The streets of Hearth were almost always dark and damp, heedless of time or season. As day shifted to night, or as drizzle turned to rain, it was only a matter of how dark or how damn the streets were. Glowstones, small rocks that magically shone with a dim, unyielding light sat within glass and iron lampposts. They provided only a little light, but the sheer multitude of them kept the streets of Hearth walkable at all times.
Those lamps were one of many small technological solutions the Snif had developed within the last century. The culture of the Snif people was to promote the mindset of greater advancement; Technological advancement was their first answer to most problems. They put great emphasis on encouraging those who might one day lead great projects, like Malthus had with the Sky Ferry, in the hopes that these people would lift up entire cities of Snif people, and in doing so improve everyone’s lives.
The reality was more bleak than this. In order to pursue these projects, many smaller compromises had to be made to people’s lives. As much as recent advancements in power and automation had been made, all of these technologies were still in their infancy. Most of the mining was done by hand, with only some basic machinery assisting miners. The slums of Hearth were occupied almost exclusively by generations of miners who would go into the artificial caverns in the mountains around them and dig out their people’s future.
This was not to say their lives were without benefits, however. For as hard as the lives were for even those at the bottom of the affluence ladder in Hearth, they too benefited from some of the technological improvements made to the city. While the grand Sky Ferry may be something they never used, it made exporting metals cheaper and easier to import goods the city could not produce. Food was no longer scarce. The ever-shining lampposts kept streets lit, and new housing was being erected and assigned as fast as it could be built, promised to those very same miners who made everything in Hearth a possibility, giving the next generation blooming hope that they could have a better life than that of their fathers and grandfathers.
Hearth had become the largest city in the Snif territory. As an industrial powerhouse, it demanded a lot of labor, and a lot of space. The city sprawled out over the mountain valley to house all of its residents, but the mountains were a hard boundary, forcing the city to become denser than any other city outside of Timberfolk lands. From this confluence of density, population, and permanent light sources came a nightlife that had yet to be seen anywhere else in the world, save for the strange Timberfolk cities far to the north.
Having spent most of his life in Laskavan, Sam was used to the rare city nightlife, and so enjoyed being out and about during the less active hours in Hearth. While the Timberfolk no longer lived underground, it had not been so long that their bodies had adapted away, giving them many similar advantages to the Ratkin- better sight in the dark, a tolerance for dampness, and a comfort in close confines. This meant that, despite the streets being designed for Ratkin and not some vastly different folk from far north of them, Sam felt comfortable in these foreign streets.
Sam made his way through the angled streets of Hearth, looking for an appropriate chapel or temple. As much as he gave Hugh grief for not having a map, Sam did not carry one either. He trusted his ability to navigate back as he kept his eyes out for signs and landmarks as he explored.
He was honest when he said that he wasn’t religious, but Sam couldn’t help but be a little superstitious. When too many things lined up, he figured it had to be the gods meddling in the affairs of mortals. Typically he only made the occasional gesture to the god of Trade, but given the nature of news given by Hugh, he was looking for Prose or Luck. He had no idea whether his paltry offerings would make any difference, but if he felt he was in the middle of a bet, he would make the safest bet he could.
As he rounded a corner, he passed by a squat, beige, and entirely unassuming building crammed between a bookstore and a grocer. Were it not for a courier departing with a messenger bag crammed with letters and missives, he would have certainly missed it. His eyes wandered up to the plain lettering above the door that simply read, “Temple of Messages”. He had been given a missive just weeks prior that he had previously dismissed wholesale. In light of recent circumstances, he thought that perhaps he could return to the answers he turned down before.
The interior was as plain as its exterior, colors ranging from light brown to dark beige, with the occasional brave gray thrown in. While still open even in the dead of night, the staff was reduced to a skeleton crew, with just a single person at the counter, half-asleep. They wore the robes that denoted them as one of the clergy of their church, as opposed to one of the common workers.
“Wait a minute,” Sam said, peering at the lone figure, “Don’t I know you?”
The figure jolted upright, suddenly awake at the sudden dialogue.
“Hello! Yes, this is the temple of Messages, how can I help you?” She said in a voice that strained to hide how tired she was.
“Yer the one who came down to us in Mego a few weeks back, aintcha?”
The priestess squinted her groggy eyes at Sam, sat back with an eyeroll.
“Oh,” She said with thinly-veiled disgust as she sat back in her chair, “You’re the one who spat in my goddess’s face. What are you doing here?”
"Well I was looking around for a place to make an appropriate offering when I stumbled upon this place, Ms…” Sam trailed off, waving his hand in a circular gesture.
“Brunna Spinel, Priestess of Messages. You can call me priestess,” Brunna said flatly.
“Not a problem, priestess,” Sam said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“I ask you again: what are you doing here? Last time I had business with you, you said you were ‘on the path to getting absolutely loaded’. Did something happen to your fortune?”
Brunna sat at the counter, leaning forward with her hands locked together. She looked up at Sam- not much taller than she was sitting at the counter- from above her glasses. Her displeasure was painted across her face, having no one else present she needed to put on a face for but him. Behind her, her tail whipped from side to side in sudden, jerking movements.
"I’m hurt, Ms. Priestess. Do you treat all visitors like that?”
Brunna tsk’ed at the flagrant abuse of her station, but still sat up and took a calming breath.
“Alright then, sir, how can we help you? Do you have a message that needs sending?” Brunna said in a voice devoid of emotion.
"Turns out, it’s oddly fortunate that yer here of all people, at this time of all times. Like I said, I need to make an offering, in light of recent events. My employees are stuck in circumstances that might interrupt my business if I don’t make sure I’ve made good with the gods. I want to stay on their good sides, after all.”
“I’m sure you’re making a wonderful impression,” Brunna deadpanned.
Sam disregarded the comment and continued.
“Now see, I was going to drop an offering at maybe a chapel to lady Luck, but then I stumble across this place, staffed by you of all people at this time of night, and I can’t help but feel that it’s a, oh what is it called? A message?”
Brunna dropped her face into her hands and let out a sighing groan.
“I’m going to kill Frederick for talking me into covering for him,” She muttered between her hands.
“So naturally, first, I’d like to leave an offering,” Sam concluded.
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Brunna separated her fingers to let a single eye peep through.
“First?”
“Well sure, seeing as how yer here, I was hoping maybe you could help me with that last message you gave me,” Sam said without a hint of irony.
“The message you crumpled up and threw away,” Brunna confirmed.
“That's the one!”
Another groan came out from the priestess’s hands before she slowly stood up, her shiny black fur glinting in the dim light of the glowstones.
“I can help you with the first matter, sir, but the second one will require me to commune. Normally you would have to wait for the second request, as that is low priority, but right now we aren’t very busy, so I am obligated to help you.” Brunna spoke tersely, her lips pressed together when she wasn’t speaking at this point.
She led Sam into one of several identical rooms, all featuring a desk, a glowstone desk lamp, parchment, and writing utensils. Offerings to the gods differed depending on their nature, and the god of Messages preferred his offerings to be written, and then burnt at an appropriate altar. It was understood that he received the messages the moment the missive was written, and burning it was a matter of both confidentiality and conclusion. It was also appropriate to donate to the temple for such affairs, but Sam had come with coin for this purpose.
As Sam sat down to write, he paused. He knew that he had to write something as an offering, but he had no idea what. He had never offered to Messages before. He sat there, frozen, as he was unable to think what kind of message he could write to a literal deity that would mean a damned thing. He thought about his circumstance, and what he needed right now. What would he write if he needed something from anyone else?
He put the pen to paper and wrote out: I O U.
He exited the small room into the hallway, but Brunna was not there. Sam waited for several minutes, until the door at the end of the hall opened and Brunna stepped through. In her hand was a folded note.
“Here,” She said, handing Sam the note.
Sam opened it, revealing the same missive as before.
Listen to yourself and ask the right questions, and you too shall walk the Path.
”This is the same note you gave me before,” Sam stated.
“Yes, that is what you asked for.”
“Arright, I guess I wasn’t clear- I need help understanding this, not just a repeat of before, Ms. Priestess.”
“Sir, this is the ground of Messages, not interpretation,” Brunna said flatly.
Sam got ready to shoot back, and realized he would gain nothing from it, and stilled himself.
“Arright, fine. Thank you, priestess, for your help.”
Sam handed over the donation, and made his way out of the temple with note in hand. He thought about it more seriously this time, but it still made no more sense than when he first looked at it. He had gone out hoping for some help understanding, and when everything seemed lined up, he got no answers. He reasoned that perhaps his answers weren't out and about at all, that he was being told that his approach was wrong. Or, perhaps, he was meant to ask what the "path" was? Or was this all some kind of test?
"Ah hell, maybe Elody knows something," Sam groaned as he made his way back through the dim, damp streets of Hearth.
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Hugh showed up a bit early to the Gear Barrow the next morning. He had always been a light sleeper, and had been eager to make a good impression on Malthus, who had yet to arrive. Hugh milled about for several minutes, unsure what to do with himself. Just as he began to worry, his tutor arrived. Malthus jumped at the sight of Hugh, then remembered the deal he had struck the night prior.
Malthus ushered Hugh into the hall, awkwardly repositioning things in the room to accommodate his large student. The two got settled soon enough, and got ready to begin.
“How will this proceed?” Hugh asked.
“As eager as I am to learn about your item on your neck, that can wait,” Malthus said. “We should get started with the basics. I must assume you know nothing about this field, and to that end I will be covering things that you obviously know first, simply to establish common understandings. We have several hours before the first courses begin, and while you will most certainly not yet know enough to keep up, let alone participate, I hope you will know enough by then to take away some value from the lectures.”
Hugh nodded understanding, and they began.
The first things Malthus taught Hugh was about simple machines, those most fundamentals of mechanics. Levers, wedges, inclined planes, pulleys and axles. He noted the ongoing debate amongst his contemporaries whether the screw counted as one of the simple machines- Malthus found himself in the opposition, claiming it to be a combination of an inclined plane and the axle. The surrounding discourse caused the term “Screw you” to become a common insult in his field.
Hugh was able to retain the vast majority that he was given on the first pass. Malthus was quite pleased with Hugh’s ability to keep up, and was quickly speeding up his explanations at he began to lay out the foundational elements of mechanics.
This went on until other students began filing into the instruction hall, each jumping at the sight of the new student, but quickly settling in to laugh at others repeating the same overreaction.
Once everyone, barring a couple of absentees, had arrived and settled, the lecture began. While Malthus strived to keep it as normal as possible, there’s only so much one can do whilst their students are distracted by a large, alien creature purporting to be their classmate and peer. Hugh did his utmost to fit in, but there was no disguising his size. Halfway through the lecture, he stopped worrying about it, and decided that if the other students worried, that was their problem. He understood he couldn’t change who he was for their convenience.
Hugh was doing his best to follow along the lecture, but was struggling. Malthus was going over how principles of physics were married to mechanics and how they worked, but much of what he said was jargon, predicated upon what he had lectured on in the past. Hugh looked at the other students, who wrote on slates with pieces of chalk, but he had neither a slate nor the knowledge of how to write. For all his skill and practice with the magical circles, he had never known a written language. Still, he made a mental note to acquire one or several of these tablets. They seemed quite practical, and he thought of several uses for them.
After the lecture was concluded and the other students had cleared out of the hall, Malthus approached Hugh.
“How do you think you did? Hold up alright?” Malthus asked.
Hugh shifted in place, uncomfortably.
“I do not think I did, no,” Hugh said, opting for gentle honesty. “I think I could have understood better were there not so many words I did not know. Some of your drawings on the board were helpful, but there was too much information I did not understand, so your conclusions were out of my reach. The symbols you use are foreign, and I cannot make use of them, either.”
Something clicked in Malthus’s head as Hugh said that last sentence.
“Those symbols? Hugh, do you mean these?”
Malthus went back up to the board and etched in ten symbols, in order. Hugh examined them and nodded affirmation.
“You’re innumerate, Hugh?” Malthus asked, incredulously.
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“Numbers, Hugh. Do you know what numbers are?”
Malthus began to look rather frayed as he realized just what a dearth of knowledge Hugh had. It made sense, now that he thought about it. He had no idea where Hugh was from, so assuming he had any education whatsoever was a faulty assumption at best.
Hugh continued to look puzzled- or what Malthus assumed was a puzzled look on a giant deer monster- so he sighed and resigned to the idea that he would have to teach Hugh the absolute most basic of concepts. He drew several local fruit of two kinds.
“Numbers are about food?” Hugh asked mid-drawing.
“I’m just using them to illustrate my point, the fact that they’re food is irrelevant,” Malthus replied in a voice of forced calm.
“These symbols,” Malthus began, “Represent quantity. They tell you how much of something you have. You do understand quantity, right?”
“I do. There are seven fruit there,” Hugh replied.
“Right, good. This symbol,” here he pointed to one of the symbols, “means seven. We could say there are ‘7 Fruits’. Each one is one more or less than the last. One, two, three, so on.”
Hugh nodded at the explanation. He looked at the drawing of fruits again.
“If I understand what you are saying, then we could also say there are ‘3 red’ and ‘4 green’ fruits, to make ‘7 fruits’ total. Is that right?”
Malthus was taken aback by the jump in understanding. He decided to try and push it, and see how quickly his pupil could follow.
“Yes, that is correct. That is addition. There is the inverse, subtraction. You take three from seven and you have four. These are the two most basic operations.”
“What are the others?” Hugh eagerly asked.
“There is multiplication, where you might take four of a thing multiplied by three.” Malthus drew a grid of twelve items. “There are four by three things for a total of twelve. You see now how the thing in question is irrelevant, you need only understand the numbers.”
Hugh nodded his enormous head, his mind soaking up everything he had been given and already reconstituting it into new understanding.
“Can you combine the two? If I may,” Hugh beckoned for a piece of chalk and scribbled on the board, “You could say you have four times four- sixteen, correct?- and then add five for twenty-one. How would you write that?”
Malthus boggled. One moment he had been teaching Hugh what numbers were, the next moment Hugh figures out arithmetic before he had a chance to even explain it. He grinned.
“Hugh, I think you’re going to do just fine tomorrow.”