The supplies for said glass endeavor had also come in, so today is my first day attempting glass working with more than just knowledge. I throw two kilos of silica sand in the steel basin, toss in the lime and the soda first, stirring with a modified fire poker, then adding some tiny bits of the sand-like grain of the ruby-granite that Leeda found. Technically the recipe calls for aluminate (schist flakes of aluminum oxide) and bits of other metallic impurities, like chromium. Hence the ruby sand. It isn’t going as well as I hope, so I try to imbue the mixture via the iron rod, and to my surprise, the mixture gets softer and more homogenous as I pull and fold, pull and fold.
I scoop up a portion with the hollow rod I have levered on a u-shaped carriage, snip the end off with some long steel shears and rotate like I used to see on TV before I uploaded. Holy shit! I remember that! Hells yeah. Anyway, some much harder blowing into the tube than I imagined starts the bubble, but it grows too fast and pops before the uneven mass flops to the floor.
Lower pressure, but consistently forceful? Back off much more quickly as well. The next dozen attempts have me blowing up bubbles of glass at different rates until one bubble finally holds, and I spin it until it stops glowing, to where it looks slightly red and transparent, score the edge with a rasp and knock the rod with a wet mitten under the bulb. I set the bulb near the kiln to let it cool more slowly than just hitting ambient air.
I spend the rest of the day experimenting with shaping tools, molds, and different bubble-making methods. In the end, I have some ugly-ass glasses that are nearly indestructible (I dropped them) and a kind of neat bowl that seems to shimmer in direct light.
“It seems that you’ve got the glass recipe fine but need work on technique.” Leeda says as I clean up my area from the mistakes and put it in a bucket full of water for re-usable pieces.
“I think so too. The glasses and bowl are strong as I expected, maybe even more so, and the material handles like I read about. Now I just need hundreds of hours of practice.”
Leeda shrugs as she wanders over to a wash basin, “Maybe. If you’re making leaps in progress for the time spent, you could advance quickly. You have to check your messages regularly, but unless you’ve turned off notifications, that’s not a problem for most people.”
I freeze and look away, embarrassed that I have not checked my messages in a long time.
“Damnit, Zhan. You’re probably not learning smithing because of that too! Just go look and figure out your settings. I’ll start the stove if you cook?”
She seems hopeful and it will be the first meal we’ve shared since our fight. I nod. “I might be a minute, so could you start a kettle?”
“You got it,” she taps my shoulder with her fist and walks toward the store part of her property.
Alright, Alaris, let’s do some updates.
/This skill is a clarification of your class skill
/ your skill and proficiency convey a rank of Beginner 5
/your skill and proficiency convey a rank of Intermediate 2
/Bartering and Assessment are included in this skill.
/ your skill and proficiency convey a rank of Beginner 4
/The difficulty of this feat in the face of your Race and your Heuristics yields more experience.
/ your skill and proficiency convey a rank of Advance 2
/Due to Race limitations, advancements require 3x experience to advance.
/ your skill and proficiency convey a rank of Beginner 2
/Your vulnerability is in full effect.
/ your skill and proficiency convey a rank of Beginner 7
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/Your efforts in agility and endurance convey a +1 in both.
/Your efforts in agility and endurance convey a +1 in both.
Two levels huh? That means six points to spend and . . . three from the last level. This is the most game like part of my existence right now. I have nine points to prop up my deficiencies or supercharge my strengths.
Strength at peak human is appealing, so I will add one there. Having Agility above Intellect chafes so, plus one to Agi and plus three to Int. Ugh, I eventually want to be peak human or better on all stats, so start now hey? One to endurance to make it even 20, two to wisdom and 1 to Charisma.
Even seeing those numbers, I know Leeda is stronger than me, but at the same time, her class must give her ‘endurance while smithing’ because she can’t exercise for shit.
Wow, I’m not sure I’ve seen stats that are so decent with such trash skill levels. I could benefit from some grinding. Heh, I could benefit from some life experience. I get a ghost of approval from Alaris that sends a pleased shudder through my whole person.
My recipe notifications invoke questions on what that entails and what the letter code means. That might be a topic for dinner.
I make my way upstairs and head directly for a quick shower. Capris and a tank see me sauntering into the kitchen, wrangling my hair into a loose bun, ready to face the stove.
Leeda’s done a good job of keeping food in the fridge for us, and I don’t hate cooking as long as its not just for myself. My flat mate hands me a tea, which I sip as I pull out some groceries and pans that I need for a quick stir fry and a soup for the week. I make the soup mostly because she doesn’t buy fresh meat and I have to use the salted, cured stuff to make a stir fry.
I watch her pour the soup broth over her rice, then take a plate of stir fry separately.
“You know that soup is for lunch this week, right?”
“I do, but I also know that you make extra rice for me to mix them too.” She flicks my leg with hers, smiling as she tucks into her meal.
Well shit, that feels good. Having a friend enjoy my meal and appreciate the little things I do to help them out. I feel that this is how people make friends for life. Sure we just fought like cats, but she wants to learn and so do I. Ugh, Hope, you are a tease and often a let down. Not that I want to sleep with Leeda, but I really want to be close friends. Same with Melody to be honest, mostly ‘cause she reminds me of Sabs.
“Hey, Leeda?” She looks up from her soup, “When you learn a recipe, what do the letters mean at the end?”
“Hm, new recipe at a low level, you only see two letters?” She asks, I nod. “The first is going to be craft quality. First letter is the skill rank of you applied to the recipe. The second is the Material class that you used to craft it. Recipe’s upgrade as your skill or material upgrade unless you tweak the process enough to make a new Recipe. Some more options creep up after advanced, but you’ve got years before that. What’d you get?”
“Crude Drinking glass, B-A, and Decorative Bowl, N-A.”
“Advanced materials? Zhantsa, have you been holding out on me?” She eyeballs me seriously.
“I cheated? I remembered some compositions, and the formation of ruby sand is not the same as aluminate schist and chromium ore.”
“Ech, your words are completely foreign. Sounds like gibberish. Are they specific words from your world?”
“They are. Science words, that get very specific. Though I thought since aluminum and oxide are both words you recognize that the more specific corollaries would also exist. I guess it doesn't matter that much. I managed to imbue some aether into the mix and the sub-standard forms of each of the required minerals melded together despite their form.”
“Yeah, I buy that then. Advanced knowledge made to work with aether? Makes sense. Can you help me with smithing?”
“I don’t think so. I know a more efficient way to make coal, but only small batch.”
“Tell me and we’ll see?”
“Can you make steel drums or cook chambers without letting air in?”
“Not easily.”
“Well that’s the secret. Low oxygen heating. The only other way I can think of to achieve that is a clay and brick construction with wood in the spaces, then build a fire on top of it. Best compromise? Make a sealable brick oven, with an aether-tech heating element and let it cook for a day. Let it cool for a day, then extract the coal.”
“Next time you travel back to your world, I’m trying that in your kiln. Please leave me some charged crystals.” I chuckle at the emotion in her voice.
“Was that seriously something different?” I chuckle and sip my tea.
“Sealing it entirely is. That’s hard to do, and I am definitely going to check if it’s worth it. Even a ten percent increase in coal retention would be.”
We chatter for a few hours before she’s ready to crash out. I snuff the fire and clean up after dinner. Goddess, I don’t really mind. She won’t ask me to repay the food, though she rarely helps clean up. I don’t do floors and I’ve never had to.
I hope we continue this way. Whatever tension we had for the fight was . . . not foreign, but I think Leeda is gay? It’s weird to say I’m not interested, but I’m just not. Melody spins me up a little, but there’s something about her that makes me think she’ll be a fun friend to flirt with, though my heart doesn’t trust the whole situation.