CHAPTER 100: Double crossed
Antonetta looked fascinated by the fabrication process whereas Hana couldn’t be bothered and spent her time making the settings for the jewellery. My blowtorch seemed to be well used by Hana and I suspected there was going to be some competition if I needed to use it again. Between using it to help keep the glass warm while forming it and her wanting to solder pieces together it worked for its money. Ara would need to make one for Hana soon.
Because I didn’t want to spend all my EE trying to melt sand into glass I needed a furnace to bring the glass up to the right temperature, not unlike my previous experience making the spearheads. I preferred to use my EE in the last stages of refining in keeping the temperature of the glass constant until it formed because even a few degrees differential in the material could crack the glass due to internal stresses. Allowing glass to cool naturally wasn’t an option because the glass exterior cooled too quickly, forming cracks because the internal heat pressure of the still molten glass could not escape through the cooler outer surface. What it required was slow and steady cooling over a period of a day while slowly reducing the heat of the furnace.
Luckily, the old man had a large furnace so I could place some metal moulds in the fire at the same time. The old man helped me make the metal moulds I was going to use to make the glass discs by using some old moulds he used a long time ago when he played around with some ideas of his. He found the moulds under the workbenches somewhere and once we cleaned them up and resized them, we could continue.
Over the next couple of days, I started to collect samples of sand for experimentation. I even paid Tomu a silver to find me the finest and cleanest sand he could. I gave him credit for coming back with some good samples. We spent a day removing remaining contaminants by sifting, resifting, and finally washing each sample of sand.
We were all prepared when the day came for firing up the furnace. The old man had already started heating the furnaces early that morning to bring them up to temperature. I arrived before sunrise to help him prep the smelting fires. It required constant manual labour pumping those large air bellows giving me a good workout.
We had twelve sand samples and each sand sample had its own melting pot so as not to cross contaminate the samples and to save time. I placed the samples in the smelting furnace. While watching the melting sand inside the melting pots I said,
“We are going to melt some tin separately while melting the glass. We’ll pour the melted tin into the moulds first and because glass is lighter than tin it will rest on the surface of the tin hopefully creating a perfectly flat surface for the glass. That should keep the bottom surface of the glass as pristine as possible. The tin will also help regulate the cooling process.”
Grenfell scratched the bridge of his nose while commenting.
“This is the first time I have heard of using tin for this purpose, but it makes sense. I’ll be curious to know if it works.”
Saying it was one thing but making it work was another. Molten glass flowed more like hot toffee than water, making it harder to manage. But I used the opportunity to hone my glass refining skills and removing separated dross. When glass melted, most of the dross separated out and floated on top, luckily some of the sand samples were of superior quality and there was little dross. Using my skills to help improve the glass quality, I discovered that many glass molecules lived in a major state of flux making the removal of the impurities like shooting at running rabbits while simultaneously riding a bicycle over rugged hills. I had no idea how successful I would be until we completed making the glass disks. After the dross removal process, the only challenge remaining was to slowly cool the disks down.
I slept that night in the Dryad while taking turns with the old man to slowly bring the furnace temperature down throughout the evening. The next day we allowed the fire to naturally cool while leaving the glass in situ. I would come the next day to see how things progressed.
Despite my worst expectations, the glass disks came out better than I thought and considering the amount of work we put into them, I expected nothing less. One disk was a total write off when it crumbled at the slightest touch. The others were either cloudy or only partly effective. Only one disk showed a particularly superior quality and although it still needed some polishing, it looked promising.
The sand from that successful disc came from Tomu’s collection. I needed more sand from him to take the next step. That meant creating more lenses in the furnace from which the lens shaping process could begin.
Using Tomu’s working sand sample we repeatedly tested the process again and again over the course of a few days. When I eventually decided to see Tomu’s sand source it turned out to be the remains of an ancient spring riverbed about an hour’s walk out of town. In its time, that spring produced crystal clear waters, as the quality of sand was second to none. Of course, in the present day we needed to dig down at least half a meter to find the best quality sand because wind and flood waters transported waste material over the top of it. With that sand we finally produced top quality glass of such superior quality that I almost felt reluctant using them as test cases.
Schneider arrived on a crisp morning reminding us that it wouldn’t be too long before the winter snows finally set in. When Schneider discovered what we were up to, he immediately wanted us to send some sand samples through to Shimmerstal to a glass maker contact. Wherever I became involved, he seemed to smell a money-making opportunity nearby. I wasn’t too sure about that, but just to please him I decided to give him what he asked. On his way back to Shimmerstal, Schneider included a few glass disk test samples and some bags of the sand on his cart with his return to the capita. There, his glassmaker contacts could test it out for themselves.
Apparently the glassmakers were so impressed with the glass quality they eagerly requested more sand. In return for the sand, they would pay a royalty of three silvers per bag of sand. A bag of sand weighed about twenty kilograms, about the size of a large bag of flour. I then organised Tomu and three of his band of merry lads to supply bags of sand every two weeks at the price of fifty coppers per bag. To them, they had hit the big time. A sturdy wagon could take a load of up to one ton which equated to fifty bags of sand.
As each bag could take ten minutes when dealing with groups of kids it took them at least four days to fill all the bags. There were a few non-negotiables; I insisted they only work mornings to avoid the heat of the day. Only two boys could pick up one bag, giving the third a rest. I realised that they were young, but they certainly weren’t forced and could walk away at any time. There were no time restrictions other than the bags needed to be ready every two weeks for the wagon. Added to that the seventh day of work had to be a rest day. I decided to visit them every now and then and if I noticed that they were not listening to my requests I would pass the work onto an adult.
I didn’t want to risk using whatever little money I had on untested business ventures. I promised not to use the mayor’s corrupt money, so I needed access to other funding. Because I wasn’t making any money out of the endeavour at the start, I asked the old man if he could help me out financially for the first moon cycle. The old man was happy to help me out but wanted to see returns within that time otherwise he felt there was no point in continuing with the exercise. Sheesh, he was a real miser when he wanted to be, but I wisely decided not to complain.
I didn’t experience any problems with the orders and Tomu kept to his side of the arrangement. For the next few weeks, a steady order of glass disks started to arrive. I received twenty glass disks every couple of weeks and the reports from Schneider were very encouraging. The quality of the supplied disks was far better than those we made, so much so that I asked Schneider to find out what they were doing to improve the quality.
Two weeks later they replied, saying that they used the sand in its raw state without washing or adding any other assisting products. They discovered that the melting point of the Obon sand was significantly lower when left untouched which aided in the glass quality being so high. As a result, the first testing of the quality of their glass products was so good that they could now produce large transparent glass panes. Something no other kingdom managed to achieve up to then. Heck, they even requested more sand for their production and were willing to pay for it.
I realised they made a significant discovery. It had far reaching consequences because it opened this world to many other discoveries involving glass. I realised there was something in the sand worth discovering. During our first tests we washed the sand thereby removing any added benefit. My interference in that process by using my skills on the washed sand compensated and lowered the melting point of the sand. I wanted to discover exactly what made the difference. While we were trying to figure that out, something disturbing happened two weeks later. A letter arrived from the glass makers informing us that our agreed order of sand was rescinded, stopping our disk order with immediate effect. Soon large wagons arrived from Shimmerstal and teams of men started digging up the sand at the ancient riverbed.
No doubt news about Tomu’s money making exploits reached the ears of others. It wasn’t difficult to find out who the snitch was. Tomu came sobbing to me as he described to me through a veil of snotty tears how some men offered him money for information on the whereabout of the sand. Initially he suspected their motives, but when the sum of money delved into gold coins along with fake promises not to tell anyone, he lost all common sense and caved into them. He never realised that they were looking to monopolise the industry, accepting their offer in good faith.
In a little less than three weeks the area around the old riverbed looked like an open cast mining business, none of the money went to the townsfolk unless you included the mayor. Never had I seen the amount of people working at a single digging site one time. It looked like a mini gold boom. Tomu and I watched the site activities in awe.
“I’m sorry Shane.”
I decided to play dumb.
“Why is that?”
“For being greedy.”
“I appreciate your apology, but because of greed Obon gets little benefit. It’s not that people are taking the money that concerns me but who it’s going to.”
Stolen novel; please report.
I could see him shrink at my comments. It was hard for me to say those things after taking into consideration his honest apology, but I would rather he learned that hard lesson now while his mistakes were easier to bear. Although I could see those little shoulders carried a heavier burden now. I ruffled his hair to help detract him from his anguish.
“Come. Let’s get a closer look at what they are doing.”
We walked amongst the diggers who were so busy filling their money coffers in their minds that we were nothing but a side show. We watched a team of diggers loading up a wagon with sandbags when my eye caught sight of some odd-looking stones on the ground. I picked one of them up while taking a closer look at it.
“Appraise.”
Name: Fairy Flower bulb
Type: Succulent flower
Description: Succulent type plant capable of surviving harsh environments. Makes a white flower with a yellow interior once every summer season.
Status: Threatened
Attributes: Plant sap includes libido improving qualities.
Location: Kingdom of Aryonne
I immediately discovered it wasn’t a stone at all, but a plant. It looked like a bulb or seed thrown here by workers who were sifting large vegetation bits from the upper layers of sand. My assessment called it a Fairy Flower with certain ‘qualities...’. I decided to hold onto that sample. I always liked plants, a spinoff from my mother’s love for plants and her gentle lessons to me about them. Suddenly a feeling of home sickness overwhelmed me. I missed my family.
“Come Tomu. It’s time to go back.”
Tomu must have realised that my mood had suddenly changed. He wisely didn’t say anything on the way back and when we parted ways, I simply said goodbye and headed to the inn for an early night.
A few days later I requested something from the old man.
“I need a favour. I would like to keep sand in the store, we will keep the sand in bags so that it doesn’t make a mess.”
He agreed without hesitation but was curious about what I intended to do with the sand.
“What are you going to gain out of storing sand here?”
“The idiot glass makers thought that cutting us out of the loop would make them wealthier. They hired thugs to find out where the sand was and to dig it out for themselves. What made it harder for me to swallow was when Schneider told me that our old friend Mr. Marset was now involved in the skulduggery. He’s applying a sand tax to the traders while guaranteeing a monopoly for their diggers.”
“Yes, that does sound like our beloved mayor. We can be sure that money is not making its way to the town’s folk.”
“What the glass makers haven’t figured out is what element of the sand is improving the quality of the glass. They’re too flipping lazy to work that out, but since I did all the arduous work determining just that, the information I am keeping to myself for now.”
“That’s interesting. Do you know what it is?”
“Yes, it’s something called borax.”
“Borax?”
“Yes, I managed to isolate the compound by washing the sand and boiling off the water quite a few times. I realised what it was when I discovered that it was a mild soapy alkali.”
“Alkali?”
The old man wasn’t getting it. I handed him a small sample which looked like a white crystalline powder.
“Ah, so this is what you were boiling away the whole time. I wondered what brew you were making because my eyes were burning for days while you were doing that.”
“Sorry, in the beginning I had no idea that it was borax. But it’s this compound that the glass makers will be looking for soon enough. But they have taken the harder road by just taking the sand. Besides, they are going to realise that after a few months of heavy sand hauling.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ve discovered the section of riverbed they’re excavating is very short. It used to be an underground spring that flowed to a nearby lake many thousands of years ago. I estimate they have less than a year’s supply of sand before they run out. Since they don’t know what they are looking for and they will have dug everything up by then, they will have no idea where to look next.”
They old man started laughing.
“There is a trader in you somewhere. You are so far ahead of the game that they wouldn’t know where to start. Are you planning to hinder their plans?”
“No, on the contrary, I’m going to improve their reasons for needing more of it thereby accelerating their demand. When they eventually realise that they’ve run out of sand and start desperately searching for more, I will have the perfect solution for them. At a cost of course. Since demand is high and supply low, I’ll control their market.”
“Are you looking to dominate the market?”
He looked serious. I understood that he wasn’t standing for people dominating over others. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out my secret, it would just take them far longer because there would be no more sand to investigate the mystery component with. And there I had them over the proverbial barrel.
“Only for five years and then I will steer them in the right direction while we all make a profit from it.”
“Perhaps there’s a trader in you somewhere.”
Meanwhile, I had been testing out a new mechanical device during that period. I made it for shaping the lenses and it involved mechanical rotation, rusty metal disks, different grades of sand, and water. By making the device, the idea was to remove the human error of hand shaping from lens making process. From what I could remember from my school days, only one side of the lens needed to be concave, the other side just needed to stay flat.
Ara quickly tested my lenses out, suggested adjustments, then designed a suitable mechanical device capable of shaping lenses. Since I wanted to avoid using too much of my reserve EE the device could be manually operated with a rotating handle. Quite understandable, the device could easily be operated by anyone with enough savvy to turn a handle. I had enough lens disks to test with and soon I had a set of workable lenses at different focal lengths. The lenses allowed me to manually determine what lens shape would be the optimal for a large magnifying lens.
As for the metal frame that would hold the lens in place, I asked the old man if we could make the movable metal stand for the lenses and produced a few spring examples with the help of the creation core. The springs on the metal stand helped keep the lens in place. Making those springs using manual methods would be challenging in the short term, even then the old man tasked Antonetta with giving it a go in making them. Using the furnace, and with many flops over time, she eventually created workable springs.
The next component needed a round wooden disk to mount the lens into and since none of us were any good with woodwork, Orilay came to the rescue with someone who could make the disk for us. With the glass lens, a wooden disk could be created to fit it and the flexible metal stand connected to the wooden disk. After assembling all the components, I added a light source using the light skill. Since the whole stand contained a small bit of mustite in it, the whole stand acted as the battery and the light source could operate for a long time without needing recharging.
“Thank you Shane. This is a wonderful gift.”
Said Grenfell. I was glad it worked out better than I predicted. But who said anything about it being a gift? But I knew better than to say that and just smiled and nodded.
“My pleasure old man. Enjoy reading. And thanks Antonella for helping me make this, you were a great help.”
Antonella looked particularly pleased with herself. With only a little bit of assistance she would continue to make more of the light stands. There would be a great demand for them, especially by craftsmen in specialist fields like jewellery making.
“When can I start using it?”
Hana said impatiently, trying her best not to dampen the happy mood.