Picture book

Story cubes
Beginning: Tipi, house, pyramid
Middle: Building, magnifying glass, arrows pointing in all directions, padlock
End: Cell phone, abacus

Over the last few weeks, Reynir had figured out that everyone had unofficial tasks alongside their official ones, that were just as essential to keeping things running smoothly as their official tasks. Reynir's own official qualifications only enabled him to help Mikkel with the housekeeping and various seldom-needed odd jobs. Unofficially, however, it had become obvious that Tuuri sometimes just needed someone, no matter who it actually was, with whom to share various things she got excited about while reading Old World books. However, more often than not, her moments of enthusiasm happened when whoever was on "baby-sitting" duty was busy with another task, uninterested, or both. Reynir, meanwhile, was somewhat curious about Tuuri's work and could be entertained by simply watching her do it when there was nothing else for him to do. When Mikkel had realized how less often he got interrupted in his various tasks when Reynir was hanging around the office, he'd been "encouraged" to do so on a regular basis. Reynir still couldn't read Danish, so he still usually had no idea what many of the books were about until Tuuri choose to give him a very brief explanation to show him where her current train of thought was coming from. The book Tuuri was looking at today had many more pictures, some of which seemed to be photos, than usual. He eventually lost his grip on his curiosity when he noticed some kind of cone-shaped tent on one of the photos:
-Where did people use those?
Tuuri carefully opened the Old World atlas from the school – the one that made it all too clear that the Know World was only tiny part of the wider world – and pointed at "North America" on the page intended to help situate the various places in regards to each other. She briefly told him that those tents had been used as houses by nomadic tribes that lived there before people from "Europe" moved in and imposed a more sedentary lifestyle. Reynir was intrigued as to what had happened but decided to keep any more questions for later as to not interfere with Tuuri's work more than necessary. However, his curiosity got stirred up yet again a few pages later, this time by the picture of what seemed to be a large triangle-shaped stone structure. As the atlas was still open from before, Tuuri pointed at a place on the upper right side of "Africa", which he had previously been shown after asking where palm trees were supposed to be growing if they didn't grow in Denmark. People there had built these structures as giant tombs for their dead leaders.

A few pages later, the largest visible photo gave a good idea of what some buildings that Reynir had actually seen during the trip must have looked like before falling apart. Reynir let out an intrigued "uh" without quite meaning to when Tuuri pulled out a magnifying glass to examine the photo.
-That general style was found just about everywhere that could afford to make new buildings when the Illness appeared. The text isn't very clear on the building's location, so I'm looking for small details that could tell me where it actually is… wow, this is a really good photo! I can even make out a padlock on one of the doors! Hum… looks like it was in Denmark, so no excuse for you to ask me about yet another country.

Tuuri went through most of the rest of the book in studious silence and got near the end as Sigrun and Emil's planned time for return was approaching, as well. Reynir was starting to think Tuuri would somehow manage to go through an entire day without one of her usually daily outbursts of enthusiasm when…
-Look at that! It's the Old World equivalent of portable radios, and the book says that they were small enough that most people could carry them in one hand! Wouldn't it be nice to have one of these rather than that enormous thing we have to sit at?
Upon squinting, Reynir fond some resemblance between the picture Tuuri was showing him and what he would imagine a much smaller version of a radio to look like, which enabled both his nod and the "yes" he uttered to be sincere. Tuuri continued:
-I just remembered that I once saw something a lot like it in an old book back at Keuruu. Except that the text said it was a calculator. One of the older skalds told me it was basically like an abacus, except that you could use it to do calculations on much bigger numbers. I guess it's nice, but I wonder what they would need to handle so big numbers for.
Familiar sounds from outside signaled that it was time for them to put things away and go in the driver's cabin in case Emil or Sigrun needed to enter the office without being completely decontaminated. In the meantime, Tuuri had lost her train of thought.