Meant to be set at a time during Sjal's journey to the area. There didn't seem to be a designated forum for sea travel, so I threw this in here
Fall 1, 123
It wasn't news that Sjal didn't like being on a boat. She hated it, in fact. On this day, she'd decided to look for some entertainment. Not drinking, not roughhousing with 'the boys'… she yearned for something a little different. She was thinking absent mindedly to herself as she walked on the deck when she almost fell over a stone that was in her way.
She fell to the ground, just barely catching herself in a pushup-like position before getting back up. She bent over and lifting the stone to her face so that she could only see the object's rounded shape. Though it felt smooth to the tips of her fingers, Sjal looked around to see why it was there. She saw a man sitting with his back against a barrel who was chipping away at a similar stone.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
"I'm sculpting," he said, "what does it look like?"
Sjal frowned, holding out the stone she'd tripped over. "You might want to pay attention to where you do it, then. If you haven't noticed, your little rocks are rolling and sliding around."
"Why don't you watch where you're going then?" he asked teasingly.
Sjal sighed, taking a seat next to him. "Can I give it a try?" she asked, pointing at one of his tools.
He fished out a simple sculpting tool and handed it to her. "Sure, go crazy."
"I am going crazy on this boat. So crazy that I'd rather chip away at a rock just to kill some time," she said with a smirk.
Sjal passed Greggor a similar tool so he could get started, along with a fist sized rock that he could work on. "In case you cave for the newest sculpting fad," she said with a wink.
She started slowly, shaving away chunks of rock with her hardened tool in her left hand. The fragments of stone dropped to the ground by her feet like wood flakes. As she couldn't quite see what she was doing, the woman had a plan for this piece of stone, even though she didn't know it when she started. She had to check it with her fingertips every few seconds.
She started by creating the shape, gouging little ridges around the edges to resemble petals. She drew a rounded shape in the center of the stone, or what she really hoped was the center, and, wishing she had a better grasp of the tool in her hand. She used a smaller one to carefully carve out a small moat in the rock around it. She rounded out the petals and added lines to them for depth as she worked, smoothing the stone with a roughened tool.
"Am I doing this right?" she asked, showing it off to both Greggor and the other man. "And I don't think we introduced everyone. I'm Sjal, this is Greggor. Who are you?"
"My name is Mason. And yes, it is a very big coincidence. You're not doing anything terribly wrong, but I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to make."
Sjal sighed, "it's supposed to be a flower."
Sjal glanced up, seeing Greggor's ball. "How did you make it so… round?" she asked in amazement. "There's no way this is your first time sculpting, is it? That looks like a masterpiece compared to whatever the heck I'm doing." She gritted her teeth and made a particularly forceful move with the tool which caused it to split in half.
She let out a frustrated groan and grabbed another stone to start all over on. Sjal was so intent on her work that she hardly noticed the weather other than the fact that the rising sun provided her with more light to work with. She made new indentations in the stone to deepen the lines she had originally carved into the petals with her thumb, giving the impression that the petals were overlapping now that rays of light were beginning to peek in. She smoothed the center with her palm, making indentations in the spherical center with her pinky to resemble the indentation on an actual flower.
A call was made, and the sailors started to move past them which broke her concentration. Realizing how much time had passed, Sjal looked up, eyes wide and startled. She quickly turned her design over and smoothed the back by grinding it against the tool. When all was said and done, the result was a densely packed, slightly uneven daisy that tucked neatly into the middle of her palm.
"I don't think I'm going to do any better than this," she said. "How much do you think this masterpiece would sell for?"
Sjal sighed, realizing that there was no point in keeping this rock. She surged ether into her arm with a gesture, giving her the strength to crush the flower into bits in the palm of her hand. She sucked the ether back into her body and got to her feet. "I wouldn't mind seeing how much stone you brought with you. Why bring a cart full with you? They don't have stone where you're going?"
She chuckled at the thought, thinking that stone was one of the most cheap and easily obtainable materials one could get their hands on. Mason chuckled back, saying, "some stone is a lot more expensive and rare than others. Marble is worth transporting while your everyday rock is not." He started to lead the way and continued, "Alas, I've mostly brought worthless rock with me. I've still got weeks upon weeks of travel left and while I might not use it all up, it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."
When they got to the cart, it was much larger than expected. It was more of a wagon, really. It held massive rocks too, much too big for a normal person to carry. Sjal examined the rocks closely and saw that there were some spots that didn't look like the rest. It appeared that Mason took chunks of rock out of the larger ones. She glanced at him to see that he pulled out a pickaxe that was attached to the rear of the wagon.
"I'll break away a few more chunks for us to use," he said with a smile.
Sjal was surprised to hear that the men had arranged for her to have a go at swinging the pickaxe. She could understand why, given how skilled she was with a sword… but as her experience with her scythe had taught her, being good at swords didn't always translate to other tools and weapons. She could tell the moment she grabbed the pickaxe that her skills wouldn't translate. The tool was heavy at the end and even more unbalanced than her pickaxe was. It also had sharp points at both ends which meant she had to be extra careful not to hurt herself.
She braced herself and started to swing. She started off slowly and gently and built up the power with each swing until she started to crack the rock.
"This is harder than it looks," she said as the pickaxe glanced off the stone at odd angles because she couldn't hit the rock with the tip every time.
"You're almost there, keep at it," Mason said, happy that someone else was doing the work so he wouldn't have to later on.
Sjal kept going for what felt like a half hour, breaking apart all the large stones into smaller chunks. The only reason she kept going was because she took a liking to how swinging the axe worked many muscles at once. It was a compound exercise that she was sure would be good for her physique. It'd been so long since she'd gotten a good workout.
"That's all I can do," she said when her exhaustion got the better of her.
"I think I will keep a couple chunks," she said with a smile, "it's just regular old stone so it's not like we're robbing you blind." She pocketed them and said, "I should give back your tools too," as she pulled them out of her pocket.
"Oh, thank you! I'd forgotten about those. Every town has a stone worker so you should be able to find a suitable kit at the next port. They're not expensive either. You might take an interest in creating jewelry as well. I like to recommend a stone ring as a first project to work towards."
"I'll keep that in mind," Sjal said. She turned to Greggor and said, "I'm going to go get some rest. See you tomorrow!"
She made her way back to her room and laid down, holding the stone up in front of her eyes and examining it as she let her mind wander. She imagined herself sculpting something impressive, like a statue made of marble. That got her thinking about golems and how it was likely that artificers needed to use sculpting to make them.
She focused in on the thought, as it brought up the question of how it might be possible to animate golems. It seemed so odd to her that it was even possible. The rock was never alive, so it ought not to be able to be reanimated. If she ever met an artificer, she told herself that she would be sure to ask them.
"Yeah right, like I'm going to meet one of those," She said as she finally allowed herself to sleep.
