Timestamp: 70th of Winter, 518 A.V.
The life of a Master Jeweler could be sometimes repetitive. Kelski liked to change it up, especially when she was browsing the Seaside Market, looking for ideas, and stumbled upon Jewelcrafting Techniques she had never seen before. That was the beauty of a port city on a busy coast. Things came through from all different places. And she’d stumbled upon the booth almost by accident and found amazing pieces of sculpted metal jewelry which had techniques she didn’t understand.
Leaning over the display, Kelski plucked up an example and looked it over. The sculpted metal looked like coral, twisting and curving upon itself with no signs of how it was worked. She puzzled over it, and saw that whomever had crafted it had mounted little pearls for accents on it, making the finished piece beautiful. She sat it down, looked up at the vendor, and raised an eyebrow. “How was this crafted? It’s so unusual.” The Sea Eagle said reverently. The woman laughed.
“I didn’t make it, but I get it from my sister in Nyka. She’s very creative. She melts the metal, and while its still molten, she tosses it into specific things. She uses water, dried chick peas, straw, ice, and anything she can actually find to mold metal around that can then be broken out of it… like even food things like rice or dried pasta.” The tradeswoman said.
Kelski lifted an eyebrow. “That’s crazy.” She said with a laugh, then plucked up the small pendant, and handed the woman a silver for it. “It’s good to know new things though.” She said with a laugh, then started to turn away.
“Wait, if you like this you’ll love this.” The tradeswoman said, moving down the table to a lot of jewelry Kelski had overlooked. She plucked up another pendant, this one shaped like a coin, and handed it to Kelski. It had a very unique texture. It almost looked like tree bark. The Kelvic frowned. Puzzled, and pulled up her magesight, pooling djed from her well out into her bright silver orbs. Power flared within her, she studied the pendant, and found… absolutely nothing. There were no noticeable tool marks on it. In fact, it looked like poured metal since she could see a seam down the edge where the jeweler who made it had mimicked a coin patter.
“Was this poured? But I don’t get how they got the pattern.” Kelski said, asking curiously.
The sister, sensing another sale, showed no signs of ‘trade secrets’ as she spilled all her sister’s secrets. “It’s a mold made of bone… cuttle bone from a fish to be exact.” The woman said, taking the pendant back and running her hand across it. “It’s a long soft bone in the middle of the fish. It has a flat side and a rounded side. You sand the rounded side a bit flat, cut the whole bone in half, and it will form two pieces you can press together. Carving a pattern in it is easy, and you make channels for the metal to flow in like you do with sand casting. Then, when you pour the bone burns up, but it leaves that pattern.” She said as Kelski nodded.