Volume 4: Dereliction of Duty
Chapter IX: Fun and Games
Taris was a surprisingly shy man for someone as physically attractive as he was- or could have been, anyway. There were certain charms to a young man who could appear reserved without being subservient, he stole a glance up at Sarah every now and then as they flipped through his portfolio. The half-page designs he'd sketched out were crude, but the concepts were fairly interesting and probably the only reason his father had allowed him any amount of space in his mill in the first place.
The boy's massive dog, Chac kept a lazy eye on her from his bed in the corner for any sign she might hurt either one of them as Sarah flipped through the portfolio. She was only half paying attention, really, musing about how she might be able to get her paperwork from under the floorboards without drawing too much attention to herself. There were barely any tools and even fewer resources that weren't scrap from some caravan or building project, hardly anything suitable for real creativity to take place. And yet something itched at the back of her mind; not a Compulsion like she might've expected from her patron, but a
knowing
that there was something here. Something she wasn't seeing.
That made it all the more irritating. It gnawed at her. A problem that she could solve for the sheer pleasure of spiting the odds and even her own doubt. But which problem was it? Her lack of travel papers or simply
getting
to them?
Sarah stopped at a sketch of a wheel attached to a multi-pronged fan. The wheel attached to the fan by way of wooden peg gearing, down a long shaft to a system of reductions that turned the wheel below. The notes were all over the place about it's length and rate of turn, but underneath it in sloppy block lettering the word 'Solar Mill' had been penned. Sarah glanced at the boy and slipped the paper out of its holder, setting it to the side and continuing on.
She wasn't going to tell him wind mills had been around for decades, but she could at least point him in the right place- and seeing the spark of warmth and hope in his eyes, affirmation of his ideas. How could she crush that?
There were a few more unremarkable and uninteresting concepts littering the rest of the book, most of them takeoffs on existing farm implements with only minor improvements, including a strangely angled axe head which seemed to be designed to make splitting wood easier. Boring, but promising. But before she could close it, she came across a strange design indeed. A slanted table with a puck that slid down between wooden pegs hitting little latches along the way to represent a score, by the time it hit the bottom of the table, a port in the bottom opened up allowing the puck to land in what would be the final score.
"Well now, what's this? Do I detect you've been holding out on me?" She glanced at him with a smile, "Come now, don't look so shy, among a plethora of interesting and potentially quiet viable farming arts, we've a proverbial needle in a haystack- a diamond in a coal mine, if you will! How did you see this one working out?"
"Uh- well. . . .I think this was going to be a game of some kind for kids? I- the farm things were meant to be for sale from the mill and- well, the game stuff is just a hobby." Taris glanced away. "Just a hobby."
Sarah flipped the design over a few times in her fingers- it was perfectly viable, maybe a little simplistic, but there was a lot of great things built on simplicity. Entire kingdoms had been established on less. . . "So am I to believe that in all the infinite stars, the one that shines the brightest is the one you deny the most?" She tisked playfully. "Good man, you've a gem here."
His eyes lit up as he looked to her, a flicker of awe on his teenage features. Sarah couldn't help but smile at that. But just as quickly it came crashing down when Taris looked away and exhaled through his nose. "My father wouldn't approve, though. Part of the condition for letting me use the millhouse is that I work on things that help the village, things he can sell. I can't sell this. . . .who'd want to buy something that only gets used once?"
After a split second pause, Sarah took the design and ran her finger down it. She simulated the puck hitting the pegs at random before dropping down into the score chute. "So why not add an element of interactivity to it? Move the pegs, allow the puck and score to be reset? For viability. . ." She looked around taking quick stock of the materials they had on hand. "After a prototype, how many do you think you could produce with what you have on hand?"
Taris stared at the redheaded half-elf, probably trying to figure out whether or not she was serious. With a quick motion of encouragement, Sarah prodded him on. "Uh, m- I don't know? Maybe two?"
"As much as I enjoy spending time in the company of two of anything at the same time, I don't think that's going to be enough to really populate the village, do you?"
"W- No." He glanced away. "I can't buy anything else, either, my father controls the coin."
Sarah leaned forward, clasping her hands together between them. She watched him over the rim of her glasses, considering for a moment how long it might take her to get through the floor with the tools he had on hand. She'd need a little bit, and she'd still need to get rid of him and the dog while she did. "Farming tools are very individual, good man, but this is unique and I'm willing to bet you could see a sizable market for it-"
"See?! That's what I said! But -. . . .um. My father disagrees. It's all 'mills and crops' with him." Taris plumped his cheek out with his tongue. "But the farmers here aren't rich, it would have to be inexpensive to buy."
"Quite right! But like anything worth doing, getting it right the first time isn't as important becoming good at it through iteration. Then we can worry about cost." She flashed a winning smile. "Why don't we see what we need for this and work something out?"
That seemed to catch him by surprise. "R- Right now? But it's high moon."
