The Wooden Construct
81 spring of 516 A.V.
Immediately he started by clamping down the pieces onto the table and took the smallest bit he could find for the iron drill. He placed the small bit onto the head and began to crank very carefully until a hole had ran completely through the head. Luckily the bit was small enough to go through without cracking the wood in half, and he performed the action slowly enough that it made a straight line through. He did this for bells on end to the other pieces.
Finally, all the pieces had holes placed in them like shown on the drawing, and he was ready to run the line through the pieces of wood. Taking a single thread of the aluminum line he started from the top of the head then to the torso.
Upon inspection of the torso he ran into a problem though. One complete strand would not run through into the different sections. He would have to cut a piece of line off and then somehow connect it on the inside of the torso. Scratching his head Shimoje cut the line and then took his delicate pliers and tried to make way into the torso, but the drilled section was too small. He would have to make bigger holes for it. Doing such he selected a new drill piece and figured that both the torso and the octagon shaped piece for the pelvis area.
Taking his pliers once again, he managed to cut off a new set of line of aluminum and laced them through the torso, pelvis, arms, and legs leaving enough slack to connect the feet and the hands. Getting a minor headache in his creation Shimoje now only needed to connect the hands and the feet, but upon his weariness of crafting he fell asleep on the table tools in hand.
The next creeped up slowly and Shimoje awoke almost embarrassed in himself. A small puddle of drool was on the table which he quickly wiped off both from his face and the table. Continuing on straight to crafting he lined up the pieces of the feet and hands on the device and then tapered off the string on the ends. Finally, he was done, or so he thought.
Picking up his small humanoid object Shimoje noticed that all the pieces fell downwards onto the line of aluminum. “Gah! Petching thing.” Immediately he had grown frustrated but came to the conclusion that the pieces needed to be tapered and tied at each end of the body parts in order to stay in place, also the whole this was not as rigid as he had desired. No way would it be able to stand up on its own.
“Maybe I should twist the line onto itself?” Shimoje asked himself. “Much like how a rope is wound?” Shimoje experimented with the line in his hand and took two sets of pliers, one set up on the table and one in his hand and began to twist all of the remaining thread upon itself. He tested the line first by trying to bend it and it was far more rigid, but still a bit malleable. “Yes this will do fine!” Shimoje cut off the desired measurements he got from the other pieces he lined up early and cut off the single line from the pieces.
Proceeding forward he continued to run the lines in a similar fashion as before, only this time after each piece had been connected he tapered off the ends with a few tight winds through the wound up line.
Now for the hands. Shimoje cut off small bits for each of the fingers and thumbs and began to tighten them against the rather extra slack emerging from the hands, and shaped them in a way that resembled a humans. “AHHHH!” Shimoje let out with relief. The construct was finally finished, and although it was rather simple, much like a doll, it was complex in its own right. “Clyde will probably think it is child’s play though.” Shimoje frowned but continued to play with the doll a bit on his table.
He set it up on it’s feet and noticed that it actually stood up, and he arranged the pieces in a variety of positions to test the strength of the line and the pieces together. They seemed to keep form to whatever position that they had. “Something doesn’t seem right though. It seems blank, and boring!” Shimoje said.
Turning back to his drawing Shimoje looked at the blank canvas on the head and the torso. “Perhaps I should carve a face, and humanize it a bit more?” Shimoje thought. Drawing some basic facial structures on the paper he finally found a few gaudy representations he liked. He went for more of a masculine feature with a strong looking chin and sulking eyes. Taking his finest woodcarver’s knives he began to carve the face carefully into the wooden construct. “There! Now you look more like something that would walk and talk!” Shimoje said, but once again a frown befell his face. “Only experienced mages can do that though. Oh well!” Shimoje threw a shrug across his shoulders and laughed from exhaustion.
Such a simple creation took many days to craft, he couldn’t believe how time flew by, and hunger finally struck. He grabbed one of his provisions and quickly demolished it before placing the construct carefully into his pack and heading out.
what it looks like
