TIMESTAMP: Ash 26th, 122
NOTES: -
NOTES: -
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Ash 26th, Late Afternoon thru Ash 27th, Morning, 122
A Gnome of the earth knew his home lay beneath the stone, in the belly of a mountain, or hugged tight by rock and regolith. To find oneself all alone, with nature, and a heart of industry given life to a soul of rock, he knew that he should save his power, to not exert himself. He could ask the stone to make for him a hovel, and this is not without debate, but he knew he would stress the earth in time, and Overstep his bounds. No, he would use his power to refine and smooth, to ask the earth to do what it already wished.
In the hours prior, Aardwalden had settled down at the foot of these hills, and begun to Attune with its stones. This took some time, the foreign stone unaccustomed to the will of an Elementalist, but in time he grew to foster its friendship, for stone was his Arche, and it loved him just as much as he did. Just as the sky turned orange, he could feel the earth brimming with confidence, every little whisper conversing with the stones around them, and the loamy earth filling its every crevice. The rock, he knew to be Schist, and the loamy soil was nothing special but still welcoming to him all the same.
It was thus that, above the tide line of the sands, he ascended those grassy, rocky hills not far from the beach and found himself a few smaller stones. Resting them upon the flattish, angled surface of a boulder, Aardwalden encouraged them to bond together as one of the deep stones, and they rattled and clacked to form a rippled line before shifting and shattering, coalescing at first to a stone rod, and then to a long, gouging ax of stone ending in a point. The Arche of earth was happy to ingratiate him so.
Aardwalden held aloft the brittle pick of rock, asking the stone to form tighter bonds where there were cracks. Then, he held his hand above it and gave manifest to the hardest of quartz, suffusing the entire creation with veins of the mineral, before asking the element of quartz to Enmesh his new tool in its hard embrace.
Dancing across the surface, the rock stretched in slow, pulsing rises, sculpted smoothly by Aardwalden’s guiding will. The quartz pickaxe was now layered and reinforced, the stone clinging to the surface in such a way that it was no regular pick, for so long as he maintained the spell.
It had been many a year since he first struck stone, but Aardwalden hefted that large tool, half as wide as he was tall, and brought it down upon the very same stone anvil with a heavy force. The hard tip clattered, then glanced askew, but he pulled back and tried once more, and this time the boulder felt the intention of his tool.
There was a crack, then a clatter, and hewed stone clattered down to the sandy foot of the hill below. Aardwalden raised a brow, then nodded slowly to himself in assessment. This would do finely, in the coming weeks.
First Aardwalden began the step stones. He posited that each should be twelve of inch in step depth, and took his ax to the stone and earth, whipping the end down with a creak of his own body. The blade dug between stones, then wedged them upward, ripping moss and grass roots in its wake.
Aardwalden then bent down, lifted the small boulder, and tossed it down the hill to shatter into a dozen sharp fragments against a boulder there. Those would be of use to him later. He repeated the same process, clearing a trench down to the beach below before ascending with his ax, more finely splitting the stone into rough and rugged, uneven steps.
Hours later, Aardwalden had himself a set of steps. His stones ached and felt in some ways brittle, but his kind were built for this. The dwarves themselves could struggle to match a gnome skilled at digging earth, he knew, and while he was no miner, he at least was bonded with the earth in a way that allowed him to feel its give and take.
Descending down the steps, Aardwalden asked the rock to Sculpt itself step by step, smoothing it down to a flat surface. From down upon the beach, he looked up at the stones, and then realized day dusk had turned to night, something he often forgot happened above the earth. The moon shone upon it, showing his work. It would take water to polish the dirty earth, and he still required walls for the stone path to prevent the encroach of grass and dirt, but this was the bare minimum necessitated by the situation.
Climbing the steps, Aardwalden dug himself a wide, square platform in the earth, the hill rising for several feet above its edge, showing him the layers of rock and dirt slouching with the will to fall. Smoothing over this platform like he did for the steps, he encouraged the brittle, porous Schist stone into two stout pillars seven feet in height at his careful direction, and then bridged them with an arch of the same mineral drawn from the stones behind it. The entrance was a first impression; he could not resist himself.
Behind the pillar, Aardwalden struck the earth, and began digging inward, hollowing out the stones, then raking them back with the head of his pick to toss them down the hill. Rock clacked throughout the night, a nuisance to those who chose to encamp by the western hills to be sure.
The deeper he dug, the more Aardwalden had to Influence the rocks above to take a more stable shape, for he could feel their yearning to collapse, and he had to assuage their concerns before he could dig yet more. Sculpting the concave ceiling, he made it smooth until he could feel its confidence, and then ten feet inward beyond this foyer, he began to break rock in the dim light, which to his gnomish eyes was not so dark as to require a source to see with just yet. To anyone who inspected his work by this point, however, the yawning archway resonating with the sound of a pick striking stone must have looked like an intimidating void, a cave into the earth.
The common area had to be mined in two layers, Aardwalden knew. Perhaps three, to create a dome. By now, the rocks were becoming harder still to excavate by his lonesome, and while he considered beseeching the natives also trapped here upon this expedition for help, it was likely that they still slumbered so he opted to find a different solution.
Shaping for himself a rod from the schist rubble, Aardwalden held his hand aloft and focused on coalescing a stone rod, then tipped it in a quartz-like Lodestone of average potential, coaxing the stone to form for him a conduit for his power made entirely from his own Aether. Within its bounds, he spoke to it the will of the stone, that loose earth that felt isolated from their neighbors should follow at its direction at a distance. This Lodestone, he covered with the same Schist, until it was a rounded orb sculpted smoothly to the rest of the rod.
Rolling his fingers over the orb, Aardwalden very carefully used another piece of Schist to begin Scrivening a basic Path from one side of the rod with repeated scrapes, willing the stone to accept his depths and create smooth grooves ending in a concave, outward-facing Mirror within a small crater to release and direct the spell. Rough and unsightly, perhaps barely functional. To activate the rod, he fashioned a stone plug tipped with a mirror, carrying the Path upwards towards the outer edges of the orb. As he touched the plug to the the Lodestone, it awoke to the presence of Aether, and he could feel the stone around him begin to acknowledge its presence.
Lowering the Schist Rod down towards a heap of rubble, Aardwalden delighted as the stones crawled towards him, dragging with a great cacophony through the earth. He walked the stones down the steps to the beach below, littering them in a great pile before removing the stone plug and breaking the Scrivened pathway so that they would not follow him back up the steps.
Aardwalden continued to hollow out the commons, caked in dirt to his delight. This was but one step towards a future here, and he wished to help the people here and show his worth to them. When the rubble built up, he dragged it away with his rod, and soon the sandy foot of the hill was something of a stone garden riddled with boulders and pebbles.
After hours of labor, as the sun dawned upon the Expedition, Aardwalden’s Hill Home now opened to a dusty, dark interior with an eight foot, domed chamber smoothed over by his Elementalism. At its center, he stood until the early afternoon, in a quiet trance of rest, inert and motionless, the Schist Rod in one hand, and the Quartz Pickaxe in the other with shards of quartz by his feet from the Enmeshing spell deteriorating in his slumber.
Loot
1x Schist Rod
This Scrivened schist rod is fashioned with an Journeyman-level Lodestone, imbued with the spell to pull the loose stones it points towards while keeping them at a distance as if being drug by a net, but not larger stones such as heavy boulders bigger than a torso. A key, a stone plug, activates the device when inserted into a round hole in the opaque schist orb upon its end. The Scrivened Paths and Mirrors are exceptionally shoddy, and it deteriorates by the day. It will need to be maintained once a week or else cease functioning. The Lodestone regenerates to allow for up to ten minutes of stone Influencing per day.
1x Quartz Pickaxe
On its own, this large pickaxe is an ax of schist layered with veins of quartz, and quite brittle. When Enmeshed with the hug of quartz by an elementalist though, it serves its purpose quite well at hewing softer stones such as schist.
Hill Home - Progress
- Common Area (Unfurnished)
- Foyer (Unfurnished)
- Steps leading to a landing area (Unfurnished)
- A big mess all over the slope and the beach below
Ash 26th, Late Afternoon thru Ash 27th, Morning, 122
A Gnome of the earth knew his home lay beneath the stone, in the belly of a mountain, or hugged tight by rock and regolith. To find oneself all alone, with nature, and a heart of industry given life to a soul of rock, he knew that he should save his power, to not exert himself. He could ask the stone to make for him a hovel, and this is not without debate, but he knew he would stress the earth in time, and Overstep his bounds. No, he would use his power to refine and smooth, to ask the earth to do what it already wished.
In the hours prior, Aardwalden had settled down at the foot of these hills, and begun to Attune with its stones. This took some time, the foreign stone unaccustomed to the will of an Elementalist, but in time he grew to foster its friendship, for stone was his Arche, and it loved him just as much as he did. Just as the sky turned orange, he could feel the earth brimming with confidence, every little whisper conversing with the stones around them, and the loamy earth filling its every crevice. The rock, he knew to be Schist, and the loamy soil was nothing special but still welcoming to him all the same.
It was thus that, above the tide line of the sands, he ascended those grassy, rocky hills not far from the beach and found himself a few smaller stones. Resting them upon the flattish, angled surface of a boulder, Aardwalden encouraged them to bond together as one of the deep stones, and they rattled and clacked to form a rippled line before shifting and shattering, coalescing at first to a stone rod, and then to a long, gouging ax of stone ending in a point. The Arche of earth was happy to ingratiate him so.
Aardwalden held aloft the brittle pick of rock, asking the stone to form tighter bonds where there were cracks. Then, he held his hand above it and gave manifest to the hardest of quartz, suffusing the entire creation with veins of the mineral, before asking the element of quartz to Enmesh his new tool in its hard embrace.
Dancing across the surface, the rock stretched in slow, pulsing rises, sculpted smoothly by Aardwalden’s guiding will. The quartz pickaxe was now layered and reinforced, the stone clinging to the surface in such a way that it was no regular pick, for so long as he maintained the spell.
It had been many a year since he first struck stone, but Aardwalden hefted that large tool, half as wide as he was tall, and brought it down upon the very same stone anvil with a heavy force. The hard tip clattered, then glanced askew, but he pulled back and tried once more, and this time the boulder felt the intention of his tool.
There was a crack, then a clatter, and hewed stone clattered down to the sandy foot of the hill below. Aardwalden raised a brow, then nodded slowly to himself in assessment. This would do finely, in the coming weeks.
First Aardwalden began the step stones. He posited that each should be twelve of inch in step depth, and took his ax to the stone and earth, whipping the end down with a creak of his own body. The blade dug between stones, then wedged them upward, ripping moss and grass roots in its wake.
Aardwalden then bent down, lifted the small boulder, and tossed it down the hill to shatter into a dozen sharp fragments against a boulder there. Those would be of use to him later. He repeated the same process, clearing a trench down to the beach below before ascending with his ax, more finely splitting the stone into rough and rugged, uneven steps.
Hours later, Aardwalden had himself a set of steps. His stones ached and felt in some ways brittle, but his kind were built for this. The dwarves themselves could struggle to match a gnome skilled at digging earth, he knew, and while he was no miner, he at least was bonded with the earth in a way that allowed him to feel its give and take.
Descending down the steps, Aardwalden asked the rock to Sculpt itself step by step, smoothing it down to a flat surface. From down upon the beach, he looked up at the stones, and then realized day dusk had turned to night, something he often forgot happened above the earth. The moon shone upon it, showing his work. It would take water to polish the dirty earth, and he still required walls for the stone path to prevent the encroach of grass and dirt, but this was the bare minimum necessitated by the situation.
Climbing the steps, Aardwalden dug himself a wide, square platform in the earth, the hill rising for several feet above its edge, showing him the layers of rock and dirt slouching with the will to fall. Smoothing over this platform like he did for the steps, he encouraged the brittle, porous Schist stone into two stout pillars seven feet in height at his careful direction, and then bridged them with an arch of the same mineral drawn from the stones behind it. The entrance was a first impression; he could not resist himself.
Behind the pillar, Aardwalden struck the earth, and began digging inward, hollowing out the stones, then raking them back with the head of his pick to toss them down the hill. Rock clacked throughout the night, a nuisance to those who chose to encamp by the western hills to be sure.
The deeper he dug, the more Aardwalden had to Influence the rocks above to take a more stable shape, for he could feel their yearning to collapse, and he had to assuage their concerns before he could dig yet more. Sculpting the concave ceiling, he made it smooth until he could feel its confidence, and then ten feet inward beyond this foyer, he began to break rock in the dim light, which to his gnomish eyes was not so dark as to require a source to see with just yet. To anyone who inspected his work by this point, however, the yawning archway resonating with the sound of a pick striking stone must have looked like an intimidating void, a cave into the earth.
The common area had to be mined in two layers, Aardwalden knew. Perhaps three, to create a dome. By now, the rocks were becoming harder still to excavate by his lonesome, and while he considered beseeching the natives also trapped here upon this expedition for help, it was likely that they still slumbered so he opted to find a different solution.
Shaping for himself a rod from the schist rubble, Aardwalden held his hand aloft and focused on coalescing a stone rod, then tipped it in a quartz-like Lodestone of average potential, coaxing the stone to form for him a conduit for his power made entirely from his own Aether. Within its bounds, he spoke to it the will of the stone, that loose earth that felt isolated from their neighbors should follow at its direction at a distance. This Lodestone, he covered with the same Schist, until it was a rounded orb sculpted smoothly to the rest of the rod.
Rolling his fingers over the orb, Aardwalden very carefully used another piece of Schist to begin Scrivening a basic Path from one side of the rod with repeated scrapes, willing the stone to accept his depths and create smooth grooves ending in a concave, outward-facing Mirror within a small crater to release and direct the spell. Rough and unsightly, perhaps barely functional. To activate the rod, he fashioned a stone plug tipped with a mirror, carrying the Path upwards towards the outer edges of the orb. As he touched the plug to the the Lodestone, it awoke to the presence of Aether, and he could feel the stone around him begin to acknowledge its presence.
Lowering the Schist Rod down towards a heap of rubble, Aardwalden delighted as the stones crawled towards him, dragging with a great cacophony through the earth. He walked the stones down the steps to the beach below, littering them in a great pile before removing the stone plug and breaking the Scrivened pathway so that they would not follow him back up the steps.
Aardwalden continued to hollow out the commons, caked in dirt to his delight. This was but one step towards a future here, and he wished to help the people here and show his worth to them. When the rubble built up, he dragged it away with his rod, and soon the sandy foot of the hill was something of a stone garden riddled with boulders and pebbles.
After hours of labor, as the sun dawned upon the Expedition, Aardwalden’s Hill Home now opened to a dusty, dark interior with an eight foot, domed chamber smoothed over by his Elementalism. At its center, he stood until the early afternoon, in a quiet trance of rest, inert and motionless, the Schist Rod in one hand, and the Quartz Pickaxe in the other with shards of quartz by his feet from the Enmeshing spell deteriorating in his slumber.
Loot
1x Schist Rod
This Scrivened schist rod is fashioned with an Journeyman-level Lodestone, imbued with the spell to pull the loose stones it points towards while keeping them at a distance as if being drug by a net, but not larger stones such as heavy boulders bigger than a torso. A key, a stone plug, activates the device when inserted into a round hole in the opaque schist orb upon its end. The Scrivened Paths and Mirrors are exceptionally shoddy, and it deteriorates by the day. It will need to be maintained once a week or else cease functioning. The Lodestone regenerates to allow for up to ten minutes of stone Influencing per day.
1x Quartz Pickaxe
On its own, this large pickaxe is an ax of schist layered with veins of quartz, and quite brittle. When Enmeshed with the hug of quartz by an elementalist though, it serves its purpose quite well at hewing softer stones such as schist.
Hill Home - Progress
- Common Area (Unfurnished)
- Foyer (Unfurnished)
- Steps leading to a landing area (Unfurnished)
- A big mess all over the slope and the beach below
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