Sun watched with curious intent as Talys worked with the gemstone. Sun’s head turned this way and that as he watched Talys’ movements. When Talys began explaining about how the gemstone was probably too brittle to make a hole in. ”If we can’t make a hole in it that's fine, Can still break it into smaller pieces so I can get seven piece for my seven necklaces?” Sun questioned with his legs crossed and his staff between his legs one arm crossed over his chest. His other arm resting on his other arm with his hand on his chin thoughtfully. ”I’m making them as gifts for each of my family members.” He further explained leaning forward to look at the stone which was about the size of a baseball if it had been circular.

Sun tapped his finger on his chin as he listened to Talys further explain about what to do with the gemstone. He hadn’t realized that his task would be this much trouble for someone else. He hadn’t known that each stone had a different density or brittleness to them. He hadn’t even thought of that. But then he should have, as there were different types of rock in the caves and each one was unique so it would stand to reason that gemstones would be the same. The gibbon physically smacked himself in the forehead with his free hand. This was such a duh moment for him. ”I am so sorry I really didn’t think this would be that much trouble. I didn’t realize gems had different brittleness to them, I really should have because I’ve seen different types of rock. But it really just didn’t occur to me.” The gibbon admitted as he pulled his hand back down to his chin.

Sun watched as Talys worked with each of the stones in turn and he nodded as he passed with each one. ”Well I’m sure I have plenty of leather to attach the stones to the main cord with, can we still get them into pieces?” He was sure he could work around not being able to make holes in the gems. Sun was already getting ideas for how to wrap leather around one end of the gem and tie it to a main cord.

@Talys

Talys shrugged. "Yeah, I can probably do that. I can try, anyway." He screwed his face up and grabbed the first stone, taking the piece of diamond and leveraging it against the rock to fracture it further. He'd try this several times until he couldn't manage it anymore. By the end of it, he ended up with seven roughly equal shards of rhodochrosite. The palms of his hands were red and angry from the rock, but he just smiled at Sun-Wukong and offered him the shards. "Here you go! This might take me a while." Just the one had taken him somewhere approaching thirty minutes.

"I'll finish it, though."


@sun-wukong
(lmk if you want me to just... do this like a solo for the next several posts lmao, he might not end up with seven pieces for all of them bc that'll depend on the rolls but he'll do his best!)

Sun smiled warmly as Talys nodded and agreed to at the very least try to get him seven pieces of each gemstone. ”Thank you, if you feel you need a break to rest your hands let me know I really don’t mind just sitting and chatting for a few moments, you seem to be very interesting. You seem to be a primate like me at the very least which has me curious.” The gibbon spoke for a moment musing that he would like to get to know Talys a little more. Curious to know what else the two of them might have in common other than walking up right and having hands and feet. They certainly didn’t have fur the same way. His was thick and full and soft, while Talys’ hair was only on his head and long.

Sun watched Talys work on the gemstone, he couldn’t help but wonder if his companion was indeed alright. It seemed to be quite taxing work for one to do on their own. Though he was happy to see that the first gemstone broke into seven rather nicely shaped pieces of gemstone. ”Ah you’re truly wonderful Talys! If you have time sometime I would very much like to learn a few tricks from you.” The gibbon mused as he gathered up the pieces he was handed and tucked them away in his bag. ”Time is of no consequence to me, if you have the time then so do I friend.” Sun assured Talys that he could wait if Talys was willing to do the work. Sun grumbled a bit to himself and gazed curiously at Talys’ hands wondering if they were doing okay with the work they were doing.

@Talys

If you want to go ahead and knock out all the rolls I don't mind Just tag me when you're done and I'll post and we can finish up the thread or they can just chat for a bit.

Talys took the topaz in his hands next. It was hard enough that he had to make different notches in it with the diamond shard to try and make sure it would break in more or less the way he wanted it to, and then he was using the leverage of the rock and his diamond piece (twisting against its own cleavage so it would be stronger) to try and shatter it. Cracks webbed up just a bit, but the rock held. Gemstones could be stubborn, after all.

He assessed it carefully for a moment, holding the stone up to the light to see where it was breaking. He needed to make sure he was doing this right, after all -- it was easier with the way he was using his body weight and the strength of the rock versus the weaknesses of the stone, but there was still a certain element of this that was just up to his best try.

Talys watched how the light fractured inside it, highlighting the cracks, and returned to applying more pressure to them to try and shatter the stone into more pieces. His hands and fingers were already protesting, but he didn't really mind. They'd go numb soon -- his fingers cramping up was typical, and he'd started developing callouses on his hands anyway.

The topaz, after several more attempts at angling it, shattered into seven almost flawless pieces. He let out a crow of triumph and passed them back over to Sun -- having taken about half the time he'd taken with the first stone. "Hah, I'm getting good at this!"

Next up was the emerald, and Talys was honestly a little worried about this one. It was more workable, which meant it was less brittle. He'd try his best, though -- it still had clevage, as almost every stone did, and it was cracked a bit already from where he'd worked on it before. He took it into his hands and leveraged his weight, trying to start to splinter it.

Over the next half hour, it too was splintered into seven more or less equal pieces. Talys was exceedingly pleased with himself -- he was officially three for three, and all of them looked positively excellent. His hands weren't bothering him so much in light of how pleased he was.

Next up was the diabolite, and he was officially back to the brittle ones. He deepened his earlier notches with the diamond, and made some new ones, ignoring the way his skin pinched. Working with rocks like this wasn't fun, obviously, but he was a big boy and this was a favor for someone. He was already incredibly satisfied with just getting the three finished -- getting all seven done would feel awesome.

The diabolite broke into three proper (albeit internally cracked) pieces and one okay-sized shard. Talys looked them over, and winced regretfully. Alright, well, maybe it wasn't perfect. "If I try to make this smaller, it'll shatter totally. I'm sorry!" Still, he passed them all back to Sun's pile, and shrugged apologetically before he turned to see what his next rock would be.

Moving on from his failure, he took the kunzite into his hands. He continued to move through the routine process he'd already become accustomed to -- this was hard, tedious work, but it was a nice day and Leo was big enough to have a breeze. Past the second hour of work, now, Talys was approaching the end of his list. He only had two more after this one, he assured himself -- even if his arms were starting to ache.

The kunzite cracked, but otherwise did not cooperate. Talys readjusted it and took a moment to flex his fingers and stretch his arms and legs. He popped his neck, stretched his back, took a deep breath, and then looked for a niche to set the rock in to try and give himself a little more leverage.

Talys settled it into a new niche and held his diamond shard in his other hand for a while, but quickly found that his non-dominant hand was not strong enough to work the diamond like his dominant hand was. Not that this took an incredible amount of strength, or he wouldn't have been able to do it, but it required some to make the rocks do the work.

Eventually though, the rock started breaking. It broke into five pieces rather easily, and he was able to work at the largest chunk to break it into two more, finally leaving him with seven, though their sizes varied. He flashed his teeth at Sun-Wukong in a grin, and passed the stones back over to him. These were going to be cool necklaces -- he'd have to consider doing this for himself!

Second to last was the idocrase, meaning that he was back to the breakable ones. The idocrase and the emerald were the ones he'd been the most worried about, but the emerald had worked out fine, so Talys screwed his courage to the sticking place and set himself back at the point where it was already cracking.

He broke off a chip where it was against the rock, but otherwise nothing came apart, save for a little bit of cracking inside. He flipped it around to squint at through the light, and muttered something that might have been a curse before he returned to the original niche he'd worked in.