As we walked to Yarthaw I thought about what to make for Nate.

Ok so it definitely has to be safe for a child although Nate seemed pretty mature I don't want to risk it. So hm. Maybe some kind of windup toy? Nah I think that wouldn't be that fun. I mean maybe it would be fun for the first like 5 minutes but it'd quickly get boring. Maybe something with music? Yeah sounds like it would be good. Hmm. A mini piano thing? Yeah, I like that.

So as Dob, Lob, and I walked I picked up a stick and started to whittle at it with my dagger.

This is hard. Amazingly, some people can make entire wood sculptures like this. Well, I'm obviously not skilled enough to make it look like an actual mini piano so I'll just take off the bumps and just try to smooth it out. Granted I could probably make a program for it but then I'd have nothing to do for the rest of the walk. So whittling it is. Whittle bit by whittle bit. Heh.

Soon it was noon-ish and I was feeling hungry.

"Hey do you guys want to start eating a bit?", I asked Dob and Lob.

They nodded.

"Okay, but we shouldn't stop moving because we don't want to be out here that long after dark. Granted we'd probably be fine but then everyone in Yarthaw would be asleep except for maybe any scouts they may have."

Dob and Lob nodded again.

Ok well, I'm glad they're okay with eating on the go. If this jerky, dried meat stuff is as good as dinner was last night we're in for quite a treat.

As Dob took the bag of dried meat off of his back I put away the now mostly done stick and grabbed a handful of the dried meat then Dob and Lob quickly mimicked my actions and also each took a handful of the meat. Dob then struggled a bit to get the bag on his back since one of his hands was now preoccupied with holding the meat so Lob stepped in and got the bag back onto Dob's back.

With their powers combined, they have two free hands!

I chuckled to myself.

I can't tell if my jokes are getting better or worse. Well, whatever the case I'm still enjoying them and that's all that matters.

I took a bite of the dried meat.

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Oh this is really good! I mean I expected it to be good but this is better than I expected it to be. I guess my expectations were just lower since it was supposed to be travel rations. This actually kinda tastes like the meat that I had at dinner yesterday. In fact, it probably is that. They must've already had some of it dried for some reason or there was some magic involved of course. Whatever the case it's good!

After quickly wolfing down my share of the meat I got back to whittling the stick.

I am a James and I'm whittling a stick, whittling a stick, whittling a stick. Hm. Yeah doesn't have much of a ring to it. Well no. I take that back. It has literally no ring to it.

Soon I finished whittling the stick and it was looking pretty good. I'd gotten most of the bark off of it and it was now pretty smooth.

Hmm, how many sounds should I give it? Maybe 5? Yeah, that sounds like a good amount. I mean I don't think Nate's planning on becoming a bard or anything so 5 notes should be fine. Now the problem is gonna be finding the right pitch since I know basically nothing about pianos. I guess I'll just play around with it until I get something good.

So I started to program the stick.

This reminds me of the first thing I programmed. I wonder where it ended up.

As I was testing out the sounds I knew that I didn't want to create a flashbang, without the flash, as I'd done before so I made sure to steer clear of the really high or really low numbers when messing around with the Parameter Rune. As I'd expected it took a lot of fiddling and Dob and Lob got a bit annoyed at the constant noise that I was producing for seemingly no reason.

Thankfully I remembered to put the volume low or they'd probably be even more annoyed right now. I should probably explain to them what I'm doing now.

"Hey guys I probably should've told you this earlier but I'm trying to make a thing for Nate right now so sorry about the noise."

Dob and Lob smiled at this and gave me a thumbs up from where they were walking which was about 10 feet in front of me.

When did they get so far away from me? I guess I just didn't notice it since I was so focused on getting these pitches right.

About an hour after I'd started to program the stick it got to the point where I was happy with the sounds. I'd tried to make them as average as possible so more stuff could be played with it.

If I had very different notes I imagine it would be hard to play as I think most songs kind of stay in the same range of pitch? Or just range. I really know nothing about playing the piano... Thankfully though no one else from Earth is here so no matter how shallow my knowledge about pianos is it probably is above literally everyone else's in this world.

A bit later down the line, it was starting to get dark and Yarthaw was still nowhere in sight. We'd passed Addersfield a while ago but it seemed like we wouldn't make it back to Yarthaw until after dark. As the moon came up and the stars emerged we were still walking.

It's so beautiful. Earth's sky was so polluted so I couldn't see that many stars but here I can see everything. I really don't know how I'd describe this to someone back on Earth other than just saying there were more stars. I mean that's what it is but those words don't seem to convey how beautiful this is.

We arrived at Yarthaw less than an hour after that and it was very quiet.

I guess we should go back to the guest houses? Hopefully, no one's staying there. Then we can surprise everyone in the morning! Ah, that'll be fun. I bet their expressions will be priceless.