“I understand you have questions,” I said to the elder Shorin. “I hope that I can assuage them for you.”

“As do I, though the biggest of which is, why?” he replied, looking up from the small cup of what passed for tea here. I noted that both the cup and the pot it had been poured from came from my supplied pieces, and wondered what they'd used before.

“Why? Surely you can see the uses for what I propose?”

“I do, a flowing... pipe of water is certainly something to look at, but we have always done things one way, to change them now would change much.” He was cautious, not objecting, which was good.

“This project won't actually change much sir. Since someone will have to manually supply the water that goes in, but it will serve as a sort of proof that it can be done. Think of it like the practice, to first show that a spear can be thrown don't you have to try it? You wouldn't take it hunting without that.”

He leaned in. “Ah, I like that, but it does lead to another question. What are you hunting here that you need to try out your spear?”

I had to admit that he had me there. I'd practically admitted that I was aiming for bigger and better things. Was his caution borne of thinking there might be danger with this, or what I might do with it in the future? I needed to assuage both if we were to proceed.

“You know what the city smells like in the dry season? When the weather is warm and there's no rain to wash away all of the... excess that builds up. No matter how hard you try you can't stop some people from leaving a mess, but something like this could help. We could make it easy for places to get rid of all that, wash it away from Atal.”

“Is there truly no other reason?” he inquired, in seeming disbelief.

“No? Why should there be?”

“Ah, sometimes I see the things you do and forget just how young you are Justin,” Shorin said with a shake of his head. “Young people like you so often forget the astounding power that water can bring.”

“That's what I'm trying to bring to Atal though?” I asked.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“No. Young Justin, I have lived here a very, very long time. Have you ever seen a river pour from its banks to consume a village? Ever seen the ocean rise to take a city? There have been close calls you know, times when only fast action saved even Atal. Water, young man, is cruel and potent.”

For a time I sat, thinking on what he was saying. When I was a boy, the elder of my village had felt similarly about fire. That made sense, sense we lived in a forest, fire was a sort of extreme threat. Here though fire would be less so. A river passed through the city itself, and with so many potent users of magic, such things should be easily taken care of. A tidal wave though? Or a flood? What about a storm surge? Here in Atal water might be considered by the elders to be the threat, and they would be right.

“I do not anticipate that we will ever be using that kind of quantity in the city,” I started before thinking deeper and stammering a bit. “Not anytime soon at least.”

“What are you thinking of now?” he asked, a gleam in his eye.

Dams had appeared in my mind unbidden. They were one of the structures that could do the sort of thing he was concerned with, and without much issue. There were some truly massive structures on Earth, Hoover in the U.S. and Three Gorges in China were the first to come to mind, but even smaller dams would cause incredible chaos if they failed.

“There might be ways to store that much water up, but it would take a long time, and be nothing like what I'm proposing. Even then, we wouldn't want something like that here in Atal,” I said, not truly answering.

Shorin leaned back, rubbing his chin. “Interesting, so what would happen if one of these pipes of yours burst? How bad could it be?”

“Well, a street could flood, but it shouldn't be any worse than that, and even that would be something we could fix before trying to build the entire thing,” I answered.

“Hmm, I'll want to see how you would prevent them before we go beyond your test. For now though, let us discuss supplies and how to actually build it.”

Over the next couple hour or two he had me go into all of the details on how many bricks I would need, how many people, how long it would take, and all the gritty details. Then I was told to wait, my project here might be smaller than a full city-wide one, but it would still need to be brought before the leadership of the city. Overall it wasn't the worst answer I could have gotten.

Shorin

I watched as the youngling left my home. He wasn't a boy, not truly, but every year people seemed younger and younger to me. It made me chuckle when I thought how my own ancestor must view us. Perhaps I too was very, very young and naive.

He didn't understand though, not truly. At his age he'd never seen a stream diverted carve a canyon in only a few years, or the enormous waves even the strongest of the city struggled to protect us from. On the other hand, that gleam in his eye when he thought about destruction, and how he avoided explaining. Little Justin had ideas on how to weaponize water, that was something I knew would be worth the hassle.

“I don't know, what do you think?” I asked the servant girl who came to refill my drink.

Her eyes flicked around the otherwise empty room for a moment. “M-me sir?” she asked.

“Is there anyone else here?”

I let my eyes flick down to the markings on her that told me just how long she would have to work for me; years and years yet remained on her time. She didn't know it, but she was a distant relative, one who's contract I'd purchased using income from that lad's inventions. It was better for her here, as I could see she wouldn't be mistreated. Some people were truly horrible to their servants. If I could mold her into something useful in the time I had though, I might even tell her of our kinship when it was over.

“I... don't know. I'm not sure I completely understand. It sounds like he has a good idea, but since I've never seen anything like what he's suggesting before perhaps use caution?” Her voice rose a bit at the end, more a question than an answer.

A small laugh escaped me and I could see her let the tension in her muscles fade a bit. “If more youths thought like that, we'd have a lot more elders. Now off with you, I'm sure you've other duties.”