I didn’t go straight back to the compartment I shared with Amris. Instead I went to the Admin office that Ursula had set up. I needed to build a team of lumberjacks and for that I needed to know who had the right skills.

Ursula helped me to find the two people who actually had LUMBERJACK as a skill. They were both GARDENERs with the TREE SURGEON perk. They each had the skill at level 2, one level below me, easily good enough to take down a large tree without supervision. I didn’t think that the three of us would be able to produce enough lumber.

I wrote notes explaining that they would be needed for tree felling the next time the train stopped and tasked one of the admin assistants with finding the two of them. Then I collected a pile of likely looking files and went back to the compartment.

###

By the time Amris joined me I was deep into the pile of files and I’d found very little. He asked if he could help.

“We need people with the LUMBERJACK skill. Don’t ask me why, it’s a whole thing. I’ve found two but I don’t think that’s enough. I’m looking for people with similar skills and the right stats to train up.”

“And you’re going to train them yourself?” said Amris.

“Well… yes. There isn’t anyone else to do it.”

“You’re not thinking on a large enough scale,” said Amris, “What you need is one fit, active person with the TEACHING skill at a high level. Get them up a couple of levels as quickly as you can and let them do the teaching. It’ll be far quicker.”

“I don’t see how expending all my efforts on one person could possibly be quicker.”

“Look at the skill,” said Amris.

I did, and I found that with each level the bonuses stacked up ever higher. Larger class sizes, progress multipliers, additional synergies that could be unlocked. With 8 levels of TEACHING the teacher themself was levelling up the skill they were teaching. By teaching it.

“Academia scares me,” I said. “This is like some bullshit perpetual motion machine of education. If I teach someone with 8 or more levels of TEACHING a skill that I have three levels of then within two weeks they can be teaching me the skill to level four.”

“Your only problem is going to persuade one of the teachers to leave the children to come and chop wood.”

“Excellent point,” I said. “You can do it”

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“Can I now,” he said, sounding disinclined to help.

“You’re an intellectual, they’ll listen to you. Just look pretty and talk nicely and I’ll fill in all the practical stuff.”

What I didn’t say to Amris was that he’s a gorgeous, soft spoken, cat-man in a dapper suit and there’s basically no way that the average teacher would be able to say no to him. She did negotiate though.

###

We found her in the library car, sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading a story to a group of children. The story was about an unusually tiny Blizenpaard struggling to be taken seriously. It sounded like a mash-up of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and The Little Engine that Could.

Nurse Trudy was there, keeping an eye on a few of the weaker children. She was sitting on a sofa with Tommy Treseder next to her. He was all wrapped up in a blanket and still looked pale and ill but he seemed to be enjoying the lesson.

Sitting on the floor in front of Tommy was Angela. She’d been sticking pretty close to Tommy since the death of his twin brother. They both seemed too old for the level of the lesson but maybe it didn’t matter, given how overpowered the TEACHING skill was.

Amris and I sat down on one of the other sofas and waited for the lesson to be over. It really was a lesson, she wasn’t just reading the story. She pointed out details of the drawings and asked the children if they knew what she was pointing at. She would have the children read words that she thought might be unfamiliar to them and show them how to sound the words out.

As she finished the lesson and the children dispersed I got a ding and checked my System Notifications. I suddenly had a new skill. One level of TONGUE OF MOONSTONE (AND THE CONTINENT CENTRE).

I didn’t even have to ask Amris about it. I just gave him a look and he said, “Yeah I have a few levels of the local tongue from hanging around with teachers but that’s not what we’re here for.”

The teacher was a slightly built woman. Half-elf or Elf-kin to judge by her ears and her cheekbones. As we approached she rose to her feet with such grace that I wondered if I might be meeting my first Elf. I decided not to ask her about it. That might be rude.

Amris introduced me to her, she smiled and said that she knew who I was. Then he introduced her to me as Ortensia Roannadottir.

“Please, my adult friends call me Tensia, or sometimes just Ten. Now what can I do for you? I’m sure you’re far too busy to just drop in for a chat.”

Amris told her about the need for Lumberjacks, the lack thereof, and our hope that she could learn the skill quickly and then teach it to others.

“Of course we don’t expect you to do any more tree felling than is necessary to learn the skill,” I said.

“Oh I’m not above a bit of manual labour,” she said. “Frankly I’ve been going stir-crazy and I’m looking forward to seeing some nature. But I’m going to insist that you do something for me in return.”

“I’m not asking for me,” I said, “I’m asking for the train and for all the people on the train.”

“I’m not asking for myself either. I just want you to come and do some activities with the children. Talk about what you do, show off some of your skills. I think we’re all realising that Moonstone had a skills deficit that we didn’t notice until the crisis. I want the children to at least know what those skills are so they can seek them out when they’re old enough.” I was almost tempted to think that she was making fun of me but I’ve rarely heard someone sound so earnest and sincere.

“I’d be honoured,” I said, and I meant it.

“Excellent,” she said, “Let's go an murder some trees.”