Don’t Take Life Too Seriously; Hougen get it done

Linglang had me run ragged. He wasn’t joking about the sleep; I don’t think I got over two consecutive hours, and only when I hid myself under his bed—yes, he slept in the lab. Despite the draconian work schedule, I did manage to slip out for short durations—to relieve myself, for instance. The mirror also pressed on my mind. A lot had gone down since I last peeked at the arcane tablet. Halls, not since before the trip to Leits, seemed like ages ago.

[Mirror Intel]

[1-3-4-101,255]

The mission has failed. Not sure of the details; all operatives were killed. Report status.

[1-3-4-101,255]

Sistilla was wounded, but survived. A saint was summoned to heal it. It appears the yutsuukitsuu, Olavir, has played an important role in thwarting the assassination. The entire place is on high alert. Brogan has implicated the Toualas in the plot against Sistilla and has declared a spy in their midst. Requesting extraction.

[2-3-4-101,255]

Negative. Extraction would arouse suspicion. Keep a low profile and minimize all clandestine activities. Go silent if necessary. Also, a bounty has been put on Brogan’s head, 100,000 vols. No pressure, but aside from the payout, with him gone, extraction could probably be arranged.

[End]

Well, it seems like they were scrambling to keep everything together. Hopefully, that would mean I wouldn’t have to look forward to any additional plots on Sistilla’s life. Although the knives might be out for Brogan. I can say for sure, but I wouldn’t be sending any aid his way. I wondered what he did to earn such ire.

With the party just days away, the hustle continued. We had completed all innovations, and only the installation remained. Though for some projects, this was by far the hardest part.

The vocal captions for the buffet table truly were the most tedious. Figuring out how to make all the sounds that compose a single consonant is something that will haunt my nightmares for years to come. I nearly slapped the shit out of Linglang a few times after he asked me to construct another phoneme.

On the other side of the spectrum, the simplest innovation compensated for its mental ease with its labor intensiveness. I mean, ripping out stairs and dragging in heavy equipment is usually a job for burly men with thick beards and a drinking problem. A diminutive creature with no renown for strength of arm had no place doing such heavy lifting. And no noble would stoop so low as to have normal stairs. No, it’s either go big or go home, and these steps were hulking behemoths of dense, polished hardwood carved in ornate detail, sure to throw the back out of even the most stocky of power lifters. Luckily, Linglang had some engrave tech that acted like power equipment, and he could scrawl traditional sigilry with the best of them; otherwise, Conroy might as well have asked us to part the Red Sea. The new stairway looked much the same as the old stairs, only they moved. In the end, we didn’t split the staircase—it would have been too dangerous. Instead, we went with Linlang’s initial idea of sensing where people needed to go, and, if two people came in opposite directions, the stairs would just stop moving, unless there were multiple stairways, such as in the main foyer—those only went one way.

Temperature control was a happy medium between the two. We were not pioneering new technology; it already existed for the affluent. The innovative difficulty came from coordinating all the temperatures to a central location and maintaining a set temperature. The physical difficulty came from the sheer number of rooms needing equipment installed; I felt like an HVAC serviceman hauling in equipment to far-flung rooms and installing the heating and cooling engravings into inconspicuous places. Though the labor involved in this project couldn’t compare to the moving stairs, between the two, I hadn’t been so sore since my bootcamp days with Moonlight Guardian.

These two innovations, along with the “disco ball” lighting, involved no technological breakthroughs, but they did serve the purpose of demonstrating just how versatile existing technology could be, which seemed to be Conroy’s chief concern.

With all that completed, only installing the restroom music and completing the holographs remained. The Mario soundtrack was already complete, and sticking a music box in a restroom took but moments. However, Linglang was having some real difficulty with getting the holographic shapes to transform. Moving the shapes was easy, at least relatively, but if you wanted a smooth shift from one form to another, and not just an immediate replacement of one shape for another, now that took some real patience.

A loud pop stiffened my tail. “By Driskal’s hand! That should have worked!”

Linglang raged as he fanned away the smoke from his latest failure. He had dragged in a powered fan for it at this point.

“Maybe just moving shapes will be good enough. You could still do some interesting animations,” I suggested, yet again.

“Don’t speak such nonsense! I promised transforming shapes, and by Nelithandar, I intend to do it!” he declared, invoking the name of the god of knowledge for the seventh time today.

I sighed and handed him the plate with the preliminary engraving already inscribed. At least I was getting good practice in; I don’t think I will ever forget those sigils. He went straight to work, adding runes and making adjustments to the apparatus in which it would rest, after removing the previously fried plate.

I grabbed another plate of blank, soft metal. “Guess I will just start on the next one...”

For those of you interested, the device comprised several engraved plates that each modified the base hologram. One created the initial shape, another manipulated the color, and another made it move. Thankfully, only the transformation engraving got fried each time; otherwise, just one test would take an entire day. Which was good, as we had less than 24 hours before the first guest would arrive. Though as things stood, if Linglang refused to abandon his transformation obsession, we wouldn’t have any holography to show.

___________________________________________

Yogi wiped his brow after a long day of hauling lumber from the surrounding forest in the blazing sun. Lately, there had been an increased demand for the felled trees, and he wondered what projects the humans had planned. The humans were always building stuff. But those thoughts slipped his mind and drifted into thoughts of an evening in study, as he made his way through the village to the hougen area.

His good friend Olavir had given him a book not too long ago, and it had become an endless source of reading practice. So many words! He felt he would never run out. And Yogi had worked out the perfect system to get the most out of his practice. He would first figure out each word, and once he had reached the end of a sen—tence, that’s what Olavir had called it, he would go back and try to figure out what it meant. Recalling all the words and their meanings really pushed him to the limit, but nothing matched the satisfaction of finally understanding. When he ran into words or a sen—tance that he couldn’t understand, he would write it down to ask his friend when he next saw him. Quite the scho—lar—ly method if he did say so himself; that too was another word he learned from Olavir.

With only light cloud cover this time of year, the heat pressed down and made everything heavier. So it didn’t strike him as unusual when he saw several of his fellow hougen dragging about lethargically. However, when he saw 31, carrying a stack of freshly cut boards with his face turned down, stop and let out a low moan, Yogi knew something was wrong.

“31, why are you sad?” Yogi said.

“Oh... Haven’t you heard about the hougen fields?”

“No, I haven’t heard about the hougen fields,” Yogi said, now interested.

31’s shoulders slouched. “They are building houses there.”

Yogi rubbed his jaw. “Building houses? But those fields are for hougen.”

“Not anymore. The humans said they are theirs.”

Not true; there was a sign. Well, he would just go and set things straight.

As he made his way to the area, he saw that every hougen he passed had that same dour bearing: either scraping their feet, dragging their knuckles, or both. When he arrived, he found hougen delivering supplies or digging holes while humans sawed boards. The boss man, Jick, stood off to the side, yelling at someone, as he often did. Just the man he needed.

“Hey...” Yogi called out.

Jick whipped his head around, unused to being interrupted mid-reprimand. “54? Why are you bothering me? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“This area is for hougen,” Yogi said, missing the subtext.

“What?” Jick said, pinching his face. “This is just land we haven’t developed yet. Hougen have that space over there.” He pointed off to where the Hougen dwelling resided.

“No... This is the ‘Hougen recreation area,’” he said with confidence. “There is a sign.”

He scratched his neck. “Oh yeah? Since when can hougen read?”

“Oh...? Since they learned...” Yogi said, confused.

“Get out of here, 54!” he ordered with a flick of his hand. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

“But I do know what I’m talking about. I will show you.”

With the ruckus, several hougen had turned their attention to the argument. Yogi, taking note, invited everyone to follow him as he cleared up this confusion. All the hougen took him up on his offer, as did several of the humans with shifting eyes. Jick, though clearly reluctant, had no choice but to accompany.

“Here, this is the sign,” Yogi said, pointing to the rickety planks nailed to a weathered pole composing the sign.

Running his finger along each word, he dictated what the sign said. “Hougen... Recreation... Area...”

He paused, confused; there was more to the sign.

“See? You can’t read!” Jick spoke up. “It says, ‘Hougen recreation area UNTIL 1/1/5/101255!’ So get back to work!”

Many of the hougen groaned as they prepared to get back to work. Yogi, however, continued to stare at the sign.

“The sign has been changed,” Yogi declared, causing everyone to return their attention. “These numbers were not here before.”

He had no notion what the numbers meant, but, as a scholar, he surmised they must refer to a time, and, supposedly, that time had passed. Also, the paint on this addition looked unweathered, whereas the original words had faded with age. A clear indicator that they were recently added.

“What are you talking about?” Jick snarled. “The sign says ‘until 1/1/5/101255.’ Who are you to say otherwise?”

“I have the original writing, back in my house,” he said, holding his head high. “I will go and get it.”

The joy he got from learning his words paled in comparison to how he felt as he rushed back to his abode, actually able to apply what he had learned to solve a problem. Solving problems: the life of a scholar.

He returned shortly and presented the sign. The hougen had waited for him, as did several of the humans, including Jick.

“See? Hougen... Recreation... Area.” He pointed out each word as he read.

“Pssh! What is this?” Jick scoffed, slapping the plank Yogi held aloft.

“What the sign said before the new words were added,” he replied. “I copied it as practice a while ago.”

“What nonsense, you just wrote that,” Jick dismissed, crossing his arms and looking away.

“No, I can’t write that fast, and I need to see the sign to copy it.”

The hougen nodded. Yogi held his copy up next to the posted sign.

“Come, I’ll show you the differences.”

The hougen all huddled around and looked at the two signs. Though not inclined for intellectual pursuits, considering this matter profoundly affected them, they racked their brains to process what Yogi showed them. After a long while, with Jick becoming more agitated, one of the hougen spoke.

“The first part looks the same, but the sign has more markings.”

“The first part says, ‘Hougan... Recreation... Area,’” Yogi commented. “The added part says ‘Until... one, diagonal line, one, diagonal line, five, diagonal line, one, zero, one, two, five, five.’”

“What does it mean?” asked another hougen.

“It seems to say that the land is only hougen’s until a certain time,” he explained. “But that was not part of the original words. So there is no reason it should be taken.”

They all bounced up and down on their knuckles, a fervent display of agreement.

“This is all nonsense!” Jick exclaimed. “He can barely read and can’t be trusted to accurately copy anything. Who’s to say he did just copy the first part before giving up?”

For the first time today, Yogi turned an offended glare at the grouchy human. He would never give up halfway through, and he certainly wouldn’t misrepresent his scholarly work. However, before he could protest, others spoke out.

“Yogi is smart,” one said.

“Yogi always figures things out,” came another.

“The hougen rec... hougen area is ours!”

“Yogi?” Jick said, understandably confused, as the hougen had started calling 54 Yogi after he had become enamored with the name given by Olavir. “Whatever! Enough of this nonsense! Back to work!”

He pointed back to the hougen recreation area. The hougen shifted, looking back and forth between each other.

“…What do you want us to do?”

Jick face-palmed. “What you were doing before you all decided to waste time with this diversion!”

“This is the hougen area. It’s not for buildings.”

“Okay, you know what? It doesn’t matter what that sign says. You are all property of House Uvald, and they have put me in charge,” he said, pointing a fervent finger at himself with no trace of good humor. “So when I tell you to do something, you all need to know your place and obey!”

Several of the Hougen marched up to Jick and stood tall, letting the full expanse of their frame tower over him. “It is hougen area. Humans cannot take what is not theirs. Humans need to know their place.”

The one reached out a finger thicker than Jick’s wrist and poked him in the chest. The color drained from his face.

“W-Well...” Jick said, taking a few steps back. “I uhh... guess we will... leave it at that... for now.”

He shuffled away to his compatriots, who had long since retreated once the hougen had become agitated. Humans always tried to keep hougen from getting upset, something about “nothing soiling your pants faster than a hoard of angry hougen,” or so he had heard.

At any rate, Today, his scholarship had proven useful, and he basked in the glory of his success. His fellows chest-bumped and forearm-checked as they gave their praise for protecting the commons. With the euphoria going around, there would almost certainly be quite the make noise tonight.