One hour later.

Eight hours since arrival.

I had never attended a wood shop class back in school. Now I stood in the Town Carpenter's workshop within the town of Strongbridge fighting back sweat as Lord Charles Darville and a collection of townsmen his age watched me and a boy near my physical age. They were silent in observation as we worked a saw across a log which they had helped us hoist onto a worktable.

I can't say what I would have thought of carpentry with the conveniences of power tools and electricity, but this was hard work. Very hard work. As I labored with my partner, I told myself to keep going. Despite my arms shaking and despite the internal questions that I had as to why we were doing it, I kept to the task. The carpenters all had their monster partners, and any of them could have done the task more effectively than us.

I soldiered on as the Carpenter whispered comments and critiques into Charlie's ear. I saw the Lord slap the master carpenter with a laugh.

"Alrick says to make sure to cut this slice evenly, and with continuous force. It will affect the next step. I say listen to his advice- because when I was trained to do what we're doing, my master made me cut down the tree myself."

My body's instinctive reaction, driven by youthful emotions and vigor, was to groan. I stopped myself before it came fully out, though. It would make me look childish.

Instead, I spoke up as I did it. "Yeah? Well, I bet it was not that hard on you, given your size. My school didn't have a wood shop."

A boom of a laugh at that.

"And your dad didn't teach you either? That's a shame. Don't fool yourself about my size, Wade. I was brought to this world with a body at the age of four - and I had to do this by the physical age of five. "

I caught some movement from the carpenters behind the Lord and kept the saw moving.

Which brought a grunt from my counterpart on the other side of the log, "You buttered biscuit for brains! Watch out! I don't want to get my fingers hurt."

"My bad."

"Of course it was. After all, it was you not paying due attention that nearly lost me fingers."

Maybe it was a miscommunication despite speaking the same language. Maybe it was just because he was just a teenager with an attitude. Either way, it had me thinking for a second to myself. “Could I push this whole log off on his foot?”

I stood there considering it for a moment too, but made no move to act on it or show any hostility. I didn’t let myself. After all, it wasn’t my actual will causing me to have that thought. It was just this youthful anger I felt doing the talking. I couldn't let it control me, after all I needed to not fail this test.

I began the work again and decided to just clarify the dialectic miscommunication. "That's not what it means. My bad means 'You don't have to worry about it happening again.' Misunderstanding hopefully dealt with, let's get back to the task they gave us."

Ten more times we worked the saw through the log before it cut through the bottom.

"You have your first disc cut. Now do the same again. Keep the length about the same. Calvin only help Wade get the beginning going, and if I say so. Only help him if he has gotten stuck. "

So the other lad stepped away a bit after helping me start the sawing and I spent the next thirty minutes stubbornly fighting with the saw and wood until my task finished.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Hours passed as the Carpenters and Lord Darville advised me in cutting, carving, sawing, and whittling the wooden circles that I had been made to saw. Between the hard work, the constant instruction, my impatience, and a growing sense of exhaustion I felt? What I was making had not occurred to me.

Charlie had me carving a pair of D2s. The shapes were already there- they just didn't have symbols on each side of its sloped hexagon coin shape.

"Okay, you have the materials ready. Now we show you how to carve the runic digits of one and two."

I blinked. These were D2s. "I kn-" he shook his head to stop me. "You don't. These are specific shapes and have to be perfect. On top of that, you have to channel some experience points into it while carving to make the reliquary work."

The Lord of Darville grabbed a carved d8-shaped wooden object and planted it in front of me. He then went to get a chisel and a hammer and began to get to work. Soon he finished the first symbol, willing the experience points into it and making the symbol glow with energy.

"That is the digit one."

It was not. Or at least not the numeral one I had been taught.

"Now I will show you two, three, and four."

He followed suit with the spot on the shape, which would have been a two on a d8 and then began carving another shape. He with the third digit and fourth.

The first runic digit was almost like a letter W planted on a half circle and closed together with the points of the W. The second digit was a pair of curved lines connected at the top and left and two utterly straight lines at the right and bottom. The third numeric symbol runic was a stylized series of curving lines. It took the fourth and final one he drew, a stylized raindrop to make me realize that these digits were different.

The number one was like a stylized shape of fire. The number two was a rock, so the Earth. The number three was wind. The number four was water.

He handed me the hammer and chisel then, and gave me a pat on the shoulder.

A prompt appeared with the pat.

"Charlie Darville, Lord of Tidewarren, would like to donate twenty experience points to you. Accept?"

I thought yes and accepted the experience.

"You have been instructed. Are you ready to try now?"

It was time to attempt to craft my first reliquary, which I assumed was a monster-taming tool.

***

With the required tools and the required instruction, I prepared to chisel and carve the symbols into the wood.

Despite my inexperience, I bravely moved on with my carving. It took forty-five minutes of focus and pushing my hopes and dreams into the carving of the wooden coin and I finished the digit one, with its circular flower pot like U rising to meet a wild and jagged W, forming a facsimile of a flame, and forming the iconograph of the number one. As I finished, the flame symbol began to glow.

"You have utilized five experience points to craft the rune for the first. You have gained one skill point in carpentry. "

I grinned despite myself, and despite the dour feeling I wanted to immerse myself in. I was a man on a mission and some parts of me wanted to say little joys shouldn't happen.

Another part argued if I let myself be consumed by my emotions and my imperative, I would not be the man whom my wife loved or the father my children had known.

I let myself grin in anticipation of the next step. This was progress to my goal, and it also was like carving tree nuts into capture orbs in the monster collection video games of my childhood.

I turned the hexagon to its other side and began to carve the rune of the second. It took less time, oddly, and I felt my hands move more deftly. In half the time I had taken for the flame of number one, I carved the sloped and straight with its rock-shaped form. As the last line connected, the rock began to glow.

Once again, a prompt came alive across my view.

"You have utilized five experience points to craft the rune for the second. You have gained one skill point in carpentry."

As I took it in, Charlie spoke up.

"Now repeat the process with the next one."

I did, and after finishing making these two reliquaries I was one dexterity point stronger for the effort- though I had used all the experience that I had been given by Charlie.

"What's next? Was the test passed?" I asked.

"Next? Next, I will show you how to use these. When you have completed mastering their use, the first test will be done."