3rd of Winter, 511 AV
The Blinding Light Studio was all but deserted. Everyone had long gone to bed or wandered back to The Tempered Anvil. Shadekas was alone, carefully sketching out a design for the baker's daughter who was about to get married and needed a necklace and earrings set for her wedding. There were also four bridesmaid gifts pendants that would go along with the order so it was an important contract for The Blinding Light. He needed the sketch of the wedding set completely finished and the pendants cut for the bridesmaid gifts before the client came back and approved the final designs the next afternoon.
Cutting the pendants had been no problem. The girl had wanted moonstone pendants about the size of his thumb tilted sideways, wrapped in a double pendant with a black onyx stone set above them like a star. It was symbolic to the girl in some way, though he'd not bothered to ask her why. He had several options on how to make all of them identical, but he automatically eliminated lost wax castings because he'd have to make one for each pendant since they were destroyed in the casting. So he finally decided on freeforming them by hand using pendant metal molds in a rough artistic style then setting the stones on top of that. He could work the two sizes of pendant together, hanging one inside the other so that when it spun, the pendant center section was definitely two sided. That meant he'd have to flange wrap the onyx and moonstone so nothing of the gems were obscured except for the edge.
But that wasn't something he had to do tonight. Instead, he was only supposed to finish the sketch - which he was just now putting the finishing touches on - and cut the pendant stones. He had several dozen moonstones in the shop of the appropriate size, plus a block of moonstone uncut. Shade prefered to start from tumbled stones because they already gave a good idea of what was to come in their quality. He picked out four likely candidates, and then proceeded to set up the grinding wheel and start to work on them cutting them down to four fairly uniformly equal sized and shaped ovals. Once he had them cut down, he began the process of re polishing, always checking for color and clarity. The stones didn't have to be great ones, but they all had to be equally beautiful or the women would fight.
He was at it for hours. His back hurt, his neck was crammed, and he was stiff from bending over the polishing wheel. His ankles and calves ached from repeatedly pushing the crank pedal to keep the polishing wheel spinning.
It wasn't until he stopped grinding stone against stone that he heard the noise. The pendant moonstones were finished, just needing a clear coat of sealer, and then they could be shown to the client. Setting them aside to clear coat after he was done with the sketch, Shadekas had gone back to his drawing. Only, the noise outside was distracting. Even in the chill of the winter, the Blinding LIght often kept windows open to allow fumes and dust to free itself of the studio. So when he finally stopped grinding and went back to sketching, Shade could clearly hear a dice game going on outside the studio walls.
It was a loud one too. Shade frowned. Normally he had nothing against dice games, but he'd have to be working late into the night to get the project outline done for approval in the morning, and the noise was not helping his concentration.
Rising, he slipped on his monk robe over his linen shirt and cotton work pants and headed outside. He crossed the Blinding Lights' courtyard and exited through the front gate and passed around back.
Sure enough, there was a small crowd of about fifteen people. Only four were dicing, but they were some incredibly hard-eyed individuals. They were throwing dice against the alley wall and waging small fierce bets as to their outcomes. Shade joined them, unobtrusively, though he was given several hard long stares by at least one participant and one witness. Monks were as common in Nyka as fleas on a dog, so he knew no one would say anything. Shade did like his dice, but he also liked his peace. Watching the crowd, he was torn between joining and urging them to move on so he could get his proposal finished.
And while he decided, he studied the crowd wondering what spurred this particular game in this particular location. The crowd was full of strangers, mostly foreign looking. They weren't Nykan's that was certain, or else they'd be tucked safely in one of the establishments for amusements strewn about Nyka.