Following the short interaction with Stivv, he suddenly dashed back to his table, muttering something about a diagram I couldn’t hear well enough.

“Well now that you’ve met Stivv,” Groutt said while turning back towards the door, “Let’s go visit the Workshop for a bit.” By the time he had finished the statement, both of my acquaintances had already left the building and I had to rush out the door to not lose track of them.

“Oh come on!” I said out loud in an overly exasperated tone. The moment I opened the door, I almost ran into another floating blob, just barely managing to duck down to avoid it. Once it had passed through the door and into the library behind me, I noticed the true severity of the situation.

“Are they everywhere?” Narrator asked out of necessity since he could no longer see though my eyes.

Why he asked when he could just read my thoughts, I dunno.

“Are you okay?” Groutt asked me, swiftly turning towards me with a worried look on his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine Elder. It just seems that the yellow blobs started multiplying in the few minutes we were inside.” Now that I wasn’t on the floor avoiding a third blinding today, I could really appreciate how much of this yellow crap was floating around. It took a little time for me to adjust my footing due to the sheer quantity of yellow, but I was soon able to make my way down the path Groutt was leading me on in a somewhat normal manner.

Only a few minutes later, we arrived at the only other building in the village, once again with a sign I couldn’t read… Yeah, I really should get on that one.

After opening the door, the three of us made our way inside what Groutt called the Workshop. There were a few people strewn across a plethora of tables staring intently at those blobs of yellow from outside. It seemed like they were molding them, but I couldn’t be sure given the distance. Lining the walls of the building were dozens of machines made out of some material I couldn’t recognize. I think I get what Groutt was meaning when he said workshop though.

One… slight problem, however. The noise. While both of the occupants could easily hear my entrance in the library, the sheer amount of sound contained within the could deafen a whale. Wait… wouldn’t I have heard that? Seriously though somehow none of it leaked outside of the workshop.

“How did they do that?” Narrator said in a surprised voice, “You couldn’t even hear anything on the outside, even when the door was open…”

True to his words, I had to cover my ears to even try and block out the noise to hear even Narrator speaking straight into my brain. It was at this point when Log grabbed my hand and put a few things into it: a pair of glasses with clear panes and two small pieces of cloth with some symbols on them. Instinctively knowing what the pieces of cloth were, I stuffed them into my ears and then put the glasses on. The noise dulled significantly as expected, but the glasses didn’t seem to have a function that I could perceive.

Finally deciding to focus on reality again, I saw Groutt majestically waving his hand as to truly show off the magnificence of the interior of the workshop. After his small display, he hurriedly motioned for Log and me to leave the building to which we both followed.

“Well, what did you think?” Groutt questioned me after taking out the earplugs and waiting for me to do the same.

I took a few seconds to clear my head after leaving all of the noise behind. “I have so many questions…” I responded in a daze before stumbling over myself trying to vocalize the many queries in my mind. “How does the sound not leak out? What were the people in there doing? You can touch that yellow stuff? What were those earplugs? Why make us wear unstylish glasses while-”

“What are you calling unstylish?!” A very masculine voice boomed out behind me. I quickly turned around to see a… boy? I don’t know how old he is but the person standing in front of me was at least a full head shorter than Log, and by extension much shorter than me.

He was wearing the same style of clothes as me and everyone else I had seen, but his were a bright shade of white with almost no blemishes to see. In addition to the standard attire, he wore a black pair of goggles that served to form a boundary between his face and massive mane of black hair. Despite the goggles helping, I couldn’t make out much more of his face as he also wore a cloth that covered the lower section of his head that extended to the top of his shirt.

“I’ve spent my whole life makin’ those mana lenses and you’re gonna call them ugly straight to my face?”

“Well, no sir…” I managed to get out before he could continue the verbal assault. I had a feeling I shouldn’t insult anybody yet. “I just meant that they didn’t do anything for me. Aside from that, I don’t exactly have the greatest eyes, so everything is black and white for me. I truly meant no offense.” I tried to recover as much faith as I could with the person before me so I didn’t get kicked out of the village on day one, but I couldn’t tell if it worked.

The boy studied me for a second, though I couldn’t tell what kind of expression he had under his outer wear.

“Hold on one moment Elder Pong,” Groutt suddenly said, seemingly dragging the boy out of his thoughts, “I think my input on this would have a lot of utility in assisting your image of the boy. How about we move back to the firepit and discuss things. Besides, I won’t let you kick Damion out before you hear his story.”

Pong seemed to visibly tense and then relax upon hearing Groutt’s words, but reluctantly turned towards the field of stones and started walking.

“Well you better have answers Elder or you’ll have an angry mage on your hands.” Pong said flippantly as if he had no respect for the man.

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Even with the delays I had to take to avoid impairing my vision by means of yellow light, I managed to make record time back to the stone field in only a couple of minutes. On a side note, how early did I wake up? I couldn’t see the sun, but the amount of light hadn’t really changed much since I had woken up.

“Are there any lanterns?” Narrator asked. “If it’s nighttime, there should be some scattered around or people might be holding them.”

Lo and behold, Narrator actually had some useful information this time around. Taking a closer look at Pong as I got near his stony perch, I could notice a small cage with a handle that seemed to be holding a candle inside. Looking left towards Groutt and Log, I could see similar contraptions in their hands as they sat down on their respective stones.

“Out of curiosity, what time is it?” I asked sweetly as I took a seat next to Log and as far away from the second Elder as I could.

“It’s a bit past sunset, why do you ask?” Groutt responded.

“What, is the kid blind too?” I heard Pong say clearly pissed off at my apparent lack of a brain. “How are you this stupid to know how the sun works?”

“Hey! That’s mean Elder Pong!” Log said angrily in my defense.

Thank you Log. I will be sure to remember you after Pong beats me to death.

“Well,” I continued, only letting a slight annoyance cloud my words, “If you haven’t noticed by now I don’t think I meet your standards of competent, but I’m sure if you give me a chance to explain, you will change your thoughts pretty quickly. First though, I have to ask about the glasses. What are they?”

I guess bringing up my remark about the glasses from earlier set Pong off a little bit as I could practically feel the steam coming out of his ears and his response cemented that theory.

“Okay!” Pong started with a shout of rage, “If I were you, I’d start running because I’ll have your neck by sunrise if you keep acting like that!”

Immediately after his statement, Pong practically shot out of his seat with speed that should not have been physically possible with his short stature and rushed at me. I only had a few seconds to try and react, so I threw my hands up in a cross and closed my eyes, trying to protect my face.

“Not really much to protect given your looks.” I could hear Narrator say faintly, but I was too scared to really care at the moment.

It didn’t take a genius to realize what would happen when Pong reached me as the immense aura he was giving off practically seared into my nonexistent retinas. However, after a few seconds of waiting for the inevitable, I cautiously opened my eyes to an interesting sight.

Groutt was restraining Pong while Log had a cloth covering his mouth to try and stop the string of expletives from reaching the world. Log was struggling trying to keep the cloth over Pong’s mouth as the small adult was attempting to throw the boy off with every fiber of his being, but Groutt was standing there calmly grasping Pong’s arms, basically cementing the elder into the ground with the force of a house.

“Now now Pong, if you let your anger get the better of you, you might miss out on a brand-new test subje- I mean, student.” Groutt said, only barely slipping towards the end. “I can personally assure you Damion means no offense. I do distinctly remember telling you earlier that Damion’s situation was special so why don’t I let him share his story now.

Even as Groutt was saying all of that, Pong had yet to stop struggling within the combined grasp of Log and the other Elder. He didn’t show any reaction aside from anger, so Groutt gave me the go ahead to explain as Pong couldn’t exactly give it himself. So I launched right into my recounting of my journey, still omitting the sneaking out part.

As I continued farther into the story, Pong started to relax a little bit as his restrainers were obviously not going to let him attack me. Getting into the doppelganger incident, his face started to adopt a slightly astonished feeling and after finally catching up to the present, he had gone completely limp in his restraints, his rage at me having been replaced with awe and curiosity.

“Okay, I have a few questions and then I’ll let you ask.” Pong said, now agreeable enough to be let out of Groutt’s grasp and back into his seat. “What are the nature of those yellow blobs? Any ideas on those stones in your body? I can’t see them since they are below the skin, so I have to ask. What exactly can your eyes do? And have you felt anything when walking into those mana fields?”

“Wait, mana fields?” I responded, a little off guard. I assumed Pong was talking about the yellow blobs that had been basically attacking me as intently as he would have.

“Yeah, the yellow blobs are just pockets of mana floating in space. Now get to my answers. Chop chop.”

I took a moment to organize my thoughts, and then launched right into the details. “First, the yellow blobs are about the size of a fully grown pig an have no weight to them as far as I could tell. The intensity of the light I can see gets higher as I walked closer to the center. I wouldn’t get blinded every time I walk into one if the brightness was constant. Other than that, everything can pass through them, but the blobs can’t pass through solid objects. Second, I have no idea what the stones are. All I can say is that I am told they are blue in color, and I can’t even feel them. Maybe that will change, but I’m not about to let you cut me open to take a quick peep. Third, the eyes are weird. Nothing about them feels off, and my vision is largely fine baring a few things. Notably: everything is in shades of black and white aside from the blobs, I can see the yellow blobs in of themselves, and apparently I can see in the dark.”

“Wait, what was that last one?” Groutt asked. “Since when can you see in the dark?”

“Well… that’s why I asked what time it was earlier. I can still see as if the sun were straight above us, but you all had lanterns in your hands.”

After the absolute info dump that I just gave, each of my three listeners adopted an expression of deep thought, though Log’s dissipated fairly quickly. It took surprisingly long time for each of the elders to come out of their reprieves, but I patiently waited in silence with Log. It seemed this was a common occurrence for the two according to Log, so I decided to keep quiet along with him in hopes of an answer to my questions.

“Well, that gave me a lot to think about.” Both Groutt and Pong proclaimed simultaneously, as if reading from a script. They then proceeded to turn to each other with a perplexed look like something weird had happened, but then turned to me as if it had never occurred.

“I think I’m going to go to sleep now.” Pong proclaimed.

“Wait, but what about my questions?” I hastily complained.

“I am sure you will be able to ask them tomorrow.” Groutt said before I could get any more annoyed. “I will wake you tomorrow so you can get started on your studies.”

As I was trying not to get too frustrated with Groutt, he got up from his stone and gently guided me back to my cabin, which happened to be the third on the left. Before I could really do anything to protest, I had already been deposited in my room and wished a good night by Groutt and Log before the door was closed behind me and I was left to my thoughts.

“Well that was certainly an interesting day…” Narrator commented softly.

“Yeah, shame I couldn’t get any info out of Pong though.” I replied in a heavy voice.

I didn’t even bother taking off my clothes as I felt a wave of exhaustion fall over me the instant I glanced at the bed situated in the middle of the room. Briefly taking my shoes off, I jumped onto the bed and fell asleep.

“Wow that’s gotta hurt.” Narrator remarked, apparently noticing the slight pain I was in from jumping onto the bed. Because of course, why would the bed have any spring to it…