The next morning I woke up alone. Lena and Thallion are not in the room, but I hear murmuring coming from the school room door. After quickly getting ready, I sit down at the table with my phone and think about what to do next. Here, I have found a group of people that at least tolerate my presence, and are willing to help, but I will lose communication soon if I don’t get the generator working.

Looking back at the generator, I start to think about ways to strengthen its power, without massive modifications, as everything works, just not strong enough. Dismantling it, I check to ensure the rotor wires are wound tight and see if there are any signs of shorting. It looks good, so I move onto the shaft. The shaft is not bent, and it seems like Eldrin even took the time to harden it, so it would take a massive impact to bend it. Remembering how it was operating when we tested it, concentricity is not the issue, as it spun freely. That just leaves the two magnets. I gently pull them out of the casing, and pass them over the iron rods used to keep the front and back of the stator attached to the main body. Sure enough, the rods move, but very slightly and only if I have the magnets nearly touching. Sighing, I start thinking of ways to magnetise these components to a much higher level. The issue is I need electricity to get any large magnitude magnetism to exist.

I could possibly use the rest of my phone battery to magnetise the metal, but that could cause the phone to die with no chance of recovery. I could experiment with more or less turns to maximise current flow to create more magnetism, but again, I don’t have much time for experimentation.

Thinking about the power equation, P = i^2R, and the fact that magnetism is directly compared to current, I could also drop the resistance. I could make the wire thicker, but then that limits the density of the turns. I could also try a lower resistance material, but this motor is already getting quite expensive, and after copper, there is only silver or gold that has lower resistance at this time. Cooling the wire may help, but without any form of very large temperature changes, as in tens of degrees difference or more, it won’t be much.

Just as I start thinking about sticking the wire in the river to cool it and magnetise the core in the river, Thallion rushes in, slamming open the door and holding his wrist.

“Warm water, stat!”

Seeing that this is the continuation of what happened yesterday, I quickly get a pot on the fire and the container he was using for his wrist yesterday out.

Looking at Thallion grimacing in pain, I see that his hand is contorted and unable to move. He looks like he is experiencing a charlie horse in the forearm, but it is not letting up.

Once the water starts to steam, I pour some in the container, and add a bit of cold water so he can put his arm in it.

“Thanks” he says, through gritted teeth as he plunges his chalk covered hand into the warm water.

After a few seconds, he is able to twitch his fingers.

“How are you doing now?” I ask, still concerned and trying to ease into the bigger questions.

“Doing a bit better. I can finally move my fingers. Still waiting for the wrist to relax.”

“How long have you had this?” I ask, tentatively, and with a touch of puppy dog eyes.

Thallion stares at me, I don’t blink. Eventually he sighs. “Look, I am ok, I have had this for seven years, but it isn’t too bad,” he replies, reluctantly and slightly perturbed.

Even I, who cannot read emotions well, get the fact that he does not want to go into more detail about it. So I look away from him.

“Everytime the weather snaps cold, this happens,” he says.

At this point, I see some of the kids in the school room peering around the doorframe to see how he is doing.

“Do you want me to take over for a bit?” I offer.

“If you would be so kind? I’ll be here for a while with this,” he states reluctantly, while nodding towards his wrist.

“What were you going over?”

“Communication, but I don’t think you can teach grammar, being that you don’t even speak the language”

“Ok… I’ll think of something, don’t want them to end up using it as a crutch like I am”

Heading into the school room, I shoo the students at the door into it, and close the door behind me.

“Everyone!” I exclaim, ensuring my phone and translator are with me. “Thallion as you saw needs a bit of time to recover. In the meantime, I will be filling in for the day.

“Is everything ok?”

“Why should we listen to you crybaby shrimp?”

“That’s the guy that punched in the red soldier’s chest!”

“I’m scared”

“Why are you able to speak now?”

“All very good questions,” I announce. Biting my tongue, I try to ignore the ones that were trying to beat me up a few days ago. I jump up onto the chair, and sit down as best and professionally as I can, when the chair is the height of a barstool and scaled closer to the roadside attraction chairs than any useful piece of furniture.”

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“So, I am Ethan. Despite my size, I am 25 years old. I have a translator which is on loan to me from the magic shop”

At mention of the magic shop, several of the older students wince.

“As you can tell, I have travelled a long way, and know vast things, and I am built slightly different from you.”

At mention of this, I look around the classroom to be met with looks of curiosity and scepticism.

“Alright, who would like to challenge me to an arm wrestle?”

Several kids look at me shocked, as they all turn their attention to the muscular one in the back.

“What?” He states. No way I am arm wrestling him! He punched through that guy’s armour, and Faelar still has not recovered from when he ripped him out of a tree! Vaeloria, you wrapped his ankle and he is still limping!

Wincing at that, and thinking quickly, I continue, “right, so none of that, how about some questions and we can work on communication that way.”

There is silence in the room. Finally, one of the little kids holding a stuffed animal murmurs, "Have you seen any strange creatures or animals in your travels?"

“Certainly!” I reply, trying to keep my long travelled adventurer idea going. “One I saw was the size of a house! And had a nose that was like a rope, so long that it dragged on the ground! Another I saw was the same height as me, but so strong, it could lift fallen trees on its own and even climb them!”

“How many languages have you learned?”

“I have learned to speak fluently in one, and passibly in another, but neither are used here.”

“Try it! Try it!” some of the little ones shout.

Unplugging my phone from the translator, I say a few sentences:

“Hello! Currently, I am speaking in English. Bonjour. Je parle français aussi mais ce n'est pas utilisé ici”

Some giggle, others are a little surprised.

“Why do you not look like anyone I have met before?”

“I have travelled a very long way”

“How many people are there like you?”

“Last count before I left was over seven billion”

Several “whoas” and “oohs” later, “and how big is that?! More than a thousand?”

Right, large numbers. “Yes, way more than a thousand.” I smile slightly, as I am able to teach and share my knowledge. Where I am from, we draw one thousand like this:

1 000

Where the 3 zeros represent the ones, tens and hundreds respectively. This should be familiar as Thallion said that you use the same base 10 math I use.”

“Now, one thousand is probably the maximum size of a village, but a city here can be probably in the range of ten to a few hundred thousand at most.” I write those numbers on the board, lining up the ones column.

“After one hundred thousand, we need another number, when one thousand thousands gather, we call that one million. I have been to cities with one million people in it.”

“And when one thousand million are in something, that is a billion. So a billion is one thousand thousand thousand”

“Th…that’s how many people are like you?”

“Yes…” I state apprehensively.

“How do you all fit?”

“We tend to build up, rather than out. In the same area as this village, we could probably have two thousand to three thousand easily, but often cluster together to make even larger areas where populations can have as many as ten thousand people in this same area, and the area repeated dozens of times.” Hopefully my statement deters them from asking more about where we are.

“Then why are you the first one to make it this far?”

So much for that.

“This planet is quite big, and it is a long way around from the far side, currently where I am from, it is night time, and summer.” I state, starting to sweat.

“For travelling so far, you must have a vast amount of manna! How big is your manna pool?” One of the older ones asks, quickly being hushed by their peers. Seems like manna pool size is a taboo to ask

“No issue saying this. I have none.”

Gasps are heard around the room.

“Yes, none. That is one of the reasons I went to the magic shop first, they wanted to check to see if I have any abilities at all. Their meter did not even pick me up.”

More gasps and murmurs.

“Are…are you dead?”

“No! No, I am not dead.” I say a little to harshly, causing some to flinch back. Seeing their reactions, I take a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart and ease the tension in the room. "I'm very much alive," I reassure them, softening my tone. "Just... different. Where I'm from, we don't have magic or manna like you do. We rely on technology and science instead."

The room is quiet for a moment, the children processing this strange information. Then, the same little one with the stuffed animal, who had asked about strange creatures earlier, raises a hand timidly. "Can you tell us more about the creatures you saw?"

“Sure! Another one I saw was one the same height as the trees, but its body was near the ground. It was all neck!” I state cheerfully.

At that moment, a very large bell rings 3 times, and Thallion rushes into the room.

“Thank you Ethan for running the rest of class, but something has come up. Please head to the church and find your families immediately.” Thallion states sternly. The kids gather their things quickly and file out.

Once they all leave, and surprisingly very quickly and very seriously, I ask Thallion. “What’s going on?”

Thallion is quickly putting on his coat, and has me follow him back into his home. “News runner just came in, this cold snap is going to be nasty. We need to stock, stoke and supply. We are all heading to the church to keep warm and have enough food and fuel for this event. Help me grab stuff.”

I quickly pull on my coat, wishing I had my parka instead of my dress winter coat, and start ferrying goods across to the church. Rather than meeting in the sanctuary, we meet in the gathering hall beside it. There, a large wood stove is already lit and stoked, and one wall is already lined with wood. The pastor is running around organising the various people coming in, sending food to the far wall, sleeping supplies around the wood stove, and firewood to the same pile. He stops to talk to Lena briefly before she heads back out. I quickly head back out to grab some more wood from beside the school, and the entire village is running like someone kicked an anthill.

One thing I notice heading back out, is that while below freezing, it is not especially cold. I may be Canadian, but this temperature is closer to early March than the middle of January.