On His Own
Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2019 6:17 am
Frost 60, 119
"Put that away, Kos." Miss Holzknecht, arms folded expectantly, stood over his workbench and waited for him to find and place his bookmark. Once the manual had been set aside, she handed him an enveloped, one whose wax seal had already been cut open, but that wasn't unusual as every single one of the jobs he'd worked on thus far had been assigned to Foma's little blond haired supervisor not to him.
"I thought we'd cleared out your queue for the week, miss," he replied with a quirk of his head as he fished out the contents of the envelope.
"We did."
"Then-"
"Perhaps it's best you read first and ask questions after," she interrupted, small hands on skirt-padded hips and a frustrated sigh backing her words.
"Ehrm... right. Yes, of course."
With a gentle hum of thought tickling the end of his nose, Foma quickly unfolded the written request and immediately recognized two things. The first was the handwriting itself. Master Wagner's flowing, genuinely beautiful script was unmistakable, making anything the man wrote nearly art all on its own, let alone what the words themselves might bring into creation through the hands of his diligent apprentices. Direct requests from the master himself weren't common, but he'd seen enough of them during his time under Miss Holzknecht that it wasn't a point of astonishment any longer.
The second thing, however, most definitely was.
Every single set of instructions the master had ever sent out was directly addressed to one of the apprentices who populated his workshop. Miss Holzknecht was, more often than not, the more common name at the top of the request which generally contained several paragraphs details what it was he wanted done followed, if necessary, by blueprints which, as Foma had learned the first time he'd followed them exactly, were more guidelines than a hard rule. Mister Dohman and Mister Gutermuth were also often named, and even Miss Pletcher had received one or two since he'd been taken on; and she had only been there a month or two before him.
This time it was his name neatly scrawled there in the heading: "Foma Kozlov".
As if he'd been struck with lightning, Foma jerked his head up from the paper to gaze fiendishly at Miss Holzknecht, laughter and exuberant enthusiasm in his eyes. "It's- this is-"
"Stop stuttering and read," she very nearly growled out at him, her patience seemingly thin but betrayed by the slight, upwards tug at the corners of her lips.
Actual laughter slipped out of him as he nodded, finding his skin hotter than he remembered. Dark eyes carefully scanned the letter's contents, and his nervous elation found itself... confused. "This says," he began, speaking in a half-mutter as he continued to read, gaze jumping from line to line to make certain he hadn't somehow forgotten how to do it. "I'm to complete this project... alone? With no assistance from you or the others... or your resources?"
"Hm. Does it?"
Again, Foma looked up from the letter, his jubilation now marred with genuine concern over the very much daunting task he'd just been handed. "How-"
Miss Holzknecht held up a finger, the smile on her child's lips one of unbridled amusement. "Ah ah ah! I believe the exact wording was..." she cleared her throat, her impression of her uncle disturbingly accurate given he was nearly six times her elder. "'Under no circumstances nor in any way is the head artificer of this project to collaborate with his peers. This includes but is not limited to-" Little fingers popped up one after the other as examples were named by rote, "Consultations, acquisition of resources, outside clarifications of this project, general assistance of any kind, and,'" she paused, positively beaming in the face of Foma's incredulous stare. "'Especially Miss Kriemhilde Holzknecht.'"
"But I-"
"Am hopelessly lost without me?" she chuckled, lightly tossing her hair. "Yes, you are. As you have not directly asked me any questions, and as I am, of this moment, no longer speaking directly to you," she continued, already turning and beginning to walk away, "I shall now think to myself aloud: perhaps the very point of such a request is something of a test? To see if the little gutter rat that wandered into the master's workshop truly is the asset he'd promised he'd become?"
Her small shoulders rose and fell in a non-committal shrug as she sauntered off to join Mister Gutermuth and Miss Pletcher's half-finished project they'd all been working on since she foisted off the last of her shrouds onto Foma earlier that morning.
Staring again at the letter, Foma found himself grinning in spite of himself. His very first project, and it was a test, no less. He wondered as he glanced up at the three other apprentices quietly debating over whether they should use a shroud for the their golem's fingers or several lures placed in lieu of each joint whether they'd undergone much the same trial. Not one of them seemed to notice his stare. In fact, they seemed to make a point of it, their voices rising as they casually turned their backs to him.
He was truly on his own, and for all the apprehension, Foma had no intention of disappointing.
The request itself wasn't anything he hadn't assisted Miss Holzknecht on before: a stationary secretary. They were a popular though exceptionally expensive commodity given the excessive amount of time it took to imprint their cores as well as the requirement of an overbody to learn and adapt to their purchaser's speech and personal vocabulary. One spoke to golem, the golem then transcribed whatever was said down onto paper, and suddenly memoirs and pamphlets and even self-published and distributed journals became possible.
The rub, which made certain that one couldn't simply purchase one of these artificial scribes with a single lump sum and never return unless the poor thing fell apart due to overuse, was that their vocabularies were limited to a core list of several thousand words. On paper, several thousand seemed like quite a lot. More than enough, in fact. In practice, however, Master Wagner received a steady flow of coin from return customers carrying lists of the words to be taught to their golems.
It was a clever scheme and one that, in fact, had not been concocted out of greed but rather necessity. Imprinting upon the golems every known word, sound, and conjugation, especially for foreign languages, bordered upon impossible. So the most common words were directly imprinted while the others were later taught as one might teach any other.
In totality, Foma had been a part of or produced entirely on his own each of the necessary pieces. The issue, however... he'd never actually been the one to put them all together nor had he ever been refused the careful and critical eye of Miss Holzknecht to double check his work. Though it was a shining opportunity to prove not only his worth as an artificer to the master but also show he was man true to his word, it was too a chance for him to fail and fail miserably.
Failure up until then had always carried with it a caveat of self-improvement. When he made a mistake, Miss Holzknecht corrected him, he learned from it, and they pressed on, ideally without repetition, though the more complex a concept or procedure the more likely there were, at least, several more incidents. Now though? Now a mistake directly reflected upon his capabilities, a declaration that he wasn't ready, that he hadn't taken his training and his studies seriously.
And nothing could be farther from the truth.
Carefully separating the several blueprints from the letter itself, he set them out upon the surface of his workbench, pulled out his journal, and set about scribbling out an itinerary. The golem needed to be completed within a week's time, which, in theory, was more than enough. Even with padding to accommodate mistakes or accidents, he estimated he'd be able to finish with a day to spare. More than enough indeed.
Setting aside the journal, Foma pulled the simplest of the blueprints towards him. The physical body was merely a matter of mundane construction, something their workshop generally contracted out to smiths or lapidaries or carpenters, whatever the material of choice. Fortunately he was well familiar with their workshop's common contractors and they with he, as he'd handled, quite literally, all of Miss Holzknecht's requests personally since he'd been taken on as Master Wagner's apprentice.
Drawers opened and closed, paper was procured, his fountain pen was filled, and soon he had two requests neatly drafted, dried, and sealed in their proper envelopes. For the exceptionally dexterous task of writing itself, the fingers and hands and arms, Foma had opted for a carpenter's lighter touch. The tendons of the wrist were what wore out quickest, and while metal would last much longer, hands were so much heavier and required more powerful cores; and they had a nasty habit of rusting when ink was spilled. For the body, however, he opted for simple bronze. It was lighter than iron, generally more pleasing aesthetically when paired with wood, and it was less expensive to have something caste that he could then file down himself rather than paying, in entirety, for an artisans' wooden carving.
He was on a budget, after all, and the master had indicated in his request that there was a need for elegance but not extravagance. Copper and cypress would do.
That was the first order of business not necessarily because it was the most time consuming but because it was the most uncertain. He had no control over how quickly or slowly outside entities might complete something, and it was best to get it out of the way as soon as possible. So, without any further diddling about, he slipped the letters into his pockets, donned his cloak, and headed out.
"Put that away, Kos." Miss Holzknecht, arms folded expectantly, stood over his workbench and waited for him to find and place his bookmark. Once the manual had been set aside, she handed him an enveloped, one whose wax seal had already been cut open, but that wasn't unusual as every single one of the jobs he'd worked on thus far had been assigned to Foma's little blond haired supervisor not to him.
"I thought we'd cleared out your queue for the week, miss," he replied with a quirk of his head as he fished out the contents of the envelope.
"We did."
"Then-"
"Perhaps it's best you read first and ask questions after," she interrupted, small hands on skirt-padded hips and a frustrated sigh backing her words.
"Ehrm... right. Yes, of course."
With a gentle hum of thought tickling the end of his nose, Foma quickly unfolded the written request and immediately recognized two things. The first was the handwriting itself. Master Wagner's flowing, genuinely beautiful script was unmistakable, making anything the man wrote nearly art all on its own, let alone what the words themselves might bring into creation through the hands of his diligent apprentices. Direct requests from the master himself weren't common, but he'd seen enough of them during his time under Miss Holzknecht that it wasn't a point of astonishment any longer.
The second thing, however, most definitely was.
Every single set of instructions the master had ever sent out was directly addressed to one of the apprentices who populated his workshop. Miss Holzknecht was, more often than not, the more common name at the top of the request which generally contained several paragraphs details what it was he wanted done followed, if necessary, by blueprints which, as Foma had learned the first time he'd followed them exactly, were more guidelines than a hard rule. Mister Dohman and Mister Gutermuth were also often named, and even Miss Pletcher had received one or two since he'd been taken on; and she had only been there a month or two before him.
This time it was his name neatly scrawled there in the heading: "Foma Kozlov".
As if he'd been struck with lightning, Foma jerked his head up from the paper to gaze fiendishly at Miss Holzknecht, laughter and exuberant enthusiasm in his eyes. "It's- this is-"
"Stop stuttering and read," she very nearly growled out at him, her patience seemingly thin but betrayed by the slight, upwards tug at the corners of her lips.
Actual laughter slipped out of him as he nodded, finding his skin hotter than he remembered. Dark eyes carefully scanned the letter's contents, and his nervous elation found itself... confused. "This says," he began, speaking in a half-mutter as he continued to read, gaze jumping from line to line to make certain he hadn't somehow forgotten how to do it. "I'm to complete this project... alone? With no assistance from you or the others... or your resources?"
"Hm. Does it?"
Again, Foma looked up from the letter, his jubilation now marred with genuine concern over the very much daunting task he'd just been handed. "How-"
Miss Holzknecht held up a finger, the smile on her child's lips one of unbridled amusement. "Ah ah ah! I believe the exact wording was..." she cleared her throat, her impression of her uncle disturbingly accurate given he was nearly six times her elder. "'Under no circumstances nor in any way is the head artificer of this project to collaborate with his peers. This includes but is not limited to-" Little fingers popped up one after the other as examples were named by rote, "Consultations, acquisition of resources, outside clarifications of this project, general assistance of any kind, and,'" she paused, positively beaming in the face of Foma's incredulous stare. "'Especially Miss Kriemhilde Holzknecht.'"
"But I-"
"Am hopelessly lost without me?" she chuckled, lightly tossing her hair. "Yes, you are. As you have not directly asked me any questions, and as I am, of this moment, no longer speaking directly to you," she continued, already turning and beginning to walk away, "I shall now think to myself aloud: perhaps the very point of such a request is something of a test? To see if the little gutter rat that wandered into the master's workshop truly is the asset he'd promised he'd become?"
Her small shoulders rose and fell in a non-committal shrug as she sauntered off to join Mister Gutermuth and Miss Pletcher's half-finished project they'd all been working on since she foisted off the last of her shrouds onto Foma earlier that morning.
Staring again at the letter, Foma found himself grinning in spite of himself. His very first project, and it was a test, no less. He wondered as he glanced up at the three other apprentices quietly debating over whether they should use a shroud for the their golem's fingers or several lures placed in lieu of each joint whether they'd undergone much the same trial. Not one of them seemed to notice his stare. In fact, they seemed to make a point of it, their voices rising as they casually turned their backs to him.
He was truly on his own, and for all the apprehension, Foma had no intention of disappointing.
The request itself wasn't anything he hadn't assisted Miss Holzknecht on before: a stationary secretary. They were a popular though exceptionally expensive commodity given the excessive amount of time it took to imprint their cores as well as the requirement of an overbody to learn and adapt to their purchaser's speech and personal vocabulary. One spoke to golem, the golem then transcribed whatever was said down onto paper, and suddenly memoirs and pamphlets and even self-published and distributed journals became possible.
The rub, which made certain that one couldn't simply purchase one of these artificial scribes with a single lump sum and never return unless the poor thing fell apart due to overuse, was that their vocabularies were limited to a core list of several thousand words. On paper, several thousand seemed like quite a lot. More than enough, in fact. In practice, however, Master Wagner received a steady flow of coin from return customers carrying lists of the words to be taught to their golems.
It was a clever scheme and one that, in fact, had not been concocted out of greed but rather necessity. Imprinting upon the golems every known word, sound, and conjugation, especially for foreign languages, bordered upon impossible. So the most common words were directly imprinted while the others were later taught as one might teach any other.
In totality, Foma had been a part of or produced entirely on his own each of the necessary pieces. The issue, however... he'd never actually been the one to put them all together nor had he ever been refused the careful and critical eye of Miss Holzknecht to double check his work. Though it was a shining opportunity to prove not only his worth as an artificer to the master but also show he was man true to his word, it was too a chance for him to fail and fail miserably.
Failure up until then had always carried with it a caveat of self-improvement. When he made a mistake, Miss Holzknecht corrected him, he learned from it, and they pressed on, ideally without repetition, though the more complex a concept or procedure the more likely there were, at least, several more incidents. Now though? Now a mistake directly reflected upon his capabilities, a declaration that he wasn't ready, that he hadn't taken his training and his studies seriously.
And nothing could be farther from the truth.
Carefully separating the several blueprints from the letter itself, he set them out upon the surface of his workbench, pulled out his journal, and set about scribbling out an itinerary. The golem needed to be completed within a week's time, which, in theory, was more than enough. Even with padding to accommodate mistakes or accidents, he estimated he'd be able to finish with a day to spare. More than enough indeed.
Setting aside the journal, Foma pulled the simplest of the blueprints towards him. The physical body was merely a matter of mundane construction, something their workshop generally contracted out to smiths or lapidaries or carpenters, whatever the material of choice. Fortunately he was well familiar with their workshop's common contractors and they with he, as he'd handled, quite literally, all of Miss Holzknecht's requests personally since he'd been taken on as Master Wagner's apprentice.
Drawers opened and closed, paper was procured, his fountain pen was filled, and soon he had two requests neatly drafted, dried, and sealed in their proper envelopes. For the exceptionally dexterous task of writing itself, the fingers and hands and arms, Foma had opted for a carpenter's lighter touch. The tendons of the wrist were what wore out quickest, and while metal would last much longer, hands were so much heavier and required more powerful cores; and they had a nasty habit of rusting when ink was spilled. For the body, however, he opted for simple bronze. It was lighter than iron, generally more pleasing aesthetically when paired with wood, and it was less expensive to have something caste that he could then file down himself rather than paying, in entirety, for an artisans' wooden carving.
He was on a budget, after all, and the master had indicated in his request that there was a need for elegance but not extravagance. Copper and cypress would do.
That was the first order of business not necessarily because it was the most time consuming but because it was the most uncertain. He had no control over how quickly or slowly outside entities might complete something, and it was best to get it out of the way as soon as possible. So, without any further diddling about, he slipped the letters into his pockets, donned his cloak, and headed out.
