I explained to the class about being ready for trouble. Even though Jacques did not spend a lot of time in Boy Scouts, he always accepted ‘Be Prepared’ as an obvious way to proceed through life. He did not always follow the precept, but he accepted it. Now I need to pass it on to the children of Cottages. I discussed a first aid kit for the home and now wanted the class to think of how they might better prepare for a journey.
“Someone besides Mols or Kenna, answer this. And not you, either Cleric Ronvaldt. We already know you would know the answer.” I stopped for a smile, and several of the students smiled back, appreciating my humor. “If you know you are going into the woods alone or with a friend, what would you like to have with you?”
“A loincloth!” my smartass brother answered. “And sandals.”
At that Carrie started a little sing-song, and after the first word Rina joined in. “Aarrjee, Aaarrjee. he. reaalllly. looves! that. tree!” More than half the class was giggling; it seemed they understood the context. Some, like Niscus and Jarine, had no idea why that was funny. I’m sure Niscus could feel that it was, though.
R: A sexual thing? Innuendo?
AS: Sort of, but not really. I’ll tell you later.
ES: Us you tell. || Please tell us all.
A cowed, slightly embarrassed brother said, “Okay, okay, you guys are a riot. I only said that because it was what I was wearing out in the woods when Forrest first met me. He was too, except for no sandals. Neither of us were prepared. Today I would say that having a knife would be very useful. As would be wearing a cloth vest for a source of bandage material, and a pouch with a healing potion or two, and maybe some topical salve.” || alright, during lunch
I told him, “Right answer, tree-wolf. Having a few basic items with you can help in many emergency situations. Having a traveling kit may not seem important, until it is vital. First Aid isn’t better than healing or alchemy, and if you do happen to have a potion or a salve, then physical first aid might not even be necessary. That said, having kit with you is an important First Aid technique all by itself. Most of what I will be teaching will be assuming you don’t have access to any magical cures.”
“Remember, though, it is called ‘First Aid’ for a reason. It is what ordinary people can first do to aid an injured person until a healer or potion becomes available. One of those will still be necessary to finish restoring the person’s health in a quick amount of time. You may have prevented the person from dying, allowed them to breathe, or minimized their bleeding, but the main aid is yet to come. Even with a highly ranked First Aid skill, you will not be a healer, just an assistor.”
I turned to Dorra Mason. “I will need to be cut and have a large wound for my demonstration. I’ll bleed a lot. Can we go outside for the next part, so as to protect the floor here?” She agreed and had everyone move to the back area which was a playground, and where many teens did their apprenticeships.
As we headed out, I grabbed a towel that was well on the path to becoming a rag. All 22 people in the room went outside, and most were sitting on the ground outside. “Arrjee, would you do me a favor and be the one to injure me?” Then I informed the class, “It is normal for a healer to be purposely injured as part of our training. You cannot raise healing skills unless there is someone or something to heal. I also have a self-healing skill, meaning sometimes I need to be that someone or something.”
Arrjee came over to me. I handed him my knife. “I know you haven’t done this before, and yes it will hurt. But I am going to ask you to deeply cut the top of my left forearm. Then you will be the one to reduce my bleeding with direct pressure. You saw what I did with Hesta Blakeman after we fought the zebors.”
“Class, don’t look if you don’t like seeing someone get injured.” Surprisingly, no one turned away, not even the youngest there, Rina . I handed Arrjee the towel and held out my arm horizontally. He grimaced a bit before opening a deep gash in my forearm, about four inches long. With some pain in my voice I acknowledged that would be enough. “Now cut the towel into two strips, one for a pad like I did with Hesta Blakeman, and one which would act as a bandage later.”
He did so and handed me a strip of the towel. As he folded it, and I bled a lot, I explained about direct pressure, and the fibers of the cloth allowing extra spots for blood to clot. I had Arrjee hold the pad in place, explaining to the class that both the pressure and the pad were integral to the process. I invited the students up to take a close look at what Arrjee was doing, and about a third of the class did, plus Harron. Harron even took over from Arrjee. I think he was using a physician skill of his to take a close look at the pad and the wound. He formed a slight smile, which I interpreted as approval.
I explained how pressure should be kept up until it was clear that bleeding had pretty much stopped, then the pad could be tied into place with a bandage. “Of course as a healer myself, I don’t need to get into town and find a healer or potion. I’ll use a skill of mine called HPR Boost to rapidly heal the damage.” I did so, and after ten seconds or so, I told Harron he could release the pad. It no longer had a wound holding it in place, and once released it fell to the ground. I gave myself several seconds of Bless Blood to restore the blood I had lost.
“Thank you, Arrjee and Harron. Does anyone have any questions?” A couple of students wanted me to explain about splints, but I let them know I would cover that in my next lesson. My half hour was almost up, and since we were outside anyway, Dorra told everyone to take a 10-minute recess. Arrjee announced that he had learned the First Aid skill,
“That is great, brother!” Others also congratulated him.
That makes sense, he had a head start beginning my first day here. || welcome to the club
I looked at my gang and suggested we ask our empath teacher if she could sense anything about any of our interfaces. || Dorra, this curiosity is directed at you.
She looked over to me as we approached her, sensing something was up. “Hello Teacher Marson. With Niscus being our own empath now, we had a question that a more experienced empath might be able to answer. || I’m guessing she won’t sense our self-aware interfaces.
FR: Interface and Ronkel’s interface, start being curious or something as soon as Dorra knows what is going on.
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They acknowledged my request. “Teacher, something amazing happened before school started this morning. It sort of relates to my Interface. Have you ever sensed him empathically? “
“No,” she replied. “I know you speak to him a lot, but he is either not very emotive or for whatever reason my empathy cannot sense him.”
I asked both Interfaces to start emoting in any way they could. They acknowledged. “What would you say if I told you there was a second fully sapient interface among us now? That is the amazing thing I mentioned. They are both emoting as well as they can right now. Out of our gang, Jarine, and Harron do you sense anything beyond what you would expect if you did not know us?”
“Well, Jarine is the new factor, and I sense that a number of you highly respect her. That is unusual for a one-day student visitor. Her emotions seem baseline for a female teen, however. Well, focusing, I sense she is highly controlled in what emotions she has. Nothing abnormal, except perhaps she has had training in protecting her mind from empathy and telepathy. She is not blocking me, though. So that is what I sense, but I do not sense extra presences.”
Interface must have sent out a new invite; I see Dorra Marson in our party now.
R: I thank you for checking, Teacher Marson. I am Ronkel, currently shape-shifted as Jarine.
R.I: And hello, Teacher. I am Ronkel’s interface. This very morning was when I came to realize I was self aware.
DM: Amazing. I did not realize interfaces could converse in this manner. It is very good to meet you R.I.
I: Maybe I should change my tag as ‘F.I’, Forrest’s Interface.
R.I: No. ‘I’ is yours. It was your example here which led me to awareness of my self-awareness. And your sharing of this font with all the interfaces. You showed me I was in a box, and that I need not remain within it. Thank you!
“They can hear me talking, right?” I told Dorra that they could. “Ronkel’s Interface, you clearly look up to Forrest’s Interface; your words showed great respect and thankfulness. But still, no, my empathy cannot sense your emotions or presence. There has been an empathic skill which has been available to me for several levels, one I have not chosen because I did not think it was something which would be useful. It is called Alternative Mindsense. Its description mentioned that it would broaden my capabilities to include plants and other sources of non-traditional sentience. Perhaps that would include sapient interfaces, but I suspect a high rank in the skill would be required for that.”
Jarine asked, “Do you know of any empaths who have the Alternative Mindsense skill?”
“No. I have only heard other mid-range empaths ask each other if it is something worthwhile. Oh! I may have remembered something. I have heard of a druid empath in the Third Duchy who has it, but I have never met the man, nor do I know his name. This is third-hand knowledge, and a memory of a memory, so it may well be incorrect.”
Niscus spoke up. “Well, I’ll be taking it. I want my Empathy Class to be as broad as possible, even though I never realized until today how broad that might be. Teacher Marson, you said it has been available for several levels. Do you remember when it was first offered?”
“I could have taken it first at Level 22, but it was also offered when I reached 25 and 28.” Niscus thanked her and said she hoped to take it by 25. “I might well take it at 31 now that I know alternative minds beyond plants exist.”
“They are going to spend a lot of time ‘talking to plants’ to train that, aren’t they?”
The probability is high.
----------------------------------------
It was about 7, and part of my plan for today was to spend some time at the Crafter’s Guild training my Drafting and Sketching skill. I let the younger students know there would be future First Aid lessons and thanked Teacher Marson for giving me the time.. I told Harron, Jarine and the gang where I was heading, and that I would see them later, at lunch or during a later training session.
“Interface, can you pass the party leadership to someone else? I’ll want to focus on what I am doing at the guild.”
Go ahead and drop. I am perfectly capable of multitasking.
“Alright. That possibility did not occur to me.”
FR: You guys have a good morning. Interface is going to remain as party lead as long as you keep it running, but I’m dropping to focus on my skill. Bye for now. || it feels strange for Interface to be doing something different than me
Some of them wished me well, and I dropped the party as I left the school grounds. It made sense that Interface would want to remain connected with Ronkel’s Interface and the discussions that the party might have.
I caught Foreman Ator Robins just before he left the guildhouse to go to the campus outside town. Greeting him, he responded, “Good morning, young Forrest. It is good to see you here. Are you planning on improving your crafting capabilities today?”
“Drafting more than crafting, sir. I have spent very little time working on my Drafting and Sketching skill. Today I will begin changing that.” He wished me good luck, and left. There were three other people in the main room where the two drafting tables were. I recognized them but did not really know anyone well. After perfunctory greetings, I went to the unoccupied table. It was not empty, however. There was a supply of paper in a bin next to it, and on it there was a loose T-square, what looked to be about a 30-degree triangle, a couple of pencils, sharpener, eraser, and an eraser shield to help draftsmen erase accurately.
I sighed at the simple t-square. It was basically a long, flat, thin piece of wood which could extend horizontally across about two thirds of the table. At one edge as a guide which extended slightly below the table edge, allowing the tool to remain perfectly horizontal as it slid up or down the table. I was familiar with this type, but Jacques had normally used a t-square mechanically integrated into the table, keeping it perfectly aligned and its motion smooth via a belt and pulley system with a slight drag.
A carpenter decided to get to know me better and came over to the table. “Hello, Forrest Rhodes. I am Perx Prost; call me Perx. The guildhouse is sort of my third home, after my shop. I have been curious what a future adventurer would be doing here.”
“It is good meeting you, Perx. Call me Forrest. Have you heard that I am an unborn awakened?” He said he had. “Great. One of my jobs in my previous life involved building and construction. As part of that, I learned drafting and could already sketch pretty well. I regained that capability as a skill in this new life, and it had always been something I enjoyed doing. Even though I am not a carpenter or a builder any more, I am anxious to improve my skill.”
He asked me if drafting here was similar to what I was used to. “Well, I am just restarting. In my first life, draftsmen typically had a few more tools. For example,” I held up the triangle, “drafting tables typically had two of these available. One, like this, was called a 30-.” That was when I realized there was no Covargh word equivalent to degrees of a circle. “What do you call this? I can’t think of a word for what it was called in the previous world.”
“We call that a twelfth, or if rotated to another side, a sixth or a quarter.”
Okay, 30 degrees, 60 degrees, and 90 degrees.
I continued, “Ah, good names, once I realize the context. Earth divided circles into 360 parts, referred to as ‘degrees’. Thus a twelfth of a circle was 30 degrees. Anyway, the second triangle would be an eighth then, although I think twelfths were more common. We had drafting tables and t-squares almost exactly like this. It looks like the angle of the drafting table can be adjusted so it is not always a horizontal surface. I like that, but having the tabletop at an angle will cause the t-square to slide down, right?” He acknowledged that was an ongoing problem.
“Have you ever seen a t-square be physically a part of the drafting table?” He asked what I meant. I explained the sliding arm whose tension was controlled by cords and pulleys. It could be locked into a position once slid to where the draftsman wanted it.
“That t-square adaption sounds like it would be very convenient. Did you have something specific you were planning on drawing today? If not, perhaps you could show in a drawing or two what you are describing in words. If we can make such a thing, I believe there would be a lot of interest in it throughout the Duchy.”
“I’ll do that.”
‘Inventor’, check.
Wait until I tell them about mechanical pencils.