Ch 3.13: Chaperone


    <span style="font-weight:400">Engineering was surprisingly normal, given the circumstances.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Sylvas was wandering around the outdoor workshop as students worked away on their various projects. ina herself was upied with testing different types of ropes she’d made, some by hand-weaving, some by machine-weaving, and some still made with her [Restraint].


    <span style="font-weight:400">Sylvas hade up with a decent method for testing as far as she could tell, a machine that was apparently for mping metal while forging could easily be used to test the rtive strengths of her ropes if she cranked it the opposite way that it normally worked, pulling at the ropes she tied to it instead of pushing metal in. It took quite a lot of cranking to break the rope that she’d made with her aspect, but she was having a different type of trouble when it came to the other ropes.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Fuck!” she said as her machine-woven rope untied again, the mp shooting open as the handle she was turning started moving freely and causing her to nearly fall over.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Lass!” she heard Sylvar shout from across the way.


    <span style="font-weight:400">ina winced for a second, instinctually thinking she was about to be reprimanded for cursing, but that went away. Other students often cursed in this ss, and Sylvas didn’t seem to mind, but being shouted out still wasn’t fun anyway.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes, Professor!” she said, standing up straight as he hobbled over.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Sylvas, not ‘Professor’ I told you. But nevermind that. It’s the third time that happened, yes?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">ina blushed as she lifted up the end of rope that hade undone. “Yes, it is.” The rope itself was actually holding up quite nicely, but no matter how tight she tied it the damned thing just wouldn’t stay on the mp, and she had no idea what the rtive strength was since it kepting undone far before the one she’d made with her aspect had snapped. “I’ll try to tie it tighter, with my aspect this time instead of just my hands.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Sylvas sighed, tsking as he shook his head. “And why do you think tying the knot tighter is the solution?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Uhm…” ina hadn’t really thought about it. She knew that it hadn’t been a problem when she’d tied the first rope with her aspect as she made it though, so it only seemed logical. “It worked with the other one, I guess.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Aye, but is that because it was tighter, or was it because you were cheating with your aspect again, like with the bear traps?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Cheating?” ina wouldn’t have used that word to describe what she did with the bear traps before Sylvas had came along and taught her more about the physics behind them, but she knew what he meant. She’d been ignoring how bear traps actually worked, relying on her mana to manually move them instead of thews of nature to do the work for her. But rope was different, right? “I just tie them, and—”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“With what type of knot? Where is the tie, on the anchor point or further down the rope? How many loops, are they under or over?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">ina blinked. She didn’t really know how else to answer the question other than, “I have no idea,” and that didn’t seem like a good answer to give.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Here,” Sylvas said after realizing he wouldn’t get an answer out of her, taking the rope and untying it before wrapping it around each side of the mp, looping it around multiple times on each end and finally producing a pair of knots that looked more like links of chains than simple ties. “You’re still relying on your aspect to hold ropes together when you tie them, which is why I have you out here doing this in the first ce. Go ahead, test it now.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">ina did as she was told, cranking back on the machine. She got more rotations in than she had when she’d been tying easily, easing up as she approached the point where her aspect-made rope had broken, easily moving past that and starting to struggle even more as she pushed on the handle, each rotation taking more and more force until the thread of the rope started toe apart, finally snapping just as she was about to call it on the test, another loud ng happening as the machine lurched, but at least she wasn’t taken aback by the rope untying suddenly.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It was… so much stronger,” she said, looking at the frayed break in the rope.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Aye. It was the machined one?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">ina nodded.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re good with your hands, with weaving, but machines make things tougher and with more precision than our hands ever could. Your idea of a rope is one that you can make without tools, but you need to open your mind more. And the only way to do that is to make rope, over and over, using the machines.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">ina looked at the other rope on the table with a bit of sadness, the untested one she had handmade. It was neat, far neater than most people’s would be, but she could tell it wasn’t as perfectly made as the one she’d just tested, even though it was her first time making one with that method. Still, Sylvas was right. If she could put the process of making stronger rope into her mind, it would be easier to make rope with [Restraint] too.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What about the knot though?” ina said. “


    <span style="font-weight:400">Sylvas tsked at her again. “The blue book I gave you on your first day, the small one, <i><span style="font-weight:400">All About Nautical Knots</i><span style="font-weight:400">. Clearly you haven’t read it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">ina struggled not to frown at that. He’d given her a mountain of books; of course she hadn’t read them all. He’d also told her that he much preferred learning by hand than instead of books, but she wasn’t going to argue with him since it was only the second time he’d asked her to read something.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Don’t focus on that now though,” he eventually said, turning around and looking across the rest of the workshop. “You’ll have plenty of time to practice tying knots on your trip up north.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, you know,” ina said, looking away.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Aye. I’m actually one of the chaperones.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Chaperones?” It was ina’s first time hearing about that.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Of course. You lot are still students, after all.” Sylvas nced around them, and it seemed he was more looking for eavesdroppers than examining the students’ work.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m going to try and keep you away from patrols as much as I can,” he continued with hushed words. “I honestly can’t believe they’re asking this of you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Right…” ina tried to take sce in those words, but it was hard. She still didn’t even want to think about it, still hadn’t told Temmie, still hadn’t figured out what to <i><span style="font-weight:400">do </i><span style="font-weight:400">with Temmie.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’ll be fine though,” Sylvas said with a p on her shoulder, a difficult feat for him to manage with his shortness, but that actually made it feel a little moreforting. “The professors heading up are in agreement, we keep you kids out of stuff as much as we can, with first-years being priority. It’ll be hard keeping the second and third-years off patrols though.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Third-years?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Sylvas nodded again, this time not seeming to catch on to her confusion. “The Health girl will be easy to keep off the streets, and I can use you for help maintaining their fortifications and whatnot, but the rest of the students are mostly trained in battle and leadership, so they’ll be out the most.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Got it,” ina said, still trying to piece everything together. If there were third-yearsing, that meant they weren’t the only team being sent off. That was both a littleforting and unnerving at the same time.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“But that’s three weeks away,” Sylvas said, limping off towards the forges just as a giant fire erupted over there. “Test thatst rope, then focus on making rope just as strong with your aspect. We’ll worry about Kaldishter.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">If ina could’ve stopped worrying about it, she would have.