“You'r an amazing man Klay. What you’ve done in the last year has revolutionized life in this village.” A random man with brown hair and green eyes who is working on some construction project says while Klay walks to a small general store to try and pick up some food.
An old woman with poor clothing and missing teeth walks to Klay and grabs his hand to kiss it.
“You know you saved my life only 7 days ago? You’re a miracle worker.” She says.
Klay awkwardly accepts their thanks before picking up his groceries and hurrying back to his home. He shadily shifts between alleyways and trees to go home without being seen. After he arrives at the 2 story building that is used as the courthouse, Klay finally sees his young child in the basement. He's working on a variety of projects at the same time.
In one of the corners of the room there are many different containers of glass that held specimens. Twenty different kinds of bread are all blue green with week to months old mold. There is a selection of earths and stones in various supplies and forms in the other corner, and a variety of wooden containers are filled with random materials. All of them are labeled “failures” over their original names. “Dynamite”, “gunpowder”, “steel”, “porcelain”, and “pariah garbage” are seen among the stack.
In the other side of the room is a large stack of crates each with a label telling what kind of seed is within them. Pieces of paper saying “bad”,”good”,”best”, and “WTF” are nailed to different crates, and each one of them is put in similar stacks.
“What do you have today?” Klay half asks, half dreads.
“Well dad, I am trying to make the equipment to try and...Create a stronger metal. If you take this iron.” Nox points towards a large block of iron, and then continues, “You can blast air through it as you superheat the metal, and it should be stronger. ” Nox says while half heartedly laughing.
“Why?”Klay asks half sarcastically.
“Well...Iron has a lot of weak stuff in it. Like rocks and random other elements. That’s why we have to melt iron ore to make iron. Imagine this as a next step. We are now blasting air through even hotter iron to get rid of the stuff that just melting it doesn’t get rid of. ”Nox says with raised eyebrows and slightly hunched shoulders.
“That...Actually makes sense. You’re getting better at it son! I couldn’t understand anything at first.”Klay responds slowly broadening grin.
“Yeah...It is hard to word things so everybody understands. I...guess you’re getting better at understanding it to. How goes the work on getting the school instituted?” Nox asks.
“They are struggling to find people to teach and especially to enroll. You are the only one who understands what you're doing right now son, so a lot of people can’t even approach your lesson plans. They are way too difficult. ” Klay responds.
“Like I said, it’s about the future. Children will be taught this whenever they are young, and after they get older I PROMISE they will be able to learn these kinds of things much better than older people. Here is an example; You have a child who has been throwing stones since he was young, and you have a child who was taught nothing. Who will learn how to throw a javelin faster?” Nox explains and then asks.
“I guess the child who threw rocks before.” Klay starts nodding halfway through.
“I think...If we teach children from a young age something new almost every week...Then they can learn something new every week, but if we teach them to learn something new every day, or every hour...You see where I’m going? It is essential, and I mean essential to our future.”Nox says while maintaining eye contact and leaning in closer and closer to Klay.
“Of course son...Why don’t you...You know...Start taking credit for your inventions?”Klay says .
“Think about it this way dad. If a 6 year old invented a kind of moldy bread that saves you from black magic, the people would take it as a joke, but if ‘The’ Klay Waulack shows it to them...They listen. Fall in line so to speak.” Nox says sarcastically while making his fingers dance around and then straighten out.
“Haha, well as funny as that is. I can’t...Explain half of this...Much less all of it.”Klay says.
“If...”Nox picked up a large trolley to carry the iron, “People listened to ‘reasons’ or ‘logic’ then I could have already created the perfect utopia of Tauss. But noooo. It matters way more about how the people feel about something, and you are very good at making them feel like the change is a good change. Plus you are the new mayor and all. Seems like a valuable type person would make these discoveries. Right?” Nox smiles with a sharp curve as he finishes.
“I...guess you’re right.” Klay says while he scratches his head dejectedly.
After a short pause they start to walk outside and Klay leads Nox to the newly made smithy near the middle of town. After they arrive inside with the trolley that is carrying the iron, Klay asks a question.
“Does your mother really need to be involved though? I mean women are supposed to stay in the house. It feels wrong to have them outside doing manual work, or inventing new contraptions.” Klay says while puffing out his chest slightly.
“Hahaha!”Nox keels over while laughing at the response, and Klay turns a bright red.
“Let’s say it this way dad. I have known women who would blow every single man on the planet out of the water when inventing. Do you know why they don’t? “
Klay promptly responds with a no. Nox diggs into the ignorance, “It’s elementary my dear Waulack. Women breed, and they are needed to keep the population high. If all but 1 man die, we are okay. If all but one women die...We will go extinct. If we lose half our women...Then the next generation will be around 60% as large while if half the men die a desperate little village can keep going easy.”
Nox points at himself and his dad, “We are disposable! We have no inherent value. That’s why we fight wars with men! Not women.”
At this point Klay opens his mouth and raises his finger, but lowers it slowly without saying a word. He rubs his eyes with one hand while saying, “Well...If that’s true then why-”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Can you help me lift this into the furnace?” Nox interrupts his speech quickly and asks for help as they start lifting the large block of iron into a patch of bricks and other kinds of rocks.
“Why do they not have positions that are only safe then? Like being mayor is a safe job.” Klay throws the idea out expecting a rebuttal.
Nox starts to fan the furnace with a large fan as he says,“ Now imagine humanity wayyyyyy back. Which civilizations survived? The ones who kept their women at home and therefore safer, Or those that let them go out and help the others hunt and gather?”
Nox looks at him while raising his eyebrows and leaning in towards him.
“I guess...I would say the ones who kept them home...So you’re saying woman staying at home started way back when?” Klay says as though it is impossible, and very probable at the same time.
“Exactly. Now watch this.”Nox says while the iron starts to liquify.
The hot molten block of iron has a large metal top above the rocky layer it is kept in. Hot jets of fire pour out the top of the container as Nox blasts air through a pipe on the left side with yet another fan like device. The air passes through the molten iron, and then out the top hole creating the welding torch like flames.
“Wow! What are you doing?” Klay asks as he stares with large eyes and a slightly tilted neck.
“I am...Creating steel! At least I hope so...It should work in theory right?” Nox says while fanning harder and harder.
“Come here, and fan this. I need more coal.” Nox says while handing his father the large fan that needs to be repeatedly waved.
Nox goes to the back of the furnace where a large stack of black rocks are in a pile. He grabs a shovel and slowly starts to shovel tiny bits of coal into the lower part of the furnace. The flames creep hotter and hotter, and the top of the container roars.
After a while they stop and open a side latch at the bottom of the furnace that pours the molten metal into a large mold lined with Grey rock. The newly formed steel hisses as it cooled, and eventually becomes a very large panel of steel.
“This!” Nox taps the metal, “ Is steel. See how it is lighter colored? It is a lot lighter as well” Nox throws the plate of steel at Klay, but Klay jumps out the way to avoid the object.
Clank! The high pitched whistle of the steel clambering to the stone ground echoes through the room. Klay picks it up and says, “Wow! It is way lighter? How did it get so much lighter? ”
“Imagine it as using air to burn out all the bad stuff in iron, and then mixing the iron with air also makes it lighter. NOT because the air is lighter, but because of stuff in the air is strong when placed in iron.” Nox says while drawing shapes of weak and strong materials that air is taking as it goes through an imaginary block of iron in his other hand.
“Son...This is incredible! It’s way stronger. I could block a sword with half the thickness of iron now!” Klay says.
“Call it steel dad. It really is just iron though, but naming it something else will help people understand it better. How many people moved in today?” Nox questions as if expecting an answer.
“Only four! Sometimes it’s a slow day, but word has to keep spreading, right?”Klay questions.
“We need to start changing up how we govern the place. A council and a ‘cheif’ won’t last much longer. We need to start separating the town so we can have certain parts governed by the more educated and competent.” Nox says while drawing a circle and chopping it into pieces using his hands.
“...What? Haha. I swear you can lose me faster than fire in a rainstorm.” Klay responds while squinting his eyes and tilting his head.
Nox elaborates, “ Imagine if you taught someone to just govern. Then they would be way better at it than somebody who was taught a little bit of everything. We would use people like that to organize and run our town.”
“Nox...Where does all this come from? I mean I understand your smart, a genius even...but why do you care so much? You know you’re sacrificing your childhood…” Klay says while holding his hands up with a lackluster effect..
“Imagine...You felt like it was your fault that over 200 people died. I...”Nox slows his speech down dramatically.
Klay walks with heavy, stern steps and slaps Nox.
“Imagine, YOU saved over 200 people. Including your mother and father. IMAGINE you listened whenever me and your mother talked about this. IMAGINE how we feel seeing you cry, imagine how we feel seeing you work till your fingers bleed, your eyes are bloodshot, your fingernails fall off. IMAGINE...” Klay cools off slightly and stops shouting.
Nox is crying silently while he holds the bar of steel at his side. His long and greasy hair falls over his eyes, and his thicker than normal child arms are completely lax. Klay slowly grabbs the back of his head and holds him closer as they stand.
“You did nothing wrong. You can’t be expected to carry every burden the world has to offer. It's okay to be weak, it's not a sin to show your heart from time to time. Try letting someone help every now and again. Imagine if you trusted the people around you more...” Klay says.
Klay wraps his large arms around the adolescent's head. The adolescent's perfectly still figure slings the steel bar down and grabs the front of his shirt. He immediately starts to sob, and he weeps at top volume as he says, “I...I murdered them...I...I’m a failureee.”
“You're not a failure. You are NOT a failure.” Klay says while Nox’s legs slowly crumple. Klay holds him closer and closer as he goes down on his knees with the child. Nox cries louder and louder until his voice is completely horse. With tears staining his face, Klay says the same simple phrase over and over.
"You are not a failure."
*******
I made massive edits to this chapter, the tenses might still have errors. SO PLEASE comment if you see anything that is lacking.