Solo [Job thread] The Theadora, Pt. I

[Karin]

3rd Summer, 516 AV, early morning.

The morning glistened, like early mornings do, with dew and sunshine from above. Syna shone bright and white that morning as Karin made her way down to the docks, a spring in her step, wondering what the day would hold. Work had been going well, which made her happy. There was always a lot to do, and the work kept her busy and out of her lodgings, which had always been something she appreciated. The last commission the boat builders had built was now sailing on the waters, it's new owner taking it for a proud run in the bay, and the near coastline of Riverfall. She'd been happy with that creation, and her part in it.

This morning, the yard was quiet. A handful of people had arrived, and Karin walked over to say hello. It was then that she realised they were clustered around a man, a human man. Deep in conversation with Picalum, they didn't realise when Karin slipped into the huddle of conversing craftsmen.
"... and so my beautiful Thea fell ill last season, and sickened and died." The men around offered their condolences, a small sadness befalling the group. Karin wondered what she'd walked in on. The man carried on. "So this boat is my reminder of her, even after she's gone. Look, I made a copy of this painting of her. I'd like you to have it whilst you work, and for you to put it in the ship somewhere, in the wall or something." He handed over a scrap of paper and Karin leaned in curiously. On it, a dimpled girl with tight blonde curls smiled back, a decent likeness of the little girl who must have surely been called Thea.

Picalum replied, "Of course, we'd all be delighted to work on that, what's your name please? I've got your specifications here but if we run into any trouble I'll send someone to talk to you about it. It's a pleasure!" Whilst the two finalised the deal, the young woman asked one of the Akalak to explain what was going on. A few chimes later and she had the full story: this man had lost his daughter to a mysterious illness, and wanted a boat made with her in mind. It was a beautiful story, and Karin found herself wondering what the two used to do together. The father and daughter seemed like they were very close, at least from the wistful way the man parted with the painting of his daughter.

Soon though, it was time to stop reminiscing and start working. Picalum came over and laid the plan out on a workbench. It seemed the man was also proficient at boat design, and the plans he'd come up with were familiar to the team. Karin looked it over, the measurements and heights of timber, mast, sails... It looked to be quite a small boat. "And Karin! You'll be working with Aedre again, on the framework along with you three." Startled, she looked up and noticed who shed be working with. With a nod to her teammates, she got to work preparing the work station.

It seemed Picalum had met with the man before- there was thankfully enough timber in the yard for their purposes already, and although there wasn't enough for the whole boat, there was enough for their purposes. She counted out the lengths needed to an Akalak worker, stumbling a little with the spidery writing. Then, when the more experienced ones called her over, she helped to hoist and carry the timber they were working on over to where they would prepare it.

604 words

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Of the sea...

[Karin]

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The heavy timber left scraps of bark and dust over her hands and clothes, and a sweet smell of wood warmed by Syna. They were using ash, the wood that was lightweight and also relatively able to bend. With a haul, the team began preparing the wood for use. Karin grabbed a charcoal stick from the Akalak boatsmith, and took the other end of the measuring line. After a time, they had measured out the dimensions of the planks they would need to create the hull of the boat. Then of course it was down to sawing, although with the people hunkered over the boat-in-progress, that would get done quickly enough. The team worked busily with Karin along with them, sawing all the planks to size.

That particular task was over, and then it was time to shape them. Karin chose one, and regarded it critically. The plank was rough, unsandpapered and jagged on the ends where the saw had cut it. She grabbed a block and scrap of sandpaper and got to work, smoothing along the edges and sides of the plank. It was arm-aching work, but nothing too strenuous. After a while, the edges which had been sawn got the same treatment, and the plank was ready. She moved onto another one once she’d finished, and another and another. All in all it took them half a day to get through one quarter of the planks they’d need.

However, Karin wanted to get a bit more practice with building. She walked with purpose over to an Akalak busy with hammer and nail. “Hey, can I ask you for some help?” She spoke in Common, hoping the Akalak would be able to speak the tongue. She was in luck, he seemed mostly fluent. “Yes, of course.” The words were slightly doubtful, but she watched him for a while as he worked to see how he angled the hammer, where he placed the nail.

Then she tried it herself. If she hit any kind of error, she would ask the Akalak straight away, but his help had merely been to watch him. She was grateful for it, thankful that the man had basically zoned her out as he worked. She was working from the bottom up, layering the planks underneath each other in a technique the Akalak helpfully told her was called, ‘clinker-built’. It seemed a good design, although she wondered what would happen if the wood got water inside it. Thankfully it seemed that there would be a final step once the boat was complete that would see it was completely watertight.

With a careful watch, the girl held the nail in place, whilst using the same hand to hold the plank. With her right hand, she drew up the hammer and smacked it down. For the first couple of goes, her hand ringed with the impact, but she soon got used to it. In fact, as her work progressed, and she added more and more layers to the boat, she smiled. The whole thing was really quite incredible. This was the first time that she was properly involved in the making of a boat from it’s very start. A boat in it’s infancy. Gods was she lucky.

539 words

-Beautiful boxcode credits go to Aislyn Leavold!

Of the sea...

[Karin]

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Next up though was more planks to be fitted. Except this time, it was nearer the stern. Here, the planks filed down to narrow pieces, that each had to be individually shaped by eye. Karin equally was eyeing up the challenge, and finally when her work brought her to it she had the chance. Tapering to a point was the ship’s bow, a lump of wood that would eventually be carved into something beautiful by one of the more senior boatbuilders. Around it, the planks of ash making up the hull reached to fasten to it.

Karin needed to make sure that her part in the construction wouldn’t become a liability. She’d been working alongside the same Akalak most of the day, a young man who seemed more at ease with his own thoughts, dark brown hair mopping his head in tight curls, a permanent frown on his face. Yet he seemed quite friendly. She tapped him on the shoulder at what she thought was the best moment, and posed him a question. “So, what’s the best way to go about this section?”

He gave her a small look through brown eyes, and then down at the part she was pointing at. He ran a hand over the work she’d done around it, checking it over. She watched him. A slight nod. The woman smiled internally, pleased he didn’t seem to think she’d done badly. Then he picked up the piece he was working on as a way of demonstration.

“Okay, this part here needs to shape against the bow. So you need to keep measuring whilst you’re carving, and make sure that you don’t over-carve. If you do, you’ll have to throw the whole thing away and start from scratch. Your bit is relatively easy, as long as you remember to keep one edge straight to fit in with the rest of it. Was there anything else you needed a hand with?” She shook her head, and smiled her thanks. Then took the plank back into her hand, withdrawing her dagger from her belt absentmindedly.

This work was more like what she was used to, and she carefully lay the plank against where it was supposed to fit, imaging which bits she’d need to shape and where. It wasn’t too difficult to picture, but the only trouble was remembering what the man had said. [i]Don’t over-carve… Right.[/url] She started carefully, scratching along the edge in a rough curve that was her closest match to the bow.

Estimation and guesswork had to be more than that, with carving at least. It was more that you had to project what you wanted, and hope that your hand and your knife would listen to what your mind had to say. With Karin, she found that it took a great deal of confidence and concentration. She almost had to make her mind clear of all the doubts and worries that she’d fail. Of course, it wouldn’t be too much of a big deal to do it wrong- after all, the one thing the boatyard had plenty of it was wood. But she didn’t want to let herself or the crew down. She wanted to prove herself.

533 words

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Of the sea...

[Karin]

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The boat-building was going well, and she had finished the board quicker than she realised. She dawdled for a chime, looking over the work the others had done. The hull was now basically completed, due to the sheer amounts of people working on it. However the day had passed quicker than she had realised, and the sun was now idling on the edge of the horizon. With a start, she noticed that most people had left. It was only her and a handful of others that now worked on the boat. It seemed that the rear portion of the boat was the only part that was unfinished, as well as all the innards.

It was time to take things into her own hands, sore as they were. A few workers were chatting nearby, so Karin wasn’t alone. If she’d been alone she would have felt a lot less confident of carrying on, but she was sure of what she wanted to do, and sure that she could do it. She grabbed a formed plank that lay stacked at the bottom of the unfinished section, and picked up a hammer and nail too. The main problem that she could see already was that it might be difficult to see where she was placing the nail, but she would work her way around it somehow.

She placed the plank where it was supposed to go, and held it in place with one hand. Then she thought. And thought. The problem she’d figured out moments before was coming back to bite her. How was she supposed to be able to tell where her nail was going in? It needed to intersect with the skeleton frame behind, at least for the first couple of nails. Yet she was only one, and couldn’t be in two places at the same time.

The problem haunted her for a few more chimes as she grew steadily more frustrated, until finally she realised as she accidentally knocked the wood. All she needed to do was knock the wood until it sounded dead, then hopefully that would be where the frame was. She grinned, secretly immensely pleased with herself for her idea.

So, she began knocking gradually and carefully along the plank until she found the dead area. Using her nail and hammer in one hand was quite difficult, but somehow she managed it by leaning her elbow against the plank and using her hand to hold the nail in place whilst her elbow ‘held’ the plank. She hammered the nail in, and then the next one along using the same technique of knocking against the wood. When it was held in place at least kind of firmly, she jumped up over the side of the boat to check she had placed it correctly. She had!

467 words

-Beautiful boxcode credits go to Aislyn Leavold!

Of the sea...

[Karin]

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It was always satisfying to do a job well. Karin knew that better than most, as her work was mainly physical. She felt glad and alive and happy as the quiet and still day suddenly turned to dusk, with a brisk breeze that ruffled her hair free. She climbed back down from the ship, taking care of her step, before picking up her trusty hammer and starting to nail the remaining nails in place.

It wasn’t too difficult now, and she carried on working on some of the remaining boards. As she worked she found that her nailing skill was improving too, at least a little bit. Whereas previously she had found that the nail was sometimes a little wonky, or placed just slightly in the wrong place, now she was hammering the nail with a little more care. It was nice, too, to feel this sinking in of information and understanding. Like she was finally beginning to grasp the craft fully.

However, the weather was beginning to change rapidly. Now that Syna’s light had sunk beneath the waves, the residual glimpses of reflected light from the sky were all but gone, and the blossoming darkness was making it harder and harder for Karin to see. She had one more plank left in the section she was working on to finish, and then she would have to stop. In fact, the Akalak she had been working with came over to ask when she would finish. ”I’ll just do this last bit then pack away!”

With the instructions to pack away what she was working with and pull the tarpaulin over the top when she was finished, the girl continued hammering the nails in. She truly hoped that she didn’t make an error, or mess something up, but if she did then it would be a simple task to fix it. Either way, she made a pact to return again the following morning as early as she could. That way, she could fix any mistake before anyone noticed.

Finally, it got too dark for her to see anything clearly. Leth was yet to rise too, and although there were a few lanterns flickering on boats nearby, and in buildings, Karin would have needed a lantern right above her to continue properly. She was forced to call it a day. In fact, she was the last one there, presumably apart from Picalum who must surely have been nearby.

There was a work station where all the tools were kept, and as all the planks had been put away all she had to do was stow her hammer and nails in the little niche where they belonged. She had almost left the area before realising that she also had to throw the tarp over, and backtracked guiltily to fetch it. She climbed up onto the boat, grabbing the edges and hauling herself up, before dragging the heavy tarpaulin with her. The inside of the boat was completely unfinished, so she walked along it’s spine, dragging the tarpaulin above her head until she was completely enclosed in the pitch darkness.

She climbed out, awkwardly pushing past the edge of the tarpaulin just as the first little droplets of rain started to patter lightly on her head. All in all, she was happy though. Her day had been spent working on something she enjoyed mightily, and although her future was uncertain, she was glad that her future contained this. With a last look back over the shipwrights, she started her trek back up to her lodgings.

591 words
Total word count: 2734

-Beautiful boxcode credits go to Aislyn Leavold!

Of the sea...

[Chameleon]

GRADE

XP

• Carpentry: 2XP
• Logic: 1XP
• Observation: 3XP
• Shipbuilding: 3XP

LORES

• Ash: Lightweight and easy to bend
• Carpentry: Sawing planks of wood
• Carpentry: Sandpapering wood to smooth it
• Carpentry: Don't overcarve
• Finding the skeleton frame by hitting the wood
• Shipbuilding: 'Clinker-built
• Shipbuilding: Shaping wood against the bow

OTHERS

I tried to give as much shipbuilding, but I used carpentry when you used skills that weren't specific to just building boats. I hope that's okay - let me know if you have any issues with the grades, I'm more than have another look. Don't forget to mark your thread as graded, and keep writing boat threads!