Solo [Nayato's Grove] Structure & Foundation

[Nayato]

Spring 2nd, 518 A.V.

With the right mindset a person could accomplish anything. And with the right help, could take on the world.

That was the mindset Nayato entered at the start of the day. Sayna's light had only just begun to peek from the horizon as he slipped on his set of brown leather armor in preparation to start gathering the supplies he would need to build his home on his new plot of land. Talivindra, the artisan Verusk who decided to live with Nayato for the season, had also awoken early to simply aid the motivated Chaktawe through the entire process. But before all of that, Nayato took the time to craft himself a small sort of breakfast.

As he sat within his tent the Chaktawe reached into his sack of buckwheat flour to grab a handful of it, then dropped it into his mortar bowl. A nice handful of soft cheese and goat lard also joined the flour in the bowl before he started to use his pestle to mash everything in the bowl into a fine paste. He then used the edge of his Khopesh sword to run the ball of his palm along the blade to cut himself to use hi own blood in the crafting of soulmist. He held his right hand over the bowl then let some of his blood dribble down into the morbid paste to mix it all together into a maroon red paste. Nayato then consumed most of the bloody paste within the bowl save for one little glob of it.

He sat there for a long moment just focusing on himself. He kept his eyes closed to listen to the rhythm of his heartbeat as he concentrated on his own very djed within his stomach to begin the process of turning it into soulmist. However, he did not want to make soulmist at that exact moment. No, he just started the process. Feeling it slowly turning. He was not in a rush and so took his time.

After all of that was done he dipped one finger into the bowl to scoop up the last bit of blood paste to use as a poultice to stop the bleeding on his palm. He coated the paste on top of his cut, then retrieve a leather band out of his Fletcher’s tool kit to bind his wound before exiting his tent to start his work.

Nayato's current goal was to stack up a rather large pile of bamboo to use for construction.

Talivindra wielded Nayato's carpentry axe as she stood by a rather large stalk of bamboo. “Bamboo is a renewable and versatile resource, one valued for its high strength and low weight. We'll use it to craft the foundations, floors, walls, and roof. Once you gathered everything, we'll work on setting up the base structural frame so that we'll know how big it will be and how many support beams we'll need.” The red metallic skinned Verusk spoke as she crouched down to slice diagonally through the base of the stalk. She didn't have a shovel, so used the axe to dig out the rooted base still in the ground to throw it over into a pile of small bits of extra materials.

Nayato had his own half-hatchet in hand as he was leading the gathering efforts. He was like a madman chopping down all bamboo in his path; but he also had a shovel tucked into the back of the belt that held his Khopesh sword at his side to dig up the rooted bases quickly after chopping the stalks down. His arm followed through with all the force he could muster to slam the sharpened wedge of an axe-head into the wooden exterior of a tall piece of thick bamboo.

With a heavy thud, he slammed the axe into it but only half felled his plant-foe, finding that three chops was his average for cutting down the thickest, near melon sized, stalks of bamboo. Nayato stood there with a sore arm as he leaned down to pick up the end of the bamboo to drag it over to the pile near his tent. As he looked over all of them, Nayato quickly realized that from cutting them all diagonally at the base that he'd managed to gather a rather large stockpile of makeshift spears if he ever needed to defend himself. "Bamboo spears when In danger? Could be deadly when added to a pit trap or set in the ground at an angle covered by some Bushes. Animals or people would run right into them to impale themselves."

Talivindra who was only in the mindset of making a beautiful structure was lost when it came to wilderness survival or defense. When she heard him say that, she just scoffed. "No. Spikes would look so... barbaric. The look we are going for is natural and dome shaped. I'm so glad that bamboo is flexible. If you want defenses, then I suggest bamboo walls and thick railings."

Nayato looked over at her and for the time since having met her, did not let her have her way with the construction of his own home. "No, there will be some measure of dangerous personal defenses. Spike walls will keep away large predators. I do not know much of this environment, but nature is nature. We must defend from it." Talivindra had no grasp of wilderness survival, so gave into the Chaktawe's rather serious looking expression. "Fine. But we'll need to put flowers by them. Maybe red, to draw the eye away from the obvious spiky bits... but all of that is an afterthought, first we need to build the foundation and frame of the structure tomorrow."

Talivindra then walked over the pile of bamboo to cut off a foot long piece of raw tubing with her axe. "As you have seen, bamboo is made up of interconnected cylinders with nodes on each end, with each bamboo internodes being the hollow inside that form bamboo cavities." The then set her axe to the end of the piece of bamboo to cut the cylinder vertically down the middle. "The easiest way to make a wall cover is to cut bamboo in half and just nail this half horizontally to a solid base."

Nayato was not ignorant to the fact that he could literally make many walls with the information he showed her.

He wanted to try it for himself so went to lay two thick pieces of solid bamboo on the ground spaced ten feet apart from each other. Nayato then went to grab another piece of long grown bamboo to try to cut it in half. He placed his hatchet to the butt of the bamboo stalk, then with a heavy chop, embedded the hatchet into it to split the end in half. The Squire then took several chimes to slice the entire stalk directly in two down the middle. He didn't know much about construction, but dragged each piece of bamboo to lay on top of the two whole pieces of bamboo so that it looked like a bride.

The back of his half hatchet had a hammer like end which meant that he only needed a nail. The day before he'd bought two pounds of nails that he retrieved from his tent, fishing out four nails to use. He set one nail to the end of one of the halves then used the hammer end of his hatchet to slam the nail down into the uncut bamboo underneath. Nayato then repeated that process three more times to connect the other end to the opposite bamboo. It then took him a chime to do the same thing to the second half.

"Congratulations, you can now make splint bamboo structures." Talivindra sung in a sing-song manner as she clapped for the fledgling builder.

Nayato gave her a small smirk before canting his head to one side. There was something off around him that caused him clutch the half-hatchet in his right hand. His hand was growing use to the shifting bamboo in the quaint jungle breezes. The way they only shifted to and fro with slow grace. That was why when the freckled marks on his fingertips started to tingle did he notice something was moving opposite the natural movement of the bamboo. His eyes shifted immediately towards where he felt the disturbance. His eyes found a slithering mass shuffling around a stalk of bamboo on the ground.

[Nayato]

The snake that Nayato saw caused him to back up towards his tent. It was about nine feet in length with a girth the size of his leg. Without even thinking, he started to concentrate on the blood paste mixture within his body. He could feel his stomach grow lighter as the paste transitioned into something much cooler. Nayato opened his lips as he started to force himself to regurgitate the mist, feeling the chilled gel pool into his mouth. He spit out a good quantity of the the softly glowing gel of soulmist into his palm.

The sudden appearance of soulmist acted as a cue for Jaleh to materialize from where she had been invisibly lurking. "Lunch time already?" The specter said, just wanting to bathe the mist onto her incorporeal being. Nayato waved her away for a moment. "I need you to stop that snake for me, if you possess it for a moment, I'll give you the soul mist. I just need you to keep it form attacking so end it. Do we have a deal?"

Nayato and Jaleh have had this conversation countless times before. It was a deal that she was fine with making for her friend, resulting in the ghost moving over to transition her sprite into the body of the anaconda to posses it. Once the snake seemingly froze still where it laid, Nayato moved to the side of the snake to hold his foot down on top of its head to pin it to the ground. "You can exit now, Jaleh." He said as he braced all of his weight down onto its head. Nayato tossed his hatchet aside to draw the khopesh from its sheath to hold the sword up in his free hand. As soon as the ghost exited from the snakes body he could fell the anaconda thrashing around under his boot. The Squire wasted no time in bringing the khopesh down onto the anacondas neck.

Nayato realized at that moment that the heavy curve of his khopesh moved just like an axe, save he could actually stab someone with the point of his sword as well as chop. He slayed the snake just like he were cutting bamboo, needing a second chop to completely detach the snakes head from its body.

"Thanks Jaleh, you earned this." He said as he walked towards the materialized ghost to hold his hand up to her. Talivindra was highly invested in the display she had just watched. She knew Nayato traveled with a ghost, but it was the first time she saw his teamwork with Jaleh. Meanwhile, Jaleh was smiling as she gladly absorbed the offered soulmist. "Mhmm. That was nice. Can I have some more later?"

Nayato picked up the severed head of the anaconda to look at it. "Yes, of course you can. I've also found a way to do a bit of sword training. I'll cut at the bamboo with my khopesh from now on. We'll be nights someday, Jaleh." He was not a person of the jungle so did not know it it was venomous or safe to eat, but figured he'd eat any organ not filled with bile or viscus fluids to be safe. Jaleh's ghostly appearance grew farm more sharper after absorbing the mist. So much sharper that it was obvious that the ghost had the appearance of a fully armored Syliran Squire.

He then looked over to the red skinned woman and smirked. "Talivindra, we are going to be eating snake tonight." It took him a moment to drag the hefty body of the anaconda over to his tent where it would be out of the way to be cooked near sundownMake a separate cooking thread later this day..

After all that excitement was done, he continued to gather bamboo to clear the area to properly work on his house tomorrow. Nayato decided to forgo the use of his hatchet in place of his Khopesh for further bamboo clearing.

Spring 3rd, 518 A.V.

Nayato had gone a bit extreme during his clearing of the space he was to build in. He'd worked hard to strip as most of the land bare of bamboo as possible, and now just stood within the clearing, waiting on Talivindra to snap out of whatever inspirational artistic trance she had entered within her own mind. "First thing is first. Always use your construction marital as a template when free hand crafting things without a drawn layout schematic. We will be working on the foundation stilt posts today, so we will need the strongest and most thickest pieces of bamboo you've gathered. To find where we need to put them in the ground, we will lay down footing bamboo to trace out just how big it will be."

Talivindra said as she grabbed a medium thickness piece of bamboo to lay it on the ground, she then stood face him while pointing to the sky. "This will be your entrance way. This is your house, so lay out how ever big of a structure you wish to build."

Many of the bamboo stalks that Nayato had chopped down were wild grown bamboo, each one about thirteen feet in high, with the thickness of a small tree. He ignore those to grab the end of a stalk that was as thick as his leg, then pulled on it to drag it to the perimeter of the clearing that bordered the standing bamboo that he didn't need to chop down. Talivindra watched as the Squire laid out the perimeter of his houses foundation. The thing she noticed was the clearing wasn't a perfect square, but a large oddly shaped circle.

"Nayato?" Talivindra said with an interesting curiosity to her tone. "Yes?" He said after dropping the last bamboo into place. "Do you have anything to write or draw with?" She asked while obviously going back into her 'mind palace' to dream up some new way to build the structure. Nayato want to his tent to grab the blank book he used as a journal along with a single ink stick to write with before moving to stand next to her again. "What do I need to write?" He asked, opening it up to the first page.

Talivindra glanced to her side once she noticed the blank pages of the book. "Draw the layout of your home. Put the exact shape of your home to the page."

Nayato wasn't good at drawing, but this task was easy enough to do. He started to drag the ink stick along the page to form the shape. As he did so, Talivindra started to point at places for him to mark the future places he'd need to put stilted foundations and support beams. "Here. This is curved so it will need on too. I think the entrance should be supported by two massive stalks in a V-shape, so add two more here."

By the end of it Nayato had a crude layout of his home.

A clean version of what he drew :

Talivindra nodded to herself as looked around to see if they had all the tools they would need for the next part of construction. "I don't think you have slinder rope or wire. We'll need to get some to bind piece of joints together. Unlike splint, you can nail joint pieces or they will shatter." Nayato started to look at all of the bamboo, then walked over to a still standing stalk that wasn't cut down, and drew his sword to chop it down at the base.

The Chaktawe sat down on the ground where he'd cut down the green stalk then pulled out the Dagger from his boot. He then began the slow process of shaving the blade along the surface of the bamboo to skin long strands of plant fiber down its shaft. It was the same way he would gather kindling for a fire, but his goal was to shave long unbroken fibers off of it to then twist into rope. It took him a good twenty chimes to just sit there in one spot shaving the stalk until that side was whittled down to a thin surface.

He gathered all of the plant shavings as if he were trying to manage pulling the ends of his hair into a ponytail. "Talivindra, come hold this end for me." Holding out all the fingers towards her. When she did manage to take it, the Squire moved to grab the opposite ends of the long strands of fiber then walked further away from her until the fibers were pulled taught between them. "How thin of a rope do we need for the bindings? If not thick rope, we can just use half of this." Talivindra nodded and they both split the fibers until they were holding a less. Nayato then started to split that stack into to section held in either of his hands. "I'm going to start looping these together until they are strongly wound together like rope. Don't drop your end or we'll need to restart."

He turned the ribbons of plant fabric in one hand, twisting it so it was like more slider cordage, then wrapped it around the other ribbon of fabric. It was a simple process that he used to tie his own hair. But, now he was using it to craft cordage for rope. It was a monotonous process of twisting, looping, turning, and repeating that took just as long as it did to collect the fabrics. But when all was done he had a long length of bamboo rope to work with.

"Perfect." Talivindra said with an amused smile at the Chaktawe ingenuity before futting three feet off of the near thirteen foot strand of rope. "Nothing should go to waste. Everything we cut down will be use, its the least we can do to honor nature for our survival." Nayato said as he wound the rope up into a bundle around his arm. "I whole hardheartedly agree. Now, this is how you will make the stilted foundation of your house. Watch closely." There was a newfound sense of fun in her tone as if she was now fully invested in the process.

She dragged a long piece of bamboo from the pile they gathered the precious day, then chop the end of it into four pieces. Nayato walked over to her to sit down on the ground next to her, setting the rope aside to learn something new. She then tossed two of the bamboo cylinders into his lap along with half the rope she'd cut.

"Follow along, you'll need your axe. First, cut into the end as of you were going to split one of them in to. But don't fully do it. Just the end." She said as she carved into the end of a piece of bamboo. She carved it so that one end looked like a U-shape which could now hold a full smaller cylinder of bamboo within it. "This is the easy way of doing it. We will get atcuall lumber that isn't bamboo, set it into the ground, bind or nail the sides into it, and it will be stable so long as it deep enough in the ground. This is the technique we will be using for the thicker stalk of bamboo for the stilts. But, for general jointing. You'll do this but not use nails, just tie them together with rope because nails in key places will lessen the structural support. But for the outer walls and flooring themselves, nails are fine." She explained as she started to cross tie the second piece of bamboo to the one she had.

Nayato slowly started to etch his hatchet into the bamboo to carve away the center pieces, trying his best not to brake the sides. He did manage to get it to be like hers, but his was heavily loop sided in that one end was thicker meaning the thing being held in the center would he slightly lop sided to one angle. He the strapped the other piece of bamboo to the center section of it, and emulated Talivindra's knot. He wrapped the rope around the outer edges, needing to watch her do it three more times before he got a hang of it.

"I think I got it?" He said with a proud little smile while holding up the piece of joint work he'd just made. "Good... lets work on the foundation. lets start by digging all the places I marked on your drawing to prep for settling."

[Nayato]

Self-Grade

Skills

Wilderness Survival: 2
Spiritism: 2
Medicine: 1
Construction: 2
Carpentry: 2
Architecture: 2
Weapon Hand axe: 1
Detection: 1
Negotiation: 1
Weapon (khopesh ): 1
Hunting: 1
Drawing: 1
Observation: 2

Lore

Crafting soulmist: Flour, cheese, and lard.
Spiritism: Crafting Soulmist within the body.
Medicine: Using soulmist poultice to stop bleeding
Medicine: Leather binds to stop bleeding.
Construction: Bamboo a renewable and versatile resource
WS: Gather resources
WS: Clearing all obstacles blocking your campsite.
Construction: The Proper way to cut down Bamboo
WS: Defend against large predators
Carpentry: Bamboo spikes
Carpentry: Splitting bamboo stalks.
Construction: How to make splint bamboo structures
Tracking: The difference between bamboo and anaconda motion.
Spiritism: Emitting Soulmist
Negotiation: Trading Soulmist for favors
Khopesh: Chops like an axe, stabs like a sword.
WS: Don’t eat poisonous snakes
Construction: Lay materials as a foundation template
Drawing: Building layouts
WS: Carving plant fiber for rope or rinder.
WS: Making rope out of plant fiber
Carpentry: Crafting Bamboo joints
Construction: Crafting Bamboo structure foundations
Construction: The Proper way to tie bamboo together.

Items gained
Python Skull
Python carcass