New Civilizations ( IC, Open )

[The World Capitalist Confederation]

Theodeore Alston, 2999BC

"Ahh..a refreshing night's sleep-" Theodeore said, not noticing the fact he was in the middle of nowhere...
"Is this some sort of dream or am I in the past....No..it must be a dream." He continued, in denial.
"Wait a minute...I am not in a dream, I am an immortal sent back to the past to fix mankind! But why me? O being who has sent me here, why thou must send me here!" He screamed into the clouds.

A man, dressed in a warrior's cloak, tapped Theodeore on the shoulder.
"Follow me, stranger of the forest. We will give you warmth and shelter." The man growled in a dark yet inviting tone.
"Then so I shall." Theodeore replied, realising that he had just spoken the man's tongue without even noticing.
He followed the man to a small village, full of people who looked almost exactly like him, as they saw Theodeore, who looked almost like them, except he had much paler skin and brighter hair thanks both due to some old modifications on his hair and the lack of physical work he had to endure in his life.

He talked to each and every one of them, giving them the gift of knowledge, the gift of true deep, conscious thought and questioning, like that seen in the Enlightenment. He then knew what he needed to do next: take control through an intelligent political scheme. And so he did, this time talking to the 'strong' ones in the village, many of whom had a strong desire for power, which Theodeore would exploit. He persuaded them to join him, as he used his silver tongue, claiming that he had great wisdom and intelligence, along with a strength of leadership. He used the gift of simply being from the future to his advantage. And soon enough, he got the strong ones from the village on his side. He was then ready.

"Hello, my new friends, strong and passionate. I believe that, I, the man of the forest, the man of wisdom, should take over the village!"

The villagers gasped as they were clearly not just about to let this weird forest man take over.

"I bring the great gift of wisdom to you. I will bring leadership and make this village not merely just a village, but make it larger; turn it into a settlement. Imagine a wooden fortress or houses made of not straw and mud but wood! Imagine a truly organised fortress in which we are not merely a hamlet, but the world's greatest fortress. Or even better. I could use my old wisdom and build civilisation. Build great structures, monoliths, statues, build a true civilisation not merely of one small village, but of entire regions. And eventually, perhaps, the entire world. I may not be the most senior here, but I am a man of wisdom."

The villagers clapped, and truly began to put their faith in this man, seeing his eloquence and his strong, passionate words. They were ready for this man to give them the gift that they had wanted for so long.

[Pasong Tirad]

Arsenio Lacson
On the coast south of Árgos, dawn
Síko

It was a chilly February morning when Arsenio dozed off and suddenly woke up in the middle of nowhere - weirdly chilly, since it was the end of February and the intense summer heat was supposed to be coming in already. It was his lunch break, he was dozing off while listening to one YouTube video or another, and then he fell into a deep, deep sleep. He was no longer in his office in a bustling metropolis of over twenty million people. Instead, he was on a beach, naked, with the sun rising up from the eastern sky quite literally on the other side of the world - and where he was no longer became the main issue.

Several men were coming up to him, copper-tipped spears in hand, with a couple of ox-driven carts filled with people waiting for them further back. There were several other bodies on the shoreline, along with bits and pieces of wood here and there, as well as the occasional valuable item, such as a piece of metal or some rope. It seems clear that there was some sort of shipwreck last night, and they were scavenging what was left of the wreckage - people and materiel alike. Some more men were talking to several of the survivors, but most of the bodies that washed up on the shores of Argos were dead - except for one more body two men were standing over. It's clear the owner of the body was breathing, but they didn't touch the body because, unlike all of the other survivors they were able to pick up, this man looked different. From his hair to the relatively darker color of his skin, he had all the hallmarks that screamed "not Argive," and not Greek either.

"He Egyptian?"

"Could be. But the boat wasn't Egyptian. What would he be doing here?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was already living here in Kíos. Canaanite?"

"It's possible, but his skin is too muddy. Canaanites don't have mud-colored skin. And Canaan is much farther away than Egypt."

"From Kýpros, then."

"I don't know, alright? Come on, let's just wake him."

The man prodded Arsenio with the end of his stick, only for Arsenio to suddenly wake up. Eyes jolt open like it's the first time he's used his eyelids, and he takes in air as though his lungs had never tasted it before. Arsenio was awake - but in an entirely different world. "Are you Greek?" One of the two men asked. Arsenio just looked at him. Confused.

"Where am I?" he asked - only for him not to hear what they answered. He spoke, but he didn't speak anything familiar to the two languages he already did speak. That wasn't English or Tagalog. He didn't know it yet and he didn't understand why it happened, but he was speaking their language - he was speaking Ancient Greek.

"I told you he's Greek. He probably is from Kýpros," the man said, before moving off to continue scavenging, while the other man stayed with Arsenio, asking him "Do you remember what happened?"

Arsenio just looked at the man. He understood them. He knew exactly what they were saying, but they weren't using English or Tagalog to say it. He knew that that combination of sounds meant "Do you remember what happened?"

"I understand you" was all Arsenio could bring himself to say.

"Yes, and I understand you." He offered Arsenio, who was still sitting naked on the beach's rough sands, his hand. Arsenio took it and surveyed his surroundings. He hasn't been to a beach in over ten years. Seeing the look on Arsenio's face, he offered to once again answer his first question. "You know that you're in Argolís, right?"

"Argolís?" He said it over and over again in his head. It sounded familiar - he knew it sounded Greek, for some reason. Still, he was thinking that he had never studied Greek before, and couldn't possibly have known that that word was Greek. It was nearly impossible - no, it was actually impossible. And yet, here he was, on the shores of a beach in Argolís without any clothes - and then it hit him. He was naked, and he was very cold. He looked down at his exposed privates, only to remark: "Oh."

One of the two men laughed immediately. "Did you not realize you were naked?"

"No, I didn't," Arsenio replied, still unsure why he understood what the man was saying, and why when he spoke it came out sounding unlike anything he had ever said. Because he didn't literally say "No, I didn't," or "Hindi, hindi ko alam," or any other combination that meant those words. he said "Ochi, den to ékana." He knew, somehow, that that combination of sounds coming out of his mouth meant "No, I did not" in Greek.

"We'll see if we can get you some clothes," said the man who didn't laugh. "Get yourself on one of the carts over there, we're heading into Árgos once we're done here."

Greek. Definitely Greek, Arsenio though. He knows where Argos was. But it's impossible. He couldn't be in Greece. The last thing he remembered was that he was at work. Was he kidnapped? There was a shipwreck, so he must have come from a ship. But where did the ship get him?

"Excuse me," he said, rushing up to the two guys who continued to check the beach. "I don't belong here. That ship, do you know where it came from?"

"I don't know. Anywhere. Árgos, Pireás, maybe even as far north as Kefalloniá or as far south as Minoa. Who knows?"

"I don't belong here."

"Yes, you've said that. Where are you from?"

"Filippínes," Arsenio said.

"Where's that?"

Arsenio stopped dead in his tracks. How could they not know where the Philippines was? Or at least have heard of that place? "Uh, it's in Asía. Southeast Asía."

"Ah, so, like, around Kanesh?"

"What? No, I don't- I don't think so. It's far southeast."

"Ah, around Ouroúk?"

"What?" Arsenio was getting flustered, and the man noticed.

"Listen, brother, we have a lot more to do here. So, why don't you just get on one of the carts for the meantime, alright? We'll be able to get you some clothes, and then we'll take you into Árgos. We'll even take you to our lord in Lárisa. That sound good to you?"

Feeling defeated and exhausted, Arsenio agreed. "Yeah, alright. Okay."

"Good. What's your name?"

"Arsenio," he said, but the man had misheard him.

"Arsenios? Are you sure you aren't Greek? That is a good, strong Greek name. I like it. Go on now, Arsenios. Get on the cart, we'll be heading out soon." And off Arsenio went, as the two men continued searching for anything valuable, or anything still breathing, on the shore. As he got on the ox-cart, he looked back and took in, for the first time, what the two guys were holding. It wasn't guns, or just some kind of walking sticks. They were spears. Actual spears. That wasn't helping Arsenio's confusion one bit.

[Bortslovakia]

Patrick Kolman: Somewhere, ??/??/?? (Liffey River Dublin, 3000 BCE) Day 2

A large red welt on the head, but otherwise alive. Alive, and.... being dragged? Looking down, I found myself wrapped in some crude leathers being hauled across the woodland floor. By my new friend no less. Shifting with a groan, I reacted in the natural way to my predicament. "What exactly is going o-" I had to cut myself off, if only because I was most certainly not speaking English. Nor Spanish, not that I have ever been good at speaking that to begin with. It sounded.... I honestly have no clue how to describe it. Sort of like Welsh or Gaelic? Maybe some Celtic, as if anyone spoke that anymore? But only just. Not enough to base anything off of, it could have been Russian for all my knowledge on language structure. One thing for sure is that it was guttural. Simplistic even. The man turned back, jumping a bit at the sudden intrusion of noise "You are a poacher no? A thief? There are many around here, and you have the look of someone who eats much for little work"
Though I fully understood the logic, I couldn't help but feel a tad insulted at being called fat and lazy. Waking up naked in the middle of nowhere only to be smacked upside the head by a glorified rock on a stick, taking prisoner, and then called lazy on top of it all is hardly something anyone wants to experience. All I could manage was a simple "Appreciated" as I lay back down. Ironic though it may be, I couldn't help but feel thankful that I didn't have to walk any further. My legs were already sore from being bound, and it had been a while since I last went on a serious hike. "So, where exactly are we?" I couldn't help but ask. The man paused. "About a half a cycle from home" he stated simply. "We should arrive sometime soon after nightfall"
"And home is what exactly?" I added, which in my predicament was probably an apt question. "Home is.... a place?" the man added unhelpfully. No name then. What kind of place is this?
"Alright then... what's your name?" I asked, hoping to at least get something out of all this. The answer was... helpful? The name he gave was a garbled mess that roughly sounded like Guaire. Part of me wanted to just call him Gary and be done with it, but now was hardly the time for jokes. "Alright Guaire, can you bring me to a town? Maybe I could phone someone, find out where I am exactly, and clear this all up. I have no clue how I ended up here, but surely I'm not too far from the US"
He simply turned around and gave a confused look before resuming travel "I do not know of these phones, nor this You-ess of yours, but I will bring you to our village for judgement"
"Judgement? Wonderful, so this is a cult then" I idly muttered to myself. Poacher? Village? None of this made any sense, but by this point I had already settled into a few more metaphysical possibilities. Never one for skepticism, I couldn't help but think myself in a less-than-hypothetical version of the evil demon/mad scientist/simulation theory. Perhaps one of my friends or family purchased one of those services that play out a "real life adventure" for the participant, isolating them, and providing a scenario to act through? Those cost a lot of money for little benefit though, and no one I knew was particularly opulent. "Do you mind if I at least walk with you? It's not like I can run off, with you being the first sign of life since I got here?" I inquired, growing tired of my laze. The man sighed, looked back warily, and let go of the wrapping, motioning for me to stand. Progress at least.

The village.... certainly.... existed. To call it a village though would be an insult to small settlements everywhere. It was a hamlet at best, and to call it primitive an understatement. A small wooden palisade, really just a fence likely to deter wild animals, encircled the "village," which consisted of fifteen to twenty tiny huts mostly made of thatching, though a few wooden structures existed. Not that they were any larger than the thatch huts of course, but their wooden counterparts were, judging by the general poverty, communal buildings of a sort. Likely for storing the meager crops harvested from the surrounding fields. Not that I am particularly versed in agriculture, but they appeared to be stouter, and greener than wheat. Barley perhaps? The village, built along the river atop a hill, was situated at a break in the trees. In the far distance I could see what appeared to be water. The ocean perhaps? Something about spotting the sea made my gut sink. A major river system like this, with a completely visible community close to the proverbial highway of the world? Where were the telltale signs of civilization? The roads? The docks? The passing ships? The garbage? There should at least be some small cottage-industry style tourist fishing town. The geography itself also made no sense. Not to presume too much, but the population here looked European in origin. Europe and North America aren't exactly known for their unspoiled land. Maybe if this felt like the Amazon, but the land and people emerging from the town to view their new mouth to feed just didn't fit. The culture was all wrong. The only other option that made sense was some extremely rural settlement in far northern Canada, but it just wasn't cold enough for that. Pushing aside my potential bias for the moment, I wrapped my furs tighter around me and followed Guaire inside just as the sun finished setting.


Two days later (Day 4)

The villagers had been debating for the better part of my second day among their midst. Debating what you may ask? Why whether to kill me of course. There didn't seem to be any political structure to their settlement, reinforcing my recently budding Canadian primitivist commune-Climate Change theory. Said theory completely discounted the language issue of course, but it's not like I had anything else to work with. It was still more logical than going the whole Montaigne, and giving up on disproving the Skepticism theory I was also mulling over. Well, at least I know for a fact that I exist in some capacity. To remain on point however, the villagers seem to have selected a representative from each family. Or at least I seem to have caused enough of an interest to get several families involved. It's hard to tell, being kept outside and all. It's not like I had anywhere to run as is, so luckily no shackles. Eventually a few exited the wooden structure, and walked over. The eldest looking, a man probably in his early forties, stepped ahead of the rest, glaring down with a distinctly stern lack of emotion. "I am Barra. I work the woods, hunting and cutting lumber alongside my family, and Maon the younger. You are to come with us and speak your peace"
Standing up from my position on the ground, surprisingly matching Barra's height, I nodded a tad nervously. "Of course, I'll do my best to prove that I am.... not a poacher?" Seeing as that was what I was originally accused of, I could only assume that the circumstances were similar. The insecure banter, unfortunately, did not seem to resonate however as I was roughly dragged inside the structure.
The interior was larger than one would expect, the villagers having dug out the ground to increase the height of the building ever so slightly. I was forced to stand in the middle of the room while the others all sat on roughshod cloth pillows surrounding the room. Barra, and those that had led me in stood to the side. With little formality, he turned to me. "You have been accused of poaching from the surrounding hunting grounds, of which we consider our home. Tell us your name, and where you come from"
My usual self depreciating wit would, in this particular situation, likely not help my case. "My name is Patrick. Patrick Kolman. I come from the United States of America, Long Island New York specifically. I umm, well I don't exactly know how I ended up here. I'm pretty sure by this point that this isn't anywhere I'm familiar with, and... and I don't exactly enjoy the implications of that. I woke up a few paces away from your river without anything to my name, and just followed it hoping I'd find someone else. I-I guess that plan worked. Somewhat. I didn't steal or poach anything though. I was only here a day before Guaire found me, and... to be honest... I never got a chance to hunt for any food."
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to phrase everything the way I did. I practically admitted that I would have hunted their grounds had I been given the chance after all, but these seemed an intelligent people. By being perfectly honest about my intentions, my hope was that they wouldn't assume the worst. To be frank, I could have lied. Made up a story about being a water spirit, or avatar to their cult or whatever this was. It likely would have worked too, as I can be very convincing when I need to be. Something stopped me though. Perhaps I thought that being straightforward about my situation may lead to further answers. Maybe subconsciously I was hoping they'd take me home. Regardless of the intent, it worked. Barra looked at me with that same stern gaze, never wavering as he digested my story. After a long while he folded his arms. "I do not think he is lying"
I looked around, and let out a sigh of relief as the others seemed to nod. Barra's expression had soothed ever so slightly as he continued to stare at me. "Welcome to our village then Patrick Kolman of the Lon-Gislands. We could always use another hand, and perhaps with time your people will find you. We no not of any major settlements that go by this name, but if you awoke near the river, perhaps you came from the mountains."
Though relieved, his words stuck with me, and not just because my accent had somehow poked through even in this ridiculous language. I could feel that sinking feeling return. This village seemed to have no name, the mountains I had seen appeared to have no name, and there wasn't even a hint of recognition at the mention of the US, just like with Guaire. It was merely a moment before it passed though. At the very least, I could make myself busy among the fifty-sixty odd people living here.


A Week Later (Day 11)

Everything hurt. After a mere week of primitive farmwork, lumberwork with stone tools of all things, and a markedly decreased diet, I was worn out. Though I had noticed a bit of weight loss, I could only hazard that malnutrition was not the new solution to stubborn body fat. Besides the manual labor though, I had to say things were quite pleasant. It had been a while since I last went camping, and with only a half an hour or so walk to the shore, I was able to go swimming from time to time. When it was warm enough that is. I couldn't shake the feeling that I recognized something about the waters here. I'd never been here before certainly, but the thin island, curve of the mouth of the river, and large landmass to the far left when facing the sea was familiar. I'd likely recognize it from a birds eye view, but that would have to wait. For today, I figured it was about time I put some of my 21st century knowledge to work. And what could be simpler than a hoe? Well, obviously not a metal construct, as I am hardly a metallurgist, nor did I have the proper equipment, but with a bit of time, and a smoother rock from the shore, I could probably come up with something of value. Barra didn't seem all too pleased at me gallivanting about looking for animal sinew for rudimentary roping, a stick of "proper proportion to the rock I hold in my hand" and for a rock or bone knife to carve with. But he didn't stop me, as I was not needed for hunting duty today. Enlisting a reluctant Guaire, I set to work. "See" I explained "As opposed to just placing the seeds and hoping they grow with a bit of tending, what this will let us do is till the land, clear out weeds, and... well for lack of a term you would understand, bury the seeds to keep them rooted"
Though he didn't seem to buy it, he at least helped once I had finished the first one. This would work much better if I had a metal head to work with, but with no knowledge of where I was, I was left somewhat lacking in the location of tin, copper, and iron deposits. Not that I had the greatest idea to begin with, beyond some extremely basic knowledge about bronze age deposits. Considering my new friends looked nothing like Egyptians or Mycenaean, and to my knowledge, the arbitrary death marker indicating AD had already occurred roughly two thousand and nineteen years ago, I was a bit out of my depth. That did get me thinking though.


Three Days Later (Day 14)

It took some work, but the raft was done. Nothing to be particularly proud about, the raft was effectively just a platform of logs lashed together, with a few support logs lashed below it to give it a bit more height in the water, but it was my raft nevertheless. Guaire walked up, exhausted from my continued enlistment of his services, and looked on. "How will this help us?"
I smiled cheerfully "Hunters can only carry so much. This doesn't have to be one time use. Just drift upstream when it's mostly empty, and hunt along the river. Animals need water as much as we do after all, so you won't be scaring them away anymore than you already do from hunting around here. Then just put your catch up here, float down stream, and unload here at the village. Besides, I'd like to head to that mountain for a test. Just to see how far upstream we can really get"
Guaire seemed content... well not content but he let it slide, with that answer. Really this was just an excuse for me to get a little altitude, and with some luck find a bit of rock. Everyone's seen a few videos on metallurgy after all. How hard could it be (I am fully aware of how hard it is)? The real prize was location though. If I could get a view of that coastline, maybe I could figure out where I was. The thought caused that all too present sinking feeling to return. The last two weeks have been, for all the blissful simplicity, ridden with anxiety. As if something were on the tip of my tongue. I shook out of it one more time though, and turned to find Barra. The village, as I had found out, was relatively new. Refugees from other tribes due to recent crop failure and raids. They just congealed over the past few years around the river mouth. With the woods to one side, and the sea to the other, they didn't really have anywhere left to run. The villagers didn't see themselves as a tribe with a singular representative/leader so much as a collection of cottages that just so happened to be near each other. Barra, by default, seemed to handle most outside interactions, but he most certainly did not govern. Regardless, he was the one that had given me permission to take Guaire and a few others along the river. This years crop was plentiful enough, and game easy to catch, hence the issues with poaching by other tribes or exiles. I still didn't bother with understanding what tribes he was talking about, since the inclusion of other settlements like this oddity would effectively shatter the last vestiges of control I had on the situation. Logic could explain away one exception, but when things become the rule, either logic must change, or everything stops making sense. And the ramifications of logic changing in this situation were just too much to deal with at the moment.
The trip took a few days, in which we supplemented ourselves with hunting small game. It had been a long time since I fired an arrow, and I found myself quite rusty. Not that I had ever hunted to begin with, most of my knowledge came from firing at targets, but I didn't make a complete fool of myself. That was good enough. As the river bent, I found myself staring up at the mountains. "What do you hope to find?" Guaire asked inquisitively. He had warmed up to my presence since trying to split my skull I must admit.
"Would saying 'answers' be too cryptic? I'm looking for rocks to melt, and to get a better view of the bay"
"This.... is not any more helpful than simply saying 'answers'"
I laughed, and gave him a pat on the back before clearing my throat awkwardly, and retracting my hand after realizing that was not a common gesture for comradery based on his glare. Well, it was only another few hours or so travel on the slow moving raft. We'd been moving slowly to gather as much meat for the town as possible anyway, having cooked it all over a fire, and soaked it in saltwater prior that I had gathered in a few pots. Not that my knowledge of preservatives was all too expansive, but I figured this was closer to brining than anything I could potentially do with what I had. At least we'd bring home a solid supply of meat.

The mountains were not the largest I had ever seen, but they were definitely hard to traverse. We slowly made our way up whatever winding paths we could find while I kept an eye out for any loose rock. Winding through the mountains eventually became relatively easy, especially after reaching the reservoir. Still little signs of mineral deposits though.
I thought about it for some time before looking to the group "You're free to head back. I'd like to continue going for sometime. Maybe make it roughly to around the coast again? It'll be faster on foot now"
"I would prefer you not fall off a cliff. I will continue" Guaire added. The others seemed to agree. Thus we continued. Surprisingly simple
By this point the trek was taking significantly longer than I anticipated. Traveling this long on foot around a mountain is, as one would expect, hell. It's slow, dangerous, and the high altitude doesn't help. Luckily these mountains don't reach too high, and the view makes it worth it. Speaking of view...
Guaire looked out from our camp. "I see the coast"
"Another days travel, and we'll have made it" I added
The cold was just starting to become a serious problem, so ideally we could make our way down and circle the base of the mountain back to our raft. I took a moment to stare down in contemplation, stroking my not-so-impressive beard absently. That's when I spotted it. A rock glistening. Smiling, I quickly began to scavenge the ground for similar surface deposits. A few small lumps. Not much, but enough. Maybe tin? Copper? Iron? It was something at the very least. Laughing to myself, I finally looked up to gaze out at the coast. In spite of my recent jubilation, I still couldn't help but feel unease. There was something about the mouth of that river. Something about the far away landmass. I looked on at the odd deformity of land. It jutted out, as if a bite had been taken out of the bay, and it rounded it as a lip when I looked at it from the ground. But here, it wasn't a lip that connected to the rest of the coastline directly. It was simply a protrusion
"A peninsula. That's what it is" I quietly mouthed. The narrow island that ran alongside it was finally beginning to make sense. Sure it wasn't as narrow as the location I had a hunch about was on maps, likely from... age? I couldn't tell, but this most certainly narrowed down the list. Combined with the plantlife, geography, people, temperature, and hell even the guttural language I had compared to Celtic. It wasn't Celtic. Not even proto-Celtic. This was older. There was too little language structure to properly represent even early period Celts, but here it was. As good as handing me a map. At this moment, the entire story, which I deep down had known to be false from the moment I saw the village, entirely collapsed
"Ireland.... That's Dublin.... But it's not Dublin. That can't be Dublin. There's nothing there! It's just a hovel full of tribesmen! That's impossible!"
Falling to my knees in utter confusion and defeat, the realization finally sunk in. I wasn't going home. Whatever all of this was, I would finally have to begin accepting the ridiculous theories I had initially scoffed at as plausible. All reasonable explanation was gone. I had backed myself into a corner. It was time to accept the logic of the utterly illogical.

[Joohan]

IM NOT AFRAID TO FAIL

11 months after arrival...

Life was good, and the day reflected that. Issac stood along the bank of the pond, a blue and white kilt draped across his otherwise bare chest and hanging over his wool trousers. On his feet, he now wore proper leather shoes - which afforded him far greater protection and comfort over the simple cloth wrappings he had been given over a year ago. Up in the sky, the noon time sun shined down warmly onto the land - it's heat being displaced only by a delightful breeze coming in from the west. The breeze felt wonderful as it washed over Issac's skin, reminding him of his summers back home. His company at present, the heir to Duren clan - his best friend - Klef. Klef wore a similar green kilt across his chest and waist, though himself choosing to forgo shoes.

Klef, Issac's younger by five years, was tall for his clan, standing 5'7 ft. His frame was lean, his physique hard. His long brown hair hung down in locks over his eyes, his nervous smile revealing a toothy grin. He stooped his torso down by the waist, and held his hands out in front of him - slowly stepping over towards Issac. With each step that drew him closer, he let out a nervous giggle. Issac mimicked his stooped posture, but choosing instead to remain static - waiting for Klef to come to him. As soon as the two had come within grappling distance to one another, Klef's hands shot forward towards Issac's head, quickly interlocking his fingers at the nape of his neck. In the middle of their clinch, Klef smiled to himself, knowing that he had gotten head control over Issac. That was until two hands suddenly reached up from between Klef's arms and in turn interlocked fingers around the nape of his neck! Now the tables had been flipped, with Issac having head control. Klef immediately realized the precarious position he was in - and looking over to his right side, he saw how close he was to the pond's edge. The object of the game was to throw the other into the pond. Suddenly, Klef dropped down to his knees, releasing himself from Issac's clinch. Pushing forward off his left foot, Klef drove his shoulder into Issac's gut, wrapping his arms around his waist. Immediately Issac had started frantically back pedaling from the blow, but not before using his right hand to shove Klef's head down into the dirt - were upon Issac dropped the whole of his weight ontop of his back - wrapping his arms around Klef's waist and locking hands around his naval. Klef's head grinded against the grass and the dirt, his arms shook from being forced to support Issac's substantial weight. Raising his head up as high as would be allowed with another body on top of him - Klef looked furiously for a way out of his position. Suddenly, he felt a great pressure pull up against his waist, then his feet began to slowly rise off the ground. Issac was trying to lift him! With a single swift head butt, Klef drove the back of his cranium into Issac's gut - producing a satisfying " Hoh! " sound from above - the pressure lessened and his feet fell back to the ground. Klef brought his head back down to searching for a way out of his predicament. Seeing the back of Issac's ankles, suddenly, Klef thought of a way out. He took both his hands off the ground and wrapped them around both of Issac's knee pits. He then pulled Issac's legs towards him until his quads were firmly rested into his shoulders. Realizing what was happening, Issac began to squirm furiously, trying to break his legs from out of Klef's grip, but it was too late. With a great heave, Klef raised his torso upward, sending Issac's entire frame tumbling over his back. However, instead of the satisfying thud sound which Klef had been expecting, he heard instead the sound of Issac summer saluting onto his leather shoes. In a moment of panic, Klef instantly hopped to his feet and turned around; but the moment he had turned around Issac had already wrapped one hand about the nape of his neck, while the other firmly grasped the sash of his kilt. In a single fluid move, Issac's hand pushed Klef's head towards the pond - pulling his imbalance body along by the kilt. Already, both of Klef's feet had left the ground and were now over the water. In a final desperate move, right as Issac let go of the flying Klef, Klef grabbed onto Issac's sash. He felt the sudden pull of resistance Issac's body gave - right before he too stumbled forward and fell into the pond with Klef.

The pond was shallow, and so the two were only submerged for a second before rising again. The water was a far sight cooler than the general temperature of the air, but neither of the two friends minded. As Issac rose to his full standing height ( the water only coming up to his thighs ), he looked over to rising Klef - who was laughing uncontrollably. Issac just shook his head and smiled as he began walking back to the bank, " You've no sense of sportsmanship Klef. "

Through his chortling and laughter, Klef managed a response - his accent the same Gaelic sounding dialect spoken by all Ablan. " Sportsmanship?! The giant speaks to me, a wee child, about sportsmanship?! Lose a head of height and two stones of weight and then you can tell me about sportsmanship - ya daft ijit! "

Klef pushed passed Issac, right up the bank in front of him. As Klef climbed up ahead of him, Issac smirked - " You know, you're right. "

Issac grabbed a soggy dangling piece of Klef's kilt; he pulled hard on the kilt, causing Klef to lose his footing and to slide all the way back down to the pond with a splash! This time, it was Issac who was laughing uncontrollably. " Playing fair is boring. "

Life for the Ablans no longer simply consisted surviving another day, hoping your snares didn't get stolen, or getting enough food to last through the winter. Over the last few months, their daily toils had begun to change in dramatic ways. To meet the deadlines he had set for himself before the clan leaders of Stranix, Issac had applied himself, without rest, night and day to his labors. He had promised to deliver four hand drawn ploughs, and forty scythes - a monumental task for less than a dozen men with only primitive tools to accomplish. Starting before dawn and finishing well after dusk, allotting himself only the minimal amount of time needed to sleep and eat, Issac worked himself ill to make well on his fantastical promises. Upon finishing the final plough only a day before the planting season had begun, he was informed that he had feinted: a combination of fever and exhaustion, were upon he would not wake for several days, and then only in delirium. Issac's machines had allowed the Ablans to clear and plant fields not only faster, but larger as well. The very landscape of Stranix had changed, with large swaths of the surrounding woodland having to be cut down to accommodate the dozens of new fields. Starvation was no longer a looming threat for the Ablan, and with their new found tools amply multiplying their labor, the Ablan were able to allot for themselves a day of hallowed rest - once every six days. Today, was such a day.

Klef and Issac sat side by side one another on the bank of the pond - allowing the sun to dry their cloths. Klef worked away at a block of wood he was holding with a copper carving knife - not so much widdeling, as simply just shaving off wood pieces. Issac meanwhile, played at making knots out of a leather cord he had with him. He had been playing with the idea of crafting a rope making machine - something to streamline the otherwise tenuous and lengthy process. To help himself think, Issac simply kept tying his leather cord into a series of knots around his finger - some holding, others not.

The natural world was never really quiet. Nature, in some manner, always made itself known - an ever present being, that we sometimes incorrectly relegate to being just simply background noise. On this hallowed day of rest, along the bank of the pond, the birds whistled to one another as they bounced between the trees; the hoarse croak of a toad could be heard on the far end of the pond, looking for mates; the cool breeze filled Issac and Klef's ears, and rustled their hair like the leaves on the trees. Even still, with the noise of the world all around them, the world did seem quiet.

" So, " Klef pushed another wood shaving off the block, watching as it floated down into the pond water below.

" Why did ya say no to becomin a paratrooper? " The English word sounded entirely foreign when Klef pronounced it in his heavy Gaelic tone. This had become a sort of ritual between the two young men. Each day, Klef would ask Issac something else about the world and the life he had left behind - and each day Issac would tell him another fantastic story about the tribe he had lost, and the family he could never return to.

Issac look away from the leather cord in his hand and out over the pond, off into the blank space above the water. He didn't respond immediately, recollecting and thinking his answer over before speaking. After a moment of starring out into the open space, Issac sighed and went back to playing with the cord in his hands. " I was afraid. "

Out the corner of his eye, Issac saw Klef's face furrow in confusion. " Afraid? " he asked, no chiding or disparagement in his voice, only genuine curiosity.

" Why would a man be afraid to fly as the birds in Heaven? A robin, or a black bird, as' no fear as they pass through the sky - lighter than air. Why then should the likes of a man? 'Specially courageous Army men? "

Issac had mentioned once that he had been offered the chance to become a paratrooper when he first joined the Army - a chance that he had turned down. When Issac explained to Klef ( and several others who had been present ) what a paratrooper essentially was, they were wonder struck! The idea of mortal men coming down through the sky and past the clouds to do battle across the world like gods was one of awe. But what was equally astounding, at least to Klef, was why Issac would say no to such an honor.

Issac gave a forlorn smile; Klef's wonder and pure intentions genuinely made Issac feel that man had a chance to be better than how he had been in his time. Everything was pure and simple to Klef - an uncorrupted soul for an uncorrupted world. " It wasn't that I didn't want to fly above the clouds - I was afraid of da training... To be a paratrooper meant pain and patience; every day'd be filled with pain, and if you failed in any of your tasks, then you wouldn't become a paratrooper. All that pain would'a been fer nothin. I was scarred to fail. "

The roaring silence of the world returned after Issac had stopped talking - only now the wind had died down, leaving only the bird songs to fill the void. Klef would keep his eyes down on his block of wood, and would shave away a few more pieces before turning to look at Issac, " But didn't ya want to fly? "

Issac raised his head up from the cord in his hand, about to answer... when suddenly he saw something emerge from the treeline; or rather, someone. On the other side of the pond, slowly out from the woods, a man stumbled forward. He was naked, his body gleaming with blood. His arms flailed about as he walked, and his head bobbed painfully side to side. Issac and Klef began slowly rising to their feet as the man stumbled closer to them. Eventually, in utter silence, the man's legs seemed to give way and his face hit the dirt. He did not move, nor did he make any sound. Klef and Issac were stunned - frozen to the ground where they stood. It would be a few moment later before Issac would eventually turn towards Klef and instruct him to run back to the Duren stead and send for help immediately!

---

Later that night...

---

The man's name had been Doug, of clan Duren, Klef's uncle. His body laid upon a funeral pyre, wrapped in several layers of cloth. All Duren clansmen, as well as even some from other clans, as well as Ablan chief Tumor'eh, had come to see the ceremony. When Issac had found him, collapsed out behind the pond, Doug's body had been covered all over with bruises, cuts, and gashes. A few strips of the clothing he had once been wearing hung to his body, sticky with blood. Most disturbing though, was his right ear, in that it was completely missing - looking to have been cut clean off. Issac attempted to stave off the worst of the bleeding by stuffing the gashes and cuts with bits of his kilt, but it was useless. By the time that Klef had returned with help, Doug had stopped breathing.

The warmth of the day had been turned unusually cold by the night. Issac still wore the same tattered kilt he had used to try and stave Doug's bleeding. He was naked from the waste up, and the night was cold - but he didn't let his chill show. He focused himself upon the burning pyre. Next to him stood grief stricken Klef, as well as his father Mal'Cohal.

What had killed Doug was obvious. He and two others had been out that day hunting for boar. Only Doug had returned, and with his right ear cleanly chopped off. Issac would be informed by one of the Duren Clansmen that the right ear would often be taken as a trophy by Tyerin warriors. Doug and his fellow clansmen had been butchered mercilessly alone in the forest by Tyerin stalkers - Doug managing to tell the tale only by bringing back his mutilated body. Issac felt sick; a sense of morbidity ate away at his stomach. Fighting between the Ablan and the Tyerin was common sure - but rarely did it ever end in death. Usually either side only ever walked out with a few cuts and bruises. Usually, either combatant was too incompetent to kill the other. Today was different though - as not only had one man died, but three.

As the body burned and the druid raised up his prayers to the spirits, Issac kept his eyes focused on the burning pyre. So long as they fight, Stranix will never truly thrive. The Ablan will never know civlization. In his mind, the thought permeated like a tumor: growing and infecting all his thoughts, hopes, and desires. All these months past months he had looked at his inventions and thought of only victories and success. He alone would bring these people out of their savage glut and show them his better and modern ways. He had been in Stranix for a year now - and despite all his supposed victories and successes, on this day three men had been viciously butchered over boar. 5% might help win the war, but when did it ever actually end the war?

Issac turned to look at Klef, but was surprised to find that he was no longer there. After searching around the crowd for a while, Issac eventually found Klef over by his home - his arm extended outward into a fist, pressing itself up against the frame of his door - his head hung low. Without looking up at Issac's approach, Klef spoke through the tears.

" Did you know, that he is the third of my clansmen to have died wit in my years? "

Issac slowed his approach down to where he was only a few feet away from Klef - the light of the fire from the pyre vaguely lighting their bodies against the dark of the night. Issac kept his silence, looking toward his friend, choosing to just let him talk.

" Before him, it had been me' cousin... and before him, me grand da. I hadn't ever really... known either of them, but Doug... he had been there for me since before I can remember... "

A moment would pass, and then without warning Klef threw a savage punch against his door frame. The strike had been so fast and the sound so harsh it made Issac jump. Outlined only dimly by the pyre light, Issac could see the blood splattered across Klef's knuckles. Klef would remain silent for a few moments longer before lowering his fist down to his side, and facing toward Issac. Tears ran down his face, and the firelight danced in Klef's eyes.

" I'm goin' to make this right - i'm goin to avenge ma' kin. An i'm not afraid to fail - fore I already know pain. I'm afraid that if I never try, pain is all I'll ever know. "

[G-Tech Corporation]

Viktor Nemtsov - Part 1, Chapter 20: The Bond of Years

November 14th, 1 AG

I had burnished it lovingly to a sheen so much like crystal fire as to make men gaze upon it with wonder, the ring which I slipped on to Tanya's finger while kneeling. Even as I smiled up at her, the lady's beautiful face framed in hair as dark as midnight, a sense of melancholy tinged my joy. It was over a year now since I had come to this new land, by chance or fate, and some days I could almost forget that I had had a life before Kniepper and the Germanics of this antiquity. But today the memories had come back in force; modern women I had dated, my father who had always wanted to see me married off... here I was, committing my life to another, and yet I still felt inexplicably alone. I could talk to Tanya, certainly, in a way I had never looked to find in a woman of this primitive timeline. Her mind was as sharp as any I had encountered in my former days. But we were persons of two worlds, though we did not look it. And that touched my joy with sadness, the two mixed in a bittersweet draught that I feared would be mine to drink until I breathed my last.

Those thoughts I pushed aside though consciously as I rose to my feet, the deafening cheers of those notables in attendance filling my ears. A smile crossed my face, a shy thing at first teased out in this moment of bliss, before it widened to encompass my entire now-tanned visage. Here, in the Hall of Law recently raised in Mara, we were wedded before God and men. Her brother Gaodon had given away the blushing woman to me for an appropriate price of bronze and silver as her brideprice, a curious custom but one I saw no flaw in for now. The ceremony had been, all things considered, an understated affair, held here beneath the cool blue light of gathering winter that filtered through the shuttered windows of the Hall. My doublet of cut black linen would seem primitive to modern men, certainly, but I felt almost regal in it compared to my regular attire.

Happily I linked one arm through that of my bridge, and led her away from the pulpit that normally served as a seat for a justice, but which today had formed the centerpiece of our wedding. On either side rough hewn benches were teeming with men, nobles, soldiers, artisans, their faces red from cheering and noses rosy from the thick beer I had provided for the occasion. Some of the howled suggestions made my breath catch in my throat and blood flush my face, but when I glanced over at Tanya her eyes twinkled back, not embarrassed, but eager.

I would make my life in this new world, had made my life in this new world. To not embrace that life would be foolish.

Viktor Nemtsov - Part 1, Chapter 21: Taming the Wind

December 9th, 1 AG

Tighter about my shoulders I pulled the cloak of bearskin pelt, thankful for its thick insulating warmth against the winter's chill bite. Though the day was overcast and light flakes descended from above here and there, I had reckoned this day the best one for the moving of goods I had in mind. Putting one foot in front of the other as we journeyed upwards was less difficult during these overcast days, for as I knew and these folk that walked beside me did not, the temperature climbed as cloud cover provided insulation to the earth below. Last winter I had been fairly content to sit out the cold months within the confines of Kniepper, but this season there were too many ideas teeming in my mind to idle away the time before my hearth.

Tanya had not seen fit to come with me on this expedition- fair enough, for she had much work to do already, managing the accounts of the bronzeworks and ironmongers that House Artria supported in Mara. The basic English script of the merchants was spreading, taught by no volition of my own, but much in use in the ranks of the professionals and artisans for its sheer utility. It was well that I had introduced the idea so early, I reflected as my feet moved over broken stone with the confidence of a mountain goat; passive adoption would do more work over the years than I could with formal education, and even with all my innovations the people of the Imperium still lived largely hand to mouth. The plough, irrigation, tools; crops still needed to be sown and harvested.

And that was why we were here in winter. Normally the men of the valley would hunt and fish for food, meat to supplement their gathering and farming to get their families through the depths of the cold season. But with the riches of the granaries I had established, I could afford to employ a few men, to feed them from my own pocket so they might labor for my needs and the needs of the community instead of to fill their own bellies. With the skilled artisans came lines of debt-slaves, men who were beholden to the state for crimes they had committed, the sweat of their backs atonement for their misdeeds. The column also had many pack animals, a good dozen of the hardy breed of mountain horse that made its home here, and their backs were strapped with leather harnesses to haul the carts of broken rock and materials I had accumulated for the task at hand.

The waterwheel and mill it served had only been a part of the mechanization I would introduce to this landscape. History would call many of my inventions children of the Second Agricultural Revolution, a bit of an irony given these villages on the slopes of the Alps and their cousins had only entered the Neolithic, but I had no long years to squander on their neat chronological succession. My plans called for free hands, and many of them, and in this age of subsistence farming the only way to achieve that goal would be to remove the labor those hands needed to do. Up the slope lay one of the solutions to that problem, which came in to sight as I pondered the issue.

It had been carefully surveyed already, by my hand and that of carpenters and masons I trusted for their expertise. Deep fertile soil marked many of the high hills here near the Erzgebirge, black richness that was not used by the locals because it was so far from water, and thus bore little crop for the effort it took to seed. I went about the work of unloading the carts with the laborers I had brought, and smiled at many of the burly men as we carried the beams to where they would be needed. A great lake stood at the bottom of this hill, so I knew the water table was saturated. It would take many weeks of digging, down along ladders with supports to hold the chasm open, but eventually we struck the water I was searching for.

The screw itself was a work of art to the carpenters, several immense forest giants culled carefully for their resilient heartwood to be shaped in the spiral fashion I remembered being made in my own timeline by Archimedes. Here it was a concept unknown to the men, but they had been able to carve it readily enough, a task I would not be able to accomplish if I spent a decade at work with it. Carpentry was not in my blood, unlike my father before me, so I knew better than to try my hand at the process. Part of leadership was understanding what tasks to delegate, and what tasks had to be seen to personally.

Even so, it was as I had hoped. With the careful alignment of a thousand gears, and the driveshafts of iron in place correctly, it was satisfying to see the looks on the faces of my workers and friends as the windmill began to turn with the turning of the year. Water wheels they understood on an intrinsic level, easily in fact; all who had swum in the river or washed had noticed the pull of the current, as strong as an ox and flowing on ceaselessly. But to see something ever so physical, our spiral of wood and cloth, driven about by the immaterial... that was a special type of wonder. Even Peter, my technical apprentice since the age when I had first forged bronze, looked on with sheer amazement in his visage. But the water that eventually spouted from the base of the windmill they understood well enough, and many were happy to slake dust-caked throats in the cool ice-water drawn almost clear from far below the ground. In to irrigation channels it would pass in time, to feed fertile fields and terraces along the valleys of the Erzgebirge, and the food it created would allow many granaries to be filled to the brim.

A fine bit of work for a frozen month of winter. With this, and the iron ploughs now being distributed to the farmers to break the sod come spring, I hoped to let our budding civilization put more land under cultivation, and more crops survive. With a stable supply of ample food more hands could be diverted to the needed tasks of the state for coin, silver coin fit for redeeming as food, and civilization would advance.

Part 1, Chapter 22: The Body and Spirit

January 8th, 1 AG

I rose slightly before dawn to shave by the light of a guttering candle, knowing the day would be long. A copper-backed mirror was the primitive device I used to tame the stubble that continually reasserted itself on my cheeks and face, carefully stropping at the rough bristles with a clean iron knife and a foam of dubious soap-substance and animal fat. Most men in the surrounding region grew their facial hair long and wild in the winter, shaving only a few times a year if they shaved at all, but to me it was a ritual of my vanished past that kept me anchored. A few months ago I had decided to forego most of the process, growing a stiff brown beard flecked with blonde, but I couldn't bring myself yet to just allow my entire face to grow untamed like those around me. It was a piece of civilization I held on to, despite the several knicks I had accumulated from learning how to shave with a straight razor again.

With a splash of water from a basin drawn still warm by my manservant, I padded softly out of the room, thick woven rugs muffling the noise of my passage. Tanya rose early too most days, but not quite this early- she, like much of the lands that I knew in this region, moved with the rhythms of the sun and moon. And here in the depths of January the sun rose late indeed here in the middle latitudes, and set early. The people of Kniepper seemed almost like dormice at times, hibernating during the cold months and engaging in frantic activity when they did awaken.

Closing the door of my abode behind me, clad in my customary long shirt and trousers, I nodded to the two Blackguards on duty outside my house. Both were loyal men picked by myself to guard my slumber and that of Gaodan and the other Houses of Mara. With our authority over the surrounding region only waxing, there would in time be those who thought to rid themselves of a foe, and I had no desire to fall prey to a long knife in the night. My work here was only beginning, and if I had my way I would leave a posterity to my children the likes of which this world had yet to see.

Speaking of which, my short walk down the road from my residence in Mara took me to my destination swiftly, a medical clinic I had constructed with funds from the city fathers to treat the numerous cases of influenza and winter diseases that plagued the city. Passing through the series of woven curtains beyond the exterior oak door, I smiled as I emerged in to a room brightly lit by cleanly burning candles and suffused with the warm humidity of the bath house next door. Already the students I was teaching had assembled to begin the day, and the half dozen young men and women nodded to me familiarly as I entered the room.

I had been teaching them what I knew, which was little, but still vastly more than what their society was aware of. Much of the medical knowledge I could pass on was general; the process of diagnosis, an awareness of environmental factors, how to prevent infection, the importance of observation, basic anatomy. But this was ground-breaking information to any traditional healer, that I should know the workings of the body, what passes through mind and heart and lung. In these cold months I had taken to teaching via dissection, a gruesome task, but one made more bearable by the chill weather. There was, unfortunately, never a short supply of bodies of unfortunates who expired in these harsh months- debt-slaves who had nobody to bury them, or brigands slain on the fringes of society. The taboo around cutting the body was great in this society, but these nascent doctors had slowly gotten over their revulsion, and now were beginning to understand why I did what I did. The sight of blood had never bothered me unduly, though cutting open a man was something else altogether. Still, my sensibilities were a small thing when set against the wealth of knowledge this process would bootstrap the medical understanding of the Germanics over.

How to sew up wounds, how to clean them, how to compress injuries. These were some of the foremost principles I had focused upon in my teaching, to deal with trauma to the body from injury and battle-damage. After all, my plans for the spring were not without their likelihood of war, and I would rather not lose men to arrows being pulled through the body incorrectly, or infected wounds from the weapons of our enemies. Herbal medicine, the only medicine I could really hope to do without better knowledge of chemistry and a reasonable chemical infrastructure, was more difficult. My father, being a surgeon of modern bent, had always been extremely skeptic of "all-natural" treatments, and so I had learned little of them. But they were all we had here in the distant past, and I didn't know a thing about them. Distillation of their respective chemical elements was something I would work on once we could manufacture some good glassware, but for now I was stuck consulting with the wise men and shamans, which were useless as often as they were helpful.

The Rise of Empire
Viktor Nemtsov - Part 2, Chapter 1: A Hail of Death Awaited

February 2nd, 2 AG

Heavy woven gloves upon my hands, I gripped the cold iron tongs tightly before my face covered in a wet cloth and gingerly moved the mold out of the flames. A steelwork of two halves, carefully shaped by my hands now skilled from work at the forge for years, this artifact that I drew from the red-hot embers would be the path to many victories for those that lived in the vale of Mara. I placed it carefully at the entrance to the wind-smelter which had been stoked in preparation for the work, before taking a brush from a nearby pot and gingerly braising the interior of the mold thoroughly with the pewter clay dust that had been prepared by my assistant. That very same assistant, my long-time friend Peter, stood nearby watching anxiously. It was his job to pour water over me if either apron or other gear should ignite in the process; they were the most heat resistant garments I had been able to obtain, and were already sopping, but there was no telling exactly what dangers this process posed in a primitive setting.

Then the mold was ready. I swung the halves together with thickly padded hands, feeling the heat of the dun-glowing metal still on my skin, before I opened the valve from the smelter. It was a simple mechanism, an iron disc placed to prevent the molten steel within from racing outwards in to my work area here at the apex of the wind-forge. But now the connection was made, and under my careful hands a thin trickle of steel glowing white-hot and steaming entered the mold. I carefully watched the level of filling, as I had been trained so long ago. There were no automated systems here to measure out mold volumes, no mechanisms to prevent me from over-filling the contraption and spilling molten metal on to the gray flagstones of the forge.

But I shut the valve again at just the right point, where the top of the steel reached the filling level that was necessary. Sighing deeply in relief I stepped back from the mold, to allow the concoction to cool in its place, even as Peter stepped in to stoke the small fire directly underneath the casting bench. Making sure the mold itself didn't suffer any great thermal shock was of utmost importance when trying to preserve tool life for the process, I heard the words of half a lifetime ago repeat to me. I smiled, sweat and grime slicking away from my brow with a brush of a sleeve. Working here in the forge high on the hills of the vale was rewarding, but dirty work indeed. Every night for several weeks I had been coming down looking like nothing so much as a chimney sweep, and the bathhouse attendants insisted I scrub off despite the cold before entering the warm familiarity of the communal baths.

My muscles ached just from this single pouring, but the hardest part had been done. In a matter of minutes I took a length of iron to the mold and prized it open, liberating the precisely cast crossbow limb from its steel entrapment. It would take a little bit of cleaning with a flint, I mused as I inspected the finished peace, for the joins of the mold were not as clean as an actual industrial process would produce. But it had taken minutes to cast, and the process was scaleable, that was the matter of greatest importance. When mounted on the bodies I had commissioned some local woodworkers to fashioned, the limbs would in one smooth back and forth motion draw, notch, and fire a bolt several hundred feet with lethal intent. It was nowhere near as useful as an Arbalest or indeed most strongbows of the day, but these primitive hunter-gatherers had yet to advance beyond a simple self bow. Though perhaps my soldiers might be outranged upon occasion by skilled hunters, the crossbow allowed a single man to pour out a great volume of fire with minimal training, as opposed to the longbowman who might only shoot at half his rate with a lifetime of work at the practice querns.

I dusted the mold anew, and closed it, pouring out another steel crossbow limb with a smile ghosting across my face. Yes, here were weapons worthy of the empire to come.

Viktor Nemtsov - Part 2, Chapter 2: Water under the Bridge

March 24th, 2 AG

As I dressed hurriedly, throwing on clothes rumpled from the day before, my mind raced processing the messenger's news; some slaves had killed guards near the Mara barracks, and were laying siege to the soldiers within. With a shout to my manservant, who came at a trot, I swiftly retrieved my sword and shield from their stand in the closet I shared with my wife, before Sebastian helped me in to a padded lambkin and light steel mail shirt. I didn't anticipate much in the way of resistance, but you could never be sure. Out the door I passed, motioning to the Blackguards there to follow me, and we set off at a quick jog towards the city center.

There I found a house on fire next to the barracks, and the sounds of men shouting came from the building that I had raised with the help of the Families. Down the streets I passed quickly with the men at my back, before we came to a cluster of civilians blocking the street. I yelled forcefully for them to let me pass, some recognizing my voice and crowding aside with muttered apologies, other giving way at the sight of men in armor bearing naked steel. Through the press of men and women in tunics we passed swiftly, until we came to the front of the crowd where I found Gaodon with his tunic tucked in to his belt bearing a heavy iron mace alongside a dozen members of the Guard.

Before us a building burned, one of the houses of the merchant families that called Mara home, and next to it a few dozen wild men wearing the chains of those condemned to serve the state for their crimes stood bearing various improvised weapons. Some bore daggers and two swords, while others had what looked suspiciously like broken-off chair legs. They were trading obscenities through the windows of the barracks, where it was clear to see that the would-be uprising had been foiled by the heavy iron bolt which stood resolutely before the entrance to the main quarters. I could hear voices responding at intervals, their tones strident and angry, and a grim smile passed my visage. The warriors within the barracks were always on guard in rotations aside from those men that stood watch, and they must not have been taken unawares. That was all for the best.

Nodding to Gaodon, I spoke in soft tones, my mien dour.

"The men who were standing watch?"

He pointed with a hand bearing a buckler towards the shadows near the doors to the barracks, where I peered following his gesture. Picking out the shapes in the light cast by the burning dwelling, I scowled. Heads would roll for this, and I might even enjoy swinging the axe. I turned my eyes then to the ragged men who had risen up, nearly forty of them, and even from here I could pick out the fear in some of their eyes. Against the nearly twenty men now assembled, and with no weapons save their instruments of murder, they would be cut down like cattle. Passion was all well and good, but it did not stop bolts from piercing skin, or sword from severing sinew and bone. With their hands and feet bound with iron fetters the debt-slaves hadn't been even able to properly don the armor of their victims, and the helmets of the warriors balanced unsteadily on brows not fitted to them.

I gestured to one of the guards, and he understood the motion, unslinging his crossbow and passing it to me. The steel-tipped bolts would make short work of the rebels if I chose to loose them, but I had no desire to kill men caught up in the heat of the moment. Pitching my voice to carry over the sound of the bucket brigade working on the burning house and the crackle of the flames, I addressed the rebels.

"Those who murdered guards of the watch will die. Those who set the fire that now burns will see their sentences increased as is commensurate with the damage that fire caused, as is law. Those whose only crime is seeking to take up arms against this city will work hard labor for the remainder of their sentence, but see no other punishment. If you lay down your weapons now and come forward away from the barracks, you shall be taken in to custody for trial without harm or death- on this you have my word as arbiter of this city."

At the offer some of the slaves seemed to hesitate, considering coming forwards, and I took careful note in the dark of those who bore weapons and cast dark looks at those around them. Raising the crossbow to my shoulder, I neatly drew a bead on what might have been the leader, a man with a bloodstained dagger, and fired once. The bolt took him in his right leg, and his voice cracked as he howled, falling heavily to the the earth. He dropped, unable to put weight on his injured thigh, and two other men grabbed his dagger and immediately wrestled it away even as he cursed them in terms that would have made a hardened sailor of my home timeline blush. The other slave with a dagger snarled and sunk his weapon in to the back of one of the slaves which apparently didn't want to die, but Gaodon sprang forward three paces and cracked his skull open with the iron of his mace.

"On the ground!" I yelled, advancing and drawing my sword, and those slaves who could clumsily dropped to the earth. Three of them were still standing, faces twisted in rage and anger, and as one swung a length of wood at Gaodon I neatly severed his hand at the wrist with a swing of my sword. The man shrank to his knees shrieking, and I shook my head. Without immediate cauterization no man would survive such an injury in this era. The other two dropped their weapons, faces going pale. It was over and the guards swarmed forward to take them into custody.

It took most of the rest of the night to intern the prisoners and determine how they had managed to assemble in such numbers. I would have to make changes to how the state loaned out prisoners to private individuals, after interviewing the debt-slaves about their reasons for taking up arms, and it took a few hours to extinguish the fire with water from the aqueduct, but state payment for the disaster would satisfy the now homeless merchant family, traders in linen from the eastern slopes.

---

Part 2, Chapter 3: A Blanket of Earth

April 7th, 2 AG

The time of spring had come anew to the vales of the Erzgebirge, and in the lush greenery of the turning of the seasons I had much work to do. I squatted down, talking to one of the local farmers as I inspected his field.

"And this field has given little food for two years now, and you know not why Erik?"

A grunt was all I received in response from the rough character, but it didn't bother me. It was really just a confirmation of what he had reported when appealing to the families for help, and I knew the solution, or at least part of it. The grains and vegetables that the villagers of this region planted were nutritious enough, and fast-growing, but they had never heard of crop rotation or nitrogen fixation. I was only vaguely familiar with the nitrogen cycle, but I knew that fertilizer replenished nitrogen for crops to grow, and with no fallow time or nitrogen fixing crops, these lands would grow steadily less arable over the generations. Indeed, I reflected as I bent down to rub the thick brown dirt between my fingers, from what I had gathered many of the farms around here were already suffering from that problem.

My earlier attempts to use manure as fertilizer were good, but not sufficient. With only a few thousands within the villages and townships that answered to my rule, we simply didn't have the, ahem, resources to provide the fertilizer needed. But where nitrogen addition did not serve, there were other options: legumes. In better climates I would have said we should plant beans, peanuts, but those crops were unknown here. I didn't even know if those were New World crops or not, honestly- beans were a native American staple, right? So I would have to make do with what we did have- lentils. The cereal grain was occasionally grown as a feedstock for some of the few domestic horses, and occasionally eaten by the very poor as a soup or poured over other cereals after it had been well cooked in to a sort of thick paste. Honestly, eating it would just make it simpler to convince farmers of its utility.

Explaining the idea of planting different crops to the farmers around Mara was more difficult than I expected, at least at first, but some of them seemed desperate enough to consider almost any solution to their falling yields. I promised them personally that I would support them if their next year's crop did not turn out better, an oath which made Erik and the assembled agrarians somewhat happier. In exchange they pledged to give the state a half of their crop when harvested, and I supplied them with the lentil seeds they would need once the rains had passed and the ground was firm for ploughing once more.

I would experiment with the crop myself, I decided as I mounted up my hardy mountain pony to return to the main areas of Mara. Agricultural productivity was likely to be up immensely with the introduction of widely-accessible bronze ploughs and harnesses for beasts of burden, not to mention the sickles that Peter and his compatriots were busy forging high in the mountains. The most pressing concern really was gaining the funds to continue my endeavors- though selling the fruits of the smithies had made me fabulously wealthy, the tin merchants had begun raising their rates according to Gaodon, now aware that their ores had more than just a ceremonial value. That would have to be dealt with, in time, once the passes were clear and marching soldiers north became viable.

Some of the fields near the town I had acquired the rights to for the state, either from farmers who had seen their property rights attainted by crime or from men and women simply moving in to the city to work in the mill, or at one of the pottery workshops, or the mines. There was a steady supply of money to be had there, a transition of thinking which I had seen come about in the vales of Germania far more rapidly than I would have guessed. The concept of working for the small silver and bronze coins cast by my mint and distributed as tokens of grain value had caught on quickly, and with the granaries protected by armed guards they were a source of trust and currency the Marans and other Germanics were quick to accept. These people were not stupid, or slow-minded, but merely ignorant. And while I did not think this local currency would hold value anywhere that did not immediately trade with Mara, it was enough for use within the city, which was already of not insubstantial economic value to weaning the people of this land away from their habits of subsistence agriculture and a lack of specialized labor.

On the fields I would plant lentils, and then once they were grown ,if no food shortages were known, I would plough the crops in to the soil. It was a tactic as old as when my ancestors worked on the highlands of Rhodesia, to return nitrogen to the soil via both the plant bodies and the natural nutrient flow of the legume. With luck once the soil had regenerated over a year or two we would see good harvests touch those lands again, and I could establish a more stable food supply for the many workers that now looked to House Nemtsov (a pompous name to my ears, but how they categorized me and mine) for sustenance and work.

[Hanafuridake]

Grace Kinoshita (9 months)

War...

We were in the center of the village and I held a rock in my hand and wondered when the time came, would I be expected to bash a member of the rival tribe in the head. Most of the Nonno people possessed very primitive weapons, bows and spears, with no armor whatsoever. From living in a world where missiles, tanks, and machine guns existed, it never occurred to me about how exposed ancient warriors war when they fought, they might as well have been naked. Ewww, now that I think about it, I don't even want to consider that.

Retar was fashioning some arrows by the central hearth, lost in thought about what the future held in store for her tribe. “A war... with the Nihom...” she said aloud, it was easy to detect that she was disturbed at the prospect. “I've never fired an arrow at another living person before. I didn't even fire one at a dead person. Are we really going to be expected to kill?”

“You heard Susam,” I replied, referring to the old man who's arm I had saved a week before. “If they're intruding on Nonno hunting grounds and threatening your tribe, your father is making the right decision.”

“I'm surprised that you of all people are agreeing with my father, despite him wanting you dead.” Retar sighed, finishing one of the arrows and setting it aside to work on the next one. “You must really care about the life of the Nonno people if you're willing to set that aside. I don't know how you expect to fight in a war even though you can't kill a deer without crying.”

Part of me became agitated. “I care about you, Retar.” I moved over and sat down next to her. She stopped work on the arrow to gaze at me. “If this is what's best for you, I'm going to pursue it to the end of this world. I - I don't want anything to happen to you.”

The huntress broke into laughter despite the situation. In some ways, I wish I were that spontaneous. “You're so weird, ku-wen pon kahkemacihi.” I blushed and stared down at the ground to try and avoid conveying my emotions. The tactic was tried, and failed, because I started tearing up at the thought of something happening to her. “See what I mean? You're worse than a child! My cousin is less a crybaby than you, and she hasn't even bled yet!” seeing that her bemusement wasn't getting through to me, she wrapped her coat around me and pulled the two of us into one embrace. “Nothing is going to happen to me, I wouldn't let it.”

“Really?” God that was the most pathetically pitiful thing I'd ever heard myself say. It was ridiculous that I had become so dependent on one being's affirmations. Yet at the same time, I felt like I could be content this way.

“Who else would there be to understand such a weird creature as you if I weren't here?” she asked, but before I had a moment to ponder her words, an idea suddenly sprung in my head. I leaped from the log we were sitting on and ran to talk to some villagers.

---

Village

“I was saved
my wounds were healed
all because of the grace
of Gureisu kamuy.”

Wow, Retar really hadn't been exaggerating, the family who's father I had saved had really started a cult centered around me. The old man, Susam, was dancing around like a fool, singing the praises of me like it was the end of the world. Well, at least he wasn't saying I was going to strike Disneyland with a hurricane because of gay marriage.

“Your augustness!” the old woman cried out, her and her daughters prostrating before me. This was wrong on so many levels. I'm not going to pretend to be humble, I'm vain and like to hear my praises sung. But even for a narcissist, this was a bit much... “We didn't know that you would be coming. If we had, we would have saved our best portions of fish for you.”

“Please don't...” I murmured, before remembering why I was there. This was important. “There was something I needed to talk to you about.”

“Oh? About what, kamuy?” the woman asked, confused. “Have we done something to displease you.”

“Quite the opposite,” I replied, although I was having to restrain some of my annoyance. “If there's going to be any fighting with the Nihom, I want to make sure the Nonno are protected so no one will be injured again like your husband was.” was this going to work? I honestly couldn't tell, it was a shot in the dark. “Bring me as much bamboo as you possibly can.”

“Bamboo?”

“Bamboo.”

---

Hut

While the villagers started gathering every stalk of bamboo they could find, I started mapping out my plans for a potential conflict against the Nihom. From what I estimated, each tribe had less than a hundred members each. This was not going to be a dramatic battle which determined the fate of the entire archipelago, it would be more of a minor skirmish, but that suited me. Since armor would not be introduced to Japan until the late Yayoi period, I did not have to count on them possessing armor.

The introduction of armor would be a massive determinant in favor of the Nonno's victory. I did my best to recall the time I had created some replica armor for a school project. Huh, that seemed the only time me and my dad ever bonded. He had always been proud of being descended from one of the daimyo in Tokugawa Ieyasu's retinue, maybe in some way, without me realizing it, his support for my interest in replicas was an intent to make me think more about my roots.

Oh dammit, I had forgotten leather. “Retar!” I cried out, and the girl poked her head into the hut. “Bring me some leather strings.” she laughed and nodded her head, going off to complete my request.

[Holy Tedalonia]

Edward "Ted" Tomlinson
Rome, Italy, 2999 BC, 15 months after LF

The air filled itself with the sounds of scraping as I moved the rugged bronze blade against the sharpening stone. The stone was the still bumpy, but it’ll have to do, atleast it was strong enough to be scrapped against the blade. Damn this was time consuming, but quality takes time. With the blade now sharpened, I place it to the side next to the other blades.

Perhaps I could make another better quality mold shape with these swords now sharpened. Regardless I got plenty to finish, four more to go and sharpen. I let out a sigh. Atleast now I can present my gift to the chieftain and his best warriors.

I grabbed my finished swords, and bring them to the chieftains hut. All eight with four under each arm. As I am about to enter it, I heard a discussion. I waited ofcourse, choosing not to interrupt the discussion.

“An attack on Ortez is in order. To ensure my son has the military experience for the tribe. I just wished we had more time, but I am getting old...” said Villuthin.

“Aye, its for the best chieftain. Ortez never had friendly relations against us, so us attacking wouldn’t shock any of our neighbors, nor have them focus on us,” said a warrior.

“Agreed, hopefully we can find success in this raid. Our target is wealth and women, I don’t want you mistreating the women, but they are perfect hostages and also good wives if the ransoms don’t hold,” said Villuthin.

Clearly some sort of raid in my eyes, I guess the subject at hand is fitting with the gear I had. I walk in. Three men were beside the chieftain with plans etched into the dirt.

“Ah Ore-Maker Ted, I see you are with your ore-spears. I say the design is unique...” stated Villuthin surprised.

“Aye, these are bronze swords. They are blades for the tribe, so that you may win most battles with relative ease,” I stated give a blade to each of the warriors.

“These are fine weapons, Ore-Maker Ted, you have really outdone yourself,” stated one of the warriors.

“Indeed this is quite fine blades,” stated another warrior.

Honestly you have no idea what’s consider fine back where I’m from, if this sloppy design impressed you, then the modern era is something you would die of shock seeing.

“Thank you, Tribe Warriors, I appreciate the compliments,” I merely stated to them, “I hope this is quality is fitting for the raid?”

“Aye, young Ted, you’d ought to keep one of the blades, a master crafter such as yourself should have a blade for himself,” said Villuthin.

“A weapon like that is only wasted on me, sir,” I told him.

“Then take it as a ceremonial item, and bear it with pride,” said Villuthin offering one of my blades back to me.

That’s was something I could do. Agreeing silently, I grab the and placed it on my lap. Pride burned in me, or atleast I think it was pride. Regardless a blade I forged, I can proudly call mine.

“Thank you, Good Chieftain, I will continue my work on the swords. May we need more in the future,” I said as I got myself up.

Chieftains son, huh. I’ve seen him around sparingly, his name was Sillander, if I recalled... I don’t think he ever fancied me, but I hope him the best of luck when it comes to leading the village. I for one, will finish my swords, for that is my role to play until I am rescued... If I get rescued.

[Plzen]

Drømte mig en drøm i nat om silke og ærlig pæl.

The spring rains battered the small and poorly-maintained wooden hut that, after Brunjohildis' death, I was allowed to call my own. The two of us sat side by side, watching the rains, reminiscing of those that we so recently lost.

"Tell me more of your 'Canada,' Clara," Raginaharjas asked, the day after the last patient was released and I came out of my self-imposed isolation. His eyes were rimmed in red. The last of the deceased were buried the day before, and this group included his father for whom he held nothing but the highest respect. "Tell me of your homeland, where there are no plagues, no hunger."

He just wanted to forget it all and indulge in my fantastical tales, I could tell. Escapism wasn't the healthiest, of course; it was best to face one's trauma in the flesh. I couldn't find it in me to tell him so, however. We could all use whatever cheer we could get, and if Raginaharjas wanted to get them from stories of my youth and of my homeland, then who was I to deny him?

I could use the distraction also.

So I spun him yet another tale.

I told him of Toronto, of great towers many floors tall that dotted the landscape on every direction the same way the trees might dot a forest floor, in which masses of humanity of every colour and creed swarmed in their livelihoods, busy with their life day after day. I told him of my university library, where endless rows upon rows of clay tablets as thin as a person's hair contained more knowledge than anyone could ever hope to learn in one lifetime, where I spent hours just drifting by, breathing in the intellect of those who came before me. I told him of great snakes of iron and chrome - like stone, but stronger - that carried the water of life through this jungle of steel and glass.

Bar en dragt så let og glat i solfaldets strålevæld.

I told him of laughing, as a definitely male friend of mine stepped towards the centre of the dance floor covered in the frilliest white dress I've ever seen. He lost a bet, then. Ah... my friends. I missed them still, and I missed them dearly. I wondered what was going on back in my dormitory... if it still even existed anymore. Did my friends and family mourn me? Was I looked for after what must've been a sudden disappearance?

Raginaharjas noticed my words slowing into nothing, and was quick to try and bring my focus back towards happier days.

"Heh, women's clothes, men's... to a true soul honest before the spirits, it matters little. If you make one for me I'll show you I can dance in white as well as that friend of yours, Clara."

Who could be sad at that? I smiled. Chuckled, then told him that as soon as I could figure out how to make one, I was going to hold him to his word. The seconds passed in silence, but a pleasant silence. We didn't sit close enough for us to share out warmth in the still chilly spring, but that was alright. I prefered the cool to warmth anyways. Outside, the pitter-patter of the raindrops slowly faded, and was slowly replaced with the drip-drip of drainage from the mud hut's sloped roof. The sky lightened, and his eyes glistened as they stared afar towards who-knew-what in the distance. So, I imagined, shined mine also, looking into his.

-nu vågner den klare morgen.

The spring sky greeted us, blue and clear.

---

The planting season began with preparing the field. Three-quarters of it, that was, leaving the northeast quadrant fallow. I used what goodwill my success in containing smallpox bought me, and used that to again push for the idea of field rotations.

This time, the village leadership bought it. It probably helped that I explained things in more understandable terms this time.

"Like we eat our crops, our crops eat the soil. And just as we will starve if we eat everything one year and leave nothing to plant the next spring..."

Anyways, yeah. Success! Progress! Civilisation-ville, here we come! And that excitement of mine lasted exactly half the day before I found out how these villagers farmed their soil. Oxen lazily pulled a... I suppose that was a plow. A sharp, wooden stick pointing downwards that I was supposed to repeatedly stab around the ground to break up the heavy soil. It was a glorified digging stick, was what it was.

...

My modern engineer mind cringed at the inefficiency. And put my mind to work.

The purpose of the digging, I guessed, was to break up the hard ground. Since modern farmers did it too, I presumed it wasn't some kind of superstition of theirs. But I grew up in a world full of tools. I could do so much better than a digging stick. I imagined a stone flatbed that would stay underground... it would have to be fairly sharp, though, if it was to continuously dig through the earth at the oxen's pace. Then the tool had to break up the soil. If I remembered my modern farms correctly, it was done by putting soil from one strip of land onto the next strip, which was similar enough to what the villagers were doing that I guessed it was largely the same task, just performed in different ways.

So, some kind of a curved back to grow the groove made by the sharp head, then turn the chunk of soil over sideways... breaking it could be done by someone following from the back, I supposed.

A couple days working after-hours at the workshop instead of my usual pottery kiln, and I had a prototype made and tested for the village.

"So you push this end down with your body weight, Hildirijks, kind of like this," I explained the next morning to the village chief. "Then once the oxen pulls... woah!"

I fell down. What an embarrassment.

But behind me was half a meter of perfectly-tilled soil. Hildirijks barely seemed to have noticed my fall, he was staring at the broken-up ground intently.

"Interesting..."

---

Til de unges flok jeg gik, jeg droges mod sang og dans.

There was a little festival in the very end of the planting season. Food was not plentiful -- last year's harvest was not a good one, the villagers tell me -- but enough was caught over the winter hunts that there were enough to go around and make merriment while still leaving some to tide over the hunger season. The "young ones" -- which apparently included me, even though I was now a full twenty-one years of age -- making merriment while the older, wiser villagers sat back and watched, some with genuine smiles, some with bittersweet ones.

I was painfully aware of how many parents were wishing their children could have been here to sing and dance with the rest of us.

I quickly became a little star in the village square. It turns out that I had a somewhat richer musical tradition and history to draw from than these people did. Not surprising, I suppose, but it just wasn't something I thought of before. Luckily for me, I knew quite a few older songs that sounded good even when performed a capella.

Of course, nobody understood me, but that was fine. Art, truly, transcended boundaries. As long as it sounded pleasant and my audience enjoyed it, then why was I to care about whether it was in a language they could understand?

As the last note of the story about two displaced royal children who were returned to their mother hung in the air, and as the village hollered for another, that's when I saw it. That's when I saw him.

Trøstigt mødte jeg hans blik og lagde min hånd i hans.

Burning amber met piercing azure. I never thought of Raginaharjas as a dashing lad before -- too unkempt, too messy, too... wild for my tastes. But there, then, his bronze hair flowing down his back matching the colour of the mud stripes he drew on his cheeks, well...

Maybe I've just been without loving company for too long, without even my parents to care for me from time to time here in this new world of mine. Maybe I was starting to slowly adopt the norms of beauty and attractiveness as practiced by this society. Maybe the sheer, undiluted desire in those blue eyes was affecting me as well. Or maybe I was a much more shallow person than I realised and the whispers of him being the best hunter in town was getting to me.

In any case, regardless of reason, there was just something to that look...

Stepping away from the bonfire, to everyone's disappointment, I walked up to him, sitting down on a log after hours of festives, and extended my arm.

"Dance with me?"

He took my hand in his.

-nu vågner den klare morgen.

The summer sky greeted us, blue and clear.

---

Pre-industrial agricultural societies - heck, even pre-modern industrial societies - rarely farmed enough food to feed everyone year after year. In years of mediocre or poor harvests, there would be some time in the summer or early autumn when the food just... ran out. The harvest last year was poor, and the grain just ran dry a full month before this year's harvest came in.

Us well-fed Canadians rarely think about real starvation. It's just so far detached from our day-to-day experiences. Most of us have maybe skipped lunch or missed breakfast before, and the pang of hunger is familiar to us, but to eat nothing but berries, weed scraps, and whatever meagre haul our fishers and hunters brought in day after day, not knowing where - or, for that matter, when - our next hot meal was going to come from?

Utter, abject, total misery. I never went through anything like this in Canada. I was never a particularly heavy person to start with, and by the time the days were growing chilly again I'm pretty sure any modern doctor would have classed me as underweight.

Civilisation is grounded on specialisation, and specialisation could not exist without a healthy agricultural surplus. If it was my desire to see the changes I wanted to see brought into this world -- ridding them of plague, of ignorance, of petty violence -- the harvests had to grow bigger, one way or another.

But as I gripped my growling stomach, I found it rather difficult to think about some kind of abstract and improved future as opposed to this very real, very material, very concrete empty earthenware plate before me. I thought of Canada, of all the plenty and contentment I took for granted and...

My stomach growled louder.

---

Alle de andre på os så, de smilede, og de lo.

The harvest came in and, with it, the end to the long and dreary hunger season. Then... the harvest festival!

Boooooooom these people knew how to party! The food was bland, the lighting was awful, the music was quiet, but somehow, for some reason, there was something more alive about this bonfire than either of the nightclubs I've been to in Thailand. Maybe it was just the genuine affection a lot of the villagers had to each other. Maybe it was the relief of the end to the hunger season, the gratefulness towards the heavens for this nature's bounty.

And yes, either nightclub. I visited one all of twice in my twenty-one years, and even that because my friends dragged me there.

Everyone knew, by this point, that there was something going on between me and Raginaharjas, and so when the great bonfire soared towards the sky he found himself almost pushed towards me by his laughing fellows, cheering him on with such helpful and encouraging messages like "don't fail again" and "man up!"

He seemed shy. I smiled, trying to welcome and reassure him. More than anyone else, he has been my proponent and closest ally before the village elders for everything I wanted to do, every investment I wanted the village to make in itself.

And besides. I wasn't going to deny the obvious. I liked him. He was nice.

"Uh... Clara... a dance?"

And so, we did, to the cheers and clapping of everyone else around us as barley beer fueled us cup by cup. There was a new kinda-probably-soonish couple in town, and a brief glance around showed we weren't the only one.

Snart gik dansen helt i stå, der dansede kun vi to.

Hours pass. The bonfire dies. People slowly went home, or fell asleep. Night fell. The two of us were the last remaining, sharing songs over the dying embers of what was once a great beacon in the centre of town. I was a little bit tired, and I could tell he was too.

"Well, Raginaharjas," I finally declared. "It was a really pleasant evening. I thank you for your company. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Raginaharjas suddenly looked very nervous. Oh? What is that about, I thought.

"Clara..."

He shook his head. Then finished his bowl of barley beer.

"Clara," he asked "will you just wait for me here for a couple minutes before you go? I have... something for you?"

Oh? Was that what I thought it was? I nodded

He quickly retreated into his wooden shack, then after just a moment re-emerged, holding... a cloak. A fur cloak, not fabric, stitched - not very well, but stitched - to have distinct holes for the neck and the arms. Knowing what I knew now about how much time and effort even the simplest production took in this day and age, I could tell that several weeks of effort went into that simple apparel. I gaped.

"Clara Axinite Rose," Raginaharjas slowly but clearly enunciated, unfamiliar syllable by unfamiliar syllable, "I pledge to you my labour and my protection. Will you be my woman?"

My jaw hit the floor. It was just... just... so sudden! I mean, I knew he liked me and liked my company, but in Canada...

...well, I clearly wasn't in Canada anymore.

His face paled at my silence, his glance downcast. "I... I mean, I get it if you don't-"

"No! I mean, yes!"

Raginaharjas looked up.

"I..."

I was completely unfamiliar with his customs. This village's traditions. So I simply responded to his question as formally as I could.

"I would be pleased to accept your gift and your protection, Raginaharjas. I will gladly accompany you as your woman."

Not even the dying embers could fail to illuminate his smile. Teeth somewhat discoloured and face still caked in two thick strips of mud on each cheek, but... well, my smile and my cheeks, now.

"Will you accompany me back to my house, Clara?"

Even as sheltered as I was, I've seen too many others be asked the same question to fail to grasp what that meant in this town and culture.

"Please," I answered, offering him my hand and what I assumed was a brilliant smile. And when he moved to grasp it... I pushed his chest. Raginaharjas stumbled, surprised. "But wash yourself first! You smell like barley spirits!"

The morning came soon enough.

-nu vågner den klare morgen.

The autumn sky greeted us, blue and clear.

---

I had a longer day than most. The harvest festival was three days in the past, but I, I was an obsessive recordkeeper. It would not do at all to go to sleep without knowing just how much grain we had in our granary after our harvest. And so, the night found me working the pottery kiln long after everyone else retired to their little huts to make themselves comfortable.

The concept of measuring volume seemed to be alien to these people. Figures. The first thing I had to do was invent the ruler. I used a wooden stick - maybe ten or fifteen centimetres long - and used it to mark off a length of clay about a meter and a half long in regular intervals. I measured the height and width of the pile of grain stacked at the corner of the granary, and used some basic geometric formulas to calculate the volume in arbitrary units.

I called it "cubic stick" in my temporary notes, in remembrance of the little wooden stick, now lost to the earth, that provided the basis for the first financial calculations of this village. Why not? If I was going to create a unit, I was going to get the honour of naming it! It wasn't until that was written down somewhere that I finally, finally put out that thing that one might call a torch if he was being particularly generous, and went to sleep.

Bright and early next morning found me going around the village, irritating still-sleepy villagers by asking around to find out how much grain cooking this or that meal took, how much a man, woman, child, or senior ate on any given morning or evening, how watered down our soup was, et cetera. This let me have a rough idea of how many cubic sticks it would take to keep a man fed until the next harvest.

Divide one number by the other, and voila! We had... maybe enough food required to give everyone two very lean meals a day until the next harvest. Not to be callous or anything, but I was hoping for better. After all, we... our village... a...

Well, to be blunt, a quarter of the mouths this town had last autumn no longer needed to be fed.

It was one thing to read about the regular annual hunger season in my air-conditioned Toronto dormitory, and another completely different thing indeed to face the prospect of living through it again. My stomach still ached from the past couple months of deprivation. It growled in protest. I liked to think it growled in hatred of my calculations, but I was probably just a bit hungry.

Raginaharjas, of course, was interested. He seemed very interested in whatever I did nowadays. It was sometimes irritating, but in most cases - like this one - it was endearing. Cute, almost.

"I'm tallying up how much grain we have to how much grain we need," I answered, before he could even voice the question. I was already familiar with his persistent questioning. I almost regretted not having him as my group project partner back in Canada. An intelligent and inquisitive mind like his would've been such an improvement over the brain-dead slug that had me write 95% of our introduction to materials chemistry presentation. "It will let me know well ahead of time how long the hunger season would be this year."

"Oh?"

I could virtually hear his brain whirring. Intelligent and inquisitive, alright.

"How long?"

I smiled.

"If we strap in and eat just a little bit less," I answered, "we won't have one."

And that was definitely going to happen. This food would be rationed. It was going to last until next harvest -- I'd see to that! Better tight meals and the occasional growling stomach than a month or two of abject hunger. And next year... next year I'd find some way to get more food out of our fields. Even if I had to squeeze everything I've ever read about historical agricultural techniques to do it.

Never a hunger season ever again!

---

Drømte mig en drøm i nat om silke og ærlig pæl.

"We'll make you a new Canada," Raginaharjas promised me, his eyes clarifying to me just how serious he was with that statement. "You, I, and this village, we'll raise our huts to the sky and we'll build your water-carrying snakes of grey stone.

I laughed at the absurdity of it all. I couldn't help it! He looked so cute being serious like that, even through the grime of hard farmwork and hair that didn't see any such thing as a shampoo in the last two decades.

"Raginaharjas," I told him, "how? I don't know how to many any of those things, and I know for a fact you don't, 'cause you've never heard of them until I told you. Don't worry about me being nostalgic. Being nostalgic is what we humans do, when we get on the years. You shouldn't feel like you owe me my dream on a silver platter. I'm... I'm satisfied here. This is a decent enough life. It feels more... how do I say it, real? This feels more meaningful than anything I had in Canada. I didn't feel like I was of any importance to anyone back there. Here..."

I leaned back towards him.

"I do."

"Heh, Claaaara," Raginaharjas teased, grinning. "Are you that self-obsessed? Who said I was doing this for you? I'd like to not die of dysentery too, you know."

Bar en dragt så let og glat i solfaldets strålevæld.

I laughed, and jokingly punched him. Raginaharjas pretended to be gravely injured. His meagre dinner sat on a little wooden table by our straw mattress.

"No writing lessons today?"

Oh, right. There was that. Since the harvest was in and the constant toil of men and women in tending to the crops was no longer needed, Raginaharjas was sent out to hunt every day. And every evening, when he came back home, I've been teaching him a little about writing (in that same runic script I've been using since I gave up on trying to inscribe intricate English letters into clay) and some basic arithmetic. He was a good student. Three months it has been, and already he was to the standard that I would consider him literate... insofar as literacy meant something in this day and age.

But today, today I had something different in mind.

"Nah," I answered, my seemingly disinterested face hiding my true thoughts. "Too tired. Eat up. I already had my fill earlier in the day."

Raginaharjas looked downright betrayed.

"You ate without me? Clara!"

"Shhhhhh... Raginaharjas, eat up."

While he was doing so, I went to a little corner and dragged out a little something I've been working on for the past few months. I've had to gift quite a bit of my own food away to earn the necessary favours to secure the materials for it, but that was alright. It wasn't like pottery making was particularly backbreaking work, and after that nightmare of a hunger season I've sharply revised downwards my conception of what a healthy, reasonable meal was. Hey, who knows. Maybe it would do good things to my figure, as absurd as it seemed to worry about that now.

"You know," I mentioned, "I don't think I've ever paid you back for that lovely fur coat you gifted me last harvest ceremony."

"It's... it's not the kind of gift that's expected to be paid back, Clara. I don't know how you do these things in Canada, buuuuuu... whaaaaat is that?"

Held in my hand was a frilly white dress with as many unnecessary strips of cloth as I could afford. It wasn't the prettiest - "white" more often meant grey or beige - but it would do.

Raginaharjas laughed. I giggled, as the final dying lights of the sunset creeped behind us. And soon...

-nu vågner den klare morgen.

The winter sky greeted us, blue and clear.

[Holy Tedalonia]

Edward "Ted" Tomlinson
Ortez, Italy, 2999 BC, 16 months after LF

The night sky held one bright light, the moon with small but present stars glittering softly in the background of the tapestry of the night sky. It was a sight to see from simple earth, even if I was enshrouded in a dark forest. We were traveling northward to Ortez, a city the chieftain designated for a raid. The plan grab wealth and women, I guess this ought to upset me, these were considerably barbaric offenses.

I however was content, I lived nicely (in the standard of this era), I enjoyed my work, and was relatively safe. I believe I feel nothing, perhaps not because of the action, but my unwillingness to sacrifice my lifestyle for the sake of protecting some foreign women. Was this me? Or perhaps a new trait I picked up in my stay here?

Regardless in a few more seconds the raid will begin soon, I am merely here to watch the battle, and see if there is a flaw in my weaponry that could be improved on. The tribe has used my weapons to get a feel for them, but nothing like real warfare could be replaced by mere practice. I had my sword if I needed protect myself.

The Chieftain shouted calling his men to gather. I walked next to the crowd that held twenty to thirty men and lean against a tree. The Chieftain announced will happen whilst in the cover of night. The goal was not to destroy them, but rather to take and ransom. We needed survivors was his meaning.

The men charged ferociously toward the village. Night raids were a regular I guessed considering the response was swift. Shouting was heard from the village calling men to wake and respond, while men on guard duty swiftly moved to counter. From stabs to slahes the fighting began. The stone spears while hurting some, weren’t nearly as effective as the bronze blades, often breaking after one fell swoop of bronze metal.

The shouts and cries could be heard. What felt like hours took minutes, to me. A retreat was shouted and Villuthin returned with whatever the tribe could grab and two women unconscious. Likely knocked out thanks to a bashful smack of a warrior. Ortez was in the distance regrouping, no doubt about to be chasing on our heels as we make our return.

As we pulled out I glanced at the women. Still that same Mediterranean look, where the hell was I? This definately was not little italy or any china town I ever seen...

[Sneudal]

Allysiah Madani

27th February 2019 A.D., Qom, Iran
For the third time her father had invited her over to meet a possible husband, and for the third time Allysiah knew her answer before she'd met him. Allysiah often wondered how long she could continue with this, as sooner or later her father would find out that she wasn't interested in such a marriage, no matter the man on the other end. For now though she still played interested, trying to avoid any needless confrontation.
While brushing her teeth before heading to her father she started to feel dizzy, almost as if she hadn't eaten this morning. Things quickly got worse and as she tried to take a hold of the sink she blacked out.

3000 B.C., Zarzar Lake, Syria
"Ugh, not sure what that was but i better call fath..." Allysiah thought to herself while waking up, before realizing she wasn't exactly at home anymore. "Wha, What is this? Where am i!?" her thoughts continued as she looked around.
Naked and at the edge of a lake she was, confused on what this was about. She looked around but there was no living being in sight. A frightening feeling crept over her as she started to realize that she indeed was awake, and not dreaming. Did she got abducted and dumped? Was this some kind of sick joke? Soon panic started to take control over her. Unsure of what to do, or where to go she sat down crying, hoping it would pass.

Hours later nothing had passed, she was still there naked and alone. "What have i done to deserve this, why me?" she continued to ask herself. Not long after the sun started to set, and although she tried to sleep in the hope that it was just a dream, every small noise kept her awake as the panic never left.
Slowly desperation took over, and just before sunrise, for the first time in years, she prayed with all the conviction she had to God, praying for any sign or any guidance on getting out of this situation. The prayer was not left unanswered as when Allysiah finished at stood up she noticed something in the distance.
A small group of people moved closer from the distance, but it was clear that these weren't ordinary people. They wore strange clothes and travelled on foot and by horse. Allysiah made sure she was well hidden, unsure of who these people were, and of their intentions.

The small caravan stopped at the lake and Allysiah could hear them speak to one another. "Don't make it yourselves too comfortable, we'll continue once the lady has had her food." the man in the front told the others in a foreign, yet somehow understandable language.
It only got stranger and stranger, yet she didn't wake up. The extreme confusion caused Allysiah to be completely off guard and before she knew it one of those men had spotted her, "You there! What do you think you're doing?!"
Allysiah jumped up, and for a brief moment she could be seen in all her glory. She quickly covered her private parts as she turned to the man, who had his spear aimed right at her. "I... This can't be real... This can't... she stuttered out. When she realized she suddenly spoke this foreign language she lost it. "No, this can't be real! Stop it! Stop iiiit!" She yelled out crying as she turned and ran.
Blind and deaf to the world she ran away till a sudden kick in her back forced her to the ground. There she lay, unconscious as the men surrounded her.

"What is going on, who is this?" a more feminine voice sounded as Allysiah started to wake up. "I found this woman hiding behind the rocks at the lake, she screamed before trying to get away. Abdhamon here chased her down." A more manly voice replied while Allysiah let out some moans as she tried to get her head together.
The lady kneeled down next to Allysiah and took her arm, supporting her as she got up, "Who are you, and what are you doing all the way out here?" she asked. Allysiah look around as she got upon her knees. Nothing had changed, she was still in this strange area with these strange people and this strange language. "I... I'm Allysiah and i... I don't know..." She answered to the woman as the exhaustion prevented her from getting away.
The woman had a questioning look upon her face, unsure of what this was all about. "What do you mean you don't know. How did you get here? And where are you from?" She asked, trying to figure out what a naked woman was doing in the middle of nowhere. "I... I don't know, i woke up here yesterday and i... I just want to go home. Qom is where i live, you know where it is? Or which way? I'll be sure to reward you!" Allysiah answered with the last bit of hope she had.
"Qom? I never heard of it i'm afraid. We're travelling to Dammasq, you're welcome to travel with us if you want." The lady told as she got up on her feet. "My name is Melita, I'm a priestess of Kotharat."
When Allysiah heard the name Dammasq she stumbled back on her feet. She recognized the name as the old name of Damascus, and although a glance of hope emerged, she soon realized it might not be what she expected. Nevertheless, it was the best option for her. "I'd be happy to travel with you Melita."
Some rags were then handed to Allysiah before the caravan moved on from the lake.

Some time after the caravan had left Melita slowed down her horse till it walked next to Allysiah, "So, where are you from? Where is Qom, and who rules the place?" she asked, trying to get more information out of the stranger that travelled with her. Allysiah looked up, "I guess, if Dammasq is what i think it is, Qom would be far east from here. Qom is a city in Iran, which is ruled by the Supreme Leader, Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei."
Once more Melite looked at Allysiah with a questioning look on her face, "I have never heard of such a place, nor have i ever heard of such a name. Dammasq is ruled by Abdosir, though i suppose you haven't heard of him either."
Allysiah mumbled and shook her head. The name indeed didn't ring any bells, and with that the small conversation ended, leaving both Melita as Allysiah without any answers.

[Saxony-Brandenburg]

Olivia Carson

Month twenty of life in this world, and my scope of it only grew. Traders from both the north and south arrived with bounties of their homes. Spices, beautiful delicacies, were brought from the southern Delta. Lemons! Ginger! Salt! Bitter... Oranges? Seemingly they looked like tangerines. Either way, these bounties of the land were essential to the preservation of food and the continuation of life. The women of the village taught me of the innumerable uses these spices had in their culture, and how valuable even a small pouch of it all was. They happily traded several Ewes for a basket of strange leaves, a cow for a clay jar of salt. The entire idea baffled me- until the following month. I learned then why- as a man came from the far north, baring goods of copper- knives, bowls, jewels, and more. They halved their spices, they halved their salt. And in return they received tools and metals invaluable to their way of life. The entire process astounded me, and made me immensely proud of my people. I wasn't a trader- I was horrid at negotiations. I failed every time I played diplomacy- the only mercantile ventures I succeeded at was in video games. But, my friends had varied skills, which were skilled in ways I was not. We feasted to our profits- I was taught various ways to marinate and prepare meat and bread I thought was bland, but they salivated for. I developed a taste for their local flavors, of old meat heavily marinated and spiced to mask odd flavors. But this time, we ate freshly. I was squeamish and hated the sounds of slaughtered animals, but once a shepherd kindly skinned and butchered the carcass, I happily helped deal with the preparations. Taught by the elder wife of the sage, we marinated the lamb in sour milk, added the leaves into the clay pot it all sat in, salted it, and squeezed heavy amounts of lemon juice in it all, before cutting and dropping the scraps in. We sprinkled dark powders of an unknown herb into the pot, and let it sit out for three days. My god, the stench was rancid to me- but they all thought of it as a sign of perfection. Slow roasted on a fire, they ate heavily of it. I was proud, truth be told, I could do something for them- and I soon tried my best to help in any cooking or chores I could, the rest of my family of sixty seemed to appreciate it. We ate fish, we ate lamb. I was taught to make cheese- to brew Alcohol from millet. But all days must come to an end, and upon the beginning of the second year of my stay, fate exacted more wrath upon those I love. Lightning, thunder, rain. And once again those who I loved had to flee the land. What little we could do- the shelter belts, the ditches, it was all for not- as for though it aided for a whole year, the flood waters were stronger the next, and we were forced to leave. We had learned just days before that the entire south was flooded over, hundreds of communities having to flee the land to the north, east and west. We saw refugees flee to the dryer north. We had waited nearly too long, as they wrangled livestock, packed their bags, and fled with a rush before the waters reached their homes. I was panicked, I left several things- I nearly dropped the one gold bangle I owned. Ashra was kind, cool headed, and noticed all I had left, and helped me when I was lost. When all had collected what they had, we headed north too. This cycle of destruction, it couldn't go on. I wept with my family, as we left the lands where many of their own had been burned and scattered in the river. We followed that blessing-curse of a river northwards, for I don't know how long. The treck seemed to take weeks, weeks. We lost several sheep in the journey. Foliage seemed to get less and less dense, the air felt just slightly more dry- as we followed it north. But eventually, eventually we found land not burdened by the floods. It was still humid, it was still hot, but upon a grassy hillside overlooking the river- wide and fat from the rain, with wide and deep banks of mud and reeds. Within a month we had set up a small camp- no longer with mud, but with woolen tents. We set our sheep our to pasture, our cows to graze. Life would begin again, maybe a little better. We found ourselves cooking around communal fires, we found ourselves sleeping beside each other, cramped, the stench overpowering. People of nearby villages visited this new, spontaneous settlement. We traded what little we had for more cloth, for a few more tents to keep us sheltered. We staked them down with simple rope, held it up and down with stakes. We started a new farm for the millet, less apt to flood, no longer on a flood plane. The earth was less rich, we had to till the soil much harder. The mud was less thick, the foliage less nutritious upon the burn. But three months into my second year, we had rebuilt. The millet began to grow, the Alcohol began to be brewed, and the loaves began to be baked.

It was in that time, when life began anew again, that a boy professed his love for me. A young man, but older for their standards, about eighteen in age. He was light in color for these people, with long dark curls in his hair, dark eyes, and a shorter stature. He was cute, sure. He wasn't the first boy who had ever been interested in me, nor the first of these people. A shepherd's son, he was fairly well-off for these people's standards. As the years had gone by, I gave up on ever reaching home. We had walked so far, and yet there was no civilization in sight! For all I knew, we were in some alternate dimension. I gave up hope on ever getting out. So, I gave him a chance. He first asked me at a well which many locals had used for many years, dug long ago by hands long since turned to dust. The poor thing, he was a nervous whelp, unlike any of the other boys who had longed for the strange river girl. Truth be told, I think a piece of sensitivity in this brutal world. He came up to me, and asked me to marry him. The first words he spoke to me were- um- shocking, to say the least. I said no, and that was not the way of where I was from. The cultural divides between us were still, astounding. Thinking he had been rejected, he began to leave before I could grab him, and ask him to stay. I told him how my version of "courtship" was supposed to play out, with a slow learning of each other before anything was to happen. I knew his family would be disappointed, I knew Ashra would tease me- after all, he was the most wealthy boy in our village. Yet, somehow, he agreed.

Oh the miracles of young, ignorant love. I had just met him, and yet I found every hair upon his head, every curve of his face, every inch of his skin beautiful. He was clean, cleaner than most. He was soft, softer than the iron men had to be made of in this world. We visited often- in the fields, in the woods, by the well, by the fire. Everyone knew of our bizarre love ritual which came from the strange woman from the river. Yet none minded, all minded themselves. And so began my love for my first husband. We would go up into the hills- to where he had left his sheep to graze, and he would sing to me. Oh how he could sing! The songs he sang were beautiful, lifted my soul, and lead me to tears. I felt honored to be around this poor, nervous boy. He'd carry everything for me, listen to every word I say. Honestly, I felt more spoiled than anything I had felt before. I felt like a princess, which I am quite embarrassed to admit, I've always wanted to, but mother never let me. Too much spoiling would turn me lazy, so she thought. Ah, but this boy- I wanted to repay every favor he did for me. I cooked for him, I taught him whatever I knew, I sewed his cloth. I never wanted to be a housewife, and never would be one, but sometimes, sometimes I dreamed of it. In it's romantic ideal it seemed perfect, and so did it at the time. But life is much different than romantic idealism, and even at the time, some part of me knew that. It took months, months in the future, but eventually... I agreed. Two years, eight months into my life in this world, and I agreed to marry this boy, younger than me, and who I had hardly met for seven months. And still... I truly loved him, and wanted to be with him for as long as I lived... pitiful fool, am I. Our marriage was set for two months later, two long months. I hugged him, I kissed him, oh my mind went to other thoughts of him- but neither of us were ready for that. No, but we truly did love, even if some longings had to wait.

Our marriage day was one celebrated by the entire village. The boy's dad, who had recently acquired even more wealth from trade with local settlements, which had popped up more and more as people fled from the south, had spent lavishly upon the celebrations. Gifts were numerous, and I the bearer of almost all of it. As there was no father of I to pay a bride price to, I was given half, and the other was sacrificed to the river-goddess, from which I came into this world. The women, they covered my hands and feet with Henna, They rubbed my feet with oil. They braided and combed and decorated my hair, with so many beautiful flowers. I was presented with a tent, much bigger than any in the village, to be my new home. I sat there with four women, as they dressed me for the event. That tent would be my property alone, even if Aditya died. I could pass it on as I will, and so I gratefully accepted it, along with more gifts. Bolts of cloth, some cotton, bowls, copper bangles, and a small herd of sheep were now in my property, and overnight I had become the second wealthiest person among the tribe. Marriage was sacred to these people, and a marriage with a potentially divine woman- well, that only seemed fitting that they pay greatly for it. Out at night, the wedding day feat begun. I was dressed in my blue skirt and wrap, and a white shawl-like garment held over my shoulder with a copper stay. Oh, I felt beautiful, and this average-looking girl who forever had gotten little but ridicule, now seemed to be a goddess on earth. I reveled in it, to be sure. The feast lasted long, I helped cook it all. Everything seemed sweeter- it was the first time I had tried alcohol. I hated the bitter brews, and sipped at the sweetened wine. Oh that evening would forever remain in my heart as one of warmth. I never truly thought about the consequences of it all. I rushed into it, I hadn't thought it out. But did I care upon that day? No, no I didn't. I was as happy as could be, and I kissed my lover, my first husband Aditya with such passion. Oh how the fires burned bright, the breeze felt cool. Oh the singing of blessings carried on as we left the fires of our feast, to our new home-tent. Oh how the fires kept ablaze as we entered our tent, oh how the kept ablaze the entire night long. Everyone heard laughing that night, everyone heard the sounds of love. That, was the true blessing, so it was told. A marriage could be predicted with the words that were carried by the wind from the lover's tent. Such a beautiful boy, Aditya, so timid in public, so passionately bold once we were alone.

Throughout all this time, their home moved a third time, the community settled down once more. Many members of it became skilled merchants, leaving and returning from ventures back from the lands of their home, back to the few communities that remained in the south, returning with vast amounts of spices and dyes. I believe we were happy then- the gods seemed to bear fruit for us. I learned that each community had their own collection of a few gods they worshiped. Ours was the mother, some worshiped the god of the forest, some the god of wind, some the goddess of fire. I learned new hymns and praises, I learned new skills. I experimented with gardening, and soon we began to grow herbs and spices of my very own. I learned to weave, I learned more remedies. I was never fit to be a midwife- too painful, too much blood for I. But, I did my best to help Ashra, would was married the month before I to Yaduvir. We were still the closest of friends, and I was still her most loyal of helpers. And so, the community thrived from peace. Perhaps the following year, our herds would grow larger... It would have to be seen. We had grown larger in size, to be sure. Many infants began to be born to the numerous people of this tent village. Thirty had survived their pregancy, and now ninety souls counted themselves in number of this burgeoning, and happy, community.

[The World Capitalist Confederation]

The Gift of Knowledge - Part 1 - The Wheel of Civilisation Begins To Turn...

Theodeore set to work, writing down knowledge upon tablets made of clay, introducing the system of writing and records to the people of North Jutland. Although that was not his gift, he ordered the people of the village to build a building, almost like a monastery in its aesthetic, designed in such a manner in which it would be able to house people and have them work there at the same time. These people, gathered from those who could not hunt or gather, were taught to read and write or do learn other skills such as devoting their life to fashioning new and better weapons. Firstly they were made of the old and the infirm, who weren't suited to physical labour. Of course, this was merely temporary, until Theodeore could begin to administrate and build the farms, in order to provide a specialisation of labour. The building was called the "Dussenkeimpf Scholarhouse", as the village was known to the locals as "Dussenkeimpf" and people agreed it should be called a scholarhouse. These scholarhouses would also act as libraries and a meeting place for intellectuals in the future.

The Dussenkeimpf Scholarhouse was quite primitive, as it was made of stone bricks (which were painted with patterns and words), with small holes held up by wooden spokes known as 'windows', albeit not filled with glass, for that was for later. Theodeore had, with the scholarhouse, established himself as a man of authority and of wisdom, and he truly became the ruler of the village. He had no title, but men respected his authority and kneeled before him. Soon enough, he need a vehicle of power, to truly cement his ruie.

Then, after some time, he sent the people of the village to work not upon a monolith or a statue, as he originally thought, but rather barracks for an army in order to cement his rule and also train hunters. These barracks would be where the hunters of society trained and lived, as he began to organise his stratified society, having built the basic foundations of society and hierarchy, defending his rule. They would be paid - in fur pelts, which slowly became currency - in order to provide protection of the ruler and the village.

Along with the barracks, Theodeore slowly introduced the gift of farming to the village, continuing his march of progress and allowing for the specialisation of labour to increase the amount of men in the scholarhouse and in the military. In fact, in order to support the farmers, he also planned out houses for them known as 'farmhouses' (of course, he applauded himself for the wonderful naming skills he had), in which farmers lived off the land. He had established what would writers later call "the feudal contract", although his system was more one of tributaries or of a police state rather than a societal contract. The farmers, in exchange for protection, would hand over food to the military and society as a whole. The village, despite having only about 2,000 people or so, became a fully functioning society.

And so, Theodeore could relax, and so he did, now attending to more tactical manners compared to establishing himself. He had put his foot down now. His first decree was that he would be known as Lord Theodeore of Dussenkeimpf, removing his former last name. He knew that he had to make the village's name more elegant, but one step at a time. He, unlike many other rulers, however, had no time for romance and so cast it aside, perhaps permanently, as his only concern was to further his own political ambitions. The village continued to expand over time, as more people joined, especially from the forest, and a large baby boom had resulted from the discovery of agriculture. Thankfully, it was prime time to plant crops, and so it began. Civilisation had just begun.

"This shall forever be known as the year 0, the beginning of civilisation!" Theodeore proclaimed, to the chants and cheering of the village.

[Theyra]

Ikram al-Zaidi
Sari, Iran
Year 1

Progress on making a written language getting there, the lack of proper writing surfaces has been a problem. Other then papyrus that the ancient Egyptians used, I am not sure of what would be better. So I helped to figure out what could be used. It took about I think it three weeks to learn that clay can be made in a tablet and is better than stone tablets. I could the time to rework to how long I have been to on the clay tablets and it really has been a year has it. A year stuck in an unknown land and I had a thought that perhaps I am in a different time but, that would not make sense. Why would I be sent back in time, I am nothing special and...., so many questions and few answers. So far from home from my friends and family. Sadness swells up in me as I thought about it. At any rate, Once we had the clay tablets, the process was more straightforward and I think cuneiform it is called or something like that, the smartest of the villagers made. The first of this was the record the names of the dead which I suggested since some gave their lives to protect this village and to make sure the dead would not be forgotten.

I did not try to force or teach them any religion, I want them to develop their beliefs on their own. It would not feel right to do otherwise, let them have a chance of making their own unique culture. Though I am spearheading their advances which... can change things. On the next set of advances, I had planned will help me which a trip to this so-called sea or ocean. The village already has some animals, mainly cattle and some wolfs. I asked the village elder for some help with getting some friendly horses to use as mounts. The elder liked that idea and I had a party to help me. Finding the horses proved to be a challenge as we had to travel a good distance away from the village. Luckily we found several groups of wild horses and managed to get the friendly horses to follow us back to the village. There I had a saddle commissioned and after some trial and error on creating the thing. Plus, getting the saddle on the horses that took time for them to get used to the saddle. Me and some of the villagers started to learn how to ride a horse. I have written on at least one horse that I can remember and that did not help me with this. One of the villagers, Davoud was the first to figure it out and would teach the rest of us how to ride. Which is a riding a horse is a lot harder with the stirrup as I found that out fast.

One thing I forgot think about once things were set for my trip to the sea. How to navigate and more importantly how to get back safely. As the started to think the best way of doing this, it came to me as I was looking up at the night sky one night. I did not stargaze before but, without light pollution and nothing much to do fun wise. I started to do it about five months ago and I grew to like the night sky. I remember how ancient sailors used the night sky as a way to find their bearings and way. I figured that the same could be used for traveling on land. Oh, also I realized that waterskins would be helpful. Figuring out how to make waterskins was relatively easy compared to mapping the night sky. The villagers started to make star constellations to aid them in this and I was surprised that they name a star constellation in my honor. In thanks to my hard work helping the village. It is called the Sage and I would have never thought I would be a star constellation. It was weird to me that this happened and I was stunned by the news. I personally thank the villagers that did this and... boy did I had the biggest smile on my face.

I am growing on liking this place and its people though I still desire to go home and to see my family. One of the villagers, Mozhde who would be coming with me to the sea, come to talk with me as I was looking over the clay tablets that detailed the sky. "Ikram, why is it that you want to visit this sea to the north?

I put the clay tablet down, "I want to see this place because I have been staying in your village for a long time and I want to see what outside of the village. Perhaps I could find or recognized a clue to where I am in relation to my home".

"I see now your home that you speak of, what is it like?

"Well, I told it to the elder and some others, my home is located in a land called North Carolina and it is.... has more green to it then this place. Imagine a place with rolling green hills, mountains covered with life and it lies bordering a large ocean".

"That, that sounds... like wonderful Ikram and you still have no idea who took you from your homeland and left you here?

"I no idea to who or why they did it, but here I lie in a foreign land but this village has been kind to me since I came here".

"You have done much to help us, the weapons, armor and now way to navigate the land by using the stars. How did you learn about this and does everyone in your homeland know as much as you?

"Uhhhh, it varies and maybe I will get a chance to show you around if I can find a way home or some way of contacting my people".

"That would....." the sounds of a horse rearing up caught our attention and we made our way to the sound. Near the back of the village where the horses were being kept, a man was laying on his back as a horse moved away from him. Some of the villages move to the man to see if he is okay. "Ikram", Mozhde asked, "Do you know anything that deals with the body?

"No Mozhde, I do not have any medical knowledge to pass down. I do not know how to mend a bone or pop a joint back into place. You will have to figure out for yourselves unfortunately, I can just give the basic that I know. Like cleaning a wound, bandaging, and other basics". The man gets up with help and goes gets escorted back to his hut. That must have been a bad fall from that horse, they can be.... hard to control. I hope he will be okay".

"That horse seems to not like to be ridden on from anyone but, Anahita. She must have a bond with this animal".

"Sounds like it and no one else tries to mount that one. At least the other horses are easier to tame and not so pricky".

"When are you going to make the trek over to this ocean?

"When I now that we will not get lost, once the stars are mapped and we can use them to navigate at night. So that will be a while and in the meantime, we can practice riding these horses. MY face becomes blank as I remember something that we could build and be useful. I just remember we can make something to tell the time, a sundial!

"A sundial? What is a sundial?

"I will show you once I get some help on it and.... and I remember that is may not be easy to make. Need to figure out some details once the mapping the stars is done". I was about to leave then, I had a idea of what could be made easy to help with passing the time. I turned to Mozhde, would you like to learn how to play a game of strategy?

"A game of strategy? Sure, what do you have in mind Ikram?

"A game simply called Chess and I need to ask the woodcarver to make the pieces needed to play. This is going to be fun".

[Bortslovakia]

Patrick Kolman: Liffey River Dublin, 3000 BCE Month 2
Hypothetical Advancement

Returning to Dub-the as of now unnamed village took another few days, in which I gathered as many small lumps of surface ore as possible. Now that I knew what to look for, spotting the odd piece here and there wasn't necessarily as difficult, though most were along the various small rivers flowing through the Wicklow mountains. Guaire was uncharacteristically quiet, even for himself, on the way back. Likely from my outburst. Normally I'd agree that it was a tad melodramatic, but all things considered, my reaction was apt. The other two gave me a wide birth, partially out of worry, and partially because I obviously wished to be alone with my thoughts. This continued for the trip back to the raft. Luckily, there was little sign of animal activity. Checking on the meat, I could tell some of it was starting to turn. The brining process needed to be worked on. It was still edible enough for us though, and with a bit of salt water left, we could work at trying to preserve a few more catches on the way back.

It took half a week to return, and though my little mission had met with great success, I couldn't help but feel lost. Was this all just a mad simulation? An alternate timeline? Was I simply sent into the past? If so, did I have any right to alter the way these people lived? Was I always fated to loop to this time? If so, did some deity decree it? I'd never been very religious, but who knows anymore. I spent the next few days continuing on my brining procedures, and with a bit of help making a few larger clay pots, was able to set up a system for the village. I've made a few smaller basic plate style ceramics to leave some water on too. The evaporation leaves a bit more salt for me to work with, and that seems to have improved upon the base seawater we've been using. I dislike the use of unpurified seawater of course, but we're cooking the meat anyway, and I've been going significantly further north to gather the water to begin with, so no... waste runoff from the mouth of the river should be contaminating it. Being able to save a catch for a few days has changed everything about the way food is distributed here. We're eating more, the marinated meat tastes better, and the salt has added much needed nutrients to the village folk. Now truly nothing is wasted, and the hunting expeditions have become bolder, using the raft to carry back three or four deer instead of just making do with dragging back one or two per trip. With that in mind, one thing has continued to elude me. The secrets of those little rocks.

I had tried my hand at just melting the ore I had on a rock inside the firepit, but it just wasn't hot enough to produce any noticeable results. Now, I was working on a furnace...
A primitive furnace that is. The muddy-clay like structure was coming along, and to the best of my knowledge, it matched what I had seen when looking at how bronze was created on the internet. Not that I had it right by any means of course. Having built it on the other side of the river from town, I was at least fairly sure that I wouldn't burn down Barra's house while working. Today I would try hardening my "furnace" with some good old fire. Gathering some sticks and branches under the structure, I quickly set to work with my bow (rubbing sticks together by hand is, as I discussed earlier, a horrible experience), gathering a small spark on a piece of birch bark. Lightly blowing on it, I set to work building up the fire. It didn't have to be too large to my understanding, but who knows really. Laying back on the grass idly tending to the fire, I occasionally got up to circle the structure and patch any holes with more of the clay mixture. This little thing didn't have to revolutionize the whole island or anything. It just had to serve as a proof of concept for Barra and the others. I winced as I burned my hand on the exterior of the structure. It was getting quite hot. I could set up some rudimentary bellows if necessary with a bit of leather, but for now it'd probably be best to give the thing a test. I decided to let it set for a day or so before trying to melt anything. The rest of the day could be put to use in other ways.
Quickly swimming across the river, I emerged a little ways off from the village, near the fields. Heading to the shack I currently shared with Barra's assistant Maon, I absently began to think about the river itself. Sanitation here was hardly a factor for these people, and to be frank, it was disgusting. That, and getting from one side of the river to the other was quite difficult for those who couldn't swim. It turned the Liffey into a wall just as much as a lifeline for everyone here, protecting them from dangers to the South, but leaving them vulnerable, and effectively trapping them for Northern threats. I could build another raft, and use some sinew and sticks to create a rope across. A ferry would certainly make getting back and forth from my furnace to town significantly easier at any rate. I could bring supplies over.

Approaching the hut, I noticed a collection of people outside. It looked like Ciaran's family, Líadan and her two children, Sibéal, and a few others, mostly Maon's proverbial kin.
I smiled, looking at the excited crowd "Some celebration I'm unaware of?"
Sibéal turned grinning from ear to ear "Yes! My sister has accepted Maon's offer of marriage. They are to be wed under the next full moon, and we shall feast!"
I returned her cheerful laughter, and joined in on congratulating the new couple. Though something did subtly nag at the back of my mind. It took a moment before I realized the issue. "Well then, I suppose I'll have to find a new place to stay. Can't fit three people in that hut, and I'd hate to intrude"
Ciaran let out a great bellow of laughter, being perhaps the tallest person in town besting me by an solid two inches. He pointed to a yet unused hill just along the riverbank "For all you have done for us, I suppose it is only fair that we build you a new one up there. And not one made of thatch either, but of wood!"
I looked up at the picturesque hill which I had spent many a day relaxing on at this point. It wasn't the tallest point in the village, nor could I see a house larger than the current meeting hall constructed on there, but I'll be damned if it wasn't scenic. I guess helping stave off scarcity pays off.
"Well then, I don't mind saying that it would be nice to have a proper roof over my head. Once we're done celebrating the new couple, let's get to work!"

Month 2, Week 3

"Germs and bacteria are small living things, like animals, that we can't see. They tend to cause things like disease, infection, and other such issues"
Guaire just looked at me quizzically as I explained why we had to walk across town to fill the water jugs instead of just heading downstream. I had, up until now, just told everyone that it was better to drink the water from over there, but feeling confident, I decided to take a jab at explaining the extreme basics of hygiene.
"If I cannot see it, how do I know it is there?" Ciaran asked, causing Guaire and Sibéal to nod in agreement. We all had duties along the river today, and with the house near completion, it was a good place to chat. I looked up at the comparatively impressive structure. Originally just a square building, I had helped design a slanted lean-to style roof on the structure to let the water run off, and with a bit of help, added a nice patio and front porch to the structure. I had to say, in spite of the crude shutters, sliding door (no hinges after all), and general rough around the edges woodworking, it was a marked improvement.
"See, these germs are like the wind. You can't see them, but you can feel them. Like when the wind tugs at your clothing, germs are the same way but with the illness that wracks your body. Besides, is it really too much of a logical leap to say that the place you throw your waste is not the best spot to get your drinking water?"
They seemed content with that answer, most being marked in some way by various illnesses. It was a wonder that I hadn't caught anything life threatening yet.
Sibéal turned to look at me quizically "How do you know this all? Are the people of these States you have mentioned that much stronger than us?"
"Honestly, I don't even know anymore. For all I know, my entire life prior could have been some simulat-errr trick by a god to prepare me for this. It's not likely, but at this point, anything is possible" I hated giving such a vague answer, but what else could I say? I legitimately have no clue as to what any of this means.
Bending down to fill up his pot, Guaire frowned "Is it possible that you are a river spirit? Or have known one at some point? We do not have a holy man here, and as such very few of us do more than offer the occasional tribute to the world around us. Perhaps you were sent to guide us, and have just forgotten your mission?"
I thought about that for a bit, not believing it of course, but mulling over the implications. I could work with something here. Unite the people of this land under my banner. I had the hindsight knowledge to pull it off. They could revere me as a god-king. A spirit come to earth. Life of comparable luxury instead of wasting away my remaining days heating up rocks and digging in the muddy river water for clay. Days that would likely be short thanks to hostile wildlife, and disease. It was a tempting option.
".... No. No I'm not. I'm just Patrick Kolman the man from another time. That story is ridiculous enough for one life"
Corny as it sounds, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The world could do with some more rationalism, and less fanatical zeal. It did spark an idea though. Why shouldn't I try to help people? Political theory, governance, the lessons of history. I had these already. A chance to remake the world for the better? I didn't need the crutch of deception. At least not for the average person. With what I knew, I could in fact remake the world. Why let the tragedies of history repeat themselves? And I knew just how to start remaking that world.

"Let's go grab some more rocks, and try again with the furnace. Ciaran? Sibéal? Do you mind carrying these back to Gormal's hut?"
The pair groaned in annoyance as we handed off the full jugs. I had swiftly walked off before they had a chance to complain however, assuming Guaire would follow. The furnace had cracked the first few times I had tried, and the metal just didn't heat up enough, even with the added air from the handheld pseudo-bellow I had created. The mold I had made was also of poor quality, being little more than some shaped and hardened clay to form a basic knife. The good news is that I was able to separate the rocks based on how much they glowed under the heat. The most recent iteration of the furnace seemed to be holding up under the strain, and I had taken the time to create a similar structure nearby to make charcoal. A dome like structure that, once the wood inside was lit, I could cut off oxygen to by covering up the many holes with more clay. I felt close, but had been distracted for nearly a week by the housing project. Up until now, I hesitated to crush my rocks any further, if only because the powder and smaller pieces were hard to keep track of and I had only a limited supply. Today though, I was feeling lucky.
Rushing over to the ferry, which at the moment just made use of my old raft when the hunting parties weren't using it, with the "rope" going across the river kept in place by wooden posts with some rock surrounding them for support, I tossed my bag of ore aboard, and carefully placed my hastily made tools. A flat bottomed cylindrical pot, a significantly burned curved stick, and my fire starting supplies should be all I needed from this side of the river. Waiting for the confused Guaire, I pulled our way across.
"You start building up the fire, I'm going to handle some other preparations"
My first stop was the charcoal supply. Grabbing a small sack of the material, I handed it to Guaire. He should know what to do (or at least know what I told him to do. I still had no clue whether this would work or not)
As for myself, I took out a few various sacks from my overall larger sack of rocks. I had separated them based on color after heating. Opening one of the sacks, I took out the ore chunk, and placed it on a weathered stone. From there, I grabbed my own stone axe, and went to work. Ideally I could sort out the chaff based on weight. Grinding the ore into a... "fine" powder, I brushed it off the stone into a clay bowl beside me. I then filled said bowl with water, and slowly drained it, watching the heavier sediment settle at the bottom. Probably not the best way to handle things, but what else did I have? From there, it was simply wash rinse repeat. After a few hours I found myself sore, in need of a drink of water, and with a bowl full of glistening chunks of rock. Walking over to Guaire, I smiled at the oppressive heat emanating from the structure. Placing the chunks inside the cylinder, I picked it up with the Y shaped stick, and gently laid it in the heat. From here, we waited. By this point, I was unsure what to do exactly. I knew that most early smelting required charcoal to get it right, not necessarily the reason why, or if this specific metal would need it. Based on melting point, I was relatively sure this was tin, and though the only major tin deposits I knew of outside of the good old Cradle of Civilization were in Cornwall, I figured it was still a pretty good guess. Ireland had some... maybe?
Guaire watched on intently, having grown accustomed to my eccentricities while I worked the makeshift bellow. "How long do you believe this will take? Should I add the burned wood?"
I sighed. If it wasn't necessary, I could just scrape it off with the other impurities. I wasn't looking to make this perfect. Just a long knife to show that the idea made sense. It's not like it would just magically become worthless granite if I didn't do everything just right.
"Put it in"
It took some more time from there before I decided to take a look. Sliding the cup around while the stick hissed, I looked inside. Liquid.
"I think it's done. Get the mold please Guaire?"
The clay mold produced was basic at best. An oversized knife with a handle, probably the size of a seax, but without any of the refinements. Quickly grabbing another stick, I began trying to pry out the worthless flux and impurities. Was that all charcoal? Or maybe I'd missed more rock than I'd thought when I ground it all up. The stick did the job, but as expected, didn't make it unfortunately. That would probably be some impurity in of itself with this. Gently, I began to pour. The liquid flowed out much easier than all the flux (or was something else the flux? The gunk for all intensive purposes) I had missed, which was nice if only because I wanted this thing to look semi decent. It settled with a hiss. "And now we wait..."
After some time had passed, I tentatively waved my hand above the mold. It seemed cooler. Wrapping my hand in leathers, I carefully grabbed mold and picked it up. Hot though it may be, the metal seemed solid and certainly wasn't burning hot anymore. Moving for the river quickly, I plunged the object in. A small hiss, but no more than one would expect from putting a recently lit match head in the water. Excitedly, I worked the knife out of the molding. It seemed a bit flimsy, almost certainly was full of abnormalities, and based on my knowledge of tin, would likely bend under any serious pressure. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Guaire looked on with admiration "What can it do?"
"Well, with some sharpening it'll probably be better for cutting things than what we've got now"
"So why did we make it?"
"You'll see in time. This is just proof of concept. You may not know it yet friend, but this is the start of something big"

[Hanafuridake]

Grace Kinoshita (12 months)

“That's great Retar, you're a natural! Now turn around.” I clapped my hands together gleefully and an embarrassed Retar twirled around to display the armor to the rest of the watching villagers. I had no idea why she was so embarrassed, it wasn't as though I were making her wear an armored bikini like in some of those bad Conan (although I made a mental note to myself to have her do that in private). The armor was a combination of rawhide and bamboo, held together with leather strips. I wasn't content, the quality of the leather was sub-par, and there had to be some better material than bamboo to make the armor out of. But it would have to do until I could come across better resources.

The chieftain watched with an intense fascination, it seemed despite his dislike for me, war was something we could bond over. “So this will deflect the arrows of the Nihom?” the old man Susam asked, he was also interested, probably even more understandably, since this armor would've turned out to be useful back when he was being shot at with weapons.

“If it won't deflect, it will at least prevent the arrow from penetrating the skin,” I replied, thinking about the time and material that it would take in order for enough armor to be produced for the rest of the fighting members of the tribe. It would be rough, fully developing this one set took almost two months of planning and testing. When I had constructed bamboo armor in school, it had been for LARPing, no one was going to fight in the dō I made in elementary school. Now people's whole lives depended on the armor's effectiveness. “Listen carefully! This armor can save your life, but it will not make you invincible. Don't become arrogant and think that I can bring you back to life if you mess up. This is why we will now be discussing tactics.”

The villagers all excitedly muttered among themselves, and I could hear more and more loanwords from me being used by them. The vocabulary of the tribe had expanded massively since I had arrived a year ago. Words for concepts they had never heard before filled their minds. It was ironic, the forefathers of the Japanese were now becoming Japanized. There were only a few people who seemed not to like it.

“Hmpf...” the Nonno chieftain rose from where he had been sitting and approached me. I felt my muscles tense, but was relieved when Retar's glance seemed to pacify his mind. “I would like to request that you construct some of this armor for me and the rest of the tribe.” he murmured, and I nodded my head passively. He looked me in the eyes, and for a moment, I could have sworn part of him hoped that my plan utterly failed and provided him a pretext to banish me. I wondered if he knew about my relationship with his daughter.... did the Jōmon look down on those kinds of relationships?

“It will take time, and much more material.” I replied, turning my head to look at Retar for support. She smiled and I felt a burden lifted off of my shoulders. So long as she had faith in me, I felt I could accomplish anything. The chieftain nodded and issued orders for the rest of the men in the village to hunt for more deer, and the women to tan more leather. As he walked away, I turned around and approached Retar. “I don't think the warehouse we have is going to store all of the things we need....”

[Holy Tedalonia]

Edward "Ted" Tomlinson
Rome, Italy, 2999 BC, 16 months after LF

What a pain... After the kidnapping of the women of Ortez, I was set to guard duty. I have better time then this to bother babysitting hostages. They weren’t really to happy having a man watch them 24/7. One could consider it to be a great opportunity to leer, especially during the night shift whoever held that one, but for me I rather not stoop to a lecheroius thing like that.

One lass, who went by the name Valena, was a fiery one alright. Tried to even overpower me once, and she did successfully. However a warrior caught her before she could make her escape. I wasn’t the only guard now because of this, and shared the job with another warrior. It was quiet, and we sat all day doing nothing. Multiple days... You’d think I’d go mad, however as if my desires were heard by the heavens something happened....

“You don’t look like anybody from this region... Are you a foreigner?” Valena asked.

I responded with lightning curiousity and with a shrug I said, “what makes you that?”

“Your pale skin, and other distinctive features, such us your strange frailty,” she stated motioning her hand towards me.

“Aye, so what of it? Has this knowledge elightened you? Has it provided you with the desired insight?” I asked sarcastically.

“I presume then it was your craftsmanship that created those weapons that were used during the raid,” she stated.

“You saw them in the raid,” I asked neither denying or confirming here presumption.

“Aye, I did, nasty things those things were. So did you make them or not?” Valena asked.

“I did n-“ I tried to say, before the other guard stopped me.

“Don’t say anything, these are hostages, things should not be spoken lightly,” whispered the guard.

Without a word the conversation stopped. The women spread out huddle together, be it gossip or a plan to escape I cared not. The air filled with whispers, but what was whispers was not known to I. Especially now, after hearing gallops and talk outside the hut. A warrior comes in.

“Chieftain Villuthin wants us to transfer the prisoners outside for the trade,” said the warrior.

I moved in to grab Valena, but then the guard spoke once more.

“They couldn’t afford all three, they want the other two,” he stated.

“M’kay, I ought to stay here then. Guard and make sure she’s doesn’t escape,” I said.

“No, take one of the hostages that will be traded, Valena is a ferocious lass, more then you can handle. I’ll guard her,” said the warrior.

So helped the women to their feet, and escorted them out of the hut. Upon leaving we could see outside two groups, a series of warriors from Ortez, and a series of warriors of our village, with the chieftain in the middle of our warriors. The warriors of Ortez, drops ores, ores that are familiar to me. One silvery one, and one coppery one. The significance was clear, the Chieftain found the weapons impressive in the battle, and believed in its potential.

We let the women go, and they run towards their warriors with glee. Glares from the warriors disappeared, but not all. Regardless though, with the trade down they take their leave. Had I known what would come after, I think I would’ve done things differently, but it was to late for that now.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Viktor Nemtsov - Part 2, Chapter 4: Blood in the Passes

May 18th, 2 AG

I looked back, and took the stunning mountain vistas almost in stride. It was a different experience, having lived here for a time now, for I had been raised a child of the flatlands and not a man accustomed to altitude or heights. Indeed, when I was small, and even to this day, I had an irrational fear of heights- not so much a fear of height as a fear of falling, really. I was as comfortable as a clam on these mountains, happy to bungee jump in my misspent youth and a skydiver once on a dare. But I would hate climbing even modestly tall ladders with a passion, because my own competence was all that separated me from a potentially disastrous knock to the head or a broken wrist.

Honestly, it was still a bit of an issue. As our column of soldiers wound up the mountain tracks to the north of the vale of the Imperium I clung to the inside of the road with an almost irrational fervor, but nobody seemed to notice thankfully. They all knew these roads cut by generations of travelers in to the hard bones of the earth were prone to collapse and sliding, and no man walked closer to the outwards edge of the track than they had to as afforded by the press of armed soldiery. Down below, where the road ran up from the hills to these giants that scraped the sky, we had passed road crews of men bearing the debt-slaves chains and hired workers laying down flagstones and gravel, part of Mara's labor crews. But up here it was truly wild country that no polity or city-state laid claim to, and the roads were correspondingly neglected.

It wasn't that nobody used these paths; far from it. The reason this road existed, and the reason I marched north now with two hundred men under arms, was because the tin trade routes, and the amber trade routes, came down from the north. If memory served the amber came from far away indeed, via successive traders and caravans all the way down from the Baltic Sea and even Scandinavia beyond. But the tin was far more local, and that was what we were after. Some merchants in the employ of House Artria had confirmed that Lakis, the township that held the valley of the tin deposits, had little in the way of defenses. I had previously attempted for many months now to convince them to join our growing confederation peacefully, but the warlord that held sway over the lands there had little interest in surrendering any authority to other, or indeed to having the rule of law in place in his lands instead of the rule of his bully-boys.

Caravaneers had counted maybe four dozen brigands that answered to the coin of Adogit, the robber-baron that called Lakis home, and that number had been confirmed to be roughly accurate several times. They wielded weapons mainly of flint and clubs set with sharp points of stone, with hunting bows being the weapons that most concerned me. Against that we would bring five times their number of trained warriors, not jumped-up bandits, clad in light bronze plated mail and armed with reciprocating crossbows and iron swords. My finest, the Blackguards, even were armored here and there in steel and carried in their arms longswords that would not look out of place in the 1500s of my timeline.

As we crossed the apex of the mountain range, and the chill of the lingering winter touched my breath with frost, my breast was still warm with the knowledge of that impending victory. Most of the soldiers seemed not even to feel the chill, for many were yet warm under their padded jerkins and surcoats. It was a uniform still emblazoned with my white anchor on the black cloth that had been stained with a light pitch molasses, a symbol many of the men were more than happy to march under. Some rode on sturdy mountain ponies, who I had grouped into a command to be deployed separately under Raus. Seeing the great man riding along on a beast not perhaps bred for his weight made me laugh, but in truth I underestimated these beasts constantly, for they could carry loads much larger than a simple armored man without complaint for decades before expiring of old age. At intervals I beat my hands together, keeping them warm, a maneuver which occasionally drew laughter from my riding companion.

Her name Adela, and she had to her name thirty and five winters from the account she had given me, and her mind was uncommonly sharp. She and a few others I had been training in the matter of judgment and rule, to pass legal muster of the laws set down by myself and the Families, and to coordinate the civilian affairs of a township alongside a military commander. There had been a winter's worth of planning for how this town was to be ruled once we had taken it, the second conquest the Imperium had seen in as many years; I had no desire to be the sort of conqueror whose holdings disintegrated with their death, and securing this supply of tin for the forges of Kniepper and Mara was of great importance to the future wellbeing of these people once I was gone. Thus it was necessary that Lakis be ruled justly and fairly, and that the citizenry of that wild township see the virtue of being joined to our growing nation-state, though their lord had not the virtue to be added to our number voluntarily.

A few days latter we descended from above down on to Lakis. It was a beautiful town really, set beside a mountain lake so pure it seemed almost to be a giant pool of glass set in a hollow of granite since the elder days. But more desirable to me were the obvious mine tailings that littered the small valleys we passed by, signs that men had been cutting tin from the earth with crude hammers of stone and wooden wedges. Where many men worked there were always indicators of their presence, and the amount of mining going on in this part of the Alps spoke of tin deposits rich beyond measure, enough to equip an army, equip a civilization. These folk could only exploit the shallow surface scrap deposits, but the fecundity of their workings told me even those were in ample supply, let alone the deeper veins we would be able to utilize with time.

Back in Kniepper I had recently placed a deposit of hematite ore, and the windmill had come in to its own driving up the liquid that pooled in the mineshafts as eager laborers dug deeper in to the vibrant blood-red earth. That usage I hoped to replicate here, for with the Imperium's population now cresting several thousand souls and over a dozen of smaller villages and hamlets, our need to arm guards well to defend her was only increasing. Still, that desire was predicated on possession of Lakis, and that was a matter that still had yet to be settled.

As we reached the region before the crude wooden houses that were the township, the land cleared in to a series of low vegetable and grain field that were the staple of subsistence agriculture. I felt some regret as bronze-shod feet crushed growing green life underfoot, but this was the best area I had found for maneuver in the close environs of the city, and so it was where Raus and I had decided we would join battle. Our advantages on open terrain were insurmountable, to my mind; an ability to give a weight of fire in ranged combat as yet unseen on this earth, and a dubiously functional cavalry. Both were simply too much for a primitive army even many times our size to be capable of defeating - though I was no commander in truth, merely drawing my knowledge of strategy from speculation and now some experience. In close terrain my men might be drawn in to melee combat, and that always carried attendant risk to life and limb which I saw as unacceptable. These soldiers were not lives I would squander freely, for each was a friend or a brother trained to martial prowess through my efforts or those of my friends I valued. If I could end this conflict without bloodshed that would be best, but I would slaughter every last defender of this town ruthlessly if it meant preserving my own force from harm.

Nodding to one of the more imposing men of our little company of soldiery, he raised high the banner of House Nemtsov and the Imperium, and next to him another soldier gave forth a great blast on a horn wrought from the rack of some large mountain goat. It was drab and dull to my ears, a braying unimpressive and harsh, but the people of this village and indeed those under my command knew no better. To them it sounded defiance and readiness for battle, and I saw men sit up straighter in their saddles, warriors shift hands to the hilts of swords.

Our herald rode forward as men began to emerge from the houses, bearing bows and clubs and spears. In a loud voice his baritone carried across the field.

"Hear me, now, men of Lakis. The benevolent rulers of the Imperium of Man from beyond the mountains have sent now thrice to your lord, Adogit of the Golden Brow, and thrice he has rejected their generous offer of succor and mutual defense. Now my lord, Viktor of the House of Nemtsov, bids him reconsider. My lord holds it a crime against the gods and men that your folk languish in squalor, and do not share in the many riches and ingenuities the Imperium has to offer. A freedom from disease, from starvation, from want he offers you, and your master blindly rejects it. You may consider now again this offer, and take of it if you wish, but be warned- reject it a fourth time, and you shall be introduced to the might of the Imperium firsthand."

The herald sat upon his horse, waiting for an answer from the assembled ruffians, and I could see nervous shifting in their ranks. Tales of our victory over Este and her allies would have reached even this far north, and the great slaughter wrought on those armies thought powerful was not one to be dismissed lightly. Stories would have been spoken of men whose tunics turned back arrow and spear, and who cut through all defenses with arms made long by shimmering starlight slick with spilt blood.

Moreover, I hoped that those who I had sent to the barracks had done well. Silver and brass they had borne, coins good to retrieve a wealth of food from our system of granaries, or to trade to others for many items of use. A display of the largesse of the rulers of the Imperium that their lord rejected, more potent for the starvation that the merchants told us had been touching the north with winter's passage. Like Mara had before I came, cities in this time often led to periods of hunger and famine, for the balance of agricultural productivity had yet to fully penetrate these Neolithic hills. If fortune favored my plot, many of these men would be reticent to fight, and the citizen might even be amenable to the imposition of the rule to come.

I saw in the distance though that which I had hoped to avoid- a great man, taller than most, likely Adoigit himself, seized a bow from a man next to him. With the twang of a bowstring a flint arrow arced towards my herald, though the shot fell short and wide. My exhalation must have been audible to those around me, for Adela and Raus both shot me sympathetic glances; though they were inured to the cheap nature of life in their own timeline, they knew I had funny sensibilities about the shedding of blood, and so to see war result for one man's petty fiefdom was hard for me. Nonetheless, the answer was clear enough. Twenty soldiers came trotting towards us, bows out, their war cries reverberating across the fields; skirmishers, to do what they could before the engagement was joined.

"Crossbowmen!" I bellowed, sitting upright in my saddle and letting my voice roll out across our little force as if I were on the parade grounds of my youth again. From our ranks nearly a hundred men marched forward a few paces, unslinging the contraptions of iron and steel from their backs, weapons strung for combat before we had emerged from the treeline to advance towards Lakis. Each man had his feeder already loaded, and with the snick-snack I had come to know all too well each man cycled the chamber in a cacophony of mechanized war that this part of the world had never seen. Bolts of gleaming grey death tipped every wooden arm, and the front rank knelt at commands from their section leaders, each man steadying his aim with his knee or the shoulder of the man in front of him. Two lines they formed, fifty men wide, and they waited.

At what I adjudged as a hundred yards to my trained eye, the enemy archers began kneeling, taking aim at our ranks. Though there was space in our formation for skirmishing, it was still likely a target they had never seen the likes of before, so many men massed before them. Raus yelled aloud, and with the crash of a hundred bowstrings our crossbows hurled their quarrels high, a glittering rain that caught the noonday sun and twinkled as it descended. I forced myself to watch as the enemy figures wavered and fell- it was easier if I thought of them as figures, models in some wargame, not people of flesh and blood- but the screams that began were not what I wanted to hear at all. Only a few still stood, and as they noticed their fellows had been swept aside as if by some divine hand they gaped in amazement. I could make out shouts of dismay amidst the sound of my soldiers cycling bolts, and before the enemy even had time to turn and flee a new volley was upon them.

By the time that rain had finished there were no more screams, no more foes standing. The remainder of the enemy forces was disappearing back in to the city as if it had never wanted to have existed in the first place, and with a grim mien I ordered the formation to advance. Perhaps this Agodit would be hanged, or beheaded for his hubris in getting so many husbands and fathers killed. That was a matter for Adela's determination. For now, at least, it was enough that Lakis belonged to the Imperium this day.

[Bortslovakia]

Patrick Kolman: Liffey River Dublin, 3000 BCE Month Six
Merchant Ledgers

Looking out the window of my little cottage, I couldn't help but feel a bit proud at the state of the village today. A few small structures had cropped up on the other side of the river as storage space for my various tinkerings. My charcoal, or the charcoal that wasn't distributed among the villagers, was all protected now from the elements. Well, until the first flood that is. Now that I had the basic concepts down however, rebuilding such structures should only take a few days. Speaking of the river, I could see the new and improved ferry being pulled across as a few villagers went about refilling their supply of charcoal, unloading a host of cut down branches on the other side. This pleased me more than anything. It didn't mean anything if all the advances I made were carried on my back alone. I'd die eventually, and the good people of proto-Dublin would be back to square one. The ready willingness to embrace technological advancement expressed by the people here would preserve my legacy, not that I cared about being remembered by name specifically. Philosophical advancement though.... that would take more time. Most either gave me curious looks, or laughed off my "odd foreign ideas." Some were even outright hostile, with Ciaran discussing at length how his nephew would rant about tradition whenever I came up in conversation. I didn't mind though. Budding political conscious would require different ideas to peacefully meet in the middle. As long as the more conservative individuals didn't turn reactionary, I wasn't going to disturb the waters.

Sliding open my roughshod door, I idly fingered the tin axe at my side. Honestly, it wasn't much better for cutting down trees than the stone hatchets already used. It was lighter, and bent easier. This wasn't for lumberwork though. All I needed were wood fibers, some salt, a good rock, and some water. I could try boiling some glue with the left over animal carcasses, or at least ask someone else to do so for me, but I wanted to see how well simple compression and drying would work. Walking passed the fields, I frowned slightly. The last holdout of my ideas that required little testing. I'd slowly won over people to the idea of crop rotation, but too many just saw leaving an open field as a waste. I'd have to spend a few weeks doubling the field size, and then create a whole new field of similar size to force the idea I suppose. There wouldn't be enough people to work both fields, and we'd get a little more food. In the long term it would force crop rotation into the village ethos, and by doubling the size of the original field, it's not like the holdouts could complain. That wasn't a problem for today though.

Todays problem consisted of bringing a pile of twigs up to my house for work. Panting at the exertion of balancing the massive pile as I walked back up the hill, I quickly opened the door, and stacked the wood beside the makeshift table and bench along the wall. Without nails it was all held together by glue, leather strips, and sinew. It was effectively a glorified tripod with a thin layer of stump forming the round top. The single seat bench was no different, but I'd lost a lot of weight since coming here so hopefully it wouldn't all fall out from under me? Taking the axe, I began to quietly whittle off pieces of the stringy branches into thin fibrous strips. Getting them thin enough to be in a usable state was difficult, but whenever I needed to be careful with the axe, I'd use the rock to gently tap the head like a hammer and chisel. From there, I broke them up into even smaller pieces with the tin knife I had forged months ago. It was quite bent up by this point, but still held an edge better than anything else I could easily get my hands on. Making similar blades for the other families had taken time, as well as a few trips back to the Wicklow. No copper to be found unfortunately, and I'm pretty sure the other rocks I had found had iron in them, which I couldn't reliably heat with my current setup. Satisfied with the fibers, I placed them in a bowl full of water, added a bit of salt, and began to mash the mix up with the rock. There were better ways to do it, but not with the tech I had working for me. I'd have to let it sit overnight, and I already knew for a fact that without the proper chemicals the paper I was trying to make would be flaky at best, but hopefully the fibers were small enough (and now mulched enough) to be worked with. Moving over towards the bowl I had prepared yesterday, I looked in at the brownish mush that was my pulp. Grabbing a rudimentary rolling pin (a glorified carved stick), I dug the pulp out of the bowl, and began to flatten it out, squeezing out both the water, and forcing the fibers together. There wasn't much to work with, but again, proof of concept. If the paper wasn't strong enough to write on, then I'd have to start teaching the villagers on clay tablets. I worked at it for an hour or so, removing as much excess water as possible until I was left with a thin sheet, thicker than the paper I was used to still and full of clumps, but hopefully functional.

Leaving the paper on the porch to dry in the sun, I couldn't help but notice a commotion in town. A gathering centered around what looked like a... cow? Merchants perhaps? I made my way down, contemplating the possibilities. Maybe they'd be willing to trade for it? Ireland is known for its grazing land. I'm sure we could get a herd going, and it would be good to diversify the food diet further. Cattle brought prosperity. The potential for disease though... was it worth it? I likely had enough sway in the community to get the others to listen to my advice in the event of a plague, but with significantly less than a hundred souls living here, every death would be a setback. Pointless musings I suppose, as the beast was already in town, and illness is an eventuality.
I approached Barra, looking at the fresh faces with interest. "Any idea what they want?"
He frowned, stroking his beard "They wish to trade milk for supplies. They say that they come from a small village to the far north, and were forced into exile, but not before stealing a few heads from their herd. While I do not trust thieves, they say it was justified, and wish to settle down along the river outside of town"
Though Barra seemed unimpressed, the thought of people to trade with was simply too enticing, and we certainly had goods of value. Approaching the merchants, I smiled. While the others in the village seemed reluctant to offer up their goods, I immediately pulled out the tin knife. "This blade is sharper than anything you currently have. Though delicate, it is certainly worth a hefty sum. How much would you be willing to trade for it?"
The merchants, three men and two women, looked on in admiration at the metal knife. One stepped forward, a woman maybe in her late thirties. "Though it is certainly valuable, what we truly need is supplies. Food, furs, leathers. We would be happy to give five large jugs of milk, one delivered daily until payment is complete, for the blade, but only if we may trade our other goods for much needed resources. We have tools, and stones in excess. You may have them for three moons worth of food, and a deer hide"
I pondered it for a moment. Three days worth of food seemed like a bargain, but considering we were all effectively living hand to mouth, I could understand why it was considered such a sum. Still, adding milk to the diet would vastly improve things, and hopefully through continued trade, we could convince these merchants to stick around. Besides, I could tuck in my belt for a few days.
"That seems agreeable, however the food will need to be supplied once daily, the same as you've asked for your milk. Unless anyone here objects, I can show you a good patch of grazing land just outside of town"
As I walked off, Barra pulled ahead of the accompanying merchants, and leaned in to whisper "Why are you trading our metal? If more have it, we will lose our edge"
"Barra, they don't know how to make it, that knife was falling apart anyway, and said metal just bought us milk for the entire village for a week. We can make up for the traded meat with hunters, and we're always in need of more tools" I replied absently. "Besides, if they stick around we'll have cattle to work with." The cattle was... different. Not an Auroch (luckily, since those things are terrifying), but similar. I guess that further cements the timeline then.

The subsequent feast for our new guests was something to behold. Though there was no alcohol, we might as well have been drunk with all the mirth. The merchants seemed content with the patch of land we showed them, and with our help, intended to build a temporary shelter in the morning. As the sun rose, I tiredly made my way home, grabbing some berries from a nearby bush. Not to eat though. As I reached my cottage I climbed the porch, feeling for my paper. Crushing up the berries into a bowl, and quickly mixing it all with water, I slowly dipped a sharpened stick in. Tentatively, I scribbled out a note on the rough paper.
"Ledger, Trade 1: One knife for five jugs of milk. Three days of rations for misc stone tools"
Slowly, I brought the piece of paper inside, and passed out on my bedding

[Holy Tedalonia]

Edward "Ted" Tomlinson
Rome, Italy, 2999 BC, 17 months after LF

Suddenly my slumber was disturb, shouts and screams could be heard. A attack, I thought as I quickly rushed out of bed to grab my sword. Screams heard from the neighbor hut, the raiders were looking for something, or someone... I start rush out of my hut sword in hand, to assess the situation. A raider suddenly appeared at my door, intercepting me mid run, with a quick reflex of adrenaline, I lifted my blade, and shoved it into my foes belly as I charged into him. I was lucky he didn’t expect me awake.

As the blade dug into his torso, he fell backwards. I to fell on him, having had placed all my weight into the blade. I didn’t have long before another charged at me, a man with a stone spear. I quickly swung my blade, and missed my enemy. Fate was against me, as pain burned in my stomach. Damn, talk about time, I thought. I swing once more leftward and in pain this time, and missed once more, him dodging to the right. The pain took distracted me, and made my movements sluggish. I tried to move my blade back close, anticipating the next movement in battle, but before I could do that the warrior grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. Followed by a knee to the stomach, I left go of my sword, reeling back from the shock. I was now on the ground clutching my stomach from exterior and interior pain.

The warrior grabbed my sword, and called his comrades. I begun to crawl away, I can’t die here, I need to get back to my family, my home, and to my country. Fate can’t kill me of this easily, but before I could escape, a weapons hilt hits the back of my head knocking me unconscious...

---

A day after raid, ???
I wake up, was I at my hut? No, somewhere else. Perhaps someone else’s hut... It took a awhile before I realized what happened. So I was kidnapped huh... Why would they want me? Before I could figure out why someone at the door saw me, and started shouting for the chieftain. It didn’t take long for the Chieftain to arrive. It was a middle aged man, age had not been kind to him, but he was strong and powerful with a build to match it. How did I know this? I recognize that man, his powerful knee kick reminded me of the power he held. I saw my blade beside him, held in his hand. I guess its his now, I thought.

“So you’re awake now, Ore-Maker,” said the Chieftain.

“Aye, no thanks to you,” I said bitterly.

“You were armed, and seemingly rebellious. I had to.”

“Why did you kidnap me? I certain that I hold no inherent value as a hostage.”

“Why sell yourself short, Ore-Maker? You are far to valuable to be used as ransom. No, you are a valuable resource needed. Your blade for instance, a powerful weapon it is, better then any stone spear.”

How did they know? I tried to come up with a rational conclusion, and after a moment thinking it came to me.

“The women of Ortez, told you didn’t they? This is Ortez is it not?” I asked.

“Yes it is, they were quite eager to share your information after your raid. I felt it neccessary to take advantage of it,” he said with a vicious grin.

“So its going to be me for Valena, isn’t it?”

“No, there will be no exchange. You are far to important to let go, need I remind you of your skill of crafting these weapons of power? No, I will use you until you can be used no more, enjoy your stay at Ortez.”

[Burgerlandia]

Jason Thatcher
3000 B.C, 3 months after arrival

Remes, Southeastern Nile Delta

Inventions Introduced:

• Written Language (Latin alphabet was combined with Egyptian phonemes and grammar to create a rudimentary language that is superior to the crude symbolism used prior. Currently practiced by five members of several hundred present in the village.)
• Irrigation and More Crops (To be done. Present in small amounts in larger Egyptian towns such as the capital but not yet in Remes.
• Copper and Bronze Forging (To be done. Kiln/forge drafted. Working model to be built out of mud brick.)
• Mathematics (To be done. Addition and subtraction exist in parts of Egypt though the practice is not yet widespread.)

I entrusted today's preliminary lessons to Omar, Sef, Amr and Femi. They would be short and very gradual given the amount of time spent daily performing labour; education was almost impossible to fit into our time slot. That's why I decided to go with Hemeda (the man who know's of local copper deposits) so that we can begin improving the craftsmanship of our village and by extension our exports. Copper deposits back in this time period were relatively plentiful compared to that of today, and surface deposits were definitely the bread and butter of chalcolithic civilizations. It shouldn't be too challenging to find usable copper. Building the forge requires some basic engineering but it will almost certainly best whatever is available in Egypt now. I may be bragging but I doubt ancient Egyptians know how to persuade thermodynamics to work for them to the degree that I do.

Sef and I take a break from the fields after we helped harvest a sizable section to go speak with Hemeda. He was a few dozen meters away on the ground, scooping up some felled grains into a basket. "I knew I saw that mottled mess of hair somewhere - Hemeda how are you?" Sef smiled lightly, standing near Hemeda. "Just getting all this prep work done for flood season, the usual." he replied, meeting Sef's eye briefly and smiling before quickly filling the basket. He stands up and notices me too. "Ah Jason, always a welcome sight. Proof that the Gods are always with us even during hard times. How may I help you?" he says, nodding deeply in respect. I cut to the chase, the sooner we can get the copper gathered the sooner I can assess how to best smelt it. "Hemeda, Sef informed me you are part of team that sometimes ventures out to gather copper to sell. Can you show me these deposits? One of my future blessings will bring copper and eventually bronze smelting to this village." Hemeda almost drops his basket and he leaps in joy, other workers in the field shake their heads dismissively at the sight and return to work. "Only Thinis knows of bronzemaking, and coppermaking still isn't widespread in smaller village such as Remes. To gift us both is a blessing beyond blessings, Jason!" he shakes all over as he says this, barely containing excitement. Hemeda seems surprisingly intelligent, he already has realized this act will bring the village prosperity and an important standing in the kingdom. Hemeda looks at Sef as if to ask for permission to leave which Sef acknowledges. Hemeda then grabs my arm and almost drags me through the sand as we make our way to the deposits.

The walk is around 20 minutes, somewhat out of the village in a fairly rocky region. After a bit of hiking we reach a surface deposit with a remarkable amount of copper. "We don't trade away the copper too often as merchants rarely visit our town." Hemeda says. I don't have enough background chemistry knowledge to know what copper mineral this but I doubt it's native copper. It could be copper oxide, and until proven wrong I'll assume it is. Either way my goal of extracting the pure metal requires high temperatures which requires me to slave away over a kiln. Since drought season will be beginning in a short period of time, according to Amr, the labour will shift from farming to preparing for the flood. That means the workers in the village will have to dig canals for both themselves and for their upper class such as the Pharaoh. Since I don't technically exist outside this village I have all the time in the world to perfect my first forge so that the village can pay off their taxes in a less labour-intensive manner. I'm satisfied with this plan and I doubt the village will complain if I'm unavailable to dig endlessly for several months considering my 'holy' nature.

"We'll return here soon, I need to build the forge first and then attempt to smelt copper after. I'll need to make it out of mud brick which will take me a while to fashion. Sef showed me how a while ago." I explained to him. I mentally mark down the location of the deposit and Hemeda and I return to the village to finish the day's work.

I spend the rest of the evening scratching down a model of the forge in some mud I acquired from the nearby river. Can't say I'll ever get used to using gooey dirt water drawings over paper-based schematics but I've already made a million fucking sacrifices since I've arrived anyways. The days have not gotten easier and I still dream of Pauline and leaving here nightly. And my nice act I give to Sef is exactly that - an act. He still threatened to kill me minutes after meeting me and that's inexcusable. The man is not qualified to be a leader given how rashly he acts at times. But dealing with these internal squabbles is not my priority right now. I need to turn this village from a group of farmers to people who can craft. That way we can buy the food we need and spend our time advancing instead of stagnating like we currently are. This shitty forge model will be the first step in doing so. As I finish up the 'prototype schematic' I can't help but laugh outwardly which attracts the attention of Omar. Almost forgot he was in the room making dinner. "Everything okay, Jason?" he asks slowly. "Yeah I was just thinking about something." I said, as to not incite more conversation. Omar exhaled slightly and continued cooking.

I laugh both because of how utterly repulsive my drawing is, and, because of how much impact it will eventually have on this village once I get it working.

[Plzen]

I sat down to write. In that regard it was not an unusual afternoon.

What was unusual was that I was not holding a clay tablet and a needle. Such primitive tools were beneath me now. No... laid against my clipboard - which was what I was calling the slab of wood I wrote things against - was an actual sheet of parchment and in my right hand was a reed pen.

It was difficult work over many winter evenings for me to get to this point. Far more work than I had initially anticipated.

I first came up with this idea when I found out how common birch trees were in this region. A small grove of birch - nothing one could call a real forest, but a few clusters of trees - grew to the south of the village, and I knew that birch bark, with the outer shell stripped away, served many medieval and early modern societies in northern Europe as their cheap writing material before paper became widespread. The availability of birch bark was at least partially to credit for the high literacy of the Novgorod Republic, and one person I remember joked that it was possible that the vikings of the medieval era were better educated than the civilised people they raided.

Getting ahold of bark parchment was easy enough. Some trial and error fiddling around bits of birch bark, and I eventually figured out how to peel off rectangular slices of inner bark.

The problem, rather, was the ink. I had no idea how to make some. I thought about what I had access to that was of a dark colour. My first idea was ash, but wetting ash from wood fires just produced a light grey sludge. It was impossible to write with, and the colour was virtually invisible on birch parchment. Then I tried various grasses and flowers, grinding them, mixing them with water, each other, even my spit one occasion as I got increasingly frustrated. The results were not a substantial improvement over the ash.

However it was that people in medieval societies produced colourful dyes, I clearly wasn't going to figure it out with just some quick experimentation.

I eventually vented to Raginaharjas about the problem, one evening.

"Can you," he eventually responded, "not use a discarded torch as your 'ink,' Clara? Its end is always sharpened black."

The black end of a torch...?

Of course, I realised. Charcoal! If I can figure out how to make proper charcoal, then I can use it like a pencil.

I smiled, procedures and images coming into my head even as I struggled to rise and give my dearest man a hug. Two brains, as they say, was better than one. Perhaps the saying had a point. I wasn't just going to use charcoal off the end of a torch, of course. No... I was going to make charcoal properly.

The first trial, of course, was a disaster. It was then I found out that charcoal wasn't "partially burned wood." Setting up a wood fire and then putting out the fire with sand tended to leave more ash dust and half-burned sticks than any real charcoal. I needed to put the wood in the fire, but not have them in the fire.

The kiln. I thought of the same kiln on which I turned out my pots and clay tablets every few days.

I found myself a bunch of thin branches and, the next time I had some earthenware to fire, lined the kiln floor with the wooden sticks.

Finally, success! Well, sort of... charcoal was incredibly dusty, not like the charcoal pencils I used back in high school, and didn't seem to want to stay on the parchment it was used on particularly well. Perhaps if I had actual paper, this would have been a viable idea, but with birch bark parchment, charcoal sticks were just too unreliable to be a good writing agent.

But, at least, it was black. So, I went back to the idea of ink, and mixed charcoal powder with water, letting it dry halfway into a thick black liquid. This worked reasonably well, but just like charcoal sticks, this ink, once dried on parchment, still didn't stay on the parchment. Clearly I needed something else... I first thought of that powder Korean-Chinese food used to turn soup into a sticky, gelatinous sauce, but the problem was, well, I had no idea what that powder was made out of. But something like that... so I tried various sticky or slick things, starting from drying that weird tasteless grain porridge that elder Hildirijks occasionally cooked for us. Eventually, after weeks of trial-and-error, I found something that worked reasonably well.

Animal glue. Finally. Ink that I could write with, and one that would stay written afterwards.

It's a tiny little thing, but I feel ridiculously proud of myself.

[Saxony-Brandenburg]

Olivia Carson

It was on a windy dawn in the twenty-third month of my life in this world, when the winds brought the northern chill, that a messenger arrived in our camp. She was a young women, with a monkey's smile. A foreigner, to be sure, with olive skin and a thinner, yet longer nose than the likes of these people, who I have come to refer to as the Gagna people, their veneration of the river going so far as to identify it as the name of their culture. She stepped into our camp, up to the center fire where the people gathered, and spoke thus unto the onlookers: "I come here looking for the lords of this encampment. The rulers of your people. I bear a message from my master, of the Aag people, who bear to you my humble service, which shall be as messenger." The people of our village looked to eachother, for they were all free men and women. Before long however, one whispered to a young boy, who ran to rouse myself from my tent. I had slept in long, but my dear hadn't minded, as I had spent the night spinning thread. But as I was dragged from my slumber in a daze, I came upon the cold air, which shocked me from my trance. Staring at the strange woman, a smiled, a bit confused. "Ah, um... Who do you come from again?" The woman bowed to me, and smiled oncemore. "I serve master Zara of the Aag people." She pushed back her hair behind her ear, showing off a copper stud in her ear lobe. "I am his very happy slave." She grinned a wide, toothy grin. "Ah, well, tell your um- 'master'," (I felt very uncomfortable with the idea these people traded in slaves), "That I would be happy to join him in his honors." The woman nodded. "He grazes his animals far upstream, and across the mother river. Please bring your tent, we will be Noble hosts, and feed and warm you with his fruitful hospitality." I bowed my head to her. "If it would please you," she spoke, bowing low to the earth, "that your hospitality would be known throughout the known world, and you be famous for your kind grace, I beg of you to let me stay in your camp, and rest my legs this day. Surely the gods would smile upon you, yes?" I couldn't help but chuckle. "Of course. What is your name? So that I may learn it and call you more than simply, 'girl'." "I am Shihna, your kindness I will remember for ages." I laughed and gave off a short remembering snort. "Do not be so formal, come, sit, I'll bring you some bread and beer, and we shall talk of your people."

We sat around the communal fire, and I poured Shihna the slave a cup of millet beer, and held a plate of unleven bread before her. She ate with great gratitude, thanking me before every bite, before every sip. "Would it please you, your fair, blessed lady- for another serving?" What a kissup. But I gladly complied. She might have eaten me from house and home before she came down with a horrid stomach ache. She fled to the river, clutching her mouth to keep from vomiting. I chased her, with an empty pot in hand. Somehow, I found myself at the shore just before her, and thrust the copper pot in her face before she could vomit in our precious water source. "Do not vomit in the Ganges, stupid! It's what we drink from!" When she had coughed up her fill, she looked at me with a suddon wave of sadness, and fell to her knees in shame. I shook my head, and felt horrid for her begging for forgiveness. I placed down the jug, and hugged the poor woman, who smelled of cow manure, and cried heavily into my shoulder. I rubbed her back gently- the way I would a child, although she was probably just a few years my younger. Beneath my fingers, I felt something that made my spine chill. The crumbling scabs of fresh wounds, lashes upon her back. I pulled my head back, gasping. "Who did this to you? You poor thing." "Please- please don't say anything... I deserved it." "Deserved it my ass! What did you do do deserve this- did they even treat it?" "I- I'm sorry!" She wailed, and continued to sob. I fell back, as she clutched my stomach harder, covering it in my tears. God, who were these people? I scratched her head, softly, the way I used to my girlfriend in highschool. Such a poor, tender girl, I had hardly met her two hours ago, and now I was comforting her. "Now, could you tell me what happened? I know it's a hurtful memory, but I'd like to know what happened."

She recounted to me her tale- a long and sad one, of a bondman unable to pay back what he owed, of a child traded for long miles by bands of slavers, sold to each other as property. She told of her present master, the lord of the tribe which held the most power in this country, and how he forced her to lay with him, and bare two children by him, which he beat and scorned with as much vigor as he did she. Of a drunkard man, who cared little for those beside his sons, and who took the credit for his bondsman's labors. It was a tragic tale, and I was nearly on the brink of tears when I heard it all. I held her in my arms, and told her she would have justice for what had been done to her. I promised her things I didn't know if I could do, that she would be free. I didn't think it through, but her story, mirrored by so many others, was too terrible to bare. I asked what price he bought her for, and decided to double it for her children's freedom too. They were little help anyway, no? Should I have enriched this man's fat pockets over the trade of slaves- even if it was to free her? I knew not. But I knew something must be done, and I sent for my husband, and convinced him of thus. He was a kind-hearted man, he was an easily convinced man. I was the moral will of these people, and, it hadn't dawned at me until that point, they had called forth for me to represent them as the "leader". We rounded up the sheep, we packed the cloth, we bundled the tent, and began to leave for Zara of the Aag people's camp. It would take several days to get there, and upon the journey there, I realized something, something neither I could believe or say, in fear I was wrong, in fear I was simply off by a few days.

I had missed my period.

I pushed back that thought for a long time, I couldn't be pregnant, could I? No, no! I wasn't. That was being silly. I had to focus on all other's problems, not my own. We left, and we walked, and walked, and walked, before we rounded a bend, and overlooked a camp much larger than anything I had known. My, it must have had fifty tents- with dozens of cookfires streaming smoke into the sky. We oversaw then- the three smaller camps, of maybe five tents each, surrounding the main camp. I guessed correctly that this would be the three other tribes of the region, the three other large villages that lived among the hills, drinking from the river Gagne, and farming her banks. We must have been the farthest downstream, drinking from the waters after them all, which only slightly sickened me as I considered they probably threw their waste into the waters. Who even were these people? This was larger than any reservation in america, with so many more natives, but none of american descent. And the river.... Gagne... Holy shit. The river Ganges! But- what was I doing here? This was the most polluted, most urbanized river in the world! And yet- here I was, overlooking green meadows and vast shrublands, trees, and wildlife on the hill. It was almost like we were in the bronze age! Except- no. No that was only a thing that happened in Anime! I couldn't have- but whatever explanation did I have? My God- what? Oh no, oh no! There's- there's no way to go home! No- no no!

While I was having a nervous breakdown, my dear husband looked up at me, and noticed my anguish. He clutched my arm, like a child, and kissed my bicep. I looked down at him, and down to the camp, and to the slave-girl I had promised to free. I didn't know what was going on, but atleast... atleast life might continue to go on. I had to focus on the now, I had to focus on what I had, rather than what I might have lost. I put my mind in the sand, so to speak, plunged it into this world, and shrugged it all off. I marched down into their camp, as high as I could hold myself. The slave girl sprinted infront of me, and beating back her panting, announced my arrival.

"Mistress Olivia of the Gagne people has arrived! She bears the rank of highest among their people, may the gods protect her!"

All looked over and stared at me, in shock at this strange giant woman. Unsure what to do, I raised my hand and gave a short wave, smiling at them all."Um... hello! Where is the host, I wish to bring him gifts of my people."

Zara was a beast of a man, with hulking muscles that sent shivers down my spine. I tried to stand tall, but I couldn't speak, my throat was clogged. Bless Aditya, husband of mine, for this small man spoke with the confidence I had never seen before. He gave a deep bow to the beast, and spoke thus unto the ground at his feet.

"Hail to you, noble one, most generous one, most wise one. My lady comes to you during this time of celebration, bringing gifts, offerings, to thank you for your hospitality during this holy moon for the Lord of Fire." He stood, and took the offerings- a bundle of fine cloth, a pot of herbs, and a fine copper pot full of my best beer, and placed it at the terrifying man's feet.

The bull-king waved a hand, and four slave-girls rushed to take it, and brought it to the great tent behind him, greater and more lavish than any I had seen, even in my modern day. Gold thread seemed to ornate the entrance, and from the glimpse inside, the plush red fabrics that covered everything seemed to be made from the finest of cloth, the most opulent of things he seemed to surround himself with. He nodded in approval, and I then spoke thus unto him, my words finally spilling forth from my mouth.

"Good lord Zara, I come to you with an offer of good faith. One of my sons," (Yes, I lied, I was impressed too.) "wishes to be wed, and finds your slave-girl Shihna to be of the highest beauty, a jewel in the vast horde of wealth you posses. I come here on his behalf- to ask upon you for her to leave your tents, with her children, and join those of our own. I will pay you double of what you purchased her for, for the purchase of her bondage, and that of her infants.

The pig looked over at the slave-girl, who stood several yards behind me. He had not taken her to bed in years, for she had become far too ugly with her punishments. He knew not who would find such a thing beautiful, but the offer- it was profitable. He grunted approval, and waved his hand over his shoulder for where to bring the payment for inspection by his slaves. He beckoned the girl, and sheepishly, she stood before him. Finally standing, he gripped her face, like a man to a mule, before ripping the piecing from her ear, causing her to wimper out in pain. Such a little stud of copper- it meant nothing in comparison to his vast horde. But this was about more than that, for now she was no longer property to bear his tag. She ran back to be, clutching her bloody earlobe with tears in her eyes. I bade her to go to Ashra, who stood at the far back of the crowd, for tending, while I finished in a thousand thanks for his dealing, and promised to, in good faith, join them in the worship of his people's god come that evening.

For the brutal nature of their leader, their celebrants were beautiful. Slave girls, with long ribbons around their wrists and ankles, danced over their dozens of fires to the tune of drums and hymns. Hymns to the eternal flame, to the God of their fathers. For bravery, for bounties, for a warm hearth, for many children. They leaped and twirled, and as they did so their streamers caught light, trailing their flames, nipping at their heels. I felt horrible for the few who caught light too much- and who suffered badly by the flames. By the most nible and experienced knew how long they could leap for, how long they could keep the flame before needing to put it out, and they were georgious. Poor Shihna, she stayed in my tent crying the whole night, remembering memories of the scars upon her legs, the dark burns that shall never truly heal. I had checked on her with Ashra, who said her ear would heal, and in the mean time studied up on the three other tribes. By far the most powerful was the tribe of Zara, who held the strongest warriors and most numerous sons, followed by those even farther north- who had the largest herd in the valley. Next was our people, who weaved the finest cloths and housed some of the best-witted merchants. Then, there was a more nomadic group of travelers, who numbered forty five souls, and who had come from the far west. They were small, weak, but made up for it in presentation- all wearing luxurious, lovely cotton cloth, and a few who wore jewelry of gold and a blue rock I identified as Lapis lazuli, which made me wonder just how far they were from. All bent the knee to Zara, and swore oaths to bend the knee to his son, Raivata.

I returned to my village in the end of the twenty third month of life in this world, my legs aching and my thoughts consumed with worry. Was I pregnant? I couldn't hold it in forever, and swore myself to consult Ashra if I missed another period. I had great fears, fears of what might happen to me or my child given the bronze-age medicine, could I die? The thought shook me to the core, and left me unable to sleep deep into the nights. But all I could do was wait, wait and fear. I tended to my herbs, I oversaw disputes between squabbling villagers, who for some reason valued my opinion highly. I tried to occupy myself with the physical labors of daily life, to keep my mind off of worry.

[Conwy-Shire]

Andre Moore - 1st Month Anno Tenebrarum (A.T.)

---

It reeked of the unwashed masses, Kenarbum. The town lay, overlooking the banks of the river, from a raised level of gargantuan earthworks and natural elevation. The buildings that sat thereon however, more resembled barbarians settled in the midst of someone else's accomplishment. Simple constructs of mud, stick and river-reed squatted in the morning light, as if to hide from the disapproving glare of the sun. All this I could see from the riverbank, leaning slightly on a spear of hardwood and shaped-stone. Even now in the Spring, pale puffs of steam escaped my mouth as my burning lungs dragged fresh air downwards. It all seemed so peaceful, in this moment before the day's industry began -

"Again Andre!" The shout came from my left, and Ornui lowered his spear for another bout. Groaning, I pulled myself upright and lowered this Neolithic spear into the ready position. Taut as a bowstring, I watched his every move, not even caring for the beads of sweat which dropped slowly from my brow.

Ornui crouched also, clad like me in the scratchy fabric overcloak so favoured in this corner of the world. His face, gaunt like so many of the denizens of Kenarbum, sported a sly smile as he approached to attack. In such a primitive place as this, he was the Strongman, the leader, the guardian, the father. Others were older or wiser, but he was the most charismatic - kind even - and had agreed to take me into this strange community.

When I had turned up to the main boulevard of Kenarbum - a dirt promenade of equal parts mud and grass - it was Ornui who had welcomed me in (after a brief interrogation). He had deduced that I was not of the Stonemen to the north - who raised giant megaliths in search of wisdom - nor from the Southrons - who until recently had traded in the shiniest of rocks-that-were-not-rocks. I was an unknown in the equation of this primitive life. Yet Kenarbum had fallen on hard times, in Ornui's own words: the small-holding agriculture that had formed around the town produced less and less food every year. There was no specialisation in the town, no cohesion, no fiction binding the peoples together - well, that was my diagnosis in theory. At the very least, there were abandoned homes fit for repurposing, and to one such abode Ornui had graciously granted me the privilege. There was something about these people and their treatment of guests which struck me odd, for such social grace had long-since deserted my modern counterparts.

What was also obvious was that Ornui had not been a leader for long. He had taken me under his wing as an apprentice guard, but also as an example to the other townsfolk of the positive changes he was visiting upon them. The elders were old and weak, the past strongman had been run off for his mismanagement, and here was the new leader, touting a stranger-become-resident as a sign of renewal and regrowth. It hadn't taken me long to realise that Ornui had done more than show me kindness: he had turned me into a political tool to suit his narrative. But so long as it entailed a roof over my head I was more than gracious to my host.

My reverie was broken with another shout, as Ornui telegraphed his move to attack. If I was to help him protect this town, he had argued, I would need to protect myself. The clacking of hardwood sticks against each other sung out, again and again. He swung to the left, I moved to block. *Clack*. I pivoted to thrust towards him, he swatted it aside. *Clack*. We went back and forth, trying different angles and styles: unorthodoxy was the key in this fight. *Clack* *Clack* *Clack*. Beads of sweat became a torrent, and a minute passed before the end. An explosive pain erupted in my knee, followed by a more meaty *thwack*.

Waves of pain washed up my leg, converging upwards towards the brain stem with all the urgency a nerve can muster. Teeth gritted, I dropped to one knee, signalling the bout to be over.

"Well fought Andre, well fought," Ornui chuckled. "We'll make a warrior out of you yet. But for now we will go out to the farms and hinterlands to consolidate the smallhold farmers. This… division of labour, you have been speaking of sounds like the way forward, though we may have to reinforce our argument with brawn."

The pained expression on my face fluttered between a smile and a snarl. Walking out to the hinterlands would mean a day on foot - or more precisely walking with a welted knee. But it also indicated something much more subtle; my ideas were useful to this man, and so long as I could keep providing them, maybe I could keep my place here in relative civilization before going home…

---

[Holy Tedalonia]

Edward "Ted" Tomlinson
Rome, Italy, 2999 BC, 18 months after LF

\
Today is another grueling day, two guards are next to me, watching me. Their eyes weren't keen, but they didnt have to be. Their duty was to ensure I dont do anything stupid. They were a cautious sort, they set up a forge for me outside, away from the village, but not to far for me to sneak out. It was clear I was not going to dissapear from this place in the cover of day. The guards changed intervals at dusk, and morning, as it would seem.

The villagers of Lotoba (The name of the village I belong to, stupid name...) came by or so I believe, as they pulled me into my hut, perhaps to keep me from being seen. Perhaps to ensure no fighting broke out or a attempt to free me happened. Regardless they wont be able to rescue me without a raid, and that is what the Chief of Ortez is expecting.

I am making two daggers as of right now, since the guards were to my left, I had placed on batch of liquid hot bronze into their visibility and another concealed by the forge, blocking their field of vision. Ill grab them and give on to the new guards who'll arrive at dusk and take the other one into my pocket. They don't understand the amount neccessary to make the weapons yet, so it should be advantagous to me that I should have one. I had placed the batches when a lass, had walked up to talk to the guards, so its a certainty that no-one knows of the second dagger. Just like the nights I would sneak out of my room and play on the xbox. However I need time, they are too suspicious of me. Guards watch me 24/7 and those who sleep whilst on duty watching me are severely punished. If your wondering why I hadnt escaped, its because I was asleep as well, and found out in the morning. I cant sleep all night after all.

Anyways progress makes perfect, and I stow my new bronze blade under my foot, inside the wrappings of the pelts. The bronze was still warm, but at a tolerable tempeture. So far so good...

[G-Tech Corporation]

Viktor Nemtsov - Part 2, Chapter 5: East along the Great River

June 7th, 2 AG

The waters of the Danube lapped against the sturdy timbers of the Winterwar as we traveled east with the current, some of the crew on deck waving back at their loved ones as we departed the dock in Himtalas. Here in the south of the reaches that I had traveled the channels were still muddy from the spring thaws working their way down out of the mountains, but it didn't bother the sturdy knaar that had been milled since the opening of the river ice. Beneath my feet the deck rocked only slightly, our straight keel holding the vessel steady through the slight turbulence of the lazy river, and I thanked the builders under my breath for their attention to detail. Some of the mill workers hadn't understood when I asked them to shape a vessel to ride upon the waves, but the Families understood once I had explained it to them that we could carry many horse-loads of resources and men on a ship that passed over the river.

Indeed, it had proven a remarkably simple sell. These folks were hardly people of the wave and sea, but they still used humble barges of timber lashed together to transport goods down the Great River when the water was high enough. Bulk transport was a rare thing - indeed, I had seen no other vessels in my time here. Hauling barges back up the river took more coordination and effort than the Germanics had been able to marshal prior to my coming, and so craft that plied the waters from Mara south were making a journey in only one direction. That would change, if I had my way about it. This was a maiden voyage only, and so the Winterwar was only carrying a pittance worth of supplies and goods for trade. But in the future, ah, the future would involve a river where craft such as this traveled in both directions, a river of commerce that would enrich all who could stretch their hands wide enough to take of it.

It still smelled of fresh pitch, I reflected as I leaned over the railing. A necessary evil in this stage of ship-building. Technically, a well construct knaar made out of the proper wood would be self-sealing, a watertight contraption made so by the slight expansion of its timbers upon being exposed to moisture and spray. This was not that ship though; the skill of woodworking required for such a vessel did not yet exist in Mara, and I could not rush its imposition, for my own skills in such a region were only that of a journeyman in truth, not a master. Before coming here it had been half a decade and more since I had touched plane and awl, scraper and vise. Here the shipmakers had just had to make do, and it was really amazing what they had managed to turn out.

Twenty five feet from stem to stern. Some oars on either side were worked by men hired for the task with no expert skill. But it was enough to keep us in the faster water, and at the fore of the ship a miner with a plumb bob was carefully measuring the depth of the Great River, the Danube, and next to him a young merchant woman recorded the soundings. This was a necessary part of opening up the river to trade, to determine where the hazards lay, where you could ground a ship and where deeper draughts would pass easily.

I glanced up at the sky for a moment, wishing for a breath of wind. June in Eastern Europe wasn't exactly warm, but neither was it cold. Beads of perspiration were already steadily running down the back of my tunic, and at intervals I had to reach up to dash the sweat away from my brow, though all I was doing was watching the river roll by. In that moment, glancing over at the hard working and well tanned crews, I knew a twinge of envy. Here there was always work to be done outdoors, where men could enjoy the splendor of nature. And, moreover, all splendor aside, working inside was the province of dark, gloomy, smoky affairs. My existence though had been of late more the latter than the former, and my pallor had suffered for it.

Whenever we got to Carrock, I would be a boiled lobster for sure. Turning to look back north, towards the distant shadows of the Erzgebirge, I muttered a halfhearted prayer for a cooling breeze.

No such luck.