58 Ash 121
Dakkur did not think he was the best choice for it even if he did have the experience with such work, hell, that was his very reason for not advertising the fact in the first place but it seemed like he did too good a job during the brainstorming session in the previous day. Reluctantly, he took up the task of making the shell? Container? Box? Actually now that he had a chance to think about it, he was going to go with a box for this first official product. He was supposed to get the day off and, a few more, but as part of the profession and one with a sort of pride in the craft he decided to see things through, until at least he was sure that the product was worth the effort they have went through in debating the ideas and making all the schemes.But at least this thing he had to do is probably going to be the easiest thing he had to do, especially for him, someone who already did it countless times that he was really sure unless he was extremely drunk or distracted there was nothing which could go wrong. Wait... actually could he even make a box? Dakkur rummaged through the molds they had in the smithery and realized, well shit, they did not have any molds for a box which was the trouble with molds was it not? They would never be able to make a functional container since they would fill it all up with no gap inside and as a runesmith that meant a lot of work cutting up or as he would describe it, gutting the viscerite without reservation like a butcher; that much work was not something he wanted to do for this project. If only there was some way he could make the container with something el...
Wait! That was it. There was no mold which would have a cavity inside but following the idea that he wanted a nice sizable hole inside... Dakkur started looking through the molds. All of them. Comparing, measuring and just roughly estimating until he was confident this would be a good enough experiment and if he failed, it was going to be on the boss' dime for a project he was told to do anyway. It would not be the most efficient use of it, but it would be closest to the function of what he wanted to do and, it would also look pretty. And so that was going to be his plan. He was going to make the viscerite as usual and then, he was going to put that viscerite in a box and then put another smaller box into the viscerite which would hopefully mean he would have a box with enough space in it for his purposes.
As a test Dakkur went through the motions of molding the viscerite as usual, only, instead of the molten viscerite which would be used it was water which went into the mold which went as well as it should so far. Then he took the other mold and pressed it in with his hand and was thankful that he decided to do this test first because he completely missed it that the fluids would be displaced and spill out. Hot molt- oh right hot molten viscerite. Another thing which slipped his mind. If he had actually been doing this for real, his hand would probably have been burned as well but yes, molten hot viscerite all over the workspace. He had witnessed it plenty of times and as he recalled they normally do not end well. That was why there was so many rules to follow, so many guidelines, all for the apprentices. While Dakkur appreciated these practices in the craft he still could not help but find it... inconvenient.
With all that squared away, that idea passing through Dakkur's head made him have a little chuckle because of boxes and squares, a joke, he figured there was two things he had to do now. One, a way to keep the second mold in place until the molten hot viscerite cools down and two, a way to do it without getting his hands burned. This would be a problem for most people but fortunately not for Dakkur because in his other trade there was one thing he learned. Modern problems require tried and true solutions. Already sure about how he was going to solve the second issue, Dakkur knew he was going to have to source some tongs to hold on to the mold. And to hold them in place, for hours, Dakkur did not want to end up with sore arms every day. As a craftsman and as a (hopefully competent) archaeologist, his hands ability to perform delicate tasks was one of the more important things and while he thought the idea being passed around by his peers that abusing his hands that way would ruin him in a few decades was farfetched, he was not going to take that chance.
But there was something useful he remembered learning with his peers. Some ancient construction technique. It was even funnier when they tested it out and caused a huge collapse but hopefully at the smaller scale he was going to employ it with making the box, that was not going to happen. Necessity was the mother of invention and with the only actual tool which could be considered proper, the tongs, Dakkur improvised the rest with some wheels, a bar, a lot of rop- actually rethinking it because he had a healthy respect towards molten viscerite, a lot of chain and, a bunch of other random components which only made sense because of Dakkur's own experiments in making his own gadgets, Dakkur mad successfully made a functional pulley. Of sorts.
After testing if the pulley which some would say, was haphazardly tied in place, could take the weight and pressure of holding on to the mold, Dakkur got to work on making the viscerite. With no difference from the countless times he had done it, Dakkur dumped the large chunk of aerolyth prepared for him right into the aether forge and turned up the heat. Being alone and as always, because of safety, Dakkur periodically yelled out how the viscerite was being processed based on what he saw through the aura glass. "The viscerite is doing fine. Its melting very... stabley. Oh the aura is getting a littl- oh wait no, that was just the reflection of the light in the aura glass. My mistake." And even if it was a mistake, it was these peridical responses which ensured the rest of the people in the smith he was still alive.
And then once the dragonshard had all turned into fluid and the aura glass showed there were no unnatural spikes in the viscerite's aura, Dakkur had the molten hot viscerite poured in between the two molds he had prepared. It was the only time he needed help and the only time anyone had to hold the tongs in place although his impromptu assistant had his reservations of the assembly he made but, "pfft of course it is going to work. The ancients used these devices all the time to make building their ugly houses easier so do you think it's going to fail now? Hell even if it does fail, given those examples it wouldn't collapse for hundreds of years!" or maybe even longer which was besides the point and the point was now that Dakkur had recruited someone to help him...
He already had quite the interesting idea in mind for this project and also "you know how important it is to capitalize on this idea while the mists was hot" another chuckle. Hot. because of the molten viscerite and... "I'm going to have to prepare some other things for it so since you aren't doing anything" or anything too important for the smith otherwise it would not have been so easy for Dakkur to recruit the other, "I'll need you to watch the viscerite while it cools. Just make sure the chains right there don't get loose and drop the mold all inside or the tongs get loose... you get the idea. We need to make sure the viscerite cools perfectly so we don't have to waste more time trying to make a new box and who knows, maybe you've learned something new today, right?" The new thing of course was the pulley he gestured to. The attempt to cajole the man backfired as he then had a lot of questions about the assembly which Dakkur had to oblige if only to make sure of his continued cooperation in the future.
With a brief explanation of how the pulley system worked to hold the mold in place, weight, tension, force, displacement and a whole lot of other technical terms Dakkur deliberately used to befuddle the other man enough to escape in his confusion Dakkur was free! Free to get what he wanted and more importantly, free to take a few hours break from that hot smithy.
