Setting Up

Sophia sets up her new business.

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Syka is a new settlement of primarily humans on the east coast of Falyndar opposite of Riverfall on The Suvan Sea. [Syka Codex]

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Setting Up

Postby Sophia Sunshore on August 5th, 2019, 11:52 am

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40th Summer, 519


Today was the day that the next part of her botanical journey really began.
Sophia stood on the edge of the lip that ran around her beachfront dwelling and looked out over the ledge that connected it to the empty building that would very soon become her philtering lab. On the beach, a borrowed wagon sat filled with all the things that she would need to set up her business. The Svefra ran her gaze over the supplies and both excitement and nerves bubbled up inside of her.

First though, she needed to clean the building. It was covered with a layer of sand and dust left over from the construction, and sand and dust did not make for a good working environment. Randal had helped her to finish the building a couple of days prior, and her supplies had arrived on a trading ship just the day before. The structure had received minimal battering in the epic windstorm that had raged over the settlement, having no roof to catch and no furniture or other items to be thrown about. As a result, she simply had to wait until the important repairs had been made to the rest of the settlement, and Randal had squeezed in a few bells work here and there to help her get it done.

Sophia grabbed a broom from where it currently rested against her desk and strode over the platform and into the building. While she was not a fan of fully enclosed structures - her home was evidence of that - it was something of a necessity for the lab. A lot of the equipment she would be storing within was fragile glass, and the products she was planning to create needed to be kept free of contaminants like sand. She worked slowly and with care, sweeping right from the edges to the doorway that led to the linking platform. The swish of the broom over the wooden floor melded with the gentle waves of the sea outside, and soon she was happy that the floor was clean.

Next she moved over to the platform, sweeping the pile of sand and dust from the lab off the edge first. She moved methodically along in the direction of her home, sweeping the broom from left to right, the motion flicking dirt off the edge. When she was finished, Sophia returned the broom to the lab, as that was where she would need it most.

The next step would be to start unloading the small wagon of supplies, which included a collection of plants. These Sophia unloaded first, carefully moving them into her home so that they would be safely out of the way and less likely to be knocked over by herself or her Tavan, Pearl. The seabird was coming and going today, the weather just perfect for her to drift low over the sea and skim plankton from the surface of the water. She decided to move everything to do with the plants, and growing others, into the house so that all like supplies were together, eventually leaving just the lab equipment in the wagon.
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Sophia Sunshore
Plant Lady
 
Posts: 213
Words: 193757
Joined roleplay: July 5th, 2018, 5:26 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human, Mixed
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Setting Up

Postby Sophia Sunshore on August 5th, 2019, 11:53 am

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One by one, Sophia lifted out the crates and chests that held the fragile tools she would need for her new trade. She carried them over to the linking platform and placed them onto it, before lifting herself onto it and then moving each crate again into the lab.

The lab was furnished sparsely, but with the basic necessities she would need. There was a small fireplace, a long wooden desk, shelving and a couple of raised stone slabs upon which she could create her wares. The only substantial thing missing was her water barrel, but Randal would be coming by at somepoint soon to install one for her.

The crates were unpacked onto the desk so that Sophia could assess exactly what she had. Vials, beakers and flasks of varying sizes were laid out, along with a mortar and pestle and a set of tongs. Her equipment was basic, much like the rest of the lab, but she had all she needed to start off.

The empty shelves she lined with empty bottles, waiting for dried plants and other ingredients to fill them. There was a small box containing more empty bottles that she would use for her finished products, and this she stored out of the way under the desk. Eventually all the crates were unpacked and arranged to her satisfaction, though the lab still had an unfinished feel about it. Sophia surveyed the room with her hands on her hips. It just needed plants, it needed signs of work and life, and then it would be complete.

Sophia headed back over to her home and collected up her spare mosquito netting. She had purchased it originally to take with her into the jungles, but on her first non-research foray out with Nya and Taren, the dark-haired woman had politely but firmly told her it was all but useless against jungle bugs. Since then the netting had been sat in one corner of her home in a small heap, the Svefra not knowing what else to do with it as she already had swathes of the stuff around her sleeping area. However, an idea had come to her when she and Randal had started to build the platform she would be using to store and grow her plants.
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Sophia Sunshore
Plant Lady
 
Posts: 213
Words: 193757
Joined roleplay: July 5th, 2018, 5:26 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human, Mixed
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Setting Up

Postby Sophia Sunshore on August 5th, 2019, 11:53 am

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Sophia knew from her time aboard her family ship that not all plants liked the sea breezes. They were laced with salt and most plants wilted and showed signs of distress very quickly when subjected to those conditions. While her dwelling didn’t get quite so much salty air as the ship had done, she was still located on the beach.
The platform that linked her home to the lab had no roof, and was open to the sea with the only wall situated along the back side, closest to the jungle. A beam ran across the top of the open side, connected at one end to the house and the lab at the other. From this beam she could unroll and tie down a canvas ‘wall’, much like the ones that ran around the edge of her home. Her idea was to string the netting up permanently along this beam, and it would hopefully keep off the majority of salty breeze while still allowing the light to come through.

She dragged a small chair along to the platform, the netting, a knife and some rope in one hand. She cut holes at intervals along the top edge of the netting and threaded lengths of the rope through. Sophia was far from being a seamstress of any sort, so it was rudimentary, but it would work just fine for her purpose. Then, balanced precariously on the chair, she threw the netting over the beam and tied in the first knot of rope to secure it. She worked her way along, shuffling the chair as she went, and then repeated her cutting and tying along the bottom. Eventually both the top and the bottom of the netting was secure, and she stood back and examined her handiwork for a moment, pleased with herself.

Sophia’s next task was to see to the plants that sat waiting in her home. They were fairly basic plants, ones that anyone could find anywhere with a well-stocked kitchen, but they were the perfect starting point for Sophia to begin her experiments and not worry about losing too many exotic or harder to find specimens. The plants were already potted, but a few of them had broken leaves or a bent stem, so she pulled out her small cutters and snipped off the damaged parts she could see. She considered carefully where to cut each part, choosing to snip just above what looked like new buds, in the hope that it would encourage better growth to replace what would be lost.

One by one she carried the pots over to the linking platform. The platform was much wider than a regular walkway would be, for the back wall had been fitted with large, sturdy shelves. This would be where the majority of her plants lived, and she arranged the various pots along the units. Lavender sat next to a mint plant, chamomile alongside some lemon balm, and so on until she had the whole collection up on the shelves. There was an aloe vera plant growing happily in a pot in her home, so she went and grabbed that one too, bringing it out to join her new collection.
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Sophia Sunshore
Plant Lady
 
Posts: 213
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Setting Up

Postby Sophia Sunshore on August 5th, 2019, 11:54 am

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Sophia had also been provided with a small collection of seeds to plant and grow. Again these were of common plants so that she could make sure she knew exactly how to care for them before trying to grow anything harder to come by. Sophia moved back over to her house, stepping down into the soft sand below so that she could use the edge as a sort of bench. It sat just above waist height, and so was perfect for planting up.

Underneath her home was a lidded barrel that she had filled with a good soil, and she scooped this into a few empty pots. She tapped the pots onto the floor to level off the soil, and then carefully sprinkled seeds over the top. She tried to space them well, not sowing too many to any one pot, as she knew that plants needed their own space to grow. Too close together and they would all start competing for water and nutrients, and then she would end up with weak and spindly things. She added a light sprinkle of soil to cover the seeds, and then moved all of these over to her shelving too.

Sophia then filled a small watering can from her rainwater barrel and proceeded to water all of her new plants generously, for their soils seemed to be quite dry to the touch. She gently touched the leaves of a few, feelings of contentment and the warmth one felt when being cared for by another settling in her mind. She beamed at the plants and continued to water. Her gift from Caihya would surely help her to keep them alive and happy.

She had been collecting small, flat splinters of wood from the various construction projects that had been going on around the settlement after the storm to use as labels for her pots. She gathered them up, and then carefully inked the names of her new plants onto each one.
’Lavender’ ‘Fennel’ ‘Lemon Balm’

When she had meticulously written out the name of each plant onto a piece of the wood, she went along and pushed them into the soil in the corresponding pots. There were plenty more plants that she wanted to grow, including orange and lemon trees, and a cinnamon plant if she could get her hand on the seeds for it. Sophia knew that Syka had a vast array of plants she could use for both her teas and balms, but she wanted to be absolutely certain she could work with what she knew to be safe before trying anything else.
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Last edited by Sophia Sunshore on August 5th, 2019, 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sophia Sunshore
Plant Lady
 
Posts: 213
Words: 193757
Joined roleplay: July 5th, 2018, 5:26 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human, Mixed
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Setting Up

Postby Sophia Sunshore on August 5th, 2019, 11:55 am

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Sophia ducked out from behind the netting to jump lightly onto the beach. Her eyes fell on something green lying half-hidden in the sand and she bent to pick it up. It was a sizeable piece of smooth seaglass. The Svefra had been so excited about setting up her lab and the plants that she hadn’t thought about the curious stones once all day. She ran her finger over its surface, the glass almost soft to the touch where it had been weathered by the sea and sand. An idea came to her then, and she flicked her gaze to the strings of shells she had decorating her home, and then to the piles of seaglass that littered all available surfaces.

She practically ran down the beach, eyes scouring the sand as she went, stopping when she finally came across a piece of driftwood. It was about the length of her forearm, not quite straight and bleached almost white by the hot summer sun. She gathered it up and turned to make her way back to her home, collecting any more bits of glass she came across on the way.

Inside, she collected up a generous pile of seaglass, the stones all varying sizes and different shades of green, blue and white. A quick rummage in a chest produced some thin but strong cord, and Sophia settled cross-legged in the middle of the floor, the driftwood clasped in her hand. She tied one end of the cord securely to one end of the wood and then cut and tied it to the other end to make a point she could hang from. She tested it out on her finger to make sure it was level, and, satisfied, she moved on to the glass.

She planned to have three chains of seaglass hanging from the driftwood, so she arranged them first on the floor. She placed larger pieces at the tops and worked down to smaller fragments. The colours were fairly random, but she thought that it looked nice overall. Sophia measured and cut another piece of cord, twice as long as she would need, and then tied it around the piece of driftwood so that she had two long strands hanging down. A little way down the wood, she tied the two strands together into a knot, and then placed the first large piece of glass in between the strands, right below the knot. She tied the cord in a knot again, underneath the seaglass, making sure it was tight enough to hold the glass in place.

Sophia repeated this for each piece of seaglass, and then two more times over along the driftwood. When she was finished she had a mobile of sorts. The beautiful driftwood along the top, then three strands of seaglass hanging from it. She cut one last long piece of cord, and then grabbed her chair again to drag it onto the platform. She positioned it next to the beam along the front and climbed on, looping the cord through the top one of the mobile, and tying the whole thing onto the beam. The mobile hung, swaying gently from her movements, sunlight filtering through the pieces of cloudy glass and making them seem as if they were lit from within. The Svefra smiled again, eyes moving from the mobile, to the lab and then resting on her plants.

Day one of the Herbarium, done. Now all she needed to do was start crafting her wares. That could come tomorrow, for now, she was hungry and the Tidepool Bar was calling out to her across the way.
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User avatar
Sophia Sunshore
Plant Lady
 
Posts: 213
Words: 193757
Joined roleplay: July 5th, 2018, 5:26 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human, Mixed
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 1
Featured Character (1)

Setting Up

Postby Ambrosia Alar on December 24th, 2019, 1:39 pm

Grades!


Sophia

Skills
● Acrobatics +1
● Body Building +1
● Cleaning +1
● Gardening +2
● Observation +3
● Organization +4
● Planning +4
● Sewing +1
● Writing +1

Lores
● Cleaning: Clearing a workplace of dust
● Event: Syka windstorm of Summer 519 AV
● Philtering labs need to be clear of contaminants
● Organization: Taking stock of supplies and putting like with like
● Gardening: Keeping salty air off plants
● Gardening: Pruning plants appropriately
● Gardening: Using choice soil
● Gardening: Give seeds enough space to grow
● Gardening: Label pots with what's been planted in them
● Creating a mobile from items at hand


Comments

Sophia, this is a nice, simple thread for getting you on your way to being an established part of Syka. I found myself struggling what skill to call your mobile creation. If you can think of something, let me know, and I can add it. If you feel I've missed something or if you would like lore rephrased, just send me a PM. Be sure to mark your request as graded. Thanks for the read.
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Ambrosia Alar
"The kid's got smiles for days."
 
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