Completed [Shipyard] A Study of Small Parts

[Eleret]

Winter 51, 512 AV morning When Eleret had first reported to her new job, several days prior, the workshop overseer had shown no signs of surprise or dismay at her appearance -- none that she could discern by either sight or gift. That had been a small surprise to her, and a welcome one. Equally surprising, if much less positive, was something another worker had confided some bells later: nearly the shop's entire complement of workmen had started a betting pool over how long the Konti would actually hang on. As she walked in this morning, she could hear quiet murmurs among the men, some grumbling in disappointment, others cheerful at the prospect of still being in the running to win. Eleret did them the courtesy of pretending not to hear, and took up the position she'd been assigned. She exchanged a smile of greeting with the boy across the table -- for everyone on this row was young in fact, other than the Konti. Apprentices, trainees, doing the simple and tedious work suited to their inexperience. Eleret didn't begrudge being placed with them; while she wasn't new to wood as such, she was new to this style and scale of work. Eleret picked up a handful of pegs from the shallow, raised bin on her left; about half the length of her forearm, they tapered down on one end. The overseer had called them thole pins when he described her task -- they had something to do with oars and rowing. The boy on the other side mirrored her motion, and breathed an exaggerated sigh as he held up the pin. The Konti grinned at him. "It is tedious, yes?" "Yes," he hissed back. "I can't wait to actually do something! Not just... petching polish shyke." Eleret examined one pin for straightness and potential fracture points as he spoke. Taking up scrap leather and damp sand, she began smoothing down its sides. "It is important to the ship, to be smooth. And you will polish much later. It is good you polish well now." The boy muttered imprecations Eleret couldn't quite catch, though his grumbly tone and the dark glance cast her way were unmistakable. Bowing her head, she grinned again where her pale hair screened it from his view, and continued sanding down her day's allotment of pegs.

[Eleret]

Winter 52, 512 AV around noon The shop smelled of sea-salt, as nearly everywhere in Zeltiva did, and the sweet-cloying scent of too much sawdust. These were constants in the workshop, and while Eleret didn't mind the one, some days she felt like the woodscent saturated her skin and never went away, even when she wasn't in the shop. She had always loved the smell of wood before, if not so much as the sea; these days, it was a toss-up whether she still took pleasure in it. Her mind still boggled at the sheer quantity of lumber which went through their small corner of the shipyard every single day. Even her lunch tasted rather of wood, after sitting in the building all morning. Or maybe it was just the wood dust all over her. Either way, Eleret chewed on the bread-pocket stuffed with meat and cheese more because she was hungry than because it was tasty. After getting through about half of it, she paused and observed the rest of the workshop, all clumped together in little cliques scattered around the room. The overseer stood apart, as befit his position; so did one of the men, older and gruff, whom Eleret had gathered had little use for the others. She wasn't sure why. "Um, hey," came a voice from behind her, at almost the very moment Eleret picked out a scent which was not wood. Aromatic with an almost minty overtone, it suggested a diffidence consistent with the hesitant greeting. "Would you mind if I joined you?" She didn't need to turn to identify the boy who worked across the table, but of course she did so anyway, because manners required no less. "I do not mind," the Konti replied, nodding towards the nearest stool. "It is good to talk to another." Especially one who didn't start the conversation with hey, fish-girl... "Oh, okay," he said, dragging the stool over with a thankfully short-lived clatter. He sat down, scratched at his short hair a bit, then rested his hands in his lap -- but continued to fidget in little ways reflecting his nerves. "I've never... I was... Could you tell me about Konti?" He colored a bit, and continued in a rush of words. "I mean... Daffyn said you were, like, a hundred years old, and that..." He stopped abruptly, and looked down at his feet, clearly not expecting her to take well to the inquiry about her age. Eleret chuckled softly, and shook her head. "Only fifty-three years," she replied, which was probably just as unfathomably old to the young human -- who probably counted around sixteen himself. Maybe. "It would be my pleasure to tell you about my people," she continued. And as she did so around the rest of her meal, the pervasive wood-dust became something entirely beneath Eleret's notice. fee-1 sm -- meal brought from World's End Grotto inn

[Eleret]

Winter 53, 512 AV morning The worst thing about the Konti's pale coloring was that fatigue showed very clearly. And even the simple tasks here were wearing, simply because they were all but endless. Sometimes, she stopped to wonder if her efforts ever even made a dent in the supply of rough pins... because there were always more to replace those she finished. But today, when Eleret plodded through the workshop door and started for her accustomed position, the overseer waved her aside. "You're going to be on something different today, Fish-girl." For that had become her moniker... possibly even before the betting pool was opened. Eleret found she couldn't even muster up the energy now to be annoyed at it; either she was becoming inured, or she was just too tired to care. Probably both. He led her over to another row, the stations down the length of the table marked with the same scrap leather, sand, and water as the bench she'd left. "What is sanded here?" Eleret asked; fatigue didn't diminish her characteristic interest in learning. "Blocks," the overseer promptly supplied. "You did pretty good work with the pins; keep it up. We'll be running ropes through these later, so the inside has to be completely smooth." The Konti nodded. "This is sense," she affirmed. Rough wood would fray the ropes, and even she could see how that would be bad for the ship. "Mine will be good," she assured the overseer with a decisive nod. He looked at her for a moment, an ephemeral whiff of licorice passing by the Konti; she wasn't quite sure how to interpret that, as he shook his head and walked off. It was a mystery which hung in the back of her mind as she picked up the first block and studied the details of its shape by both sight and touch. The block was a hollow oblong with beveled edges and squared-off ends, a hole drilled crosswise through the center and a notch cut into one end. She could readily imagine the rope going through the hollow middle, perhaps over a wheel pinned through the holes, but could supply no reason driving the contours of its exterior. Something to find out later. Apply water to sand. Apply sand to leather. Then apply sanded leather to wood. Repeat until surfaces of block are appropriately smooth. Place block in finished bin; fetch another. Repeat ad nauseum. Just because she recognized the task was important and had cultivated patience for such tedious work, it didn't follow that she had to enjoy it... especially in shipyard quantities. Eleret breathed out a near-soundless sigh, took a few moments to rub pliability into relevant muscles, and set about attempting to put a dent in this pile of parts.

[Eleret]

Winter 56, 512 AV late morning "Whaddya mean, my work's n'good? My work's as petchin' good as i's always been!" Eleret lifted her attention from the work beneath her hands as the loud masculine voice echoed through the shop. She carefully set the coping saw she was using aside, along with the charcoal-marked blank of oak she had been cutting into the curving contours of a cleat. She leaned forward a bit to look down along her row, to where the overseer and the older man who kept to himself stood nearly toe-to-toe by the end of the bench. The man was flushed with anger, or perhaps more than that; from the sound of his words, the way the syllables sometimes ran together, she suspected he might have come in drunk. A sour and repellent scent threaded past the Konti from their direction, courtesy of her gift, and Eleret pressed her lips together in distaste. The overseer grabbed a handful of cleats out of the man's bin, tossing them down onto the worktable. He jabbed a finger down at them. "Half of these are cut too thin. The rest are too ragged to sand down and have to be recut. It's all shyke." He leaned forward slightly. "And your breath stinks of kelp beer." His hand stabbed towards the door. "This is the last petching time. You're out." The man yelled at the overseer, and took a half-step forward, but another of the workers grabbed his raised arm and pulled him back. Eleret watched as he was escorted out of the shop -- or at least until the overseer yelled at the rest of them to stop petching gawking and get back to work... A shadow loomed over the slight Konti a few moments later. She looked up to find the overseer standing behind her. "Leave that for later." He inclined his head towards the now-empty space down the row. "I want you to fix what you can of Raen's work." Eleret suspected this assignment had more to do with her relative slowness than skill; it might cost the shop the least production if she was tasked with salvage. She didn't ask. She simply nodded, and moved down the table to see what Raen had left behind...

[Eleret]

She scooped the cleats Raen had thought 'finished' out of their bin, one armful at a time, spreading them all out on the bench. One by one Eleret picked them up, studied their proportions, compared them against the template held in her head. She had cut out enough of her own, by now, to know the form well indeed. And she sorted the pieces -- this to the scrap bin, cut too deeply to be restorable; that tucked away in the 'blank' bin for now, as a candidate for salvage. When the sorting was done, she turned to the candidate few, picking out one at a time and giving it her full, focused attention. Eleret shaved off slivers and corrected contours, while all the while the rest of the workshop went about its business around her. Time passed, and the sounds around her shifted with its passing, ebbing and flowing; and as time went, she paid everything else less and less attention. She focused on each piece of wood, on each cut, and tried not to notice how her motions had slowed further still, the weight of fatigue gathering in her muscles. Eventually, Eleret ran out of pieces to 'fix', and returned to her more normal station along the row. She set up saw and clamps, pulled out the first blank from her own bin, and continued methodically right along. Or would have, but a hand, coarse and calloused, reached in over her shoulder to pluck the wood from her unsuspecting grasp. "I do think you'd carry on all night if that's what it took to get through the pile," the overseer remarked as she blinked at him in surprise. He shook his head. "Time for you to be outta here, Fish-girl. Don't bother," he added, as she started reaching for the materials to be put away. "I'll take care of it. You take tomorrow off," he said, and it wasn't a suggestion. "You need it. Wasn't a one of the boys who bet you'd last this long, either, so y'won't lose anything with them. If you're worried 'bout that." Eleret shook her head at his last remark; she wasn't worried about their opinions. Which wasn't the same as not caring -- rather, she was confident of her ability to earn goodwill. She hesitated a moment over the rest, then nodded. "Thank you," she replied, climbing to her feet and stepping away from the bench. She turned and started walking down towards the door, then looked back. "May I ask... did you make one of those bets?" He laughed. "Me? Nah, that'd be bad form, the boss betting with the boys. No, I have other wagers going." The man flashed a smile which seemed almost conspiratorial; she sensed his mood as the utterly incongruous scent of lilacs. Amusement, the Konti thought, and a bit of smugness to it. "I've got a bet going with Isaiah, over in shop five, on whose shop will produce the most output. And you're gonna help me win that one, aren't you?" It was Eleret's turn to laugh. "Yes," she affirmed with a nod and a warm smile. That was a wager she could go along with. "I will help with that." But for tonight, she was done.

[Cloud]

From the sky falls your reward!

Eleret :

Experience
Skill | XP Earned
Socialization | +1
Observation | +1
Carving | +2

Lores
• | Lore Earned
• | Importance of Sanding Wood
• | Ship Part: Thole Pins
• | Ship Part: Blocks
• | Ship Part: Cleats

Misc! :

Be sure 1 SM is deducted in your ledger for the lunch.

Question marks to be made? Exclamations to declare? Feel free to send me a pm and we can tend to any concerns you have.