Fun times were had in the swimming pool sized tub, with competitions of speed that boiled down to wading races and challenges of balance in which Humey tried to hold one of the other two brothers over his head while they did outrageous poses. This absurd session of foolish outbursts went on right until Juaki brought out the new scrub brush she had purchased, the air suddenly becoming still as everyone engaging in these acts realized that it was time to actually get clean. A majority of our efforts went towards assisting one another and would have one of us floating in the center of the others being cleaned until spotless before trading places with someone else. Horns, claws, scales, and in my case the spines along my back, they all were thoroughly buffed and shined until pristeen. All things considered this whole situation went quite well and felt normal, almost as if it were something a regular family should be doing.
The warmth of the water and the tiredness I had worked up teaching Tokols how to swim better eventually got the better of me, and as I leaned halfway over the edge of the tube I began to drift off into a relaxing nap. What felt like a moment passed before I felt someone shaking my arm, and opening my eyes I saw it was Raevu. She smiled at me and gave me a tug, attempting to usher me out of the water.
“Kayrux come on, it is time to get out.”
I looked over and saw that everyone else was already out and drying off, and my mother was standing by the filter rune system with an expectant look on her face. There was no subtlety in her glancing that told me she wanted me to do the deed myself and save everyone the time of waiting on the slow little pump to do the work, so I rolled my eyes and set up the necessary runes as I clambered out. She must have explained what I could do to everyone else already, as they were all watching me with barely contained curiosity as I stuck my hands back into the water, the flow of magic in my arms pouring into the liquid and causing every impurity in the water to condense into a sphere in the palms of my hands.
It was as I was running the runes that I felt that something was off. The water was getting hotter to an uncomfortable degree on my skin, and from the area around my hands there came a gas of some kind. I thought for a moment as to what it could be when I realized that I had subconsciously assembled a refinery rune and was feeding it a solid 50% limited mana. I yanked my hands out when my tolerance for the heat was reached and disengaged the power to my runes off to the side, dropping a slimy ball of soaps and body oils on the floor next to me. Even though the water was crystal clear in just under two minutes I would have to remind myself not to overdo it with the mana again unless I wanted to be a boiled lizard.
After a couple of checks to make sure that everyone had everything they wanted we all shuffled down the hall in a dazed manner, everyone but our two fire magic users seemingly sluggish after a good soak. We got out to the main shaft and formed a circle beside the elevators in order to discuss what everyone wanted to do now. As unfortunate as it was, Raevu had other matters to attend to back in her mansion of a home and left us after giving the sibling quartet a big hug. Juaki and Bahruk had an interest in going to a little store tucked away somewhere on one of the upper floors and insisted that this wasn’t a place youngsters would enjoy. After they left, Mibata and Tokols made it clear that they actually had something to do in the scribe hall and took off in a foot race, the outcome of which I felt would likely lean in the taller brother’s favor. This just left me and my chunky brother Humey riding the lift up to Rakyat’s store while having a debate through signs about what soap from the bathhouse was the best smelling. Charles agrees with me that it was the blueberry-like one, but to Humey that doesn’t count as having two votes.
After a few minutes of walking and navigating some damp tunnels we arrived in front of the warehouse-like hole in the wall and stepped inside, the sight greeting us being that of our uncle Yabtin dressed in an apron digging through a crate he needed a ladder to reach while sounds of squeaky wheels turning came from the back of the store. Without a bell to ring to get their attention I opted to taking out my hammer and chisel to clank together in order to make a loud enough sound to draw the attention of the purple scaled goofball. He turned to us and opened his mouth to speak, but right as a sound came from him the ladder shook from him leaning back. His lips pursed and his tail coiled around the frame of the ladder, so he instead decided to climb down and greet us at the counter instead of talking from up there.
“Kay and Humey, what delights! Oh, look shiny and clean, smell good too, were at the baths? Good thinking, this weather sometimes give scales a bad smell, make everybody stinky and angry. Nevermind that, what can Yabtin salesman do for you?”
He gave us an eccentric bow, gesturing to the towering racks of crates and boxes behind him as though they were some prized wares. I scoffed and reached down for my slate, but Humey answered for me before my claws could touch the wood.
“Kay put in an order for some parts last week, we’re here to see if they got done. She hasn’t told anybody about it, but we can tell from her nervous pacing that she’s been waiting on these for a while now.”
I gave him a look of aghast shock. How dare he disclose my anxious tendencies to others outside of our home? I jabbed his arm with a finger, which only caused him to smile and giggle as his squishy form absorbed the impact effortlessly. Yabtin smirked and opened up the small door that separated the front of the store to the back, waving us through as he scooped up a rag from the countertop and slinging it over his shoulder.
“Parts? Oh, you must mean the wheels and straps he’s been playing on. He’s been busy trying to make them work good, but like all thing he do he won’t stop until perfect. Hey, Rakyat! Kayrux here for the stuff!”
He called out those last words to the back of the store as we walked closer, and after he did so the squaking stopped and was replaced by the sound of footsteps echoing on the stone floor. From around the corner of the last shelves came a pair of fuzzy ears perked up over a pair of large brass goggles, the face beneath them peering at us with scrutiny until he recognized our faces and lit up with a bright grin. There was a heartbeat that passed as he flicked his hands downwards, casting off a heavy pair of leather gloves that fell into the front pouch of his own apron, before he came jogging up to meet us halfway. I could tell from his smile as well as the bounce in his step that he was happy, but it was the wagging tail behind him that truly convinced me that he was excited.
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“Heya blue girl, been waiting for you! Come on, come look at this! Oh you’re gonna love it, I can feel it in my toes! Oh, hi…Humey? I think that was it. Yabby, was that his name? Yeah? Ok, hi Humey, good to meet you, you can come along too.”
My brother didn’t even get the chance to speak before the short shopkeeper grabbed at my bag and pulled me along, tugging at the strap with his tiny hands like a kid that was guiding a grown up towards something interesting. We rounded the corner of the shelves to an area that was illuminated by more of those glowing stones affixed to little crane-like arms over the worktable, on which were the inner workings of my lathe and mill set up side by side. I was expecting him to have them packed into a box or maybe in a case for transport, but what I found instead was a panel much the same as the one I had prepared for them back in my workshop sitting on the table with the belts all tied and looped exactly as I was going to set them up. On the wall right above the setup was my initial design I had given him tacked in place, beside it a larger copy that had been darkened thoroughly with annotations and notes detailing every metric he had used to make them. While I leaned in closer to the drawing to read his miniature handwriting, he began to ramble about the project either to himself or to Humey beside me.
“I’ve made plenty of clockworks before, all the perfect cogs and gears clicking and ticking together, but this wheel stuff was just as good! Adjusting the tightness of the belts and changing the diameter of the drive wheel to match felt so rewarding, and hearing it buzz when it all got perfectly set up was like music to my ears! Oh sharks, I think I found another thing to fall in love with. Ah, but the one for the mill keeps screeching every so often and I can’t figure out why. I’ve oiled it, polished it, changed out the wheels twelve times, even made an entire new plate to mount them to, but it just keeps on making noise. It’s not perfect if it makes weird noises, but it works even so.”
I nodded along, knowing full well how obnoxious working with belts can be. I looked over his work and took note on how perfect he had managed to get everything to be, noticing that the setup has a shaft poking up from beneath it on the table. Stooping low I could see that he had a magic motor just like the kind I made built into the table, the sheen of which was so clean that I was sure he had built it himself recently. While I was still low to the ground he came around beside me and pointed to it, his face beaming with pride.
“I built that based on your design, just so I could test this setup of yours. I liked the way you made it too, very resource light. Oh, you should see how I set it up! Scoot, let me in the seat.”
Rakyat hopped up onto the stool in front of the table and pulled himself close to the table. With one free foot he kicked at the bottom of the table until a clicking sound came from below, the source being a long armed foot rest that had a silver streak running from the footrest up to the base near the motor. He placed his little paw of a foot on the pedal, and after a moment the motor beneath the table began to buzz as it spun up to full speed. The wheels and belts tugged and jerked in sequence until they were all being driven, then after a moment the squawking began as the furry man looked back to me with pride.
“Pretty nice, isn’t it? Like I said, it makes some noise but it spins just fine. Look at it go though, such smooth spinning, it’s just as beautiful as a well made clock! Thanks again for letting me do this job kid, this whole thing has been great!”
His fist was raised up towards me, so in honor of his kickass skills as a craftsman I gave him the fistbump that he was waiting on. When the machine slowed down after his foot was off the pedal I leaned in close and took a closer look at the belt, feeling that the issue might not be his mechanical skills but rather the materials he had to work with. There on the inner side of the belt were grooves that had been worn into the strap from the wheel, which I pointed out to Rakyat as I wrote up an explanation.
“The issue is the belt, it's wearing down too fast. There's ways you can make belts that hold out longer, if you want to learn them. I’ve got some tricks I know of that can help out.”
Rkyat shifted emotions like a whirlwind once again, going from facepalming from the simple solution he had overlooked to putting his hands together in devious glee as he thought of possibilities. He began muttering something under his breath as he snatched up a few tools and hastily removed the array of wheels and belts from the tabletop, placing the two different sets in a rather well made crate just big enough for them. He handed Humey the box after tacking the lid down with a few short nails, then without another word disappeared into a back room. I looked to Yabtin only to get a weary smile and a look of admiration.
“Rakky’s drawing room, where he makes big ideas. We not seeing him for a few hours until he makes paper look like his mind. Well, since he gone why don’t we finish this so you can get home you two?”
There wasn’t really anything else I wanted from the store today, unless of course they had a shipment of iron lying around somewhere, so I conveyed my farewells and left a note detailing some hints for Rakyat to try for making new belts. I was curious to see what his interpretation of cross-hatched fibers or inlaid wires would be, though I was confident he would delve into that secret inventor he had inside and come up with something this world could facilitate. From the store it was a short return trip to the elevators again, and on this ride I finally felt as though I had reached my limit for how many rides up and down the city I could take and mentally barred myself from even considering going back down for any reason. We got home where Tokols and Mibata were waiting for us with a game of cards going on between them, a kobold version of poker by the looks of it, and hastily put all of our belongings away so we could get to work on some kind of supper. Desert jambalaya was what we settled on, though the surprise ingredient was something called a cave quail that Humey had purchased that morning. As we cooked it up he told me all about how there was an entire ecosystem on top of other ecosystems in the caves below us, but how in those very same tunnels were all kinds of horrible things that eat kobolds just as easily as a bird gets a worm. My appetite was slightly soured by this, but his detailing of how all the animals maintain these isolated biospheres took my mind off it as I chopped up all the veggies.
When everything was put together and Humey took on the role of portable stovetop, I did a little bit of snooping to see what my family had purchased without my knowledge back before the baths. There wasn’t anything new in either the hobby room nor was there anything in the dorm, but for some reason the secret treasure room was sealed up. I used my slate to ask my brothers why it was closed off, but their vague answers only told me that they were probably playing along with some kind of surprise planned by the parents. Disappointing as it was, it did not dampen my high spirits this evening.
I went into the crafts room and sat at the table, sifting through a stack of my designs and drawings I had made in my free time. Most were doable and would improve the quality of life around here ten-fold while others were stuff I didn’t dare even consider being possible in the next decade. I would rather focus my efforts on making things like modular socket tools and high torque engines rather than stuff I literally ripped from science fiction novels and video games. Magic might be able to make those come to life, albeit in an unconventional way, but reinventing the standard tooling this world uses has to come first so others can have the means of building these things too.
I skimmed the pages for a while while Tim scuttled up to me and demanded my attention, which I owed to him after leaving him home alone all day. One hand was on the bug while the other sorted papers until I had separated out the projects into two stacks: viable with a mill and lathe, and the stuff that needs computers to work. The viable options would be coming with me the day after tomorrow to the workshop while the not-as-viable ones would be getting locked up in the secret treasure room. Well, they would be if it wasn’t locked, so maybe they’ll actually be coming with me as well and get a spot in the armory. Wherever they end up I must make sure they’re safe from any prying eyes, otherwise those sneaky elders will get the opportunity to try and make a magic RPG. I hope they don’t have one of those already, that’d suck.