Jack double-checked his notes, making sure he had everything he needed. There was a diagram of an ocarina, a fingering chart showing how to play all the notes, and a series of observations he’d made when watching videos and reading about the instrument's history. On the one hand, Jack felt exhausted from researching this. However, his eagerness to make his first musical instrument surpassed his tiredness.

Jack grabbed a lump of clay and kneaded it. Judging the amount insufficient, he kept adding more until he had made a lump the size of a potato. Jack grabbed the ‘potato’ with his left hand, bringing it up toward his face, and then he brought his right hand over the top in a reverse grip.

Even though it was Jack's first time holding anything remotely similar to an ocarina, this grip felt right for some reason. He wondered why. After some thought, he understood the reason and smiled. He used the same grip when playing the guitar.

True, when playing the guitar, the right hand would be beside his belly strumming or pulling the strings, and the left hand would be away from his body making the chords, on the guitar’s neck, but the grip was the same: left hand with the pulse facing him, and right hand with the wrist facing him. The only difference when playing ocarina was that both hands were much closer together.

Amused by the similarity of the two very different instruments, Jack felt the potato in his hand. Judging one side too clunky, Jack shaved off a little clay and held the potato again. He repeated the process until the ‘potato’ was shaped like a tear, with one larger round side and a thinner, pointy one. He smoothed it with a small sponge and left it to dry.

Sadly, no notification rang. The system didn’t recognize this shape as fitting any of his recipes. Jack didn’t lose hope, and once the potato was bone dry, Jack brought it to the kiln and bisque-fired it. He didn’t receive any XP for this piece but hadn’t expected to. This wasn’t an ocarina; it was just a mold to make one.

After the ‘potato’ left the kiln, Jack let it cool. Once it was at room temperature, Jack pressed fresh clay onto it, ensuring it filled every surface. Grabbing the one torch he had left, Jack held it up against the covered mold, hoping the clay would dry enough. Once the clay became slightly lighter, Jack used a knife and scored a line around the whole thing to pry it away from the mold.

Jack shook the mold gently, hoping that the halves of the ocarina would drop, but they didn’t budge. He tried tapping gently with his hand on one of the sides, but it didn’t move that way either. He stuck the knife into the line he’d cut and tried to put a little pressure to make one of the halves pop out, but the whole thing just fell apart in Jack’s hands. “Why isn’t it coming out?”

“You didn’t put anything between the mold and the fresh clay.”

Jack raised his head and found that Felix had grabbed a seat and admired Jack’s work from a distance. He’d been so focused on his experiment that he hadn’t realized he was being watched by the old potter. “N-no. It’s my first attempt at doing things this way.”

“What are you trying to make?”

That explains why such a pro potter would even bother watching me work. He’s curious! “An ocarina. Do you know what it is?”

Felix raised both eyebrows. “It’s a kind of flute. Yes?”

“That’s correct.”

Interest flashed in Felix’s eyes, and he approached the workstation. “An ocarina. How fascinating. Your problem here was that the fresh clay got glued to the mold. To avoid it sticking, try to create a barrier. Cornstarch or flour works nicely. Here. Have some.”

You’ve been traded a stack of cornstarch by Felix.

“How much do I owe you?” Jack asked, uncertain.

“It’s just a little flour, my boy. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks.”

Jack waited for Felix to return to his workstation or to the little stool he had set up, but instead, he stood beside Jack’s workstation, curious to see what he would do next. Jack couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Felix was the best potter he knew in the game. It was kind of awkward to have him watch him work. However, it wasn’t as if he could kick him out. Hadn’t he let Jack watch him work, too?

Hands shaking, Jack peeled the layer of fresh clay from the mold, cleaned it up, and then covered it with cornstarch. The fine, white flour stuck to the hard surface. Once the mold was fully covered by the powder, Jack repeated the process and pressed fresh clay against the mold. He brought the torch against the clay again and scored a line around the whole ocarina, and this time, as he tapped the mold, the halves came out cleanly!

Jack turned to Felix, holding both halves up, excited. “It worked!”

“Well done, boy!”

At first, Jack felt nervous to have such an experienced potter inspect his work. However, all the nervousness disappeared after seeing how well his suggestion worked. Felix’s pointers were priceless. In one split-second, the old man helped Jack fix a problem he wouldn’t have known how to correct alone.

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Jack grabbed a small needle and scored the rims of the two halves, creating a rough texture that would help the pieces bond. Then he dove his fingers into the nearby bowl with slip and wetted the rims. He brought them together, gluing them. Just as he was about to press harder, Felix stepped in again. “Easy. Don’t smoosh them together, or you’ll warp it. Patience. Let the water do the gluing for you.”

Jack obeyed and eased the pressure. After a few moments, the piece was glued. Jack grabbed more slip, smeared it on the joint, and reinforced it, making it seamless. It's too bad he couldn’t get inside the piece and do the same thing on the inside. Hopefully, that wouldn’t affect the sound of the ocarina. Jack stepped back and admired his work—a hollow clay tear.

You’ve molded Earthenware Ocarina.

+100 Pottery XP

The notification confirmed it. He was on the right track! Now, he had to wait for the progress bar to fill, getting the piece from the wet to the leather-dry stage.

“What is he doing?” The potter, who’d been working off in the corner and had come over to the kiln to fire bowls, caught sight of Jack’s piece, and decided to stop.

“An ocarina,” Felix answered before Jack could say anything.

“Can potters make musical instruments? That’s the first I hear of it.”

“Me too.”

The potter shrugged and carried the tray with bowls to her workstation to glaze. Every so often, she threw a sneaky look at Jack’s workstation.

Jack ignored the attention and focused on creating a clay tube to serve as the ocarina's mouthpiece. He rolled out a small cylinder, smoothing its surface and hollowing it out with a thick needle. Meanwhile, the ocarina’s body finished drying, and Jack brought it close to his mouth, assessing where the mouthpiece would go.

He put it down and checked his notes. “A little off to the left,” he mumbled. He grabbed the same slender, thick needle and pierced the hollow clay on the fatter end of the tear. Then, he scored the area around the hole, applied the clay and water mixture, and pressed the mouthpiece into place. He didn’t push this time and just waited for the water to do the work. Once it stuck, he carefully smoothed the joint with his fingers and a sponge, ensuring a seamless connection.

“The shape is done,” he told Felix and himself. “Now, the only thing left is to drill the holes.” Jack set the ocarina aside, letting it reach the bone-dry stage. This way, the clay would be more stable and less prone to warping.

Once the progress bar had finished filling, Jack turned the hollow shape around and grabbed a small blade. He scored a little square close to the mouthpiece. This was called the voicing, the hole through which an ocarina’s sound came out. This is it. He brought the mouthpiece to his mouth and blew into it.

A sharp note came out of the voicing hole, eliciting cheers from Felix and a curious look from the other potter. The sound hadn’t been nearly as pleasant as what he had heard on the video. There was something not quite right. Maybe he needed to finish the other holes first.

From what Jack read online, the location of the holes in the ocarina didn’t make much difference in its tuning. The most important thing was the cross-section or how wide each hole was. The only difference that placement made was how comfortable playing the instrument was.

Jack looked at all the tools on the counter, and his eyes landed on the flour. He put all ten fingers in the flour and moved them around, trying to get as much of it as possible. Then he grabbed the ocarina again, just as if he were about to play it. The flour stuck where his fingers would go.

“Ingenious!” Felix praised from the side, causing Jack to blush. He had to focus, though. This was the most crucial part. He consulted a fingering chart, which told him how to make each note in the ocarina. “The first note will be C,” he told himself. With steady hands, Jack used the needle tool to pierce the clay over the second fingerprint of his right hand. He blew into the mouthpiece again.

Jack could tell that the note that came out was too low. He had to make it higher. He tried to expand the hole by digging the needle deeper into it, but it became even lower. Jack kicked the table.

“What’s wrong?” Felix asked.

“I made the hole too big. Now I can’t tune it. I should have started with a thinner hole and then enlarged it as it grew. I have to start from scratch.”

“From scratch? Why don’t you cover it with clay and do it again?”

Jack slapped his forehead. “Right!”

“Frustration is an artisan’s enemy, young man. It clouds our judgment. Calm down! You don’t have to succeed on the first try. This is just a prototype. Right?”

“Thank you, m-sir.” Jack had almost called Felix ‘master’!

Felix nodded and kept watching the process with interest. The old man was fascinated by a piece of ceramic that wasn’t just meant to be seen and handled but heard. It brought pottery to a whole new level of sensory complexity. Jack was grateful for the interest. The old man’s hints were helpful.

Following Felix’s suggestion, Jack covered the hole with clay, waited for it to dry a little, and, this time, drilled a hole with a thinner needle. As he blew into the mouthpiece again, the note came a little too sharp this time, almost a C#. He widened the hole ever so slightly and finally got a C. The sound still came out a little too shrill, though. He wondered if that had to do with how the ocarina hadn’t been fired yet or how he hadn’t been able to smooth the joint inside the ocarina. After firing, he would have to keep pushing and see what it sounded like.

He punctured the center of the fourth print of the right hand and a similar hole right over it. An almost perfect D note came out. Jack enlarged one of the holes, and the sound improved.

Jack followed the chart he’d downloaded online and drilled each hole one by one. Jack was trying to make an ocarina that could play the C scale, the one scale he had learned once he became a bard. He had to drill 12 holes in the ocarina, excluding the mouthpiece and the voicing.

After several adjustments, enlarging a few holes and tightening others, Jack had finished tuning the ocarina. With small, hesitant steps, Jack headed over to the kiln, set the bone-dry ocarina in the tray, and put it into the kiln, waiting for the progress bar to fill.

The bar was taking longer than usual. Had he succeeded? Had he successfully finished his first clay ocarina?