An 'All seasons' wind chime
Winston had been working on the chimes for Tristan's daughter, Ayla, now for a few trials. She was going to be seven on the 92nd of Ashen and so the chime he had planned had seven chimes hanging from it, each one with its own unique properties. There was also plenty of room for more to be added as she grew and he sent the to her.
Each and every chime was imbued with the properties of two things in addition to whatever else they could do. They had the water-repellant properties of oil, to keep them from degrading in the weather and the harmonising qualities of Blue-Sand, making the chimes ring more clearly and beautifully as they dingled and dangled in the wind.
Further to this, the chimes had each one unique property, in turn. There was:
- One that was all the colours of the rainbow, made of the Rainbow Sand/Glass Alloy
- One was Green and was always cold to the touch.
- One was Red and was always warm to the touch.
- There was a Blue one.
- There was one that instead of making the 'tink' sound a small metal chime might usually make, it made a 'donk' sound, far more like that of a wooden chime.
- There was also a piece of tree bark that instead of making the 'donk' sound, made a 'tink' sound, like that of its metal counterparts.
Alchemical Forge
and the molten metal in the middle. He also had the oil and Blue Sand in other regent plates surrounding the white-hot fluid.Beads of sweat soaked into his fur as he began to sing, watching carefully for the slightest indication of anything going awry with the metal or the food.
He had come up with the idea of replacing the tangy, metallic flavour that meta had when you placed it in your mouth, with that of cake. As it was a birthday gift, this idea tickled him considerably and he had put the utmost care and effort into the Honey Cake that sat upon the cooling Green Sand/Alooy regent plate he had made for his forge to help with regent preservation in the heat of the forging process.
He had prepared enough to provide ample for the small chime and then some left over for him to use another day.
He sang, watched and carefully poured the molten metal into the ingot mould for the 7th time.
Smoky
helped with the pouring as Winston focused on the Alchemy and Joe
floated around for moral support. This had become significantly easier since Smoky was around to help with such things, as in the past he'd have been required to handle it all by himself.As the bonding agents brought them all together and the ingot began to cool, there was a knock at the door.
"Come en!" He called, as he tidied away the remnants of the alchemical process away. The cake was no longer edible, of course, and he could not wait to find out if the metal had taken on its flavour.
The door opened and in came
Cenija
holding a create full of tools with Shinwa
following alongside. "Cenija! Com en, com-en! Cun me get yhu some cake? Ar tea?"The Tanawan had learnt by now that it was a swifter path to what she came for if she accepted something, even if she didn't then eat it, it stopped the Cadouri from continuing to try and find something to please her. "Thanks, yes." She replied, but before he had the chance to continue to respond, Shinwa nodded his head and with a prompt statement, went to get the food. "Very good."
Cenija continued into the room, placing the create down as Winston brushed the alchemical detritus from his apron. "I've brought you some old tools of mine to borrow. You said you wanted to try and make your own and I have another Well that needs cleaning, if you want to give it a try yourself?"
His eyes lit up with excitement as she started to unpack the create. "Wow! Really?! Dat's awesome! Thank's soh much!" He made his way over and started looking at the tools, refreshing his memory with regards to what they do. They were well used and a little old, but serviceable and treasured by him. "I need them back, mind. But return them any time, ok?" She said firmly, as if just to be certain everyone was aware of the details of the loan.
He nodded emphatically as he placed them down in an arrangement on the workbench. "No Aida today?" He asked with a hopeful and mischievous grin. "No. She was too busy counting fairies to come... Well, I'm sure she would have been had I told her I was going." She replied, the latter half of the sentence being slightly under her breath.
Joe was not sure if that was a euphemism for something else or whether she was actually counting fairies, but was disappointed at the missed opportunity to tease his friend either way. "Awwwww... I was rather hoping she could come round for tea. It's been a bit dull in here recently... All work, no play."
Their guest raised an eyebrow at the spirit as she replied. "I'll pass on the message."
Joe giggled.
She proceeded to extract the well from the box
and explain it's nature. It was a Firestone (Imedyte) and she proceeded to hand it to Winston to begin the cleaning and handling process.By the time they were done, the well was ready to be refined. "You are not ready for that yet though. That is a very dangerous process, but if you like, you can watch me and learn what the tools do?" Again, Winston nodded. The whole process was fascinating to him and as much as he wanted tog et stuck in and begin making magic, he rather liked mot being dead, so settled for taking smaller steps.
The refinement process took a long time and as the trial wound on, they eventually stopped, accepting that this particular well was going to need a second refinement session. "The final refinement will decide whether the Smog or Offensive properties of a well would be cultivated." She explained, going then on into great detail regarding the difference between the two.
The entire time, he focused first on being helpful and then on being nosy. It was, he had found, the best was to encourage people to continue to share things they know with him.
Winston laughed. "Well, me ow yuh sometin' far all yuh 'elp." He raised a hand in a gesture of triumph. "Dere will be cake!" He proclaimed as Cenija smiled, shook her head gently and left. How this ferret was not very seriously overweight baffled her no end.
As the forge fell once again into silence, he turned back to the ingot, sitting in the cast, waiting to be extracted. "Right! Time tuh taste our metal."
Smoky extracted the ingot, which had now cooled to a mild warm temperature, and placed it down on the worktop. The ferret giggled with anticipation as he held his hand over it then gingerly touched it a few times with increasing confidence, so that it would not burn him.
He gave it a good clean and then placed his tongue on it's surface... "MMMMmmmmmmm.... Honey cake." He said to Smoky Joe with a smile. "Man, you'd break a tooth on that if you got carried away."
With that, he chuckled and set about making the final chime ready for the complete gift to be sent out to Tristan, testing it at each stage to ensure it was top quality.
If any of it need remaking or refinement, then it would receive this care before putting it all together and wrapping it carefully for transport.
"You know, if you keep spending so much time on gifts for people, you are going to go out of business." Winston ignored this comment. "AND you need to recover from the cost of the food kitchen, you know that right?" He shook his head as he failed to talk sense into his friend.
"Ef me bussiness cannat affard de time far a gift ar too, den et's nat a business wort 'avin'." He continued to prepare the gift as they spoke. "Me might need tog et some 'elp dough befar next Ze'da coms around, ef me want tuh get gifts far all de children."
Jor frowned. "What children?"
"ALL de children." Replied the ferret, as if it was obvious. "'ALL'? Like all the children everywhere?" Joe asked with some incredulity. "Uhu. Me recan de fairies will want tuh 'elp."
The Forged Diri took a deep breath of someone quite certain this was the beginning of something that was going to become very unwieldy. "Right. OK, then. Shall we get in touch with Saiore?"
The favoured ferret shook his head with an expression of mild disapproval. "Noh mun. Ef we jost go tuh Saiore every time we want tuh do sometin', den we ar nat really DOIN' anytin'. We will work et al out first. Den ef dere es really sometin' we cannat do ourselves... DEN we will try a little 'arder."
"OOOOooohhhh, riiiiiight. The needlessly hard and self sacrificing approach. Of coooouuurse." The reply was thick with sarcasm, boarding on a telling off, as if it was obvious to anyone that this was a bad idea.
Justifications
The making of chimes is something Winston has become very good at indeed. He has a long list of existing knowledges to this affect:
- Smithing: Using sand properties to create warm or cool alloys
- Smithing: Complex Alloys
- Smithing: Buffing to a good finish
- Smithing: Glass/Metal Alloys
- Smithing: Consistent Reproduction
- Smithing: Working metal for good acoustics
- Smithing: Testing items for acoustics
- Smithing: Simple Casting
- Alchemy: Using Heat and Cooling for Binding
- Alchemy: Complex regent combinations
- Alchemy: Protecting your regents
- Alchemy: Temperature Control
- Alchemy: Material: Metal
- Alchemy: Alchemical Food
Despite being a pretty inconsequential RP gift, I'd like to be able to suggest it's well crafted and so I have built upon his existing strengths as much as possible. As such I have labelled it "masterwork quality" and hope that this is OK.
- Smithing: Using sand properties to create warm or cool alloys
- Smithing: Complex Alloys
- Smithing: Buffing to a good finish
- Smithing: Glass/Metal Alloys
- Smithing: Consistent Reproduction
- Smithing: Working metal for good acoustics
- Smithing: Testing items for acoustics
- Smithing: Simple Casting
- Alchemy: Using Heat and Cooling for Binding
- Alchemy: Complex regent combinations
- Alchemy: Protecting your regents
- Alchemy: Temperature Control
- Alchemy: Material: Metal
- Alchemy: Alchemical Food
Despite being a pretty inconsequential RP gift, I'd like to be able to suggest it's well crafted and so I have built upon his existing strengths as much as possible. As such I have labelled it "masterwork quality" and hope that this is OK.
