Completed More To Nothing Pt 1

[Tazrae]

Timestamp: 56th of Spring, 522 A.V.

Tazrae woke the next morning feeling amazing. She’d slept all night with the front of her new pavilion open to the elements and the salt air filling her space. She’d been exhausted going to bed, excited at the changes, and eager to get started on the next phase the next day. Tony had long since departed, but Tazrae had asked him to make sure Duncan knew he was needed here again today in the late afternoon as soon as Tazrae got things finished.

She rose, headed to the Inn early, and got breakfast underway and sandwiches and freshly fried chips ready for lunch. That freed up most of her morning and all of her afternoon to build the bath portion of the deck she needed off the Pavilion. It wasn’t a necessity since there were multiple options to bathe with. They had the sea, Duncan’s place, and even the bathtubs at the Inn. But Tazrae had seen the copper tub and it had inspired a whole new area for her… one she wanted for herself to relax in. Plus, it was a promise to herself that she would expand her Reimancy and finally get her next element which she was sure would-be water.

Tazrae hurried back to the site, pulling four stakes out of the pile of stakes they had leftover from building the main Pavilion floating deck. She started off the edge of one of the pentangles angled to the south of the pavilion and drove her stakes in deeply there. She’d scouted around the pavilion and decided if another bedroom was needed, off the back was the best spot. Besides, she wanted to be able to watch the sun sink below the horizon as she lounged in a bathroom. She had decided on a twelve by ten space, giving her plenty of room for the tub, a little dresser, and a way to cover the whole thing, if necessary, on the end closest to the pavilion. She measured carefully with a cloth tape and drove the stakes into the ground to mark the corners of the deck with multiple strikes from a heavy mallet.

Then, she tapped her djed and pulled it forth from her well tightening her core as she went. Taz stretched out her arms for effect and began shifting djed to res and swirling the res in a funnel between her outstretched arms. The leaf litter and banana fronds, palm droppings, and peeled bark that littered the hard-packed soil here. Concentrating, Taz controlled the res movements, speeding it up, letting it vacuum the jungle liter up into a funnel of sorts. Then she walked with it over to the beach and out on the sand where she started a pile. As quickly as she called the res, she released it, dropping the funnel and landing the debris into a pile.

Taz grinned, knowing she could do better, create a tighter cloud, make it happen faster, and walked back up to the site to make it happen. She walked out of the marked-off area four times with funnels full of swirling debris before she dropped it into a pile and then coated it with the res which she ignited. The dried material burned instantly, fueled by the res, and gave her a nice little contained bonfire and a clean construction site.

Then Taz got to work with a rake and began raking the ground so it was flat and level. Then she took Randal’s stolen tamper and tamped it with repeated slamming motions, hardening the ground even further and making it flat. She checked her work frequently with a level, working harder on some places and easing upon others, making the land as smooth as possible. She broke into a sweat almost immediately, due to the humidity and the repetitive hard work. Taz wasn’t a slacker though and she knew how to pace herself and work steadily so things got done but she didn’t get worn out.

The tamping and prep work took most of the morning. And as she worked, she kept a flow of djed rising up from her pool, circling her center, and converting to res as it exited her lips in the form of a whistle. She pursed her lips in a tune, whistling, sending the air-born res out into the world around her where it chilled and circled her in a swirling zephyr which made her truly focus on it to keep her sweat dried and her body core cooled. The music of the whistle helped as she created a circuit from her well to her throat where the djed was converted to res and expelled.

[Tazrae]

It was good work, honest work, and she loved combining construction with magic. It worked so well and integrated itself so seamlessly. And when she was done with the clearing, she got busy digging the holes for the footers. She carefully measured, leaving them five feet part and strong enough for the Ixam to wander upon them without harming the footings. Then, once the holes were measured and marked, Tazrae got busy digging the four feet deep pits. It was a good time to be a Phylonurist and Jungle Witch, because honestly the moment she started digging, the Ixam took an interest and wandered towards the construction site, eager to help the Innkeeper dig.

She showed them the marked spots, and the Ixam fanned out and began to dig. They loved the activity, having become skilled at it rooting out insects and vermin from their youths to snack on before they were forced to hunt down the bigger game to eat to feed their growing forms. Taz led the way, her spade digging out a big mouth full of soil as she worked to get to her four feet depth. When she was about two feet down, Taz heard a thunk as if her shovel hit something wooden. She paused, setting the shovel aside, knelt in the dirt next to the hole, and began scooping up tailings to push aside and reveal what appeared to be a small compact chest.

She went back to the shovel, dug around it, a slowly unearthed the chest… setting it aside. It had no lock on it, only a fancy old latch. She quickly examined the mechanism, sprang it, and slowly opened the chest. It contained multiple things wrapped in a bundle. There were gloves and boots, a coconut that was decorated with gold paint and arcane symbols. She found a flask, a tin of cookies, a candle, tree ornaments, a beautiful blue comb, a log, a lump of coal, and a familiar red and white stick she’d seen in Alric’s possession. Taz almost had the items set aside when she found two more things… a set of wraps that looked like they were for her hands, and a small worn leaf charm.

She left everything in the chest but the charm and rose to her feet, holding it up to the light. It gleamed like it was brand new even though the charm itself depicted a tattered banana leaf that had obviously fallen from the tree, partially crinkled with holes rotted in it. Taz pulled djed to her eyes, expanded her vision with auristics, and looked again. It had a magical purpose and a magical core. She filled her other senses with djed, sniffing at the charm and licking at it. The charm had a distinctive scent, the scent of magic, and a notable scent, that of power.

The Scarlet Ixam bumped her shoulder then, wanting to see what she found. She turned, showed him the charm in her palm, and let him get a good look at it and a good scent of it. He did as she had done, tasting it as well. Then he snorted, met her eyes, and she heard the words in her mind as plain as day. There are more. “There are?” She asked. He nodded and snorted again. “Can you bring them to me?” She asked, curious. The big male snorted, seemed to consider, then nodded. The other Ixam watched on then as one of the entire lounge took off, interested in this new game… this new task.

The scarlet was the first one back, of course, and laid charm in her hand that was shaped like a honeybee.

[Tazrae]

Taz placed the honeybee charm on her bracelet along with the worn leaf with her others and went back to her digging. The Ixam had all abandoned their holes as well, so Taz had to move to the next and the next as soon as she was done digging her original hole. She worked until her back was soaked with sweat and her breathing was heaving. She kept working with her res though, producing it, controlling a breeze around her head in swirling motion to drop the air temperature around her to keep her more comfortable.

Luckily the deck was smaller than the one for her home, so there were fewer footings to dig and posts to sink. Taz still kept sweating, even with the cool… the strain of working the magic and the spade a burden. But it was good practice, she decided, liking the way she tasked the res to swirl around her, keeping her cool off. And in all honesty, a breeze… a cool one… was a very little drain on her resource. It was like a thin trickle of power that she felt she could keep up for hours, dictating the temperature as it wicked the sweat off her and cooled her overheated skin. Her muscles strained at each shovelful, though Tazrae didn’t stop. It was as much a test of endurance as it was a test of strength.

Sunny was the second Ixam back and this time she brought a charm with a screaming face that was half-melted on it. Tazrae thanked her and slipped the charm onto her bracelet, finding it slightly disturbing to look at.

When all the holes were dug, Taz tapped her Nura and influenced a passing tropical tern and sent it to fetch Duncan who’d promised Tony to come today. She’d had Tony ask rather than herself so Duncan wouldn’t forget. And after a time, the mage did come by. And using a level, Taz made sure all the footers were straight and level in their holes before he rocked them in with Reimancy. Then he produced a thick layer of gravel to prevent plant growth beneath it. Taz paid him with a hug and a promise for meals for his lunch or breakfast for the rest of the season. Duncan was her northern neighbor.

It was almost two bells later when a green Ixam appeared with what looked like a raptor’s eye charm clutched in his maw. He delicately dropped it in Tazrae’s palm and she thanked him with a kiss on his snout. She slipped it on her bracelet, thinking she’d definitely need to set some time aside later to examine the charms with auristics.

Then, she got started on the frame. The outer frame was easy now that she had footers to mount it on. She used the remaining two by eights leftover from the Pavilion to lay over the footers. She measured them twice, finding one slightly longer than another and cut them off to exactly one hundred and forty-four inches. The long boards became the end joists, which she then connected by two ten-foot standard joists. She drilled pilot holes with her hand drill – an exercise that took forever – and then fastened the four joists together by anchor bolts she’d picked up from Standing Tall. Then she measured from the inside of one corner and made a pair of marks every sixteen inches along with one of the twelve-foot end joists before she repeated it on the other side.

Then, doing what she did before, she drilled pilot holes and anchored the connecting joists between them. When the whole thing was sitting put together, Tazrae got out her level and checked to make sure it was level, then adjusted the situation so the deck was slightly angled towards the back where water could drain off if rain accumulated or the tub water got sloshed. She wanted the deck to drain away from the pavilion, not towards it, hence making the front where it ran off the pavilion deck higher than the back of the deck where the tub was.

[Tazrae]

The next charm that showed up was delivered by an almost tan and white Ixam that Taz hadn’t seen before. She dropped a messenger bag charm onto the deck in front of Tazrae and offered her a grin. Taz thanked her, scratched the Ixam behind the head where she knew the lizards liked caressing, then added it to her charm bracelet. She couldn’t believe all the charms this Ixam could find. Taz was a bit baffled by the variety of shapes and sizes the Ixam were finding the charms in.

Taz had learned a lot building the Pavilion Deck. First and foremost, she’d nailed one board at a time onto the other deck, slowly increasing the coverage and having a heck of a time having the deck planks fit evenly. This time, she laid them all out before she nailed them in place. That way, when the boards were naturally warped, had gaps, or weren’t precisely straight – a fact she didn’t blame on the sawmill or Lars but on the wood itself – she could re-arrange them in a pattern they fit together the best.

She could swap one that was bowed slightly to the right with one that was straight and put the bowed one next to a deck board that was slightly thinner on one side where the right bow wouldn’t show. It took her nearly a bell to get them arranged the way she wanted to be where they looked beautiful and all fit together tightly. Then, once they were arranged to her liking, she grabbed a hammer and her can of half-full nails and began nailing the deck planks on.

She wasn’t interrupted until a cerulean blue Ixam came by with what looked like a bow-shaped charm. She patted its snout, praised it, and gave it a few of the bananas from a hand she had set aside for her afternoon snack. By this time, she had a collection of six new charms and most of the Ixam were still out searching. What kind of place was Pavena that people had all kinds of charms for everything? It would take Tazrae quite a bit of time to figure out what the charms did. And that would have to be when it was quiet and the day was done.

Taz got back to work quickly.

Nailing was hard work and when she first started, Taz could get a nail driven in two or three pounds. But as the time passed, the nails got … what was the term… harder? Deeper? Thicker? She had no idea. Soon enough, halfway across, she developed a noodle arm and had to stop. Rising to shake it out, Tazrae decided to switch hands to her non-dominant left arm and try with that.

It worked for a time. She missed as much as she hit with the hammer and didn’t have the strength in that side of her to drive them all the way flush with the wood. Half the time she’d pound the nail most of the way in with her left hand and finish with her right hand with a hard solid thunk. She was proud, however, that she was building on her own and had only used Duncan’s help with the gravel and footer placements. Rocking those in where the hardest and she was glad to have it out of the way.

[Tazrae]

Soon enough, she’d be able to do building projects like this all on her own. With each project she finished, Tazrae gathered more courage, more know-how, and more confidence. She thought perhaps she was even ready to work on her own home. When she drove the last nail, Taz stepped back, glad the work was done. Now, the only thing left to do was get the can of stain and sealer that Standing Tall had given her and use it on the freshly built deck. Taz had washed the brush last time, so it was ready to go as she carefully mixed freshwater with the sealer powder and constituted the formula. When it was thick like Sorian had recommended, Taz began to paint it on the wood. She started with the rim joists and coated them thoroughly, then completely and utterly soaked the top of the deck with the sealer. It was beautiful repetitive work, that she could do on her knees with a brush.

Taz let her mind drift off as she painted and hardly noticed when the scarlet Ixam returned and laid two more charms at her feet. He looked pleased with himself as Tazrae stared dumbly at him. “You just found these laying around?” She asked, furrowing his brow. He snorted, then sniffed the air, then sniffed them, and seemed to shrug. “So, you sniffed them out? What are you? Bloodhounds?” She asked, laughing as she scooped up the last two charms. With that, she dumped the rest of the sealer on the deck and spread the excess around, sealing the whole of the deck in a hard water-resistant coating. Done completely, all she had to do was gently set about casting her res in a thick warm breeze over the wooden deck.

She pushed herself, aiming for control, as she stood off the deck itself, arms flung out, expelling res which she directed to transform into warm air and swirl around the deck repeatedly in a larger gentler form of the whirlwinds she used for the site prep. Taz kept directing the djed, feeding into it, drying the stain sealer she’d coated the deck with bypassing the res-born air back and forth across the wooden platform over and over again. She giggled slightly, as if she were directing an orchestra, flung her hands out still extruding res and converting it keeping the heatwave over the new wooden platform going. She swirled it around and around and around, periodically bending over to touch the surface feeling it slowly go from wet to tacky to finally dry.

When it was completely dry, she got the Ixam to help her and they moved the giant copper bathtub up onto the deck and slid it into place. All the rest of the furniture was carried into place, towels laid out in it, and a rain/sun cover placed over the top and fastened in. She even drove multiple large posts into the ground that she hung a rope handrail from to block off the back of the deck which was more of a drop off than anything due to the jungle terrain. Then she took her remaining lanterns, filled them up, and scattered them artistically around until the bathing deck was totally done.

Words: 3187

[Tazrae]

Grading!

Tazrae –

Carpentry +5, Construction +5, Planning +2, Reimancy +4, Body Building +3, Leadership +3, Auristics +2

Carpentry: Building A Bathing Pavilion, Construction: Making A Floating Deck, Reimancy: Clearing Debris From An Area, Reimancy: Making Whirlwinds, Body Building: Digging Holes, Ixam: Getting Them To Help With Projects, Aurisitics: Examining Magic Items, Leadership: Getting The Ixam To Do Things For Her, Reimancy: Using Air To Cool Surrounding Temps, Reimancy: Creating Breezes, Carpentry: Drilling Pilot Holes, Body Building: Using A Hand Drill Builds Arm Muscles, Carpentry: Tricks of Getting Decking To Fit Perfectly, Reimancy: Drying Sealer With Air,

Acquisition: Chest with gloves, boots, coconut seed, flask, tin of cookies, a comb, a log, a lump of coal, hand wraps, red and white stick, and multiple ornaments, worn-leaf charm, honey-bee charm, raptors-eye charm, messenger bag charm, bow-shaped charm, and two other charms.