Completed Wandering For Perspective With A Pocket Full Of Skulls II

[Kelski]

Timestamp: 29th of Winter, 517 AV

Continued from: Wandering Around For Perspective With A Pocket Full Of Skulls

Next she had the filigree and chain to make, some small separate beads and maybe some tiny carved skulls to add to the final piece and she’d be done. The silver was by now melted on the forge to the point Kelski had almost forgot about it. Instead of cussing, the Kelvic only smiled. The metal liked being warm right? The forge and the metal went together like sunshine and flowers so it was no big deal…. It was like a marriage of perfection, a bonding of two things that belonged together. The Kelvic sniffled a little at the beautiful thought.

Darvin’s drugs were good… good indeed.

Kelski grabbed her tongs, forgetting her gloves, and grabbed up the little crucible. It wasn’t smoldering hot so luckily, she didn’t get burned. Not that she would have cared. Kelski was in her element. The forge was hot, the metal willing, and the gems gleaming. She poured the silver into the chain molds until the crucible was cleaned out and let the molds settle. Kelski had oiled them when she had oiled the bead molds, so the silver went in well. She let the molds set and turned back to the beads.

They needed to be polished and lacquered, so they would stay gleaming even under everyday wear. Kelski wiped each bead, threaded it through a wire, and then carefully took it to her buffing wheel where she set the wheel in motion with the foot pedal and began running the bead across the fluffy gentle wheel that took off all the rest of the milky roughness. Once that was done, she stuffed the wire into a glob of clay to hold it without her hands needed. Then she uncapped a small jar of lacquer and began painting it on the bead with a small detail brush. Each bead was carefully treated, left to dry and indeed brighten the workshop like little blue flowers just budding on her workbench.

Kelski smiled. Nothing really bothered her. And there was pretty beauty everywhere. The Kelvic stretched and went to check on the wire molds. They were ready… still warm, but she didn’t mind ouching a bit as she pried the overly warm bars from the mold and carried them with the help of a polishing cloth over to her wire press to start running them through.

The process was one she’d done dozens of times. The press rounded the edges of the square wire mold ingots and slowly stretched it out. She had a crank handle that could go either way so she just rocked the little bars through the press, adjusting the tightness via a clamp on the top. She’d run it through grooves on the rollers, that gradually got smaller until her thick chunky wire molds were rounded and looking a lot more like wire.

Kelski wanted a thick chain, reminiscent of a manacle chain, so she didn’t go too far. When she was ready, she put her draw plate in her vice and took the wire there to finish pulling it through the plate, lengthening it out to the final thickness before she wrapped it around the proper diameter of iron rod to create the spring.

The spring was then cut, little circles of links falling off, and Kelski was ready to make her chain.

[Kelski]

Normally the creation of chain was tedious to Kelski, but lately it seemed that had been all she’d made and under Darvin’s careful medication, something she didn’t mind. The Kelvic, however, was feeling creative and brilliant so she wanted to make this chain a little different. Instead of just soldering half the chain links together, she gave each one a half twist to give it a slightly different look. That took a great deal of time, so much time in fact that it was almost meditative to her. The shadows who lurked in her workshop crept forward and were talkative. Kelski didn’t mind. They kept her company and the conversation flowed easily. Some of them, by now, she even knew the names of. Her hands twisted the links and lined them up, even as her brain focused on the language flying around her.

Makath.

A shadow called Musi crept forth and wrapped around the skulls – all except the one being bleached – and spoke of them to Kelski. “Little Nightstalker… why do you decorate the bones of the dead?” It asked, a dark tendril reaching out and touching the Kelvic along her forehead, brushing back a lock of her ombre hair. Kelski smiled, turning her head and nibbling at her shoulder in pleasure at the touch. It was as if she were preening though she had no beak or feathers to work with. Her big collar didn’t get in her way, as her body had learned to adjust around it.

“The human who thinks he owns me requested it. He wishes to give it to someone he dislikes, someone who cannot refuse the gift even though he says it’s a token of bad luck.” The Kelvic answered. The shadow chuckled. “Do you know what they are?” Kelski shook her head, her hands still busy with the chain links, putting them together. She leaned over to slide her soldering iron into the fire to heat, in preparation to soldering the links closed.

“I don’t. But I saw them. They were birdkind like me. They seemed sad.” She said, countering what Jaren had said about them being bearers of bad luck. Kelski looked up from her work and studied the shadow with its tendrils all around, touching everything and conversing with her. She was so grateful for its company and the company of its companions. When she slept, they often crowded around her and enfolded her in their darkness, easing her nightmares and keeping her safe.

“They are very intelligent. As smart as shadows for certain. Eywaat is their Lord. He is the Alvina of Birds and Ingenuity. He once told them that their bones hold the wisdom of their lives. So they wear the skulls of their fallen, especially the ones they admire, because the bones hold their memories. And when they wear the memories they can experience them.” The shadow said softly, its darkness brushing the one completed skull and the other one that she still had out to decide what to do with.

“The one soaking in the poison… its memories are ruined. It has lost its magic. You did this.” It accused, gently touching the jar the skull soaked in.

“I didn’t know.” Kelski said softly, her eyes tearing up. She’d never heard anything so beautiful. She was glad the shadow told her. She wouldn’t look at the Skull Crows the same way again… even if the story wasn’t true. Who knew? She trusted the shadow’s word more than she trusted most people.

“I won’t do it again. Jaren just wanted it to be a cursed thing. Maybe this way I am exactly following his word. I hope another bird got to wear this skull before I found it upon the ground. Maybe another bird holds the same memories now that the crow who owned it had.” Kelski said, more to reassure herself than the shadows.

Musi was joined by Shuva and the two shadows entwined as if to comfort each other as Kelski soldered her chain, making it all one length. When she was done she carefully laid the chain aside and got to work on the filigree design she’d put on the skulls’ forehead.

[Kelski]

Normally the creation of chain was tedious to Kelski, but lately it seemed that had been all she’d made and under Darvin’s careful medication, something she didn’t mind. The Kelvic, however, was feeling creative and brilliant so she wanted to make this chain a little different. Instead of just soldering half the chain links together, she gave each one a half twist to give it a slightly different look. That took a great deal of time, so much time in fact that it was almost meditative to her.

The shadows who lurked in her workshop crept forward and were talkative. Kelski didn’t mind. They kept her company and the conversation flowed easily. Some of them, by now, she even knew the names of. Her hands twisted the links and lined them up, even as her brain focused on the language flying around her.

Makath.

Shuva was one of Kelski’s favorite shadows for the shadow often sang to her in Makath. Today was no different. As Kelski got out one of the small bocks of wax she was going to use to make the filigree, the Shadow began to sing. It was a beautiful song, one about darkness and light and Akajia’s search. Musi stayed quiet as Kelski took out her little carving tools and began to rough sketch in the wax what she wanted to carve. Kelski knew every Nightstalker was needed to help Akajia in her search, but like most Nightstalkers she didn’t know what the Goddess looked for. The shadows helped too, being Akajia’s eyes and ears. What Kelski told them, Akajia would know… and so she often told them everything.

Jaren had secrets. Sometimes the Jeweler overheard them. Sometimes they were so dark and deep that the man sent her away instead of locking her behind her door to eliminate any chance of listening ears. But the shadows lingered. Jaren didn’t know about them. And sometimes Shuva made up songs for Jaren’s doing – little shanties – that often talked of whores and booze and Jaren’s excesses. Kelski thought it was all a huge waste of time. Jaren was no-one and would never be because he was obsessed with the wrong things. He was good with a blade and liked to see blood, but that was all he had going for him.

Her hands were deft as Shuva sang. She carved a sort of modified fleur de lis, a sort of stylized lily with three petals bound together near their bases. She carved a long lengthy diamond in the center pedal and then made whirls going outward from there. She carved little holes on the end where she could put jump rings to attach it to her chain and then stepped back and smoothed the whole thing over, working out the imperfections. When that one was done, she gently fished the skull out of the bleaching compound and rinsed it off and set it by the forge to dry. The color was already better… a stark white. Then she ran the wax carving over the alcohol torch and heated it up just slightly enough to give it a bend so it would lay flat on the forehead of the skull, conforming to the skulls slightly round shape.

Setting the bend wax carving aside, Kelski started on another one, using yet another slice of her jewelers wax. She did something similar, but a bit narrower and longer so it would cover the crown of the skull where it had attached to the bird’s neck. Hanging on someone’s throat, they could see filigree both sides, leaving more decorated surface than just plain bone.

[Kelski]

Shuva’s song had changed to one about Skull Crows and how they liked the gallows because of the death. Dira was in this song which surprised Kelski and evidently Dira called the crows kin. Kelski wondered how often Musi and Shuva traveled from the workshop to learn these things. The Kelvic knew they were old They were usually always here. Others were too. The Kelvic’s tools cut away wax that wasn’t wanted until she had a similar design as the forehead but one more suited to the back of the skull’s head. Then she attached long spikes of extra wax to each filigree pattern that would form channels to lead the metal straight to them.


Setting both patterns aside, Kelski took her powdered plaster and mixed it carefully with water and then put each filigree wax ornament in the bottom of a flask. The flasks had bases but also sleeves that were removable so that whatever was put into them could be easily taken out. She added a bit of plaster to each flask, and then took the spikes of wax that lead out of the plaster and vibrated the ornaments up and down to remove the air bubbles in the plaster and take the ornaments off the very bottom so plaster got under them. They were shallow molds then, the type that she could heat up slowly in the furnace. Kelski placed them on the edge, stoked the fire, then swung them over some of the better heat. The plaster hardened up almost immediately, curing solid. But there was even more magic from there. The wax was soft, easily melted and before long it was bubbling away in the heat of the curling molds and dissolving into nothing, emptying out the molds so that she could replace the wax with metal.

When she saw the spikes were now channels – the wax totally gone – she stoked the forge up even hotter, set the molds aside to cool slowly on the edge of the forge, and heated some simple silver. She put the little flasks in two slings and then sat down to wait for the silver to heat. Once it was bubbling happily, Kelski took it up in gloved fingers with tongs and dumped the crucible over the mold, pouring in liquid silver first to one.

She didn’t do them both at the same time because she couldn't. Kelski immediately put down the crucible and took up the sling and slung the mold around her body in a circle wildly. The shadows scattered with curses of surprise as the Kelvic got the force of her swing going. It looked like she was getting ready to fling a bola, though in truth she was slinging the little mold around so the metal got into each little crack and crevasse and the air got forced straight out.

When Kelski was done she set the mold down, and removed the sling. The Kelvic set the second mold in the sling, filled it with silver, and flung it around laughing because Darvin’s drugs were still making her happy. Once that one was carefully spun, she set it down and then went to fill a bucket with water from the water pitcher she kept for cleaning herself with.

The plaster dissolved in water and left the filigrees with their finger spikes of metal poking up. The whole piece was definitely ready for clean up and assembly. And Kelski was ready for the night to be almost over.

[Kelski]

The little jeweler clipped off the spikes with a pair of cutters and then carefully smoothed down the rough spot where the little channels of metal attached. She saved the scraps, knowing she’d need every bit of metal since Jaren was tight with his coin. The Shadows continued to sing, Musi joining in now just for fun because it amused it to amuse Kelski and sometimes she’d trill along making noises in her human throat just like an Eagle could. She got out a file, cleaned up the edge of the filigrees, then buffed them out on her buffing wheel.

The Kelvic polished them to a high shine and then attached the chain to the forehead filigree. Laying the piece on the skull, Kelski dug glue out from her work bench and dabbed it on the skull while she lifted the filigree. Pressing it back down, the Kelvic held the filigree in place until it was firmly attached.

Next she chained up the back of the skull filigree and ran the chain through the foramens on the skull, leaving a length to pass across a human’s head and hang the skull from. Then she cut the length and pulled the beads from their clay lump stand and attached them to the end of the chains hanging from the skull’s empty eye sockets. She did it by taking a small piece if wire, dipping it into the metal that was leftover in the crucible, and letting it drip off the wire, forming a metal lump on the end. The lump was too big for the bead to slide off the wire.

Then, she cut the wire just a little longer than the bead and took a pair of round-nose pliers and bent the remaining wire into a circle that she passed through the last loop of the chain and pinched together. She repeated this twice, so there were two beads hanging out of the skull… one on either side.

She added more beads to the chain here and there, adding decorative touches.

Then she decided she needed even more. Two small coins with spirals on them, cast from molds she already had in a little bit of contrasting bronze did the trick. Kelski heated the scraps of bronze and oiled the molds. Pouring them, she left them to cool as she decided the last thing she needed was two tiny human skulls to also decorate the chain.

Kelski pulled out two almost pure white pieces of chalcedony. It was a pretty type of quartz that was found near onyx and usually embedded in agate or jasper. It wasn’t valuable. But it was easy. She got her lap wheel spinning again and roughly cut both pieces to the shape of a human head. Kelski made the foreheads big, the jaws small, and then put them snugly in her vice and use the heat of her soldering iron to burn eye sockets and vague outlines of mouths on them. She used the pointed hot metal tip to show the hint of teeth and two slots for a nostril opening. They looked rather morbid to her, but she liked the overall effect.

Then she carved a slot in them, the top of each head, and filled it full of the same adhesive she used to hold the filigree in place. She shoved wire down in there, looped like she did the beads, so she could hang them on the chain and let them dance. She wasn’t worried about the glue coming loose or relieving the wire. Once it was set, it would take carving the stone out from around it to dislodge the skulls.

Resting the skull on her workbench with its morbid decorations, Kelski then got out her lacquer and with a final flourish, lacquered the entire thing, polishing it to a deathly gleam. It was beautiful and horrible at the same time, especially keeping in mind it was from a Skull Crow. There was just enough time to catch a bit of sleep, brush out her hair, and present the pair to Jaren in the morning when he woke and broke his fast for breakfast.

He of course liked them. And she was so pleased that he had snatched both of them from her hands in delight that she went back to her workshop and silvered the final one in copper… and added one last glass bead to its forehead in a small beveled wrap. This one she put around her own head, glad she’d saved the memories from death in the vial of bleaching liquid. Shuva and Musi seemed to approve as well. Maybe, in some morbid gesture, she’d take it off its leather thong and give it to the first Skull Crow she found without a skull to wear as an offering back to Eywaat and her birdkind.

[Kelski]

Kelski

Experience: Jewelcrafting +5, Planning +4, Carving +1, Metalsmithing +1,

Lores: JC: Making Filigree, JC: Using Bead Molds, JC: Making Beads, JC: Making Square Chain, Skull Crows: Why They Wear The Skulls, Religion: Eywaat, JC: How To Take The Memories From Skull Crows, Nightstalking: Shadows Musi and Shuva, Skull Crows: Use Skulls To Remember The Fallen, JC: Wax Relief Carving, JC: Lost Wax Casting, JC: Using Plaster In JC, JC: Finishing A Piece With Lacquer.

Notes: Two Skulls to give to Jaren between part 1&2. One subpar copper skull to keep.