"What do they think I am? Some classical artist? How am I going to do this?"
Noctis stared at the strange carving on the ground and no matter how he tried, he just couldn’t see the kind of being that would cast that kind of shadow.
He looked up at the position of the sun and the shadows made by the trees and realised more than the shape of the statue itself the position of the sun hitting the statue itself would also affect the look of the shadow.
Was he really expected to carve a statue while taking in so many factors and with so little time available. Utter madness. He had moonlight in his theme only, he wasn’t actually a sculptor.
’This is literally impossible.’
Knowing thus, Noctis started looking around himself for maybe a catch or a hidden way to solve it.
He inspected the trees and the tree-tops, the soil and the roots, he inspected the slab from up to down as well as the carvings but no matter how much he looked it didn’t turn up anything that could help him in any way.
He had been transported to an entirely ordinary forest with a task that would sweat even the best of professionals.
With no way out of it, with an anxious heart and sweat building on his forehead, Noctis took the sickle and hammer in his hand and propelled the slab up.
He had to at the very least, try. It was the only ship available to him.
Noctis pushed the slab a little ahead in an effort to ascertain the relative position of the slab and the markings, as it would be in some time, if he didn’t move so as to get some early idea by comparing it.
He didn’t have any actual training in sculpting but he had been trained in modes of forgery before.
He thought of all those times he was thrown in stressed timed performance tests to forge various crests, badges and keys to get out.
This was a similar situation, nothing too wild, he just had to take in the extra environmental factors such as lighting and depth with it.
Also nothing he hadn’t been thrown into before, on multiple reconnaissance missions, Noctis convinced himself as he started assessing the slab and the craving on the ground.
He took the hammer and sickle and first measured the length of the slab, the shadow it made and the markings on the ground, relative to the sickle and each other before marking some ridges along the slab.
It was crude, but enough for a general outline. He started chipping off the more linear contours through controlled movement, feeling for the hardness of the stone, angles and the strength required.
Since it was just shadow, on the 2d surface, he didn’t bother anything about the look of the sculpture, he just needed the right projection, although because of the marks inside the larger carvings itself meant he had to hole through some places too.
More headache. The slab wasn’t too thick. The problem here was... he wasn’t confident whether he could carve so precisely with his barely trained body.
He had experience of his previous life but the body itself wasn’t battered into perfection the way it had been in his previous life.
Thrown into such stressful situations, it was bound to crack, he knew by the virtue of his previous life.
And it had started to take effect already as he nipped off a little too much at one point.
He adjusted the side a little in order to balance it but again, unable to properly control his strength ruined from just a fraction.
’Just try to make it close.’
Sweat soaked his whole body as the sun glared above his head.
He noticed the sun had already moved enough that he had to take the slab a little back to start once again.
’How long has it been? Do I even have more time?’
His heart drummed faster as he thought of the bigger picture. Even if he managed this, somehow, would the black body be anywhere near his position?
As he slid the slab a little back he refocused on the work. The straight edges were almost done, now onto the dreadful curved parts.
Noctis looked down and looked at his tools. Wouldn’t he love to have at least some sandpaper if nothing else for this, but all he had was a hammer and sickle.
He looked around and used the sickle to break some bark from the tree with the roughest texture.
He chipped out the rough outline with focused effort, especially difficult now as the heat and sweat sapped all his energy little by little, leaving him exhausted and dehydrated but he somehow persevered.
By the time he was done the sun had moved once again, reminding him of his final few moments and the large glaring details that he lacked.
With sweat glistening on his face and ragged breath, Noctis took a moment to take a breather, his gaze fixed at his shadow on the forest floor.
For a while now, it was looking more and more creepy, but maybe it was just his exhaustion catching up to him.
Noctis shook his head and stood once again only to fall back as his head suddenly ached with a sharp pain as his whole body felt a spell of nausea.
’Fu*k. I need water, and quick.’
But the circumstances were seldom in his favour that night and so he had to stand up again, even as his body protested it.
Taking the hammer and chisel once again, he recalibrated the slab and measured precisely where he needed to bore the holes.
Hoping his body to hang on for a little while he hammered on the slab.
A little shallow, he cursed under his breath at his degrading dexterity.
Another hit and a crude section of the slab followed out. Smoothing it took ages, but he forced his hands to overwork as the sun entered the evening phase, prolonging the shadows beneath him as realised in horror how grossly he had miscalculated the altitude’s effect before.