Demesne

The next morning, Rian and the three women seemed to be back on their usual terms. At least, Umu was back to leaning against him, and Riz was sitting next to him once more.

"I take it you've resolved your issues?" Lori said blandly.

Rian glanced sideways at the women on either side of them. "We're in the process of resolving issues."

Lori stared at the wide smile that had appeared on Mikon's face. "I see. Well, this is a 'dealing with people matter', so—"

"—yes, yes, you'll leave it to me. We grew almost seven paces, by the way. How many times did you expand it last night?"

"Really, Rian? Isn't your number going up enough for you?"

"Nope!" Rian chirped. "I need to do the math for the average growth rate too."

"Your fetishes are bizarre, Rian."

"It's not a fetish, it's simply collecting raw empirical data! Come on, please tell me! It's to quantify the difference between summer and winter expansion!"

"The first is greater than the second."

"Yes, but by how much?"

"Rian, focus. We're conducting alloy experiments after breakfast, remember?"

"I can focus on both!"

––––––––––––––––––

After they had alloyed the copper and white Iridescence, that hadn't been the end of it. Lori had the idea that if she could anchor wisps to the white Iridesence being alloyed, it would result in a binding that would be set and unalterable.

The first experiment that they had done some time in spring had been to heat some copper—they had used a binding of firewisps to do so quickly—until earthwisps had appeared at the metal. Lori had claimed and bound the earthwisp, forming them into a binding that reinforced their structural integrity, the same binding she once used to reinforce the stone of the ceiling of her Dungeon against collapse. Then fine ground white Iridescence was poured over the glowing-hot metal, still in the crucible. Once it had all settled, Lori anchored the binding of earthwisps to the white Iridesence to keep it intact before increasing the heat further until the metal had liquefied and the white Iridescence had dissolved into it.

The earthwisps slowly disappeared as the metal liquefied, and the white Iridescence on top of it dissolved into the molten metal. She had been afraid this meant that the experiment had failed, and had already begun formulating a second experiment involving heated copper shavings—so that they would manifest earthwisps—being used in the binding instead of a solid piece of copper as the metal was poured into another mold.

However, when the copper had cooled into a thinner panel than the original ingot they had melted down, instead of being springy and quickly reverting back into shape when bent—as it would have if the experiment had failed, and the result had been 'merely' a copper-white Iridescence alloy—the thin panel of copper was very stiff, heavily resisting deforming when they secured it to a vice and tried to bend with the tongs. A chisel also couldn't mark it as easily as normal copper, and trying to puncture the alloyed copper with a spike-like smithing tool and a heavy hammer resulted in the copper panel shattering like poor cast iron.

The smiths had confirmed that the alloyed copper was significantly harder and stronger than before, although it broke like it was brittle instead of deforming, though the alloy was apparently not as hard or strong as cast iron. Melting the copper down again and cooling it rid the sample of these properties, the same way that melting down the initial copper and white Iridescence alloy had, and Lori had been able to replicate the effect. Her attempt to use heated copper shavings had also been successful, although the resulting alloy had not been any different from their initial sample. At least, not in any way that could be measured or discerned with the tools they'd had on hand.

It had been a good proof of concept and confirmation that this line of research would be fruitful, though it also made her wonder where—'if' was a silly question in this instance—such metal and white Iridescence alloys were used. She was ignorant of any such instances, but that only meant she'd never encountered such metals. Or perhaps she had and simply hadn't known or realized at the time.

Further experiments had been interrupted when Rian had made a comment.

"You know, this would be a good way to add reinforcement to the dungeon's doors," he had said. "Especially the dragon shelter in River's Fork—" since at the time the shelter was still being made, "—since they don't have a moat in front of the door. Wood is sturdy and all, but enough beasts with enough claws and teeth could theoretically gnaw or tear through it."

Lori had stared at him.

Further research had been halted as they worked out how much of their remaining copper was needed to clad the doors of her Dungeon and the dragon shelter in progress. The redsmiths, more familiar with copper in its base state, had calculated how much of the metal would be needed to clad the doors with a two-and-a-half-chiyustri thick layer of metal cladding. Fortunately, since Lori had been the Dungeon Binder of River's Fork at that point, she'd used their copper stockpile for the dragon shelter's cladding.

Lori and the smiths had spent days alloying the copper together, and in the process learning the intricacies of working it. Among other things, they'd learned that heating the alloy allowed it to be worked properly. It also turned out that actually forming the binding into one that reinforces the metal's structure was not actually needed. Simply having the earthwisps be bound was sufficient. Forming the earthwisps into a binding to soften stone also did not affect the result of the alloy.

She also learned that the less white Iridescence they used, the less hard the alloy became, but after a certain point adding more white Iridescence did not make the copper any harder. The saturation point seemed to be somewhere around 1/7th of the volume of the copper in white Iridescence. Beyond that, adding more of the white Iridescence did not increase the hardness any further. Even at maximum saturation, the alloy was harder to work than copper but easier than iron, so the smiths had no problems, but the need to keep it hot so it could be hammered into a sheet had complicated the process slightly.

After they'd finished making the alloyed cladding, Lori had become too busy to continue the line of research, since she'd needed to make beads, the large beads, and all the bound tools that relieved her of the need to continue imbuing many of her bindings.

It was only now that she'd found the time to continue that line of research, and most definitely not because she forgot! At all! It would be wrong and very silly to think that!

"Did you buy that notebook in Covehold?" Lori said, looking pointedly at what Rian was holding, along with a small bottle that no doubt contained ink, and one of their demesne pens. The cover was simply leather without stiffening, with an attached cord to secure it. She herself was carrying a small glass bottle—thankfully she had a funnel—filled with the white Iridescence that she had left from when they had made the new bound tools recently.

"Of course not," Rian said. "But we have a lot of paper and we have a bookbinder in River's Fork. I asked Kutago to sew together a couple of notebooks for our research stuff, since I'm an optimist and thought we'd need multiple books for multiple separate lines of research."

Lori stared at him. "I'm keeping those," she said. "I can't risk the research data being taken."

"So you're going to transcribe all the notes into it yourself?"

"…" Lori '…'-ed. "Transcribe them quickly, clearly, concisely and completely. Don't use your abridged writing."

"Yes, your Bindership!"

"Now put those away and get a slate and chalk. It might catch fire in the smithy, or at least smudge the pages."

"…yes, your Bindership."

By the time Rian back to from his house with slate and chalk, the copper was already heating in the crucible. It was a small piece that had been hammered off a much larger ingot, as well as a few odds and ends left from the when they'd made the Earthwisp-anchored copper alloy sheets.

"Ready to write, your Bindership," Rian announced. "Third copper alloy experiment notes, ready!"

Lori nodded, most of her attention on the copper in the crucible as it got hotter. "Good. Note this down. Today's experiments will involve attempting to alloy copper with white Iridescence on which firewisps are anchored. As some of the copper being used today was originally alloyed with white Iridescence on which earthwisps were anchored, we will be melting the copper to a liquid state to return it to base copper, after which we will allow the molten copper to cool and solidify."

She checked the copper again, noting that earthwisps had started to manifest. She noted that some of those earthwisps were seemingly anchored to something, and many of them were still bound, although as with the experiment of wisps anchored to white Iridescence that was dissolved into water the bindings were all pulled and warped, no doubt from whatever it remained anchored to being agitated by the liquid copper and pulling the binding in strange ways. It was exactly the same as the previous instances of anchored-earthwisp copper alloys.

Once the copper melted, the slag was scooped out, and the pure metal was allowed to cool in the crucible just enough to solidify, Lori poured in the white Iridescence, then claiming, binding and anchoring the firewisps in the solidified copper to it. Then she began heating the metal again, this time indirectly though the firewisps in the air in the crucible, as well as in the crucible itself.

This time, observing the wisps through her awareness of the wisps in her demesne was more enlightening then trying to do so during the second set of copper alloy experiments. She felt the binding of firewisps shift as the metal liquified again and the white Iridescence dissolved into it, very similar to when the same had been dissolved in water. Lori observed the binding a bit longer, watching as it flowed and distended, likely in response to the molten copper flowing and bubbling. It was actually behavior she'd seen before in bindings of waterwisps in boiling water, but it was notable because firewisps didn't usually act like this.

Lori recited all these observations to Rian, trusting him to note it down, and deactivated the bindings of firewisps before signaling for the copper to be poured. The mold to be used was placed on top of the crucible to heat up and get rid of any moisture—otherwise there was a risk of steam explosions from small amounts of airborne waterwisps, and therefore water, clinging to the surfaces of the mold—before being placed on the ground. The crucible was picked up with tongs and the copper was poured into the mold.

They all watched as the copper flowed out across the ingot mold—which was far too big for the amount of copper poured into it—solidifying… and then instantly darkening as it cooled.

"Is it just me…" Rian said, "or did that happen faster than it should have?"

"It's not just you, Rian," one of the smiths—he had the name 'Lanwei' burned into the leather of his apron—said. The other assorted smiths nearby nodded in agreement, all of them frowning at the now-solid once-puddle of copper.

One of the copper smiths—the name burned into his apron was 'Duvar'—picked up the copper with a smaller set of tongs and dropped it into a bucked of water nearby that had been prepared for that purpose. It splashed into the water, but there was no sizzling of water evaporating into steam, no bubbles from that steam rising up.

The firewisps in the copper had disappeared the instant it had entered the bucket.

Lori looked towards the mold in confusion, but the firewisps there were still dangerously hot, even for her.

"It's not bubbling," Rian narrated the obvious as everyone craned their heads to see into the bucket, which did more harm than good as some people blocked out the lightwisps anchored to the ceiling.

They all moved out of the way when Lori stepped forward, and while people called out 'Wait—!', none actually stopped her as she reached into the bucket and pulled up the copper with her bare hands.

It was cold to the touch, but warmed very quickly as she held it, firewisps quickly manifesting first where her skin touched the metal before quickly filling the entire lopsided metal flatbread.

"Rian," Lori said, "give me your hand."

As Rian hesitantly held out his left hand, Lori grabbed it by the wrist and slapped the copper down on it. Rian, of course, tried to pull his hand back, but her grip was firm, keeping him and the copper in place.

Finally, he said. "Oh, it's cool already."

Lori nodded. "Yes, it is."

"Was it really a good idea to force it to cool like that?" She released his wrist and he started turning the metal over in his fingers, the soot on the copper's surface rubbing off. "Or do we not care about any deformities in the metal?"

"I didn't force it to cool. It cooled quickly on its own."

"What." Despite the clear question, it was said in the tone of a statement.