Divided Attention

Chapter 10: Village Wonders

The village was actually a lot cooler than I had imagined.

In each one of the huts was a different sort of pots and pans, a table, an oven and an open fire pit in front of it. How they didn't step or accidentally fall into the fire, I didn't know. Though they had wooden roofs, they were surprisingly sturdy and didn't seem to ever catch fire from the hot chimneys. Otherwise, the huts were completely made of mud that was highly durable. Synila said that they had been there for so long that not even she knew. They had gone through a lot of storms and violent weather.

All around the camp were hunters working on getting meat from animals that they had caught. I saw a couple winged boars, which I thought that they must had been the native creatures to these fields, some sort of the weird bird/reptile things that I saw in the Venom Plains, and some very very large fish. Some of them were being sunned out, and the others were currently being worked on.

The ladies that were all around the village, which I found out was Lyl Village, all had on beautiful dresses. Each one was professionally embroidered with lace and string that blew in the wind. Some of them had over-sized sleeves that swayed around, and others had on short sleeved, practical yet beautiful dresses that would be easy to work in. There were also very strange machines that they sat in front of and weaved. They would move back and forth slowly, turning strands of plants that were different colors into cloth. Once they were finished, the ladies would take the cloth off of the machine and start working with other cloths, presumably to make more dresses and clothes.

"What are those?" I asked Synila.

"Weavers, just to an advanced degree," she said plainly.

"Advanced weavers?"

She nodded. "They run on a form of magic in the woman's body that she draws from within, giving the machine life and helping it make the cloth. The more you focus your inner magic, the stronger and more beautiful your fabric will be."

"Magic? I've never seen magic been put in place."

She laughed. "Yeah, that seems to be the case. It's really rare nowadays, but I wish it came up a lot more. It would make this world a lot easier."

We passed by more mud places, but they weren't huts. One of them was very long and very rectangular, set behind the other houses and spanning almost the entire length of the village. We wandered in, and I could see some kids playing around in there, laughing and jumping on rocks that were in there and splashing in a pool in the middle. All around them were beds that didn't have mattresses and some of those pillows that I had slept on in the cave. The kids' hair was completely white, almost blinding to look at.

"Why is everyone's hair white?" I asked.

"When you're a toddler, you have white hair. As you grow up, it starts to turn back, which is the signature divider from other species."

One of the little girls with short hair and blue eyes looked at me and smiled, waving. I waved back, and we moved on.

The next place that we looked at was the forge. It was underground with a large chimney sticking out of the ground. It was hot in there, but the people inside didn't seem to mind. They just kept on working on strong blades that, as explained, were tough enough to pierce through a dragon's hide. I told her that it probably wouldn't be best to tell Maki that, and she laughed.

"Don't worry, we won't attack you guys. Some of the weapons we create here are magic, but it happens very rarely. It takes a master blacksmith to be able to make such a complicated weapon."

The next place we looked at was the hami crops. They were also underground, but there was a small lake above it. It wasn't considerably deep, which made me sad, but when we went underground, I saw that it was simply dripping on the plants. Not by much, but every once in a while, some droplets would drip down from the ceiling. Synila explained that these specific hami crops didn't require a lot of water, but they needed a damp environment, as well as the fact that they were the plants that made the clothes. Each straw sticking up from the ground was a different color, and they looked like straight sticks. It was explained that they were actually very fragile, but they always looked really strong. They were just straight plants that were evenly cut off at the top.