Book 3 - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

The workshop looked exactly like he’d last seen it. Only a few of the tools on the workbench in the puppet-making side of the room had been touched, and nothing in the glassmaking section. Almost everything was exactly how Ademir had left it, as if at any moment the man would return and continue working. A specific wood chisel drew Brin’s eye, placed next to a half-carved block of wood. It wasn’t far enough along to tell what Ademir had planned for it, and now no one would ever know.

Ademir’s greatest creation sat slouched over the puppet making table, idly fiddling with a set of wooden gears, rolling them back and forth across the table with one finger. His massive, normally imposing form, made of finely detailed wood and clockwork perfection, looked somewhat despondent. As much as Brin wanted to get straight into work, he couldn’t just ignore this.

“Hey, how are you doing there, big guy?”

Ademsi 2000 turned to peer at him with gemstone eyes, glowing faintly purple. The pieces of his face were complex enough to convey emotion, and the eyes that glowed different colors based on his mood were just an added emphasis. “How am I doing? What a deceptively difficult question. I don’t know.”

“You seem a little down,” said Brin.

“I am. What irony.” Ademsi drew himself up to his full height. “I am strong. On the battlefield, I cut through the enemy like a scythe through grass and there is none that can oppose my might. I fear no undead. Their rotted flesh holds no revulsion for me and the strength of their arms is to me as the pathetic wriggling of an insect. I fought and conquered so that others might hide behind the walls.”

“That’s true,” said Brin. “I haven’t heard a single person saying that isn’t true.”

“Now the fighting is done and I… am unsure. Father was insistent that there is more to me than a killing machine. But what? What am I for? What am I to make of myself now?”

Brin nodded thoughtfully, and then began to realize it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “I don’t know. I don’t even have an answer for myself. I guess I’d recommend trying out different things until you find something that clicks. For today, want to help me make some glass?”

“Very well, if you insist,” Ademsi said, maybe a little too quickly. “I kept the oven warm for you.”

To Brin’s surprise, the glass was already hot and ready to go. Ademsi must’ve been keeping the fire lit this entire week, just on the off-chance that Brin would decide to drop by. It made him feel kind of bad that he hadn’t checked in earlier. He was glad he’d come now.

The first thing he’d be trying would be the Prince Rupert’s drop, mostly because it seemed like the easiest thing to make. His [Memories in Glass] had preserved a short video of someone demonstrating it at home with nothing but a glass rod, a blowtorch, and a glass of water. Nothing you couldn’t easily replicate with a full glass workshop.

He filled a bucket of water from the water barrel, and then narrated to Ademsi as he pulled a small glob of glass out of the kiln with a blowpipe. “Today I want to experiment with–” Brin didn’t actually know if he wanted to credit Prince Rupert with this since he still didn’t know who that was “--glass drops. They’re a really interesting example of tempered glass and from the… books I read they should be really easy to make. Tempered glass is when the outside cools much faster than the inside layer. That puts the outside layer into compression and the inside into tension, and should make it a lot stronger than regular glass. That’s the theory anyway.”

He got that from the visible portion of the explanation under the video he’d watched only one time, and he hadn’t scrolled down to view the full text. Still, he thought he had enough to start.

“I think I’m supposed to heat the glass until it drips off on its own, but I don’t have a blow torch or anything hot enough for that, so I’m going to do this part by magic.”

He pushed some mana with [Shape Glass] into the glowing red glass and separated a piece off, holding it in the air. He handed the blowpipe to Ademsi, who took it and watched the floating blob of glass with keen interest, his eyes fading to light pink.

“I kind of have in mind to use this as a bullet if it works, and I was thinking that if most of its strength comes from the tear shape, then a sphere should be even better. I’m going to try to mold it into that.”

He pushed more mana into the ball, moving it into a spherical shape. It wasn’t easy at first, kind of like trying to make a perfect sphere in clay with his fingers. But that’s not how he would ever make a ball out of clay; he would roll it. He tried that, rotating the ball around and around, and letting gravity and motion help it get the perfect shape.

Heat was a problem. The Prince Rupert’s drop was always made at melting temperature, but the glass started to cool the instant it left the oven. It was still very malleable, but he didn’t want to do anything by half measures.

The moment he thought of it, his magic started to take hold and heat the glass. Strange, since he definitely hadn’t been able to do that before. Then again, he hadn’t experimented with glass since before he’d put another Skill point into [Shape Glass], so he didn't actually know what he could do with it now. The System had said it would help him change the properties of glass, and apparently that meant he could change its temperature. That was very good news indeed, he couldn’t wait to see what that would mean in a fight.

He pumped in more mana, and heated his ball up enough to where it was just barely keeping its shape. Then he let it drop.

The ball plopped into the water. It immediately lost its orange color as the water cooled it down into transparency.

Then the ball exploded. There was a soft tink and then the water at the bottom of the bucket swirled as the ball disintegrated to tiny shards. It was lucky it was underwater.

“Whoa. I should really be wearing goggles,” said Brin.

“Why did it explode?” asked Ademsi.

“I don’t know,” Brin said thoughtfully. “Hold on, yes I do. Tempered glass can explode sometimes, when the pressure difference between the inside and outside is too great, or something. I sort of mimic that reaction when I make my glass spearheads explode after I stab someone, although I’ve never been able to make it happen naturally, only by pumping in tons of mana. So this is what it looks like. I’ll be honest, I expected it might crack, but not blow into a million tiny pieces.”

He used [Shape Glass] to pick up the pieces and mold them together again, and then dropped the chunk into the failure bucket.

“Let’s try again.”

They tried eight more times, until all the glass on the blowpipe was gone, and each time it ended in failure.

It was only after the last one that Brin remembered that he still wasn’t wearing goggles. He impatiently stomped over to the workbench where the goggles Ademir had given him lay. There were two circles of glass encased in leather, and when Ademir had made them the glass had been so foggy they’d barely been worth using. He’d fixed that right away, but still rarely used them, since [Heat Resistance] helped him with the fire and things rarely exploded in a glasser shop. Except for today, apparently. He put them on. Not that he needed them now, since he wasn’t sure what to try next.

“You said you read about this as a drop. Why not try that first?” suggested Ademsi.

“Maybe you’re right, but if we’re going to match exactly what they described I’ll need a heat source that can melt the glass. I can’t trust that my magic will affect it in exactly the right way.”

Ademsi nodded. He handed the blowpipe back to Brin and then unhinged the top of his left index finger. He snapped, making a spark, and then flame ignited, blowing out a steady blue stream from the end of his finger.

“For welding. Father could not manipulate most metals easily without heating them. I helped him with some of the finer detail work in my own body. One might say I had a hand in my own creation.”

Brin laughed at Ademsi’s pun, a full throated belly laugh. Not that it was so funny, but because it was so unexpected from the big automaton. Ademsi grinned in satisfaction.

“That should work. Let’s give it a try!”

Brin brought more glass from the oven, and this time held it over to let Ademsi melt it. Ademsi brought up his finger flame and let it melt away some of the glass. The reaction was immediate and the glass started to loosen.

One thing Brin noticed was that the glass that Ademsi heated up was much hotter than he’d made the balls. That made sense, it was one thing to melt glass enough to make it bendy, but it took much more heat to make it drop down on its own.

The glass stretched out, forming a long tail, and Ademsi waved the flame up and down along its length until the tail broke off and the glass plopped into the bucket below.

It shattered. Ademsi hunched, looking downcast.

“Hold on, try that again, but this time keep the heat on the center of mass. Don’t heat the tail.”

Brin shaped the glass on the blowpipe into a cylinder rather than a blob to make it easier for Ademsi to melt the end off. He kept it placed in the same spot until a piece of glass melted down, formed a long tail, and then fell off into the barrel.

They waited with held breath. Well, Brin held his breath while Ademsi watched intently. A second, then ten, then thirty. The glass didn’t break.

[Shape Glass] leveled up! 22 -> 23

[Summon glass] leveled up! 20 -> 21

Brin smiled and pulled the drop out of the bucket. It was perfectly cool; water worked fast to remove heat. It was perfectly clear, free of bubbles, and sort of pretty. Almost an art project.

“The head here will be pretty strong, but even a tiny flick of the tail might be enough to break it,” said Brin.

He took it over and placed it on a table. Then he grabbed a nice steel hammer and tapped the big end of the drop. It withstood it, so he tapped harder, then even harder, then pulled back and brought the hammer down as hard as he could. The drop was completely pristine.

“Let me try,” said Ademsi, brimming with violent confidence.

Brin handed over the hammer over, and Ademsi swung so hard it made the ground shake, and Brin was certain the worktable would’ve shattered under the force if it hadn’t been Bog Standard craftsmanship.

The dewdrop was scuffed, but unbroken.

“Ha ha ha!” Ademsi still hadn’t gotten the hang of laughing; it sounded like someone saying the words “ha ha ha”. Brin laughed along.

“Incredible!” said Ademsi. “But you say the tail is fragile?”

Brin found a pair of wire cutters and clipped the end of the tail. The drop exploded into a thousand pieces, and Brin even felt a few little pieces hit his goggles. He really should wear them more.

[Shape Glass] leveled up! 23 -> 24

“Huh,” said Brin. “I came here looking for bullets, but I think that gave me what I needed to make my glass explode harder. It’s only been effective for making wounds even worse after I’ve already stabbed someone, but this could do actual damage.

“Let us make more,” said Ademsi. “I would like one to show Evita.”

Evita 2000 was Ademsi’s… sister? Wife? Companion. It was hard to tell what to call it when they were the only two of their kind in existence.

“Where is Evita today?” Brin asked.

“She works with the people of the town, trying out different things to see what she likes. Strange, that she is already doing that which you suggested to me today,” said Ademsi.

“Well no offense, but honestly she might be the smart one,” said Brin.

Ademsi’s eyes circled through several different colors before he said. “I do not know if I am offended by that. Should I be?”

“No,” said Brin.

“Very well.”

They practiced more Prince Rupert’s drops, testing out different ways to make them, seeing if there was a difference between quenching them slowly or air cooling slowly, making longer or shorter tails, and anything else they could think of.

Despite claiming he was made for war, Ademsi was extremely handy in the workshop. He was patient, but also clever and creative. His hands were steady, but he could work lightning-quick when needed.

When they wrapped back around to try to make spherical drops again, they worked backwards by melting off the tail after the drop had already been made. They balls broke fairly easily after that.

Ademsi had some thoughts on the matter. “It must be the heat. The head must reach every outside surface at the exact same time at the exact same temperature to preserve integrity.”

“I think you’re right. It works for drops because even though there’s a fault, the fault gets propagated up to the tail,” said Brin.

If he could make a glass ball in zero gravity, its own surface tension would pull it into a perfect sphere. Then if he cooled it with air, like in a cool room with no wind, it might make an extremely resilient marble. Normally it wouldn’t even be something he’d consider, but Lumina was here after all. It would be worth asking.

For now, he still wanted to impress her with how much he could learn about glass in one night.

“Maybe we should switch focus for a bit. I promised to make Calisto some more beakers and bottles.”

“Very well,” said Ademsi.

They made some simple, normal bottles first, just to give Brin a chance to get back into practice. He let Ademsi make a few more, and if the automaton didn’t have the Class or magic for it, he made up for it with astounding agility and reflexes, and the ability to match Brin’s movements perfectly. The ones Ademsi made weren’t inferior to Brin’s in any way, although Brin did nudge things along by using his magic to clear up any fogginess or bubbles.

After that, Brin experimented by using [Shape Glass’s] new ability to change the properties of the glass. What he really needed for Calisto was glass that would be resistant to severe temperature shifts. His memories didn’t have an exact recipe for pyrex, sadly. He knew boron was involved, but didn’t know that that was called here, and Gudio was still laid up from the curse so getting rare minerals was impossible in any case. Still, he could nudge things along, fueling his magic with the desire for the glass to be more resistant to heat and cold.

They also made a few panes of glass. To sell, and also to see if he could get them flatter and more even then Ademir had ever been able to.

Once on a whim, he made another knife. He molded it with molten glass, heated it up with his magic as far as it would go, and then dropped it in the water. It shattered. He thought he’d be able to replicate some of the strength of the Prince Rupert’s drop by using [Shape Glass] to artificially put it in, but he wanted to make one normally first. Somehow, he knew it would be better that way. He didn’t try it again, though, because his mana was down to a quarter and he’d need some for the next day.

They worked tirelessly, caught up in the joy of creation for hour after hour. Brin took a few breaks for water but none for rest, and Ademsi took no breaks at all. Time passed in a haze of creative energy.

[Shape Glass] leveled up! 24 -> 25

By the time that it even started to register to him that it was getting late, the sun started to glow up the horizon in the morning.

Brin called it quits. He rubbed his eyes, thinking about the long day ahead. “You’re lucky you don’t need to sleep.”

“I do sleep,” said Ademsi.

“Oh, in that case sorry for keeping you up all night.”

“Do not apologize. You could not compel me to do something I did not wish to. I did not wish to sleep. There is joy in creation. I know what my Father saw in it. Perhaps this is my purpose.”

Brin scratched the back of his head. “Hey, listen, I’ve been thinking about that, and I’m wondering if you’re thinking about this the wrong way. Take this blowpipe. It’s a tool made for blowing glass. But is that all it is? It’s long so that I can reach into the oven without burning my hands, so I could almost use it as a walking staff. It’s strong, so I could use it as a club in a pinch. I can blow air through it, so I could maybe use it as an instrument. So is it really only a blowpipe?”

Ademsi eyed it. “Perhaps it’s more. Are you saying I’m like that blowpipe?”

“No,” said Brin. “This is just a blowpipe. Even if I use it for something else, that’s still all it is. Just a tool. You’re not like this at all, Ademsi. If Ademir only wanted a weapon, he would’ve built a weapon. There’s no reason for you to need to talk or think if all you need to do is kill things. You’re a person, and people don’t exist for just one thing. We don’t have a single purpose. We’re a million little purposes all bundled up together.”

Ademsi stroked his chin. His eyes gradually faded into a soft shade of blue. “Sigh. I must rest. Thank you for your words.”

“You’re welcome,” said Brin.

He needed to sleep, too, but he wouldn’t. Next up was his workout with Davi, and then it would be time to give Lumina her answer.

All-night crunches might be an unhealthy way to go through life, but it’s what got him through college, and tonight it had paid off, because he had his answer. He had something else, too. He knew he’d be able to do it, even before he tried. He tried anyway.

“<Glass>,” he spoke in the Language, just that one word without “<Create>”, the way Lumina had shown him. A bead of glass appeared in his palm.