Completed Shell Bent

[Kuvarakh]

Continued from here

6th of Spring, 514

It was infuriating enough when a customer did not reappear for confirmation of an order. But couldn't they at least send word of whether or not they had changed their mind? Or if they were simply going to be late to retrieve their goods? 'Is there someone that knows what the delay is? Do they know about the trouble I went through to get this stuff? If I have to start making this stuff as a sudden rush job, I'm going to charge them double.'

It had been a good sixty or seventy days since his run-in with that sea...thing...'Uleru'. It had ended amiably enough, he supposed. But still, there had been a request to make wooden planks with shell-textured surfaces. There had been cut circles of wood as well, with an unconfirmed suggestion that they were to be made into shields. Shields of shell shape, fortified with the strength of metal and the light weight of wood. This was the whole reason for his errand to collect shells that had led to his confrontation with 'Uleru'.

Kuvarakh was livid. 'These people think this is just something that gets done in a single activation! Something I can just 'crank out' in an afternoon! We don't even know who the purchaser is to be. And here I had been worried that the sea-sprite, or whatever it was, would make me late to get back with the materials!'

It had taken him a good bell (a bad bell, really) to get the sea water drained from his lungs. It was his Nuit good fortune that he did not need to breathe, and therefore, he had no need to take the breaths that would make him gag on the slowly draining water in his lungs. But it was his MIS-fortune that well-meaning people kept asking him if he was okay. It seemed that nodding of his head didn't register properly while upside-down.

These kindly idiots kept trying to place him on his feet; and kept asking him to explain his position. In both cases, his attempts to dissuade them from helping only made things worse. He wanted to stay head-down to allow gravity to drain his lungs, and he did not want to take breaths to give him the air to speak so he could explain. When he did, he started to gag, which convinced these people that he truly was in need. And when he finally coughed a brief, clear enough span to speak, his insistent and annoyed tone only provoked resentment.

'It's petching hard to make a "Thank you, but I don't need your help" sound genuine and well-meaning when you're pissed off...' he said to himself for the hundredth time.

[Kuvarakh]

Eventually though, he got through to them. Every time some similar event occurred, there were fewer citizens unfamiliar with the greater service provided by leaving him in peace. Now, it was just a matter of trying to get some confirmation that the customer was going to sign a formal order for the goods. But there had been no sign of the man, no messenger representing him, no indication that the man had ever been in town at all.

There were other options, of course. Alchemmia Alchae had a standing offer from the Housing Committee to provide unique roofing tiles for a fixed margin of profit. It was lower that what he and Wanda usually managed, but it was better than taking a loss.

Wanda dispatched him to go speak to the Builders' Guild, and after a few bids, he returned with a contract to fashion scalloped tiles. They wanted to retain the pearly white color, with the subtle translucence that gleamed with the subtle rainbow effect. As well, the pearly smooth texture would repel the rainwater. It was just a matter of blending enough woody stability to counter the fragility of shell.

Well, there was no shortage of wood to be had. This, naturally, got the lumbermen involved in the deal. They had a number of buildings in the works and were happy to be reimbursed for their investment of thin-cut slats with a portion of the tiles.

It would be done in two stages. The first would be the use of shells as fonts to imbue their smooth corrugated abalone texture into the receiving wood. And the second, bringing this blended durability and glamor to the waiting tiles.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh set shells into all four founts with nothing in the filters. He knew that with the quantity of wood he was stacking in the center of the ring, such reinforcement of shell quality would still only take small hold. But this was what he wanted. In fact, where he considered this the first "stage", it would still be a number of actual activations.

He figured two fully loaded rings per stack of receiving material; in this case, wood. This would allow the woody stability to remain, so it could still be effectively nailed without shattering or cracking, but enjoy a newly acquired degree of smooth, gleaming, pearly hardness to its quality. As well as an improved resistance to water. As usual, he expected to keep some back in the storeroom for future use. It was policy, as long as the contract was fulfilled.

He pricked his finger, allowing his Nuit ichor to take the place of blood. He started far from the nexus point on the transmutation ring, called the keystone, and slid his finger towards it. This always aided in his sense of movement, which helped him generate the necessary movement of the djed contained within the founted items. He no longer really needed to do this to start the inertia of the djed stream, but it was familiar to him. Besides old habits died hard.

He concentrated on building speed within the djed stream, swirling it around the circumference of the ring with ever-increasing acceleration. He let himself slip into his trance-like state, and envisioned his metaphoric whirlpool. It was how he always approached alchemy. The spinning maelstrom taking the part of the spinning djed. His experience allowed him to easily find aspects of the water which represented the qualities he was choosing to either keep or discard.

Regardless of how much resistance he was expecting the wood to put up against being transformed to shell, it was still a very simple activation. With only one quality being imbued, and none being filtered, there was only one quality to watch for. And it was not some enigmatic quality, difficult to find a comparative presence in the water. It was quickly apparent where the shell's quality was. It was everywhere in the water. Instead of the usual blue surface, streaked with the white of mist and foam, it was a smooth, almost sky blue whirlpool before him.

There was no presence of mist, or undulations of various surface at differing depths. It was almost as if the water was a painted casting, placed on a potter's wheel. Kuvarakh's meditation was enhanced by a satisfaction that he had already achieved the purity of quality he desired. It was only to concentrate on speed again, and then release. After a few more chimes, he did this.

There was bright flash of implosion, and he was finished with one step of the first stage. He would wait twenty chimes or so to regain his focus, and would perform another. And then again, with a new set of receiving wood material. He would continue this process throughout the day.

[Kuvarakh]

It was fortunate, for the most part, that one of the guild representatives came by the shop to check up on the progress. He almost immediately expressed his optimistic anticipation that the scalloped ridges would be straightened to run parallel, rather than flaring out at an angle, the way they were on the shells.

"I'm terribly sorry sir, but that was not one of the agreed particulars." Kuvarakh ventured, holding back on using hypnotism to make the man more agreeable. Not only did it run contrary to his ethics to use such a tactic, he also knew that the moment the man got back with tiles that featured flared scalloping, there would undoubtedly be a protest. He knew from experience that hypnotism would probably be quickly suspected as a result. Many people in town knew that he possessed this skill. He often found it ironic that a skill that could make people trust him implicitly was most often cited as a reason NOT to.

"What? It should have been! We can't have flared channeling. It needs to line up. It helps keep the backsplash from getting to the tarring underneath. You see, we overlay each row, offsetting the lie of the tiles, sort of like the way you lay bricks. With even, parallel scallops, they will align and fit like a tongue and groove. And it gives the structure of each tile arch support. Flared, they just sit atop each other all hap-hazard and can easily be broken." The man made gestures, fitting his hands atop each other to demonstrate the way the scalloping would line up.

"Well sir, I can certainly DO that extra stage, but it will be several more activations to achieve, and the cost will be significantly increased." Kuvarakh explained. "And it will be an additional day or two while I arrange for a source of parallel scalloping to use as founts." He was already thinking of someone at The Bizarre, that did sculpting with plaster and molds. With the wood already scalloped in a flare, a fount with straight scalloping should take easily. It would only be a matter of using an additional lump of similar plaster as a filter to remove the crumbly, tactile features of the substance itself.

Wanda stepped in from the back. "I'm sure we can come to reasonable terms sir. If your guild will pay the base costs of obtaining the materials we need, and approve the additional delay of the time we will need to make this adjustment, there will be no additional transmutation costs."

The man apparently had sufficient authority to agree to this, on behalf of the guild, and the details were quickly settled. The man said he'd return in four days. Wanda then turned to Kuvarakh, "Well...? Was there something else you need my expertise to figure out? Like where the front door is?"

Kuvarakh was still chuckling as he left to make his way through the shifting streets of Alvadas toward the location where he expected to find The Bizarre.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh had no more trouble than usual finding The Bizarre. It usually sat on a slight hillside, but today was situated in a depression. Normally, he found it west of the Temple by several blocks, often beyond a section of town running in a gravity-defying spiral. Today it was behind a waterfall, the water encompassing it forming from thin air an hundred above a pool of cooling lava. The steam generated by this thermal extreme sufficient to have engulfed the city several times over, yet dissipating instead in columns of colors, slowly spinning like motley barber's poles.

There was a moment's hesitation to cross the steaming pumice, but the sight of ducks crossing it made him conclude that it was not so hot as all that. Of course, as he took his first step, he considered the possibility that the ducks were an illusion designed to trick him into shoe-melting mischief. But such was not the case this time. Ionu was merciful today. Kuvarakh decided to test his senses and display his reverence by dropping to his knees on the steaming surface to say a quick prayer of thanks. No burns resulted.

It was a quick matter to settle the matter of a voucher for the cost of several dozen molds of parallel rounded ridges cast with plaster, as well as a bulk of waste plaster. In this case, Kuvarakh did not feel any qualms about using a bit of hypnosis to hasten the deal. He knew there was nothing dishonest, or any undue persuasion to accept terms that had not been acknowledged by any guildsmen. This craftsman would be fully paid for what he was offering now. Nothing was being sneaked by anyone.

It was a simple matter of generating a small amount of inner pressure to exude his bubble of mind-touching djed and extend it to where it overlaid the head of the sculpter before him as the man was smoothing the seams in a new casting. He let his thoughts of 'how easy it would make everything', and 'how it would be good business to build gratitude with the Alchemists in town' extend to color the man's perception of the request.

Kuvarakh came back to pick up the castings the next day, bringing with him a wax-sealed and guild-stamped voucher to cover the costs. He carted the works back to the shop and set to work transferring the straightening quality of the casts from the founts containing the molds, and the filtering out the crumbly texture with the waste plaster. It took him all day to finish, but in the end he had stacks of thin wooden slats, smooth, water-resistant and shiny as shells, with straight rows of round ridges running parallel and equidistant from each other.

He had two days left to transfer this entire combination of qualities to a huge load of roofing tiles. He'd get this done a day early.

[Kuvarakh]

With the wood slats already featuring rounded ridges, Kuvarakh decided to use two of the straight-ridged plaster castings as founts and two blocks of waste plaster scrap as filters. This would only be a subtle modification, so there was no need for any overpowering infusion of the property he desired.

He began with his usual step, sliding his cut finger along the transmutation ring to ingrain the sense of djed movement in his perception. The maelstrom vision soon filled his mind. He connected the mental manifestation of his djed to this metaphoric image. He could feel the movement of the stream in more than just his fingertip.

There was a pulse of rushing water that seemed to fill his whole being. He let it fill him. As he flowed with the water, he began to sense a fluctuation in the flow, An alternating spreading and contraction of his overlaid perception of the maelstrom. He focused on this inconsistency and applied his control to bring it into a steady rhythm.

Now it was just a matter of impressing this steady rhythm on the entirety of the whirling water. There were as many aspects to this pulse as there were senses. the sense of touch was the most obvious, but taste and smell were present as well, as mist struck his face rhythmically, carrying scents and tastes of salt water and foam.

The roar of the water seemed steady and changeless at first. But underneath the overall rush, there was a slight shuddering, as if waves were not flowing in perfect union, but were, instead, being maintained by endless subtle collisions of similar currents, all resulting in a rough, forced consistency.

But most prevalent was the vision of circling, cycling water. This had always been a significant feature of his transmutation visions. But that was usually because metaphoric "items" would be floating in the water, representing qualities to be either reinforced or discarded. He always sought a smooth water's surface, but usually only in the fact of there being no objects in it; or in the surface itself being like glass. This time though, he wanted a pattern like the intrusions of this rhythm on his other senses.

But it did not take long to achieve this either. His skill was sufficient to embellish the currents to slide streaks of foam and bubbles into line between bands of pure water. His meditation allowed him to separate his perceptions and get all the pulses of his senses in synchronized rhythm. Then he slowly built the speed of this rhythm to the maximum he could control, held it for a moment, and then released the activation.

Even as the light flashed and the djed stream slammed into the receiving roofing tiles, he still felt his body pulse with this rhythm. He lay back and embraced this residual flow of inner timing; let it enclose his meditative mind. Wanda saw the look and the pose, and knew not to disturb him. He would come out of it in time to do a second activation. She set the founts and filters for his second go-round. She would do a third and fourth as well, as many as it took to finish the entire two cartloads of tiles.

The tiles were delivered the next day.

[Shai]

However hopeless the situation appears to be There yet always exists the possibility of putting up a stubborn resistance Kuv : Acrobatics 1 Alchemy 2 Hypnotism 1 Negotiation 2 Planning 1 Alchemy: Parallel Ridges Alchemy: Shell Wood One Bad Bell: Draining Lungs Business: An Unspecific Order Check : If there are any concerns with my grading please feel free to toss me a PM. I am more than happy to explain my reasons or reevaluate them if you feel I've been unfair.