64 Glade 121
Even kids would have a much better tolerance than Dakkur as it could take a whole season before they ran out of things to occupy themselves with. On the other hand despite being a an adult... of sorts... it only took half a season before Dakkur started to feel angsty, actually not even half a season as even if it felt that long, Dakkur had barely been in Zaichaer for days. Granted unlike those kids, Dakkur was not in some sort of adventurous move for a better life so he had cause to be unsettled in this new city. That and there was not a thing he could do which would be considered safe and proper for him to do according to his hostess but this was all her fault too! He had to have someone to show him around, get him acclimated to the city as was promised but sometimes people could get busy? Wait, Dakkur was not supposed to make excuses for his hostess like that although he was thankful for her hosting him.It was just that the only time he felt like he was living in the city as opposed to just being here was when he worked on that project of his with the legs. Oh, that is it! Dakkur just needed a new project! But unlike the leg brace he made, it was not like he had any needs he immediately needed filling. He could... nah. Maybe he should... nah. How about making... nah. There was just nothing he could use or more accurately nothing he could use without a forge. Other than runeforging the only other thing he enjoyed was uncovering some cool old artifacts from digs in expeditions but Zaichaer as far as he knew had no sites like in Zeraphesh where new dig sites surfaced every other season and on the off chance something like that were to happen, he was still going to need... How about that. He found just the project he needed to work on. Archaeology tools! Even if he ended up unable to use it, it would still be a project involving something he liked.
Tools he needed. The stuff like brushes, shovels, spades, picks, trowels, crowbars, saws and... gods now that he had a chance to think about there were a lot of things he needed. If only they could all be combined into one item for easy transportation and storage, wow, this idea of his just keeps getting better and better! A lot of people thought creating items like these, whether they be mechanical devices or runeforged artifacts, all started from an idea. Actually that was true. For a craftsman however the process starts from the moment they put them to paper because by that time, they were already committed to their creation. Dakkur, he had a lot of papers. Each sheet had a drawing of the tools he identified as necessary for his work then further down the line, the tools drawn to scale so he could compare them all. Actually being a pain to compare them that way, Dakkur had to take the trouble to draw them all in an arrangement he could compare the tools very nicely.
With these, he could already send the diagrams to a smith or something and have them make the tools but it still would not solve the problem of having to store all the tools and transport them around. For the sake of his idea... fuck... he was forced to draw all the tools again, one by one, in one to one scale diagrams and then he spent days to figure out how to arrange them all together in the most compact way he could. Maybe this was how kids in a new city spent their time, puzzles! That said it was not as fun as it should be for Dakkur because it was H! A! R! D! By the time he had successfully arranged them all he had to wonder, would it work? Maybe if he was trying to formulate an efficient way of packing the tools this would be good enough for his purposes but it was not so, he was going to have to start all over again. Buuuttttttt, since he already did all the work there was no reason to waste it. If all else fails, he could just have the smith build the individual tools according to these specifications and use everything he had prepared so far as instructions for him to pack his tools for future expeditions.
But if he could not just arrange the tools all nicely and stuff them into something, what else could he do? This was when he had the inspired moment he wanted. With the one to one scale diagrams he gathered together, he compared each to another and went through this exercise the whole night. His idea was simple. If he was not going to put them together like a puzzle for packing, he could always combine the tools together to get out of them as much functions he could thus saving space and perhaps reinforcing the item to the degree it could be any tool he ever wanted for any situation he would ever encounter. A really good idea he should think, because he did! It was no wonder he had to just give him a pat on the back as encouragement to go on. It would be a loss for himself if he gave up now!
Feeling so encouraged from the progress he made and with all the confidence of a man who had the belief he had made a breakthrough in his field, Dakkur decided why not he jump right into the end and get to work on the shell. With the simplest of designs Dakkur had it as the basic rectangle. The rectangle just made sense. There were parts which would fit nicely into corners and it would be long enough to hold the tools in it. In fact he was so confident at this point he went straight for the smith with the new diagrams he had prepared after a lot of work. Trowels and spades with sawblades on them, the spikes on the crowbar, a pick with a funny little hammer head. It all fit together quite nicely but the smith had his reservations. After some discussion with the smith on the practicality of these tools, Dakkur did think it would be a good idea to tweak things a little bit. "How about if we did this to fit it in here and we send this there, make sure this can bend when you pull it and then hook it and lock in with these..." were altogether good changes. He could see it now.
It took yet another week for him to wait for the tools to come through and when he got the box home, he was giddy like a kid on his birthday. Time flew by fast as he evaluated the quality of his new tools- just to make sure the smith did not mess anything up. Would you look at that? The crowbar just popped that plank right open- shit he might get into trouble for this but not... if he used the hammer to set the plank back on where he got it out from! "Nothing much, just working" he said when someone checked up on the noise which was kind of true before he continued to test the tools he had. That was the blades and spikes working as they should. How about the... yeah he was going to need to get out of the house to test these set of tools specifically.
But once he got the all clear, it was time for the assembly. Rectangular metal thingy which he did not know what to call, maybe a case? Casing? Metal case? Oh great how did he not realize he should have put a handle on it so he could carry it around as a suitcase? Maybe it is not too late to get that added to the case at the smith... tomorrow... He set the soft foldable sieve into the slots made just for it and rolled it out like a map. That was one part which fit into the case. After that he set the spike down into the rings of the hammer to hold it in place within the case. A little more work with the hammer to to act like the lid. Ah a perfect fit! Then the brushes. This had been the hardest part to try and fit into his design since these brushes were so different from one another that they could not be fit into the tool the same way or in the same spaces but he somehow did it. The hard brush went down here, the soft brush went into the slot here, the one in between snuggled right here with the spade and hammer. Hmmmm... should he put some oil into the slot he put the softy brush in?
Identifying the little changes he would need to add to the tool, maybe some leather strips here and there to keep the tools from sliding out since not every one of them could be locked around with rings, a little wire there so its easier to pull these other tools out and even a metal pin for some handles to get stuck in- probably would need to drill some holes into the tools for that too, Dakkur went right back to the smith and explained the changes he wished to make and why. Just how many changes was Dakkur going to ask this smith to do? "As many changes as we need but if we do this right, this should be the last time." After all, progress was something which never ended.