It was just as well that Alys chose the mortaring project; if Soleil had moved towards it Tal might have had trouble holding back the mild panic from his expression. But he trusted his friend's good sense and efficiency, and he gave her a brief, grateful grin before she went to grab her supplies. The mortar, as it turned out, needed more than a little water to thin it. At first it was too thick to serve its purpose, the stones not fitting quite right back into the places. All it took was time and a little more elbow grease stirring extra water in, however, and eventually the Seer was able to get the chimney patched up good as new!
Soleil 's luck was really quite impressive, from a certain point of view. Luckily she had chosen a task that was very hard to catastrophically fail at, so instead of anything breaking it just took her a lot longer than it should have to do the cleaning up. Little gusts of wind from the warped door that didn't quite fit in its frame and the broken windows kept stirring up her dust piles and blowing the grit off her pan before she could dump it outside. The water slopped out of bucket and splashed everywhere, taking extra time to sop up and redistribute evenly across the wood floor.
But her singing was a cheerful counterpoint to the other work that was happening around the building. Tal took the siding, cutting out the old, damaged boards and replacing them with new ones with economical taps of his hammer. He was careful to seal the edges flush with the remaining boards so no further gaps would let cold air in, and as he worked he occasionally hummed along with Sol - at least until he realized what he was doing and hurriedly cleared his throat back to silence.
Until the next time he relaxed into the work and it happened again.
Finally they finished their work and as they gathered around Tal looked around with admiration. The rooms on the main floor were now clean, with sturdy walls and an intact chimney. There were just a few things left to finish it up...
"One last push an' I think we can call it done for t'day," he told his helpers, almost cheerful with how well things were moving along. "Just need t'replace the doors an' windows, an' slap a fresh coat o' paint on th'walls, an' that'll be it for the downstairs. Boreal an' I can finish th'rest on our own after that."
Last round!
- With the wall repaired, the place just needs a fresh coat of paint!
- The window glass (two windows on either side of the front door) needs replaced (the frames are fine but they need new panes)
- The front and back door are warped and new doors (provided in the supplies outside) need to be hung on the existing hinges
Soleil 's luck was really quite impressive, from a certain point of view. Luckily she had chosen a task that was very hard to catastrophically fail at, so instead of anything breaking it just took her a lot longer than it should have to do the cleaning up. Little gusts of wind from the warped door that didn't quite fit in its frame and the broken windows kept stirring up her dust piles and blowing the grit off her pan before she could dump it outside. The water slopped out of bucket and splashed everywhere, taking extra time to sop up and redistribute evenly across the wood floor.
But her singing was a cheerful counterpoint to the other work that was happening around the building. Tal took the siding, cutting out the old, damaged boards and replacing them with new ones with economical taps of his hammer. He was careful to seal the edges flush with the remaining boards so no further gaps would let cold air in, and as he worked he occasionally hummed along with Sol - at least until he realized what he was doing and hurriedly cleared his throat back to silence.
Until the next time he relaxed into the work and it happened again.
Finally they finished their work and as they gathered around Tal looked around with admiration. The rooms on the main floor were now clean, with sturdy walls and an intact chimney. There were just a few things left to finish it up...
"One last push an' I think we can call it done for t'day," he told his helpers, almost cheerful with how well things were moving along. "Just need t'replace the doors an' windows, an' slap a fresh coat o' paint on th'walls, an' that'll be it for the downstairs. Boreal an' I can finish th'rest on our own after that."
Last round!
- With the wall repaired, the place just needs a fresh coat of paint!
- The window glass (two windows on either side of the front door) needs replaced (the frames are fine but they need new panes)
- The front and back door are warped and new doors (provided in the supplies outside) need to be hung on the existing hinges
