As the female drow strode towards the bamboo grove, she mused on the uneasy quiet that had descended upon the Forest since Krogenar's demotion. He was still a Mystran, but was rarely seen in the Forest anymore. Other Mystrans were upset, confused or angry over the strider's repeated displays of stubborness. Simple discussions had routinely become heated shouting matches. Laisha could not lay all the blame on any single person. But Krogenar was the irritant - and he did little to smooth the feathers of those he ruffled.
Those who were upset over Krogenar's actions declared that they would give up worship of Mystra, or quit the Church. It was all Laisha could do to keep people from walking out on the Church. Through it all Krogenar had remained silent (at last!) out of a respect for the chaos he had triggered, or his own sulky mood, she could not tell.
Looking up at the bamboo grove, Laisha knew the depth of Krogenar's upset. Where once a wide swath of bamboo had reached skyward, now only small shoots were visible. Walking in the cleared out bamboo patch, Laisha spied the small shoots that had been laid. The sharp, skilled cuts were Krogenar's.
The strider had taken nearly every rod of bamboo. Laisha knelt and picked a stray bit of the tough, fibrous plant tubing from the muddy floor. Looking around, she pieced the scene together. Krogenar had carefully removed each stand of bamboo, cutting off dead ends (like the one she held now) and then planted cuttings to replace what he had taken.
Running her long black fingers along it, she whispered out to The Weave. Wherever a similar piece of bamboo could be found, The Weave throbbed in sympathy.
And like small wavelets that skim across an ocean, the vibrations caught each other, reinforced each other, and became a current. Laisha stood and walked in Krogenar's direction, in line with that current.
.....
The strider's hands moved quickly, in practiced fashion. Tying a one-handed bowline, he looped the remaining rope over the bamboo strut he was strengthening. He eyed the structure, pulling at the hollow rods. They didn't move.
Satisfied, he lit his blow torch and cut the remaining bolts. A three inch thick iron plate fell away to the grass below. He rubbed absent-mindedly at a singed eyebrow. Swinging hand-over-hand through the floorless structure, he hung now over the 'Munchausen Sub-something Drive.' The leather canvassing rigged over it was littered with his scribblings and drawings. Question marks were prominent.
Every day the half-orc had struggled to wrap his head around the necessary concepts to make the drive work. After trying for a few hours each day, he had focused his efforts back on something that made more sense.
Sometimes he understood something of its workings, and he would quickly sketch a diagram. Slowly, he had begun to understand the beastly machine enough to test it. It sat now on a bamboo platform. The aging strider was suspicous of things too complicated for him to understand. It twisted at his insides to depend on something he could not easily dismantle and reassemble. Turning the contraption on was a simple affair: the activating lever had a rope attached to it.
Ropes ran all over the structure, some connected to rudders, others to lift engines. This particular rope had a red rag tied to it - since it was important.
The strider turned, and picked his way back to the helm, his feet stepping from strut to strut. At the front of the craft, a canvas chair hung down. Krogenar slid into the chair, and surveyed the toggled ropes that were arrayed before him. Each was toggled to a notch in the bamboo.
He licked his thumb, and wiped it against the face of a mirror, then gazed into it. Two thousand paces across the clearing was his meager goal. Nodding, he took hold of the rope with the red rag tied to it. Holding his breath, he pulled it for a fraction of a second. A snap-hiss sound rang in his ears, and ...
