A leg up on the metal knee

[Borin Ironhammer]

August 16th 6:00 PM

Borin walks down tow the forge and starts a small fire. As it begins to grow he buries it in coal and starts pumping the bellows. The coal begins to glow a bright yellow and give a very high heat after about fifteen minutes the forge is ready for metal. He takes a knee sized piece of steel and places it in the forge, continuing to pump the bellows until it also glows yellow then he sits back and waits for horns.

[Horns]

[Sunday, August 16th, 7:00pm]
Horns, out of breath, digs through his medkit and hands Borin the three diagrams. "Is... Phew... Is this good enough for you?" He sits down on a log and catches his breath. "I put some words on the diagrams," a pause for breath, "but I thought that we could use this opportunity to help teach you to read."

[Borin Ironhammer]

Borin takes a look at the paper and says "ah this looks much easier than i thought lad, why didn't ye tell me tat it was just a lump of metel ye needed" Borin quickly grabs the metal from the fire and rounds off the edges and make the shape less consistant, quenches it and hands it to horns.
"There, done! I cant believe it took ye an hour te draw a diagram for something it took me five munutes te forge."

[Horns]

Horns picks up the lump of metal and examines it closely. "Well, this is the right shape, certainly, and even the right size! And it slopes here," Horns runs his finger over part of the knee, "Which is right, but it needs a notch right here!" Horns grabs the diagram of the front of the knee. "Here, let me show you." He points to the word 'notch,' written on the part he was referring to. "This word is 'notch.' This shape is an n, which makes a 'nuh' sound, then an o, which can make a few different sounds, like middle of look, or the sound here, in 'notch.' T is next, and makes a 'tuh' sound. C and h are together at the end, making a 'chuh' sound. 'nuh-ah-t-chuh'. All the letters make different sounds, and you combine them to make the words you say. Some of them make different sounds when they're together, like the c and the h. H usually makes a 'huh' sound, like in 'huh-ouse.'" Horns takes out a piece of paper from his medkit, uses his alchemy book on his lap as a writing surface, and writes out all the letters, both capital and lowercase. "These big ones are capital letters. Capital letters are just a different way of writing the letters; they make the same sounds, but look different. Capital letters are used in certain situations, which I'll get to later." Horns then proceeds to say the name of each letter and its sound. At the end, he includes common letter combinations with different sounds, like ph, ti, and th. Then he begins writing out some simple words, like ball. "B-A-L-L. Buh-ah-luh." He repeats the sounds more quickly, a few times, until it sounds like the word ball. This process repeats for a few more words, and then Horns tells Borin to try to sound some out on his own, starting with cat.

[Borin Ironhammer]

Borin puzzles at the word for a moment then he remembered how a sounded in the ball example. "Cuh ah tuh, cot."

[Horns]

"That's very good! It's not quite right, but it's very close; in this case, the a makes a different sound. This word is 'cat'. Cot is spelled with an o!" Horns writes down 'The cat hunts the rat.' "This is a sentence. It ends in a period, and begins with one of the capital letters I mentioned before. Capital letters are used to show where sentences begin, and periods are used to show where sentences end. Exclamation marks can also be used, and they end a sentence while showing excitement. Question marks are used at the end of sentences which are questions." He writes down two more sentences, to show what these new punctuation looks like, and tells Borin which is which. The sentences are 'How are you?' and 'I am good!' "Now, try to read these three sentences! Remember that these sentences make sense; they are things which might be said. So if you can't figure out a word, think about it in context; what word would make sense here? Then, see if you can think of a word that fits the sentence which might be spelled the way the word is."

[Borin Ironhammer]

"The cat hunts the rat. Howuh are yow? I am gode!"

[Horns]

"That is very good! 'The cat hunts the rat.' 'How are you?' and 'I am good.' Perhaps you could try reading the notes I have on the diagram!" The words include notch, slope up, slope down, front, back, side, ridge, knee (And anything else you might think of).

[Borin Ironhammer]

Borin sighs wanting to just get back to work "notch" he says remembering it from earlier. He then reads the other words to the best of his ability "sloppy up, sloppy down, front, back, sidee, Ridige, kinee."

[Horns]

"Good, most of those are right! The e's at the end of words doesn't make a strong sound like that; the word you read as 'sloppy' is slope, for example. Knowing that, do you think you can figure out how 'sidee' is really pronounced?" Horns is impressed with how quickly Borin is picking this up, and smiles. "Also, the k at the beginning of 'kinee' is silent; it's just knee."

[Borin Ironhammer]

"Side?" Borin asks hoping he was right now that he actually knew what the diagram meant so he could finish the knee.

[Horns]

"Exactly!" Horns smiles brightens. "Now that you can read the diagram, you can make that knee!" Horns, realizing this, is too excited to do any more teaching. He bounces slightly as he talks. "Mostly what you need now is practice; it'll become easier as time goes on. Let me know if you come across anything that stumps you, but I'm sure you'll be fine!"

(OOG: I'll sign off on Literacy now! I probably could have taught more, but you've got the basics, and I don't think we can effectively condense years of English classes into something writable on the forums)

[Borin Ironhammer]

Borin heats another piece of metal and starts working it. He makes sure every notch and slope is made to specification this time. When he quenches it he gives it to horns for inspection.

[Horns]

Horns takes the knee and carefully examines it, turning it in his hands. "This... This is beautiful!" A sense of wonder appears on his face. "This is perfect. This is wonderful. This is Timmean's knee!" Smiling broadly, he begins running off towards the inn. Realizing he needed more, he stops, turns around, runs back, and takes a metal bucket from around the forge. He then runs off again. And runs back. And grabs a pair of tongs. And runs off again! ... And runs back. "Thank you, Borin!" And he runs off to the inn.

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