4. Mister Krugger

Agatha felt alive again after having had lunch and a wash. It had only been a cloth and lukewarm water, but more than enough to remove all that grime accumulated from the journey and the examination. Beyond the sweat, she had completely underestimated how much dust had adhered to her skin during the physical test. The basin almost ended up looking brown when she was done washing!

As soon as she finished washing, Agatha ate with her mother, and even though the ingredients weren't anything out of this world, there was nothing greater for the palate than a mother's cooking. And Esmeralda made a stew to kill for.

"Have you washed the clothes?" Her mother asked once they were done eating.

"Mom! I just got here! I'm beeeeat…" The daughter slumped on the table.

"The fabric cares not for that," the seamstress said as she carried the wooden cutlery to their wooden basin. Someone would have to bring it outside and fill it with water to wash it, and Agatha wished with all her might that it wasn't she who had to do so. "If you wait too much, crusts will form."

"Mom! That's nasty! I've just eaten!" Agatha made an icky expression.

"I'm not the one who soiled them," the blond beauty added with a warm smile. "Come on, go and wash them before you actually ruin the fabric."

"Okaaaay, moooom," the girl with the dirty-blond hair moved sluggishly to grab the basket with the dirty clothing.

"Oh, and now that you are going to the runlet, wash the dishes too," Esmeralda's smile shone even brighter.

Agatha's eye twitched at that petition. She had been played, bamboozled, and led by a leash like a dog. This wasn't the first time that she was led to this occasion, but that only made it worse to have fallen for it yet again. With practiced movements, the girl grabbed the basin, placed it on top of the basket, and then grabbed the bottom of the basket as she directed herself to the runlet.

While the two containers matched quite well, they were still full and rather heavy, so achieving balance wasn't that easy. Agatha summoned her little sapphire and moved around with Control whenever she felt one side of the contraption was moving too much to one side. It wasn't like her agate had much potency with the Control command active, but every little bit helped. She had heard stories of how great lithorists would make a floating disk with their agates to carry all their things.

But alas, agates was the keyword and plurality her enemy. She had tried to expand her sapphire with the Shape command, but even when she spread it impossibly thin, she would only manage something the size of a buckler. Whilst the size was… sufficient to carry things around, her Control command – even with her beautiful agate – wasn't potent enough to carry things around. The lithorists of those stories had to use several agates with several commands to create such disks.

Still, that didn't stop the village girl from imagining herself wielding such comfortable and convenient displays of Agatecraft. She could picture it perfectly, she in a prestigious academy using her sapphire to carry books for her as she indulged herself in a cup of warm tea in a massive library…

"Wait, that sounds wrong?" Agatha mused to herself as she finally reached the runlet and put the basket down. "Do they allow drinks in a library? I very much doubt so considering Mom wouldn't even allow me to eat near a parchment, and liquids are certainly messier…"

The girl rolled up the sleeves of her attire before kneeling before the runlet. Both of these actions she wouldn't have done while wearing her dress, but her current attire was laxer, just an old blouse and a long, dirty brown skirt that reached her ankles. Both were obviously from her mother as they sagged her, but that was especially the case around the chest area of the blouse.

Before starting to wash the clothes and the dishes, Agatha resummoned her little sapphire on her left hand. With her right hand, she gathered her hair into a ponytail, and with a wordless Shape command – a tautology for all commands were wordless – she turned her perfect sphere of an agate into a torus that tied her hair perfectly.

Then she started.

Her mind still went to that idea of acting like a scholar in a prestigious academy, maybe even the Skyscraper Academy, but she soon got bored and instead hummed a song to herself. It was a popular journey rhyme, and whilst she had forgotten most of the lyrics, when the chorus arrived she had no problem singing it.

"And so the traveler came~ He brought wares of gold and jade~ His journeys were many~ And his stories plenty~" It wasn't the most complex song out there, but the chorus was so simple that she remembered it even if she had only heard the full song once.

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Her mother had been right, though, and it took her quite the effort to clean her patchwork dress – especially the undergarments – so when she was done, the sun threatened to set down.

"Fractures! How late it is!" Agatha cursed as she peered at the position of the celestial crown, its black eye overwatching the world like a massive agate. "I should make haste to go and salute Mister Krugger before night falls!"

With difficulty, the girl stood up. She had been kneeling for so long that her legs trembled for a moment, but it wasn't anything serious. Her skirt had dirtied a bit, but it was a set of clothing that she used for these exact moments with its dark brown color, so it was a non-issue. She doubted Mr. Krugger would care if her skirt was slightly dirty around the knee area.

Agatha switched from singing and humming to whistling as she carried the basket and basin back home. With all the water soaking the clothes, now the load was way heavier, and it took her a handful of rests and recreations of old men's back problems, but she got back swiftly enough. Her mother had already stopped working for the day, and she was preheating the stew they had had for lunch. She would have liked to have something else, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Gonna go to Mister Krugger's house, Mom!" The girl shouted from the main door.

"Come back before dinner!" Esmeralda replied before Agatha made her way out.

"'Kay!"

Malachite was so small even for a village – most people considered it only a mining outpost, after all – that it took Agatha only a couple of minutes to reach the man's house and knock on the door.

"Mister Krugger? Are you in there?" She announced.

"Who goes there?" The old man asked with a coarse voice.

"Agatha, sir."

"Come in then, girl. Door's open."

Agatha accepted the invitation and pulled the doorknob. As she opened it, her first thought was: Too creaky of a door for a carpenter. Mister Krugger was the carpenter of the village, and whilst he was too old to do any construction, he fixed small things like hinges, handles, and whatnot. Even when the sun was close to setting, the man continued to work on a carving.

"So," he mused as he threw a curl of wood on the ground. "How has the examination gone, girl?"

"I'd say... fine?"

"Ya' wanna get bonked?" Mister Krugger squinted at her.

"Please no! Mom has bonked me already today, my delicate and effeminate forehead won't handle more bonking!"

"Effeminate forehead, me arse. I saw you split a lass' agate with that noggin of yours."

"It did hurt, tho…" The girl rubbed her head.

"I'd be worried if it didn't," the old carpenter chuckled and set his carving and knife on the table next to him. "But be straight here."

"I was serious! It went fine… ish… Wait, wait!" Agatha waved her hands around as the old man threatened to pick up his knife. "I cannot speak for the written test, but I do believe I did well for the physical and Agatecraft tests."

"Ya' did luck out with your tutors there. Not many people know how to read and write 'round here, yet ya' scored yourself meself and ya' mother."

"I could've done better with more writing material," the girl pouted.

"Parchment's expensive. Ink even more so," Mister Krugger shrugged. "Being able to even do the exam gives a lot of points, trust me."

"How can the kingdom afford the statal examination if writing material is this expensive?"

"It's expensive for us, girl. And besides, the examination generates more money than it loses in the long run. 'Tis a net positive for these lands," the old man grunted and cracked his neck. "Anyhow, how's the Agatecraft exam? Don't bother telling me about the physical one, I don't care."

Agatha squinted at the last statement, but she kept her colorful protests to herself.

"I wanted to thank you for your advice. Using Combustion right after Speed worked wonders?"

"Wanted?" Mister Krugger squinted back at her.

"I dunno, you've been a curmudgeon since we've started speaking. I'm not that sure if I wanna thank you for that."

"Bah!" The old man grunted. "Kids these days, they only-"

"But," Agatha interjected, and she took a couple of woodcarvings out of her skirt. "I do want to thank you for these. They have been very useful."

"These wands are nothing, Agatha." For a moment, Mister Krugger's tone became soft. Endearing. "I could carve'em in me sleep!" Then he went back to his grumpy self.

"Either way, I want to thank you for them," the girl said, slightly bowing with gratitude. She carried two wands in her hands. A slingshot and a fingercannon, both made of good, solid wood. "I doubt I could have done as great as I did on the range and speed test if it weren't for these."

Mister Krugger's answer was a snort. "I'd be fractured if I'm remembered for such shoddy work. Girl, gimme yar agate."

Without doubting his intentions, Agatha recalled her little sapphire and handed it to the carpenter. A moment later, her ponytail collapsed. I had completely forgotten that I was using it to hold my hair together, the girl mused to herself.

The old man received the perfectly spherical agate and heaved it up and down on his hand. "The quality of yar agate never ceases to amaze me, girl. I've only seen such quality in nobles with high Stratum."

"Wazzat?" Agatha asked as she was unfamiliar with the term.

"Something ya' will surely learn in the future," he answered with a smile.

"So, what are you going to do with my agate?" The girl grabbed her hands behind her back and swayed her body from side to side.

"Nothing much, just need it for a carving."

"Is it another wand?" Her eyes lit up like a Light command.

"Close 'nof."

"Oh!" She did a little hop in the spot.

"Consider it a gift for your future inscription."

"You think I'm going to make it to an academy?" The statal examination was the only real chance for impoverished girls like her to receive an actual education as a good score could grant them a scholarship. And that went from the most basic of civilian academies to the prestigious military academy of Skyscraper.

"I don't even doubt it, girl," Mister Krugger smiled again. "Now, leave me alone. I've gotta work on this!"

"At once!" The girl joyfully shouted and dashed for the door, not before granting her little sapphire the Range command so it didn't get recalled. After all, agates could only exist inside the summoner's effective range. Still, she lingered in the doorway for a moment, and with a toothy smile, she looked at the old carpenter. "Again, thank you so much!"