Chapter 20: The Digging of the Well

“Are you absolutely sure you know what you’re doing?” Old Man Jine asked from thirty feet away.

“Absolutely! Now stop disturbing me!” Aina yelled out from the open door before closing it tight.

I should reallyy install a comm system soon. This is getting annoying.

She was currently in her mecha, bent over above an old dry well. She had one of her mech’s arms fitted with a drill recovered from the Gurn striders, positioned right at the mouth of the dry well. The hulking machine creaked slightly as she adjusted the angle, sunlight glinting off its patched armor. Surrounding her were the other villagers who became interested when she told them she was going to dig up one of the dry wells with her strider.

Most didn’t believe her. After all, the well she chose was infamous as the very first well to run dry, leaving only stubborn hard rock at the bottom. For years, people avoided it, muttering that it was useless. Nobody ever tried to dig further, not when they already had other shallow wells to work with. To them, her attempt was like trying to wake the dead.

Despite their scepticism, they had seen that same drill tear through enemy armor like it was paper. They had seen the power of that drill in battle and thought that maybe it could work. Perhaps it could pierce rock as well. They still didn’t put much hope in it, but in a village starved for water, even faint hope was worth watching. If it worked, great, they would have water. If it didn’t work… well it’s not like life would get any worse.

Of course, Aina’s choice wasn’t based on any geological reasoning. She was a robotics engineer in her past life, not a geologist. She hadn’t studied water veins or rock layers. Her logic was painfully simple, that was, this was the well closest to her house. If water was found, excellent. If it didn’t, she would just dig deeper.

And so the drilling work began halfway between dawn and noon. Aina was cautious, moving at a snail’s pace. She wanted to feel the rhythm of the drill, sense the strain of the wooden shaft she had cobbled together. The front bit was a scavenged Gurn technology. But the long shaft was nothing more than big, dry logs reinforced and tied together with rope. If she rushed and the shaft snapped, she would lose the entire drill head deep in the pit.

By noon, she had only managed to dig about a foot into the hard rock. The villagers had already dispersed, having already left for their fields. Only a handful of boys lingered around with wide eyes, simply excited to see such a huge machine in operation. Even her two eldest sons had grown bored and left to find something productive to do. But Tallo, ever curious and inquisitive, remained fixed on the sight of the towering machine grinding slowly against stone.

When she finally pushed five feet deeper, progress stopped. Fine gravel clogged the hole, preventing the drill from biting further. Aina cursed under her breath and retracted the drill. Without hesitation, she tried to climb down herself to scoop out the debris.

That was when Varn appeared, just in time to see her already partially inside the well.

“Mother, DON’T!” he shouted.

Aina froze with one foot dangling in the well. Varn dropped his basket of wild vegetables and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He barked at Tallo to fetch their older brother, then pulled his mother back with a mix of panic and anger.

“Mother, how many times do we have to tell you not to kill yourself?!” he demanded, voice cracking.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” Aina said stubbornly.

“That was exactly what I saw.”

“But I didn’t-”

“Even if it’s hard, you shouldn’t give up!”

“I wasn’t-”

“Mother! Why do you do this again?” Irek cried as he came running.

“No, I wasn’t…”

“Mother, please tell us if you have any grievances. We’ll take care of it,” Rhielle said softly, gripping Aina’s hands.

“Exactly! You don’t need to kill yourself just because you couldn’t find water,” Irek added, hugging her tightly from behind.

Aina bit her lower lip, feeling utterly wronged.

Two days later, the atmosphere changed drastically.

“Water!” One of the boys shouted before the others echoed it.

“We have water!”

“So much water!”

Old Man Jine and his wife, Madam Yuu, shuffled as fast as they could when they heard the boys shouting. Being old and dependent on their canes, they couldn’t walk very fast. By the time they arrived at the well, many other villagers had already crowded around the well.

Inside the mecha, Aina smirked in satisfaction. She had spent the past few days digging into the well slowly. Her sons and some of the village boys had helped jump into the well to remove the gravel and sand from drilling, allowing her to dig deeper and deeper. Until finally, just as she broke eleven feet deeper, a rock cracked. A gush of water followed. She hadn’t even noticed it until one of the boys cried out that he heard the sound of rushing liquid.

Now a man climbed down with a pole, measuring depth. When he climbed back up, he was grinning. “Four feet!” he shouted, drawing cheers from the villagers.

Four feet of water in such a big well was much more water than the amount they have been able to work with using the last well. They have had to share a few inches of water for weeks, even forced to climb to the bottom to scoop out the water by small cups.

Now that they have so much water, it was possible to water their farms. It was too late for their grain, but they could plant vegetables in the field for short-term harvest and replant their grain for the next harvest. They heard Rinia Virell’s deal with the soldier about sending food to them every month, but they didn’t put much thought into it. After all, it was a deal between Rinia and the soldier. Knowing Rinia, she would just say, “My food is mine, don’t expect to get any.”

Recalling how Rinia Virell was, the villagers stopped celebrating at almost the same time. The cheers slowly quieted. From past experiences, they had already expected Rinia to say, “This is mine, why are you celebrating as if you can get any?”

As if reaching a silent consensus, everyone looked at Old Man Jine, the one man that Rinia was at least respectful to.

Old Man Jine staggered from the weight of everyone’s expectations. He felt everyone did him a great injustice. In his heart he argued, “When was she ever respectful to me?”

Yet, as the oldest person in the village, and one the villagers considered the new chief, it fell on him to ask the important question.

“Rinia dear, can you come down? I can’t keep looking up. My spine hurts.”

Aina climbed out of the cockpit. The crowd parted slightly, watching her with a strange mixture of hope and resignation. She was amused to see hopeful, expectant eyes among the villagers. But strangely, those eyes were accompanied with slumped shoulders and an atmosphere of something like they have given up.

She wondered what it was about.

“Rinia dear,” Old Man Jine hesitated, fumbling for the right words that wouldn’t trigger Rinia’s selfishness.

Tired of waiting for Old Man Jine to say the words, his wife simply said, “Dear, you will share the well with everyone in the village, right?”

Aina looked at Madam Yuu with a curious gaze, wondering what she meant. As Aina’s gaze focused on Madam Yuu’s face, Madam Yuu and Old Man Jine sweated under their clothes. When Aina finally gave an answer, the whole village realized that they had been holding their breaths.

“Of course I would, why do you ask?” Aina answered.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Old Man Jine asked, “You won’t ask us to sign a slave contract to get water, right?”

Aina turned her gaze towards Old Man Jine, narrowing her eyes, she said, “Of course not, what kind of monster do you think I am? The village boys and girls helped carry out the debris from the drilling, so of course they should share the well.”

Relief broke into laughter and cheers. This time, the celebration rang louder, unburdened by fear.

For today, life in Wyrmrest Hollow had become significantly better.