Chapter 6

The dinner party lasted well into the night. Talia continued to pour round after round of drinks and Niall never ceased to oblige her. After a few drinks Talia finally opened up and began to spill her gossip. Between the riffs and spilt tea, she and Gus taught Niall a few card games which he lost every time.

Eventually Ryu threw in his towel and announced he was going to bed. Talia said her goodbyes and went home. Niall and Gus cleaned up the dinner while Ryu set blankets and pillows on the straw mats for them.

When Niall finally laid his head down he stared absently at the spinning ceiling until he fell into a deep black sleep.

He woke up with a massive hangover. It had been many years since he drank as hard as the night before and now he was remembering why. Only the sweet smell of food eventually got him to rise.

“About time you got up,” Gus cried, the words pierced Niall’s ears like bloody needles. Gus was sitting at the table while Ryu worked on their breakfast. “You gotta watch your cups pal,” Gus laughed.

Niall snarled at the man then moved to the table. A tea pot was situated in the center and he poured himself a healthy mugful. “I think I drank more last night than I have in the last five years,” Niall muttered.

“I believe it,” Gus said, “you should have seen yourself, I’m surprised you weren’t puking your guts out last night.”

Ryu brought over a small crock of oatmeal, a plate of fruits and nuts, and a jar of honey. The food and tea slowly brought Niall back to life.

When they were done and they had cleaned up Gus spoke up, “well Niall, I guess this is it. Are you sure you want to stay?”

“Yeah, I’m going to try it out,” He answered, “as long as you still want me,” he said to Ryu.

“Of course we do,” Ryu chuckled sincerely, “but the choice is alway yours.”

“Well, I’m staying then,” Niall affirmed. “Thanks Gus, for picking me up, I mean it. I can’t even imagine where I’d be if you hadn't found me.”

“You’d probably be a farmer, or dead from exposure, or both,” Gus joked. “Don’t let Ryu put you in an existential crisis. I’ll be seeing you around,” he said with a nod, then left, leaving Niall alone in the cottage with Ryu.

“We should go find Gus and Rodrico, but first I think I should go over some things with you,” Ryu said, indicating with a hand for Niall to sit back down.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Just the basics about classes and skills,” Ryu explained. “I believe Gus told you the very basics but I wanted to go over them a little more before I set you free in the world. Do you have your book?”

Niall went over to his backpack and retrieved the little book.

Ryu pulled a similar book from his pocket. “These are commonly referred to as ‘Soul Books’. Everyone has one, and only you can read your own.” He flipped his open, but Niall only saw blank pages. “The books are linked to us, and for the most part controlled by our minds. Think something and project it towards the book and it will appear. Think of it like trying to retrieve a memory. Thinking of something might bring up details you had forgotten.”

“What happens if I lose the book?”

“You can’t,” Ryu answered. “The book is bound to you and will rematerialize if you get too far away from it. Did Gus go over the levels?” Ryu asked.

“Sort of,” Niall answered. “He told me about skills, levels, and experience. That I get experience through working on my skills and when I level there are special rewards,” he elaborated although he lacked confidence in his answer.

“That’s the basics,” Ryu agreed. “Everyone’s skills are different so I won’t assume to know yours. Do you have any yet?”

Niall quickly made a mental thought of skills but his page was still empty. He shook his head, “not yet.”

“I’m going to safely assume you will earn some version of a carpentry skill today. The important thing to know is that there are levels to individual skills and with each level new abilities, knowledge, or powers are available. Most are new knowledge that is available in your soul book but some things actually interact with the world. For example, my glass making skill made it so that I have a new sense that alerts me when the fire I am working with is at the right temperature for glasswork. This is a high level ability. Earlier levels unlocked glass work schemas and primers within my Soul Book that I could reference at will.”

“The most important thing that you need to know is that some skills give you choices and typically these choices are permanent so think long and hard before you select something,” Ryu warned.

“What are the rewards when we level? And how will I know that I have leveled?” Niall asked.

“The only way to know you have leveled is by checking your book,” Ryu answered. “The rewards are unique to each person and are determined by a spectrum of factors including your class, ambitions, personality, and environment. Depending on the item, they will usually appear the next morning after you’ve leveled in a safe location near you. The gifts typically become more useful the higher the level you are.”

“Can I ask what level you are?” Niall asked.

“One hundred and twelve,” Ryu said, “although you probably can’t comprehend yet the meaning of that. You will see leveling is rapid for the first dozen levels, then quickly slows down in the thirties by which point there may be years between level increases. I wouldn’t be surprised if you reached level two today,” he speculated. “But that is all I wanted to go over with you. The main takeaway is that your choices, those expressed and not expressed, have implications. Now, let's go find Dom and Rodrico.”

They found the pair of builders under the shadow of the partially built silo. A short scaffold had been erected and fresh bricks stood stacked on the ground a few feet off the ground. The two builders were taking a break when Ryu and Niall arrived.

“Ciao, Ryu,” a burly man greeted them in a soft tenor. A skinny man, who looked no older than twenty sat next to him.

“Dom, Rodrico, this is Niall,” Ryu said, introducing him. “Niall, this is Dom,” gesturing toward the first man, “and Rodrico,” indicating the skinnier one.

“Ah this is the new fella Antonio mentioned,” Dom said.

“No, the one that was crying?” Rodrico gasped.

Dom hit him softly, “aye.” Dom got up and towered at least a foot over Niall. “Excuse him, he lost his decency years ago.”

“Niall’s a homesteader with experience as a builder,” Ryu explained to them. “Particular woodworking,” he emphasized.

“It's a miracle,” Dom exclaimed, he tried to grapple Niall into a hug who awkwardly went limp as the big man squeezed on him. “I hope you don’t have anything planned for the next few hundred years,” Dom joked. Niall wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Alright Dom, let go of the poor guy,” Rodrico yawned.

Dom released Niall and Ryu continued to talk. “Niall, Dom and Rodrico have a budget from the town for making public repairs. They also get funds for projects like this silo here, but they will explain that to you. Just keep track of when you work and let me know so that you can be paid accordingly.”

Niall nodded, surprised by the man’s trust in him despite how briefly they’ve known each other.

“Does he have a place to stay?” Rodrico asked.

Ryu adjusted his shirt, “he stayed with me last night, with Gus.”

“He can move into the lodge,” Dom exclaimed.

“Temporarily,” Ryu explained, “Niall is working so he can buy supplies to start his homestead.”

“Ahhh,” Dom sighed then nodded his head slightly disappointed. “Well we will appreciate his help as long as he offers it,” He gave Niall a smile.

“Well Niall,” Ryu said, “if you are good I will leave you with Dom and Rodrico.”

“Ok,” Niall nodded.

“I’ll have your things moved over to the lodge, be easy on him you two, this is only his third day.”

“So Niall,” Dom started once Ryu left, “tell us about yourself.” He leaned against the partially built silo and began to stretch his arms. Rodrico sipped on a cup of coffee.

“Um, I died…” Niall started awkwardly,” three days ago, is that how this whole thing works? Anyways, before I… you know died… I was an architect but I built my own little farm with my wife in my freetime which became all my time when I retired.”

Dom nodded silently with his eyes shut as if Niall had just shared deep thoughts with him but he did not respond.

“So you guys are working on a silo?” Niall spoke up. “I don’t know much about masonry, well I get the idea but I’ve never done it myself, so I don’t think I’d be of much help there. Do you have anything else I could work on?”

Dom looked to Rodrico who in turn shrugged. “Want to show him?” Rodrico asked.

“Sure,” the younger man said, then got up. “Come on," he said to Niall, leading him away from the silo.

“Where are we going?” Niall asked.

“Not far,” Rodrico said. Dom followed behind him.

They walked a few yards down the road then turned into the stables. They walked past the rows of animals until they reached the far end of the yard and Niall saw that half a dozen stalls were buried under a caved in roof.

“It collapsed during a bad snowstorm a few years ago,” Dom explained. “We tried to reframe it but it didn’t last longer than the next storm.

Niall approached the stalls to inspect the broken framework. The stalls had a simple saltbox roof design. Almost immediately he could see that the rafter boards were too thick and spaced too close together, they also lacked collar ties binding them together. To make matters worse, the joist that served as the header across the stall openings was way too thin which probably caused a poor distribution in weight and too heavy a load on the front bearing walls. It was easy to see how the weight of a snow storm would have caused the thing to collapse. He was surprised that it took a storm to collapse it and hadn’t simply broken under its own weight.

“Who built this?” He asked, shocked by the poor design.

“We did,” Dom said sullenly, “well really we tried to replace the old roof.”

“You're lucky this wasn't a house and killed someone,” Niall exclaimed. “I hope no animals were hurt. Who built everything originally?”

“A master carpenter used to live here, years and years ago,” Rodrico explained. “Before I moved to town. The animals were in the barn so no one was hurt.”

“Jorge,” Dom spoke up, “that was his name. He moved away shortly after I came, before he could teach me anything and all I knew how to do was lay bricks and pour concrete. Jorge dreamed of building wonders, but Silvermoss was too small for him to realize his dreams so he left. He built most of the buildings in town.”

“So nothing new has been built since he left?” Niall asked.

“Not much no,” Dom said sadly. “Every once and a while Rodrico and I will build a stone house then pay some carpenters from Ballast to build the roof but that is very expensive. We mostly build stone walls, roads, small repairs, that type of stuff.”

“Its not as bad as it sounds,” Rodrico hastily said.

“Most of the houses in town need major repairs,” Dom exclaimed, “but we are helpless. I don’t even know how I’d feel if someone got hurt or had to move away because the town deteriorated too much.”

“Hmm,” Niall wondered as he stared at the broken roof, “can you get me some paper and a pencil. Do you have any rulers or a tape measurer? I’m going to get a plan sketched up. Then we’ll also have a schematic to rebuild the stalls in the future. Did Jorge leave any blueprints?”

Dom shook his head, “no, he kept everything in his book. Give me a minute I’ll go get you some things,” he said before running out of the yard.

“So what types of things did you build?” Antonio asked.

Niall was still looking at the stable and didn’t respond right away. “Sorry,” he blurted, “um, I used to mostly design houses. I built a few apartment buildings as well. And then some sheds and farm buildings for myself like I said.”

Dom appeared again, now laden with tools. “I found an old roll of paper, a pencil, and some measuring tape,” he said, holding up a coiled rope notched with pieces of small red string.

Niall looked at the poor tools and inwardly groaned.

Dom asked Rodrico to help him take measurements while Dom went back to working on the silo. Rodrico had an earnest interest in learning construction but his lack of experience was evident. Niall had to instruct him on the various elements of a structure and couldn’t simply say, “Rodrico hold your end to the corner of the front fascia,” without earning a look of confusion. Niall had to point out the fascia as the cap board at the end of the trusses. But the biggest issue of all was that Rodrico didn’t understand how all the pieces worked together.

“Hey Rodrico, what exactly is your class?” Niall asked him as they were wrapping up the measurements.

“I’m a mason but that's a pretty vague class,” Rodrico explained. “I mostly make the bricks and when I’m not doing that Dom tries to teach me bricklaying.”

“Did you do any construction before,” Niall flicked his head, “you know here?”

Rodrico shifted coquettishly. “No, my father was a brick maker and so was I, but I never laid bricks before Dom took me on as his apprentice. But when I tried to pick my class only mason would show. I didn’t have any other options.”

“Masonry and carpentry are two different kinds of construction but they often work together,” Niall said. “I can’t speak for masons, but I know the most important tenant of construction is weight distribution.”

“Which is why we build buttresses on tall buildings,” Rodrico exclaimed.

“Yes,” Niall nodded, “but bricks and stone are much heavier than wood. If you ever want to learn anything about carpentry just let me know, ok.”

“Thanks Niall,” Rodrico smiled.

Niall scratched his head. “I think I have all the measurements I need to start working on the plans, so…”

“I’ll go back and help Dom. Come find us when you're done or want to take a break, Ciao,” he said then walked away.

Niall looked down at his work. While they were taking measurements he had made a rough unscaled drawing of the structure and had filled in his measurements as they were taken. Now he would have to clean up and adjust.

The rope only measured down to inches and Niall wasn’t sure of the accuracy of the notches. How am I going to even scale this, he thought. Usually he would scale a project of this size to a quarter inch to a foot but his tools wouldn’t let him do that accurately. “I’d even take half an inch to a foot,” he muttered to himself. The section of stalls he was replacing were thirty four feet wide and if he used an inch as his smallest unit his drawing would be massive.

He hated having to do it but tried his best scaling the drawing a quarter inch to foot scaling. He inspected his drawing when he was done knowing that only ever four feet of the structure was actually accurate. He tried to do triangulation measurements as much as he could but he still wasn’t entirely pleased with his drawing. I’m going to need to find a real measuring stick if I’m going to keep doing this kind of stuff.

The project was going to take a lot of wood. He figured completely gutting everything except the footer post which seemed structurally safe when he inspected them. After he finished the drawing he made a takeoff of all his materials.

When Niall finally got up from his work he noticed that the sun was starting to set. How long had I been working? He grabbed his tools and headed off to find Dom and Rodrico.

When he reached the silo site there was no one around. Looking at the partially built silo he could see a paltry amount of bricks had actually been laid that day. Niall shook his head then headed towards the town square.

In the square townsfolk were pouring into Antonio’s cafe and another building Niall guessed was Talia’s pub. At least a dozen people were sprawled about the square itself, sitting at benches chatting amongst themselves. Niall desperately scanned the square for either Dom or Rodrico.

“Niall,” a voice called from his left. He turned and saw Dom and Rodrico entering the square from a side street. The pair leisurely cantered over to him giving Niall enough time to see they had changed out of their work clothes.

“Where’d you guys go,” Niall whined, slightly angry.

“We called it a day after lunch,” Rodrico said.

“We checked on you but you didn't even notice when we called your name, you were so focused on your work we didn’t want to interrupt you,” Dom explained innocently.

“Oh,” Niall said, shocked. “Time really flew by.” Dom and Rodrico smiled and shared a knowing glance. Niall held up his rolled up plans, “I finished the drawing and I made a material list. Do you guys want to go over it?”

Dom softly pushed the plans down, “that can wait until tomorrow, Niall, the stables are not going anywhere. Come on, it's time to let loose a little.”