Chapter Forty-Eight: Nicholas’ World (Patreon)

Regretfully walking away from Lathani, who makes an annoyed sound when I stop petting her, I head past the cave. Sorting out the firewood in my Inventory, I stack the majority of the branches up near where I’ve started digging my pit, only taking enough of the driest stuff into the cave with me for the night.

A previous day, I’d tested my wok and confirmed that I can actually put it in my Inventory full of liquid and then get it out again still full. Why that works when my Inventory won’t accept my satchel because it won’t fully close, I don’t know. Still, it makes things easier since making a clay pot for water, however annoying, is still significantly easier than making a watertight hide waterskin. I also have that sneleon shell which would otherwise be much less useful if I couldn’t put it in my Inventory. The clay stand for it is still drying, but I hope to use it in a couple of days’ time.

Further testing has also proven that the liquids are kept as much in stasis as the bits of bird-meat that I’d cooked and thrown in there. Thanks to all those factors, I get to have warm ‘soup’ without having to put in any effort now. The last time I made some ‘soup’, I cooked it in the wok and then poured it into the sneleon shell to free up my only piece of cooking equipment – I need it on a daily basis for boiling water so can’t have it constantly occupied with food.

Drinking now, I’m glad my mother can’t see me: she always used to scold me about making a mess. Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about it: I didn’t think about bringing cutlery with me, so I have no spoon, and the sneleon shell is larger than a bowl and oddly textured inside, meaning that I slop rather more liquid than I would prefer. Still, beggars can’t be choosers. Hopefully my crockery and cutlery situation will be at least partially solved once I manage to fire all my pottery works.

What’s important for me right now is that my stomach is full, the potato-like tuber adding a bit of starch to thicken the broth. I know that the feeling of fullness will disappear rather quickly despite that. Never mind – if I’m too hungry to sleep later, I’ll chew on some more bird meat. Or whatever I should class the killer chickens and velociraptors of this strange world. Actually, that reminds me: I never dressed the velociraptor corpses… A job for future-me.

Now the sun’s gone down and I haven’t got anything better to do, I decide it’s time to tackle the task I started earlier. I start to comb through my mind to try and put together some clues as to the length of day and year in Nicholas’ world. Letting the question percolate in the back of my mind hasn’t brought up anything useful, so now I’m going to put some focused effort into it.

This time, I don’t try to think about the day length or year length itself, instead trying to remember things like the length of the harvest season, or how many hours between breakfast and lunch, incidental things like that.

My approach can be characterised by two images: the first of a mad-eyed man grabbing the memories by their shoulders and shaking them while yelling in their faces; the second being the pickpocket sidling up to dip his hand in their pockets without alerting them as to his presence.

On the way, I have to admit that I get distracted with a number of facts, and a sinking sense of disappointment as something becomes quite clear: Nicholas’ world is nowhere near as technologically advanced as the world I’ve recently left. There are no cars, for example, the majority of vehicles I see being pulled by a few different animals which appear to be the equivalent of horses. As for communication devices, I don’t see a phone a single time, though I do happen across a couple of other devices which appear to at least somewhat fulfill the same functions, but they’re clearly powered by magic rather than electricity.

If I had to make a guess based on the information I’ve seen so far, it’s that the actual civilisation level of the place is not that dissimilar to the western world in the early nineteen hundreds. They clearly have devices for light, transport, and communication, but the devices don’t look particularly stream-lined. Not like a modern-day phone which is capable of so many tasks in the form of something that can easily sit in a pocket.

However, their civilisation also clearly hasn’t followed the trajectory of the world I’ve so recently left. Instead of being based on electricity, I have to guess that it’s based on magic. Scientists don’t seem to exist, some of their functions being fulfilled by ‘scholars’. That’s not to say that studies and experimentation don’t happen – in fact, that’s how I glean some important facts about time there – but they happen differently. After all, gravity is apparently only a law until you gain enough stat points or magic to defy it.

Actually, there are some aspects of the new world which are rather jaw-dropping in their implications. Flightis possible, for an example. And not just flight in an airplane or gliding thanks to a squirrel-suit, but actual, proper, unaided flight. The most bemusing thing about it is that my discovery of this was presented almost as a footnote – the focus of that memory was more about the differences between a high dexterity and low dexterity. The only reason I realised that flight was possible was because one of the participants arrived and left by sprouting wings of light and just...taking off. Obviously, for people living in that world, the fact that people can fly is as much of a no-brainer as the fact that people can run in mine.

All of that sounds great, and my dreams of perhaps becoming a fire-wielding, flying, badass mage are not quite as impossible as I would previously have thought. Just one thing, though – I’m starting to fear that I’m never going to be able to recharge my phone or kindle. Maybe that sounds stupid to think about when I’m literally being given the chance to go to a world of magic, but...my pictures of my family are on my phone. If I can’t charge it, I’ll never see my parents again.

The thought is depressing and I quickly return to my original task to distract myself from it. I’d started going through the memories of the system stone for a reason, and getting more of an idea about Nicholas’ world isn’t it. Sure, it’s great to have an idea of where I might be going, but I have to survive to get there first. I need to work out how much time I have to play with before my Energy bill comes due.

*****

It takes time, but just as I’m dropping off to sleep, the combination of the two approaches I’m taking to finding the memories plus the relaxation of sleep offers me a little gem. Of all things, l wouldn’t have expected the first clue to come from laundry, but it does. Why? Because there was a study done on the effects of doing laundry on a washerwoman’s Constitution.

Ridiculous, yes? But this study followed a number of washerwomen through the year to investigate the conditions under which they worked, since their average Constitution was curiously high. It turns out that the reason for the high Constitution was to do with the fact that they were constantly exposed to water and, in winter that means they actually had to break the ice to use their washing pools. As a result, they were working in conditions that would cause most Earth humans to develop pneumonia in a short space of time.

The washerwomen of Nicholas’ world did develop illnesses due to the water, but those who survived the illnesses and continued to be washerwomen developed higher Constitutions as a result. Of course, thinking about it, it’s possible that these memories might actually not be up to date ones – Nicholas’ world might have advanced past the technological level indicated by the stone. I’m not holding out much hope, though.

Back to the topic in hand, though: I have several memories of the scholar noting his results along with the date to get an idea of the year length. It’s not an exact answer as I’m not sure that he recorded a result on the last day of the year, but I know for sure it’s at least three hundred days long, as he recorded a result on the three hundred and second day, and I got the impression that the year wasn’t yet finished.

Next, day length, since this is also an important factor. I mean, if we consider that an Earth day is twenty-four hours, and a day on this planet is probably around twenty-eight, combine that with the difference in year length and the difference in time multiplies. If, for example, Nicholas’ world has days of only ten hours in total, that could mean that, despite having at least three hundred days in a year, it would only count as just over a hundred days on this planet – a far cry from a bit over three hundred or so.

Again, my clue for day length comes from an unexpected source: the opening hours of a restaurant. This in turn is just a fleeting snapshot of a moment in a memory about something completely different, but where the person just so happened to walk down a street and be temporarily distracted by a restaurant menu. A menu, incidentally, that isn’t written in English or any script I know, but that I somehow understand, just like I had understood the scholar’s notes. Small mercies, I suppose.

Anyway, the restaurant indicated that it was open for lunch between eleven and two, and that it would not accept anyone later than half past thirteen. So, assuming that lunch is over midday, I have to guess that the morning continues until at least thirteen o’clock. Of course, that’s based on an assumption which is not a guarantee, but is likely enough given the clear diurnal nature of Nicholas’ people to be used as the basis of my theory. Assuming that the two parts of the clock are equal – again, not guaranteed, but surely logical enough that even a society with magic wouldn’t do anything different – that means the day length is probably about the same as this planet. Or maybe an hour less per clock-face.

I mean, they might have a completely different way of telling the time – it’s not guaranteed that they invented clocks at all, after all. However, the fact that they had a seemingly consecutive series of numbers which continued to the middle of the day, and which then restarted indicates to me that, whatever they’ve got that helps them tell the time, it’s divided in two at least roughly equal portions. I mean, OK, they could have divided the day into more than two sections – thirteen hours could be the length of the start of daylight until the lunch hour. But if that’s the case, and my ‘year’ is based on their year, than I’ll have moretime than I’m guessing, not less.

When I come to that conclusion, I sigh in relief and sink into my jacket nest. Sure, I’m making a few assumptions here, and I hope they don’t come back to bite me, but I figure I’ve got at least three hundred days to earn my passage to Nicholas’ world – plenty of time, I tell myself.

That settled, I’m about to drop off to sleep when I notice that I have another message waiting. Apparently I’ve earned a point in Intelligence. Well, if that isn’t proof of my theory that processing memories and making links between them is linked to Intelligence, I don’t know what is. Accepting the point, I drift off to sleep feeling rather pleased with myself.