Secret Agent Chapter 089 - Laminate (Patreon)

Zack Adder found himself alone in Ivy’s Alchemical Atrocities. There was no one else in the small open space between the door and the work-slash-business counter, which was still mostly covered in half-assembled items and spare parts, and the door to the back was closed.

“Hello?” he called, but nobody responded.

“Hello?!” he shouted, but still no response.

There wasn’t much to see in the shop itself. Unlike Kathy’s apothecary with its plant samples, or Gretchen’s with its labeled potions, the walls of the shop were bare save for wallpaper, and none of the items on the counter were labeled.

For several minutes he looked at the junk on the counter, but he couldn’t make sense of it just from the shapes of the parts, and he certainly wasn’t going to touch anything there after the lecture yesterday. Ivy could transfer material properties around, he had no idea how to tell if that had been done.

Best to keep his hands to himself.

The shop was silent for several minutes as Zack considered leaving and coming back later, until near the clean end of the counter, where Ivy conducted actual business, there was a small bell with a wooden handle engraved with the words “Ring Me.”

So, with no better ideas, Zack did so.

Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling…

The bell was slightly louder than Zack had expected, and chimed with a clear tone. He felt a little fancy, ringing a bell like that, and after only a moment of ringing the bell like he was summoning a servant in the Castle—though he had never been privileged enough to summon servants with a bell, and he had only seen Rosimund do so by clapping—he heard a thump from behind the door to the back and stopped ringing the bell.

“I’m coming! Hold your hebrons, I’m coming!” Ivy’s voice was muffled by the door, and a minute later, she stepped out. Her auburn hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, and she was wearing a thick leather apron and a clear faceshield that wouldn’t have been out of place in a modern laboratory.

“Oh, Jack, you’re back already.” Her eyes flicked to his shoulders, then closed as she took off the faceshield and set it casually among the junk on the crafting part of the counter. She climbed onto a stool or ledge that Zack couldn’t see, and she managed to get head and shoulders above the counter and once more looked him in the eye.

“No [Familiar] today?”

“Nope, she’s sleeping.” Zack raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t comment on her yesterday.”

Ivy shrugged. “I’ve seen [Tamed] inland taipans before. Not ‘round here, mind you.”

“Not around here?”

“They’re more common back home.”

“And where’s that?”

Ivy gave him a look like he was a particularly slow child.

“Jack, come on. Ye can’t tell me you’ve never heard of dwarves before.”

Zack furrowed his eyebrows and felt a little awkward.

“Er, I’ve never met a dwarf before,” he said, trying to be polite and considerate.

Ivy’s look of scorn deepened.

“Uh, are you a dwarf, Miss Ivy?”

“Duh, obviously.” She gave him another look. “You ever seen a grown human this short before?”

“Not personally, but it’s not unheard of… is it?”

There had been people like that back on Earth, but if he remembered his Army sensitivity training, weren’t they supposed to be called ‘little people?’

He opened his mouth to continue but Ivy cut him off. Fortunately.

“Tsk, humans…” she clicked her tongue. “Well, ye have met a dwarf, I’m one. And the term is dwarf, got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Zack answered hastily.

Ivy looked him up and down, seeing him standing there stiffly and awkwardly, and sighed.

“Well, alright then. I guess it ain’t yer fault, either. I forget sometimes how isolated this Kingdom is…”

“Right…” Zack wasn’t sure what else to say to that. If he pretended to be from outside the Kingdom to fish for more information, he’d have no excuse for not knowing more about dwarves. And if he asked as though he were a native, eventually he’d slip up.

Something to ask the Director or Ronaldo, later.

“Anyway, sorry about that, Miss Ivy. But, about the laminate…”

As soon as he mentioned the laminate, Ivy’s mood turned on a dime. She went from annoyed and exasperated to excited.

“Ah, yes! It took some work, but I’ve got three different kinds whipped up. Though there was hardly any actual alchemy involved… Still, a good bit of work! I wound up spending ninety lindra total on research supplies.”

That was forty over the fifty he had left her with yesterday, but in the grand scheme of things it was hardly a big deal. In fact, for research and development, that was basically nothing.

“Ah, great. I have some test sheets of the paper, ink, and paints we’re using…”

He had brought with him fifteen completed cards, five each for Belladonna primitiva, Spotted Blue Buttons, and Pilgrim’s Balm leaf. In addition, he had several sheets that simply had lines of the ink and paints on them. These test sheets were what he pulled out first.

“Ah, great, great. Let’s cut these up, first, and see how the application goes. I have a few ideas…”

First, she used some scissors to cut one of the test sheets into a number of strips. Then she tried a few application methods. The laminating machines Zack was used to from Earth—well, the one laminating machine he had seen in an NSA office—had fed the sheet of paper through an enclosure that applied a thin layer of heated and melted laminate evenly, at just such a temperature that as soon as the paper exited the applicator, it cooled and hardened before it even landed in the collection tray.

Ivy obviously didn’t have such a machine.

Dipping them in a tray of laminate and hanging them to dry resulted in an uneven and overly thick layer of laminate, and of the three kinds of laminate Ivy had produced, one proved too brittle. It crumbled as it was bent, breaking the water-tight seal and making it easy to tear the paper. Another dried but remained sticky afterwards, not only making it a hassle to handle, but also attracting every stray bit of dust and dirt.

The last kind of laminate worked the best, and closest to Zack remembered from Earth. And after some more experimenting, Ivy determined the best way to apply the laminate. First, she set out some waxed paper, and applied a thin layer of laminate to it with a brush. Then, she carefully lay the test sheet in the laminate, and brushed another thin layer on top. Lastly, with forceps, she picked it up by a corner and held it aloft for a minute. The laminate on the bottom peeled away smoothly from the wax paper, and it quickly dried. The laminate was a bit thicker than Zack was used to, but considering barely literate adventurers were going to be handling the information cards, that might be for the best.

While Zack was handling the laminated test sheet, bending and flexing it in his hands, Ivy was doing some mental calculations.

“So a full batch of Laminate Two will cost ya… say, fifty lindra, and I can apply it for ya for another thirty…”

Zack turned away from the card to look at the alchemist.

“I think the application…”

But Ivy shook her head. “No, the laminate’s gotta be applied right away after it’s made. Look.” The tray they had used earlier was full of a thick layer of solid laminate now. “It dries too fast when exposed to air. Once it’s opened for use, it’s all gotta be used up. A full batch will get you a hundred cards, though, easily.”

Zack frowned.

Had that been how laminate back on Earth worked?

Maybe the machine he’d seen was air-tight…

Well, it ultimately didn’t matter.

This was how Ivy’s laminate worked here.

He’d just have to work around it.

Still, a batch of a hundred cards for less than a lindra each was fine. The paper and ink and paints were also under a lindra per card, so his material costs her card were less than two lindra, and he had budgeted for three. Then a lindra per card for labor, which was Henrietta, and a lindra himself made for a total of less than four lindra per card, and he was planning to rent them out for five lindra each. That was over a lindra as margin of error, even if they were all completely disposable.

Zack pulled out a fortin coin.

“So forty lindra in additional research costs, fifty for a full batch to be applied later, and for ten lindra can you laminate these fifteen cards I have with me today?” He showed her the completed cards.

“Ohh, I see what you’re going for, now.” Ivy eyed the cards appreciatively, and then her gaze turned to the coin. “Yeah, okay. It’ll take me a few days to make a full batch. I’ve got some other orders I’m working on…”

“That’s fine.” Zack smiled. “We still need to make up more cards, too.”

A hundred more cards total meant twenty more card designs, and there were certainly more than twenty kinds of plants requested at the Adventurer’s Guild.

Ivy and Zack finished their negotiations smoothly, with the understanding that Zack would pay the additional thirty lindra for the lamination when it was time, and that was that.

Back at Kathy’s, there were no customers when he returned, and Kathy was explaining the finer details of plant gathering to Henrietta and pointing out how to tell the quality of different materials. Crushed petals, scraped stalks, bruised fruits, things like that. Henrietta was listening diligently as she sketched, but Roxy…

Looked bored.

“Jaaaack,” she whined as he entered the shop. “You took so long!” But when he pulled out the laminated cards her tune changed and her eyes sparkled.

“Oooh, look at that!” She waved one of the cards in the air back and forth, watching it wobble stiffly.

The movement caught Kathy’s eye, and she came over to look at the cards too, though Henrietta continued to draw.

“Oh, oh my, would you look at that.” The paper was encased in a thin layer of laminate with the a small outer edge of only laminate along the edge of the paper, which Kathy was looking at intensely. “And this is waterproof?”

“Water-resistant, supposedly,” Zack answered.

“Can I test it?” the witch asked.

“Use this one,” Zack handed her a smaller laminated test strip. Kathy swapped with him, and then rummaged under her business counter until she found a dropper. Carefully she dripped a single drop of water on a corner…

And it beaded up before rolling off the strip and onto the counter.

“Oohhh… Fascinating! Can I do more?”

“Go ahead.” Zack was more than willing to let the witch do the testing for him, given that Roxy was clinging to his arm now.

He studiously ignored her pouting face.

Kathy dripped more and more water on the laminated test strip, wetting her counter more and more, and then finally she took a cup and dipped the strip into it entirely. When she pulled it out, all the water sloughed off smoothly, leaving it mostly dry and the paper underneath the laminate completely unharmed.

“This is marvelous!”

Although Roxy was trying to feign disinterest, he could see her eyes were also glancing covertly at the test strip each time Kathy tried something new.

“So,” Zack said, “I’m thinking we can do twenty more kinds of cards for plants, and I’m going to talk to the Guild about renting them out later today.”

Kathy’s eyes sparkled.

“Twenty?!” she exclaimed. “Jack, have I told you you’re my favorite adventurer?”

“You said you were going to hex him yesterday,” Roxy pouted.

“That was that and this is this,” the witch replied breezily. “Now, Henrietta’s already sketched a few, but for yimvir buds, they have to collected at the right time of day, so it’s very important…”

Kathy happily talked about plant gathering for another few hours until the shadows started growing long, and it was time for them to go.

“Henrietta, dear, take this.”

Kathy pressed a picnic basket into the girl’s arms.

“Salandra and I made a few too many extra cookies and muffins last night, so take these and share them with all your friends, okay?”

Given the way Kathy’s arms sagged under the weight of the basket, there were certainly more than a few extra baked goods in there.

“Th-thank you, Miss Virgrim…”

Roxy took the art supplies from Henrietta. The basket lacked a handle so she had to carry it in both her arms.

They’d be back another time to finish the rest of the sketches for the info cards, but Zack still needed to come up with the designs, too. And before that, he had two more negotiations coming up this evening.

First, with the Adventurer’s Guild, to see if they would handle renting out the cards.

And second, his not-date with Cori.

His information network was starting to take form.