The Zeltivan Monument Series Part 6: The Carving (Wart)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"'Bout a season," Tock replied, examining the stone structure of her statue. "Been fer Nyka 'fore 'at, an' Ravok, Syliras, Mura, an' Sunberth..." She'd been all over the whole entire world. At least, the entire world that she knew of. She'd heard of a few other cities off somewhere or another, but didn't know any of the details of them. In fact, before leaving Sunberth, she'd barely known anything at all about the outside world. It wasn't exactly like children in Sunberth got lessons in geography. She kept half a curious eye on Wart's strange, silly little game with the papers. It was a very different method than anything she would have done. She preferred working her thoughts out via drawings, sketching out blueprints and diagrams until she had an idea down right. But Wart seemed to have a more hands-on method of thinking. It was intriguing, even if the method didn't click quite right in Tock's head. She got quiet again for awhile, focusing on her work. Tock wasn't one to chit chat much when she was really focused on a task. It actually tended to really irritate her when some of her coworkers got too chatty on the job. It broke her concentration. After a few hours of work, she only had the stone above the right arm cleared away. She decided it was time for a break before starting on the left arm. She tucked her tools away for now, then piloted her crutches over to Wart and said, "'Elp me down outta 'is 'ing, aye Conch?" The crutches walked up to Wart then stopped when Tock removed her fingers from the metal discs that controlled it. She unstrapped herself, groaning in pain at the stiffness of her body. Hanging in the crutches for hours on end without using her legs or bending her waist had left her quite stiff and sore. She eased herself down and wrapped her arms around Wart's shoulders for support, unable to really walk on her own. "I brought lunch," she said, waving her fingers to Choppy. He still had her pack slung over his handle, and he waddled over on his iron legs, stopping in front of the girls. Keeping one arm around Wart for support, Tock fished into the pack, searching for the food. She had a hard time leaning over, so she stuck Handy in the bag and said, "Baby, fetch the cloth bundle fer Mommy..." The wooden hand dug around in the bag for a moment, until he had a grip on the cloth-wrapped bundle of food Tock had brought for lunch. He was unable to pull it out, though, so Tock stuck her wrist out to him. He wrapped his leather tail around it, and she withdrew her arm, pulling him out, the wooden hand holding the bundle for her. She grinned at Wart and asked, "'Ungry? I needs me a break..."

[Wart]

Jus a season? Wart couldn't help but to be a little surprised by Tock's answer. It seemed like she knew the place so well already, and here she was building a monument to it too! She thought back to the time she'd been in the city and realized that up until this season she really hadn't gone out much. She'd spent so much time just exploring the area and getting a grasp of how different it was from her home. Other than that she'd basically kept to herself, doing small jobs to get by and keeping herself largely away from the general public. In fact, that first time painting Tock's wall was about the most real social interaction she'd had. Sure she didn't much care for people anyway, but at the same time it was a strange realization.

As for the cites, she simply nodded, trying to think of whether she recognized any of the places Tock listed. Nyka and Ravok, no, Syliras she'd heard a little bit of talk about, Mura of course was that Konti place, and Sunberth… She only knew Sunberth because the people she'd been traveling with made it a point not to stop and dock there. Their reasoning though, was none of her business, and she hadn't bothered to ask.

It didn't occur to her to mention where she'd come from, nor any of the cities she'd been through. Of course she only ever stopped every so often to travel through, or to dock for a couple days when she'd been on ship, so the names hadn't even stuck with her anyway. Instead she settled into the quiet that came over the lot again, making a small mental note to herself to ask Tock about the cities she mentioned if they got time. Her stance on chatting was just about on par with Tock's, believing it just presented an unnecessary distraction when there was work to do. And she badly needed to just get a decision on this petching color pattern done already.

It took a couple different rearrangements and starings at, but finally she came to a point where she was satisfied. The circle transitioned out of blues, to greens, and back to blues. Near the greens would be bursts of yellows, and within the yellows bursts of oranges. It wasn't in a single file circle, however, but more bunched and layered. When squinting, t almost looked like sparks of sunlight on an ocean of varying depths.

Next came the task of figuring out which of these flowers fit those colors, so she pulled out the "Flowers of Zeltiva" book and starting flipping through. Every so often she stopped, looking from the book to the colors on the papers, and marking the picture with a small circle. It took longer than she expected, as some of the colors seemed to fit multiple flowers, and some of the flowers fit multiple colors. This meant a lot of closer study, comparing, re-comparing, eliminating, and second guessing. She might have cursed whatever God was in charge of color (of all the things they had Gods and Goddesses for surely color must be one of them) but an abundance of color and variety wasn't something she could possibly complain about.

Wart was stuck on two particular types of yellow flower when Tock caught her attention. "Ah, yeah hold on." She set down the book and approached the… spider-ey thing with some caution, then quickly went to hold Tock's arms and support her as she got down. Her friend's groan and obvious stiffness caused her to narrow her eyes, wondering if this thing might be hurting her.

The look of concern however was temporarily replaced with a smile at the mention of "lunch." She hadn't even thought about bringing food, of all things, and was very grateful that the other girl had been smart enough to think of it. She supported her carefully, an arm around her waist, as she tried to dig around in her bag. That lil' hand one's pretty helpful huh… They all seemed to be real helpful, and listened real well as far as she could tell. She wondered how that worked, if it had something to do with the whole concept of her being their "Mom."

Wart nodded, smiling again. "Yeah, a break'd be great." With her free hand she moved her bag and other things out of the way. "You wan' sit here?" With Tock in the state she was in she figured it would probably be for the best, as standing seemed to prove a bit difficult. If she answered yes she'd help her of course, supporting her as they both eased to the ground, and helping however she'd need to with whatever food she'd brought. "… Why you in 'at thing anyway?" At first she'd sort of assumed it must have something to do with carving the stone, perhaps to keep balance? But now she wasn’t so sure.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

OOCActually, I think this should be 'dinner'. I forgot I had stated at the beginning of the thread that it was afternoon/after a day at work. Tock settled onto the ground with Wart's help, opening the bundle and sharing the food with her friend. Bringing lunch or dinner to the job site was pretty standard for her, since it wasn't practical to leave a construction site in order to go find food. You only got a limited time for a break, and it was best to have your food on hand and ready to eat. When Wart asked about the crutches, Tock just lifted her shirt to show off the bandaged wrapped around her midsection. A small bit of blood had seeped through, indicating the size of the gash across her stomach. She'd have to stop by the infirmary again after they were done here, in order to get the bandages changed yet again before she went home. She glanced up at the sky, figuring they had a decent bit if daylight left to work with. She wouldn't want to be doing the delicate carving work after the sun went down. She gestured around the mostly empty lot and asked, "So whatcha think, Conch? Got ya sommat good ta work wit' 'ere?" There was enough space for some kind of decent arrangements. She gestured to a few spots just past where they'd marked the path, "Whatcha think fer, a couple o' benches o' sommat?" She leaned back on one hand, letting her stomach muscles ease a bit. She ate by keeping Handy on her wrist, his wooden fingers retrieving each piece of food from the cloth in her lap, then raising her arm towards her face as naturally as if she were using her own hand. Freed from other activity, her fingers gently petted Handy in his perch on her wrist. The way her flesh fingers gently stroked his wooden ones was tender and loving... almost intimate. She could have just used her own hand to feed herself, but Handy enjoyed being useful, and she loved her baby so much that she wanted to make him happy.

[Wart]

oocRight I was kinda wondering about that… I'll go and change "lunch" I my other post then

On seeing the bandage Wart inhaled quickly through her teeth. "Shyke…" She couldn't see the actual wound, but with the size of the bandage and the blood coming through she could just imagine the severity. That made sense then, the spidery-thing was some sort of crutch for while she was healing. While Tock glanced up at the sky, Wart pulled over her papers and books, making sure to add that to the notes she'd started. Spidery one = crutches. Name… She hadn't heard her call it anything, maybe it wasn't one of the babies? Gods this stuff is confusing.

Hearing Tock's question she smiled and nodded, shuffling papers until she came to the one that held most of her sketches, also flipping open the marked up page on the landscaping book. "'S plenty a land, lo'sa space ta make her real pretty. Hard ta believe they weren't usin' this spot for nothin..." But that didn't matter, Tock had claimed it and now they were going to make it into something magnificent that she doubted the city 'officials' could have ever come up with. Looking over at the areas her friend gestured towards she nodded again and took out some charcoal to add that into the sketches. "Right thas' perfect." She mentally scoffed at herself for not having thought of that. Duh people're gonna wanna sit ya vagik.

The paper she held now had her most updated sketch. The statue was sort of vague, as she hadn't exactly copied over Tock's final design and didn't dare try to duplicate it by memory. Around it was a small fence, then the path, and now outside that benches with sections of flowers between them, and a few behind.

Tapping the utensil on her chin for a moment she added "What if we 'ad like, some flowers right in 'ere too," she gestured to the fenced in area around the statue, "some lil' easy ones we can put in last thing, once all the carvin's done?" She had been thinking of sketching them in there earlier but had been hesitant. If they were going to be there they'd have to be put in after the statue was absolutely finished, not to mention the dirt that would have to be prepared then too because Tock would need the area while carving. Thing was if there were flowers that would mean the fence could be shorter and it would be that much more preventing people from climbing right over it.

Looking up Wart saw the way that the little hand one was helping feed Tock, and how she pet him so tenderly. It was adorable, the genuine affection she held for it. She really loves 'ose things… It brought up a strange mix of admiration and a twinge of jealousy in her. Admiration for that kind of devotion, and jealousy for having something to love like that.

With a small smile she turned her attention to the food, taking a piece and chewing on it thoughtfully.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock leaned over to look at the sketches, and gave an approving nod. "Aye," she said, "'at's perfect. Fill in the empty space right good, keep people away from the base. An' 'ey been like," she waved her hand in the air while searching for the right word, "framin' it, aye? Like a frame o' flowers. Sounds right good ta me, Conch." When she finished her meal, she gently wiped off Handy's fingers with a napkin, using the tenderness a mother would when cleaning a child's face. As she was doing it she smiled and whispered to him, "Was yous a good boy, 'elpin' Mommy? Yes ya was!" She nuzzled his fingers with her nose and gave him a kiss, then it was time to get back to work. She asked for Wart's help standing back up, and got back into her crutches to continue the work. She started on the left arm next, spending the remaining hours of daylight using her picks to take out chunks of stone between what would become the body and head, and the raised arm that would be holding the trident. By the time the first day's work was finished, all she had was an amorphous lump of stone, with one outcropping reaching forward on the right, and another reaching up on the left. One couldn't even tell yet that it would become the shape of a man, but it was a start. When they started losing daylight, she packed up her tools, planning to stop at the infirmary for a checkup before she went home for the night. "Not a bad start, eh Conch?" she asked. "'Nother 'undred o' so like 'is, an' she'll be done!" OOCDo you want to time skip to the following day during your post?

[Wart]

oocExcuse the ridiculous time it took me to reply to this, like I mentioned ended up re-writing it a couple times, though now that I look back at those and how it ended up now that's probably a good thing.

"A'right great, I'll get on 'at right away then too." She added a couple notes about the flowers there. They were going to have to be a bit more subtle since they were right there around the statue itself. Colorful yes but complimentary to direct attention to it as apposed to distract.

When they were done eating Wart saved Tock the trouble by getting everything put away. Looking up she smiled at the affection she could see again with the little hand. She noticed that she referred to him as a "good boy," and her eyes narrowed a bit. In fact it seemed she'd referred to all of them as "hes." Wart gave it another glance at another angle, wondering if there was some physical feature that indicated gender. Shaking her head she pushed the thought away. You're thinkin way too far inta this stuff...

All the same she made a subtle note of it on her other paper before helping Tock back into the crutches. Once her friend was ready to get back to work she gathered up her own papers and set back to her task.

Most of the next few hours she continued figuring out the actual flower species she'd be using. Comparing colors to pictures, pictures to other pictures, and basic sizes and structures of flowers to the ground around her. She wanted to right down to marking out where the flowers would be but the whole ordeal was a lot more complicated than she had expected.

Soon her papers were covered in different sketches of different flowers next to each other as her eyes darted from the pictures to the general area and to the layout sketches. Figuring out what colors would work and go next to each other, as she now realized, was the easy part. She hadn't actually thought of the fact that they all had to work well together based on height, size, reach, maximum growth, all of these details she knew nothing about prior to the stuff in all of these books.

At one point the thought crossed her mind that it might be necessary to take classes on all of this plant shyke. But her prejudice against the University led her to force the thought down and continue as best she could.

Finally it came to the point where she was straining to see the stuff she was writing down. She noticed that Tock had began packing up her tools and resignedly started to do the same.

"Yeah, she's gonna be a beauty soon enough!" She smiled, knowing that while today proved it would indeed take quiet a long time, progress was progress and today they made a good amount for a first day. Waving goodbye she headed on home. Wart didn't have any plans for the rest of the evening, and so would be spending most of it by candle light trying to get the rest of these damned technicalities taken care of.

oocSure!

66th of Summer 512 AV
Late morning/Early afternoon

Wart was able to make it to the site much earlier than she had the day before. She showed Lewd her extensive notes and books on the layout she was working on and (after plenty of immature comments on working with flowers and "proof of a long lost feminine side" followed by shouts about her being only in it for the petching color aspect) he let her leave earlier. Tongue had finally shown up again, and though he was giving Wart an obvious silent treatment, it meant they had plenty of artists to take care of business for the day. Coal even surprised her by asking where the statue was going to be. That was the extant of her show of interest however and Wart went off on her way.

She came with much the same supplies as she had before. This time though her rucksack also held a large bundle of sticks from a recently disheveled tree near her home. There was also a small bundle of waterskins and some food, having felt bad about forgetting to bring anything before. Her notes were complete, or, at least as complete as they could be. The night before it hit her that some of the flowers may be difficult to get a hold of, and so "complete" basically meant she had finished 3 or 4 different sets of options. It was all driving her rather crazy, so today she decided she'd start off with just getting the layout fully marked out and the ground more ready, just to get her mind off of it a little.

Wart set down her pack and paused to give the area a general look-over. As far as she could tell no one had come and messed with anything, which was good. If anyone had they would have surely met a very unfortunate fate. The stone was taking shape, though if she didn't already have an idea of what it was going to be it would have been fairly hard to tell what it was exactly. But for only a days work, she was still impressed.

Before starting the layout she went and retrieved all of the stones that had fallen and got them all set into the path. They'd likely have to be rearranged at least a little to make it more smooth, but for now it was enough give a good idea of how much more would be needed.

Taking out her pile of sticks she started shoving them into the dirt to mark out the different layout areas. The outer circle of the path was left fairly open to give Tock the room to get through there (assuming she might be using the crutches again) and she left the inner circle alone entirely.

Next she marked off the four corners for each bench, and the areas around them for flowers. These would likely be changed and adjusted as she went, but she wanted to see the general layout off of paper so she could figure out some more of the details.

After a while she stopped and took a moment to look through one of the books, wondering about a couple little ideas that had come into her head...

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

After a class in the early morning, and then work throughout the day, Tock arrived back on the monument site to find Wart already there getting started. That made her grin; she was glad to see she was collaborating with someone who not only had passion for her work, but who wasn't going to need Tock to be constantly supervising and micro-managing her. She felt like she could trust Wart to just completely take charge of the landscaping aspects, which was doubly good considering Tock didn't know the first thing about those things. She piloted her crutches right up to the statue and set to work, merely giving Wart a quick wave when she arrived. She glanced around at the sticks outlining the additions they'd discussed yesterday, giving a quick, approving nod. She then spent a few minutes getting her tools laid out, while sending Diggy to wait in a corner so he wouldn't trample any of Wart's work. Naily, on the other hand, rolled around freely, pausing at one point to tug energetically on Wart's pant leg with his little hammer claw. Tock started off today with the basic shape of the statue's head. Considering the statue was a good eight or nine feet tall, it was quite out of her reach. Well, it would have been, if not for her babies. She spent some time examining the stone, checking the marks she'd made about where to cut, and search for possible flaws in the stone. At this stage of the work, a crack was the biggest risk she faced. And considering how much stone she had to take off from above the shoulders and the sides of the head, she'd need to take great care. To make extra sure there was only minimal risk, she made use of the Auristics technique she'd devised a few weeks ago. Before she first set chisel to stone, she channeled Djed through her eyes, pushing slowly and carefully to expand her vision beyond the physical realm. Bit by bit, the stone's aura came into focus, a deep, dull gray emanating from all around the boulder. She ran her eyes along it slowly, searching for signs of flaws. From what she had learned, a crack hidden beneath the stone should make the stone's aura appear fragmented, like looking at one's reflection in a broken mirror. Luckily, she saw no signs of such fragmentation. She cut off the Djed flow and set to work, though she would be scanning the boulder periodically in order to make sure no problems arose. Since she was unable to fully reach the statue's head from where she stood, and climbing wasn't an option in her current state, she used Handy and Grippy to get the job done. First she looped a coil of rope around the top of the boulder. Then she held Handy up to it, and he looped his leather tail around the rope. "Up," she told him. "Right 'ere..." She extended Grippy's arm to touch a spot above her head. Handy gripped the rope and slowly pulled himself upwards, adjusting his tail's grip on the rope with each inch he climbed. Before long he was in position. Tock then put an iron spike in Grippy's hand and extended it up to Handy. "'Old it steady fer Mommy," she told him. He loved holding things, and she was very proud of him when she saw him plant the tip of the spike against the stone right where she'd indicated. Then, with her hammer stuck firmly in Grippy's grip, she extended him up and started tapping away at the stone. The awkward angle slowed things down a bit, but she was able to use both hands, one gripping Grippy's handle, the other reaching up to hold part of his extended arm. In this way she was able to keep good enough leverage to drive the spike into the stone, then extend another spike up to Handy and direct him to a new position. She periodically checked the stone's aura again as she worked, to make sure she wasn't making any major mistakes. The aura started fragmenting in spiderwebs around the points she was cutting into, but that was to be expected. She just needed to watch for any fragments in the aura outside of the expected area. If she saw any, she would know a crack was starting to form in another part of the stone.

[Wart]

Wart looked up when she heard Tock, along with her babies, approaching. She returned the wave with a smile and went back to the book. There was an issue one of the pages had brought up that she hadn't thought about regarding the path.

As her friend started setting out her tools she came over to get the additional detail okayed before she started working. She wanted to avoid the issue of asking so many questions like she had yesterday, so she hurried to get it out of the way so they could both work without interruption.

She stopped suddenly when the little hammer one came and tugged at her bootI don't think Wart owns pants just yet because its so hot here . With a nervous smile she leaned down to gently pat its "head," then kept walking.

"Hey, one las' thing, I didn't think bout it before but we'll proly want the path around the statue to go out n' connect to the road, yeah?" She showed a small sketch she'd made in the book, depicting another path coming out of the circle at the front of the statue and extending to the road. "A kinda way to get to it ya know, so they ain't steppin' on the flowers to get o'er here and see it?" It was just a simple detail and wouldn't be hard to add in. They might need a bit more rock now to fill that area too but she'd be willing to go out and get that herself some time.

Once she was done going over it with Tock, Wart made her way over to adjust and add some sticks where it was necessary. Now that the layout was fairly established, she just had to figure out what needed to be done with the dirt.

Sitting next to her bag she took out the book on growing flowers and flipped to a section she'd only skimmed before. After all it was dirt, how hard could it be to fix up dirt.

Many gardeners make the mistake of digging a hole, popping a seed in the ground, and hoping it will grow. In Zeltiva especially, this is a huge problem. Much of the soil is either lacking in necessary nutrients or contains a level of salt that makes growth nearly impossible.
…
One way to tell whether the salinity levels of your soil is too high is if there is a while crust visible on the surface.

Wart looked up and around at the lot, eyes growing a reddish-orange in both worry and anger at where this was leading. There didn't seem to be any sign of white crust, and this was fairly far into the city, further from the ocean, so surely that wouldn't be a huge problem…

… However unless you live outside of the city nearing the wild lands or in a more lush area of Mathews Bay, it will still be absolutely necessary to provide a source of nutrients into the soil if you expect anything above very weak signs of growth.

There are several options regarding this…

… One of the cheapest and most widely used methods is the use of compost.

As she continued reading her hand moved into her hair as she shook her head in disbelief. Compost. Fish emulsion. Seaweed emulsion.

… They rot this shyke. On purpose. And it makes flowers grow?! Petch... Taking out her notes and one of the few remaining blank papers she started trying to make some quick estimations. She'd have to figure out how much area the flowers took up total, how much "compost" would be needed to cover that, and how much fish and seaweed would have to be used to make that much compost.

Gods even the petching flowers are in a petching famine in this place… As her mind worked over the new found complication she looked up and noticed for the first time what it was Tock was doing. She had the stretchy baby and the hand baby both working together to hammer way up there on the stone. It looked a little strange, but it seemed to be effective enough.

The woman also kept stopping and staring intently at the stone. Wart guessed it just had to do with the whole carving process and figuring out where she was chiseling and being careful. But something about it made her uncomfortable…

Setting her books and papers down she went over and once again picked up some fallen stone to place into the path. She made sure to be careful, not wanting to get in the way or end up in the path of something falling on her. She stopped and watched for a moment, trying to wait for a time when she wouldn't interrupt Tock's work or screw her up. Finally she said "So, guess 'is soil has to have rotted fish n' stuff in it so it can grow anythin'." She paused with a incredulous laugh, still in disbelief about the whole concept. "An is gotta be real rotted. So I'mma have to get some of that shyke, put it in a bucket, an let it rot for few days."

oocI'm not sure, would you rather she goes and gets the fish and stuff in this thread or go and do it in a separate fall solo? Aside from helping Tock with anything I don't think there's much more she can do here on-site yet.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

OOCConsidering this is a weeks- and months-long project, I think a lot of that stuff will just need to be summarized. Figure that adding compost over time will be an ongoing affair that we can reference in future threads as well. And then we can focus on the core concepts like the stuff you're studying in this last post. Also I figure we can work in some scenes of hitting the bar after a day's work and some time skips as needed to keep the flow going. Then pretty soon we can move on to Autumn threads and summarize the work that has been done over the intervening weeks. Tock looked over Wart's notes and gave a nod. "Aye, I figgered sommat like 'at," she said. "Didn't really think ta add 'er. Does 'er 'owever she works, aye? Aye." She smiled at her friend and sometimes lover, eying her and briefly thinking about other things than the project they were working on. It was a real pity she was injured so badly. Doubly so when she noticed Wart petting Naily instead of reacting fearfully to him. People treating Tock's children like they were real people was a huge turn on. Then Wary started talking about rotted fish shyke. There went that mood... "If'n she takes awhile," she said, "'en we jus' gits 'er done bit by bit, aye? Can't rush genius..." She winked at her friend, who she definitely thought was a brilliant artist. "We's gather up what we done needs, an' I's 'as Diggy dig up some good dirt fer ta mix it all wit', o' whatever ya needs." She spent the next couple of hours until sunset carefully taking out fist-sized chunks of the stone, one by one. Each cut was carefully measured and planned, so that she knew how it would go before spike or chisel ever touched the stone. By the time they started losing the light, it was still barely possible to tell that the shape up there was meant to be a head and shoulders. But the details would come later, one step at a time. When it was time to pack up, she asked Wart, "Wanna what git a drink o' sommat? 'As a lil fun after a long day's work...?"

[Arcane]

Rewards and Treasure! Experience Points +1 Architecture +1 Mathematics +3 Drawing +2 Painting +2 Observation +2 Gardening Lores Zeltivan Monument Project: Carving Collaborating with Tock Book: Flowers of Zeltiva Painting: Comparing Flowers to Desired Colors Book: Basic Gardening Miscellaneous n/a Comments It'll be nice if you could rally everyone and finish up this project. It'll be a waste to let it just... disappear, don't you think?