Hill Home Pt. 3
Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2022 12:01 pm
TIMESTAMP: Ash 28th, 122
NOTES: -
NOTES: -
- - -
Ash 28th, Late Afternoon thru Ash 29th, Morning, 112
After a long day exploring the coast, Aardwalden turned his attention back to the home he was building, stepping up those stone steps dusted with dried mud by the light showers the day before, striding through the archway into the yawning darkness of his quaint, handmade abode.
Holding out the palm of his hand, Aardwalden held a short conversation of feeling with the stone in his mind, and then thanked the earth for its kindness as it began to bleed and bubble from the surface of his stony fingers, congealing into a crystal fed by pure aether. The creation of objects such as this was precisely why had had chosen to pursue carving the earth with tools in harmony with the earth, rather than ask it to shift for him.
A Lodestone, at the height of his capability. The last time he created one, he could feel the Strain settling in. This time, he didn’t quite feel it, even with the work he’d done in prior days, but he knew not to push his luck. At least he would have enough time left to shape and mold the earth into a proper bloomery, and to infuse this Lodestone with the potent spell that would fuel it.
Even with no spell, the aether in its make gave rise to a soft light in the dark commons of Aardwalden’s home away from home. His still body held it aloft, showing it like a newborn child to the earth around him. “We make such great things together, you the earth, and I your steward,” he said aloud and with heart. “Let us build a forge the dwarven smiths of old would admire! Please accept the flame as your brother, the blood of the mountain just as you are its bones!”
Calling upon not just the earth, but fire as well, Aardwalden allowed them to know each other in harmony, dancing between their differences as the heat swirled in his hand. Flame imbued rock, and more and more embers danced beneath to join hands with his Arche. Soon the Para-Element of molten lava took shape, a halo of blistering orange slowly receding into the pull of the heavy, Lodestone quartz.
The crystal glowered a vibrant orange, a warmth belying its dangerous truths as it shone its dull light upon the cavern walls. Holding his children close, Aardwalden moved to the forge and set it down. For now, it would be a simple source of light.
Setting his sights upon the sculpted ceiling with mind alight, Aardwalden briefly considered again how his bloomery might take shape. It seemed to him that the construction should be multi-purpose, that it need not be perfect, only functional. Forging was a unison of the elements, with earth to bind fire, air to feed it, and water to quench and temper the metal it spawned.
The schist of these walls was too brittle a stone to handle the convection of immense heat. Aardwalden preferred quartz, its crystalline structure giving it an edge in holding back the heat. Tracing a wide circle with his foot, he outlined the dimensions of its base, and then held his arms out before calling upon the earth.
Feeding aether to his bond, he gave the stone what it needed to fulfill his will. It was still amiable, both from his Attunement to the hills around him, and that the stone was his Arche. Perhaps that was why he could do more, or perhaps he had simply grown from these last few years since leaving the Mountain Holds and becoming but a child to a much larger world.
From his feet radiated quartz stone, lifting him and pooling out like a cool, slow wave. There was no sense in forcing the earth to act faster than it wanted. He wanted the earth to enjoy working together with him, and it, even the hill itself knew his aim and the home he sought to build for himself here.
As the stone met Aardwalden’s traced berth, he lifted his palms to guide it with him, bringing it up at a sloping angle once the round wall of crystal was a certain height, bumpy and jagged as it wished to be. Then, he pulled it inward to a gentle slope above his head, reaching slowly for the ceiling seven feet above, the light slowly fading before he was ultimately plunged into darkness.
Bending forward, Aardwalden pushed upon the wall, asking it to part a window for him, and light from the lava Lodestone flooded into the stone bloomery.
There was still one more task at hand: ventilation. Smoke would starve everyone and everything of air if he did not provide it. This wouldn’t function like a normal bloomery. Rather, it would be powered by magic, the processes of reducing the ore to its molten grains. He merely needed to ventilate it, unlike a traditional bloomery where many phases and complex structures were necessary to marry the heat with its substances. That, and he could always line the walls with flux later should he need to manufacture better metals than iron such as steel.
Setting his sights upon the ceiling of the chamber again, Aardwalden shut his eyes then hummed in quiet harmony with the stone around him. The schist greeted him with feelings, and he told the schist of the tunnel he wished to make, the width of his shoulders at most above him, all the way to the surface.
The earth began to shake, dust dislodging from above as the quartz opened to his will. Dozens of feet of stone parted, compacting tighter with the stone nearby as a crack appeared in the ceiling and began to widen all at once. The light of an evening sky shone down upon him through a hole far above, and the air rushed down to greet his face with a soft caress.
With the chamber finished, Aardwalden pulled himself up to the window and tumbled out of it with a cracking thud, then rose to admire his shadowy handiwork beneath the light. Turning, he guided the shape with his hands to form a long, tube-shaped chamber for materials to be shoveled in, and then carried out from.
Like the Schist Rod before, Aardwalden opted to fit the Lodestone to another kind of stone itself, embedding it within a rather thick half-dome cradle bored with a hollow tube at one end by coaxing more mundane quartz stone to surround it. Pressing it to the wall of the bloomery, he kindly asked the stone to make way and hug the beautiful creation, and as he did so, darkness fell upon him save for a small sliver of glowing orange hollowed out in the base of the cradle it was embedded into.
With enough light to see plainly, Aardwalden asked the stone to form quartz Sorcerer’s Sand, feeding his aether to it as he carefully etched, filled, and bonded the quartz plug he’d made from hollowing out the bottom of the cradle with a Mirror at its edge, and a Path leading upwards before ending with another Mirror, the symbol concave in a way that was sensitive to his own aether with careful etchings to facilitate this. Further smoothing over the loose sands clinging to the stone, he bonded them neatly until the quartz was a channel of aether-enriched stone imperceptible from the stone around it. The connections were still shoddy and imperfect, but Aard felt fairly confident it would not activate unless pressed by his thumb, so he slotted the plug into the hole, and with both thumb and Mirror carrying the will of a man translated through artificial median.
The Lodestone within hummed softly, and then began to bleed its molten heat into the chamber. Light and searing heat erupted from the upwards tube, and smoke began to rise from the accruing lava slopping into the furnace. “Not bad for an old gnome and his friends,” Aardwalden spoke, both to himself and the elements around him. As he let his thumb off the plug, the lava ceased erupting from the tip of the crystal, and he could feel its presence settling into the bottom where it began to ever so slowly cool.
From the beach afar, all could see the worrisome smoke rising from the hill between a few blasted stones, not far from the opening to Aardwalden’s Hill Home.
Pulling the plug free, Aardwalden felt into the crack to see if any of the lava had bled backwards from the frame, and he was reasonably relieved to find this had worked. There was one problem, though, as he turned over the quartz plug in his hands: the solidified Sorcerer’s Sand was the exact same tone as the surrounding quartz, nor was its grain any different, nor could he really feel the lines specifically beyond knowing the stone was different.
“Ah,” he said simply, when it dawned upon him that he would have to remake the plug when his Scrivened symbols inevitably failed, rather than simply maintain its structures.
Loot:
- Hill Home Elementalist's Furnace
Ash 28th, Late Afternoon thru Ash 29th, Morning, 112
After a long day exploring the coast, Aardwalden turned his attention back to the home he was building, stepping up those stone steps dusted with dried mud by the light showers the day before, striding through the archway into the yawning darkness of his quaint, handmade abode.
Holding out the palm of his hand, Aardwalden held a short conversation of feeling with the stone in his mind, and then thanked the earth for its kindness as it began to bleed and bubble from the surface of his stony fingers, congealing into a crystal fed by pure aether. The creation of objects such as this was precisely why had had chosen to pursue carving the earth with tools in harmony with the earth, rather than ask it to shift for him.
A Lodestone, at the height of his capability. The last time he created one, he could feel the Strain settling in. This time, he didn’t quite feel it, even with the work he’d done in prior days, but he knew not to push his luck. At least he would have enough time left to shape and mold the earth into a proper bloomery, and to infuse this Lodestone with the potent spell that would fuel it.
Even with no spell, the aether in its make gave rise to a soft light in the dark commons of Aardwalden’s home away from home. His still body held it aloft, showing it like a newborn child to the earth around him. “We make such great things together, you the earth, and I your steward,” he said aloud and with heart. “Let us build a forge the dwarven smiths of old would admire! Please accept the flame as your brother, the blood of the mountain just as you are its bones!”
Calling upon not just the earth, but fire as well, Aardwalden allowed them to know each other in harmony, dancing between their differences as the heat swirled in his hand. Flame imbued rock, and more and more embers danced beneath to join hands with his Arche. Soon the Para-Element of molten lava took shape, a halo of blistering orange slowly receding into the pull of the heavy, Lodestone quartz.
The crystal glowered a vibrant orange, a warmth belying its dangerous truths as it shone its dull light upon the cavern walls. Holding his children close, Aardwalden moved to the forge and set it down. For now, it would be a simple source of light.
Setting his sights upon the sculpted ceiling with mind alight, Aardwalden briefly considered again how his bloomery might take shape. It seemed to him that the construction should be multi-purpose, that it need not be perfect, only functional. Forging was a unison of the elements, with earth to bind fire, air to feed it, and water to quench and temper the metal it spawned.
The schist of these walls was too brittle a stone to handle the convection of immense heat. Aardwalden preferred quartz, its crystalline structure giving it an edge in holding back the heat. Tracing a wide circle with his foot, he outlined the dimensions of its base, and then held his arms out before calling upon the earth.
Feeding aether to his bond, he gave the stone what it needed to fulfill his will. It was still amiable, both from his Attunement to the hills around him, and that the stone was his Arche. Perhaps that was why he could do more, or perhaps he had simply grown from these last few years since leaving the Mountain Holds and becoming but a child to a much larger world.
From his feet radiated quartz stone, lifting him and pooling out like a cool, slow wave. There was no sense in forcing the earth to act faster than it wanted. He wanted the earth to enjoy working together with him, and it, even the hill itself knew his aim and the home he sought to build for himself here.
As the stone met Aardwalden’s traced berth, he lifted his palms to guide it with him, bringing it up at a sloping angle once the round wall of crystal was a certain height, bumpy and jagged as it wished to be. Then, he pulled it inward to a gentle slope above his head, reaching slowly for the ceiling seven feet above, the light slowly fading before he was ultimately plunged into darkness.
Bending forward, Aardwalden pushed upon the wall, asking it to part a window for him, and light from the lava Lodestone flooded into the stone bloomery.
There was still one more task at hand: ventilation. Smoke would starve everyone and everything of air if he did not provide it. This wouldn’t function like a normal bloomery. Rather, it would be powered by magic, the processes of reducing the ore to its molten grains. He merely needed to ventilate it, unlike a traditional bloomery where many phases and complex structures were necessary to marry the heat with its substances. That, and he could always line the walls with flux later should he need to manufacture better metals than iron such as steel.
Setting his sights upon the ceiling of the chamber again, Aardwalden shut his eyes then hummed in quiet harmony with the stone around him. The schist greeted him with feelings, and he told the schist of the tunnel he wished to make, the width of his shoulders at most above him, all the way to the surface.
The earth began to shake, dust dislodging from above as the quartz opened to his will. Dozens of feet of stone parted, compacting tighter with the stone nearby as a crack appeared in the ceiling and began to widen all at once. The light of an evening sky shone down upon him through a hole far above, and the air rushed down to greet his face with a soft caress.
With the chamber finished, Aardwalden pulled himself up to the window and tumbled out of it with a cracking thud, then rose to admire his shadowy handiwork beneath the light. Turning, he guided the shape with his hands to form a long, tube-shaped chamber for materials to be shoveled in, and then carried out from.
Like the Schist Rod before, Aardwalden opted to fit the Lodestone to another kind of stone itself, embedding it within a rather thick half-dome cradle bored with a hollow tube at one end by coaxing more mundane quartz stone to surround it. Pressing it to the wall of the bloomery, he kindly asked the stone to make way and hug the beautiful creation, and as he did so, darkness fell upon him save for a small sliver of glowing orange hollowed out in the base of the cradle it was embedded into.
With enough light to see plainly, Aardwalden asked the stone to form quartz Sorcerer’s Sand, feeding his aether to it as he carefully etched, filled, and bonded the quartz plug he’d made from hollowing out the bottom of the cradle with a Mirror at its edge, and a Path leading upwards before ending with another Mirror, the symbol concave in a way that was sensitive to his own aether with careful etchings to facilitate this. Further smoothing over the loose sands clinging to the stone, he bonded them neatly until the quartz was a channel of aether-enriched stone imperceptible from the stone around it. The connections were still shoddy and imperfect, but Aard felt fairly confident it would not activate unless pressed by his thumb, so he slotted the plug into the hole, and with both thumb and Mirror carrying the will of a man translated through artificial median.
The Lodestone within hummed softly, and then began to bleed its molten heat into the chamber. Light and searing heat erupted from the upwards tube, and smoke began to rise from the accruing lava slopping into the furnace. “Not bad for an old gnome and his friends,” Aardwalden spoke, both to himself and the elements around him. As he let his thumb off the plug, the lava ceased erupting from the tip of the crystal, and he could feel its presence settling into the bottom where it began to ever so slowly cool.
From the beach afar, all could see the worrisome smoke rising from the hill between a few blasted stones, not far from the opening to Aardwalden’s Hill Home.
Pulling the plug free, Aardwalden felt into the crack to see if any of the lava had bled backwards from the frame, and he was reasonably relieved to find this had worked. There was one problem, though, as he turned over the quartz plug in his hands: the solidified Sorcerer’s Sand was the exact same tone as the surrounding quartz, nor was its grain any different, nor could he really feel the lines specifically beyond knowing the stone was different.
“Ah,” he said simply, when it dawned upon him that he would have to remake the plug when his Scrivened symbols inevitably failed, rather than simply maintain its structures.
Loot:
- Hill Home Elementalist's Furnace
- - -