18. Workshop (Patreon)

Her eyes were irritated as she walked toward the factory district. It was honestly quite the stretch to say that Sadina had a ‘factory district’ as it was just a neighborhood like every other except that it had more workshops than normal.

Blacksmiths, jewelers, carpenters, and glassworkers; those kinds of people populated these streets.

Columns of smoke were commonplace as the workshops usually had some kind of furnace, oven, or foundry. Aloe shyly stopped in the middle of the street as she wondered about her next step. Alright, one of these must be a glass workshop. But which?

As an old man dressed in worker clothes walked toward her, she seized the opportunity. This one looks like he knows the place.

“Um, hello?” Aloe asked shyly to the man.

The old man turned to face her with a scowl on his face. “Yes?”

“Do you know by any chance where a glassworker is?” She put on her banker mask on, not letting herself get intimidated by the stranger.

The man’s expression softened at the question. Perhaps because she wasn’t trying to sell him any product. It sometimes happened, mostly just in the bazaar though.

“Uh, lemme think.” He scratched his balding head for a second before responding. “Down this street, take the left on the third crossing and you should find Laraib’s workshop. I think...”

“Thank you so much!” Aloe thanked the old man without letting doubt filter into her expression upon hearing his final words.

Wordlessly, the man continued to walk to wherever he was going, leaving Aloe alone. Hum. She pouted. At least he could have said goodbye. No matter. Let’s just go to this Laraib’s. Third to the left. Third to the left.

Aloe carefully strolled down the street, counting the corners of the street. Most buildings were normal houses, as expected. Even if people referred to this place as the factory district, Sadina had no such organization. Well, that isn’t true. The only ‘districts’ in the city were the university grounds, the noble houses around the palace, and the emir’s palace itself.

Everything else was just a mishmash of everything else.

“Third one,” Aloe muttered as she finally reached the third crossing. “This street is rather long.”

Upon taking the turn, Aloe was met with the same homogenous light brown color of sandstone. Sadina already had a labyrinthic street design, if you could call zero organization a design, but the same architecture ever-present on every building, built with the same materials just made it worse. Landmarks or public buildings were the only ones that brought order to the chaos.

“Which workshop is it though?” Aloe was greeted by multiple ones in the new street. “I guess it must be the first to the right if that man hasn’t said anything else.”

Even more shyly than when she asked the man for directions, Aloe walked inside the workshop. It was easy to know it was one as it lacked a façade and from inside came a lot of light from a furnace.

“Is this Laraib’s?” The girl asked weakly at the man working at the furnace.

It didn’t look like a metalworker’s one as it was closed by the sides – the airflow was too closed – but it wasn’t like she knew much about furnaces, ovens, kilns, forges, or however they were called.

“Is this Laraib’s?” Aloe asked once more but now louder as the man didn’t seem to hear her. No response. “Hello?” She added with even more power.

“Yes, yes! I’ll be with you in a moment, I’m occupied!” The man responded with a raspy voice.

Oh, thank the heavens I didn’t get it wrong, that would have been embarrassing. Imagine interrupting someone’s work and then not even be in the right place. Couldn’t be me. Aloe nervously laughed.

As the man, Laraib Aloe guessed, didn’t pay attention to her, she wandered around the workshop. There wasn’t much in exposition, that was mainly the reason she doubted this was even a glassworker’s workshop. But now with a keen eye and calm mind, she noticed the little pieces like glasses, glass panels, some bottles, and even pieces of cutlery.

Huh, these are really small and thin. It must have been difficult to make this. Aloe observed a set of cutleries that, in reality, didn’t have many cutting instruments. There were only spoons and forks of different sizes and shapes, but no knives. I guess it’s difficult to make serrated glass.

“You fancy some cutlery?” A voice inquired from her back, making Aloe jump from the scare. “Watch out, girl! Jumping like that in a place like this is the last thing you should not do.”

“You scared me!” Aloe turned to face the man; he was cleaning his hands on a rug. “Oh, how are you that stealthy with that body?”

“Dunno.” The tall and muscle-clad man shrugged. “Anyways, welcome to my workshop. What did you want if it isn’t cutlery?”

“First. How did you even make those? Or rather, why did you make them? I doubt they aren’t as good as wood or metal.”

“They aren’t.” Laraib snickered. “But I have had enough buyers that I have made some sets in advance to have them at hand. Let me ask again, what do you need? New windows, some bottles? You don’t have a commissioner’s face.”

“That’s because I’m not here to commission anything,” Aloe explained.

“You know what type of place this is, right?”

“I do.” Aloe deadpanned. “I wanted you to take a look at a piece of glass.”

“Me specifically?” The burly man frowned.

Aloe rolled her eyes. “Any glassworker. You just were the first one I found.”

“I don’t suppose you are a novice looking for advice or mentorship, are you?” Aloe swayed her head in negation. “Oh well, I have a bit of free time. Show me this piece of yours. You carry it with you, right?”

“Yes, but...” Aloe turned her head in quick succession looking for prying eyes. “Can we do it in a more private place?”

The man’s natural frown deepened. “I don’t know what you are thinking, but I know better than to lead a stranger in my house, especially in these trying times.”

“Okay, no need to go that far!” Aloe raised her arms defensively. “Maybe just a place with a bit of shadow?”

Laraib appraised Aloe with his eyes, and after a few seconds sighed in defeat. “Go to that corner, I guess?”

The glassworker pointed at a section of the workshop that had a wooden wall dividing it from the main room. It was made of sandstone, so it was most likely put well after the construction of the building.

Aloe nodded and walked nervously to the corner with Laraib walking behind. Once she confirmed it looked like a normal storage and nothing weird was going on inside, she calmed down and guided her hands to her satchel. Her shakes relaxed and she confidently took out the Myriad glass and showed it to the glassworker.

“This is what I wanted to show you.”

Laraib’s frown exacerbated his eyes laid out on the piece. “This is what you wanted to show me? A chunk of broken glass?” The man scoffed disappointed.

“What? No!” Aloe shouted. “Look at it better! This isn’t normal glass!”

Perhaps because of her insistence or because he wanted to take a better look, Laraib inspected the Myriad glass. Once his eyes locked onto the piece, they began to rock back and forth hastily. Those eyes brimmed with interest. Laraib took the piece off Aloe’s hands before she could even protest.

“Where did you get this?” The burly man asked abruptly and seriously, his powerful voice and build intimidating Aloe.

“Um... well...” The petite girl found herself in a conundrum. She couldn’t tell the glassworker about the Myriad plant, which would beckon even more questions, but at the same time, she couldn’t just not respond. “Well... you... know...”

No answers came to her mind. I should have essayed this beforehand.

“If you don’t know you don’t need to say anything.” Laraib snickered.

“It’s not that!” Aloe subconsciously responded, only to promptly shut her mouth. Stupid Aloe, stupid! Damn you and your pride!

“So what is it then girl?” The man crossed his thick arms, still holding the Myriad glass in one hand.

“I... eh...” Aloe’s mind turned blank. It astonished her how a random glassworker was able to intimidate her more than the very emir of Sadina, a child of the Sultanah.

Then Laraib burst into laughter. “There’s no need for that lass!” He slapped his knee. “You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to. You are entitled to your trade secrets.”

“Yeah, trade secrets...” Aloe added weakly. “What do you think about the glass then?”

“Well... at first glance, I can tell it’s different, but I need my tools to ascertain that. Let me fetch them.”

As Laraib turned to the workshop, Aloe’s heart skipped a beat. “Wait!” She shouted.

But it was too late.

A single beam of sunlight hit the glass.

Light flooded the workshop.