There was no doubt in my mind that I needed this typewriter. I didn’t hesitate to pry it from the musty old box, though I was careful to not let the dozens of spiders scurrying out from under the keys get anywhere near me. I set it down and noticed that there was a thin strap leading back into the box, in which was a leather bag that rattled as though it were full of many small pieces. Using a handkerchief from the same box as a dust rag, I cleaned away the layers of dust and webbing that had accumulated on the surface, and using a wind rune blew air into the open face of the device to eject any internal garbage.
On first inspection I noticed a few unusual details that told me a bit about this thing's origin. It was stylish and oversized, but not overly so. It definitely was made for wealth, but all of its surface beauty was stamped in or carved , no engravings or decorations at all. The keys were hefty as well and required some effort to get moving after sitting idle for who knows how long. I had never used one of these before, so beyond the keys this machine was alien technology to me.
One issue I noticed right away was the number of arms this thing had. Pteronian consisted of thirty characters, and Jani'nan had words made from the fifteen shapes arranged in vertical columns. This machine had exactly twenty arms, but almost double the number of keys. There was also the question of how this thing was fed ink. Didn't typewriters have ribbons for ink, and if so where was this one supposed to keep it?
I rummaged in the same box it had come from, but nothing that looked to be from this device was seen. Well, since this was in his store it only made sense to ask Rakyat about it. I hoisted the cumbersome machine over to the front counter, but since he wasn't there I decided to go digging around in those old crates again.
As I pried open box after box, I began to notice a trend in the contents of these crates that was quite interesting. All of these items were old and dusty, as if they were pulled from a dilapidated 1800s mansion owned by an elderly gentleman. The tattered remains of a button down coat, a time worn pocket watch that looked on the verge of collapse, an illustration of a great black serpent billowing smoke into the air from its nostrils. Wait, was that supposed to be a train? I dug deeper into the container until at last my fingers brushed against a book that had somehow survived the test of time. I delicately removed it from its tomb and placed it on the ground, and after clearing away the thick sheet of dust I was able to discern the title.
King of the Elves, Trevor Ashwood Gildenthrone: Savior of the ethereal realm. The rest was in characters I didn't recognize, but a glance to the typewriter buttons confirmed that they shared some similarities. Trevor… where had I heard that name before? It was months ago, but I distinctly remember that Tuleni mentioned another reborn with a name like that. Was this ancient king another Earth born human?
I opened the book, but much to my dismay the pages were almost entirely faded and crumbling, and the vast majority of the legible writing was in this strange script. Damn, I guess I won't be reading this story.
I began to put the book back into the box when I noticed that the back of the book was not actually the back, but rather an envelope that had been glued to the back. I broke the rotten twine that held the sleeve shut, and found inside a few sheets of paper, the first sharing the name of the book. This was someone's translation of the story, but they hadn't listed their name anywhere. The pages had blank spots with notes written explaining the damage that had been done to the book on the recreated page, as well as some speculative notes.
From the patchwork information I had, I gathered that this king of the elves named Trevor was actually from Earth. By his own account he was an ill-fated butler in his previous life, one who had been shot by accident by his master's son. He was a daydreamer, a romantic, and the first thing he did after being reborn was to integrate himself with the elven royalty and go on their quests. The details get really splotchy, but I gather that he somehow stole the heart of the elves' princess, Fought and won a war with the tribal gnomes, befriended four of the six dragons, and saved the world from something the book didn't specify. Damn dude, I can respect the power play that was the sum of your entire life, but did you really need to sire fifteen kids and tame an entire wolf pack too?
Power fantasy aside, he had plenty of odd quirks too. He would describe things from Earth to his scholars, such as trains, internal plumbing, and the typewriter, but whenever his mages made something similar to his descriptions he would just take it and put it on display in his castle. He would insist that things were better the way they were, and that the innovations of his past life were rarely any good for people. I would disagree, but an earlier note detailed that he worked in a factory as a kid, so I could understand his hesitancy for the same thing in this world.
The translation ended abruptly before it could finish describing his legacy, but it had told me he had died just after his six hundredth birthday. Adding the supposed thirteen hundred to that puts his time almost two thousand years ago. That didn't make sense, he would have only been around somewhere close to two hundred years before me. Oh, maybe it's some kind of time difference deal, where a year on Earth is a decade here. That's actually kinda neat.
Still, two thousand years and this world still hasn't caught up to the world as he had described it. Did magic make the innovations of his time obsolete, or was it that his descriptions weren't adequate? More than likely it had something to do with the war waged on the dragons, and how every kingdom had been reduced to ruin by their onslaught. Maybe they had climbed up but the devastation wrought upon them set them back to the start, as an apocalyptic war is likely to do. Going by the technological level of the kobolds as a point of reference, there was little hope that anyone had gotten past early industrialization.
That checks out with the focus on art, literature, and adventure that Trevor had going on. The way I saw it, he was trying to jumpstart his own renaissance in this world without changing the overall theme by introducing any new inventions or practices. That irked me. What was the point of being reborn if you were going to live so selfishly and not at least guide people in the right direction? I was no expert in any field, but my general education had given me insights into all manner of developments: medicine, agriculture, infrastructure, politics, laws, mathematics and science to name a few.
Maybe when I get out of this city I’ll start writing everything I remember down and pass it off as textbook material for new common knowledge. I’d already seen just how quickly kobolds could learn a written language, so maybe if I start filling those heads with common sense and practical knowledge there can be some forward momentum in the long run. A plan like that was one that would take decades of work, and right now I had to focus on keeping myself alive before deciding on future career paths. Drat, everything always became later this or later that, even when-
“Ey! What’s all this junk on my floor?.”
I hadn’t noticed Yabtin and Rakyat approach, but their sudden interruption caused me to jump to my feet, thus scattering the pages I had just been reading. Yabtin helped me pack the mess back into its container while the furry kobold went up to the counter to wait on us. We made our way over, and the kobold had already begun polishing it with a proper cleaning rag.
“Gonna be honest, I forgot I even had that stuff. There’s all kinds of gloggits and buzips on those shelves, and since they aren’t part of my shipment logs they aren’t taxable and free to be bartered on. Don’t worry though, I can tell that you’ve got your heart set on it, so I won’t sap you of your coins. Out of curiosity, do you know the letters this thing uses?”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I shook my head, which made the little man sigh dejectedly.
“Me neither. This thing was made a long long time ago by an elder that was obsessed with that magic elf king from way back when, so this is probably some elvish I’ve never seen. I never cared much for elf history, it’s not as fun as running a shop and building things that make click clack sounds instead of magic zapping noises. I didn’t even want this thing, but since the guy selling a true flame gem had a bunch of junk to pawn off I made a deal to take the whole lot of crates he didn’t want.”
He jostled the device until some loose sand had escaped it, then turned his attention to the leather bag that had come attached. He undid the knot holding it shut and dumped the contents, and after just a few short seconds of turning a handful of them over he had discerned their purpose.
“Blanks, some Pteronian letters, and spare parts for the levers. You could regear this thing to be in Pteronian with enough time and parts, or you can let me fix it up for you. I fixed one like this before, so I can probably get it put together much faster than you.”
I was surprised that he was offering such a lucrative deal. I hastily made my reply on the worn slate.
“I would greatly appreciate that! If you don’t mind, I would like to keep the original parts too. How much are you asking for the work?”
His eyes flicked around the floor looking for an appropriate response, then his lips curled into a gleeful grin.
“Thirty Draks, or you can buy three other items and I’ll add the typewriter for free!”
Yabtin looked as though he were about to object, but the back of my hand stopping an inch from his snout stopped him. This was an awesome deal for me, and this cheeky weasel didn’t even realize it. Yes, it would probably carve a small hole in my finances, but there were a few things he had that I wanted as well. I quickly jogged to the racks and grabbed myself a plain clock for the house, one of those mechanical strikers, and a device I determined would work like a crank powered blender. Rakyat looked my choices over and nodded his head in approval.
“You have an eye for quality, and I can tell from your schematic and way of looking at things that you’ve got a mind like mine. Break things down, learn how they work, make them bigger and better. It’s nice that you take after Bahruk, even if you are reborn. I respect it. I’ll have the typewriter done in a few days, so feel free to come back and discuss ideas and such.”
His hand reached out slowly, and I could tell from the anxious fidgeting that he didn’t really want to shake my hand but was just trying to be courteous. I spun my plank around with a message of reassurance.
“You don’t have to shake my hand. How about a little gesture from my old world?”
I demonstrated by curling my hands into fists and tapping my knuckles together, and the canine ears on his head perked up. I held out my fist, and he delivered a solid but careful blow to my knuckles. It felt good to do something so simple, and I could tell that he felt the same. He gently ran his fingers over his knuckles as if savoring the sensation.
“I like it. No gross finger touching and it is quick, much better than a handshake. Thank you, I will never take another hand again.”
Just like that, the world’s first fist-bump has occurred and has become a preferred method of greeting by one amazing shopkeeper. I felt oddly proud of that on top of my rising excitement in anticipation of my new typewriter. I shoved the newly purchased goods into my bag along with the weapon schematic given back to me. If I weren’t burdened with fragile objects right now, I would be skipping on the way home.
…
Yabtin and I returned to find Tokols and Humey packing up their new travel bags alongside mom. Both had packed the majority of their bag with trail rations and various supplies, but Tokols had begun to attempt fitting a medicine kit into his back while Humey strapped a surplus of water skins stuffed into a travel pot to the back of his bag. Mom ordered them to do a full gear test to see how they could move while encumbered, so they both went into the dorm for a minute to get dressed. For the first time I was seeing them in their armor, and I was shocked by how awful it was. The main component was an armored shirt made from leather straps woven together with a copper plate over the pectoral muscles and gut, and the rest was just bands strung over their shoulders and thighs to hold the chest piece in place.
Mibata seemed to be sharing my thoughts, as he was looking at the armor with a look of contempt. I nudged him with my slate to ask him what he was thinking, and he simply replied with “overpriced garbage” on the board. I nodded in agreement, this gear wasn’t worth the money they’d spent. Adding the new task of making better armor for my brothers to the pile of unfinished projects was just another thing to get a headache over.
Mom strode over to us in her gear, which was even worse and was just a few bent metal plates around her shoulders, knees, and elbows. She placed her hands on her hips and shone with a confident smirk.
“So Yabtin took you to see Rakyat. I’m just guessing, but if I know that rascal I’d say he took a liking to you because of that beautiful mind of yours. Did you find anything good at his store?”
I presented the clock to her, and with a quick bit of work by dad we were able to fit it into a nice cubby hole in the kitchen. I would probably wait until tomorrow to visit the scribe hall to get it set to the correct time, but for now it added a bit of decoration to the house. Mom admired the new device as it clicked along to the steady rhythm of second while I fished the loose throwing knife from my bag to return to Mibata. He looked confused for some reason. Wasn't this your knife?
“Do you not need this blade anymore? I had left it there for your protection, just in case of an emergency situation.”
I honestly didn’t think of it like that, I just assumed you left it in there because you forgot it. I explained as much with my slate, only to have him blink at me slowly.
“Kayrux, I left it in your bag intentionally. If you seriously have no need of it I will take it back, but I was merely attempting to give you a means of self defense in case there was noone around to defend you. This is not criticism, but you are not the most formidable of opponents. Your swordsmanship is decent, but other than that you are a non-combatant. You have told me yourself that your control over magic is currently less than a tenth of what it could* be, so until that improves it would be highly unsafe to discharge any full-size attack spells. I want nothing more than your safety, and I implore you to improve for your own sake.”
Dang, that was a truth bomb I wasn’t ready for. It was true though: without adequate control over my magic I was just a regular citizen, one that had very poor hand-to-hand combat skills. Maybe he was leading up to a solution he had discerned.
“What do you suggest?”
His eyes looked to the hobby room for a moment as his features took on a relaxed calm.
“You have mentioned that your workshop allows you to experiment freely, and you have already set aside two innovations that have yet to be sold. Realistically you could forego actual work and attempt to better understand the laws of magic. I am sure that if you spent time practicing you could breach the tenth percentile of power output and become a fierce mage. I know that you will only take this as a suggestion if I do not state this, but consider it a request from me for you to do this. It will both remove the need for me to place weaponry in your personal belongings, and will strengthen you as a whole.”
Damn it all, I hate that he knew that about me! I probably would ignore him if he didn’t make it a direct request, and instead just go on to make more machines. Maybe I can do both at once though: make new machines that are designed for higher mana inputs. If I can learn to put out more power, I can make enchanted devices that would be unusable by anyone else due to the mana draw the weapon would demand. It was genius, a veritable user-only locking device for my own device!
Mibata’s face had become worried due to my wicked grin, but nonetheless he accepted my hug. I pulled away and quickly scribbled down a response.
“I’ll do it. You made a good point about me being limited, and the thought of being so weak gave me an idea. Thank you Mibata, you’re amazing!”
He smiled gently as a small chuckle escaped his lips.
“I would expect nothing less.”
I bumped my shoulder into his, and we watched as Humey hoisted his gear and pack as though it were nothing while Tokols lay flat on his back under his own bag. It only took one hand for the red kobold to lift his brother and his pack from the floor, making him look like a cat that had been caught by the scruff of the neck. These two are such goofballs, and now I knew exacly who they got it from. Thanks Rakyat, I will absolutely misuse the stories you had told me for entertainment purposes*.