“Careful, careful!” Olya buzzed around as I carefully put the dough in the oven, “Come on, it took our Shaid two whole days to gather all the ingredients by himself! Don’t let his death be in vain!”

“What the hell do you mean death, amigo?!” Shaid tossed him away from me, “I won’t die from a couple days of hard labor, and besides, I wanted to be the one who had solely harvested the ingredients for the first bread of Havana.”

“Yeah, and I’m the one who actually makes it.” I hushed both of them down, “Now shut the hell up, I’m trying to focus.”

Carefully, carefully putting the dough inside the sandstone oven we had made to the best of our abilities, I had made sure to keep my distance from the flames, so as not to burn the scorch mark I had gotten on the back of my hand just a couple days ago, when we had joined the Sun God’s religion. I am now a part of Selzion’s and Ouroboras’ religion, so I hope Selz finds no offense in it. That being said, the Knowledge God seeks out any and all information indiscriminately, and it is said in the scriptures that he will one day accumulate enough knowledge to one day create a brand new realm, one in which he will grant all of his worshippers a safe haven. Quite noble of him, but on the other hand, he might toss Shaid and I out for “cheating” on him with this Ouroboras.

“Bop!” I swiftly removed the clay spoon looking thing we had Tanathos make from Olya’s description, “And with that, we just have to wait another 15 minutes! Congratulations, everybody!”

Turning around to face the large crowd of eager Havanans cheering us on, Shaid, Olya and I engaged a friendly triple fist bump to signify our goal’s completion. With the way we had situated things, we have enough wheat to create an entire bakery’s worth every single day, and since our wheat production isn’t dependent on the seasons, that means we can make an amazingly large amount of bread every single day!

Soon enough, the entire quik was bunched up around our little makeshift bakery, and it almost got to the point where we had ran out of wheat we had harvested today, but thankfully we had just enough to feed everyone properly. For the first time in history, Havana was well fed, and the best part is that they will continue to be as such from now on.

“You’ve done it.” Tanathos gave all of us a weepy hug, “Sniff, you three…! You’ve once again made Havana a better place! We no longer have to worry about food shortage!”

“And not only that, Old Man.” Shaid noted, “But your people will also become stronger, now that they’re not starving anymore. You can focus on other things apart from survival, like external affairs, and clearing your name of the undeserved racism.”

“That…” He looked away, “That is for another time. Right now, there is something else I’d like to ask of you. And don’t worry, it’s nothing too annoying. Just a minor task.”

“Shoot.” I shrugged at him.

“It is in no small part thanks to the Provincians that we even could have the water supply from their oasis to nurture all this wheat. Shaid has started a project to dig out a canal from the sea to hopefully make it easier in the future, but for right now, I’d like you to give them our bread as a sign of gratitude and goodwill.”

“Is that all?” Shaid tilted his head, “Well, we don’t mind but, shouldn’t we hold off on that for now? I mean, maybe like wait until we have a more stable supply of the wheat?”

“No, the Provincians know we’re trying to make wheat.” Olya warned him, “If we make them wait too much, they’ll think we’re not upholding our end of the deal, that deal being Water for Bread. This could cause unwanted turmoil between the two quiks, so best to be as quick as possible with matters like this.”

“Right you are, brother Olya.” Tanathos nodded, “Well then, boys, please do this one little thing for me.”

“Will do.”

Walking over to our quik’s mascot camel, we had noticed none other than Cassandra tending to the now somewhat depressed Lina. It seems no matter how much we try our best to raise her spirits, she just can’t seem to get over the fact that Linda ran away without her. She’s becoming more and more depressed by the day, and it really makes me feel bad, but what can you do.

“Hello.” Cassandra smiled at the four of us approaching Lina, “Are you going somewhere?”

“To Provinc-.” I tried to speak the name of our destination, but was quickly hushed by Tanathos.

“Shh!” He whispered with his palm over my mouth, “Have you learned nothing from all the months you’ve stayed here!? Don’t just say stuff like that to her, otherwise she’ll…”

“I want to go with you!” Her Eyes flickered.

“Sigh…” Tanathos feebly let his hand droop from my mouth, “Dammit, brother. Now look what you did…”

“Father! Can I go? Can I? Can I?” She badgered him without a hint of reservation in her voice.

“No!” He shouted decidedly, “I know they’re our allies, but sending you out into the territory of the people who kidnapped us is a horrible idea!”

“Hmph!” She pouted, “But father, you said Schnell will be there! And Shaid and Olya too! Are you saying you don’t trust them enough to keep me safe after all that they’ve done? Come on, I’m nearing my twenty first revolution!”

“She’s got you there, Old Man.” I snickered, “Ah, but I think you’re mistaken, Cassandra. The word you’re looking for is year, not revolution.”

Staring at me with a completely innocent look, as if there isn’t even a sliver of doubt in her brain, she looked me in the Eyes and stated outright “No, I was alive for twenty one revolutions.” Turning to Tanathos, the three of us had asked him kindly to elaborate on his daughter’s words. Chuckling, he obliged.

“She’s right, Schnell. She used the correct word for it, at least in our culture.” He explained, “Here is one thing that you may not know about us Raamans – the scholars that came before us had found out that the World is just a sphere, that wraps around itself. It is not flat, like many of your people are inclined to believe.”

“…Go on.”

“Since the World is spherical in shape, the scholars of the past had also concluded that it is not the center of our everything, but rather the Sun is. Hence our religion of worshipping the Sun God. Their descendants then calculated what your people inherited – the modern day calendar.”

“Hold on, you’re saying our predecessors didn’t invent the calendar?” Shaid inquired, “As in, the thing we use to keep track of the date?”

“You know, brother, the White Man changed the name of it to remove suspicion from the fact, but a month in our language is called mes. Same as what we call the moon. Without going into detail, this is because our Raaman scholar predecessors discovered it takes roughly 30 days for the moon to make one full rotation around the World.”

“That’s… kind of hard to believe.” Olya said what all of us were thinking, “I mean, if the World is truly as spherical as you say, then how come no one’s fallen off the sides?”

“To counter that, if the World is as flat as you believe, then how come no one’s fallen off the sides there either?”

“…Fair point. I’m convinced.” Olya shrugged.

“H-Hold on, now! This proves nothing!” Shaid remained adamant in sticking to our people’s teachings, “I mean, what does this have anything to do with a revolution?”

“Well, it takes the moon a month to travel around the World, and the World a year to travel around the Sun. That is what is known as a revolution, and our people tend to prefer counting those instead of your people’s years. Obviously.”

“Don’t you “obviously” me, Old Man…” Shaid rolled his Eyes before sitting down on the hump of the great animal leashed to the fence, “Come on, everyone! Tanathos has “obviously” gone crazy from all the traveling around he’s done, so I think it’d be safer to depart for Provincia as soon as possible.”

“Then what about me?” Cassandra looked at him.

“Well, “obviously” you’re coming too, right?” He winked at her, “Wouldn’t want you to catch his crazy now, would we?”

“Brother Shaid…!” Tanathos groaned.

“What, I’m just being obvious.” He teased as we had Lina step on it.

***

After we had went to give our goodwill gifts of some of our bread to the Provincia quik’s head, he was delighted by the taste, and it didn’t even take him a single bite to realize something.

“Esta seco.” He commented.

“Yeah, keen observation on your part.” I figured as I had Olya take some jam we had stocked up on Lina, “Here, try it with this.”

Spreading the jam on the cut piece of bread, the leader of quik Provincia’s expression grew from one of happiness to just pure unadulterated joy. It was actually quite a pleasant sight, it was as if he had de-aged by a whole decade, judging from the sudden change in his facial structure as he eagerly ripped apart the slice. The poor bread, it never stood a chance…

“¡Debemos vender esto!” He yelled out for everyone to hear.

“Eh, why’s he yelling so suddenly?” Shaid grew wary, “Schnell, did we offend him somehow or something?”

“No, apparently he’s so overjoyed by the taste that he wants to sell it.”

“Sell? Don’t you mean buy?” Olya furrowed his brows, “Or does he think he can replicate our godtier formula just from the taste alone.”

“Dunno, I’ll ask him.” I turned to the leader as I cleared my throat, “¿A quién exactamente se lo venderás?”

“Hermanos, compraré vuestro pan. Después de eso, se lo venderé a la gente del otro lado del océano oriental. Lo vendes a los pueblos del norte.”

Man, I’m really no good with larger sentences. Shit, what did oriental mean again? No wait, I think that’s east? Or wait, was it west? Oh doy, what am I pondering about all by myself? We have a native speaker right here with us!

“Cassandra, what did he say?”

“He said he’ll buy our bread and sell it to what your people refer to as Simpleton. We will sell it up north, where father often goes to do business.”

“So we go to the dock town in Entropa then?” I made sure I got everything right, “But hold on, the Provincians can go to Simpleton? What ever happened to your father’s words of it being difficult to pass through customs and borders and all that?”

“No idea.” She replied with short sentences, “But Provincians have a trade route and good friends in Simpleton. I assure you this is a good idea to accept their deal.”

“Then if Cassandra gave us the okay…!” I proudly turned to the leader, extending my hand to him formally, “Put ‘er there, partner!”

It was a bit difficult for him to gauge what my answer was, given how strongly and violently extended my hand towards him, but he quickly understood the assignment and followed suit. With this, a new business had begun, and not only that, but it started off on a super high note. HavProv Bread & Co was created, and on its first day of operating, it had already gotten itself a well-established trade route!