Danika zipped over the water to the other side of the falls to investigate a small building that emitted definite clanks, rattles, and whirring noises. There was a gnome lounging beside a door that was about the right size for her. The hat that he wore reminded her of the rack of elemental hats in the shop she'd visited in the human capital.
"Hello," she greeted the gnome.
The gnome frowned at her and made shooing motions with his hands while saying something in what was presumably gnomish.
Danika asked, without much hope, "Is there someone who speaks the common tongue?"
The gnome pointed at the ground and snapped something at her. Danika looked at the ground but didn't see anything obvious. There was a muffled inquiry in gnomish from inside the building, and the gnome before her shouted through the doorway. Then he turned to her and flapped his arms, and then held them stiffly by his side, and then pointed at the ground again.
After a moment, Danika landed on the ground. The gnome nodded, and said something else. Then he pointed at her and held up his hand and said a short sharp word. He turned and stepped through the door, stopped and looked back at her, and pointed again and repeated the word. Then he turned away and hurried into the building.
Danika waited uncertainly, and after a few minutes the gnome returned. Another gnome wearing an apron over its clothes followed him out. "Hello," the apron clad gnome said in a surprisingly deep voice.
Danika blinked at the gnome she'd assumed to be female, and then realized that like the Nadia, the Gnomes were basically androgynous looking. "Hi," she replied quickly and asked "what does this building do?"
The gnome gave her a look, like her little messenger bird might, and replied slowly and clearly, "It keeps the weather on the outside."
Danika stifled her first reaction. It was her own fault for the way she'd phrased the question. She tried again, "I mean, what is the waterfall powering that makes so much noise inside this building?"
"The looms," the gnome told her in a more normal tone.
"Looms? You have machines to make cloth?" Danika asked with surprise.
The gnome replied questioningly, "You have an interest in weaving?"
"Um, I'm not sure," Danika admitted. "The spider spinning device the weaver in Windbur used was pretty strange."
"The fairy weaver in Windbur has several gnome built devices, but we don't work with such delicate materials here," the gnome explained, "we are weaving chainmail."
"You can't weave chainmail," Danika objected.
The gnome shrugged and offered, "Take a look, but don't touch anything." He spoke to the other gnome in gnomish for a moment and then waved ZipZing through the doorway.
Danika followed doubtfully, but as soon as she stepped into the room she halted in disbelief. It was as though she'd been transported to a game of another genre. A Victorian steampunk scene lay before her.
A complicated machine held a width of chainmail over a heavy spindle so that the last edge lay with each link held out flat with half of its loop in the air. A row of flaming metal clockwork dragon heads with red hot metal tongues bit down onto the row of flat links, clamping down and leaving a new link joining each of the old links together. Then the hot dragon heads were withdrawn and the whole device rotated just enough that the bumps in it pushed the new row out flat. It was sprayed with a cool mist until steam stopped billowing, and the process repeated.
Danika wasn't certain that it counted as weaving, but the chainmail production was definitely intricately automated. She asked the gnome doubtfully, "But doesn't chainmail have to be fitted to the person who wears it?"
"Of course," the gnome replied over the rattle and clank of the machine turning. "But this way a blacksmith can cut the cloth to size and put links in at the seams and it's finished."
"Wow," Danika replied. "Do all of the buildings attached to the water wheels have such elaborate factories inside?"
"Factories?" the gnome repeated questioningly. "There are no counting machines that I know of, only various kinds of gnomework shops."
Danika gave the gnome a puzzled look, and then realized that he'd taken factory as factoring. "I see," she replied with amusement, and then asked curiously, "is this a new method?" She wondered if it was related to the mechanisms the dwarven players had been introducing to the game.
The gnome nodded and replied, "Quite new, this method has only been used for the last 75 years."
"Oh," Danika said doubtfully.
A little white mouse delivered a message from Kit: "He's ready to go on to the next place as soon as you come buy your seeds. Could you buy me some food too? I can give you the coin."
Danika told the gnome politely, "Thank you very much for showing me your gnomeworks. This is really amazing, but my friend is finished with what she was doing and I need to go before the traveling merchant leaves."
"It was no trouble. If you need someone who speaks your language, you can always drop by the inn. It's the largest building in town, and most of the employees speak the common tongue," the gnome said kindly.
"Thanks!" Danika replied and she carefully walked back to the door before launching herself back into the air. She zipped across the falls again and returned to where Kit and the traveling merchant waited in the little town square.
--
Danika relayed Kit's list of foods and her coins to the traveling merchant before buying the few seeds that she could get for her remaining coins. Then the merchant revealed that while husbands might be prevented from selling things to their wives, they were definitely not prevented from giving out extra quest information.
They wouldn't need to verify that the monkeys were the correct interpretation of the first marker, because the merchant told Kit gently, "Don't waste too much time letting the monkeys lead you around the hills, stop when you find the first heart shaped berries. It's unlikely that you'll find any this late in the year, but if you do happen to find the berries of winter-flowering honeysuckle they would not only lure out your hooded guide, but they are moderately valuable too. Be very careful if you venture as high as the snowline during your search, the mountain guardian is angry."
Kit nodded seriously and replied, "I'll be careful. Thank you." She shyly leaned in and kissed his cheek and he grinned at her and hefted his pack.
"I'll see you again soon my love. Good luck ZipZing," he said as usual and set off a moment later.
Kit turned to ZipZing and said a bit proudly, "He also gave me a list of other valuable things that we might collect in this area while you were gone. There's a blue butterfly, and a paper wrapped fruit related to tomatoes called goldenberry, white vacuna wool which comes from those weird pale llama-like animals, and he said there are often large wild slimes in the mountains that have escaped from dwarven and gnomish slime herds."
Danika grinned at her and replied, "I'm surprised that you're willing to ever look at another slime after all the slimes you must have defeated to be able to buy your book."
Kit shrugged. "I'm not going to seek them out, but slimes aren't so bad. At least they can't talk to you like squirrels."