Demesne

Once the crucible was ready, Lori went out to get some lightningwisps. The quartz in her staff had long since run out—she should probably do something about that before the next time she had to leave her demesne—so she walked to the binding that kept bugs out of her Dungeon. It was made of lightningwisps, and left little sparks in the air as a result. Lori collected those lightningwisps and formed them into a binding. Once she felt she had enough wisps, she carried the binding back to the smithy and anchored it into the white Iridescence in the crucible.

Lightningwisps was one of two wisps that could be inside solids, and so she took care to intersect parts of the binding with the copper shavings. It probably didn't matter—the copper shavings would shift as they melted—and in any case, under normal circumstances metal would cease being able to channel lightningwisps once it became hot enough, well before it liquefied. She remembered that much, at least.

She still hadn't learned how her old professor had managed to make a ball of iron float using lightningwisps.

Melting the shavings and cooling the copper alloy went without issue, so the sample went into the bucket to cool. As soon as it was cool enough to touch, Lori picked it up and immediately started using it to claim and bind airwisps. That also went without issue, and imbuing through the metal was just like imbuing through any other piece of copper.

As the sample was hammered to test its physical properties, Lori went to test the previously made alloys, using them to claim, bind, and imbue airwisps. Of them, only the darkwisp-anchored copper alloy resisted her attempts to imbue through it. However, in the process of testing, she discovered that the distance between where she touched the alloy and where the wisps she wanted to imbue contacted the matter affected the degree of resistance.

While it wasn't obvious when she was imbuing airwisps, touching the alloy to the stone walls of the smithy and trying to imbue the earthwisps there made the matter more obvious. The closer to the earthwisps she positioned her nail on the alloy, the less resistance there was in the metal, making imbuement… well, not easier, since it was still more difficult than normal. Less difficult, then. Lori shook her head as she dictated the results of the test to Rian. While it was an altered physical property, she couldn't see how it could be useful. She probably wouldn't be making this again.

"Oh, that's probably how the dials and slides on bound tools work," Rian commented as he wrote on. "I've been wondering about that. Having an alloy that restricted the amount of imbuement coming from the bead would probably do it."

Lori's head turned slowly to stare at him.

"What?"

Making the last alloy was delayed as Lori tried to test Rian's suggestion. A bead was retrieved, and the other previous alloys, their capacity to channel magic unaltered, were used as improvised bead receptacles and wires. The transparent alloy was hammered to make a cup-like shape and touched to one end of the darkwisp-anchored copper alloy, and the smith used narrow-pointed grippers to crimp the two together for convenience. The airwisp-anchored alloy had one end wrapped around a rock which Lori had softened to embed some a piece of white Iridescence on, to which she anchored some lightwisps such that the binding intersected with the airwisp alloy.

Then she took the airwisp alloy with its binding of lightwisps and touched it to the point of the darkwisp alloy furthest from where it was crimped to the improvised bead receptacle, staring at the rock on the end of it. Rian helpfully moved to where he'd cast his shadow on the rock mounted on the alloy, but it was insufficient. Lori deactivated the lightwisps on the ceiling to make it easier to see if any light was coming from the binding. She didn't actually need to do that since she could perceive if the binding was imbued, but given what Rian had suggested, having the binding actually start glowing would be a perfect proof of concept test.

Lori slowly dragged the airwisp alloy along the darkwisp alloy and closer towards the bead. At a tenth of the length of the darkwisp alloy, a weak radiance finally emanated from the lightwisp binding. It was a glow that grew brighter the closer she moved the contact towards the bead. She moved the contact back and forth, watching the light brighten and dim.

"This is going to make the steam jet drivers so much simpler," Rian said. "Instead of only having three different setting, we could just turn a dial. Much simpler."

Lori grunted. Ugh, she hated it when he was right. Lori removed the bead and handed the copper samples to the smiths. "Separate those, I need to study them individually later. Is the crucible ready?"

It was, for which she was glad. One last alloy to make—

As soon as Lori poured the white Iridescence into the crucible, Rian cheerfully said, "Well, it looks like you have everything well in hand, so me and the men are going to leave the room now."

Lori blinked. What? "What?"

"This is the waterwisp alloy you're making. You promised we could leave the room when you did that. You know, in case there's a steam explosion that sends molten copper flying everywhere?"

At the reminder, the two smiths closest to the door promptly turned around and made their way out.

Well… she had said they could do that…

Fortunately, there wasn't anything they needed to do for her. There was the bucket of water nearby—it was dark with soot from the previous two alloys—so she was able to get some water, which she turned into vapor so that it wouldn't explode into steam. To make sure, she began heating the copper shavings in the crucible. Once it was hot enough, she carefully anchored the binding of waterwisps to the white Iridescence, making sure the binding was dispersed evenly. Then she activated the binding of firewisps that would heat the contents of the crucible again and left the smithy.

"I thought you said it was safe?" Rian said as she stepped out of the room.

"I did. However, I find I'm thirsty, so I'm going to go get some water."

"Oh, then you can just wait in the smithy your Bindership, I'll go and get—"

Lori kicked him in the shin and turned to get her water.

––––––––––––––––––

After drinking some water to replenish herself, Lori went back to the smithy to check on the now-molten copper in the crucible.

On a completely unrelated note, there were no explosions of any sort, which had nothing to do with anything, and Lori didn't even know why she bothered to think of it. Still, mentioning it was sufficient get the nervous smiths back into the smithy, where the mold was heated to rid it of moisture before the final alloy was poured into it.

It was almost anti-climactic. The color was unchanged from unalloyed copper, and when Lori used the alloy sample to bind and imbue the earthwisp of the floor, there was no feeling of resistance. When the sample was given to the redsmiths to test, they reported that it seemed similar to the airwisp-anchored alloy, in that it was slightly easier to work. When they heated, however, it wasn't slow to grow warm, unlike the airwisp alloy.

"Maybe it will show other properties once we conduct other tests," Rian said confidently, giving a sigh as he finally stopped writing on the slate he was holding. The two of them had stepped just outside of the smithy to be out of the way as the smiths cleaned up. Lori held the alloys they had made that day, waiting for the redsmiths to finish with the last sample. To her amusement, the redsmiths had taken the time to stamp on the words 'fire', 'air' and so on, identifying the similar looking samples. They had even done the same for the lightwisp- and darkwisp-anchored allows, despite them being far more identifiable. "Uh, what other tests are there besides testing how well lightning passes through them?"

"I have no idea," Lori said. "I'm hardly an expert in metallurgy."

"Should I look for one next time I go to Covehold Demesne?"

"Don't. We can't waste time on that. The properties we are certain of are already more than useful."

"Too bad we don't have enough metal for windows," Rian sighed. "At least, metal that's not more useful doing something else."

"No using the iron you bought in Covehol Demesne for windows," Lori agreed. "You'll simply have to wait until the mine has managed to excavate more. Perhaps you can try to buy more cheap metals on the next trading trip. Tin or gold, maybe."

"Yes, I should probably ask about gold, we need it for buried lattices for the farming plots," Rian agreed. "And if we ever have to coat the insides of the pots again." He titled his head, looking thoughtful. "Actually… we have plenty of wire now. Why don't we just rip the gold wires out of the walls and replace it with the copper wire we bought?"

Lori blinked, also tilting her head. That… actually, that was certainly an option. "It will have to wait until there's more time and need," she sighed.

"I'll set aside wire and remind you when it seems like there's time for it."

Rian excused himself to get started transcribing what was on the slates into the notebook, leaving Lori to wait for the redsmiths to finish with the last sample.

"Thank you," Lori said when one of the smiths—his apron read Virr—came out to hand her the last sample, which was stamped 'water'. "I appreciate the work you all did today. Rian will see to it you receive a double serving of fruits with dinner and breakfast tomorrow."

"Thank you, Great Binder," he said. the man looked around, clearly looking for Rian.

"Was there anything else?" Lori said.

"Ah, it's just… well, we realized that we should probably, ah, test how well the… the alloys draw out into wire, Great Binder," the man said.

Lori blinked, tilting her head, then nodded. "I see. Yes, you're correct. While we probably won't really need to use any of them as wire—" wait, the darkwisp-anchored alloy would probably be more efficient used as a wire as long as its resistive property wasn't affected by the process… "—I suppose it's something that should be tried." She looked down at the samples in her hands. "Tomorrow."

The smith nodded, furthering the gesture into a bow. "As you say, Great Binder. Tomorrow."

"Do we still have any copper shavings?"

The man paused. "We can make some more, Great Binder, as long as you don't mind that they aren't as fine as the ones we used today."

Lori nodded. "Do so. I have an additional test to try. Enough for one will be sufficient."

"We'll start scraping some out, Great Binder."

Lori gave the man one last nod, then turned and headed for her room.

Really, one sample was all she needed for testing if she could alloy two wisps at once. It would either work or it won't, although some combinations were probably too contradictory, like alloying both firewisps and airwisps at once. Even if it works, how would they be able to tell?

In her room, she laid out the samples on her table. Each was as wide as her palm now, and thin, although still thicker than a wire. The smith should still be able to draw these into wire.

Looking over the samples, Lori picked up two and set them aside to remind herself. She'd try alloying those together tomorrow.

Nodding to herself, Lori headed for the latrine to get ready for dinner.