A little fancier than IKEA

Ruga listened with interest as Artorias began to spell out what he had in mind for his unusual commission. His head tipped to the side a bit as Artorias mentioned the need for a table for this room where he would host meetings with his advisors. The first thing that came to his mind at the idea was a wooden table and he was prepared to tell Artorias that he lacked the skill required for a wooden table, but he held off, listening to the idea the Aegis had of making the large table into a topographical map of Boreas and Auster. It was an intriguing idea to be sure and certainly something far different than anything he had ever made. He hummed with thought, glancing back at some of his tools and materials as he wondered whether or not he could figure out a way to make something like that within his current skill set. It would be a much larger piece than anything he had made before, but as long as he thought about it in pieces rather than one large construction it seemed manageable. Four legs, perhaps making the table in pieces that could be reassembled once it was transported...

That only left the big question mark around what would he make it out of. He sorely wanted to take the job just for the chance to work on something other than armor, but he had never been a fan of carving things out of wood. Artorias' mention of hoping that the table could be made of stone to make sure it had longevity solved that problem and Ruga followed his gaze up to the dark stone around them and nodded at the fact that the map might be hard to read on such a dark stone. His brow creased with thought for a moment. While he appreciated Artorias' trust and his willingness to hand over creative freedom to the "master", Ruga also didn't want to disappoint the alpha of an allied pack with a subpar product and this would definitely be a task that he felt like far from a master of. Still, he was excited and intrigued by it and his mind was already turning with ideas.

"You're right about the stone being dark here, but there's always ways to make the texture of something stand out more. Dyes and paints, inlays of metal... Or, of course, we could source stone from another part of Boreas. That would likely be the more costly option though given the extra time and effort to find and mine it. The shale here is fairly easy to work with though and the way that it's layered allows for it to be fairly thin while maintaining a good amount of strength." He looked toward the dark gray stone once more with a hum, considering how he could best make the map of the continents stand out among the dark background. An idea began to form as he noticed the light from the fire in his forge dancing across the rock face, pulling another thoughtful hum from him. He looked back to Artorias with a little grin, telling him, "I have an idea... but I'll need some time to experiment a bit and see if it works. Could you come back in a couple of weeks? I should have a sample done by then to make sure you like it."

"Ruga"