Finally after a long time, the days not making any impression on him anymore, he opened his eyes. Tor was alone, and it was morning. He thought. It was light outside at least. He stood, barely making it to his feet, legs almost not able to hold him up.

How long had he been out? Longer than five or six days at least. He knew what that felt like, having done it before a couple of times now.

Tor didn't make it to the door before it opened and Rolph came in with Kolb and the nice older man with the beard he'd seen before. He looked at them and smiled.

“Hey.” His voice croaked. Tor had to clear it for a while, and drink some water, before it just sounded like a frog lived in there.

“Wow, how long was I working?” He almost apologized for not greeting everyone properly first, but Rolph answered before he could say anything else.

“Eleven days! I'd thought you were just working on something at first, I mean I could see the template in your hand and all, I get what that means, but then you just didn't move. Two days ago you stopped even drinking water, so Trice and I decided we had to get help. I don't know what that is, but is the latest diaper rash treatment or whatever really worth all this?” The look on Rolph's face was stern and more than a little worried.

Eleven days.

Gods. No wonder he couldn't speak. Worse Karen would probably kill him when he went back. Kolb looked worried too, but the girl had been put in charge of his training, and as far as everyone else could tell her new trainee had run away after only one day. He decided to distract them all, if he could. He held up the template, one made in wood, with lines written over both the front and the back of it in tiny script. It was twice the size of the normal wooden planks he got, because he'd found the first two he tried weren't big enough for everything he needed to write down.