1.3??????Making a Splash
1.3.2????An Allotropic Realignment
1.3.2.31 People like you are rarer than talking pigs
Nicolo's body language was relaxed rather than aggrieved, and she realised he didn’t have a vision of life being different or that it ought to be different. He was just stating what he saw, in the same way he might describe the sky as blue, or the seas as containing dangers. Why waste time thinking about whether society is fair and if it can be changed, when the time could be used instead on something more likely to affect your own short term safety and survival?
High level guild members did have time they could spare to think about such things, since their safety and survival were already comfortably secured by decades of work at wage levels the guilds defended as though their status depended upon it. But how would the high master crafters use that spare time? Just watching football matches?
The guilds were holding their quarterly meeting on Droday wain and Captain Nafaro, Kafana’s magic trainer and one of the six most powerful mages in Torello, had persuaded them (through not terribly discrete threats of magical electrocution) to add onto the agenda a discussion about waiving testing fees for apprenticeship candidates. But was that enough? There was no guarantee they’d agree to it, or even debate it seriously. She checked Droday on her user interface. Two day’s time, in game, which in arlife time meant it would all be over before her next login - anything she was going to do affecting it had to be done today.
Kafana: “Nicolo, imagine for a moment. What if you could change the way things worked? Is the existence of guilds a good thing, or would life be better if there weren’t organisations exerting so much control over who could practice a particular craft, or how far they could improve their skills? What if anyone who wanted to could just pick up a book that contained all the secrets reserved by guilds for members they approve of?”
Nicolo: “What’s in it for them? The bunch who’re working with Columbina, testing foreign flavours for the Pantalone bash or dressing in pretty insect clothes for Lady Farfalla’s event - they’re also picking up useful skills from her, that might let them assist Bettina cook stews for the orphanage, or even become cooks themselves one day. But Columbina gets something too - free helping hands and what she calls ‘Winsome Chic’, that sells her gelato and puts silver in her pockets. If a master doesn’t gain anything from revealing the details needed to duplicate her new gelato recipe or crafting technique, why would she teach it?”
Kafana: “So you think a book like that would cause harm? Would reduce the incentives for investing time and money in developing new techniques?”
Nicolo: “I dunno. Sorry, I don’t know. I mean, books are important, right? Domezio visits the orphanage on Morday, Krevday and Racday, but that isn’t enough time to teach a hundred kids how to read and write, let alone count up coins and everything else. So we mostly end up teaching each other, with an older kid writing on a slate and a younger one copying it. But we’re not scribes with a Perfect Copy skill. Even the best of us makes mistakes. And when we do, that gets passed on. We’re like a ship in unfamiliar waters without a compass. The sailors try to sail straight, but without a chart they’ve no way to tell how far they’ve drifted off course.”
The speed at which Nicolo grasped new ideas and thought about implications still amazed her. Was this what Flavio was like when he was eight? What Wellington was like? She hadn’t spent much time with children as an adult, but there had to be more to this than just stat points in INT. Maybe some factors were hidden, like the ‘Luck’ stat Bungo had mentioned?
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Kafana: “You’re saying books and teachers for students are like charts for sailors? Without them you have no good way to measure your progress and what you’re getting wrong?”
Nicolo: “Yeah, yeah. A book with everything sounds great. But you also need teachers and standards. Sciocco got drunk once, and met a traveller who boasted about being a great builder. Hired him on the spot to build a shed, and at half the price a guild approved journeyman carpenter would charge.”
Kafana: “What happened?”
Nicolo: “A week later the shed collapsed, killing Sciocco’s pig. We got some of it as bacon.”
She looked over at Bulgaria, where he was laying out black and green olives upon a cloak, enthralling the Phantoms team as he explained different defensive strategies, and then had the captain move the olives around himself to demonstrate he understood the difference between each defender marking a particular opponent, and marking a zone.
Kafana: “Surely not all teachers are selfish? What about those who love their subject, and genuinely care about their students reaching their potential?”
She thought about Alderney, and her attitude towards crafting new things as gifts.
Kafana: “What about people who’d try to explore the world and discover new things, even if they had to pay, with no personal reward except the fun of doing it? The ones who’d have to be gagged to prevent them sharing new techniques, even anonymously with just them knowing who did the helping, because it would make the world a better place?”
Nicolo raised one hand, and counted off two fingers.
Nicolo: “There’s Vittoria. I’ve seen her help others even when it cost her more than she gained from it. And there’s you, and the only reason I can believe you’re possible is because I’ve seen inside your mind. Two. Out of how many? And you’re both priestesses. You can’t build a system based on that. You need guilds, or something like them, if you don’t want half your buildings falling over. You need the crafters to gain something by supporting it, by sticking to guild rules and shunning those who don’t. If the guilds don’t profit, Torello won’t profit. Orphans don’t get much, but we’d get even less if the city and its farms were destroyed by pirates and bandits, because the council couldn’t afford to pay the navy and the patrols.”
It wasn’t just orphanages that passed down teaching and assumptions - societies did it too. No matter how bright Nicolo was, he’d never seen arlife, he’d never lived in a society that didn’t have a strong guild system. The gap appeared unbridgeable. The only alternatives that felt real to him were anarchy on one side, or control by strong groups on the other side. He didn’t have the wide experience and uncensored education that had enabled Cardano to see beyond that limited choice, that had freed Cardano to dream larger dreams. Nicolo was, in a way, a prisoner inside his own mind, chained there not with steel but something less tangible than fog and harder to break than Gleipnir: ignorance.
Not deliberate ignorance on his part, but knowledge that had been withheld from him. Knowledge that he didn’t even realise that he lacked or needed. Knowledge he deserved, that was instead being hoarded in the libraries of nobles and on the private shelves of guild masters. Knowledge stored in the sort of expensive books that rarely found their way into Basso, especially since nobles were no longer frequent visitors to the races held at the Stadia, that used to lure them and their ready spending money into Basso.
She felt a resolve starting to solidify in her mind, but it didn't feel quite ripe yet. Rather than try to force it out, Kafana asked about something else that had caught her attention.
Norse mythology, Gleipnir is the third iron rope created by the Norse gods to bind the demon wolf Fenrir. The Gods had attempted to bind Fenrir twice before with huge chains of metal, the iron chains of Leyding and Dromi, which Fenrir had torn apart. Therefore, they commissioned to forge a chain that was impossible to break. After the gods failed to bind the demon wolf twice in a row, they asked 's messenger to find the strongest ropes made by the dwarves. The materials of the chains are:
- The of a 's footfall
- The of
- The of
- The of the
- The of the
- The of the
silken , it is stronger than any . It was forged by the dwarves in their underground realm of .