When You Need Something, Suddenly I'm Your Equal (Solo)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The girls were watching her expectantly. Tock just stared them down, wondering what a snapped neck sounded like. She'd seen the aftermath of such violence in the alleys of Sunberth, but never been there firsthand during the actual act (not that she hadn't seen plenty of other violence). "Whatcha want?" she finally asked them. They giggled again, leaning in to whisper in each other's ears. Finally the blonde one in the white dress stepped forward, looking quite amused, and said, "We asked you what you're doing?" Tock frowned and said, "I done told ya yesterday, I's fixin' the place." She couldn't remember which one was the one she'd spoken to yesterday. They all looked equally stuck up to her. A brunette girl on the left pointed her parasol at Grippy and asked, "But what is that? Is it magic?" In answer, Tock aimed Grippy at the girl and pressed the handle, giving him the command to extend. The arm shot out, and before the girl could react, she clamped the metal claw around the handle of the parasol. She then touched the spot to retract Grippy, yanking the parasol from the girl's hand. She aimed Grippy at the side of the shop's door and dropped the parasol there, then retracted him and held him against her shoulder again. The girls all squealed and jumped back when the claw came at them, and watched in wonder at how the magic device worked. Tock glared at them and asked, "'At magic 'nough fer ya?" The girls had moved back a few steps, fanning themselves and pressing hands to their hearts. Tock thought it looked like the brunette might faint. Yet mixed with the fear was excitement. Tock sighed and thrust Grippy at them again, and they squealed and ran off. They gathered down the street again, pulling a few nearby teen boys aside, and pointing back at Tock as they chattered on. Tock couldn't hear what they were saying from here, but from the looks on the girls' faces and their body language, it was clear they were excitedly telling the story of how the crazy girl had attacked them with her magic claw. They were full of smiles and laughter, like it was some silly adventure story. The girls were probably all fans of The Adventures of Jillian Smythe, Lady Adventurer! and thought this was some kind of game. Tock sighed and turned back to her work. She set the chisel back in Grippy's claw, raising him back up to continue cutting away at the damaged stone. She glanced sidelong at the teens up the road. The lot of them, the four girls and now three boys, were all staring at her. She felt like a show horse, on display for their amusement. Come see the mage girl, she'll attack you with her magic claw! She snorted, shaking her head. They all thought it was just a show. None of them realized that she had actually killed before. Though that was probably something she shouldn't brag about.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Once the broken part of the pillar was removed, Tock needed to actually get up there and smooth and flatten the top. She would need to attach the new block as cleanly as possible, and that would be easiest if the top was completely flat. Sighing, she bemoaned her lack of a ladder, and thought about just going home and building one. But by the time she did that and got back, she could have been done this part. It would be faster to just climb up there. She stepped up to the side of the building, grabbed the column, and braced her feet on the decorative ledges on the wall next to it. She hoisted herself up, shifting her grip on the column, her feet seeking out the next outcropping on the front of the building. One of the advantages of these old style buildings was that all the decorative touches made for good hand and foot holds. Though it was lucky she only had to go about ten feet up; Tock had a bad habit of falling down whenever she climbed just about anywhere. Come to think of it, with the exception of when she had a ladder, she couldn't think of a single time she had climbed anything without falling. By the time she realized this, however, she was already up high enough that it would be a waste to go back down. With a bit of careful effort, she managed to hoist herself above the column, straddling the point where the stone of the column connected to the front of the wall. Her giggling teenage audience was staring and pointing once again, and some of the other random passerby were stopping to stare. As she got herself settled, Tock realized she'd left her mallet (still stuck in the handle extension) down below. She sighed and used Grippy to retrieve it, extending the arm down to snag the tool and raise it up to her. This prompted more gasps and pointing from the crowd. She was making quite a spectacle of herself. She ignored it all, though, and just set to work. She pulled the mallet out of the extension, and dropped the extension back down onto the grass in front of the building. Using her mallet and chisel the normal way now, she worked on smoothing out the jagged top of the pillar. She cut away the stone, brushed the debris down to the ground, cut some more, then filed and ground it down until the top was adequately smooth and straight. Then she pressed a pick against the center of the pillar and carefully pounded it in, cutting a straight hole right into the stone. She cleared the broken bits from the hole and then cut a bit deeper, continuing until the hole was far enough in. She made four more holes in a square around this one, making careful measurements before she cut each one to be sure everything was aligned perfectly. She would be putting identical holes in the bottom of the new piece of stone, and carving stone pegs from the old, broken part of the pillar. The pegs would be placed in the holes and used to hold the pieces together, along with a thin layer of mortar to make a firm seal. It would hold the new piece in place the same way bricks were held together to form a wall. Once the five holes were cut, carefully aligned in a symmetric layout, and all measured to identical depth, Tock was ready to climb back down. She looked down towards the ground... and realized it looked a lot higher from up here than it had from down below. She swallowed and turned pale. Right below her was the stone steps, but there was grass just off to the right. If she fell, hitting the grass would be better. She looked up around the building, and saw a good outcropping she could get a grip on. She pulled out Grippy and clamped him down onto the stone, the metal claw holding firmly as she lowered herself and planted her feet against the wall. She then started slowly extending Grippy's arm, bracing her feet against the wall to 'walk' down it the same way a climber could when using a rope and bracing themselves. Once her feet hit the ground, she heaved a sigh of relief that she had managed not to fall this time, and slid her thumb across the back of Grippy's handle to make him release his grip. She retracted him and holstered him, then turned away from the building. The whole street was staring at her. It wasn't every day people saw such a magically aided feat of climbing.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The rest of the stone carving took several more days of work, since she was only able to devote a few hours a day to the project. She kept the alabaster block on the topmost of the shop's front steps, off to the side out of the way of the foot traffic coming and going from the tailor's. Reginald complained once of twice about her working right there, but there was no way she was hauling the heavy stone all the way home to work on it, only to have to haul it back down here when she was done. The design had a flared top, with a sweeping outward arch on each side that made the top a good six inches wider than the base. The arched sides ended in symmetric spirals like rolled up scrolls on each side. It wasn't an overly complicated design, but there were some specifics that would mark the difference to anyone who could tell between this architectural period and others that came centuries later. The width of the arches, or how many spirals the scrollwork used were among the things that would mark the work as accurate to the time period or not. Tock was using books from the library for comparison. It was hard to find a book that discussed this sort of design in terms of accuracy and measurement instead of artistic symbolism and aesthetic appeal. That was another reason why Reginald had had a hard time finding someone for this job; there weren't exactly any instruction manuals on carving replicas of pre-Valterrian designs. While the designs were simple enough in themselves to be within the skill and capabilities of any number of carvers in the city, they wouldn't know where to look to find the specifications they needed for an accurate replica. Since the specifications weren't easy to find, Tock was using books on history and Magecrafting. They didn't speak about the architecture itself, but they contained a great many drawings of pre-Valterrian buildings that in some cases didn't exist anymore. Between studying the drawings, and comparing to the matching pillar on the other side of the door, she was able to get a good feel for the style in question. At the beginning of the carving she'd merely hacked away the largest pieces of the stone to start on the basic shape. As she moved along she started chipping more precisely with her chisels, slowly carving the design out in finer detail. It had taken a couple of days of work just to get the basic design carved out. Now she was working on the finer details, carefully cutting out the delicate spirals of the scrollwork, which took great concentration and precision. She was bent over next to the stairs, gently tapping her chisel to cut the thin, curves lines into the stone, when she felt someone step up behind her and grab her ass. Unless that was Satevis, someone was about to lose a hand.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

She spun around and batted the offending hand away, ready to smack the pervert on his skull with her mallet if there hadn't been so many witnesses. The fact that no one would have tried to stop her back home was the only thing she missed about Sunberth (though she admitted that the flip side was that no one would have tried to stop a man from dragging her into a dark alley either). It was the disgusting posh arse from the other day, Wil. He had a leering smirk on his face, and looked like he seriously needed someone to smack him one. Instead Tock just hissed through her teeth, "I don't told ya already I's got a boyfriend, bloke. 'Less ya want me ta bleed ya right 'ere, I done suggest ya keeps yer 'ands ta yerself..." He laughed softly and replied, "My, my, my, you do have a fire in you, don't you? I like a girl with a touch of spirit in her." He reached up to brush back a strand of her hair, and she smacked his hand away. "'Is ain't no game, Guv," she told him, clenching her teeth. It wasn't fair that she couldn't hit him. "I's not gonna tells ya again. I done gots work ta do, an' I ain't no show piece fer ya ta leer at. Go 'as yer fun wit' the pack o' 'ens over 'ere," she nodded towards the girls that were once again here to watch the show. They were whispering to each other. No doubt they knew Wil, and were quite curious about his interest in the magic repair lady. He glanced at the girls and said, low enough that they couldn't hear, "They're nothing but a bunch of airheads with barely a single thought between them." Tock couldn't argue with that, but it was hardly a point that was going to make her bond with this sleezeball. "I'd much rather get to know you better," he said, flashing her a smile. She scowled at him, uncertain what to do. Threats didn't phase him, likely because he didn't think she'd carry them out. Protests and rudeness wasn't driving him off. So short of physical violence (which was her much preferred solution), how was she supposed to get rid of him?

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

An idea occurred to her. She had no idea if it would work, but... she realized that she wasn't in her element. She was on he posh side of town. Maybe she needed to think like the posh. While the idea put a bad taste in her mouth, she couldn't help but admit that it had merit. These posh fools couldn't be completely useless, after all. She didn't know how the posh thought, so she headed over to her audience of girls. They were only a few years younger than her; old enough that they had no doubt dealt with boys before. Wil looked closer to Tock's age, and thus likely wasn't interested in a bunch of seventeen year olds (or so one would hope). But they probably knew his type, while Tock didn't. She knew the type that she could scare off by yelling and shaking her fists, but she didn't know how to handle Wil. "Oy, chatterboxes," Tock called out, waving to the girls as she approached. Wil had followed, a look of amusement and confusion on his face. The girls giggled as they approached. "Hi, Wil," the blonde said, fanning herself with a dainty little lace fan. Even though he was a good five or six years too old for her, they apparently knew each other, likely from their family connections or what have you. "Ladies," he said, giving them a short, polite bow. They tittered, and Tock rolled her eyes. "Oy, quitcher gigglin'," Tock said, "I done gots a problem. Maybe y'all can 'elp me, aye?" They tittered some more, and the blonde asked, "You need our help?" The hens leaned together and whispered, passing nods and giggles between them. Then the blonde looked at Tock, fanning herself, and raised her chin. "How can we help you, Miss Magus?" Tock rolled her eyes and thrust her thumb at Wil. "'Is bloke ain't leavin' me be," she said. "Can't keep 'is filthy 'ands ta 'imself, neither," she scowled at him. He was turning red, and looked very uncomfortable now that his little game was turning into something unexpected. "Ya got any ideas what 'ow I can gets rid o' 'im? I done gots work ta do." The girls continued their incessant giggling, and the brunette turned to Wil and said in a very stuck up tone, "Oh, Wilhelm, what's wrong? All the proper ladies in the city turning you down now, you have to start making passes at the working class?" Tock scoffed. Apparently, 'Miss Magus' or not, the girls still thought of Tock as a lower class than them. Not that she cared. "Everyone knows of your reputation, you cad," she continued. "Now leave the poor Magus alone, and go find yourself a courtesan down at the docks. All the classy whores no doubt turn you away, since they know how," she glanced down at his crotch, "inadequate you are." She shooed him off with her fan, and all he could do was turn and walk away, red in the face. He muttered a curse under his breath as he left, and in quite a hurry at that. Tock just stared, her jaw hanging open. She'd never heard classy, high society insults and jibes before. The language had been so clean that she almost wasn't sure if the words had actually been insults. She'd had no clue that people could scare someone off like that without yelling and cursing. She grabbed the brunette and hugged her. "Oy, Conch, 'at were bloody BRILLIANT, it were," she said, squeezing the girl tight and then releasing her. The lot of them stared at her in shock, then descended into another fit of giggles. Brushing off her dress, the brunette looked slightly disgusted at the contact, but mostly amused. It seemed that being entertaining increased her value in their eyes, just slightly. "With that sort, you just need to know where they keep their pride," she said. "Which is usually down their pants!" the blonde added, sparking more tittering from the group. Tock was downright shocked. Considering the way Yvette at the dress shop had reacted to Tock's lewd comments the other day, she'd been beginning to think that stuck up rich folk didn't even havesex. Let alone talk about it. But apparently it was all just in how you talked about it. Innuendo and double entendre, instead of flat out vulgarity. Tock would have to remember this.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Once the shape of the stone was finally complete, Tock spent some time sanding and smoothing it out, taking off all the rough edges. Then she carefully tilted the stone onto its side and cut out a series of five holes in the bottom, measuring with great care to ensure they would match up exactly to the ones she'd cut into the top of the pillar. After that she retrieved five pieces of the broken stone she'd removed, and worked on rounding and shaping them each into carefully sized cylinders. Once she had fit the pegs into the holes to ensure they would have a good fit, she was now faced with the problem of heat treating the alabaster. It had to be boiled in order to reduce the translucence and give it the appearance of marble. The difficulty in that was that the stone was about a hundred and fifty pounds. Tock could barely move it herself, let alone lift it. This made her wonder how she was going to get it up to the top of the pillar. But she would tackle that problem when she got to it. The issue of moving the stone was simple enough. She headed down to the market and bought a few coils of rope. It was probably far more than she needed for this project, but she had been meaning to increase some of her supplies at home, and rope was something you could never have too much of. She already had a set of block and tackle. She spent the better part of an afternoon setting up a pulley system on the front of the building. There were several sturdy outcroppings of stone she could secure rope to, with a bit of difficulty climbing up the side of the building again. It got easier as she went along, though, since the rope she tied to the building gave her something to brace herself with. Another small crowd started to form, no doubt waiting to see if she'd be using Grippy to aid her climbing again, but with the rope, Grippy just wasn't needed. After carefully climbing up to three separate points on the building's exterior, securing the rope, and then using the rope to clumsily lower herself back down to the ground each time, she ended up with a setup that would distribute the weight of the stone across multiple pulleys. The effective weight she'd need to be lifting herself was cut down by a fraction for each pulley added into the system, until it would be a much lighter, though still heavy burden. She then looped the rope around the stone piece itself, coiling it around the thick decorative scrolls. The face that the piece was wider at the top than the bottom made it substantially easier. Now she just needed something to boil it in. OOC-5 GM deducted for 250' of hemp rope.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock walked into the shop and tapped Reggie on the shoulder. He was helping a customer get fitted for a fancy suit, and tried to wave her off and made a gesture to indicate he'd be with her in just a moment. Considering this wasn't her day job, Tock wasn't particularly inclined to be patient (not that she was EVER patient). She grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. "Gotta wee problem," she told him. He sighed and asked, "Can it wait? I'm assisting Master Farnwood at the moment." Tock ignored the question and said, "I need a big tub o' vat o' somethin'." Reginald sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. He turned back to his customer and said, "I'll have to beg your forgiveness, Master Farnwood. This young lady is handling our repairs, and you know how it is with the working class. I have to solve every little crisis..." Without looking away from his reflection in the mirror, Farnwood replied, "Of course, Reginald. So hard to find good help these days." Tock's mouth dropped open, and she was about to pop both of them in the jaw, when Reginald hurried across the room out of ear shot of his customer. She followed after him, fists clenched, and said in a loud enough voice that Farnwood surely still heard her just fine, "Oy, whazza big idea mate? I's doin' ya a favor, 'ere, aye?" She shook a finger in his face, "An' I don't done needs ya bad mouthin' me none, ya 'ear?" He featured with his hands for her to lower her voice and said, "I apologize. No insult was intended. Now, what is it you need that is so apparently urgent?" She crossed her arms and scowled at him. "A vat," she said. He gave her that look people always had when she needed to explain things step by step to them. Maybe she could make a golem to handle this for her; a little brainy golem that existed just to explain the things that it wasn't worth wasting her breath on. She sighed and explained, "Remember 'ow I done told ya I gotta boil the alabaster?" Reginald frantically waved his hands to shush her and whispered, "Please, keep your voice down. I'd rather our customers not know about that..." Tock rolled her eyes and kept talking in her normal tone of voice, "I needs a big vat o' somethin' what fer the boilin'." "Don't you have one?" he asked. Tock scowled and snapped back, "Oy, ya done didn't wanna pony up the dough what fer a master what 'as 'is own shop, didja now? Nah, ya ain't affordin' 'er! So we's done workin' wit' what we got! An' I ain't got no vat." Reginald kept gesturing for quiet, casting worried glances across the shop at his customer. Tock didn't give a damn; she never worried about who heard her speak her mind. "Well, I don't have a vat," Reginald whispered. "Well ya done better finds me one," Tock said, "'less ya done wants me ta slap 'er up top as is." Reginald wrung his hands together for a moment, then his eyes lit up. He raised a finger in the air and said, "They have large copper vats for dying at the textile manufacturer's where we get our fabric." Tock slapped him on the shoulder and grinned. "'Ere ya go, mate!"

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The next day, Reginald informed her that he had negotiated use of one of the vats for the project. Likely he had made some promise of increased fabric purchases or some such in exchange for the favor. When Tock got down to the tailor's after work that day, she used her pulley rig to carefully lift the stone block, and guide it onto a cart the tailor's used for deliveries. She then headed down to the textile maker's to get the job done. After the last week or so of working around stuffed shirts, tittering airheads, and slimy tight arses like Wil, the dyers was a refreshing change. The building was filled with working class men and women who had a much more causal, down to earth attitude. Several greeted Tock when she came in, giving her friendly waves and smiles. No one here thought they were better than her. They didn't seem obsessed with appearances either, the men and women dressed in simple clothes that were covered in the stains of their trade. Tock was directed to an unused vat off to the side of where the workers were performing their tasks. The air was thick with the stench of dye, and she saw most of the people here had little balls of cotton stuck up their nostrils to block out the smell. If only posh folk like that Farnwood fellow knew the harsh smells that their fancy silk clothes came from. She got a few of the kind, strong young men to help her get the stone carefully into the vat. Then she spent some time hauling buckets of water back and forth to fill it. After the number of trips it took her, hauling the water ended up putting more of an ache into her muscles than moving the stone had. Luckily she only needed enough to just cover the stone, though the waist high vat could hold quite a bit more. The vats were set up to have fires built around them for boiling the dyes. She set up only a small amount of wood at first, since the heat needed to be raised gradually. Otherwise the coloration of the stone would be off, and it wouldn't match the appearance of marble. She watched the stone carefully over the next few hours, gradually adding more wood to increase the heat. It was boring work, and she passed the time chatting with the dyers as they went about their own jobs. When it was finally complete, the stone was loaded back onto the cart and brought back to the tailor's. She spent some time polishing it, until it had a nice white shine. She then left it on the step overnight so she could finish off the job finally the following afternoon.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The next day, she tied the ropes firmly around the stone, and carefully used the pulley system to raise it into place. With the stone hoisted up into position above the pillar, she tied the ropes off to suspend it there, the weight supported from multiple angles to keep it balanced. She then climbed up into position straddling the outcropping behind the pillar. She used Grippy to lift up the small bucket of mortar, and set to work. The guide pegs were slipped into place, and a thin layer of mortar applied across the top of the pillar. Then, ever so carefully, she loosened the ropes to gently lower the new stone into place. The pegs helped ensure a perfect alignment, which was important since even with the pulleys, adjustments would have been difficult on a piece so heavy. Once the mortar was dry, she removed all the ropes, and spent some time polishing up the side of the building to get rid of all her footprints. She also polished up the second, older pillar so that it wouldn't clash with the cleaner appearance of the new one. With everything cleaned up and ready to go she headed inside and told Reggie, "Yer all set, Guv. Good as new. Or, good as old, aye? Seein' as she's old style an' all 'at." She chuckled at her own joke, though Reginald didn't seem amused. "Thank you, mada-- erm, Tock," he said. "Your help has been most appreciated." "Aye, Guv," she said with a wink, "jus' make sure ta recommend me ta all yer friends." Hopefully friends that could pay her in more than just clothing.

[Cascade]

Adventurer's Loot Minerva's Loot : Minerva Skill XP Reward Drawing +1 Carving +2 Blacksmithing +3 Painting +2 Architecture +1 Negotiation +2 Intimidation +2 Climbing +1 Masonry +3 Lore: Nursing a Hangover The Saville Heinrich Saville: Great Cloth Artisan Reginald Stared At All Day Smithing: Removing Rust Gaining a Bad Audience Getting Groped Discriminated Against Items or Consequences: +2 Linen Blouse +2 Leather Pants +2 Average Dresses -5gm +10 Status Points Don't get too used to letting Tock's babies out in public. Remember, magic is not widely accepted by many, even in Zeltiva. Anyway, great solo. You are very descriptive when it comes to practicing Tock's skills, which makes me wonder if you actually do these things in real life. Hehe. I especially liked how you got the stuck-up girls to drive Wil away... that was unexpected and very clever. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me!