Chapter 75: Yee

Author's note: A second chapter today. And one more chapter later tonight. Let it be known that Tuesdays are for boba.

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Arthur had been the last to sleep the night before, but he woke up first the next day. The shade of the forest made it impossible for him to determine what time it was. Whether he had slept two hours or ten though, he was up now. After poking his head outside his tent and shocking himself with the cold air, no amount of trying to get back to sleep would take.

He got up, spent a bit of time getting the fire going again, and then brewed some tea for himself. He watched the fire take before wandering around the camp for a bit looking for something to do. There wasn’t much. Arthur couldn’t leave the vicinity of the camp for killer buffalo reasons, and the trees made it impossible to stargaze.

Littal seemed aware Arthur was moving around as the goat half-slept on the ground, but didn’t stir awake.

With nothing better to do, Arthur went to inspect the shocks a bit. Milo had once tried to explain to him every single thing his smithing did, but the only thing Arthur carried away from the conversation was that the borders of the class were foggy. If Milo was forging metal, his class gave him bonuses that he could work into the material. Since very few things were entirely metal, it was hard to know what counted and what didn’t.

In this case, although Arthur had no idea how Milo’s class worked, he could at least tell that it somehow included the mounting of the improved springs. They were on tight, so much so that he couldn’t budge them or wiggle them in any way.

“Pretty good, right?” Spiky said. “I’m sorry we cut you out of this. I don’t think either Milo or me paid enough attention to that part of things once we got going.”

“Completely fine. I couldn’t have contributed anyway. I gave you all I had when I said that they had some oil in them.”

“Water, actually. It should be oil, because that would lubricate. We’ll have to make another version if this works.”

“But it will work?” Arthur ran his fingers over the object. It wasn’t clearly leaking or anything.

“Well, I’m an academic. So my expertise ends after the theoretical bit of things. It just doesn’t do the ‘will this new thing work in real life’ that well. But Milo says it should, and it seemed to dampen the bouncing when we jumped on the wagon. So I’ll guess we’ll see,” Spiky said.

“Well, happy achievement hunting to you,” Arthur said. “You would get it right after it works?”

“No. Not at all. But if I’m the first person to document something the system thinks is important, then maybe. And definitely if it’s important and the knowledge spreads from me as a source. The librarian classes are all about helping people learn.”

“Makes sense. And for the record, I won’t tell a soul until you get the system points.”

“Well, thanks. And for that, I have a reward.”

“Which is?”

“I tell you what time it is so you feel comfortable making breakfast.”

“How did you know that was a problem for me?” Arthur was gobsmacked. “I could have had a hard time sleeping.”

“I have an intelligence class, my friend. I know many things. Including why a cook would be looking at shock absorbers instead of boiling grains. It’s about a half hour from dawn. And I’m starved.”

“I don’t think anyone could be starved after yesterday’s breakfast.”

“And yet I am. Please, friend. Before this porcupine starves.”

“You should wake up Milo too,” Talca said as he yawned. “Littal, last call to go eat some food. We’ll be on the road in an hour.”

Arthur put a new pot of water with grains in them over the fire and went to get Milo moving. Lifting up one of the flaps, he yelled inside.

“Milo. Time to get moving.” There was no motion from inside at all. Arthur tried again. “Milo. Breakfast.”

There was still no response. Arthur thought about how best to raise his friend before a plan occurred to him.

“Spiky said the shocks failed. Leaking everywhere.”

“What?” Milo was out of the tent so fast that the flaps didn’t stop waving until he was almost to the wagon. “They didn’t they couldn’t.”

Arthur grinned as Milo checked each of the four absorbers before turning around in confusion and seeing the smile on his face.

“Oh, you jerk. Do you know how completely unfunny that was?” Milo yelled.

“I don’t know. It was almost cute, Milo. The father smith checking up on his little absorber babies. I was touched,” Arthur said.

Milo rolled his eyes and went back to checking the shocks despite the mockery. “They aren’t leaking at all. We’ll still have to put them through their paces, but that bodes well. Damn, my heart’s going a mile a minute. Don’t do that anymore, Arthur. This could be big if it works.”

“Do you think the system considers this mechanics, or something else?”

“No idea. I’m not sure anyone knows. But I’m done thinking about it for now, anyway. Is that breakfast?”

Compared to their last breakfast, the meal they ate that morning was absurdly simple. They each took down a few bowls of boiled grains supplemented with extra calories from sugar, drinking pepped tea to get themselves going. Once they were done, Littal licked the bowl clean as they took down the tents and got packed away for the day’s travel. Soon, they were ready for the grand experiment.

“Should I drive any differently?” Talca loaded himself directly in the center of his seat, taking a serious posture with his hands on the controls. “Littal mostly goes by gut, but if I need to make big changes, now’s the time.”

Milo finished up triple-checking the shocks and hopped into the cart himself.

“If everything goes as planned, not much. These should dampen shocks, so you might need less active correction than usual. Start with a light hand on the reins and dial it up as needed from there, I guess.”

“Unless things get weird,” Spiky said, looking a little apprehensive.

“And what happens if things get weird?” Talca asked.

“Anyone’s guess. Just be ready for weirdness in that case, I suppose,” Spiky said.

“Anyone’s guess,” Talca grumbled. He shook back and forth a little, digging himself a slightly firmer connection to the seat and footboard. “And I let you mount this stuff on my wagon.”

“We can take it off if you want. Won’t take Milo a minute.”

“No, if we’ve come this far, we’re seeing it through. Littal, you ready?”

The Hing snorted and pawed at the ground.

“Good. Then let’s go fast. Yee, Littal.”

Arthur set his eyes on Milo and Spiky, figuring they’d panic long before he saw a problem and give him warning to bail. But instead of absolute catastrophe, both the Hing and Talca showed restraint. The goat jerked the wagon forward hard, but then kept the speed at a sedate pace, much slower than the days before. There was no burst of uncontrolled speed or the wagon falling apart.

“Is he going to speed up soon, you think?” Arthur asked. “A slow speed test seems like a good idea, but you’d think he’d want to test this out at full speed, too.”

Instead of answering, Milo and Spiky looked at each other, grinned, and cheered. Arthur’s face devolved into a mass of confusion.

“The trees, Arthur. Don’t look at us. Look at the trees we are passing.”

Arthur shifted his focus from his potential-early-warning-system friends to outside the wagon as instructed, then took a full confused second to make sense of what his eyes were seeing. Despite being unable to feel any serious rocking or instability in the wagon, the trees were whirring by just as fast as yesterday. Littal and Talca hadn’t been holding back. The shocks were doing the job.

Riding skill or no, Arthur should have been able to feel some instability from the ride. But he couldn’t. It was as smooth as the maneuvering speed Talca used when they went through roads close to towns.

“Looks like it’s working, boys. That’s really something,” Talca said. Littal snorted and brayed as he ran. “Littal agrees. Says it doesn’t fight him as much.”

“That’s the stability. These things keep the wagon from recoiling after bumps.” Spiky yelled towards the front. “Milo, can you lean over and check the shocks? Are they leaking yet?”

Milo had Arthur hold his feet as he crept forward on his belly, tipped himself over the open back of the wagon, and looked underneath at the new inventions.

“Doesn’t look like it. Everyone, this is a success.” Milo yelled from beneath the wagon. “I don’t have a notification yet, but the fact that this is working at all means that it’s coming. This is a big deal.”

“Ready for me to make it bigger? Littal’s holding back,” Talca said.

Milo climbed back up into the wagon and took his seat.

“Do it, Talca. Turn him loose. Let’s break these things.”

“Okay, Littal.” Talca reached down and patted the Hing’s side. “Let loose. Just don’t break the wagon itself, okay? Yee.”

Arthur grabbed at his seat as the huge beast of burden burst into a much faster trot. The trees shot behind the wagon as the wind roared in his ears. The ride was rougher again, but the rising sun soon revealed they were chewing up ground at a much faster pace than before.

“Was he serious about breaking the shocks? On purpose?” Arthur asked.

“Of course Milo was, Arthur,” Spiky said. “This is Talca’s life. He depends on the wagon. If you put something on a transporter’s vehicle, they have every right to do destructive testing on it. In fact, you want them to do that.”

Talca looked back from his driving and nodded.

“He’s not wrong. I have to rely on this stuff. It’s nice, but if it breaks in a way that breaks the wagon, I need to know that sooner rather than later, and while I have a smith to help me fix things. Seems to be holding up for now though.”

“It does. Try to break them. I can whip up more if we need them, especially once we’re in a town. Let's see how far these things can go.” Milo leaned back in his seat, visibly satisfied with how things were turning out. “Arthur, I’m sorry you won’t get much from this. But me and Spiky are about to get rich, in terms of experience points. Every wagoneer and coachman is going to want these.”

“What about money? Do you get paid if they get them made somewhere far from here?”

“No? Not unless I make the shocks and send them there. But invention is an important thing. The more an invention gets used, and the more important that use is, the more it matters for a class.”

“How’s that work?”

“Just a constant trickle of experience and progress. Someone makes a set of these? I see some benefit. Someone uses them to escape a monster wave or win a race? I get a little more. If you multiply that by thousands…”

“Tens of thousands, maybe,” Spiky said. “I don’t know what the limits are on using these yet, but there are a lot of transporters of various kinds.”

“And you just get to sit around and watch the progress trickle in?”

“Not exactly. If I understand it right, it’s mostly potential.” Arthur’s ears twitched as he heard that word. It seemed like he had heard it before, somewhere, and hadn’t quite understood it then either. “And if it is, we’ll be set.”