The second day our schedule had fighting class. Once again, I went to the Colosseum. The instructor arrived late, walking slowly as he always seemed to do, with the same uncanny lack of presence. I separated from the group to greet him.

  “Good morning, professor.” I said, trying to maintain a polite tone.

  “You’re here again… Didn’t I make it clear you’re suspended?” The teacher asked with a slight annoyance.

  “Yes, of course you did, but… You also mentioned some other arrangement for me.” I said trying to not sound disrespectful.

  “You may come again next week at the end of the second class, your new training group will be there. Anything else? I still need to train the students that can actually listen and use their heads.”

  “No, nothing more, but if I didn’t come how would you inform me of the new class?” I ask trying to shake off the feeling that he saw me like a foolish child.

  The instructor stopped and looked in my eyes. Then pointed with his wooden staff at Magnar. “That slow witted giant over there is your friend, right? I saw you head off together and he said he was going to see you after the last class too. I’d have had him inform you. Now go away, there’s nothing for you to do here.” He started walking off.

  “But the physical training…” I said reluctant to just go. I didn’t want to look like I just skipped the class for no reason.

  The professor turned from his waist in one sharp motion and poked at my abdomen with his staff. My instinctive reaction was to tighten my core. With a muffled thud I took two steps back bending over and holding my abdomen, feeling the circular point of impact radiate with pain.

  “You aren’t a soft meat bag like the puffies over there, nor a slow witted, instinctive and easy to predict wall of muscles with slow reactions like those beastman. My physical training can’t help you.” With that he turned away and started the class with the rest of the students.

  I straightened myself rubbing my abdomen. Sharp pain still pulsed at every heartbeat, but it was manageable. I turned around and left, walking slowly. As soon as I was out of the Colosseum I broke into a run. ‘I’m free to test my device! So, what if I don’t train under you!’

  I quickly reached the tower and took the paper I prepared, and the ink bottle bought the day before. With quick steps I headed for the array room where the vibration inscriber and the gathering array stood.

  I entered and was happy to see that no one seemed to have been inside since last night. I quickly set up the device, placing the paper on the two rollers. While making sure the rock’s rope was rolled up and the rock away from the ground.

  I poured the ink in the jar above and followed it trickle slowly down the nail’s thread. As soon as I saw it leave a mark on the paper, I flicked the locking pin on the rocks roller and watched as the paper moved. The nail left behind a straight line as the paper moved.

  This was half expected, but as I could not distinguish any form of change, I got worried. Placing two fingers on the tuning fork I concluded that there were no vibrations currently that I could detect. This calmed me down.

  I turned on the formation. The line left by the nail started being slightly more irregular. The nail was very softly swaying. Yet the marks were too small to see. I hurriedly poured the ink back in the bottle and removed the paper. I stopped the mechanism by placing the pin back on the rock’s roller.

  ‘What is wrong with it?’ I questioned while pressing my fingers on the tuning fork again. I could feel it vibrate. It’s specific frequency and complexity unknown, but definitely a hum against my fingers. I scratched the back of my head in confusion and stopped the formation.

  After an unknown amount of time Magnar came to find me. Before his big frame filled the entrance I had reached the following conclusions. My mechanism was good per se, but the vibrations I was trying to observe were too minute. If I had used a bigger formation, then perhaps it would work even in this design…

  So, in order to fix it, I had to solve several issues. First of all, the thread holding the nail was too short. I did this initially because I had no elastic material that would ensure longer times of contact surface with the paper, but it also meant that the motion wasn’t amplified enough, as longer lever arm amplifies movement.

  Second, the nail was too heavy. This meant that a lot of energy was needed to move it, meaning it was not influenced by smaller vibrations at all. Third, the rough paper available was amplifying tension forces of the liquid of the ink. These two, weight and drag, buffered the pendulum motion that was used to register the vibration.

  All in all, the experiment turned out to be a success and a failure considering my objectives, but from a strict engineering point of view, it was a success. The experiment confirmed me that the formation did emit some sort of vibration that propagated through aether.

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  This meant that at least for now, I was on the right track. Some tweaks to my design and I would have a fully functional device, an instrument that could potentially allow me to develop an entirely new way of making formations. A cheaper way.

  Magnar put his hand on my shoulder to pull me out of my thoughts and shook me. My head snapped to him, venom in my gaze. Who liked to be interrupted while thinking.

  “Hey, are you… fine? You look lost again.” He spoke.

  “As a matter of fact, yes, I’m fine, I confirmed part of my theory. I did not get all I wanted from this…” I gestured towards the assembly. “But it at the very least confirmed the formation does emit a vibration.”

  “That’s good for you, right?” Magnar scratched the back of his head.

  “Yeah… Let’s just hope my prediction is right…” I shook my head while saying this. Seeing him unable to understand the importance of all this… ‘It makes me quite disappointed. But what can I do? This is simply not his forte…’

  “So, what do we do today?” He asked sounding hopeful.

  “Do you have nothing else to do?” I looked at him confused. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the help, but you spend a lot of time helping me… Is there nothing else you need to do? You know as a noble?”

  “Not really… I mean the others do not appreciate me, and we beastman are kind of solitary. We gather to celebrate successful hunts and fights not to make small talk, everyone finds their own thing to do.”

  “Huh… That’s… interesting…”

  “And we, in our language don’t even have a word for lazy or an expression for small talk… If we do nothing our limbs ache and we get bored. None of us can understand your nobles as such…”

  “I guess a straightforward bunch like you wouldn’t and would only see a time loss… Well, since you’re so eager to get movin’, let’s go! I have a kiln to build, and it won’t make itself.” I answered whilst picking up the paper and ink. I had Magnar pick up the assembly and we left.

  On our way out we ran into Professor Hargrave and one of his colleagues. They were just about to enter the room as we left. I saw the two of them shoot a glance at the device Magnar was carrying, but neither of them said anything, while Hargrave even scoffed.

  ‘Let’s see who laughs last, old cougar… Let’s see!’ I quickened my steps and Magnar followed suit. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that he already was outpacing me, so I had to break into a run to keep up, and not the light kind…

  Once at the tower I carefully stored the paper and ink inside the underground chamber, then went out to help Magnar. I had him start building a wall at the edge of the floor we built when we worked on the forge.

  After the wall of a height of a meter-point-eight and a width of a meter-point-five, or by this world’s unit, a stave and a half in height and a stave and a quarter in width. A stave was roughly one point two meters, for future reference.

  The math for a perfect Catenary arch involves complex hyperbolic functions—a nightmare to calculate without a slide rule. But I didn't need to do the math. I just needed to let gravity do it for me.

  I grabbed a long coil of rope—the same one we used for the balcony.

  “Magnar,” I said, handing him the ends. “Hold these at the top corners of the wall width. Keep your hands steady.”

  He pressed the rope ends against the stone, defining the width of the kiln. I stood back and simply let the loop slacken. I fed out more rope until the bottom of the curve just barely kissed the ground.

  The rope naturally settled into the perfect weight-distribution curve. No equations, no approximations. No headaches in front of boring formulas.

  I carved the line of the rope onto the wall with a piece of chalk. That was our outer contour.

  "Now, move your hands in," I instructed.

  I repeated the process, but this time I had Magnar shift his grip inwards and upwards by about a quarter of a Stave. I adjusted the slack to match, creating a second, smaller curve nestled perfectly inside the first.

  "Hold it there."

  I traced the second line. Now we had two parallel curves defining the thickness of the arch walls.

  Finally, I needed to define the individual bricks. I treated the wall like a drafting board. I marked a center point on the top of the wall, between the arch bases. Using the rope as a giant compass pivoting from that center, I drew radial lines intersecting the curves every thirty centimeters (one Span).

  Tracing two concentric circles on the ground where the kiln was going to stay, using the rope to pivot around the center I drew lines every thirty centimeters from the outer circle intersection of the last one, so that we’d have a reference for cutting them not just horizontally but vertically too.

  The result was a perfect grid. We now had the exact trapezoidal dimensions for every single block needed to build it.

  We spent most of the day chiseling and putting the blocks of the kiln together, joining them with water, the dust obtained from their own carving and by rubbing them with force against each other. There were three openings, above each one a special larger block was used.

  Two of them, placed on opposing sides. One connected to a side draft, similar to the one used in the forge, the other one being where the fire would be made. Inside was a wall of about a stave in height that separated the fire chamber from the place where the pottery would be placed. There was still a decently sized hole left above the wall through which the smoke and hot air would raise and enter the pottery chamber.

  This circuit ensured higher heat retention and offered the possibility to insert shelves inside as part of the wall. The entrance was made out of two rows of bricks which could be pulled away, as they were only joined between themselves and not to the rest.

  Unfortunately, it was getting dark fast.

  “I have to go, the servants berated me when I returned late due to the stargazing…” He said feeling sorry.

  “Don’t worry, go, I’ll do my best to finish alone…” I said so, but I lacked conviction.

  “Mhm. Good luck!”

  He left quickly. But his departure brought in another problem for me. The sunset came earlier than yesterday… The days were shrinking, my birthday was close, and winter was drawing close. I needed to finish the heating system, which required some more intricate shapes to utilize heat efficiently.

  Those parts I could only make right now, in a way that would save me a lot of effort and allow me a good sleep, out of clay. The kiln itself needed to self-bake before I could even start using it, so it was mandatory that I finished adding the refractory clay mix today!

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  ?? Author's Question:

  Science isn't just about success; it's about analyzing failure. Cato's first seismograph was a bust due to friction and inertia. Do you enjoy seeing these "Trial and Error" phases, or are you eager to skip to the working invention?