Adventures in Oakstead

Game Master Foxy Quickpaw

After digging for about 10 feet, theyre comes a layer of clay. It isn't ahrd, but it is hard to get it out with a shovel, as it sticks together like glued. With a pickaxe you manage to break through it and find sand and gravel. This is when the digging ends, as water presses up through the hole where the clay is broken. And a lot of it. The water rises an inch a minute.

Jewel nods to Tarjun's question as she continues digging. "Don't want some helpful person coming and filling the hole."

She is surprised to see the wooden sleeve but can see the logic in it. If they get much deeper they risk collapse if they don't shore up the sides. This is changing from a game into a construction project!

Reaching the layer of clay concerns Jewel. The stuff sticks to the shovel making it harder to dig. Each scoop has to be scraped off into the bucket before another shovel full could be scooped. When a pick axe is tried it works a little easier, but it breaks up the floor of the hole rather than a flat surface. Then they break through to sand, and water.

"We've hit water! There's nothing here. Help us out. The water is rising. And it's cold!"

While Jewel shovels, Tarjun chants along "JE-WIE! JE-WIE! JE-WIE!" to encourage her. When she hits the layer of clay, he goes to fetch and pickaxe and gets down in the hole using the ladder to help his sister out.

He is just as surprised as she is when water bursts out of the hole.

"OH CRAP!" he yells as he gets splashed in the face with cold water. "Jewie, climb up the ladder! Come on, hurry!" He holds the bottom of the ladder in place to facilitate her climbing.

"That's not helping." Clara comments dryly. Figuratively and literally as she isn't in the hole but helps pulling up buckts of dirt.

"How are we supposed to dig further for the treassure if there is water coming up?"

The gushing is held back by the rising water and only a bulge in the sutrface shows where it pushes from below. The water keeps rising, until it is almost two feet high. There it stops. Hard to tell if it is a balance between water pushing from below and water seeping away, or if it is the extent the water pressure allows it to rise.

After the clay settles again, the water is clear.

Tarjun manages to climb up the ladder after Jewel, in no small part thanks to the water level not rising any further than his shoulders.

"Well," he looks down at the hole. "Think the real treasure was the water that was there all along? I don't think we can dig anymore!"

I know Tarjun has the lame curse, but an inch per minute is not fast enough to catch even him by surprise.

Like out of nowhere Gertrud stands next to the hole again. "You're a smart boy." she commends Tarjun. "Congratulations to finding the treassure."

I thought the water would be rising faster than that, to be honest

"So... Thats it?! That's the merchant wanted us to find? A big ol' puddle?" Tarjun looks up at Gertrud incredulously. "As if we didn't have enough water- we changed the course of a whole river just a couple weeks ago!"

He stares down at the hole, disappointed written all over his face.

"Maybe there's something in it," he eventually says hesitantly. "Like gold, or... Stuff."

"The parchment was from the merchant. The map features and the x were from me." Gertrud admits.

"We wanted some irrigation for the fields, but water doesn't flow up. And we want neither a deep trench - which would be even more work to dig - nor a viaduct. Simplest thing was to dig a well. But we tall folk can't do that well, as it is tight, or you have to dig even bigger."

"My peace offer for this betrayal is apple cake every day for a week straight. I would offer you something more treassure like, but I don't have that."

Jewel looks at Gertrud with a sly grin. "Well played. And done!" She turns back to glance at the water and furrows her brow obviously thinking. "But to irrigate the fields you need to bring the water up higher. What about building a small windmill to lift the water up fully to the surface? Tarjun is a pretty good carpenter if there is any wood? It wouldn't have to pull much water up, just a slow but fairly constant flow...."

"But maybe that should be for another day? We need to clean up and rest a bit before night time." She glances up to guess the time.

"That is not my job. You have to talk about that with your father. I'm only involved here, because I thought it would be more fun for you to do it as a treasure hunt instead of an assigned chore. And because your parents morals wouldn't allow for such shenanigans."

"But you are right. There needs to be some mechanism to lift the water and the infrastructure to distribute it."

Tarjun nods somberly. "I think I knew it was a lie. Pa and Ma always give me stuff to do that they just made up. Like counting all the red things in the house." He sighs. "I just wanted it to be true.
"

He gives Jewel a wide-eyed, incredulous look as she offers Gertrud further help. "Hola oh! I didn't say I'd be up to build more stuff just for a couple of apple cakes! That'd take even longer! Can't Clara levitate the water out or something?"

"I don't want to use my levitate to move water." Clara protests. Nevertheless she ponders if it would work at all. For sure the water can't be moved with that, but maybe a bucket? A very large bucket?

Will joins the group standing around a hole. "Nice work." he tells after inspecting the result. "Now we just need to add a pump that our ox can operate."

"YOU KNEW?!" Tarjun points an accusatory (and rather dramatic) finger at his father. "YOU KNEW, AND YOU DID NOTHING TO STOP US?" He turns to Jewel, disgust and betrayal written all over his face. "We can't trust anyone anymore."

"Why should I stop you. If you hadn't done it for the fun of it, it would have become one of your chores. You think I have two large wooden walls for building a well lying around for nothing?"

"I thought you had those walls for you to work on," Tarjun retorts. "Isn't that how that's supposed to go- you working, us playing? It's been that way for years until we could set the table without breaking plates. Maybe there's a way we could go back to our previous arrangement?"

Jewel chuckles at Tarjun's question. "Unless Clara finds some magic to reverse time, no. And would you really want to go back? Lose our magic and everything we've learned? The who would be the Guardians of Erastil? A ghost? And we wouldn't know Bruihu! I don't want to go back even if our parents are tricking us into having fun while doing chores...."

She can't stop herself from openly laughing at her last comment!

Tarjun thinks about it. "Maybe not everything we've learned. Just the part where we couldn't do anything we didn't want to do. That was nice!"

"And they didn't trick us into having fun doing chores, they tricked us into working for them and thinking we've enjoyed it. There's a difference,!"

"Offering you a the opportunity to enjoy work in a new way, instead of simply telling you to do it." Gertrud suggests.

Clara has turned red in the meantime without saying a word. She gives the shovel a good kick in direction of the well, turns and stomps off.

Kick: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (9) + 0 = 9

The shovel lands on teh rim, tumbles a bit and falls in.

If Tarjun's words were funny to Jewel, Clara's reaction was hilarious! She glances over at Gertrud, smiles and shrugs. "If work can be turned into play then it isn't work anymore. But if my hands weren't already harder from digging the trench I'd have blisters. Well done Mrs. Johnson!"

She turns to go home but calls back, "But someone else can swim down to get the shovel. Clara can breath under water and levitate. She's the perfect choice for it!" then heads home to clean up before dinner and sleep.

Though Tarjun cab completely empathize with Clara's disappointment, her storming off still takes him by surprise.

He lingers after Jewel leaves. "She gonna be okay?" he asks Gertrud. "Every she goes off like this, bad stuff happens."

"I'll go check on her. I don*t think it's bad. And she ran to the house, so at least she won't get lost."

Gertrud unhurriedly walks home.

"Clara." she calls, once inside.

"Stay away! I don't want to see you."

"You tricked me. And I swallowed it hook line and sinker." An angry tear rools down her cheek.

Gertrud sits down next to Clara and puts her arm around her. "But you had fun, didn't you?"

"Yes. That's the worst part."

"Don't be too hard on your self. Older people than you have fallen for worse schemes. The bait was sweet, the hook was smooth. And if people you trust pull your leg, it is extra hard to notice."

"But please remember, that even this trick was in your best interest, and that I didn't skin and salt you here."

Clara wipes the tear and her nose with her sleeve and puts her arms around her mom. "One day I'll trick you too."

With nothing else to do, Tarjun slowly heads back to his home while Gertrud goes to check on Clara.

He behaves normally at dinner, but as the kids later lie down to sleep, he shifts in his bed.

"How can you take the whole thing well?" he finally blurts out, addressing Jewel in the dark. "I thought you were all 'bout not lying and stuff."

Jewel tenses at Tarjun's question, but then he continues and she relaxes. She starts, "Well, yes. But...." She pauses for a few seconds thinking about the day, and the question. "That's pretty much true for Erastil and his way, and other Gods. But I've been thinking about it and how it can be for regular people."

She shifts to her side and props herself up on an elbow. "Gods may be able to do the 'always tell the truth' stuff. I really don't know. But people? We can try really hard. But it just doesn't always work. And parents to kids? There's a lot more grey area there than there is black and white. Mrs. Johnson tricked us, Yes. And she knew exactly what she was doing. There was planning and work, drawing the map, figuring out where to have us dig, and all of that. And she made cake so we wouldn't be too angry. Really all they did was have us dig the hole that they wanted us to dig, and make it seem like fun. It was.... a little lie, to make the work easier."

"Think about it this way. If they had just called us all over and handed us shovels, picks and such and said 'Dig until we say stop'.... Would the job have been easier? We'd have known the truth, but it would have been hard work."

"We can ask Dad tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure he'll say pretty much the same thing. Sometimes a lie, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, can be OK."

"I'm just not sure it made it all easier, in the end." It's impossible to shrug while lying down, but a shrug can be heard in Tarjun's voice alright. "We still got tired, and you got those nasty blisters on your hand, and it was painful and boring, and all that."

"It ain't proper work. It ain't like making stuff 'cause you need them. Like when you make a chair' cause then you'd be happy to not sit on your butt and get cold, and you won't need to make chairs anymore."

"It's you getting tricked into thinking you'll have enough if you keep pushing harder and planning ahead, you know? Like, Pa and Ma and Mrs Johnson never stop working. It's like they need to make chairs 'cause one day they might have to sit down. You know?"

"Do you think someone told them it' d be easier if they made it into a game too?"

The next morning at the breakfast table the discussion continues. "I had no part in that tricking. I wondered why you started digging on your day off and brought what I had. But I wasn't involved in any tricking."

"The worst you can accuse me of is not telling you, when I found out. But that's Gertrud. With those followers of Desna you can only hope that their mischief turns out as good natured as hers."

"I don't know. Grown-ups get crazy ideas sometimes." Tarjun takes a sip of his glass of milk. It leaves a white moustache above his upper lip. "Like mixing up playtime and work time."

"I mean, farming's boring. Jewie says it's to make things easier on us, but I don't get it. Pretending something's fun's not the same thing as something actually being fun."

"Farming is fun! You put in hard work, you see the crops grow, and finally you get a year worth of food as an reward. That is what I call satisfying. Not short lived fun, but being able to enjoy the fruits of your hard work. That is what I call real joy."

Jewel listens to the discussion between their Dad and Tarjun. She could see both sides of the discussion/argument, but.... "I don't know that I would consider much of farming as fun. I mean, plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting. Each one of those is hard work. What you describe Dad is the reward being fun, and that is sort of true. I mean I can see the reward as satisfying. But fun is, well, fun is a state of the mind I think."

"When we thought we were digging for hidden treasure, that was fun. Back when we went hunting for the goblin that killed a chicken, that was fun. Either or both would have been work if we hadn't thought of the fun side of it. I guess it's really a balance of work or fun mainly by how we think of it. Like, to me the work that we are doing with Dwayne and the lumberjacks, to fix the clear cutting of the forest is fun. It is also work since we are planting saplings to replace the trees that they have cut down. But that's kind of fun because I can just look around in the forest and know how those little saplings will look in a few years."

"Speaking of that, we do need to check in with Dwayne for that. And yesterday was our 'day off', so what are we doing today? We still need some way to bring the water up from the well. Do you have a design to follow that we can work on?"

"Tarjun, That's another example of 'fun/work'. You enjoy dong carpentry stuff. I think that's work...."

"You got 'cheated' out of your day off. Now you get a day off today. Because we don't do real cheating here." Will replies and takes a sip out of his mug.

"Don't worry about the well for now. It first needs a stone wall from the buttom up, and I don't think even Gertrud could come up with something to sell that as a fun game to you."

"And it's work for grown ups. Who know how to build a stone wall that lasts."

"Farming is fun! You put in hard work, you see the crops grow, and finally you get a year worth of food as an reward. That is what I call satisfying. Not short lived fun, but being able to enjoy the fruits of your hard work. That is what I call real joy."

Tarjun stares at his dad. "It's not fun! You spend all your time bent in half to plant and water and sow stuff and push it around. And all it takes is one heavy day to ruin your work!"

"Tarjun, That's another example of 'fun/work'. You enjoy dong carpentry stuff. I think that's work...."

"Yeah, but no one told me I have to carve stuff," Tarjun explains merrily. "I just like doing it. And I'm not going to lose anything to a bit of hail!"

"You got 'cheated' out of your day off. Now you get a day off today. Because we don't do real cheating here."

Tarjun joins hands in a mock prayer. "Finally, some good news in this house! Let's scram out of here, Jewie, before they find us something to do!"

"Go play! You'll come to see that in the long run that isn't fulfilling."

Turning to Shelly he adds "Want to pick stones for our well wall?"

Clara inhales her breakfast and runs out to go see the well. She climbs down the ladder that is still standing in there from yesterday to retrieve the shovel. She throws the tool out and then feels how the temperature of the water is. But it is really chill and she stand indecisive if she should use the soap and turn it into her private bath.

Leaving the grown-ups to whatever their idea of fun work might be, like picking up random rocks to build a well, Tarjun escapes with his younger sister while he can.

"We go pick up Clara? Where'd you think she might be? Still sulking at her place?"

Realizing that any more discussion could possibly change their parents minds Jewel 'escapes' with Tarjun.

"Clara sulking? Not likely. She probably escaped from her house before we even started talking with our folks. Let's go check out by the grove. She might be up in the tree house hiding. Watch for sticks or dirt clods if she's feeling mean!"

As they approach the grove Jewel remembers that she hadn't attended to marking trees for the lumberjacks. She always kept at least a day ahead so the trees for today were marked. But she didn't want to skip a day and possibly have them cut down any that she wanted kept to stop the clear cutting. The saplings grew better when they had shelter from harsh weather! "I'll need to check in with Dwayne and the lumberjacks, but can do that later. Do you see Clara anywhere?"

Clara decides against bathing and climbs out of the well. Just in time to see Tarjun and Jewel to disappear into the grove.

She runs after them shouting and waving with her arms.

Once she catches up she asks "What are we doing today? Play knights? Maybe we can use Wookie and Paddington as horses. Then we only need armor and lances and we can do a knight tournament."

"Awesome!" Tarjun's imagination starts running wild.
"I can be a knight! I can even make an armor. I dunno if Paddington and Wookie would let us ride 'em, but maybe we can borrow some reins or something. And one of us could watch and count points!"

"No, wait! They could be the king - or the queen, I mean, watching the tournament and stuff! And the loser gets his her head cut off."

He looks over at his sister excitedly.

"Come ooon, that sounds like fun, instead of your cutting down trees stuff! We can do that later."

Jewel listens, interested but not quite accepting the ideas. "I think we should get away from our homes. Maybe go goblin hunting?"

She thinks for a moment. "Why not? Let's get our weapons so we'll be safer. Bows and arrows. Clara can you get Caspar? I'll get the healing scepter too. We know where they were before. We can just head over there and see if they're back."

"That is no game, that is serious." Clara replies with a dumbfounded expression on her face.

"Yeah," Tarjun looks at Jewel with surprise. "B'sides, it's been a while since we've seen any. Maybe they're too scared of us since the last time we beat 'em up!"

He mimics a few combat moves with his crutch. It looks more impressive than efficient.

Jewel flops down and looks around. "You're right. Sorry. That's not a game. I don't know if gobbers are smart enough to stay scared, but hunting them still could be dangerous. I just kind of want to get away for the day. And do something. I'm feeling.... maybe bored?"

"We could build something that flies and escape into the clouds!"

"How we would even do that?" Tarjun objects. "I dunno how to do that. Like, build some wings on it?"