Essentia Animus

01-Solitary Workshop

The midday sun burned brightly at the peak of a busy day. Schorlwood Village was a bustle of activity as its populace went about their everyday lives to the betterment of their community.

"I'm bored." Vwyxzrihqaeli of the Bhyiqiexhaez family put down her tools after finishing yet another schorlwood bookshelf. Deep within the woodlands of the same trees their village had been named after, there was nearly an endless supply of the wood her family had devoted generations in cultivating and making use of. Vwyx herself had been handling the same wood from a young age, to the point that she was skilled in the craft even though she was only eighteen. However, it wasn't as if she found her talents the most fulfilling pursuit, no matter how good she was with it.

To her, the problem wasn't the wood, but what she did with it. A bookshelf here, a table there, even a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. All things she could make almost in her sleep, and they were about as disinteresting. The last time she was given something interesting to do was early summer last year, when she helped with making a waterwheel for the village. It was something that moved, that did stuff, that held even a fraction of interest.. and then it was done. Since then, she had tried to make smaller gimmicks from wood. Her latest project was to try and make a music box, something that would chime a little tune on demand. She had the casing for it completed, but had reached a bit of an obstacle after that.

A box that would create music would be itself an instrument. More than just from the perspective of musical instruments like flutes and harps, it would be an instrument of the gift. For over two centuries now, the Instrumentation Era has produced instruments of the gift as tools that allow for a person's innate gift to produce effects they would be unable to achieve alone. Everyone had access to the world's gift, after all, but that wasn't enough to just simply be able to accomplish anything the whims of a person might desire. So just as how a ladder could help a person reach new heights, a variety of instruments could help a person with reaching new goals.

The tool Vwyx put down was actually also of her own design, an instrument that helped her to get her carpentry work done much faster than anyone else in her family. The others all relied on mundane tools to fasten wood pieces to other wood pieces, but her wood melder actually meshed the wood pieces into other wood pieces, as if a new whole. It saved their family the price of metal bolts to fasten pieces together with, but it did make it harder to take apart properly without the right instruments. Such was why she was rarely ever allowed to use her own creation. It was fun while it lasted, but making use of her gift and instruments to shape and meld the wood, the bookshelf she had started just after lunch was already done, and she would have to return to the more mundane solutions.

Still, she was ahead of schedule, maybe she could find something else to work on, some new form of inspiration. The music box wasn't cutting it, because she could not complete it. She simply didn't know how to make it work, how it might be designed to complete the task she had imagined it for. It would have to accept a constant flow of the gift, as no instrument could ever keep going after it was cut off from the person providing their gift for it. That alone might be tiring after a while, but even for a short period, it still involved things that were beyond her. Making the right notes with just wooden implements wasn't working, she would need either complicated metallurgy to get the right tones or if she wanted it to play like a wooden flute.. she would need it to be capable of influencing the air around it on demand. She had no idea how to accomplish either, unfortunately, not with her resources alone. Unfortunately, she had no one else she could turn to in times like these, so she would need to find another project to work on.

"Sis! The delivery guy is here from the city!" Vwyx's younger sister burst into her work room without warning, startling her suddenly. "Hey! Don't do that! If I was working on anything important, you could have ruined it on me like that!" "You're not doing anything important? Awesome, mother wants you downstairs. Oh great, you finished that bookshelf already, father will love to hear the news." Vwyx was disappointed to find her tranquility had been all shattered by her sister. So much for having time to herself for figuring out a new exciting project, it was back to the regular boring already. Her sister ran off before her, already spreading the news to her parents well before she could arrive.