Luka watched as it took a few minutes for Todd to fully deflate. The sign, while massive, was going to bring in a swell of customers. Realizing this, Todd reinflated.

“I’m going to have too many customers now. Thanks a lot,” Todd said, oozing sarcasm.

Luka nodded along with the statement. “I can make it smaller. Maybe remove the lights?”

“No!” Todd practically jumped. “Don’t—don’t change it. We’ll deal with it, World Walker.”

“Good doing business with you then, orc.”

Franky laughed at that, Eve slowly shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“Paper for a sign,” she muttered quietly.

Soon they were back in the bar, Mr. Todd slinging drinks to the customers already brought in by the sign. They were a couple with large packs on their backs and snubbed noses—Luka didn't know what race they were. They were pleasant, though, and ignored Todd’s rambling about this and that as he served them.

“Hey Luka, what’s that?” Eve asked, pointing to the blueprints sprawled across the bar top.

“The plans for the carousel. I redid them.”

Looking over them, she marked one of the glyphs with a star. “This one’s wrong.”

“Is it?” Luka asked. It was one of the rotational gear glyphs, the driving one that powered the whole thing.

“I mean, not if you wanted the thing to spin faster than the world itself.”

He slacked his jaw. “No, suppose that’s not what I was going for.”

Eve chuckled. “Limiter markings are important for movement-based glyphs. It’s an easy enough fix but an important one.” She adjusted the blueprint.

“It’s a good thing you’re here. I had an idea I couldn’t quite figure out.” Luka moved another piece of paper front and center. A small box was drawn on it. “I want to design a control box—something simple with an on/off button to turn the carousel, well, on and off.”

Eve studied the drawing. “You’re on the right track. But I don’t know of a ‘remote glyph.’ What’s it do?”

Luka bit his lip. “It’d connect two things together invisibly through the air instead of with wires.”

She shook her head. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s a thing here. What’re you making invisible? Wood? The air doesn’t conduct glyphs.”

“Infrared waves.”

Eve made a face.

“Yeah,” Luka quietly said. “I thought so. Any ideas then?”

That’s one thing I could “invent” for this world, he thought. Waves were never my area of expertise. I don’t think…

Franky exited the kitchen with three nice, steaming hot mugs of jrum. “Anyone thirsty?” he asked with a singsong voice.

Luka gladly took a mug as he and Eve got to work.

***

“Ground beef is how much?” Luka asked, bewildered.

He and Franky were at the only raw meat vendor in the village, a tiny inner village shop run by a mother-and-son duo. The building had an accompanying mud pin with various farm animals within it. Pigs, in this world, were green and speckled like Dalmatians. There were also more exotic beasts like feathered mammals the size of rabbits but standing on three legs or large-breed centipedes that produced drinking milk.

Apparently, cows were a thing here, and even more surprising—confirmed by Franky—they were not monstrous or a surreal color. Cows were cows, it seemed.

The shop’s owner—Hern—was a dwarf. She, like the other dwarves Luka had seen, had a beard that stretched from her chin to her knees. She kept it braided tight and behind a stained smock and glared when Luka looked at it.

“Seven silver for two chunks,” she replied, a gruffness in her voice, ripping a cleaver from a butcher’s block.

Luka didn’t know how much that was or what a “chunk” even was, but from the price of a mug of beer and Franky’s reaction, he assumed a small fortune.

“That can’t be right,” the bald orc said. “Is that the price you’d give me?”

Hern let out a growl, thumping her cleaver back into the wood block. “I’ve known ye since ye were in wee diapers. Ye’d cost eight silver!”

Franky recoiled. “So seven silver is the price you give him and not me…” he leaned in closer to the woman—she leaned in as well. “What if I told you he was a World Walker?”

Both slowly leaned out, locking eyes the whole way. Hern scoffed. “Sonny, I care not ‘bout home rock. What matters to me is the coin for the cow. Expensive. Pig is three copper a chunk.”

Assuming “home rock” meant “home world” and assuming “chunk” was volumetric and not based on weight, Luka theorized pork smash burgers might not be so bad.

“Look, sonnies, I can discount cow to five silver per chunk for ye two—but only ‘cause I changed ye diapers!” Hern said to Franky. “Got me a rip few chunks in the preserver.”

Gruff attitude and bloody apron, Luka thought, but still looking out for the villagers. People here are nice under their rough edges.

“How big’s a chunk?” Luka asked.

Both Hern and Franky gave different approximations using their hands to show volume.

“Right,” Luka placidly said. “Four chunks of cow, then.” Hern nodded— “Though I don’t have any money.” She stopped cold. “I can pay in magic, though.”

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Hern scoffed. “Typical. What kinda magic, eh?”

“Fixing things, creating things from raw materials.”

“Can ye create cow from cow?”

“No…”

The butcher scoffed again. “Follow me.”

Franky and Luka did and entered the cutting room. Beside strange meats hung from the ceiling by thick, curved hooks, a middle-aged dwarf shoved a cleaver through a thick bone with a cleaver. He had a beard as well, but it ended at his bellybutton.

“This ‘ere my son, Gern,” Hern said. “He claims his cleaver’s haft be wobbling.”

Gern stumbled back when he saw Luka. “World Walker—”

Luka gave Franky a look. “Tram’s been telling the villagers about you. Some take it better than others.”

“Don’t gawk; he’s folk like ye or me,” Hern chided, smacking her son lightly on the shoulder. Well, lightly was subjective. It was a full-on punch.

“Can I see the knife?” Luka asked, holding his hand out. Gern unceremoniously wiped the cleaver off on his apron, handing it over.

The handle was indeed wobbly. With a grip made of wood, the slotted blade sat sandwiched within, held together by two pins with a slot for a third.

“Should be easy enough,” Luka said, rifling through his pocket. Starting from yesterday, he had picked up bits of material in case any small magic was needed. A snapped stick here, a nice rock there, maybe even a hunk of broken brick. In this case, he only needed a small twig.

In a matter of seconds, Luka’s magic melded the twig into a perfect cylinder and formed the pin pinhole. He wiggled the handle, finding it perfectly stiff. He gave the cleaver back.

Gern gave the knife a few test swings before grunting loudly getting back to work.

Hern raised an eyebrow. “Magic, eh? Spooky stuff.” She shook her head, walking away. Luka and Franky followed. “Four chunk it be,” she continued, reaching into a wooden box similar to an ice chest. With her hand, she scooped four massive piles of ground beef out, portioning them by eye rather than scale. Soon, a sack full of meat was ready to go—too much meat.

“That’s too much,” Luka pleaded.

“No, it ain’t. I know how much magic is worth. Four chunk beef.” She slapped the sack. “Now be off! And come back later with money!”

Luka chuckled and heaved the bag over his shoulder. Four “chunk” was nearly twenty kilos. Franky said goodbye to the both of them as Luka struggled to open the door.

“She was nice,” he said quietly as some village residents eyed them—eyed him.

Franky nodded along. “Keeps to herself, that one. But everyone’s friendly with Hern and Gern. Good people. Where to next?”

“I’d like to buy some cast iron.”

“The smithery, then.”

The smithery was on the outer edge of the inner village, away from trees and grass. Heat poured from the building like an open volcano, even with heat-dampening glyphs etched into the walls. Luka studied the glyphs for a few moments before entering.

“Feels like I’m being roasted in here,” Franky said, tugging on his shirt after they entered.

“I’ll make this quick then,” Luka said, tapping a handbell sitting near the door. A chime rang through the whole shop, ringing especially loud in the next room over where the forge was. The door to the forge opened, letting out a brutal puff of heat.

An orcish head poked out. He was younger than Franky by a few years, but had similar muscles all the same. He came out of the forge room with a dirty shirt wrapped around his waist and with thick, padded leggings on. Sweat poured from his chest and face, falling off of him and sizzling on the hot bricks under his feet.

“Hey Cam,” Franky greeted, holding out his fist.

The forger's apprentice, Cam, punched Franky with greasy, soot charred knuckles. “Hey, bossman, who is this?”

“Luka, World Walker.”

“Ah, you’re the one that’s got the village in a stir.” Cam held out his fist.

Luka punched it. “Nice to meet you. And have I?”

The smithing apprentice nodded, sweat cascading. “Got the Mayor running around putting in dozens of orders across the shops.” He nodded toward the forge room. “Even got the bossman doing commissions for all kinds of random materials. Iron, steel, bronze, you name it.”

“Huh,” Luka muttered, going thoughtful. “Materials, you say?”

Cam nodded. “Hate to rush ya, but I’ve got to get back to work. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for cast iron.”

Cam’s eyebrows lit up like a neon billboard. “’Cast’ iron? Never heard of it. That from your world?”

Luka nodded. “It's heavy and thick. Retains heat well.”

“What color?”

“Black, usually.”

Cam pointed to a shelf by the entrance. “Those fence posts—wrought iron.”

Luka didn’t have to look. Wrought iron was an old name for virtually the same metal. It’d work for his needs, at least. “Perfect, I’ll take a few.”

“You need fence posts?”

“No, not particularly. But I can use the material with my magic.”

Cam dabbed his forehead with a rag. “You need any molds, then?”

“No… but do you have any aluminum?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s shiny, often shiny. Real malleable and doesn’t retain heat but also doesn’t melt.”

“Sounds like a perfect metal. Don’t think we got anything like that on this world, bossman. Unless the Guilds discovered it in secret, or maybe one of the dwarven kingdoms.”

“They like metal,” Franky helpfully said.

When Luka thought about it, it kind of was. Aluminum was used exceedingly often on Earth, only iron and titanium came close. That wasn’t to say it didn’t have its own flaws, however. Any flaw could be overcome with enough planning and forethought.

“What do you need it for?” asked Cam.

“Nothing yet, just thinking about the future.” Luka paused for a moment, glancing at the iron fence posts. “I have a proposition.”

“I’m listening, bossman.”

“I’ll help you and your… bossman figure out the process of making aluminum for a few of those posts.”

Cam hummed loudly. “You know about the forging process?”

“Not exactly, but—” But what? Luka asked himself, thinking back to Earth. His memories were scrambled, but hedging into his focus were highly detailed reports about various kinds of aluminum tensile strengths and compression ratios.

He could picture the report. It was only a few pages long, stapled together in the corner and marked throughout with a pen. Plastered across the top page was a coversheet, along with the warning: TOP SECRET.

“Bossman?” Cam asked.

Luka shook himself. “Sorry, got lost in… something. I know a lot about aluminum. I think I can help two forging experts figure out the process, yeah.”

“I don’t know, bossman. This seems like something the Forgemaster would want to discuss.”

Luka shrugged and showed off his sack of meat. “Then come down by the courthouse later today when you two are done. I’ll be making smashburgers and I’ve got plenty of meat—probably enough to feed the whole village if I’m being honest. If your boss doesn’t like the deal, then I’ll pay for the posts some other way.”

“Lovely,” Franky muttered, predatorily staring at the sack. “Love me some good meat.”

Cam wiped his dripping sweat again. “Yeah, sounds good enough for me, then.” He paused. “What’s a smashburger?”

“Beef,” Franky purred.

“I love beef!”

They departed a moment later, two fence posts in hand. Once they were following their noses to Iop’s bakery, Franky leaned in close.

“Be careful of what you share from Er-arth. People would harm Cam and Forgemaster Adam if this ale-you-in-tium stuff.”

Luka frowned at the statement but took the words to heart. It made sense when he thought about it. As Tram was saying before, people would be coming to him to take ideas and steal riches—why wouldn’t they do the same for people around him as well?

“Want me to carry that?” Franky asked after a short stop in the bakery.

Luka gladly passed over the sack of meat. “Hey, does this world have mayonnaise?”

The orc scoffed. “What kind of question is that? Of course, we do! We’re not heathens!”

Chuckling, Luka said, “We should get some eggs and oil then.”

“And a bit of gra’mak’lish’lem for flavor!” The word sounded like a chainsaw.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, sorry,” Franky said. “That was Orcish for lemon.”