“Alright. Alright. I’ll get done fast. Sorry for taking too long in the bath.”

“No! No, Master! It’s OK! We aren’t meaning to…”

“It’s fine, Garnedell. I’m joking,” Joe countered with a smile before climbing out of the bath and changing, “Let me get dressed and leave with Kilniara so she’s not trapped in her room while you bathe. You can meet us downstairs after your done.”

Garnedell quickly nodded, “OK, Joe.”

“No… really master! We are not asking you to finish the bath quickly!” Zilnek quickly interjected.

Joe smiled and found himself responding rather easily to Zilnek’s cry, “I’m only teasing you, Zilnek. Don’t worry,” he replied as he nodded to Zilnek in affirmation.

Joe then dressed quickly and called out to Kilniara when he’d finished getting on his pants, “Ready to go to supper, Kilniara?”

Joe heard the door open as she came in the room, her reply quick enough, although she hiccupped halfway through, “Yes, Joe. I’m ready… hup… yes… um, ready.”

Joe finally pulled his shirt on before nodding, “Right. Let’s head out to the meal then.”

Joe smiled as he turned to head out the door. Huh… naked male chests… not something Kilniara can handle? Or is it a bit inappropriate for the culture? It didn’t seem to be a problem in the village. Is it… or is the room more… hmm… weird.

Joe held the door for Kilniara before heading down to the common room, yelling at the boys as he left, “Don’t take too long! I’m ordering your food now. Come down fast or have cold food!”

“Hey! Don’t push us!” Garnedell cried back through the inn door and Joe chuckled, glancing up to see Kilniara reply with shy smile in kind, staring at Joe with tilted head and a brush of her hair behind her right ear with a tiny gesture that barely moved her arm. Kilniara held his gaze with head down and eyes hooded before she looked away with a slight blush and Joe smiled, his own look shifting to the side.

“Let’s head down to the meal, Kilniara.”

She nodded quickly, bouncing on her feet before turning and zipping quite quickly down the stairs. Joe smiled, a blush warming his cheeks as well before sliding down the stairs after her, a bit more confidence in his step. Makes it a lot easier when you know she’s interested, I guess!

Joe took a deep breath, stopping on the stairs to shake himself off before he came in sight of the common room. Let’s not… make this … awkward… um.. how? Joe pondered but found himself unable to think of anything by the time he’d found himself settled into the seat and looking at Kilniara across the way before he was ready.

Joe smiled with some embarrassment and Kilniara dropped her head down, cheeks flushing redder. Joe began to speak, “Uh… well… today… everything… was everything fine?”

Kilniara looked up and smiled brightly, “Today was very good.”

Joe nodded his head, “Did you have any questions? You learned OK?”

Kilniara’s smile dropped a bit before she nodded, “Yes. I learned well.”

Joe noticed Kilniara’s emotional retreat and floundered, struggling to figure out what he’d done but the silence urged him to reply quickly, “Ah… good then… good.”

Kilniara nodded a bit stiffly and replied, “I do not have any questions, Teacher.”

Joe nodded, also feeling a bit of his own mood sour as she retreated into their professional relationship. Well… shit! No wonder she got pissed off… I started it. Joe constrained his sigh and then smiled while trying to get their conversation back on track, “Good. Then let’s talk … let’s be a bit more relaxed.”

Kilniara’s smile bloomed at that point and she nodded but without any reply and Joe struggled to open the conversation up once again. “Well, I know some about you and your family. I’m sure you also have some questions about me. Anything’s fine, but if you’re not sure, why don’t you tell me a bit about your family and life here.”

Kilniara smiled brightly with a nod, “Um… my family… There is not much to say as we lived our life here as simple tailors and cloth armorers for adventurers.”

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“Where was your home?”

“We lived in the outer city, down near the two fighter guilds.”

“Fighter guilds?”

“The dungeoneer guilds and the adventure guilds.”

“Oh. OK. I guess that makes sense? Your family made armor for the adventurers and dungeon divers?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm… Where was your shop?”

Kilniara cocked her head with some confusion, “The same… it was in the same place.”

“Your shop and your home, they were the same place?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Wow. That would make it nice. No long commutes to work.”

Kilniara smiled and laughed while shaking her head, “No… no long walks for work, but the water was a bit of a killer walk.”

Joe smiled in response and felt a moment of cultural vertigo as culture shock hit him. Huh… right… no plumbing! “Who usually got water for your family?”

“My mom and I.”

“Huh… seems similar to my people when we had to get water from the well.”

“When you had to get water from the well?”

“Hm. Many of my people no longer need to go to the well.”

“You have servants who get water for you?”

“Hmm… not really. Our water is … delivered by pipes from water anywhere we need. The water serves our whole … uh… well… everyone in my country gets water delivered to their home. People can get water any time by simply opening the water pipe.”

“Water pipe?”

Joe blinked, some confusion coming to him as he struggled to figure out how to explain liquid transfer via pipe. “Uh… water… rivers! Rivers are water flowing down through the land, yes? Pipes… uh… water pipes are a way to have water travel from a place where it is collected and cleaned, if needed, then sent to people’s homes where they can use it.”

“There are rivers going to every home?”

“Um… yeah… sort of, basically, but they are not rivers but actually pipes.”

Kilniara sat and pondered for a moment, staring at Joe before responding, “But… I’m… pipes are not rivers?”

“They act as rivers… in some way, but they are… um… Do you know a tube?”

“I do not know,” Kilniara seemed to respond with a bit of embarrassment.

Joe smiled back and leaned forward quickly to grasp her hand, “You don’t need to feel embarrassed.” Joe squeezed her hand in reassurance, “Never feel embarrassed at the lack of knowledge. That is the normal state of any being; we are born without knowledge. Only ever feel embarrassed if you reject learning.”

“Thank you,” Kilniara spoke softly as she looked up with a shy smile.

Joe nodded with assurance while allowing a few moments for Kilniara to reclaim her composure before sitting back up, withdrawing his hand and continuing, “A tube is a kind of hollow round… huh… um… A straw… you don’t have straws.” Joe struggled for a bit before he pulled up his hands, circling his hands putting thumb to thumb and fingers to fingers, creating a tube with his hands. “This is a tube. You can see how water would flow down the middle hollow and it’s held in the middle all around. Stretch this tube as long as you need and allow water to go down it. Understand now?”

Kilniara took a few moments to think before offering a dubious nod, “I think, but… wouldn’t the water leak out?”

“Yes, if there were holes in the pipe. But otherwise, the water will simply flow down the pipe.”

“But, even without holes…”

“Ah… right. Well, you would have to choose a material that is water proof… ah… right, you probably don’t know what that means, but … something that water will not leak through, like plast… wait… um.. maybe like metal or clay.”

“That seems… very impractical. Metal would rust and clay … is very fragile.”

“Yes, you’re right, although there are ways to protect metal from rusting and make clay stronger. There are other materials as well, such as plastic.”

Kilniara didn’t say much, listening in before finally responding, “Your whole country would have such a thing?”

“In one way or another.”

She fell into uncertain silence before her smile of wonder disappeared like flash paper, replaced with a stoic reserve. Joe reacted to her sudden reserve by also sitting up before looking around, his eyes turning to follow hers. He turned his head and found Kukurnal winding through the tables with excited agitation. He came in and settled at an available seat, tossing out an easy greeting.

“Hello, my friend. How goes your day?”

“It goes well enough, Kukurnal. How is yours?”

“Good… excellent. I’ve been waiting excitedly to speak with you.”

“Cool. So what shall we talk about today?”

“Cool? Hm… strange turn of phrase. How do you mean?”

“Ah… well, it’s just a word that means good, or… well… just a positive meaning, basically.”

Kukurnal cocked his head while dropping his eyebrows in consideration before responding, “Strange. It is a way of your people?”

“Yes. Basically.”

“Hm... Interesting. Well, as for topics, I feel… free. What were you and your apprentice speaking of. She seemed quite excited.”

“Oh, um… well… we were just talking about water.”

“Water? Is water different amongst your people?”

“Hmm… well, it seems that the people here carry water from their wells to their homes.”

“Yes, we do. It is… do you mean that you do not?” Kukurnal quickly interrupted himself excitedly while sitting forward quickly.

Joe smiled at his excitement before smiling and nodding in reply, once again explaining what he’d just finished explaining to Kilniara, although this time using his pants leg or shirt sleeve as an example of a tube. The discussion quickly devolved into rapid questions from Kukurnal and Joe’s poor attempts at explaining an entire country’s water infrastructure. They were deep in the conversation by the time Garnedell and Zilnek joined them, and soon the other three dropped into their own quiet conversation, although Garnedell and Kilniara seemed to listen in to Joe’s as well, asking their own questions from time to time.

The conversation continued on for quite some time before Garnedell called a waitress over for some food and drink, which reminded Joe that he had not had something to eat in quite some time and they took a break to order. With the interruption, Joe was able to turn the topic towards understanding what intelligence was.