“What the hell?”
Well, that made sense, if you were dead anyway, why not take the risk of the treatment killing you?
The healing worked though, completely, if painfully. The man screamed and hollered for about three minutes. Then he sat up and looked at his lower body, which was nearly healed. They left him with the field for half an hour, but it seemed to hold just fine. No one relapsed later that Tor noticed, so it seemed that field really worked. Yay. Most of the injuries were minor, but it was faster to heal those with magic than treat them otherwise and the people could be put to work within minutes instead of taking days to get healthy, so it was efficient.
The outlying areas were largely better… or massively worse depending on the location. A few full families were dead, their houses washed away or crushed, one just collapsed. But the rest were nearly untouched. The day lasted until after dark, when they decided it was too dangerous to work. Tor and Varley set up four houses which gave everyone on the working team a bed. He shared with Varley, Trice and the red-headed guard woman that had attacked them all the first day.
Yvonne was her name, she told them, a bit warily. Tor didn't mention it, but wondered what she thought they were going to do? Beat her up for spying on them? All she did was sleep, which was really all Tor was up to as well. It occurred to him that the women might have carried a grudge over being stopped like she had been, but apparently that wasn't a huge issue to her. Of course he'd given her pie too, so maybe that had already smoothed things over?
Who didn't like pie?
Varley crawled in next to him, but even though she tried to rouse his interest, he fell asleep anyway. It wasn't as much fun, but he didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. Work trance wasn't really sleep, for all it could look similar, and he'd been up for a long time. Too long. Besides, she probably only wanted to sleep with him so she could claim the child was his. Since that didn't matter to him, or likely anyone else, she could save the attempt if that was her game.
Then again, if she wanted to have sex, he wouldn't say no. It was fun. It didn't matter that she was pregnant, not really. He'd marry her like he was supposed to, and do his best to claim the child, even if it was obviously a royal giant or had the wrong hair color. For all he knew that could be why they were trying to marry her off to Peterson. Maybe he looked more like the real father? A funny thought passed through his mind, that the man, best described as fierce, intimidating, and verbally clumsy, may have managed to get the girl into bed. They clung together as they slept.
In the morning Trice looked over and shook her head as they sat up.
“Now I'm jealous. I admit I thought about climbing into bed with you Tor, but I guess I missed that chance… Well, dibs on tonight.” All the girls laughed, which Tor kind of understood, since sleeping alone had to be more comfortable, even on the soft shield material beds.
They all got warm showers and hot breakfasts, since both he and Yvonne could cook. Tor had to run out and make the pots and pans, using an earth compressor, a light tan focus stone here for some reason, compared to what he thought of as the normal red-black color. It was just as strong and heat resistant, so it would work.
That was the pattern for the next two days. The damage finally got fixed and they all returned to town to find that rebuilding was going well, but food was a little scarce. A lot of the fishing boats had gone down when the main dock lost a section that kept things tied in place. On top of that about half the stored food had gotten damp and just started to rot and mildew, before Tor could get a room drier made. Once he was told about the need he had a large batch ready to go inside an hour. No one had even thought to ask.
Tor didn't shake his head, because that made sense. You dried food in the sun, or by letting air run over it. Everyone knew that. The same with the rest of it though, he'd never even seen a fishing boat before, but realized that if he had an example, maybe he could help. It wouldn't hurt to look into it at least, right? No one knew to ask if he could do it though, so they didn’t.
Holly looked at him sadly when he said that, jaw clenching, as if it were an insult she didn't feel she deserved or something. It was one of those baffling things that didn't make a lot of sense to him. How would his helping her people be an insult to Holly? Was he not supposed to help? Or was it that she thought they owed him already or something, and here he was compounding the debt? That…
Tor didn't know how to explain it to her, but that it was an emergency and besides, there were no debts between friends, right? So of course anything that could be done to help would be. Even if it made her mad at him.
Inside her house she had plans and pictures of boats, a lot of them huge, but she assured him that the fishing craft were smaller, and powered by the wind. Tor realized that he could use a similar rudder set up to what was already used and something like the flight field for a cargo lift that would let people move almost the way they were used to in the water now and control their speed on purpose without rigging and sails. Maybe at least. If he didn't just mess it all up.
Later that day they went to the docks and Tor tried to memorize the way the brown wooden ships looked, their rough size and how they worked to collect fish. That part was important. A nifty craft that went where you wanted would be nice, but unless they could use them the way they were used to, people wouldn't. New things were treated with suspicion in most places.
For good reason. New things could have flaws, or dangers you wouldn't know about, since they were, by definition, new.
The boats he came up with were like the houses, not real at all, but they looked and felt right. Solid and correct to the touch, textured exactly like smooth wood. They didn't have sails, instead they had a single lever that controlled speed next, to the big round driver's wheel boat captains used. They gave the first one to a man named Jaime who, spat when he heard the idea, grumbled and groused about the evils of magic and then took off, and went out when no one else could. Hours earlier. Before they got to the end of the wooden peer to look for the next person to test it, three more walked over and asked to try one too. In all Tor handed out twenty that day. By night fall they had enough fish for everyone and a good bit of shellfish and giant reddish insects too.
Lobsters, the monsters were called. They even had a menacing name.
That led to an unexpected problem that everyone wanted Tor to solve himself, even Holly left it to him, smiling. Not as if it was funny, just like it would be a happy thing all around.
No price or fee had been given to the fishermen who used the boats. Holly suggested half their catch for the use of the craft, which they all agreed to readily. Tor didn't need that much fish personally, not even to give to his friends, but for the time being he could just give the fish away, right? People needed it, and while the free stuff would go first, hopefully that meant everyone would eat.
Another ten fishermen, all of these with intact boats, wanted to rent his as well. They were too good to pass up, weren't they? One of the men chuckled about it a little with Tor when he came to see about getting one.
“Jaime said he had his up to near forty knots! Didn't even stress the haul and that was into the wind. Even if he was lying and no man has ever said they heard Jaime telling tales, if it does half that it's worth the fish. Can't get a better rent than that, can you? Fish don't bite, we don't pay, and none to say against it? Sign me up admiral!” The man had a gray beard and was thin and hard looking in body, but Tor gave him an amulet too.
If they were careful they could take them out without ever getting in the water, he thought, though that part of it was a little trickier than it sounded. It helped to be flying at the time. Tor had learned the hard way. Twice. Well, he knew how to swim at least and it provided amusement for the hardened fishermen when he fell off the docks trying to lean over far enough for the boats to go in.