When I was a kid, or what I remember of when someone else was a kid, I had a tricycle with solid rubber wheels. Growing up, I wondered why cars and bikes didn't have solid wheels rather than messing with inner tubes and valves and pumps and all.

I suspect the answer is because it's a major pain in the ass to put a solid rubber tire onto a hub if it's at all durable. It just doesn't want to stretch enough. Between the two of us, Tsu'na and I managed to pull my solid bike tire in four directions far enough to get it onto the rim, but that left it so stretched out of shape it would fall off if we actually tried to ride it.

Tsu'na thinks she can Goldsmith a valve with time and a few examples, but in the meantime I'm trying to write a recipe for a wheel that includes rubber, so that the tire can be made molded on. Which, come to think of it, is probably how the trike wheels were made.

The Pit is pretty quiet now when we're on duty. Arguments start, but nothing too physical happens. Certainly no more gun incidents so far. Sam's happy about that and the clientele seem content. And it means Tsu'na and I can do whatever we want, as long as we're ready to respond if anything does happen.

So what we did last night was settle at a table with our laptops, making potential travel plans. So far the best we've been able to do for materials in the more-or-less immediate area is steel. It's perfectly adequate for weapons and armor when all we need to fight against is commonly available handguns, but still, we could do better. And we might actually need better some day.

The problem with that is that higher-level materials aren't intuitively found on Earth. When it's something similar or equivalent to an Earth material, we can go to where it's normally found and look for it our way. Otherwise, what we've been trying to do is find geography equivalent to where something was found in Eorzea and hope it's there on Earth.

Mythril is the next step up the line from steel. In Eorzea we found it in a rocky ridge on the southern border of the Sagolii Desert in Southern Thanalan, a large sandy desert with big dunes, giant sandworms and zombies. Assuming the sandworms and zombies aren't a requirement, we could maybe find comparable geography in White Sands, New Mexico, or Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. Both are roughly a "mere" thousand miles away, doable by bus if we wanted to make another "romantic getaway".

Of course, 𝗍̶𝗁̶𝖾̶𝗋̶𝖾̶ ̶𝗂̶𝗌̶ ̶𝗇̶𝗈̶ I am not aware of the equivalent of mythril on Earth, though perhaps there's some alloy that would be functionally equivalent. But that doesn't mean we can't go look. After all, I was not aware of aether crystals being present on Earth until we started mining them.

Cobalt, on the other hand, does exist here. Like in Eorzea, it's alloyed with iron and carbon to make a strong, long-wearing metal, good for armor and tools. In Eorzea it's found in Northern Thanalan, in a gloomy area called Bluefog, I think named for the perpetual blue-tinted heavy-industry haze. On Earth it's in Missouri, which I think is much nicer. We could maybe skip mythril and go straight for cobalt.

After cobalt comes darksteel, another unknown-Earth-equivalent. Darksteel is a limited-time-of-day material in Coerthas Central Highlands, which is a craggy permafrost area. Eorzea doesn't have seasons like Earth does, but still, that permafrost area is the result of a calamity called the Calamity, so it's icy year-round regardless. There's permafrost areas in the Rockies, including Colorado, so we could aim for ski resorts or something. Never mind that we don't ski.

Titanium, which is next, does of course exist here. In the US it's mined in Utah, and in Canada it's mined in Quebec. In Eorzea it's found in the old-growth forests of the Dravanian Forelands; if geography equivalents are sufficient in this world, that might mean we can look for it in the Keystone Ancient Forest in Sand Springs...which isn't too far down the road.

There's more metals past titanium, but they're all unknown-Earth-equivalent material, such as adamantite. Adamantite is only found at certain times of the Eorzean day in Azys Lla, an area of floating rocks covered with ruins of Allagan research facilities, the monsters they created, and the toxic waste they left behind.

Googling "floating rocks" brings up pumice; googling "floating islands" talks about concentrations of plants that float freely and even produce soil. Nothing big enough to build a factory on, and certainly nothing floating in the sky. On the other hand, if we're looking for industrial ruins, mutant animals and toxic waste, Earth has an embarrassment of riches, and we don't even have to go as far as Chernobyl.

So that's three metals -- mythril, titanium and adamantite -- that require, at least in our existing recipes, darksteel to serve as an alloy. We can maybe improvise with titanium the way we did with steel, but when the base metal itself isn't Earth-native there's only so much improvising we can do. Cobalt should last us a while; if we need to go beyond that, I'll just have to take Tsu'na to the appropriate-seeming geography and let her prospect. Which, after adamantite, might be Iraq or China.

Tsu'na was mildly fascinated to learn about all the different climes in the US alone. It's certainly convenient that I can show her so much variety without needing a passport. ID and transport are still works in progress.

I was sufficiently enjoying geo-wishlisting with her that it affected my situational awareness. I should have noticed Deputy Frank approaching before he was standing at our table.

"Nice laptops."

"Uh, thanks."

"Where'd you get them?"

"Tulsa."

"Which store?"

"I honestly don't remember. They were an impulse buy...we'd just done some day labor and had the cash to spend."

"Day labor."

"Picking corn, yeah."

"Where at?"

"No idea. Stand at a convenience store, guy comes by with a truck, pays cash, drops us off again."

"I thought they harvested corn with machines."

"Guess their machine was broken."

"So, you have no money, and the first money you get you spend on computers? Not food or clothing?"

"We eat at the diner. We make our own clothing. Besides, the internet is really cheap entertainment, and we can look for work online."

He nodded, studying me, perhaps trying to see past my congenial smile. I added, "We appreciate the county sheriff's department taking an interest in our welfare."

"Perhaps I should check the serial numbers on the laptops. Make sure you didn't receive stolen property."

"Thanks, but I'm comfortable with the legitimacy of the store."

"But you don't remember what store."

"It was probably a Best Buy. That's my go-to for electronics."

"Still. It would be good to be sure."

I nodded. "No thank you."

"You have something to hide?"

I maintained my smile. "I believe the fifth amendment to the US Constitution says I don't need to answer that question."

We gazed at each other across the table, and not in a good way. I asked, "Would you like some corn? They let us take some as part of our pay and we have more than we need."

He blinked at that. "Corn?"

I turned to my wife. "Tsu'na, my love...would you please fetch a couple ears from the workshop?"

My wife scowled at me. "You want to give this man our food?"

"Just a couple ears. Community relations and stuff."

She gave Deputy Frank a mildly hostile glance before closing her laptop and heading out the back of the bar. She had a pile of corn in her inventory, but whipping that out in front of the deputy would have been awkward. And it gave an excuse to switch up the tone a little.

"So, what's all this about?"

"Just keeping an eye on local activity."

"Does that include searching our workshop?"

"As I told your wife, that was because of a citizen complaint."

"Are we under investigation for some reason?"

"If you were, I wouldn't be able to discuss it with you."

I sighed. "My wife and I are willing to cooperate with local law enforcement as long as it's done through proper channels."

"Does that include coming down to the station to answer some questions?"

"I'm on the clock at the moment. Anything you want to ask me now?"

"We'll be in touch if we have any specific inquiries."

Tsu'na came back and proferred two ears of corn, though not terribly graciously. The deputy didn't seem to know what to do with them; he eventually said, "Thank you, ma'am", accepted the corn and left the bar.

As she sat back down beside me, Sam wandered over. "Think he made off with one o' yer cider empties last week. Any reason to worry?"

No, because my Earth-normal gearset includes Augmented Crystarium Gloves of Striking glamoured to be invisible, so I don't leave fingerprints. "Can't think of one. Why's he so interested in us? Aren't there more Deweys to chase down?"

"Deweys are a dime a dozen round here. You folks might be the most interestin' things in the county."

I sighed. "Cat TV."

"S'pose so. Try not to look like a mouse."