"And so, you roll this dice and count the marks, then—"
"But what if it doesn't have any?"
"Then you can't move."
"But what if I want to move?"
"You can't move just because you want to move."
"But that isn't very realistic?"
"It isn't meant to be realistic, it's a game!"
"But—"
"Listen," I said, "it's a game. Mostly played by children but suitable for all ages. You have to follow the rules of the game so everybody can have fun. Trust me, go back and play it with your family after this meeting. You'll have fun."
Elder Brol frowned, and grabbed the edge of the wooden board with the tips of his fingers. The dice felt tiny in his hands, and he had some trouble holding the pieces with his fingers. Still, I was sure he'd come around to liking the game once he played it with some of his grandkids. Despite his masculine hunter persona, he had a massive soft spot for his grandchildren. His kids were already playing with some of the toys I'd made them, so they were definitely going to want to play the board games too. He was going to be putty in their hands once they tugged on his arms and asked him to teach them how to play.
I chuckled at my own thoughts. The other elders seated around the campfire were also looking over the board games and toys. Starting with something small and easy to make like this was definitely the right choice, I told myself. But now that we were done with the food, it was time to get down to business.
"Before we go any further, I wanted to thank you all for trusting me for this year. I especially wanted to thank the Imm and Oko tribes for lending us their winter home," I said, nodding towards elders Mann and Konri.
"It is our honor to be hosting you, Teacher Cas," said elder Mann Imm.
"I was also wondering if this place has a name," I said.
"No, it does not," said elder Konri. "Like most of the other tribes of the double river basin, our tribes move around with the seasons. We hunt and we gather from different places, very rarely staying in one place. We only come to the river for the winter, and try to go to stay at different places along the River Teg after every solstice."
"I see," I said. The only reason Bek Tepe was named was because it was a stationary point where every tribe came once a year. The field we were on right now wasn't special to the Oko or Imm tribes, so it didn't have a name. "We should come up with a name for this place later. Some of the things that I would like to do here will require a more permanent location. We might be coming back here for many years. A year, by the way, is the word in my language for the time in between two solstices, although we did not measure them between solstices."
"Then how did you measure them?" asked elder Sommi.
"The end and start of the year were on arbitrary days," I said, "but the length of the year was the number of days it takes the Earth to go around the Sun. I have already started measuring the days since the previous solstice, so we should have a decent estimate for how long a year is in this world by the next solstice."
"The Earth goes around the Sun?" asked Priest Mal.
"Well, my Earth did," I said. I had already explained to them that I had come from another world. There wasn't any reason to hide it, since I was an outsider as an Elf anyways. I didn't tell them that I had been a human, however, since I wasn't sure how they would react to an Elf who had once been a human. Would they stop respecting me? No, I needed them to listen to me for a little while longer. Maybe one day, after I had achieved what I wanted to achieve, I would tell them everything.
"But let's ignore that for now," I said. "I gathered you all here tonight so we could go over our plans for the year leading up to the next solstice. You have already started your magic training, and I think that should continue. If you disagree with any of my proposals or would like to make one of your own, please feel free to interrupt me." I looked around at the elders, waiting for them to reply. They nodded and agreed with me, with a few of them asking about the details for our continued magic training. I told them we would have to spend less time learning magic for the next few days, since we had other things to set up first.
"By which I mean, we need to start farming." I gathered the seeds and grains I had gathered from the various tribes. Each tribe had some dried fruits or stored grains, and we had spent some time gathering around Bek Tepe as well as along the route we had taken to get to our current encampment.
We spent some time identifying all of the seeds and grains we had collected, as well as the sort of soil and climate their plants were found in. I assigned the seeds and grains to the various tribes who had first collected them or who had volunteered to start growing them. They would start surveying the terrain tomorrow, picking ideal locations for their first farms.
This area was at a sort of crossroads of terrains. There were rich alluvial river plains like the ones we were on right now, as well as forests further South, marshlands to the East, and the roof of the world to the North East. If we went even further East, we would arrive at the vast open plains that the human Jora tribe called home, although those plains did not have a lot of plant biodiversity. The human Jora, apparently, lived mostly off of monster meat.
To the North, there was the mighty River Teg. The Imm and Oko tribes lived across the river, on open plains full of monsters and forests, which they said opened onto a frigid tundra beyond which was a land of perpetual snow. To the West, following the River Teg, was the ocean.
Monsters would be important sources of food, since the farms wouldn't be ready for a while. The only problem was, there would be way less monsters during the winter, which was when food would be the most scarce.
"Which is why I wanted you all to come together today and share your survival knowledge," I said. "Elder Kezler, would you like to begin?"
Elder Kezler nodded. "Our people live by the sea. For many generations, we have preserved meat with salt and brine, which allows us to eat well during difficult times."
"Our people have lived near the tundra," said elder Konri. "As winter approaches, we take small amounts of meat and freeze them in the slowly gathering snow. Even after moving down here near the river, we send out foraging parties who go back to the places we have marked, and retrieve our frozen meat, if it has not been eaten by other monsters already."
"That's good," I said. "We can combine those methods, as well as some from my old world, and preserve a lot of meat for the winter. I'll help build some tools we'll need to smoke meat. But the other thing I need to know, is if any of your tribes make alcohol."
"Alcohol?" repeated elder Brol. "You have explained that your translation magic is not perfect, Teacher, but this word feels especially strange on my tongue. It sounds very similar to a word for a ceremonial drink that our people make in the spring, but it cuts the word in half."
I tapped my chin. "That might be because alcoholic drinks are a category of drinks, whereas your tribe's ceremonial drink is one such drink." I went on to describe the effects of alcoholic drinks, and it turned out that a few tribes had ceremonial alcoholic drinks. I asked them to describe the taste and looks of the drinks, and realized elder Brol's Ibog tribe made the drink that was closest to wine from my previous world.
"We should think about making those other drinks too," I said, "just for fun. But we need to start making the Ibog tribe's drink as soon as possible. We will need it to make vinegar, which is a great way to preserve many fruits and vegetables."
"Is there no magical solution to this problem, Teacher?" asked elder Lipo.
"Yes and no," I answered. "We can use magic to make the process of preserving food a lot easier, especially by controlling the temperature a little, but the details of why food rots are far too complicated to completely control with magic right now. I would have to do a lot of experiments validating the presence of germs and microbes before the spells would be efficient enough to use."
"I don't think I followed that explanation, Teacher," said elder Sommi.
I sighed. "Oh, right, I forgot that I haven't gone over one more important thing that we have to do this year." I leaned back on my outstretched arms and stared at the open night sky. The moon was shaped like a crescent, and the red start was pulsing gently as always.
"We have to invent more magic."