Weekly Digest 94 - (#297 - #299) (Patreon)

It's Not The Same, Again

Lori finished with the mold prototypes that afternoon. There was one made from pressing a bead down on softened bone, one made by a ring of bone, and various other arrangements of shapes, each with the copper ingot as a contact point on the bottom. The bindings would be imbued as long as they were in contact with the metal while they amalgamated into beads, and when the beads reached the right size, their own growth would lift them up off the metal contact point, ceasing their growth.

Once she had exhausted the variety of shapes she could think off that would lift up the bead once it was properly grown, Lori deliberately set aside the mold as she centered the first prototype on her table and began doing new experiments. She'd let her mind wander slightly as she had shaped the prototype, and had come up with some new ideas she wanted to try out. Taking some bone, she made a rudimentary hoop, about the size of the circle made by putting her thumbs and forefingers together. She carefully secured that hoop to the supporting rod of bone that held up the copper shell with the setting of white Iridescence inside, moving the ring so that the copper shell was at its center.

When Lori was satisfied that the equipment was set up to her satisfaction, she took a moment to write down her experimental notes. A part of her wanted to just speak them out loud, but she stepped on the urge and continued writing carefully.

…

Why did this feel like it was taking much longer than it should?

…

Had she been talking too fast when she asked Rian to write down notes?

…

Finally she finished writing, and proceeded with the next step. Claiming and binding the airwisps inside the wring, she anchored them both to the bone ring and the firewisps embedded into the copper shell. She gave the binding directionality and intensity, then sighed and studiously wrote the details down on her bone tablet. Lori took the bead she'd been using previously for testing the first prototype, and quickly measured it so that the wisps around her wouldn't cause much seepage with the metal calipers. She took note of the dimensions again, and only them placed the bead onto the little spiraling wire bone.

Immediately, the binding she had made was imbued, and a strong breeze began blowing over her face from the bound tool prototype. Lori nodded in satisfaction, writing down more notes about the result. Well, that was the unsuitability of the prototype's shape for moving air—and presumably water—solved. The configuration wouldn't be much use for circulating air through her Dungeon, because of the wires that powered many of the bindings essential to the livability of her Dungeon—but it would be useful for the desiccator sheds, and for the air circulation vents in River's Fork. They'd have to find a way to keep idiots from trying to take out the beads, or stuffing things in the bead receptacle, but that was a separate problem.

Following success—and taking off the bead, deactivating the prototype—was a brief break to write down the results, and then she move on to the next thought she'd had while working.

First, she had to make sure that the little airborne water that was in the air trapped within the copper shell was dealt with so that it wouldn't suddenly condense on the sample and dissolve it. thankfully, the copper didn't prevent her from perceiving and claiming the wisps inside through her connection to the core. There were waterwisps inside—not much, but still present—and she claimed those, using them and the airwisps inside to try and move water vapor down below the void of wisps that was the sample of white Iridescence, before she made the waterwisps solidify. There was a sudden burst of firewisps, which she mitigated lest the copper shell rupture.

It was the best she could do at the moment when it came to keeping the white iridescence from getting wet. In future, she'd have to make special preparations to keep moisture from the space inside the shell. For now, having what moisture there was be ice at the bottom of the shell should do.

The firewisps inside the shell were still in place, but she integrated the released firewisps into the binding. Then she modified the so-far idle binding, inverting it to destroy heat. The binding wouldn't do much, just enough so it would be obvious there was a decrease in temperature. This was simply a test, after all. Combined with the binding of airwisps anchored to the bone ring, it should produce a simple cool wind.

Once she was done writing down all the notes and had put in the bead however, the end result was disappointing. While the breeze was as strong as it had been before, the firewisps didn't seem to be as effective as she would have liked. The flow of moving air was only a little cool against her face. Was she doing something wrong?

Taking off the bead—she didn't want to waste it for adjustments—Lori imbued the binding herself as she adjusted the firewisps to destroy more heat. The resulting breeze, however, was only slightly cooler than before. Frustrated, she adjusted the firewisps one more time, then activated it. The breeze on her face was still only just cool, and barely at that—

Wait. Why was there white condensation on the copper shell? If it was that cold, then why could she feel—

…

Oh.

Lori sighed, and then reached out and consciously deactivated the firewisps around her. Immediately the cold hit her, confirming that the firewisps had indeed been working properly.

…

She missed Rian. He'd have remembered to remind her about this had he been around.

Sighing, Lori began writing down the results of the experiment.

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This time Lori was mostly expecting it when Riz knocked on her door. She put away her tools, set the bead she'd been using aside, and grabbed her chatrang board to bring it down to the dining hall.

Lori was in the middle of setting up the pieces when Shanalorre and her cousin arrived, leading the other children from River's Fork. The former gave Lori a nod as the younger girl sat down on the bench some distance from Lori, her legs swinging freely, as the Dungeon Binder and the two Mikon-faced women with her had the other children sit and settle down to wait for the food to be ready.

By the time the children were settled, the actual Mikon had arrived, now with a more normal, if still pleasant expression on her face. Though the weaver did smile again when she saw the chatrang board laid out on the table. She sat down opposite Lori, where Rian usually would be, next to Riz, whose squirming implied she'd moved away a little even if she seemed to remain in the same place. Hesitantly, she reached for one of the white pieces, then paused, glancing back up towards Lori.

Lori waved a hand negligently, and Mikon made her move, having her Horotract go around the militia in front of it. They played chatrang silently as they waited for dinner to be ready. Umu was the last to arrive, sitting down some distance away from the pair of pink-haired women, almost as if she expected Rian to sit down between them.

"Erzebed," Lori said, and the woman raised her head from where she'd been trying to nap on the table. "I'll be going to the edge tomorrow. Make the arrangements."

"Uh. yes, Great Binder," Riz said. "Do… do I arrange for a couple of people to coming along and harvest ropeweed?"

"I leave that to your discretion," Lori said. "Also, inquire with the smiths when the second prototype will be finished and inform me when it is." She'd probably need the reminder to collect it.

"Yes, Great Binder."

"That should be all, Erzebed. I'll inform you if I need anything else."

"Yes, Great Binder. Uh… how long do you think you'll be out there?"

Lori considered that. Prototype testing, perhaps putting up the ice shed Rian had suggested, maybe leaving a sample of white Iridescence to test what happens… "We might be some time. I'm going to be building something, but it shouldn't take the whole day. "

"Should I ready food, then?"

"…no… no, we shouldn't be staying that long. At worst, we'll return for lunch and then head back."

"Understood, Great Binder. I'll… see who are willing to come along."

Surprisingly, Mikon reached over and put a hand on Riz's shoulder. "Don't worry," she said. "Rian will be back in two days, remember? This isn't like last time."

Riz blinked, and suddenly started laughing. "R-right! It's only three days! Two, now. I can make it that long." She sighed. "Thanks for reminding me."

Mikon's hand patted the shoulder reassuringly as the smiled at the militiawoman. "Of course, Riz. I'm always here when you need me."

Lori twitched, but the weaver drew her hand back, so that seemed to be the extent of the flirting. Ugh, it was bad enough that Rian sometimes acted like one of her mothers, she didn't need these two flirting like her mothers too!

Eventually, Umu and Mikon got up to get the food, and dinner proceeded largely as lunch had. There wasn't any conversation save between Shanalore and her cousin. Despite the reminder that Rian would only be gone two more days—and not even a full two days at that—Riz once more slipped to quietude, and Umu said nothing at all. Mikon, of course, said nothing as the two of them played chatrang, but she beyond her one shoulder touch she made no other flirtatious movements towards the women on either side of her.

…

Well, not her problem. This was a 'dealing with people matter', so she'd leave it to Rian when he got back.

When Mikon lost the game after they had finished eating, she simply nodded at Lori with a smile, rose and left.

Lori put away the game pieces, and retired to her room. Tomorrow was another day of work, and she needed her rest.

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Ignorance of Something

The next morning, Lori realized she was down to her last set of clean clothes. That… probably explained the smell in her room. She'd have to do laundry soon, and also air things out. Hmm, the latter she could probably do while she was out today, she just had to seal off the corridor to her room before she set the airwisps…

Perhaps she should put a window in her room? It would require having to make a hole through the stone face of her Dungeon, but it would make it much easier to air out, as well as drying her laundry once they were washed. Clothes always felt too dry and scratchy when she dried them by pulling out all the water, and while doing it by evaporating the water with firewisps was better… well, it made the room too humid and impatience had led to some burnt clothes when she was younger. And she didn't have any way of replacing her clothes at the moment, so she wasn't risking that.

Though if she opened a window… well, the problem of rain getting in could be solved with judicious use of airwisps and waterwisps, and she had enough wire left to connect it to the core situated under her room. And that binding of lightningwisps would keep the bugs out. But it would also be another entrance to her room that people could reach with a ladder, not to mention it would be another thing she'd need to secure when a dragon came…

Sighing, Lori put those thought away and got dressed in yesterday's clothes. If she was going to be mucking around along the river and beyond the edge, best it be in clothes that were already dirty. She picked up the prototype with its variously shaped compartments, so she wouldn't have to come up and get it and headed downstairs.

Then she turned around and headed upstairs again, because she remembered one of the experiments she'd be conducting was leaving some white Iridescence outside the demesne to see what happened, and she needed a container of that. Lori used some of the unused bone strips to make a container for some of the rough-ground white Iridescence, slapping them together into a simple cube and sealing it shut by fusing the edges and corners together with earthwisps so that water couldn't get in while they were on the boat. After some consideration she made another container as well, to carry a shard of white Iridescence that she'd need to break off from the large bead in the alcove. The sample size and mass might be a factor in… whatever would happen.

She was just finishing up the second container when there was a knock on her door. "Uh, your Bindership?" she heard Riz said. "It's breakfast time…"

"I'll be right down, Erzebed," she called out, finishing the last seams of the second container. She tested it by filling it with water from her private bath and checking for leaks. Once she was statisfied there were none, she washed her hands, and then picked up the three containers and headed downstairs.

Lori blinked in surprise as she saw Riz still waiting for her on the other side of the door. Well, she supposed she hadn't exactly told them woman to go downstairs without her. "Is there anything I need to know?" she said as she led the way downstairs.

"Uh… no? I don't think so. Uh, no one died, nothing was stolen, none of the children have been hurt or are crying… "

Lori nodded. "Check with the smiths whether the second prototype has been completed yet, and if it isn't, inform me how long they say it will be before it is. Then we're going to the edge."

"Uh, now or after breakfast, Great Binder?"

"After breakfast. Eat first, then make the inquiries and arrangements. I want us moving by midmorning at the latest. Earlier, if possible."

"Got it, Great Binder."

Riz had shown that she wasn't really suited to taking on Rian's full duties, as shown by her difficulties in being a temporary Rian, but Lori had noticed that she was quite capable when given specific tasks where she didn't really have to think about what she needed to do. The woman could even meet more vague orders where she needed to use her initiative. Not that she didn't have any, but Riz seemed to have difficulty in using that initiative on things of a large scale, unlike Rian.

Lori could work with that. She just had to remember what needed to be done and explicitly order Riz to do it, one at a time.

…

If she could have Rian write down everything he did or that needed to be done, could she possibly keep her demesne running by going down that list and order Riz to take care of things? Something to think about. thought she suspected she'd actually need to do as Rian has been saying and promote two people to become lords or ladies.

She hated it when he was right.

Downstairs, people were already eating. When she reached her usual table, she took one of the four bowls there—it looked like Shanalorre was eating with the children this morning—and started to eat. The other three sitting across from her did the same. Mikon and Umu ate silently, while Riz was frowning thoughtfully and occasionally muttering to herself between spoonfuls. The rest of the dining hall more than made up for them, and Lori let the buzzing talk and occasional childish cry from behind her wash over her. It helped make up for the lack of her usual morning discussion—

"Mikon," Lori said, "Rian hasn't mentioned any issues, but do the weavers have enough fiber to work?"

It took a moment for the weaver to register the question, and when she did Mikon was clearly startled at the attention. Still, she was able to answer coherently. "We're starting to, your Bindership," she said . "We've been collecting ropeweed from the other side, since we weren't able to collect it all last year, and we've been retting enough to start spinner thread again."

Lori nodded. "In your estimation, how long will it take to weave enough fabric to make everyone in the demesne a new set of clothes? Shirts and trousers. Or… well, I suppose skirts, in some cases."

"Ah… that will be some time, your Bindership. Two seasons, or so? Possibly faster, since we won't need to try and make everyone winter clothes"

That… sounded promising. "Will you be able to make new clothes for the babes and the children before mid-summer, at least?"

"That that's what we're concentrating on now, especially the babes," Mikon sounding more relaxed and certain as they continued to talk about weaving. "We have enough looms, we just need enough thread, and for that we need more ropeweed."

Lori nodded. "Would it help if we suspended logging for a time and have anyone who can be spared focuse on finding and gathering ropeweed?"

Mikon hesitated, eating for a few moments as she considered. "It might… but… most of the ropeweed we're getting right now is coming from across the river. Even if we had a lot of people to cut and gather the ropeweed, unless the… the Coldholdis here, we'd only have Clowee and her boat to get it all across the river."

Ah. That would be a bottleneck, yes. And that would be the same boat being used to get people across the river.

"But, that shouldn't be needed soon, your Bindership," Mikon said. "The ropeweed grows fast, and the ones growing on this side should be ready to cut down soon." She hesitated again. "If… if we wanted to increase the amount of fabric we can weave, more retting tanks would be helpful. We can only put so much in the one we have now…"

"Hmm…" Lori 'hmm…'-ed thoughtfully. "Would a deeper tank help?"

"I'm… not sure. We've always done it in shallow waters."

Lori nodded. "If you can think of—" A thought occurred to her. "Actually, never mind. I might have somewhere that can work. If we can increase the number of retting tanks, do you think we can get everyone a new set of clothes within the year?"

"Oh, easily, your Bindership, even without more retting tanks, though it would certainly help. We did it last year, after all, and winter clothes take up more fabric than a normal set of clothes. Rian is hoping we'll have enough fabric to make each family a new mattress too, so that they can sleep easier."

"Oh? Why didn't he tell me about that?"

"Ah… I suppose… perhaps he felt it wasn't something you needed to be bothered with, your Bindership?"

No… it probably wasn't. She'd didn't know enough about the textiles industry to really give an informed opinion, and from what Mikon had said, Rian had merely discussed scheduling and priority issues. And she already had a nice new mattress, so it wasn’t like she needed a new one.

Lori finished the last of her food and pushed away her plate with her utensils before draining the last of the water in her cup. “I have something to retrieve, Erzebed. Inform as soon as we’re ready to leave, I’ll be in my room.”

“Yes, Great Binder,” Riz, said, looking lightly confused for some reason. She actually glanced at Mikon, and the weaver shrugged, conveying her ignorance of something, before smiling suddenly and waggling her fingers at the non-officer. Riz hastily looked away.

Lori ignored the usual flirting—still not as bad as her mothers—and got up to retrieve one of the sample container she’d made to put one of the larger sample chunks from the broken bead into it. And… well, she still had some bone. Best to make a container for Iridescence to grow in again between trips so they wouldn’t have to keep looking for usable samples from the environment…

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There was a knock on her door. “Great Binder? We’re ready to go.”

“Coming,” Lori called, gathering her materials. There was her prototype, the two sample containers, a large cube made from bone panels for growing iridescence in as well as her pocket knife and staff. She’d ended up throwing everything in one of the tubular bone containers she had made for transporting finished beads for lack of anything to conveniently carry it all in. There was no way she was carrying her entire equipment box just to bring along a few thing. All her glassware was in that!

That done, she checked herself. Hat, raincoat… Lori nodded to herself in satisfaction and opened the door. For the second time that day, Riz was there, and Lori gave her a nod of acknowledgement. “The smiths?” she prompted as she opened her door wide and wedged it in place by making the floor rise up slightly to bracket the door in place.

“They said it would be ready soon, Great Binder. It will probably be done when we get back.” The woman glanced at the open door in confusion, but fell into step with Lori as the started climbing down. Behind them, Lori made spikes start growing sideways from the wall, physically barring people but leaving most of the corridor clear.

When they got to the ground floor, Lori took a moment to bar the stairway as well, and even physically tried to squeeze through. She didn’t fit.

She was just about to nod to herself in satisfaction when Riz coughed. “Um, your Bindership, will any of the children fit through there?”

Lori blinked and looked at the stone growths barring the way to her room again, then sighed as she saw what Riz had. Rainbows.

After modifying the placement to keep the children from being able to pass through, Lori put bindings of airwisps all along the corridor, anchored to the stone floor and ceiling, and imbued them heavily. When she activated the bindings, she felt a breeze around her head as air was drawn to the top of the corridor, even as air began to blow out from along the floor, making the leather of her raincoat sway slightly. “All right, let’s go.”

“Ah, airing day,” Riz said as she nodded in comprehension.

Lori’s Ice Boat was ready, the woman who Lori vaguely recognized as the one who operated it nowadays already at the controls. Riz had apparently decided to bring along some people to take advantage of the trip, because two people with sickles were already sitting on the boat, along with someone Lori recognized as one of Riz’s friends and someone who commonly accompanied them on trips like this.

Lori settled down on one of the shallow benches, laying her staff on the floor and so she had one hand free to grab hold of her hat and another to keep her bone container from falling over and spilling everything as Riz followed in after her and took her own seat. “All right. Take us out, Clowee,” the non-officer said.

With a familiar lurch, the boat slid out of the dock as the steam in the steam jet driver pushed against the water, the front turning to point upstream and towards the edge.

The sky already threatened rain.

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The Shed On The Edge

The rain began to fall about halfway to the edge. Lori had to adjust her grip on her hat and tried to divert the falling rain with a binding of airwisps. It was inconsistent cover, since while the direction the name fell from was mostly consistent, occasional crosswinds blew water around her binding, which had to be quite high to sufficiently divert the raindrops. A binding of waterwisps to turn any oncoming raindrops into vapor would have worked better, but such a binding wouldn't have been able to move with the boat quickly enough to do any good.

She also had to get the water that fell into the boat out. While there was little danger of sinking, the rain water on the bound ice of Lori's Ice Boat rendered them dangerous slippery. Lori had to draw them together with waterwisps into a viscous glob, and then throw the water over the side into the river.

The sound came slowly and insidiously, or at least that's how it felt like to Lori. She had just finished throwing another viscous ball of water, the binding of waterwisps holding it together anchored to her hands, when she realized she was hearing it, even if she didn't know what it was. The sound was high-pitched and intermittent, cutting of briefly before resuming. The noise sounded distant, but if she was hearing it from the river, and over the sound of the rain…

Lori took an embarrassingly long time to place that the sound was.

It was beasts screaming in pain as the Iridescence was washed off their bodies by the rain.

The screams weren't as intense as they could be, not like the ones she'd heard when there'd been a powerful downpour. In this light rain, while the surface Iridescence on the beasts' feathers and on the few stretches of their bodies not covered would have been washed off, the water was unlikely to be plentiful enough to was off the iridescence growing deep within their bodies. Feathers were very good for repelling water, after all. Still, there were parts of beasts not so thoroughly covered, such as around their eyes. No matter how they turned their head, at least one eye would have the Iridescence around it washed away, the flesh around the sensitive region becoming raw and irritated painfully as the iridescence under the skin was slowly drawn up and washed off the by rainwater.

It was a disturbing sound, one that multiplied as they drew closer to the edge, growing louder as they neared the border of her demesne. Lori felt like the cries were making her heart vibrate in her chest.

The edge looked different than it usually did. The rain had begun to wash off the growing iridescence from the tree. While the trees still glittered, enough had spots and streaks of dark color showing through, muted shades of green and brown. The rocks and ground on the riverbanks were almost bare, but little spots of glittering colors still shone, somehow untouched by the rain so far.

"Prepare to land here," Lori pointed where the ropeweed was a bit shorter than anywhere else along the bank. The rain had made the exact location of the edge a bit uncertain, and she didn't want to accidentally ride out of her demesne.

"Yes, your Bindership!" the woman operating the steam jet driver said, the boat beginning to turn. There was the sound of something heavy sliding, and she actually felt the boat slow a little as they maneuvered.

Once they landed, and everyone had gotten out of the boat, Lori was able to put together and anchor a binding that turned any water that would fall into the boat to vapor, so that it wouldn't fill up with water. So of course, when she finally finished the binding and anchored it in place, the rain stopped, because of course it did! From the dirty looks being directed at the clouds above, she wasn't the only one who thought so.

"Erzebed," Lori said, trying to keep her annoyance reined in, "check for any beasts we can't hear. The rest of you, start cutting ropeweed and loading the boat. If there's too much, come back for it later."

There were acknowledgements, but Lori had already turned away, gathering her container of effects from the boat so it wouldn't get buried by ropeweed. The ground was soft underneath, her boots sinking slightly into the mud, but not enough for her to be inclined to try and use a binding on it. Holding her container in her arms—and then turning it on its side to drain it once she realized it was full of water—Lori began to claim waterwisps, forming a binding that drew a thick, viscous mass of water out of the river. As Riz and her friend threw rocks to check for beasts, the two with the sickles began cutting ropeweed, and the one who'd been operating the boat began to gather the cut ropeweed into bundles, Lori began pulling torso-size globs of water from the river and binding them solid so they would flow.

"It's clear, Great Binder," Riz eventually reported, eyeing the solidified water around Lori. At some point, Lori had started solidifying the water in the river and then moving them out, so she had begun to make bigger and bigger boulder-like globs of ice, all still bound to stay solid.

"Thank you Riz," Lori said. "Keep watch while I work."

First, she started combining the globs of solidified water together, until they all formed a large, irregular mass. Flattening out the bottom and anchoring the waterwisps to the earthwisps on the ground, Lori slowly moved the large mass towards the edge, making sure to stand uphill from the mass should it start to slide along the ground from its own weight. Fortunately, that didn't happen and she was eventually able to get the mass to the edge.

Cautiously, Lori moved the mass a bit further inland, following the curve of the edge, until she reached a tree. The trunk was thick but bare near the ground, and part of the tree extended out into the colors. She carefully moved the mass of solidified water to press up against the tree and, moving slowly and carefully, began to enfold the lower part of the tree's trunk.

Once a part of the solidified water was enfolded around the trunk, securing the mass—theoretically, Lori was finally able to start shaping it. A part of her was still exasperated that she was actually going with Rian's idea to build this structure with ice, but… well, it actually did work, and it meant she didn't have to try and excavate rocks out of the ground to build her shed. She anchored the mass of solidified water to the ground, moving the ice so that the shed had a thick, heavy base to distribute the weight. When it became clear she didn't have enough mass, she just drew more water from the river and now would have been a good time to have water falling out of the sky!

Still, it wasn't too dissimilar from working with stone and earthwisps, and she'd built enough things with using that material that she was able to build her shed with a decent amount of confidence, skill and speed. It took time, but well before noon she had a dome-like structure of ice that was half-inside, half-outside of her demesne. The walls weren't perfectly clear, since there was river sediment suspended in it, but she could still see through the walls of the building and out the other side.

As buildings went, it was the most fragile one she'd made—the top of the dome was a mere three yustri or so thick, though the dome got thicker the lower down it went—but it kept the rain off, and she had some small confidence that if a beast tried charging at the walls, it would last long enough for her to run deeper into her demesne…provided that the beast was about her height and not one of the big, heavy, slow moving ones…

Well, she could add more water to the walls to make it thicker next time, maybe add rocks to the base to make it more secure…

For now, noon was nearing, so she had Riz gather some rocks and stepped inside the cover of her new shed—she was just barely able to stand inside it—and set about getting her experiments ready. First, she extracted the two sealed bone containers full of white iridescence from her container and, after checking above her in case some water had appeared to drip down into the samples—none had—she opened each container one at a time to check the state of the contents. The samples appeared unchanged, even when she bound some lightwisps to shine more light on them.

She sealed the containers again, then took the rocks Riz had gathered reshaped them to make two small, hollow containers. Each little bone container was put into a stone to protect it in case chokers or bugs made their way into her ice shed. Then she stepped over the border of her demense—there was a sudden change of temperature as the air became a bit cooler for her—to place the shaped stone container containers up against the wall of the shed that was deepest into the colors. Taking her belt knife, she softened the tops of the hollowed stones and wrote which one contained which sample.

Then she set about testing the production molds.

Finding Iridescence that she could use was a bit difficult because of the rain, but Lori was able to scrape some off the dry, overhanging parts of the trees with her belt knife, and used her hat as a shade to keep water off the samples. Riz and her friend followed her, keeping watch for danger. When she turned around to go back to the shed to get to work, however, Lori realized the shed had only one door.

And it was on the side of the shed that was inside her demesne.

A mildly amused Riz held Lori's hat over the little prototype tray full of Iridescence as Lori went back inside the demesne and entered the shed, then opened a small hole in the shed wall which Riz was able to pass the prototype tray through. Unfortunately, a little water dripped into the tray, dissolving the Iridescence in two of the cells, but she enough to samples to redistribute after she'd gotten rid of the water.

Once Riz had walked around the shed and given Lori her hat back, Lori began to test the prototype. Instead of using heavily imbued bindings to amalgamate into beads, she only imbued then with a small amount of magic, just enough for them to start amalgamating with the iridescence to form a bead, then actively imbued them using the copper ingot as a contact point to channel magic.

All the beads began to form properly, though their growth was slower than normal because she was imbuing them. She held the tray carefully at a slight angle, not wanting to have the amalgamating beads roll around such that they lost contact with the ingot and stop forming.

The one formed from pressing down a bead of the size she wanted onto bone to leave an impression was the first of the prototypes to fail. It probably would have worked if she'd laid the tray on a completely flat and level surface, but she had clearly made the area where the bead would contact the ingot too small. She debated trying it again later once this batch was finished, but had to decide against it. If it would only work in ideal conditions… well, it would probably be a long time before she'd have anything approaching ideal conditions during production.

Other failures soon followed. These were the molds similar to the imprint one, with concave bowl-like sides where she'd made the contact area too small to account for the bead rolling around too far to the side. Disappointing, but at least she didn't have to worry about trying to figure out why the molds failed.

In the end of the first production run, only four molds worked as intended all the way to the end, creating beads of the size she wanted. They were the shallow ring-shaped one, one shaped like an angled trench, the shallow square one with inclined sides which had been an angular take on the concave molds, and a mold that had a simple incline in it. In each, the bead had been lifted up from the metal contact point by its own growth, though the resulting beads weren't all the same size. Well, she'd done her best by using an actual bead to try and calibrate the molds, but at least the results were all pretty close.

She marked the outside of the molds that had worked so she wouldn't forget. Now, all she had to do was simply to show them to her carpenters, and possibly her smiths, and have them build a tray for bead mass production using the shape that was the easiest for them to mass produce. Once she had that, she could begin true mass production of beads.

Lori could hardly wait. She would have her monopoly!