Completed Poking Bone

[Morvale Barrows]

Poking Bone

28th Of Fall 513 AV

Another day to spend in the public workshop, he was one of the few lucky ones that came off the boat with something to work with. Although his created items over the past week had failed him miserably, every time he wanted Malediction to throw him a bone it laughed at him with some useless trinket. He would not loose faith though, this time he intended to cook up something particularly special. All he could think about was the trash he'd created and what he'd actually achieved from that incident.

His arm ached and pulsed with pain, he'd done what he could with what he had but it felt like time was not on his side by the end of the season if he did nothing his arm would fester and be useless. He wished for some level of undeath but becoming a Nuit would make him useless on every level. He'd have his arms, but the years of his life he wasted to achieve his current plateau of physical prowess would be lost. All he had was time that diminished slowly grain by grain, and he could do nothing now but bide his time.

On his table it sat one of those Tibias he'd collected from that gods forsaken dog, he rolled it around on the table a trusty dagger at the ready. He wanted to concentrate on what it was he wanted from this, every time he haphazardly threw something together and maybe that was part of the problem.

It was one part desperation and another frustration, he couldn't possibly keep divulging time into Malediction if it would constantly fail him. So far two pieces failed to make his grade, what kind of maledictor was he if he couldn't create anything useful. This was supposed to be helping him not setting him back, he could easily train himself today and get something out of it but he was here trying to prove to himself that what he could put on the table with this craft was worth his time and effort.

He selfishly wanted to fail at this, to throw this voodoo nonsense away to concentrate on other things. More definite more concrete and reliable, he'd steered items that did nothing for him.

But now he had to clear his mind and disperse these thoughts, it was time for him to envision the project. A dagger that would enhance him physically, he'd made an attempt prior with a scurrying rat that created a piece of junk. Maybe it was because he'd broken the skull? No matter, it wasn't his fault at least that's what he told himself to comfort him in some narcissistic way.

[Morvale Barrows]

With the bone in hand there wasn't a whole lot of ideas on how to weaponize it. He figured he'd have to put a point on it because bone unfortunately did not hold that great of an edge. And while true it could cut, it was also true that if he hit something solid he'd break the item. Making what he felt would be particulary useless completely useless. He tried to find a balance as it rolled back and forth on the table. There was a side eager to begin but then there was another that flooded his mind with doubt and remorse. It made him wish he had chosen a different field of study, that the power in the bones was a sham nothing more then cheap parlor tricks that amounted to nothing.

The part that fueled his inhibition, his sullen angst was his arm. The pain did gnaw at him feverishly, it left him in quiet contemplation the very worst when one harbored some form of emotional turmoil. Was he really going to loose his arm? The thought lingered and it's fangs pumped its toxic venom in his veins. He seemed so sure of his trade at first, but now he was frustrated and frankly could care less. Just the whisper of what he might be giving for what he was getting in return, tested his patients and truly made him on the verge of hating his craft.

It was evident in how he picked up the dagger and heaved it down at an angle, part of him held a level of hate for that dog. It was supposed to have given him a doorway to a new source of power. That edge hit bone with no regard it splint and splintered by his brute force and disregard for the item. The tip was hit but a second time shaving off the fractures, it's marrow oozing off onto the table.

Now the item had a fearsome looking tip, cheaply made and shoddy but then why bother with intricacy when the item was already not going to work. That very thought almost made him want to snap his project in half across the hard edge of the table but he quietly continued.

[Morvale Barrows]

Funny the weapon itself was complete, nothing more then a stick with a point. He'd already disregarded it as hunk of junk another feeble attempt at back water magic, it was shameful he thought. He could have been a spiritist, even they could create items that were more useful then the shyk he'd managed to put together. He could have been a Mage Crafter and created items with properties he intended, but this? This stupid pointy bone is the path he traveled. That bright road of physical enhancements grew dim, dark to pitch black. He had fallen into a rut, he doubted the potential in what he created it was a dreary topic. Failure over and over again it sank like teeth as it drove its way under his skin.

He took a patch of the wolfs fur and wrapped its mangy hide around the bottom of the bone adjacent the tip. Stuck the needle through it not caring for any level of uniformity, just angrily pushing the pin through its hide and ripping a cord of leather through the holes before knotting it up.

Makeshift was all he could think of

[Morvale Barrows]

Morvale held the weapon in his hand, ragged and disgusting was all he could manage muster in that empty pit of his mind. It felt ragged and disheveled a real testament to what he thought of legacy. He begrudgingly laughed at the item and snarked.

"My, your a waste of my talents aren't you? What good do you do me? You were just a rabbid dog, you cost me my arm and this is the thanks I get from you! I tapped into your essence and that's all you could do? I should have let you rot under that rock, and found a creature worth my effort. "

He smiled and put the item down, strangely telling the inanimate object off elevated his mood by a smidgen. Was he wrong? Maybe it wasn't Malediction maybe the bones were just bad, what could he have hoped to create from this beast anyway? He mused to himself over some macabre notion that the creature was the failure here. It couldn't have been him, this was just a fluke that animal was the thing that ultimately held him back.

[Morvale Barrows]

One last task at hand to finish up, he'd steered items feeble attempts at best to create the best he could with what he had. Paint brush slammed into the ink well bobbing up and down wrecklessly flailing ink over his work area. He just didn't care, splotches of ink all over the table over his hand. It just didn't matter, at least to him he wanted this project to fail miserably so he could discard this useless world magic and the hocus pokus mumbo jumbo that came with it.

The brush hit the bone just a line, he swiped it across one more time to create an X. Two dots smeared the ends creating cross bones then he blonde a circle then a square creating teeth. When it was finally finished he created a skull and crossbones on the item.

He wraped his Malediction circle around it, and smiled smugly.

No intricate weaves or flowing form, no cute or fancy time consuming effort. It sat around the object plain as day, it seemed lacking crying out for attention but he ignored its pleas.

He couldn't help but think that maybe he should have done a more thorough job, but no matter whatever useless ability would be pulled through the object wasn't going to be worth his time. Maybe it would be able to make him feel useless like his last item, or do nothing like the other. It could perhaps draw in the dirt, or be a magical tooth pick another useless unpresentable waste of time and effort.

He cut his finger on the edge of his dagger when the ink had dried and smeared it over the item, the skull and cross bones glowed a simmering hue of red as the item was given whatever snippet of purpose it was created for as the item sucked in the blood that had been applied to it.

He couldn't help but wonder, he was curious but held the item in low esteem the lowliest of the low in fact. It wouldn't produce anything remarkable, and that was that as he picked up the item and examined it.