Demesne 286 - To be Pleasantly Surprised (Patreon)

They did manage to try using warm Iridescence to make beads by laying it out in the sun and using lightwisps to concentrate the heat of the sunlight to warm the sample. This this meant they didn't need to risk moving it close to open flame or putting imbued firewisps near it that could potentially be drawn to the Iridescence. She was able to set it up some distance away, and when it didn't explode violently, she sent Rian to retrieve it. When he returned with the sample held in a glass bowl, there were new growths visible on its surface, as if someone had sprinkled salt on it that had stuck. It was warm enough that she could feel it by putting her hand near it.

Using it to make a bead was faster than the other crystals, taking only three-quarters as many heartbeats.

"So, by the results so far, it would form even faster if we got it hotter," Rian said as he noted the results. "Should we try?"

Lori shook her head. "No. Perhaps when we initiate mass production, but at the moment, the growth rate of the initial environmental temperature is sufficient for my purposes."

Rian nodded. "So… did you bring any of the white stuff?" he said, grinning widely. "Because all the way out here is probably the safest place for doing the fire tests."

"No," she said, and Rian visibly slumped, a theatrically comical expression of disappointment on his face. He straightened silently, eyeing the beads that had been made. "No, I'm not breaking one open."

"Why not?" He actually whined and pouted. "Surely it's an important experiment that needs to be conducted? W-what if it results in more of the white crystals growing?"

"Doubtful. The white does not show any auto-crystallization tendencies."

"We should confirm and make sure…?"

"Rian, this is bordering on actually pathetic instead of merely theatrically pathetic."

"Dignity is for people not secure enough in being themselves to be themselves!"

"Rian?"

"Yes, your Bindership?"

"Be quiet about the fire experiments and go back to taking notes."

He sighed. "Yes, your Bindership."

They didn't have to stay through lunch, as the day grew very hot even with Lori's hat, so she decided to cut their stay short. She had managed to make a sizable number of beads anyway, such that she had to make a container from a rock since she had forgotten to bring along something to carry the beads in, and there was too much metal in her box to put them there without potential seepage. She should have remembered to bring one properly, ugh!

The trip back was more crowded, since cut ropeweed was stacked on the boat. Fortunately, they were heading downriver, so the added mass wasn't that much of a problem, but their speed was still reduced. Lori also had to use bindings of waterwisps to slow down the boat, lest they drift past the docks because Rian had been unused to steering Lori's Boat when it was loaded so heavily.

Once they were docked, Rian saw to the boat being unloaded, and spoke to… whoever operated Lori's Ice Boat to start bringing people upriver to gather more of the ropeweed near the edge, while Lori put away the beads in the container she stored them in. She'd need to make far more soon, possibly begin true mass production. That meant it was time for her to finally have the smiths make her tools specifically for bead making.

She'd need to tell Rian to do that once she figured out the best shape of the tools she needed.

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"So, do you need me to take notes for anything this afternoon?" Rian asked as they ate lunch.

Lori considered that. She will admit, if only to herself—the only one to whom such an admission mattered—that she hadn't really thought this through very extensively. On consideration, however, she might as well continue on with experimenting with white Iridescence and have Rian take notes. Though they'd have to find a sufficiently isolated location for seeing what happened when the substance was thrown directly into fire.

And so she nodded decisively. "Yes, we'll be doing experiments in the alcove after lunch."

"And—?"

"Yes, we'll set some on fire." The words were supposed to come out irritated but became a tired sigh instead. "Outside, on the river, where it's safe."

Rian grinned widely. "So… I think you need a shed for you to work in at the edge," he said. "That way, you'd be safer from beasts, and you can keep working if it rains, which it still will."

Lori frowned. She had no real objection to that—it was for her safety after all—but given the location, building such a shed would be difficult. "I have no real objection to that, but given the location, building such a shed would be difficult. Bringing the wood upriver will be difficult, and building it will take time."

"Not if youbuild it," Rian said.

"It's outside my demesne. Building there will be like building in River's Fork." She paused. "Admittedly, perhaps slightly less agonizing, since I can literally step back into my demesne at any time…"

"Actually, I was thinking that maybe you can building the shed inside the demesne, and we can push it out over the edge. That way, you can build it with the convenience of your full capabilities."

Lori blinked, then tilted her head thoughtfully. "That… I suppose I could do that. But building material will still need to be moved there, unless I draw from the bedrock."

"Not if you make it out of ice," Rian said brightly.

Lori stared at him. She shouldn't have been surprised he'd think of something like that, but she was. "I shouldn't be surprised you'd think of something like that, but I am," she said.

"I point out you thought of using ice to roof the back of the bathhouses all by yourself. This will be the same, and like the back of the bathhouse, it won't need reinforcement like the boats do because no one will be putting any weight on the outside. And since it will be clear, you'll have plenty of light to work with."

"It will have to be constantly imbued, though" Lori said. "Which I'd have to do personally, since it would be outside my demesne."

"Ah, but it's a building," Rian said. "There's no reason a little bit of it can't be inside the demesne so you can imbue it, right?"

That… well… "I'd still rather not have one more thing I have to add to the list of things I need to imbue."

"Ah. Well, it can understand that. If only we have a way to keep things imbued without you having to really bother with it. Perhaps something that will be produced in large quantities…"

"…"

Lori considered that. "Tomorrow," she said finally. "I don't want to go back there today."

"Completely understandable. Hopefully it won't be raining."

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After lunch, Lori got her box of equipment: a long-unused wooden mold from her room, the leather sheet she used to make stone tablets, and one of the bone tablets she had started making, and took them down to the alcove she had claimed and sealed off in the second level. Then she went outside to gather some bones from the bone pit. Claiming and binding the earthwisps in the bones, she made a large jar by fusing together the bones and flattening them out into a sheet, using the leather to smooth the surface and get rid of any bumps.

She then wrapped the bone sheet around the mold for the ice furnaces she used to smelt the copper last winter. It didn't go as smoothly as with the furnace, since bone was not completely frictionless, but she managed to get the mold out. The resulting vessel was a little small, so she stacked two such bone cylinders on top of each other and fused them together, making a taller vessel that she was satisfied with… that she had to cut in half again when Rian came back from his errand and pointed out its height made it more likely to fall over on the boat ride back, potentially spilling beads everywhere.

"Maybe you can have Gunvi make it for you?" Rian said as an annoyed Lori finished separating the bone vessel again. Well, two little bone buckets were good containers, she'd just have to add on some handles. "Give him some softened… bone… that he can slap down on his potter's wheel to shape and when he's done you can harden it? It probably won't turn like wet clay would, but he'd still have more experience than you do on the matter."

Lori considered that and sighed. "Fine. Speak to him about it later. In the meantime, use this to write. I don't have time to transcribe your plank right now."

Rian blinked, hastily putting down his blank and charred stick so he could take the tablet made from bone that she handed him. "Wait, won't this bre—hey, this is really light!" He hefted it in his hands. "Feels familiar, though. Like… wait, is this bone too?" A strange expression came on his face as he hefted it again. "Huh, I wonder why you didn't think of doing this sooner. Well, I'm not really one to talk, I didn't think of this either…"

"Does it write?" Lori asked, opening the box with her tool and taking out a glass bowl and a little ceramic spoon.

Rian hummed, and picked up his charred stick. Holding it, he carefully rubbed the blackened end on one corner. "Yeah, it writes. Ready to take what notes you need taking, your Bindership."

Lori nodded as she began spooning some of the white iridescence from within the broken open large bead. "All right then," she said. Best to get this out of the way so he'd stop bothering her about it. A part of Lori was morbidly curious as to what would result, anyway. "Do we have anything we can heat this in? I'm not risking one of my glass bowls."

"I thought the experiment was putting it into direct flame?" Rian said. "It's probably been exposed to enough extreme heat when we did the evaporation tests, and that didn't do anything."

Lori frowned. "We can't just make a fire and throw it in. At the very least, the fire needs to be in a vessel so we can easily recover the sample."

"I'll be honest, I'm sort of expecting the white Iridescence to act like a concentrated fuel, and doubt we'll recover anything, but I see your point. Maybe you can make a bowl out of ice?"

"Is 'made out of ice' the only solution you can come up with anymore?"

"No, but it's a surprisingly versatile answer when you use it."

"No. I don't want a nearby binding that might potentially skew the results."

Rian hummed thoughtfully. "Well… we can take one of the clay ration jars and you can reshape it with Whispering. The baked clay should be resilient enough to not crack from the heat of a fire, and it won't need magic to hold its shape. I'll just tell Gunvi to make one to replace it."

Lori considered that as she slid the white crystals into an empty glass bottle carefully, taking care to not let any fall. "Do that, then," she said as she stoppered the bottle. So many things she needed made, and she wasn't if she'd be using them more than once.

Rian nodded, but didn't go to retrieve the jar just yet. "What else will we need?" he said, picking up his new tablet and starting to write down what seemed like a list.

She eyed him, but she supposed doing a full inventory of what they needed before he left was only prudent. "Firewood," she said. "For the open flames you want."

He was nodding before he stopped mid-gesture. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but we didn't check if the white Iridescence is affected by steam, right? I don't thinkwe did, but I haven't finished going back through the notes yet."

Lori shook her head slowly. "No… we did no experiments involving exposing the white Iridescence to steam, but given how it interacted with evaporating water, I doubt will be affected by steam. Why?"

"Well… firewood contains a minute amount of moisture, so its smoke contains a little steam. If we want to remove that factor, we should use some of the charcoal. The production process removes the moisture out of them, so…"

Lori frowned. "Where do we keep the charcoal?"

"Back of the firewood shed, though it's mostly the smiths who've been using it. Mostly people mix it in with their firewood so that they'll have something to banked in the ashes," Rian said promptly.

She grunted. "Get both then. We'll do the experiment twice."

Rian grinned. "Really?"

"Don't make me repeat myself. Anything else?"

"Uh, vessel, fuel, ignition will probably be you… that should be everything, I think. Though we should probably mention what you expect to happen for the sake of completeness, and why."

"I expect it to explode," Lori said. "After all, that's what happens with Iridescence."

"This isn't iridescence, though…"

"Then perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised."