Mundane Life

[Deleted]

Torin was accustomed to manual labor, but lacked the expertise of one who lived a life devoted to such tasks. The folk in Mardok still believed Torin to be a simpleton, and as such chocked his inefficient work to such. Today, as on many days, Torin set out for the woods with a borrowed axe. He had an understanding of sorts with the axes owner, a middle aged fellow by the name of Horus. Horus allowed Torin to utilize his tools in exchange for keeping them supplied with adequate fire wood. He also allowed Torin to stay in his shed, and kept Torin fed as long as he helped out with the chores.

Torin was growing bored, but he was learning much from the man about the ways of the common folk. Despite his boredom, it wouldn't hurt to strengthen himself by chopping wood, and some of the more prime specimen he collected could be brought to a smith to equip him with sword and armor. With such thoughts in mind Torin found himself at the edge of the wood. He searched for a decent tree near the edge of the wood and he began to try chopping it down.

Chopping a tree? Sta 15/20:

[Cheph]

-Failure-

[Deleted]

The axe Torin wielded bounced quite harmlessly off of the hard wood, his technique and strength were obviously not up to par for this particular tree. Torin however, was not one to be defeated by a tree, especially not a tree such as this one, it mocked him. It was on the edge of the wood, it was tall, it was straight, it was a hard wood, it was in effect a perfect tree. He couldn't name the species to save his life, but it was everything one might expect from a tree. He had no real plans for the tree, but a tree such as this might very well fetch a decent price once it had been trimmed of branches which could be dried and used for firewood.

Torin was not to be defeated by the tree, relentlessly he swung the axe, doing very little with each swing, but as water can carve a canyon, so too would Torin carve down this tree with the axe. Sweat was forming on his brow his arms were beginning to ache, his hands were gaining blisters, soft hands that had not often seen manual labor. Still he was going to slay this tree regardless of the time it would take to do so.


Chopping the tree Sta 10/20: if a 40 something is a failure, obviously 90 is a failure...


Torin cried out in rage at the tree, it may have well been the first sound the townsfolk here had heard him utter. No matter how hard he tried the axe just seemed to bounce off the tree. Perhaps the axe was dull he told himself, but no, it split hairs. The problem was him, his ineptitude at tree chopping. This was the first large tree he had tried to fell. The others had been no larger than his leg and were clearly softer than this wood. Perhaps it was some enchanted tree, some wood unknown to him that was quite uncuttable. NO, he wouldn't fall into that line of thought, it was merely a tree and was as fellable as any other tree in the wood. He would bring the tree down, even if he must come back the following day.

[Arthurius Vallance]

Arthurius slowly and cautiously tiptoed around the forest floor, trying not to step on to much lest it ruin any potential specimens that he might have been able to gather. He was out once again looking for even more supplies and ingredients, it seemed taht this one part of his alchemical work took up more time than any other part, he'd spent more time just gathering supplies than he had doing any other single thing for a long time now. He hadn't realised how much work someone had to go through to get supplies, he had to feel sorry for the servants in his parent's duchy, they'd had to provide him with large quantities of ingredients each day that were all much harder to find than the kind he was currently getting. It must have taken them hours to gather what he needed, he had a new respect for them for carrying on so long for him.

Anyway, Arthurius' eyes were glued to the forest floor, scanning like a hawk for it's prey, hopefully he'd find something good, he'd had some success in the past but had yet to find anything that he could actually turn into something useful, he kept up the hope of finding something eventually and as time went on it was more and more likely that he'd finally manage it but for now he just had to keep looking.

Arthius heard the clang of metal on wood, he looked up, without even realising it he'd drifted towards the edge of the forest, appparently he was near to some sort of settlement as he could see a man with an axe trying to chop down a tree, trying being the main word in that sentence as he was failing amazingly. How hard could chopping down one tree be.

"Hello? Do you know where i am exactly?" He knew that he was somewhere on the border of Mallon forest but that was the extent of his knowledge, that was literally as far as he could go in terms of knowing exactly where he was, he'd need to know more specifically or how would he get back.

---

Gathering I and Herbalism I 

[Deleted]

A voice interrupted his concentration on chopping the damned tree, "Hello? Do you know where i am exactly?"

In that moment, Torin had had enough of the tree and of trying to chop it down. In his frustration Torin threw the axe, just threw it as hard as he could back towards the village. It was hopeless, his hands were blistered from trying to cut the damned thing down and he had managed to knock some bark off the tree, but that was about the extent of his damages to the what must be enchanted tree.

He'd had enough of his facade, playing dumb was not fun, it was degrading, belittling, and he was tired of it. After calming down a bit he turned to the man, he was familiar they had met on a previous occasion when Torin had wandered further south. "You're just outside a small village in southern Mardok. What brings you here?"

[Deleted]

Arthurius Acquires

Leaves (2)
Straw (2)
Dragonfruit (3)

[Arthurius Vallance]

Mardok? He was in Mardok again, it seemed that all of his travels revolved around this place, it wasn't surprising seeing as he'd left out from Mardok to gather herbs, but the fact that he'd travelled down into the south without even realising how far he'd gone troubled him slightly. He knew that he zoned out whilst collecting herbs but he hadn't realised that it was quite to this effect, it scared him slightly that he could do this without even realising.

"Thank you, i'm gathering herbs for my work as an alchemist." Arthurius looked at the man, probably the source of the sounds he'd heard, the axe he'd just thrown behind him probably the source of it to be exact but Arthurius wasn't about to question him. He appeared frustrated, probably at having thrown away his axe, but the alchemist wouldn't know he'd left his axe in Tyr's workshop. "The bounty this time was good, very useful in fact."

And with that work took over, Arthurius removed several small pieces of equipment from his bag along with a small glass vial and a mortar and pestle, crushing down the leaves and dragonfruit into a paste before adding water from another small vial and mixing them together in the first vial. "If all goes well then this will show how good these ingredients are."

---

Arthurius uses Herbalism I and Alchemist I to try and make something from 1 leaves and 1 dragonfruit


zpOw7Bx2

Threshold failed.

[Deleted]

Torin had never encountered alchemy before, so he didn't really know what to make of what the man was doing now, not that Torin had a lot of experience with anything in the outside world. While he appreciated Teacher's education, it hadn't really prepared him to face the everyday challenges that the world offered. He observed as the man mixed some leaves and dragonfruit in some type of contraption.

"If all goes well then this will show how good these ingredients are."

"What are you hoping to accomplish by mixing those?" Torin was genuinely curious. He knew a bit of magic, and he was decent with a sword, but this was beyond the scope of his experience. What was the goal of an alchemist? Was it something specific? or was it just a constant pursuit of knowledge?