Solo Building a Dagger Dummy

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

Spring 25th, 522AV

Eva walked around the settlement in search of all sorts of fallen debris; sticks, leaves, and vines. Her mission was to make her own training dummy to stick in the ground at the bungalow and practice her swings. Right now, she had an armful of leaves and sticks and some vines wrapped around her torso. Around the end of the gathering, Eva didn't think she would make it back to her bungalow with everything, but somehow she did. Immediately dumping everything on the ground in front of her steps, Eva gave a tired huff before trudging her way up the stairs to fetch a drink. She needed to replinish the water in her body after she had sweated it off, and her choice of drink was a cup of water.

After she had finished, she walks back down to the pile of supplies and started carrying them inside, organizing them into little piles. Vines to the left, sticks in the center, and large leaves to the right, everything within reaching distance when she'd sit on the floor. Lastly, she grabbed a piece of paper she had scrawled her idea onto and say down on the ground. She took a glance at it and started to build, laying out two vines for the top and bottom then layering on three or four large leaves. She then started to place down sticks perpendicular to the vines and leaves she put down, being careful to pick out only the straightest ones. Once the pile seemed large enough, she started to wrap the leaves around the pile of sticks, making sure it was tucked in tight before she moved onto tying the vines around. They would wrap around the bundle two or three times and get pulled tight ad tied off.

She then started at he bundle, making sure it didn't have any noticable tears, before attempting to sit it up. However, apparently she didn't tie it well enough as the center mass of the stick bundle started to try sliding out. She immediately laid the bundle down and started trying to gently shove the sticks back in, finding that it would start ripping through the leaves if she continued. She gave a sigh before begrudgingly untying the bundle and unwrapping the sticks, allowing the contents to lay out. Pursing her lips, Evalynn would close her eyes and think. She followed her drawing to a tee, but obviously it was imperfect. Now, she needed to modify it so the sticks didn't come out of the center and cause it to fall apart. To do this, she would need more vines and sticks and possibly more leaves to replace the ones that tore.

Slapping her knees, Eva stood and gave a smile of determination, not willing to give up on something that could help her get better than Moritz. She walked back outside and trotted down her steps to begin her search for more building supplies. If she remembered right, or more like took a guess, the sawmill would have some sticks just laying around. And along the way should could keep an eye out for some vines and leaves.

WC: 525

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

From memory, the sawmill was across the way and down the path. It was a large clearing with many animals and a lumberman who would probably be really cautious of her. Eva readied herself for the encounter as she walked across the jungle, remembering to bring an extra piece of paper and a writing utensil just in case making a drawing of her idea would possibly help the lumberman improve her idea. After about a thirty minute walk, Eva had a good amount of vines around her torso and some nice, large and sturdy looking leaves. Before she entered into the sawmill, Eva set her vines and leaves off to the side in a safe area from herbivores and proceeded inside.

"Hello!" She called out for the lumberman and wondered around the clearing in search for them. She knocked on his front door and received no answer, so she headed to the mill and found it was empty of life but loaded up with a long as if it was about to be processed. She found this not a slight bit odd and continued to look for the owner, but instead finding a male off to the side of the mill, interacting with the animals. Was this the owner? Eva assumed so and approached him "Hey, we've never met before, but my name is Evalynn and I've come to look to see if you have any fallen sticks around your land."

Evalynn didn't approach too quickly and made sure to have her hands visible. She also kept her distance, just in case he had some trust issues as well an didn't like people around him. He looked to be tall, with softly, sun kissed skin and long black hair that was nearly braided back. He also had a slight stubble across a strong jawbone which made Eva raise a bore of interest at. A broad body fit for a lumberman turned around to face Evalynn, but the look on his face made her stop. It was completely flat, blank of all emotion as she spoke, an only when she finished did it show some sort of reaction.

The male seemed to acknowledge what she said before it all disappeared and he look at her confused. His eyes seemed to glass over as the memory faded too, which sort of scared Evalynn into slowly backing away. The man just stared at her before turning back to his animals and continuing to interact with them. A bit of pity washed over Eva, but she had a mission to complete and went to look for sticks around his land. It took her a couple of hours of searching, but ahe found a nice, large bundle of relatively straight sticks that looked like it would do nicely as a body. She also found a thicker branch she was goin to try and use to hold the dummy up.

Once Eva was finished, she went back to the entrance and gathered up the vines and leaves. Taking some time to get herself situated, she then began her walk back up the path and to her home. It was a much more difficult walk then the first trip as now she had more weight coming back and a longer walk. It wasn't just right out front for vines and leaves or out on the beach for sticks, she actually went to the sawmill with she started to regret with every step back home.

WC: 577

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

Evalynn finally made it back home with her haul, lugging it up the stairs and dumping it all on the floor and laying herself on the ground. She was exhausted, with little endurance, Eva had to stopp on the trail several times from the sawmill to here. On some occasions she would stumble and nearly fall, causing everything she was holding to scatter around when it fell out of her arms. She lost a few sticks from the trip as they ended up breaking because of their impact on the ground. Either way, she was just happy to be home minus the minor bumps and scrapes she had received.

Once she was recovered enough to sit up, she reached over and added the new bundle of sticks to the previous one she gathered. She then grabbed a thin vine and cut it in half laying them both down parallel to each other. Her next step was to group the sticks into small bundles across the laid out vines and tie them together, adjusting the length of the vine and the size of the bundles accordingly. Eva made about 6 of these small bundles, believing that to be enough, and soon started taking a much longer piece of vine to weave in and out of them.

First, she lined the bundles up along the ground, trying to make sure everything was even before she began. Her next task was to take another thin vine and tie it to the top of the first bundle. Weaving the vine was next, going behind the second, in front of the third, behind the fourth, and around the fifth until she had to come around the sixth. She then repeated the weaving pattern back the other way in an opposite fashion as she came around the sixth, behind the fifth, and so on and so forth. She had to make sure each weave was nice and tight and even, being careful and going slow.

After careful weaving, Eva tied off the top section before starting on the bottom, finding it to be a bit more difficult since she made the top so tight and close together. She gave a frustrated groan as she was going along, being extra careful not to make it too tight as the sticks sounded like they were going to break at any moment. She weaved for about a half hour on both sides before she was finished, sitting back and huffing in success. She gave a bit of a thought as she stared at he stick looking mat, trying to figure out if rolling this up would be wise or not, and coming to the conclusion that she had no other choice, it had to be rolled. So with that thought in mind, Eva started the slow process of rolling up the bundles, having some vines ready to wrap around the exterior.

Unfortunately, she don't make it to the end when all of a sudden a buddle of sticks break apart and the entire roll comes unraveled. Eva fell forward onto the pile as she was trying to put her entire body weight into rolling these sticks together. Her tumble just worsened the damage on the creation as the bundles now broke into many small pieces under her. After giving a pained groan, she gasped as she realized she had landed on the bundles, skittering up and off of them to assess the damage. Her eyes darkened in defeat when she seen her hard work crushed and crumbled in front of her and she let out a loud scream of anger, throwing her supplies across the room.

WC: 607

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

Eva stood with anger and paced the room a bit, working off her frustrations until she was calm enough to reassess the situation. The stick idea didn't work, it was too flimsy and unreliable. All she had now was firewood and some vegetation. She remembers seeing people use logs as dummies, but she wanted something small and portable. It had to be sturdy enough to take a few blows, and light enough to carry across the settlement without issues. She thought about using plant life, either dried or living, and just stuffing it in a shirt. But she didn't have any extra clothes to stuff with grasses nor did she believe she would last for a while due to the dying grass.

Eva gave a sigh and sat in a chair, leaning back and staring at the ceiling to think. She gave a hum, tapped her foot, and even grounded a bit before an idea came to her. Maybe she could chop down some smaller saplings and somehow turn those into a dummy. But saplings would be too heavy for vines to hold, so rope or twine would need to be acquired, and that would mean she'd have to take a trip to the Mercantile. But before she got too far ahead, she had to gather up her mess in the bungalow and hauled it out to the fire pit, dumping it in for a late night burn. Once the area was clear of her previous project, she grabbed her backpack and made her way towards the Commons to see what they had at the Mercantile.

She strolled up the path to the Commons, making way for others who passed her along the way. She kept her eyes forward and only gave but a simple nod while in passing, not drawing much attention to herself. Just shy of entering the Commons from the path was the shop she needed, perched on stilts and close to the sea it was a shop difficult to miss. Eva made her way up into the shop and opened the door, looking around before entering.

"Hello?" She called out, looking around the area until she found a young looking woman standing behind the counter. She had long brown hair tied up in a bun, she had skin as tan as caramel and what looked like a bikini top on as she leaned over the counter and gave Eva a wary look. In return, Eva gave her a raised brow but stated what she was there for. "Hey, my name is Eva. I'm just here to buy some thin rope. Do you have any?" The woman gave a simple sound of agreement before gesturing over towards a table with piles of bound ropes. Eva gave a smile and walked over, examining the 'variety' they had before selecting some hemp rope and bringing it over.

"Say, do you think I could buy half of this? I don't think I need fifty feet of rope for the project I am doing." Eva smiled nervously, setting the rope down and kind of sectioning out the half she would need. "This much would be fine, I'll pay eight silver for it." The posed question and discounted price caused the woman to scrunch up her face.

"No, you can buy the full rope at full price of one gold miza or you can try to find something more affordable for yourself." The woman seemed to be firm with her ruling as she crossed her arms and raised a brow. She wasn't kicking Eva out, so that was a good thing, but Eva still felt that she could do better.

"How about I take three fourths of the rope for eight silver?" She grabbed more rope to add to the bundle and the woman shook her head no again. Pursing her lips, Eva once again grabbed half of the rope and tried again. "How about half, but I pay full price?" She felt like they were going in circles with the haggling, back and forth with answers until finally this offer seemed to make the woman think.

"Fine, you can take half of the rope but you don't have to pay a full gold miza. I'll take eight silvers and expect you to improve on your haggling." She seemed a little less apprehensive than before and held out her hand as Eva dropped the money in it and proceeded to cut the section of rope she needed. Evalynn thanked the woman briefly before taking her leave with her rope.

WC: 757

Items Bought :

25' of hemp rope - 8SM

[Evalynn Frostfawn]

Now that Eva had her rope, she now must collect her supports. Her chosen material was young, fresh tree saplings that she would be able to bend into shape if needed. She walked herself down the little path to her bungalow to drop off her rope. Then she made her way out and into the shallow jungle brush just along the path in search of the saplings. Every time she would come across wone, she would kneel down to the base and proceed to use her dagger to hack away one side and then the other to create notches on either side. This made it much easier to bend, snap, and tear away the sapling and also made it into a perfect stake.

Eva went about just cutting down two well sized saplings that she could wrap one hadn around comfortably and one larger one for the main support. She drug them back home, having not gone too far, and around to the beach area where she would trim them to size and bind them together. Trimming the trees consisted of her taking off the branches, either by hand or by knife, making sure not to pull off too much of the bark as she went. She would then cut them to size, roughly the height of Moritz was what she was aiming for, with a bit extra when she dug it into the ground.

She laid the saplings out on the beach and stood over them, pursing her lips as she thought of different ways to build this dummy. It's obvious the larger tree was going to be the main support beam and probably the one to be hammered into the ground, but how was she going to use the other two limbs? She could form it onto a cross, with a sapling on the top and one on the bottom, but how would she fight such a weird design. She could try cutting the bottom limb in half and making two triangular pieces at the bottom. She figured that eventually it would help her with her agility in her feet jumping over an obstacle.

At the end of her pondering stare at the wood, she finally picked up one of the smaller pieces of wood and drug it over to the top of the larger piece, crossing them over each other and making notches to indicate where the limb was. She then proceeded to break the other limb in half, finding it extremely difficult since it was still alive and using the knife in the end, and measuring out the bottom part. Once she had gotten all the necessary markings down, she wanted to carve out an area where she could wrap the rope stand it won't slide. Starting at the top, Eva sat on the limb and started slowly shaving away tiny little chunks of wood towards herself. She grunted with each little shaving she did, finding it difficult to get any progress done.

After some time, and a lot of sweating later, Eva manged to carve out one divot in the top. She had two more she wanted to do and groaned when she looked back. She contemplating not doing them all together, but giving up on the project and half adding it was going to make it fall apart. So instead, she turned around, adjusted the limb how she needed it to be, and started carving. With this part, she didn't know how to angle then so she just repeated what she did up top. Lean forward, scrape, forward, scrape and repeat the process until she felt satisfied. She sheathed her knife and shook her hands, noting the violent red indent and some small cuts on her fingers. She gave just a slight shrug, rubbed her hands together as she stood, and continued on.

She brought over the top limb and the rope, having a last minute decision to unravel it into three smaller parts. Not only did it feel like it could help her wrap the limbs together, it also felt like she had more to work with. So, she tied the start of the rope where she made her notch and started wrapping the rope, crossing it down and around the back of the main limb then back up the opposite way. She repeated this process until she was left with enough rope to tie it off. Once she was finished, she heave-hoed it up and leaned it on a stilt of the house so she could attach the bottom limbs. This part was weird and tricky as she attempted to repeat he process she made above, but they wasn't staying in place. After a few failed attempts, she opted out of using the bottom pieces and tossed them near the firepit.

Now she had to dig a hole, and she started doing this in the sand with her nads before moving on to using her dagger to make it as deep as her elbow. Once she finished, she cleaned her dagger, put it away, then carried the dummy over and dropped it on the hole. She used her foot to kick in the sand she dug out until it was stable enough to stand on it's own, then she used her hands to finish the job. And now, after what seemed like 5 hours of work, Eva stood back and marvled at her masterpiece, wiping her brow with a grin. She now had a seemingly stable training dummy and was excited to use it.

WC: 922

[Cleon]

Grade Award!

Evalynn:

Skills:

Carpentry: 1
Construction: 3
Endurance: 3
Knotwork: 2
Negotiation: 1
Observation: 3
Persuasion: 1
Scavenging: 1
Weapon (Dagger): 1








Lores:

Lumbermill: Location & Appearance
Syka: Strange encounter by the lumbermill
Construction: Using vines as cordage
Knotwork: Loose knot frustrations
The Mercantile: Location & Appearance
Construction: Making a rudimentary practice post

Feel free to pm me with questions or concerns about your grade, and don’t forget to edit your grade request!