Solo Floored

[Ashka]

85 Summer 517

Ashka moved slowly and warily through the edge of the jungle, one hand on the hilt of her dagger, the other grasping a small saw. Her eyes flicked steadily left and right as she picked her way across the uneven jungle floor. She saw a glimpse of brighter green among the brown trunks of the trees and turned towards it. The vines and undergrowth shed water onto her from the recent rain, and she felt it soaking into her clothes, leaving them clinging to her body. Eventually she reached the stand of old bamboo she had been aiming for. She didn't, she knew, have the tools or the skills to handle a full size tree, but bamboo was sturdy enough for two young girls. These ones were nearly as thick as her leg, and the cluster straggled around her. She looked it over, counting them as best she could, and decided there were enough stalks for her to take the ones she needed.

She approached one on the edge of the cluster first, and working her way around until she could get at the base of one of the larger bamboo stems. It shouldn't be too hard to cut through should it? She had to kneel in order to get a good cutting angle that low, and the saw skidded off a few times before she managed to get a deep enough cut going that the saw stayed in it. Even then, her cuts were slow and ragged and she kept catching the saw in the bamboo. Each catch sent a jolt through her arm, which in turn, was soon aching under the effort. She could see the cut getting deeper though, so she persisted. What she didn't realise until too late was that her cut wasn't straight. It slanted upwards a bit from where she started, and as she continued, the length of bamboo began to lean, and then topple, straight towards her.


Word count324 words
Running total: 9561 words

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

She didn't notice until it was almost too late, and when she did, all she could do was fling herself sideways into the dirt. Her kneeling posture made it impossible to jump or to run away. The bamboo tumbled, slowed as it tore through a dangling loop of vine and smacked painfully into Ashka's left leg. Ashka's hands clenched, one around the saw she still held, and the other into the dirt. She hissed against the pain, and the fear that flared in her. How badly was she hurt? How was she going to cope if she couldn't move or walk?

She lay there. The bamboo lay there. Her breath sobbed silently in her throat but the tears refused to come. Instead, a scrap of fruit dropped from a bird high in the canopy and splatted against her cheek. She flinched and swatted at the juice-sticky thing, and swore. Even the petching birds were playing pranks on her now.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them again. Slowly, one by one, she moved each arm and leg. Her left leg hurt, but it bent in all the places it should bend, and didn't bend in any of the places that it shouldn't bend, so at least it wasn't broken. She levered her elbows into the jungle floor and eased herself over and up into a sitting position. She'd intended to keep the bamboo light enough to carry back to their camp, so she should, she reckoned, be able to move it off her even if she was at completely the wrong angle to lift it.

She set the precious saw down carefully, then placed both hands on the bamboo and shoved as hard as she could. Pain flared in her leg as the bamboo began to grudgingly move across it, and Ashka bit down on her lip. Finally the bamboo thumped off her onto the jungle floor. Ashka sucked in a harsh breath, and then inspected her leg. There were bruises already beginning to cast their shadows on her calf, but no more than that.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka scowled at the fallen bamboo, and then at the remaining clump. The one she had was intended to become part of the floor, but she needed at least two more that size, and then thinner ones to make the frame of the house. Sitting in the dirt wasn't going to get them cut, but she didn't want any more to land on her either. Once had been quite enough.

She studied the stump left behind and saw that it was crooked on top. The slant of the cut sloped down towards her and she swore softly, and at length. She'd brought the fall on herself after all. She lifted her head and her chin jutted with determination. She could just avoid making that mistake again. It would be easy, wouldn't it? She prised herself off the ground, wincing as the bruised muscles in her leg were already beginning to stiffen, picked up the saw, and hobbled to the next piece of bamboo that she wanted. She tried to kneel, and hissed as the movement and position put pressure on all her bruises. She ended up stooping instead and keeping one hand on the bamboo to warn her when it began to bend. It meant she couldn't cut it quite as low as she wanted to, but at least she could cut it.

This time she deliberately tried to slant the cut away from her, and when she felt the bamboo begin to lean, she pushed it in the direction she wanted. It fell with a loud crack, and thudded into the damp ground. Ashka sucked in a sharp breath of relief once she realised it hadn't fallen on her. This new method was, after all, going to work. She stepped over the fallen pair carefully, and chose a third bamboo stem to cut.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

When the third fat stem fell safely, Ashka mopped her sweat-sodden face on her sweat-damp sleeve and reached for the strap that she had made. Winding it around the stems would hold them together better than her arms could, and leave her arms free to haul them instead. But first she had to get them together and lined up. She limped over to the first one, bent, grabbed the end, and heaved it round until it pointed back down the trail to her claimed acres. Her bruised leg stabbed at her with each step, but she didn't dare stop and rest.That was sure to make it seize up and hurt even more, and she needed to get this done before Randal's visit tomorrow.

After the first stem of bamboo was where she wanted it, she limped over to the second one, bent, grabbed hold and began to drag it over to the first one. It was harder than the first. She had further to go, and it kept snagging on roots and pulling back the other way, or jolting on bumps and jarring her arms and back and body when it did so. When it finally landed against and partly on top of the first bamboo stem, Ashka straightened with a sobbing gasp of relief. Only one more to add to the pile, then she could head for the beach. She still had the longer, thinner poles to cut, but each step was one more in that direction. The third stem resisted, clinging to the mud that it lay in, then came with a rush. Ashka lurched at the lack of resistance, all her weight on her already bruised leg for a moment, then fell. Again. She squeezed her eyes tight shut for a moment, pushing back the tears and frustration, then slowly clambered back to her feet and hobbled on.

She managed to get the bamboo together and wrapped the strap around it just below one where the joins bulged slightly. She knotted it in place, then took the other end of the strap and drew it over her shoulder. This way she could haul with all her body weight and make fewer trips with heavier loads. She dug her good foot into the ground, leaned into the strap and heaved. The bamboo came grudgingly at her heels and she trudged and hobbled back down the narrow track, wincing when they fishtailed into a tree and jolted her, or bounced on a rut and jolted her, or snagged on undergrowth and jolted her. Finally the beach came into view and she stumbled out onto it and made herself keep going until the bamboo came out too. Then she let herself sprawl in the sand for a moment, before crawling over to undo the strap and roll the bamboo off to the side out of the way of the next batch.

Crawling hurt even more than walking, and when she looked down at herself, Ashka thought perhaps the sprawling had been a bad idea. Or at least a messy idea. Sand clung to every muddy and sweaty streak on her body. Well, there was an easy way to solve that. She set down her tools, eased out of her boots, and plunged into the sea clothes and all. She swam a few yards along beside the beach and back again, letting the waves shake and drag the mud and sand off her and her clothes until she was mostly rinsed clean, then splashed back to shore. Her boots felt clammy against her wet skin, and her bruises didn't approve of the renewed pressure, but there was no way she was going into the jungle barefoot. Clean and dressed, but hardly dry, she collected her tools and her strap and headed back to get the thinner poles.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

86 Summer, the following day

Randal looked over the pile of bamboo that Ashka had eventually managed to gather and nodded in satisfaction. He said, "There's enough here for a frame and a floor, which is what you said you wanted, isn't it?"

Ashka nodded. "If I can just get a framework up," she explained, "I can weave something for the walls a bit at a time." She flexed her sore foot cautiously, trying not to wince as the boot dug into the bruise.

"Well, we can get that up today then. Where did you plan to put it?" he asked.

"Here." Ashka led the way to the patch of ground on the edge of the jungle and limpingly paced it out to make the size she wanted clear. "In solid ground. I know enough to know that a building needs solid ground to be secure. I also want it up off the ground a bit, away from the worst of the crawling bugs and catching the breeze." A house was not a ship, and had no sails, but she still looked for sailing weather first. She'd learned that in childhood, before she was even Chaya's age, and it clung like wet cloth against skin.

He nodded, drew a machete, and began to clear back the undergrowth with strong easy chops. Once it was clear enough for his liking, he came back to the bamboo pile. "Corners first then. The poles need to go into the ground about a foot. Do you have a hammer?" He nodded again as Ashka showed hers, picked up one of the longest poles, thinner than the ones for the floor, and carried it to one corner of the cleared area. He put the machete away, set one end of the pole against the ground and twisted it back and forth so that it dug itself the beginning of a hole.

Ashka watched for a moment until she grasped what he was doing, then picked another pole, took it to the opposite corner, and began to do the same.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka followed Randal's lead. When his hammer began to drive the pole deeper into the small hole that the twisting had started in the ground, she brought her hammer into action a moment later. The soil was soft enough that the pole went in steadily if not easily. It was harder work than Ashka had anticipated, and made harder by Chaya bouncing around rattling off questions as usual. Chaya simply wasn't tall enough to hammer poles. Ashka was barely tall enough herself to hammer the corner posts, and the centre posts were going to be even taller. Randal drew Chaya in by having her help carry the next pair of corner poles, and steadying the lower part as they went from horizontal to upright.

The second set of corner poles went in much like the first pair, and then Randal turned to the centre poles that would go front and back and raise the roof - when they got there. For these, Randal used a different technique, one that Ashka absorbed eagerly. First they dug the holes with a short wooden stake, then placed the poles into them, and stamped the ground firmly back into place around them. Ashka considered it literally stamping her mark on her new would-be house.

With the poles up, the rest of the frame began to go into place around them. More bamboo poles were lashed horizontally around the edge. Then Randal took the thick floor stems and his machete and began to make small cuts into the final joint on each end of the stem. He turned the stem between cuts and seemed to line them up with each other. Then once he had gone all the way round, he made one further cut and the bamboo stem unrolled like a length of cloth into a flat - or at least flattish - surface. So that, Ashka thought in astonishment, is how he's going to make the floor!

Chaya and Ashka carried the flattened bamboo like a flexible plank over to the frame and lashed it in place with sturdy cord of their own making. By the time all the thick pieces had been unrolled and lashed down, the floor was fully covered and raised off the ground. They thanked Randal for his help and waved him off down the beach with matching grins. This was one step closer to a house of their own...

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Gossamer]

Ashka

Experience: Construction +5, Body Building +5, Endurance +3, Observation +3, Planning +3, Leadership +2

Payoff: A bruised leg, Bamboo bundles, A good start to a house with a frame and floor!

Lore: Carpentry: Properly Cutting Bamboo, Construction: Using Bamboo, Construction: Transporting Bamboo, Leadership: Directing Workers, Construction: Turning Bamboo into a home frame, Construction: Turning Bamboo into flooring

Note: I gave most of your points in construction because I see carpentry as a finer skillset working with wood and I didn’t really see driving bamboo poles and putting in a floor as that sort of work. Feel free to make an argument if you feel differently.

Let me know if I left anything out!

Goss