Chapter 48: A Date in History (3)

Kalender, Page, and Georgie were crowded around the barrel-turning lathe when Lord Shal-yen came in. He slowed his steps to confirm that he was, indeed, hearing an ancient machine whirring with life after over a century of disuse.

“What’s happening here?” he asked, coming closer. Everyone parted like the sea to give him the closest look of the device.

“Sir Kalender thinks the item in this room is supposed to be made,” Georgie replied. “This stool activates the station it is closest to. I’ve confirmed it, myself.”

“Interesting. Ah, this isn’t set up correctly.”

The lathe was turning, the pen barrel whirling around, but nothing was happening.

“We just wanted to see if it had any issues,” Kalender said.

“I know I said I know how it works, but like m’Lord said, it’s not set up properly, and I’m not sure why,” Georgie said.

“Gah, don’t worry about it, George.”

“It’s Georgie, m’Lord.”

Shal-yen ignored him and turned off the lathe. He set about finding the chuck key from who-knows-where and loosened a few things, tightening those, loosening some, moving those, and tightening them again.

He pulled out a thin drawer under the workbench that no one had noticed, saying, “Ah, there’s the design.” The brass barrel for the fountain pen was already in the lathe, so all he had to do was spin it up. With a thin brush pen, he made a few markings on the rotating barrel, effortlessly laying down a full circumference of thin ink just by poking at it for a second in each spot.

He smiled as he performed every practiced motion. He laid a veneer stencil at the base of the machine. As a traveling steel mount moved, via guide rail, over the length of the spinning barrel, its cutting head bit into the barrel and shaved away silken ribbons of brass. The side of a rod, extending below the traveling mount, would be pushed against the stencil, causing the cutting head to undulate in the same shape as the stencil, imparting the same shape upon the barrel as it was cut.

Kalender was amazed, but mostly, he wondered why there was a machine here. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Shal-yen lit up. “Of course! No one makes pens like this anymore. It’s all just boorish straight cylinders nowadays. They might not need the complexity of this machine, but don’t you agree that there’s quite the artisanship involved?”

Kalender smiled. “Can I ask about something?”

“Of course.”

“How’d you know to operate this thing?”

Shal-yen smiled. “Like I said, Jonas was my father. That makes Aunt Case, well, my aunt. I learned a lot from her as I grew up, what, 150 years ago?” He sighed. “I tried to keep the art alive. Well, if you can call deposing the local Lord who dared try to demolish this place ‘keeping it alive,’ I guess I succeeded?”

[+2 Excitement] “H-how?!” Page asked. She’d hopped a bit closer, but remained clinging to Kalender.

Shal-yen chuckled. “Come over to the castle and I’ll tell you all sometime. Kalender and Page Turner, correct? Don’t worry, I’m not too busy.”

I can go to a castle! “Yep!”

“Excellent.”

“Ah, would you mind if I invited a few others?” Kalender asked. He’d already gotten a good read on the type of person Shal-yen was, so chances were…

“As long as you’re not bringing the whole clan, I can accommodate.” He chuckled. “Ah, it’s done.”

He took his hand off the magic circle on top of the machine. Kalender wondered just how much MP it was consuming, or maybe, how much MP Shal-yen had. Did half-elves have a lot of MP or something?

Shal-yen moved to the engraving station in the center of the room. Finishing the engraving didn’t take too long. A little bit of delicate assembly later, and Shal-yen had a fountain pen in his hand. It had a classic torpedo shape, and the cap unscrewed to reveal the golden nib. Its body was still the same brass, uncoated, but polished to a mirror finish. The engravings were like rings on a finger, missing only rare gems to make it a true luxury. He handed it to Kalender.

“Take it.”

“Wait, are you sure? Isn’t that technically from your aunt’s?”

“Appraise it.”

“A-alright.”

***

Fountain Pen of Illusion
This fountain pen is a masterpiece of Penmaker Case, part of the Hero Jonas’s gift set. For 0.1 MP per minute per meter, write with magical ink of any color upon any medium. MP feed must be maintained or else ink will disperse.

Shal-yen, is that you, kiddo? This is for the people who discover Jonas’s little egg hunt, okay? I have something else for you, don’t you worry. —your Aunt Case

***

“She’s quite sweet,” Kalender said.

“She was nice to me, yes,” Shal-yen said with a reminiscent smile.

“She said she had something for you. Do you want help finding it?” It was the least he could do.

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“Oh, don’t worry about that. I have a good idea where it is.”

Kalender wiped the pen in his hand with a soft cloth. “I’ll take care of it. Ah, would you mind if I pick a case from the shelf?”

***

They searched the room for a while longer, but they couldn’t find anything else.

“I-I’ll let you explore the next room on your own,” Shal-yen said, bidding his leave with an “Amanda, a glass of cold water, please.”

Georgie suppressed a chuckle. Page asked him what that was about, but he just gestured them through the door. “It’s better shown than told.”

Upon entering, there were two beds on either side, with sheets stained in dried blood, and a rug in the middle, also very much browned. If anything, it was a well-preserved crime scene.

Kalender pointed at the beds with such indignation in his eyes and turned to Georgie. “Explain.”

“It’s a little bit of a story. Actually, I should’ve opened the whole tour with this, come to think of it…” Georgie clapped his hands together. “Anyway! Once upon a time, elves and men disliked each other. Hero Jonas was summoned in 313 MA. I’m not very good with doing math in my head, but I can do five minus three pretty well!” He laughed. “So, it’s been maybe two hundred years since then. If I remember correctly, he made his way here by 317 MA, when this place was still just a nameless village.”

Georgie looked left and right, as if looking for signs of the authorities. He leaned in.

“Actually, I asked around on my free time. Someone’s cousin’s great-grandfather said this place used to be called something like ‘Before-the-elven-gate’.”

Page spoke up. “That’s weird. 317, right? The Monster Wall wasn’t there until 402, I think… So there was some sort of checkpoint here even before the Monster Wall existed?”

Kalender was impressed with Page’s trivia knowledge—then remembered this girl was a Librarian. Of course she’d have read about it somewhere.

“Right?” Georgie said. “I tried asking the half-elves around here about it. All of them said they weren’t even born yet, so, oh well.”

Kalender raised his hand.

“Yes, young man?” Georgie said.

“Yeah, uh…” Kalender pointed at the crime scene. “…Why, again?”

Georgie clapped. "Oh, silly me! Well, we’re back to talking about Hero Jonas, at least. I have to talk about his harem real quick, okay?

“First one’s Sillena, his archer. Second one’s Kal-yen, his spear vanguard and, uh, m’Lord’s mother. As far as harems go, his core membership was on the absolute smallest side, and, well…”

He gestured towards the beds. “That’s their first time.”

All Kalender could think was Jesus Fathering Christ. There was an audible thud as Page’s back hit the wall. She’d backed up into it, her eyes wide, her hands covering her mouth—and her blush.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Georgie said. “I’m happy to report that it was all in mutual approval and healing spells do, in fact, work for these kinds of things.”

That’s not what I was thinking! Before anyone could turn those thoughts into words, Georgie continued to explain. "Now, it’s all fun and…fun, but you gotta know, the kingdom didn’t have the best relationship with the elves back then. The kingdom was a little more of a dangerous place, and things like slave raids happened all the time—and wars because of slave raids, too.

"So, picture yourself in the sandals of a fancy elf. You’re deep in human territory; there’s no help coming for you; the sun itself just won’t come out. Then, another human comes out of the blue, and starts killing off soldiers. Now, elves are smart, you see. They know how kingdoms and republics work better than I do. So, they see Hero Jonas do this, and they’re mentally shouting, ‘What are you doing rebelling against the throne!’ and you know what the Hero says?

“‘It’s not illegal if there are no witnesses.’”

This got a chuckle out of Kalender. Page didn’t get it—but the story has got to keep going! “T-then what?” she muttered.

Georgie continued. “That helped him get a lot of credibility with the elves. Now, I think we all know the debacle with the Harem Temple recently, right?”

They both nodded.

“Alright. Back in those days, everyone knew the Harem Temple’s honest work—perverted as all hell, but honest. Now, from what my buddy Viktor tells me—”

Oh, wow, he knows the guy?

"—the Harem System, or whatever it’s called, needs the prospective lady’s approval to work. Now, imagine seeing a ‘victim’ sign up willingly and happily with one of the same race as the raiders. It’s gonna kick up questions, doubts, hope—the works.

“And then they go here, fight off an entire company of Knights, fight off an entire company of Rangers, human-versus-human, elf-versus-elf, doing all their best to keep the two sides from clashing, and it’s got everyone on both sides confused!”

“A-and then?!” Page asked.

“All the forces of Lyrica, Artemia, and the clans of Deramin convened here to agree to a ceasefire, unable to wage proper war against each other because of Hero Jonas, his harem, and their allies.”

Georgie smiled, gesturing to the beds. “And then they fucked.”

Kalender groaned. Page crumpled down into a ball, rejecting the reality in front of her.

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