• Solo • Stubby Legs

[Tristan Venora]

Vhalar 4, Arc 720

Contrary to popular belief, sculpting was not just art – it also doubled as an exhausting workout. At least that was the conclusion that Tristan came to when Mrs. Gunderson told him that she’d rather they do it in her garden than in the living room where he had already set everything up. With it, she did not mean anything inappropriate, of course (which Tristan would have refused anyway since he was engaged and very much in love with his fiancée). She had hired him so that he would make a sculpture of her beloved dog, Arne.

Tristan wasn’t really sure what kind of breed Arne was – he was brown, had a pretty long body, long ears, a weird little goatee, and very short and stubby legs - and he didn’t really care either. He mostly cared about the lump of stone that weighed approximately thirty pounds, give or take, and that he had to carry all the way through the house. Mrs. Gunderson wanted the sculpture to be life-sized. He supposed that he ought to be glad that Arne wasn’t any bigger, Tristan thought, as he held the stone with both arms, close to his chest.

Even so, it was quite a struggle. Tristan was not strong. He was an artist and a socialite first and foremost, and the fact that Arne followed him and continuously barked at him didn’t help either. He couldn’t help but wonder how he was supposed to make a sculpture of him if he didn’t stop moving. In order to be able to portray him accurately, he needed to be able to take a good look at him. Would Mrs. Gunderson complain very much if he suggested that they feed her stubby-legged dog a sleeping potion beforehand?

[Tristan Venora]

Tristan still carried his little daughter Ayla that weighed a lot more than Mrs. Gunderson’s lump of stone every now and then. A lump of stone was a lot more unwieldy than a little girl in his opinion though; and besides, it was hard and unpleasant. For that reason, he moved somewhat slowly, paused every now and then and even set the lump of stone down once or twice (which caused Arne, the dog to momentarily stop barking and retreat.)

Mrs. Gunderson looked a little disapproving when he did that – which he didn’t care about in the least. He had been hired as a sculptor and not in order to do heavy lifting (someone else had delivered the lump of stone to her house). He considered it to be a waste of time to argue with her though. Such would only lead to him losing the job that he was actually kind of looking forward to (he just loved creating art so much!), besides, it was only a minor annoyance at best in the long run. In a few trials, he would probably have forgotten all about it.

There was that dog though …

As soon as he had set the lump of stone down on the sturdy little table in front of the pond that Mrs. Gunderson had so graciously provided, Arne approached and started barking again. As a consequence, Tristan couldn't help but wonder if Arne's problem was with him or really with the stone. Could dogs have an irritational fear of objects?

A few moments later, he cast a glance at Mrs. Gunderson who had sat down on quite a lovely looking white wooden bench at the edge of the pond, next to the table, looking just a little bit smug, and remarked, because it finally needed to be said, “I told you that I can make moving sculptures, but I can’t make a moving sculpture of a moving object – or a moving animal. I still need to be able to take a good look at my model while I work.”

Mrs. Gunderson made a face, as if she considered him to be incompetent because of his inability to make an accurate sculpture of a moving dog, but then she reached into a pocket of her dress (the middle-aged, blonde Mrs. Gunderson was wearing a dark red wool dress), removed a small bag with treats from it and pointed at the ground next to her.

When Arne obeyed, sat still and stopped barking, she fed him one of the treats, and Tristan let out a sigh of relief because he could finally start to work. He only hoped that Arne would keep quiet from now on!

[Tristan Venora]

Tristan didn’t think that Mrs. Gunderson would give him anything that was less than perfect to work with considering how nitpicky she had been so far, but he still inspected the stone for cracks and fissures and other structural flaws before he finally began to sculpt. Since he was not very fond of inhaling stone dust or having pieces of stone stuck in his eyes, he wore a mask over his mouth and nose, and a pair of goggles on top of it. They weren’t very attractive, but pieces of stone in his eyes and lungs were even less so!

For the same reason, he also slipped a pair of protective gloves on before he finally opened his case, removed a hammer and a rather big chisel from said case that he had brought with him and started to sculpt. He struck the back of the chisel with the hammer which required a certain amount of strength, making sure that the chisel stayed in contact with the stone at all times, occasionally changing the angle slightly. Soon, stone chips started to come off, and the lump of stone started to resemble …

… well, it actually didn’t immediately resemble a dog because Tristan was sculpting a rough shape at first, some sort of sphere that would eventually become Arne’s head, a long cylinder that would turn into Arne’s body, and five more cylinders that would become his legs and his tail respectively. It was important to do that before you worked on the details!

Unfortunately, Mrs. Gunderson didn’t seem to be particularly familiar with the finer points of sculpting. She eyed what he had created so far quite critically before she pointed out in a haughty tone, “It looks deformed. I was told that you were one of the most famous sculptors in Idalos and even created a sculpture for the museum in Etzos. How do you make your sculptures move, anyway? I hope that it doesn’t have anything to do with magic. We aren’t terribly fond of it in Melrath, you know?”

“It has something to do with physics and similar sciences”, Tristan replied in a patient tone of voice and cast a glance at Arne (he looked at his model regularly in fact because he wanted his sculpture to look as realistic as possible). The dog was behaving now, mostly because Mrs. Gunderson fed him treats at regular intervals and not because he had realized that barking and running around was counterproductive. “As for why it looks deformed – it isn’t finished yet”, he told her and resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Once upon a time, he might have given her a piece of his mind and told her that she should be glad that he even gave her the time of the trial. He had made a sculpture with an actual Immortal once, for Fate’s sake. Mrs. Gunderson was nothing compared to Vhalar!

He had become more mature and patient in recent arcs though; besides, irritating a wealthy Melrathi woman too much mere trials before he finally applied for citizenship would not be a good idea. If there were too many conflicts with the locals, they might deny him. He wasn’t even sure if he would still be allowed to marry Ashling if he was denied citizenship!

So, he simply asked her politely, “Which part of the sculpture do you want to move – if you actually want that? We haven’t talked about that explicitly yet. I can do the eyes or the tail – or I can make the sculpture produce a sound that sounds kind of like a growl or a whine”, he explained, but he didn’t explain the process of making his sculptures move or produce sounds in detail.

He wanted to keep a few secrets, besides, he wasn’t actually sure how exactly his special technique worked. He just knew that it worked. He had mentioned physics to Mrs. Gunderson before. There probably was a perfectly scientific explanation for all of it – Padraig might be able to figure it out – but Tristan had just experimented and experimented until something had happened. To him, such things were more intuitive than anything else.

“I’d like the sculpture to make sounds. That would be a nice touch and impress my friends”, Mrs. Gunderson told him in an almost challenging tone of voice – while Arne suddenly …

… walked off?

The stubby-legged little dog marched over to a nearby tree, raised a leg, relieved himself and started to dig a hole into the ground. Mrs. Gunderson looked at him for a moment before she called out his name and offered him another treat, and he returned to her.

That was something that Tristan found a bit strange at first. Considering what he had witnessed so far, he had thought that Mrs. Gunderson would disapprove of such behaviour. She smiled at Arne lovingly though – which was something that almost made him like her.

Apparently, she really loved that dog!

~~~

By the time that he was finished, Tristan’s arms ached a bit because sculpting required strength and was exhausting, as he had already concluded before, and it was already almost evening. He polished his work before he made a step back, put his hands on his hips and eyed it critically. In his opinion, it really looked like Arne’s twin – in grey, because the stone was grey. Sometimes, when the wind that had started a while ago came from a certain direction and moved past the dog’s mouth that was slightly open, the sculpture almost seemed to whine.

Mrs. Gunderson looked at the sculpture for a moment, and then she picked Arne up, carried him over to the sculpture and cooed, “Look, Arne! That sculpture looks just like you!” A moment later, when Tristan looked at her expectantly, she briefly set Arne who seemed more surprised than scared now that the stone looked like a dog down on the ground, retrieved her wallet and handed him the money that she had promised to him.

And then she went right back, to showing Arne his stone twin and talking to him in an incredibly sweet tone of voice!

[Bumblebee]

Sweet! A review!

PC: Tristan Venora

You played well to your strength skill, painting a wonderfully clear picture while Tristan hefted the rock; I could just imagine this irritating little dog yipping at him the entire time! Having had over three dachshunds in the course of my life, it was not difficult to picture. I also liked the details you provided with Tristan taking the proper safety measures, inspecting the stone, etc. It made his expertise believable and the comment on the attractiveness of such attire was very in character. In terms of writing, it was a quick read. Mrs. Gunderson had a very haughty, snooty quality about her which I liked. When she was fond of Arne, even after he peed, it gave me, the reader, a nice view into her personality. She might have a sweetness to her after all, which makes her feel multi-dimensional, and for an NPC, that's refreshing. I would say, you use "actually" at least four times throughout the thread. It's not negative, just something that stands out to me.

Approved Knowledge
Sculpting x2
Strength x4

Renown: +5
Experience: 10, non-magic
Loot/Consequence: Tristan's success has impressed Mrs. Gunderson and her circle. In the trials following, a courier will bring a letter sent by one of her friends requesting his assistance in capturing the likeness of his noble steed. The animal is known to be quite volatile, and the proprietor will refuses to cage the majestic creature. If Tristan can manage to complete the job, the employer has offered to put in a good word to an influential acquaintance Eric Imair. PIG BOY APPROVED.