The Island-Banished Noblewoman - Chapter 19 (Patreon)

Heart-Pounding Pottery (2)
When making pottery, Marylia first decided to crush the failed pieces.

"Heave-ho~ Haha... It feels like I'm making medicine or something."

She crushed plates that had broken and were no longer usable, along with failed pots, reducing them to powder.

By mixing this powder into the clay, she could prevent the pottery from shrinking and cracking when fired. She had seen the brickmakers in the Odeil Territory use a similar method.

"If I ever get the chance, I'd like to experiment by mixing in things like white sand from the coast or bone powder..."

When additives are mixed into clay and fired, it results in pottery with different properties. While some pieces might become brittle and break, others could turn out to be strong and thin.

For now, though, Marylia didn't have much time for experiments. She focused on shaping the clay into vessels, mainly for food storage, processing, and making more Terracotta Golems.

Like with the furnace, making large pottery required patience. The lower layers needed to dry and harden before the upper layers could be added.

This naturally led to waiting periods. Marylia used this time to enjoy her breakfast of roasted meat, continue the clay levigation process, halve and deseed apricots for drying on a rack, and tend to other small tasks.

Another important task awaited her.

"Hehe... The lye is ready. Time to make soap!"

Finally, Marylia was going to make soap!

First, she lit the furnace. She instructed the Terracotta Golem to keep the bellows going, ensuring the furnace maintained high heat.

"Alright~ let's get to it~"

She began by tossing seashells into the furnace. When burned, the shells would produce lime, which could be mixed with lye and fat to create soap.

Once the shells were calcined, she crushed them. The shells, now brittle from the heat, crumbled easily under the pressure of a stone.

"Okay, let's see if this works..."

Marylia melted the fat of the Peryton in a pot, then added sprigs of rosemary for fragrance. This process also yielded rosemary-fried fat and rosemary oil.

She set aside the fried rosemary for later consumption and added the lye and shell powder to the oil. She stirred the mixture until it thickened.

"... Oh, it's like cream."

After stirring for a while, the fat thickened into an opaque, creamy substance that left tracks as she mixed it.

"Alright, now to put it into molds..."

But since she had no molds, she improvised. She rolled sturdy leaves into soft, conical shapes to use as molds, similar to how “chimaki” is made in Eastern cuisine.

"... And now we just leave it to set."

Marylia wrapped several leaf-molded soaps and placed them in the brick-drying area. Once the fat saponified and the soap solidified, they would be ready.

She was also grateful for the roof she had constructed. The brick-drying area had now become a drying spot for pottery, meat, and soap. Marylia deeply appreciated the roof's utility.

As noon arrived, she ate a lunch of meat and wild vegetable soup, checked the apricots drying on the rack, and tasted one to assess its progress.

The apricots had shriveled slightly but needed more time to dry. Since she still lacked storage containers, they could stand to dry a bit longer.

To efficiently dry the pottery, Marylia decided to construct another structure, similar to a firewood rack. Although she could use the existing firewood rack, it was nearly full, which made it inconvenient to repurpose.

She had some planks, however. While these weren't enough to cover the wide roof of the brick-drying area, they were sufficient to roof a small structure, roughly the size of Marylia's bed.

Building a new drying area with a roof would be quick and easy. Marylia decided to go ahead and construct the pottery drying area.

Next to the nearly full firewood rack were some straight, long logs that could be used as construction material. She used these to build the drying rack, where she could place the drying pottery and light a fire underneath to speed up the process.

She removed a row of firewood from the existing rack to create a slatted surface for the pottery. However, upon checking the state of the pots, they weren't yet dry enough to move. She would likely be able to implement the fire-drying process in the coming days.

With her afternoon now free, Marylia decided to spend it tanning hides.

"Oh my~ it's well-soaked~"

The deerskin from the Peryton legs that had been soaking in a jar with a solution made from boiled oak bark had turned a deep brown.

Now, Marylia had to... knead it. Knead it thoroughly!

"... Let's use the golems."

After about five minutes of kneading, she realized, "This is going to be a time-consuming task," and decided to employ the golems!

So, three Mud Golems were brought over from the clay quarry. The clay had been dug up but not yet transported, so she instructed the Terracotta Golem to start carrying it.

"Now, just keep pounding the hides with these sticks."

The three Mud Golems began to repeatedly pound the soaked hides to soften them. Meanwhile, Marylia created another Mud Golem, assigning each of the four Peryton hides to a golem for pounding.

Because Mud Golems are made of mud, they need to use tools like wooden sticks when handling things that shouldn't get dirty. While a human could simply knead the hides by hand, the golems were less efficient.

… She couldn't wait to mass-produce more Terracotta Golems!

Marylia spent the rest of the day making pottery. The levigated clay was ready for use, so she scooped it up, levigated the newly delivered clay, kneaded the earlier batch, and mixed in the crushed remains of failed pottery.

"... I'm all out of crushed pottery."

With the crushed material gone, Marylia faced a decision: should she continue making pottery without it, or fire the current pieces, crush the failures, and start over?

… So, she made a decision.

"I don't have much leeway, but let's experiment a little."

She tried making small pots with various mixtures: clay mixed with the ashes left after soap-making, clay with ground Peryton bones, and clay mixed with washed white sand from the coast. She wondered how each would turn out.

As dusk approached, Marylia prepared dinner.

… She lightly desalted some cured meat before grilling it. It was tasty enough, though she was getting a bit tired of eating meat all the time.

"Would you like some too? Here you go."

She offered the branches used for grilling meat to the slimes that were plopping around the garden. With meat bits and juices still on them, the branches would provide some nourishment.

"... They seem to like it."

The slimes eagerly nibbled on the branches, enjoying the new flavor. They were very lively.

"Eat up and multiply!"

She expected the slimes to multiply again when it rained next. Smiling, Marylia watched the slimes eat.

Over the next few days, Marylia spent her time kneading clay, making pottery, chopping wood, and having the golems pound hides, make salt, and smoke dried meat.

Drying pottery, firewood, and meat took time, so progress was slow. But Marylia enjoyed this pace.

First, the dried meat.

The Peryton meat, which had been salted and air-dried, had become slightly translucent on the surface but still retained some moisture inside.

… So, she decided to smoke it.

She crafted a smoker using a broken crate she found on the coast, hung a large amount of dried meat inside, and lit shavings from apricot branches to create smoke. Repeating this process, she made smoked meat.

The smoked meat was left to dry further. If it continued to dry, it would become so hard that it might be difficult to eat, but it would also become more flavorful with age. Marylia was excited by the prospect!

Next, the hides.

After being repeatedly pounded by the golems, the hides were turning into proper leather.

She smoked the hides alongside the meat to enhance their insect resistance and water repellency. She'd eventually put them to use, likely during winter.

And finally... the pottery!

"Ehehehe, this one has mixed fibers, this one has river sand, and this one was kneaded with brine... I wonder if they'll turn out differently. I'm so excited!"

Marylia smiled as she continued her clay experiments.

At this point, pottery-making had become more of a hobby, a form of art she truly enjoyed.

… And now, on the 25th day of her exile, the day had finally come to fire a large batch of pottery and Terracotta Golem parts!

Next: https://www.patreon.com/posts/110265527