Jeb opened the door to the brewery and stopped. It was dark, which made no sense at all. Even accounting for the fact that it was the harvest, his Aunt Esther was always awake before him. As he stood at the doorway, trying to decide what to do, he heard someone calling his name.
“Jeb, what are you doing here?” his aunt asked.
“I thought we were drying the crops that needed to be stored dehydrated,” Jeb replied. He was suddenly optimistic, “do we have to wait to do that until after the first day of the harvest?” Without waiting for an answer, he began walking towards the fields.
His aunt held out a hand to stop him. “No, someone will bring the first loads of corn to dry in a few hours. Until then, I normally need to start stoking the fires. We do that in the milling building, though, since we’ll need to mill down a lot of the things we dry.”
“Where’s the milling building?” Jeb asked. He didn’t remember ever seeing or hearing about that building.
“I’ll show you,” his aunt said, moving away. Jeb followed her off the property. While they weren’t moving at anything even resembling a sprint, he knew that he would have had trouble keeping up before he had gotten his Class. As he watched the fields move by at a shockingly fast pace, he considered how slowly the exertion was getting to him. If he didn’t know better, he would have assumed that he had somehow increased his Statistics. Looking at his Status, though, he didn’t see any changes.
Something in his expression must have given him away, because his aunt chuckled. “I suppose that this would be your first time receiving your grandfather’s harvest benefits as a Classholder, isn’t it? It really is much more of a change than before you have a Class, because the bonuses to your Statistics all come better than additively. The higher your Statistics are, the more that you’ll benefit from this. The fact that no one with a Class needs to sleep during the harvest is really the only reason that we are able to get through everything in time. Well,” she quickly amended, “that and the fact that there is a Weather Mage who makes sure that we don’t get rained out.”
Jeb wanted to ask about that, but before he could, his aunt stopped running. Looking around, Jeb realized that they were on the opposite side of town from the farm.
“Welcome to the mill,” his aunt said, gesturing to the large stone building. “Most likely, there will already be some oats in here from people who used the time before the morning meeting to start harvesting.” She opened the door, and a steady rolling sound reverberated from inside. “It’s good that someone else is here to start rolling the oats,” his aunt continued, “starting the mill going is hardly my specialty. Whenever they finish, we’ll take the leftover oats and dry them. I’d like you to see if you can dry them to the point that they’re ready to store, though be aware that you won’t be able to rely on your Skills as much. After all, you’ve never used oats in Brewing, and we won’t be replanting these.”
Before Jeb could nod, a pile of what he assumed were partially processed oats dropped into a waiting crate in the back of the room.
“Well, then,” his aunt said, “it looks like it’s time for you to get to work.”
“How much water should I take out?” Jeb asked, moving towards the crate.
“All of it,” his aunt replied, “so I hope that it won’t be too difficult.”
Jeb called Least Shape Water - Efficient to mind and focused on the water that he knew was within each oat. Instead of focusing on a single oat, though, or even a handful like he had worked on before, this time Jeb tried to focus on the entire crate at once. He pulled with the Glyph and was a little surprised to see a globe of water start to form above the pile of oats.
As he kept watching, the globe grew bigger and the pile shifted as the individual oats grew smaller. When he felt like they were all dry, Jeb looked at his aunt. She didn’t seem to notice, so he coughed. While it hadn’t been as difficult as he had expected to pull the water out of the pile of oats, something about how he activated the Glyph wasn’t giving him the mental space that he needed to communicate while holding them aloft.
When his aunt heard him cough, his Aunt Esther turned. Looking at the water in his head, she nodded. “There’s a stream beside the building,” she said. “You can put the water you’ve pulled out into there.” Jeb pushed the water out of an open window and let his concentration drop.
The ball of water, no longer supported against gravity, fell into the stream and joined it. Jeb shook his head for a moment, trying to focus through the sudden fog that was clearing his mind. While that may not have been the absolute limit of how much water the Glyph would be able to move, it was certainly at nearly his own limit, given his own familiarity with the Spell and his Statistics.
His aunt seemed to notice, and asked Jeb what was wrong. When he explained, his aunt nodded, clearly running through some math in her head. “If that’s near the limit of what you can pull, then that means,” her muttering ceased making sense to Jeb when she turned around to push the crate from underneath the chute.
Without turning around, she explained what she was doing, clearly seeing the surprise on Jeb’s face. “There’s likely to be another load of oats coming soon,” she said, “and it would be a shame for all of your hard work drying these oats to go to waste if they were to get covered in still wet oats.” Picking one up and tasting it, his aunt frowned. “Though, I suppose having you dehydrate oats may not be our best decision. If I had been thinking, that would have been obvious.”
“Why not?” Jeb asked.
“Oats are one of the crops that we actively heat to dry. It imparts a better flavor to them, which you pulling the water out does not. Still, these will do just fine for feed, which is what they were meant for anyways.” After rolling another cart underneath the chute, his aunt started to push the first cart towards a large door in the back of the mill.
“Where are we going?” Jeb asked, helping her to push it.
“The oats need to be bagged for transportation, so we’re going to leave them outside the barn for someone to take to your uncle’s workshop.”
“That seems inefficient,” Jeb said. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to pack them here?”
His aunt laughed. “You sound like everyone does on their first harvest. A lot of the steps we have that seem inefficient are designed the way that they are explicitly to make them more efficient. Your uncle’s workshop is the building closest to the town storage, which means that the bags can all be stored immediately once they’ve been filled. There’s not a much better way of transporting unpacked grains to your uncle than in these carts, and the carts get sent back with extra bags when he has them.”
Jeb nodded. While he was still unsure if what his aunt was suggesting was actually the most efficient way to pack everything, it was clear that someone had put thought into it. When they had brought the cart outside, Jeb was surprised to see his aunt stop.
“We only need to get it outside,” she explained, “someone else will take it to your uncle and help him to pack it. Now, then, would you like to help me start the kiln for the rest of the oats?”
“What about everything else that is being harvested today?” Jeb asked.
“It’ll just be oats today,” his aunt said, “you were at the planning meeting. Did you not hear that?”
“Honestly, I followed very little of the meeting,” Jeb replied.
His aunt nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. I certainly couldn’t follow most of what the Farmers were discussing for my first few harvests.”
The two made their way to another building which sat beside the mill. Inside, his aunt showed him how they would roast and dry all of the rest of the day’s oats. He was surprised to see that the crate of oats needed to be lifted from the mill in order to get to the kiln. Seeing his expression, his aunt tried to explain.
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“Ok, this is one place where you would be correct in assuming that the current process is inefficient. This floor is slightly lower than where anything has its hull removed. They used to just pipe the materials straight from the hull removal into here, where we either piped them back down to be ground or sent off to be bagged.” His aunt continued, explaining not only why that hadn’t worked, but why every solution that they had tried also failed. As it was, though sending grains down a chute after losing their hulls just to raise them up to dry them just to send them down to be collected again just to raise them up to mill them was not the best process, there didn’t seem to be a way that worked better, at least without rebuilding the entire mill or kiln.
As the two of them kept working, Jeb noticed that everyone coming by was smiling. He didn’t remember that level of cheer when he had been working in the fields. His aunt explained, “we were all incredibly worried about being able to keep up with the harvest this year. Part of why we started with oats is that they’re one of the least delicate things we need to dry. If you being here still wasn’t fast enough to work at the rate of the Harvesters, we would have needed to find a solution. Instead, we’re working as fast as they can supply crops to mill.”
Jeb nodded. He was glad that he could help the community. As the hours passed on, he considered the fact that he had left a room that was hot and had no windows, only to quickly return to another. He had no clue how long he and his aunt had been working. Unlike working alone, having someone to chat with and keep him from getting too dehydrated meant that Jeb had no way to gauge the passing time. Whenever a batch of oats was finished, it disappeared and another arrived.
Finally, though, his aunt signaled for him to stop. “It’s time for dinner,” she said.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 8193/100
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Total Statistic Load: 370 Physical Load: 139 Strength: 33 Dexterity: 26 Endurance: 35 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 231 Intelligence: 47 Willpower: 54 Magic Affinity: 57 Mana Depth: 39 Charisma: 34
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Mana: 1580
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Glyph Attunement: 28 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water - Efficient Tier 3 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Water Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana - Efficient Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Least Mud Magic Meditation Mana Manipulation Spell Glyphing Improved Glyph Groking Gift of Gab Running Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lifting Athletics Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Bardic Magic Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Enchanting Glassblowing
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)