Elevation of Mana Chapter 19 Planning for...

As the whole village sat down and looked at our elder I couldn't help but sigh. It was clear that her news was bad from her expression alone, the only thing we were to find out was how bad.

"A cold season is coming, and we must begin preparations for it," she opened. "In more than three, but less than ten years it will arrive, and with it will bring hunger and the chill. If we begin now, and set up our food and blankets for when the time all will be well, but these things will take time to do."

Food preservation was hard in this world, as there were no freezers or the like, though I could probably build one. They also lacked things like fermentation, and salt was not nearly as prevalent, though I'd seen a bit. Meat was eaten basically as soon as it was gotten, and while some fruits and the like were dried, it was honestly poorly done. I was still too young, and still too untrusted to introduce many of these, but I might manage to get something easy in if I tried, smoking perhaps? If I could do that it would save us much effort.

It was also wild to me how far in advance we knew this disaster was coming. While the time frame was huge the ability to tell that something was on it's way would save lives. I wasn't sure, but if this new season appeared without warning the straits would be dire indeed, mother could only grow plants so fast, and there might well be starvation from it.

"There is no need for worry though, only action. I will request the men to quickly begin gathering honey where it can be found, and to make as many stone holders as we can for it," she said.

That was actually a brilliant idea, honey never went bad, and apparently even the people here knew it. If we could gather a bunch of it in the years between now and the six month winter there'd be a great source of calories just waiting for us. I did have one or two ideas though.

"What about auntie's pots?" I asked, knowing that clay would hold honey perfectly fine, and be a lot faster and easier to make.

Eyes swiveled in my direction, and not a few of them looked irritated that I'd interrupted Elaya's speech. Mother put her hand over my mouth and made a shushing sound. Elaya on the other hand looked at me and quirked her eyebrow a bit, seeming to think.

"Hmm, we'll try that, but ask questions later child. For now though we need to look into gathering seeds for the plants that we can have grown during the cold season. While it will be a chore, we also need to start saving the skins we can where we can for warmer clothing, that will be enough for now."

A lot of questions were being taken to Elaya now, people crowding forward. We on the other hand held back a bit, waiting away while others sought answers. Atie slowly moved over towards mother and I, and sidled in close.

"Do you think one of my pots can hold honey for a long time?" She asked mother.

"I don't know," was her answer. "Regardless, it is rude to interrupt the elder when she's speaking like that." I was fixed with a light glare now, not that I cared too much so long as they listened.

"They hold water right?" I asked, looking up.

"True, will you make a small one to try Atie?"

My aunt nodded as the rest of the members of our hut's little group started gathering around. Mom was distributing jobs to everyone, and being very clear about the preparations that she wanted for us in particular. The whole village would be making changes, but for what each of the sub-groups in particular would do, that was up to them. We were one of the strongest, and it wouldn't do to lose any amount of prestige, much less have our people suffer because they weren't prepared.

Off to the side father had moved over so that the representatives from the other huts could come and speak to him about getting stone pots made for storage. He was the best in our town at it, and offers were being put to him quickly. There were also discussions about different tools and hunting implements, as the game would change with the season. Those were less vital, but people still wanted to get it going now.

The next day I finally got a chance to speak with Elaya, there were a few places I wanted clarification, particularly about how we could store food.

"So, I heard the water will get all hard in the cold season," I said from where I'd set up near her.  "What's that like?"

"A pain to deal with.  You can't drink hardened water, you have to heat it up first, but cold water tastes nice.  Some of the villages up in the mountains to the south have a name for it, it's 'icha' at least to them,"  I mentally added that for ice.

"Can you make it?  Like you can water?"  I asked.  She'd long ago shown me she could summon water without much effort.  I suspected that I could make ice if I really wanted, but didn't want to demonstrate something I'd never been shown.

"Hmm?  I don't know... never tried to."  Absentmindedly she began to hold her hand out and concentrated for a few moments, a small ball of ice appearing there.  "You can," she finally answered.

I took it from her hand. "Cold!"

After that I began making a bit of my own.  I was careful to make it smaller than the piece she'd formed, but it came easy.  I could picture ice on all kinds of levels without any real effort.  I knew how it felt, tasted, everything else, the chemistry of it, how it formed, and what the crystals looked like.  Heck, I could remember almost all of those classes in school where the teachers showed us that kind of stuff like I'd been there just this morning, and it all came flooding back to make a beautiful little crystal in my hand.

"Oh, you got that quick, good job Elian."

"Do other things get hard when it's cold too?"  I asked as innocently as I could.

"Plants do, and they get a little covering of ice, sometimes they break and come apart," she said.

"What about animals?  Will they get all hard and break apart?  What about us?"

"No, animals don't.  Well, I guess dead ones do, the meat stays good a little longer like that too, which is one of the reasons trapping and hunting will be so important."  She was now giving me a look that seemed to indicate I should get back to my own lessons for the moment, but I had one or two more things I really wanted to push forward.

"Can we do that even when it's not a cold season?"  I asked.  "We can already make the ice, can't we use it to do the same thing?"

"As soon as it warmed up it would go back to normal, and I don't have that much light to constantly cool it," she said shaking her head.

"Okay, but what if we just put it, and the ice somewhere it was already cold, like in a hole, or in a cave?  That cave was cold before we started the fire in it."

"Well, you're welcome to try if you want Elian.  I don't think it will work though," she answered, now actually waving me off to leave.

"Okay, I'll do it!"  I said before turning and sprinting away, didn't want her thinking too hard about what she'd just given me explicit permission to do.

I had to now go find Ninden and the rest of the boys, even with my magic I'd still need help for this.  Briefly I considered trying to get my mother to help with the building, since she could probably make what I needed in an hour or two, but I doubted she'd approve too much of my plan.  On my way to them I started coming up with my arguments, arranging each and every one, not that I thought that the first would fail.

The boys were fishing for now, hoping to get a little extra meat since a lot of the men were already going after honey to fill what stone vessels we did have.  They, and I knew that this meant we'd be a little light on that for the next little bit, and wanted to change it.

"Hey!"  I said excitedly as I approached them.  "I've got something I need help with back in the village if everyone will.  Elaya told me to try it if I wanted, and if it works it'll be great."  Sadly, the word 'cool' with the same meanings didn't exist, so I couldn't make the pun.

"Why should we?"  Rindal asked.  None of us really hated each other, but he certainly liked me a lot less than the others.

"It'll be good for everyone if it works, and if it doesn't we'll have a place to play at the village away from the adults or the girls," I said.

There were some things that transcended time, culture, and dimensions.  The love of boys for both digging, and secret bases was one of these things and all eyes were on me very quickly.  Details were demanded, and eyes set to sparkling.  Heck, the only thing I might have suggested that could have gone down better was if I'd suggested a secret tunnel, and I wasn't ruling out making one of those later.

"Okay, let's plan all this out, we'll need to start quick or they'll try to stop us..."