Bearly Maintained (1/2)
The gear hung for a moment, suspended between the wires. Threadbare paused, watching the gears next to it slip into place. Watching the wires slowly twist, waiting for the sprockets to slide into the sockets...
TING!
The gear shot off, and buried itself into the deck, and without having to check, Threadbare knew it was now useless, the weak enchantment on it fading from the slightest damage to its physical form.
The good news was that this particular part still had six spares left.
The bad news was that the number of spares had originally been about four times that number.
It had been a good plan, to go harvest spare parts from the dungeon. It had given him a lot of margin for error.
But the fact was that at the end of the day, he was very new to the Tinker job, and these were very complicated engines.
Threadbare had only managed to reconstruct a single engine thus far, and while the process of doing so had gotten him four levels and a new Tinker job skill, it had used up so many parts that he was worried about completing the others that Anne wanted.
The Tinker job skill wasn't any help with this task, either. It helped multiple Tinkers work better together on a major project. But there weren't any other tinkers on the ship, and the rest of the crew were too busy to learn. Not that he had time to montage it, and the engines were too important to risk letting others learn the job the hard way.
A knock at the doorway drew his attention, and Threadbare put down the improvised tools that he'd conjured up, and turned to see Stormanorm III leaning against the empty door frame.
“She sent me back down again,” Stormanorm said, putting his hands behind his back and walking around the engines, looking them up and down. “Wanted to see how things were going. I watched you for a few minutes, I can honestly tell her you're working your hardest.”
“It might not be enough,” Threadbare said, putting down a spanner he'd made from a collection of silverware. “This is very complicated machinery and I just don't have the raw skills to compensate for it.”
“Jean told us you were a Steam Knight at one point. Said that class required Tinker. Was she lying to us? Wouldn't be the first time...” The veiled beastkin shot an irritated look up and to the south, to where Jean's prison sat on the deck above the engine room.
“No, no, I'm a Tinker,” Threadbare said. “Though Steam Knight got traded back into the guild a while ago, I kept Tinker. But the armor was nowhere as advanced as these engines are. And there's not a drop of steam in them.”
The stretched truth slid past, and Stormanorm didn't seem to find anything suspicious in his statement. Lying was hard for Threadbare, and he wasn't exactly comfortable with it, but it beat the alternatives.
To cover his unease, he asked “Did you know Plumbarista well?”
“Who?” Stormanorm's brows furrowed, just visible below the top of his hood. “Ah, the one who died in the dungeon. No, not really. I think she was one of Mom's, from a few years ago. Never really stood out. Not really suited for this life, to be honest. She came out of the warren in... Spring? Yeah, this last Spring. I'm a little surprised she lasted this long.”
“She seemed nice,” Threadbare said, remembering the way the purple bandanna had burned. “So she came from a warren?”
“Mom takes late fall and winter off to visit her warrens, typically. She spends most of the off-season getting pregnant and having babies. It's also her time to touch base and spend time with her husbands and consorts and whatever new conquests she's seized over the last year or so. And check in on how her children from last year have grown.”
“She doesn't tend to them herself?”
“What? No, of course not. There's too many, and she's a pirate, not a nursemaid. Her lovers and the warren servants raise them, train them, teach them everything they need to know to survive.”
“That seems sad,” Threadbare said, pulling out another one of the wire-threaded gears, and lining up another try. “She has so many children, but she doesn't get to play with them, or spend much time getting to know them.”
“They get the finest nursemaids, and the best education their fathers can give them,” Stormanorm said, turning to look Threadbare over. “Some of the nannies in the warrens are retired crew, too. They make sure the kids are fine. And that they know how beautiful and strong and fierce their mother is. And how proud she is of them.”
“And then they grow up and join her crew?” Threadbare was starting to see the shape of things, and it disturbed him.
“Not all of them, no. Only the ones who are really drawn to it. Some warrens have tournaments when there are too many recruits in a year.”
“What happens to the ones who don't make the cut?” Threadbare asked.
“They're free to leave any time they want. But once they get too old they have to start earning their keep if they want to stay around. Some do things around the warrens, others guard them. We always need more guards. Mom has a lot of enemies. The ones that leave...” he sighed. “It doesn't usually end well for them. Mom's got a lot of enemies. And some are starting to find their way to the Keelhauled Council.” he shook his head. “It's not a life I would live, going out in the world without Mom at my back. Fortunately I didn't have to go through any tournaments. I was lucky enough to be male.”
Threadbare weighed the pros and cons of asking for clarification on this. Breathing people sometimes got funny where gender was concerned, and he was currently pretending to be Celia, so he really, really didn't want to appear naive.
Luckily for him, some of his confusion must have appeared on his face, because Stormanorm explained a bit further.
“So. Beastkin have it rough in most places where humans rule. Bunny Beastkin have it rougher than most. We're usually poorer than most, due to so many mouths to feed, and the way we have babies. Which is lots and often. Add to that the fact most of us are old by twenty, and how hard it is to earn enough money to take care of your family in the long-term by then in legal ways... well, living 'civilized' isn't a good fit for us, unless we make serious concessions. And modifications to our bodies and lifestyles. Modifications which cost money...”
“I can see how this would be a problem,” Threadbare said, taking the spanner and the tweezers and carefully, oh so carefully easing the gear into position. In a second he'd start it up, and hope that this one worked.
“Oh, it gets worse. See, we breed true. It's a racial skill. Almost every child with rabbit beastkin parent is born a rabbit beastkin. There are no half-breeds, and ninety-nine out of a hundred it's a bun.”