CHAPTER 99: A go at making glass
Our arrival in Obon late in the afternoon was met by a rather beat up looking pair of Mr. Marset’s thugs manning a roadblock. They sported bruises and cuts all over their arms, legs and faces and that was only what we could see outside their clothing. They immediately waved us through not bothering to stop us.
“What’s up with the guards?”
Asked Hana while unsuccessfully stifling a laugh.
“I think they met up with a few of the folks leading our group.”
Following the previous day’s events and our late-night festivities we only got going later in the morning. Everyone except the Goldcastle team already left Mayor’s Escape by the time I started eating breakfast. Even after I produced a few skewers from skewers for breakfast we still only managed to follow them a couple of hours afterwards. Once again I found myself in dusty Obon. As I thought that all three of us came to a sudden halt. In front of us lay a beautifully paved road reminding me of the sea. Before I could say anything the two ladies echoed my sentiment.
“It's beautiful!”
“Absolutely stunning.”
I admit that azure blue rock paving interwoven with silver mustite seams made for an amazing sight. It was the first time I'd seen the road since its completion. Mr Papadopoulos and his men had outdone themselves. Not only the road looked impressive. The town look more alive. Shop fronts lining the road sported varieties of beautiful flowers. Colourful cloth awnings adorned the windows and balconies. More carts trundled up and down the road and even the people seemed happier.
“What the heck?”
Something had changed the place. Even Elle in a very un-elvish moment, couldn’t help commenting.
“Look at those flowers, even the shop fronts have been tidied up.”
While walking down the street, people tilted the heads or politely remove their hats in greeting to us. Shop owners waved to us as we caught sight of them through their shop fronts.
“I think you're famous.”
Hana snickered.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Quipped Elle in her elvish dry tone.
“Is that an outside café?”
I pointed to the bakery sporting a much wider deck covered by a cooling canvas. Neatly placed tables and chairs lined the deck where happy looking people enjoying their meals. Rosettes of red flowers surrounding the balcony adding to the frivolous atmosphere. That Parisian lifestyle felt almost alien in Obon, although it seemed the town thirsted for it like the surrounds thirsted for water.
“Heck, I didn’t know that much money existed in Obon.”
Turned out I was wrong on more than one account. Looking to pick up the latest royalty money from my counterfeit gold identification system I discovered just how wrong I was. Olivia delivered the unfortunate news to me with a sorry face.
“Apologies Mr. Karosaki, the contract you signed for the fake gold included the adventurer guild using your method of detection. Recently, one of our investigators discovered a way of determining density using resonant sound waves. Unfortunately for you, it’s a far easier way of measuring fake gold.”
“Thanks Olivia, it’s not your fault. It’s just the way things happen I guess.”
Hana patted my slumped shoulders in sympathy as we walked out the guild. Well dang it. Someone in the universe played dice with my life and seemed to be on a losing streak. Why did I open an adventurer guild in Endeavour, what use was that to me? After leaving Endeavour, Olivia dutifully followed me back to Obon. Apparently Endeavour’s guild closed temporarily until a substitute for Olivia could be found. The king’s eviction notice impacted more than just me.
The woodcutters in Endeavour were currently able to meet the palace lumber contract. Schneider ensured I still received and income from it. With the impending arrival of winter, wood supplies would slowly trickle to a stop. That’s when the wood gathered by my woodcutting golems would come to the fore. Occasionally a golem would find me in Obon and deliver the wood stockpiles. I instructed them to set out the firewood for drying far out in the brush where no one could find it. Thanks to Obon’s wonderfully dry, warm weather. By the time winter arrived, dry wood would be available for trade to the Berelli Estate. At a premium of course. I bet Lord Berelli still cursed the existence of the Pandora Moth.
Regardless of my financial status I still needed to go back to the Dryad to earn some silvers. Sitting on my bum doing nothing didn’t fit my style, even if the old man paid me tuppence. Elle, excusing herself, said she needed to do some long outstanding chores, and promised to catch up with us later.
“Hana, Shane, welcome back!”
Exclaimed a smiling Haruhime at the Screaming Banshee.
“I so wanted to help you in Endeavour, but my father forbade me from leaving the inn unattended.”
Was she trying to come to Endeavour for my sake? I couldn’t believe it, but something told me otherwise. I didn’t need another woman to take care of. Hana and Antonetta were more than enough for me.
“Was your dad that serious about it?”
“He said someone needed to look after the inn. He’s pretty militaristic about things but I love him. Even then, he can be demanding sometimes.”
Her father seemed the sort of character I didn’t want to cross paths with. He sounded like a diehard type of man.
“Oh by the way, before I forget. I must apologise but we are closing for the winter. The Inn will be shut down because we don’t get enough customers over that time. I’ll probably stay with my father then.”
“Really?”
It was like a slam-dunk on my brain. I hoped for more time to arrange permanent accommodation for Antonella, Hana, and myself. I could build a house, but it would be untested in winter weather. For all I knew the house I built could turn out to be as cosy as a freezer. If I made a mistake, undoing it could prove to be a challenge when waist deep in snow drifts. There was still a bit of time to think about what to do, deciding to give it some thought.
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We found Antonella and the old man sitting at the front counter in the Dryad. Antonella’s head lay on her arms, fast asleep just like the old man next to her. Oh my goodness, I thought, Antonella caught that lethargy sickness afflicting that old man.
“Hi Antonella.”
I waved at her. She waved back with a big smile. The smile on the old man’s face prepared me for the worst.
“Hi Shane, do you still work for me?”
“Hmph, did I ever leave?”
“Ha, ha, ha. I’m assuming you’ll be working on the palace’s sword delivery?”
“What? Has no one told you there’s monsters out there on the main road.”
“Like that ever stopped you.”
He had me there. Hana spoke with Antonella awhile Grenfell and I entered the store where a pleasant surprise greeted me.
“What the?”
Wherever I looked stood rows of empty shelves as far as my eyes could see. I felt as if the warehouse cried in shame at its own bareness. Was that how far the golems managed to remove everything? A black dot moving in the distance stopped as if becoming aware of our presence. Suddenly it accelerated towards us at high speed. It turned out to be one of the golems I used to collect all the goods. When it arrived, it started doing a weird dancing motion. I wondered why it seemed so pleased to see me.
That was the second time I observed unique behaviour from golems. As the golem disappeared into the core, Ara piped up with a question.
I thought each golem acted independently. So how would a singular golem know what the other golems were doing if we never programmed them to behave that way?
It wasn't a bad thing. Golems making strategic decisions, especially if they were good ones, could work in our favour. I shrugged leaving it alone, no point in messing with something that worked. We did create new golems with learned behaviour, although thinking about it, those golems in the store were amongst the first we created so there wasn’t much previous experience to learn from. Seeing that new behaviour already prevalent in the first golem models meant they had a good propensity to adapt. I expected some interesting things from my future golems.
Wild with energy spending power I neglected to keep an eye on my energy reserves. It seemed I would need an opportunity to restock, and sooner rather than later. Since Ara could easily convert the energy from the marsh stones to anything else I required, marsh stones were all I needed meaning another trip to Wildemere, preferably before the winter snows arrived. Since there was no point hanging around doing nothing, I decided to make the latest swords for the palace’s ongoing request and following that I would make a basic sword or two for sale at Obon’s adventurer supply shop for a bit of spare cash.
As I unpacked the newly created bars onto the shelves nearest the storeroom door a familiar voice suddenly piped up behind me.
“Oh wow, look at all those empty shelves. This place is ‘soooo’ big. Did they have something on them or were they always empty? What are all these metal bars lying here? Golly, look at the pretty colours.”
It seemed fair to accept that the old man allowed Antonella to explore the rest of the Dryad. After all, if she entered the store for the first time, then it was reasonable to believe she hadn’t seen the glade yet. I felt curious about what her reaction to that place would be like. While unpacking the bars I tried answering Antonetta’s onslaught of questions until Hana and Grenfell walked in providing a convenient distraction.
“Shane. I want to make some jewellery and Grenfell said you would give me a hand to set it up.”
“He did?”
The old man seemed fascinated by the nearby empty shelf. Hana in her usual quick mind, learned how to use the larger workshop tools like the vice grips and grinder, and then for the finer work, the files, and polishers. Something I missed from earth and woefully lacking there, a decent magnifying glass with a light source in it to work on tiny items. When I asked Ara about making it, she suggested I find a good source of sand. Obon had a lot of sand, but not any I could call good quality. Ara said she could make the lenses, but after creating all those metal bars for Grenfell I couldn’t be extravagant with my EE stores on big future projects. For the purposes of saving EE while educating Hana and Antonetta, I decided to show them a manual method of making lenses. Of course, I wasn’t an optical technician, so making pieces of art seemed unlikely.
Despite the technical challenges I was happy to give the glasses a go, but I had a few significant obstacles to overcome first. Making the lenses would prove to be my primary challenge. Round lenses were the easiest to fabricate but before I could even get to that point, I needed to be able to make transparent glass form slides for thick enough to shape into lenses. Shaping lenses to the correct size required the glass slides to be thick enough to form the convex shape. According to the old man there were no glass making places in Obon, which meant I needed to look elsewhere for resources.
Glass fabricators should exist in the capital, after all I saw both the palace and houses had small glass panes even the windows of the Dryad workshop had to come from somewhere. I didn’t know how to find or initiate business with glass makers. I decided to discuss that issue with Schneider when he next returned and who knew, he might have the contacts I required.
All the glass panes I had seen up to now where only small ones, about hand size, although they were only partially clear enough to see through. I knew the main ingredient of glass was silica, or sand, and I could contest that there was more than enough of it lying around Obon. Finding a clean source of silica was the challenge because removing impurities, also called dross, during the melting process was not desirable as it could affect the quality of the glass. Dross clouded the glass after cooling and the best way to avoid it, other than scooping some of it out during the molten stage, was to use clean sand from the start.
And that was just one of the issues. Molten glass behaved more like hot toffee and was especially difficult to pour and on top of that, difficult to cool without cracking.
I decided to approach the old man about how to make glass and being in the smelting industry he was aware of the some of the fabrication processes. I didn’t tell him why I was doing it other than giving some vague excuse about improving the process and personal interest. The old man offered to help me with setting up the furnace when the time came for experimentation. I think he was secretly happy that I was showing interest in the furnace side of things. Any enthusiasm around foundry work, even if it wasn’t related to metals, was a good thing in his eyes.