Franky, Sebby, and Leo followed Luka through the outer village and into the town square. Traveling back from Sneerhome had been silent. The World Walker lost in his own head.

He has only said a few words, Franky thought to himself, What could have happened inside Goddess Tippy’s church?

As they passed Mr. Todd’s bar, Eve poked her head out and quickly joined up with the group. Luka walked ahead, his head drooping past his shoulders.

“He okay?” Eve asked.

Franky regarded his sister carefully. On the one hand, he’d known her all his life. On the other, despite their blood relation, it was hard to read exactly what the young woman wanted. Eve was the subtler sibling, a fact Franky knew quite well. And yet, when she was around Luka, she acted differently—strangely, even.

“Don’t really know,” Franky answered. “He said Goddess Tippy was calling him and entered her church. He exited less than a minute later, his eyes puffy and his cheeks streaked with tears.”

Eve arched an eyebrow. “He didn’t say anything?”

“Just a few one-word answers.” He nodded at Leo—who reverted to his real size for the ride back to the village. “Leo went in with him, but he won’t say anything either—to me or Sebby.”

Leo twisted his head to the side and locked eyes with Franky. The wolf then lifted his chin, trotting off to catch up with his rider.

“Leo is just an adult puppy. Maybe he doesn’t—”

Franky shook his head, cutting off his sister. “Leo’s smart. He’s purposefully not telling me.”

Eve crossed her arms as they walked. “Luka will talk when he's ready.”

Quietly, very quietly, Franky said, “He’s reminding me of Dad before the accident.”

“Dad was sick, Franky. His mind was poisoned, and he shouldn’t have been in the mine at all.”

“I just wish he talked to us more. I miss him—and Mom.”

“I do, too.”

The group arrived at the courthouse and found a decently large crowd surrounding the carousel. Luka only glanced and walked on, the siblings and mounts followed.

“Where’s Olive?”

Eve groaned. “In the barn. A garden snake slithered over her foot, and now she won’t come out.”

Luka walked a single lap around the village, magically picking up his “payments” from the villagers. Riding on the carousel wasn’t free, but it wasn’t exactly paid for either. The villagers gave him their scraps—piles of trash and/or desolate structures long abandoned. After the mine collapsed, most of the village left, leaving their homes and huts behind. Some were adopted, others were torn down. But now, all unclaimed structures had an owner—the World Walker.

Materials followed behind Luka in large piles, floating inches from the ground. Impressively, he added more and more to each pile, sorting the dilapidated structures by quality and material. Wood was commonplace, and so was stone. Metal came in next, full fences and countless nails joined the piles.

Rot and rust fell away, trailing in the dirt as Luka walked. Wood meshed; grain structures reformed. Metal melted into a cool liquid, bending together into one singular block.

“You want happiness?” Luka muttered despondently, his eyes locked on the ground. “I’ll—I’ll show you happiness…destroy my life… lie to me? Happiness, happiness, happiness…”

The siblings watched him walk by. Eve turned to her brother. “I don’t think he’s okay?”

“You can say that again—”

“I’m fine!” Luka screeched, his back turned on his friends. He stomped off, still muttering.

Franky quietly whispered, “I don’t think he’s fine.”

Eve gave a soft smile. “Me neither.” They followed.

Luka gestured at a nearby basalt boulder, ripping it from where it sat mostly underground. With a flare of magic, stone melded like dough, flattening and stretching wide. A series of holes poked through at precise intervals, cutting across the width. He dropped it onto the ground, pressing it deep into the soil.

“Reinforcement?” he rambled to himself. “Rebar? No. Yes… happiness. Right, happiness.”

A blob of metal flew off one of the piles. It reshaped midair, Luka’s magic taking over. The metal formed into long tubes, each ribbed for extra surface area. They plunged into the stone foundation like it was water, slicing right through until set in place—the stone then hardened over the metal inserts.

“What in the world?” Eve asked her brother. “Can metal fuse to stone like that?”

“Don’t know,” Franky whispered. “Divine magic, remember—”

A curt raven’s call cut him off. Swooping in from a nearby tree branch, Aunt Sol’s familiar exploded into a cloud of smoke and feathers. Sol herself emerged from the effect. The old woman—with oddly perfect skin—regarded her niece and nephew for a moment before turning to Luka.

“What’s with him? Did a god give him some bad news or something?”

Eve groaned at their aunt’s sudden appearance.

“H-how’d you know?” Franky asked, assuming that was the case. He shivered when his aunt glanced at him—there was a twinkle in her eye, one he’d noticed years and years ago. She was crazy, that much was apparent to anyone who’d share a meal with her, but Franky knew there was more to her than not.

It was one of the reasons he hated her so much. Eve hated Sol because she blamed her for the mine’s collapse. But Franky knew better. Accidents happen, especially when magic’s involved. No, what really irked him was Sol’s incessant arrogance.

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Sol was a magical prodigy in her younger years—the kind that only appeared once every few generations. She classified herself as a “Mystic,” a title renowned by orcs for orcs. And yet, she played the fool. Mystics—Franky remembered the stories his mom told him—were people of renown and intrigue. They were tuned into the magical elements like dwarves were to mead.

And yet, Sol played the crazy old loon. And Franky just didn’t get it—especially after the mine.

“How do you think?” Sol retorted, sniffing her nose real loud. “That boy smells like the divine, and he’s moping like a depressed spriggan.”

Franky clicked his tongue. “He walked into Goddess Tippy’s church.”

“Ah, that explains it then.”

A flash of heat burst across Eve’s face. “Explains what?” she demanded.

“Why the boy is fuming mad.” Sol flanked around the gathering crowd. It seemed Luka’s magic drew eyes—some of them outsiders, not a part of the village. Likely people who had come to ride the carousel. Word of mouth traveled fast. “Can’t blame him. The gods are a twisted lot.”

Franky bit his tongue. There she goes again, Crazy Aunt Sol. Always mouthing off about the gods or adding ill commentary to the situation.

“Is that mine?” Luka yelled, his right hand thrust out and pointing.

The siblings and Sol followed his gesture, finding two wagons full of materials. Mayor Tram said she’d front the cost of a new attraction, and this was it apparently.

Laid in stacks bound by metal twine or resting within wooden chests, raw materials sat in every sense of the term. Metal ore—still held together by the dirt in which it grew—and entire logs of wood—some emberwood, though there were also darker, less orange species—filled the wagons to the brim and stressed their suspensions. It would take an ox or a dire-beast, to pull the wagons from the soft dirt impressions they sat in.

“Yes!” Eve yelled. “Came when you and Franky were in Sneerhome.”

Luka didn’t respond, instead he stole a glance back. Something in him shifted. He gritted his teeth, however, and got back to work. The logs split into thin slats, the metal twisted into long, hollow poles.

Two, six, eighteen, thirty-six, poles formed in a matter of seconds. The entire supply was mostly gone, only crumbs remained in the wagon. Each pole was identical, though some were a half or quarter size. In Luka’s hands, fasteners and bolts materialized, each carefully inspected for discrepancies. He pocketed the small metal pieces.

Slowly, as if Luka was only distantly thinking about them, the wooden slats piled side by side, bending into a rounded shape. Housings were formed, large enough for four people to sit within after closing the attached door. They were topped with a slanted roof but had large glassless windows. The orange of emberwood mixed well with the darker species, the colors acting like compliments. Some of the huts were orange with dark trim, others were dark with orange trim.

Luka removed a small piece of paper from his pocket and studied it. In seconds, a miniature dust storm befell the construction as he etched glyphs into the surface of his creations.

“That’s a lot of glyphs,” Eve said.

Franky squinted at Luka’s work. He hated magic if he was being honest, but Aunt Sol had trained him herself when he was younger. Inscribed in each hut and along each metal pole, a dozen glyphs had been carved. They were simple—just durability, rigidity, and lightened weight. But they were perfect! Franky shivered at the memory of tracing countless glyphs until his hand went numb. And yet, here Luka was—his hands unharmed.

I’m glad for him, Franky thought as he opened and closed his hands.

The metal poles began to fit together. They formed an imperfect octagonal shape, something closer to a circle than not. Spokes formed, like a wagon’s wheel, connected the circumference of the not-circle. The shape became rigid, stiffened by a collective pulling force from each of the spokes. Luka repeated the process with most of the other poles, creating a duplicate. He set them off to the side for the moment.

Set in the stone foundation, a thick pole of metal fused with a wooden shell rose toward the heavens. It reached into the sky, sticking out above the tree canopy like a middle finger beside the pointer and ring.

Aunt Sol laughed at it. “He’s reaaaaaaal mad at that Goddess!”

Larger, more involved glyphs were carved into the main pole. Rotational, along with Eve’s cluster of controlling glyphs. A control box erected at the edge of the stone foundation, an on/off button front and center. Luka tested it a few times, making sure everything worked perfectly.

Then, the two massive wagon wheels of metal rose into the air, connecting to the center pole at the rotational glyph. They started to spin. Extra connection poles fused into the circles, turning the twins into a singular wheel with depth.

One by one, Luka added the wooden huts. The fasteners and bolts in his pocket came in at this point, each used to connect the huts in such a way that they slid gently back and forth with the rotation of the wheel. The huts rose with the rotation and lowered back down.

And then, well, the ride was done.

“Want to get on?” Luka asked, frowning. He visibly steeled himself and gave a tired smile.

Franky and his sister practically ran over—Aunt Sol opted to stay put. The trio, and Leo, got in one of the huts as it moved. An entrance/exit sequence would have to be added to the control box later, but that’d take hours to design.

The Ferris wheel didn’t move fast, but it crested the trees by a dozen meters at its peak. Flocking birds, green tree-tops, an endless orange forest in one direction, the familiar skyline of Sneerhome in the other. A cool breeze cut through the hut—bungalow—causing the group to snuggle up to the fluffy and still small Leo.

“Is that Mr. Todd?” Eve screeched. “I know he’s small, but he looks like an ant!” The group looked over, finding the half-orc.

Franky ignored his sister. “You okay, Luka?”

It took him a moment, but he nodded. “The Goddess removed the block on my memories.” He hesitated but eventually locked eyes with his friends. “I created weapons of war. Weapons that have killed millions.”

“That was your previous life,” Eve tenderly said. “None of that matters.”

“I know—” Luka shook his head. “Tippy said the same thing. I was in her church for days, you know? She had to keep feeding Leo hunks of meat.”

“What were you doing during that time?”

“Crying.”

Both siblings grunted. “I’m so sorry, Luka,” Franky whispered.

“What made you leave?” Eve asked.

Luka whipped away a welling tear. “Ren and Nicole, if you believe it. Tippy showed me a… memory-video-thingy of the two of them sneaking out after bedtime and riding the carousel. Nicole was so happy—Ren too, but he was also annoyed he wasn’t getting to sleep…”

The siblings smiled at the thought.

“Then,” Luka continued, “Tippy showed me an orphanage on Earth. It was destroyed, blown to bits by one of the bombs I helped design.”

Eve gasped. Franky didn’t dare make a sound.

“Tippy then mocked me. She taunted me, asking if that’s what I wanted my ‘legacy’ to be.” Luka gently pet Leo, his shoulders tense. “She then showed me the Emberwood Village—and all the orphans who live here. She asked, ‘they need someone to help pick up the pieces from their own ‘bomb.’ Are you going to be that man?’”

Franky patted him on the knee. “She put you here for a reason. Now we know.”

“Yeah,” he said. “To create happiness for the people around me.”

“More than that,” Eve said, smiling. “To create happiness for yourself and those around you. Don’t forget yourself, Luka.”

He went stock still. “Yeah, that too.” His words were barely a whisper.

Franky leaned his arm out the glassless window and slapped the outside of the bungalow. “And with this giant beasty, we’re going to have plenty of smiling faces visiting in the coming days.”

Eve laughed. “It’s going to get crowded here. This massive thing’s going to attract a lot of people.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Luka asked. “This is an attraction.”

She snorted. “Better fit a few dozen flashing light glyphs to it then—really bring in a crowd.”