Dwarf
Inactive Player
Gold:
Tailor
Acrobat
Guild:
|
Post by Sark on Oct 26, 2015 13:19:29 GMT
Sark looked about the spacious center, awed at it. It was Westminster Abbey; an iconic part of London and just as important within the new universe centered around Londindium. In the prior world great kings and queens had been entombed here, and many important marriages had taken place. Great political and religious debates had been argued here, and now, in this far flung future-yet-fantasy world, Sark's guild owned it.
Noihara.
The name floated discretely beside the building name, like a corporate logo. In this world the abbey was one of the respawning stations and the only one in Londinium. His guild master, Dumah, had explained that they would not be able to alter the actual respawn mechanics, as the rooms where adventurers respawned were technically an off-limit zone even to the owner. However, the huge remaining portion of the build was entirely under their control. Since its purchase many of the internal rooms had been undergoing significant renovations. The crypts below, already empty of their occupants, had been cleaned and a forge had been installed. The guild master had explained by having the forge in the basement that its heat would help warm the tavern, the room directly above it. It was an ingenious idea, and would sure to be a hit once Londinium's chilly weather returned. The remaining portion of the ground floor consisted of bedrooms, the library adjacent to the tavern, and Sark's preferred room; the clothier's centre. Upstairs was primarily the martial area where individuals could train, practice and store their weaponry.
Sark was wandering through the bottom level at the moment, popping his head excitedly into doors before racing down to the next room to see what was inside. For now many of the rooms had basic, spartan furniture as there had been no chance to order bespoke goods or purchase from the elite crafting stores. Even the tavern only had long, low tables and not a single bar chair, while the library had a wooden bench by the tall windows, with none of the plush armchairs one would hope. The one exception to this rule that Sark was aware of, was the Clothier's room. He had spent an afternoon carting his stock across several trips from his rooms at The Black Dogg Inn to the clothier's room. As such one wall was already lined with bolts of silk, of cotton and of hemp neatly arranged in vertical bundles on the supplied doweling rods, while the long central bench in the middle help Sark’s modest supply of needles, scissors, crimper’s embossers, cobbler’s hammers and more. Several drawers had been filled with a variety of lace and thread, so personality was slowly filling the room. He would like to give it a bit more pazazz down the track, perhaps with some nice rugs and some thick curtains, but that was down the track.
The boy hurriedly raced about the room, taking things from here and there and laying them about the table. He wanted to begin filling the other rooms with more comforts, and that meant he could play interior designer. It was not something he admitted often, but he enjoyed planning room designs just as much as he enjoyed making something with cloth. There was a very real sense of accomplishment in a job well done once the product had been completed.
For now, his goal was a simple one; begin with some beanbags for the library or the training room upstairs. Once he got that out of the way, he could try the more serious upholstery like couches, chairs and stools. The tailor sat down, and humming a cheery tune got to work.
Samurai: ______ 20
Tailor:_________ 20
Acrobat: ______ 01
| Word Count:
608 x1.1 Oct Art Bonus =
668
| Pokes:
Whoever \o/ Probably solo
| OOC:
Cloth furniture 1/3
|
|
|
Dwarf
Inactive Player
Gold:
Tailor
Acrobat
Guild:
|
Post by Sark on Oct 28, 2015 11:16:22 GMT
Bean bags were simple affairs back in the real world; they were simply a sheath of durable cloth filled with polystyrene. If you wanted to go a fancier type, it would be double-walled so that they could be washed like a quilt cover. Useful when a friend drunkenly vomits on it.
Within this this new universe though, how to make a bean bag was proving a little more troublesome for the tailor. He had successfully cut out the pattern for the beanbag cloth, sewn it inside-out and added a zipper, but he was at a loss for what to fill it with. Filling it with silk or spare cloth had proved an uncomfortable (and expensive) solution, and filling it with leather was even worse.
'Feathers! They'll work if they work for pillows!' He thought to himself, drawing upon the inspiration of the universe.
He left his unfinished job across the table, and in his haste scattered a pile of cloth scraps across the room. There was no time to clean though; he needed feathers STAT. The dwarf raced out the door and into the busy, central Londinium streets. There was no time to pick directions, so he ran blindly through the streets. At his height he could not see very far ahead, and nimbly wove his way through a crowd of swinging knees, gesticulating arms and exotic pets. His blind ambulation lead him to a village green within greater Londinum where a gathering of geese were grazing against the grass, the group of them moving in mostly straight lines like nature's own lawn mower.
A wicked grin spread across features. Geese had feathers. Geese had nice feathers. However, Geese were level 10 monsters who had a combination hiss-and-strike attack, making them an unpopular choice to fight at lower levels. Their loud fighting noises and death animations were seen as too annoying to bother with for the higher level adventurers, and their loot was often pathetic. All in all, the unpopular mix had let the goose population skyrocket throughout the safe town zones.
The problem then was catching them. Sark had a plan for that; in the past when he had been too scared to risk his life against true monsters he had practised his martial style against geese, flipping and spinning about them to get used to dodging and countering. He'd always done it with a wooden stick and never aimed to damage them, his focus had always been on his own technique. In its own way, he was returning to his roots now.
"Ace Move: Lightspeed"
Lightning-like mana arced up from the ground, wrapping itself about him in a nimbus of light. With the new mana flowing through him, his body felt light and full of beans. Keeping low to the ground and quiet was easy for the dwarf who with the stealth and speed of an assassin sprung upon the geese. First one, two, there were grabbed. While they turned their snake-like necks to attack, Sark began to rapidly and firmly tap at the back of their heads. It was a simple avian trick he had learned, and a sign of a superior reminding its inferior who was boss without hurting them. The three quickly submitted. Before they could consider what was going on the samurai yanked out some feathers. He was able to get a handful from each before the pain registered and they flew away, honking all the time. The flock scattered at the noise and soon Sark was left alone.
Progress!
He returned to Noihara and proudly stuffed the feathers into the bean bag. Nothing happened; indeed, the triple handful seemed to fill less than half a percent of the bag. The samurai deflated, his energy leaving his body in one huge gasp. It would take forever to fill a single bag, and he wanted a half dozen of them. That'd take ... more than forever!
It was time for a new plan.
Samurai: ______ 20
Tailor:_________ 20
Acrobat: ______ 01
| Word Count:
658 x1.1 Oct Art Bonus = 723
| Pokes:
Whoever \o/ Probably solo
| OOC:
Cloth furniture 2/3
|
|
|
Dwarf
Inactive Player
Gold:
Tailor
Acrobat
Guild:
|
Post by Sark on Oct 30, 2015 14:41:03 GMT
Sark spent the afternoon wandering the town, waiting for inspiration to hit. He was also peckish, which may have influenced his decision. The tavern within the guild centre had not been set up, so there was no food to be eaten within the Abbey yet. Apparently a local would be staffing it, so they would have access to well prepare food and drink.
So far Sark had discarded several ideas already; namely using animal fur as it was too expensive and often too thin, using feathers are collecting that many would take too long, not wood shavings because they caused a lot allergies and tended to be prickly, and not hay for much the same reason. The dwarf was really beginning to draw a blank.
He found a park bench and began to ponder, chewing down on burrito that he had purchased from a roadside vendor. His eyes drifted down, settling on the beans.
'Beans for the bean bag. Bean bag. BEAN bag.'
Sark leapt to his feet, exhilarations clearing his throat. He'd found a way! He knew that beans could be dried and stored for years at a time; he'd often had to soak them when he wanted to make a stew in the prior universe. He knew they were kinda soft, but also not going to flatten out after a few uses. They make be a little harder than the polysterene people were used to from the real world, but that could be sorted with a thicker layer of cloth or a thin quilt sewn into it. Excitement bubbled through Sark; this could really work! To boot, he even knew just the chef to prepare the beans for it.
One telepathy conversation later, Sark and his chef met at the undercover markets. It was the best place to buy monster loot, materials and produce. Walking through the stalls you could forget you were in a universe based off a game, with each stall packed with banal goods such as bags of rice, strips of lumber, various polished and unpolished rocks and dozens of meats hanging for sale. The chef, Dorian, was a childish looking avatar like Sark, with messy blonde hair and violet eyes that shined with unbridled joy and an excitement for life that Sark found refreshing. He said that he knew just the place for beans, so together they wove through the aromatic markets until they arrived at the 'Bean There Done That Emporium.' It was a stall of crude materials; untreated timber poles with a simple denim tarp for a roof and 3 walls. Miscellaneous rugs covered the floor, while the beans were in dozens of different barrels of different shapes and sizes. The browsed their options for a few minutes, and asked the proprietor for their opinion. Settling on pino beans, Sark ordered 2 full barrels, weighing in over 100 kilograms. Dorian was not too phased by this, seeming just happy to help.
With the purchase made they travelled back to where Dorian did his baking, and spent an afternoon chatting and catching up while the beans were slowly dried out, making them hard and bug-resistant. These were then placed back in the barrels, which were carted to the Noihara hall. With the sun setting Sark excitedly filled a bag and plopped onto the end result. It was a little hard, but the with two layers of cloth between him and beans it was still quite comfortable and form fitting. For someone of Sark's strength, their 30 kilo weight was a non issue too, but it may prove troublesome for some of their more delicate members.
He lit some candles and a lantern, and got to work completing the set. By tomorrow, the guild would have a set of 3 matching beanbags, each a slightly different shade of the Noihara official colours.
Samurai: ______ 20
Tailor:_________ 20
Acrobat: ______ 01
| Word Count:
638 x1.1 Oct Art Bonus = 701
| Pokes:
| OOC:
Cloth furniture 3/3
|
|
|
Dwarf
Inactive Player
Gold:
Tailor
Acrobat
Guild:
|
Post by Sark on Oct 30, 2015 15:30:01 GMT
It was dawn the next day, and Sark rose early. After performing his morning callisthenics and morning rituals he descended from the Black Dog Inn. He'd been told that he had a room waiting for him at Westminster Abbey, but while it was still so empty and unfurnished it didn't feel right to live there. And besides, Mara the owner of the Inn was a pleasure to deal with, and her husband was an excellent chef.
With the days shortening as Autumn took hold of the city, dawn was a slow and sullen affair. Errant gusts blew down the nearly empty lanes while Sark jogged to the abbey, hands tucked under his armpits. The tailor eyed the many lamps that adorned the streets. 2 of 3 had been blown out, making the dawn-lightened streets murky and cold. After 5 minutes of this, the tailor scoffed to himself. Enough was enough. With a scrowl at the cold he stomped over to a lamp post. At four foot high he could not see the main bracket from here, but with a little shimmying he raised himself up the cool steel pole. The glass housing seemed poorly made, with plenty of holes for the wind to get in. There was little there that he could do, but the tailor did have an idea. Relying on just one hand to hold him in place he reached into the shell of the lantern and extracted the wick, then shimmied down.
It was a simple affair; simply a twist of fibers that relied on sucking up the oil, which burned in preference to the fibers itself. These were old, crusty affairs covered in the impurities of years of straining oil for its most flammable molecules. Sitting on the cold flagstones Sark rifled through his own inventory, eventually finding his collection of loose ends. He eyed the wick more carefully; it seemed to be cotton, and had a thin pin of metal running through it. The cotton itself seemed seemed unusual though, and after giving it a good eyeful Sark decided it must be some sort of dye. He'd mimic the existing wick, before trying to play with variables.
Using those odds and ends he removed the metal pin from the original and wove a complex weave about it, making a length of string as long as his hand. This he dipped in a blue dye he had way too much of, and then a mordant to set the dye. In the wind, this dried quickly. Sark clambered back up the lantern, putting in the new wick and lighting it with a flint he kept handy.
A smile blossomed on his face as the light blossomed on the wick. He watched it for a minute to ensure the wick would not burn away, before sliding down.
For the rest of the walk the dwarf considered the possibility of that knowledge; the wick he could use for candles, and even as a fuse for something a little more dangerous. There was a rumour going around town that a secretive guild had been working on making bombs. Apparently their guild leader, a demon who had tamed fire and animals alike, had spent months researching the perfect powders, fuses, materials and more. These bombs were and far between, but it was rumoured to be the great equaliser; a common local could use these to destroy an adventurer in a single blast. Of course, Sark wanted nothing to do with that gossip; so rather than advertise his knowledge of making fuses, he would take care to only ever call them wicks.
Samurai: ______ 20
Tailor:_________ 20
Acrobat: ______ 01
| Word Count:
600 x1.1 Oct Art Bonus = 660
| Pokes:
Whoever \o/ Probably solo
| OOC:
Cloth furniture 1/1
|
|
|
