8th of Cylus 722
There was an urgency to the task ahead of Lorogh. He needed to improve upon the design of the crossbow, specifically his heavy crossbow, and also its spanner mechanism. At present, his current crossbow was adequate, but far from perfect. The Cadouri was always trying to make things work better, to make them efficient, and to make them go. Going was a very important virtue for him. Especially for items with parts that were meant to move and interact with each other in a precise way. He thought he had a way of integrating a lever for a draw that made it easier and more reliable to draw the bowstring. He had the formulae worked out, for the alchemical bits, the diagrams for the replaceable metal bits, and the lumber for crafting the actual stave and stock of the crossbow. There was also a generous amount of bamboo, properly dried and fire--hardened for a strong draw weight.
All of these materials he knew or rather felt he'd need, but for now, it was all theoretical in the blueprint. He'd yet to secure the metal parts from his smith friend a few doors down.
In many ways, Lorogh enjoyed the winter, particularly the lull of Cylus. It always gave him time and opportunity away from work in order to improve upon his designs and blueprints. The ritualistic process of iteration and improvement after having tested his gadgets was an important part of his process. While smaller graduations and steps were had during the regular year, the real gargantuan leaps of innovation happened during the winter months. And for this, Lorogh gave silent thanks to Saoire and Ziell. Saoire for giving him life always, and Ziell for giving them winter, a time of lack, certainly, but also needed down-time to recover and huddle with the people who were important.
Right now, however, all that was important to Lorogh, were his pen and parchment, as he drew the plans for the threaded screws he'd need, the trigger, and the seating for the bow limb. These were the metal parts he'd need, and he would outsource them to his acquaintance, who did an adequate enough job at smithing. At some point, Lorogh had it in mind to learn himself and acquire his own foundry and forge, but at present he was content to leave that work to someone more competent.
All of this considered, he put pen to parchment, and began drawing out the plans for how the crossbow design would take shape. Beneath the parchment, he had a sheet of graphite that would make a hard copy beneath it. He not only wanted his own hard copy of the blueprint, but the copy would also be going to the one he'd design the crossbow for. All this, to make it easier for them to replace parts should they fall off or become damaged. Eventually, Lorogh had ambitions to create a process for unified replaceable parts. But such an ideal required that his designs be infallible. This was what drove him to continue improving and iterating on his older models, and what made his hands sore with effort as he drew newer and newer designs that improved on perceived and realized shortcomings in his work.
There was always room for improvement.
