned earlier? On the edge of the dark forest?” Palpable concern led him to gulp and thank himself for not impulsively visiting.

“No, I didn’t see a need in it for now.”

“You should know, some records from 30 years ago reveal that the iron mine was left protected by the Forger. We believe that a few golems remain in that mine… There is good news at least. These golems seem unable to return for repairs, and after so long they should be greatly decayed, in fact, their inner workings interest us.” From what he said, the expectation was clear enough, but he couldn’t take such a risk yet.

“I want to know what can damage them before taking this risk.” He stated a demand clearly, but from the chief’s sigh it was clear that no one knew.

Perhaps a set of elite warriors would’ve smashed them to bits if they already had a clue. And so, this matter fell on him. Once a method for destroying the golems came about, they could work together to destroy them and harvest parts, especially to find out what made these golems tick.

He didn’t deny the use such mechanical beings held.

Tireless. Powerful. And precise.

Three aspects which made them perfect for methodical and repeated labour.

For the next hour or so, the two simply discussed matters, and Joey made some more requests for materials. Mostly ordinary things which anyone in the clan could gather in a short while, making them rather trivial. In return, he simply handed over all 23 tablet fragments in his inventory, mostly unsure of the value of the glass lens he desired. By the time everyone completely set up inside the large hall, he’d finished his discussion with the chief and moved on to meet Diavolo.

The first thing being the rune, to which he held in his hand and simply showed to the wrinkled man. His rocking chair stopped as he opened the binder of notes once more and handed another set of pages over, these ones spoke of the ritual of the boar. From name alone he imagined that it invoked some sort of earthen power.

“Are you still not going to say anything?”

“What is there to say? You have magical talent, that I’ve confirmed. But there is nothing to teach until you know all seven runes.”

His eyes rolled, growing flustered but finally calmed with a smirk. “How about creating items with the sun’s magic? Sun slivers I believe they’re called,” Joey’s smile could be called insidious for a moment, and thought he caught the elderly man off guard.

“Why do you need those crummy things? Ah, yes, you need light. Fine, bring a zombie heart and I’ll teach you something.” The change in attitude instead left him to stumble, and he quickly dropped a zombie heart on the floor beside him through the cube. However, Diavolo merely nodded his head to the sides and followed up with, “I hope you have a knife as well.”

More than a bit frustrated, he pulled out the copper blade and replied, “There! Now what? Are you going to tell me to eat it?”

“Don’t do that, it might feed you for a few minutes, but you’ll be sick for the rest of the day. Cut open the heart and pull out the black pearl in its atrium.” For a moment he looked at the man strangely, not expecting the rotten heart to actually provide sustenance, but followed through by cutting deep into the squishy heart.

He expected black ooze to flow out, but the entire thing was empty, until his fingers pried apart the cut flesh to find a small spherical object deep within…

A pearl. Admittedly, this one was pure black, but some rarer pearls were coloured like this, right?

“Source of black magic… Leave it in the sun for a day, some mirrors will speed the process. You must– must shield it from the night sky. Is that understood?”

“You mean the stars? Why–” He shut up as the wrinkled man’s eyes shot open to glare into his. A soul piercing stare that left him stuttering for words, but none came out.