Last Words chapter 62 (Patreon)

It didn’t take me long to sneak the others in. I had memorized the paths that Wilbur led me down, and after retreading them a few times I’d managed to find some gaps in the guard rotations. Once I had everyone inside the city, getting them to the house was easier, and while I didn’t bring the whole crew, Ron, Cal, and Denny came over to keep watch and begin scouting the tunnel from this side.

From there, it was just more hurry up and wait. I wanted to head into the necropolis soon, to try to find that bone warrior and maybe figure out a way to stop the Lord. The people in Derkholme were having a rough time of it, and getting rid of him seemed like it would go a long way to helping.

But going in half cocked would be stupid. The boys had drones they could use to scout, but until they finished mapping things out, it was safer to wait. Luckily I had other things to take up my time. Like, for instance, Bran’s recent jump to Beginner Mana Body, which definitely bore celebrating.

“Come on, we need to do something to mark the occasion,” I told my friend with amusement as I dragged him after me toward the market. “And I have the perfect idea. You’re planning to be a scribe, right? So, what do you know about making ink?”

He perked up a bit. “I mean, a lot. There are various techniques, depending on the plants you use.”

“Is it just plants?” I asked with interest. “Can you make ink from anything else?”

“I mean, you CAN,” he said slowly. “But I don’t know how. Usually you need an alchemist to get into working with nonliving materials in ink production. The old man never did hold with using alchemist ink, and I admit I kind of disdain the practice.”

Grinning, I led him over to a nearby table where a bunch of rocks were laid out. Reaching into my pocket, I withdrew some delyrans. Scanning the tabletop, I identified exactly what I was looking for. Rocks here tended to follow similar patterns to earth. Mana changed things, but from what I’d seen the underlying logic of the way stone formed seemed close enough.

“How much of this do you have?” I asked, pointing at a chalky red stone. “And how much of that?”

Cinnabar and Lapis. Not gems, so not too valuable. I could have just bought them through my power now that I’d seen them, but I was planning to use a bunch of the things, so I was hoping to get a bulk discount.

Bran looked confused, but I just shot him a look. The rock seller, meanwhile, just raised a brow at me. “I mean…a lot? They’re pretty common. Not much good for anything though. I guess you could set them into jewelry? Mostly I sell them for breaking up to make gravel. People like the red and blue for making paths. They’re not one of my better selling products to be honest. I mostly keep them around because the color looks nice mixed in with the others. Need to fill space to present a pleasant storefront.”

“How much for all of these two and…” I looked around before pointing at a much more refined looking green stone. “That.”

He nodded slowly. “That one is a bit more expensive. There’s a bit of nature mana in that. We call it Barkstone. It goes for about twenty delyrans per pound.” It was actually called Malachite, but I wasn’t surprised they had a different name for it.

I looked over the stones critically. “I’ll give you two hundred delyrans for ten pounds of each,” I said after a moment. Empathic read and analysis combined were guiding me towards a deal, and I wasn’t going to turn away. Technically that meant I was getting the others free, but I got the feeling this guy didn’t move that kind of volume much. These stones were being sold individually, and most of the ones on the table were on sale individually and were only worth a couple delyrans.

He snorted. “And just give the rest away for free?” he said skeptically. “I don’t think so.”

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “Three hundred, but I want thirty pounds of each of the other two.” Analysis was telling me they were worth about two a pound. Sixty for a hundred was closer to one point five. But since I’d drawn his attention to the Malachite, he was more focused on that. He thought the Cinnabar and the Lapis were just to fill space, like he’d said early. He squinted at me suspiciously, but finally nodded.

When we finished haggling, I gave him the three hundred delyrans (fifteen thousand dollars in USD), and Bran and I hefted the bags of stone he provided and carried them out of the city. Rather than go back to the house and draw attention, we headed to the camp, where we dropped our burden and Bran finally asked me what we were doing.

“So, what is all this about?” he asked with interest. “You mentioned ink, do you know how to make ink from stones?”

“I do,” I said confidently. “Or at least, from those two,” I pointed at the Cinnabar and Lapis. “I don’t know how to make ink from Malachite, just that you CAN. I’ll have to do some research next time I’m home. But Cinnabar and Lapis are famous for creating two of the most vibrant types of ink. Vermillion and Ultramarine.”

Giving him a quick rundown of the process, I filled him in on the way the process would work. We would start with the Lapis (which wasn't toxic like the Cinnabar, we would need protective gear to work that stuff).The stones would be smashed into powder, which would be sifted. After the sifting the powder was mixed with wax and rolled into balls. After they were left to set, they would be boiled in water, which would be left to cool.

The impurities in the melted mixture would float on top of the container where it sat and harden into a thin skin, which would be skimmed off. Then the remaining water would be poured out and left to sit, allowing the pigment to coat the bottom, and the clear water at the top would be poured out.

After pouring out the water, the remaining mudlike pigment at the bottom would be scraped into a new container and mixed with water again, undergoing the same process a few more times before being spread across the bottom of a large basin to dry. Once the sediment has settled into a fine dust, that’s ground and sifted before being packaged as a powder.

Of course, the powder was mixed with water and gum arabic for water colors and linseed or walnut oil to make oil paints. They even mixed it with egg yolk sometimes to get a specific consistency. I wasn’t sure how to make it into tattoo ink, but I figured Bran would know enough to take it from there. Though that brought up another question. Using these things as practice for the process and then finding some mana infused Lapis to work with would let us make ink that could be used in patterns, but WHAT patterns.

“So, how does this work?” I asked as we began the slow, laborious process of grinding the stones. “Like once we make the ink, how do we find the pattern for it? Wild magic patterns come from flooding your body with a specific type of mana, right?”

He nodded. “They do. There are two methods for ink matching. The first is, as you said, wild magic. Ingesting certain materials to flood your body with that specific type of mana. If I ate moonfire mangos and allowed them to form a wild magic pattern, I could use moonfire mangos to make that ink.”

I glanced down at the crushed blue rocks. “I’m not really feeling eating dirt,” I said dryly. “Not to mention these don’t really have enough mana to create a pattern, I don’t think. Can you even use this ink?”

We were planning to replicate the process with mana dense versions of the stone, but I couldn’t deny that it seemed a shame not to use the pigment at all when it was done. At the very least it was pretty stuff. He seemed to understand what I was getting at, because he smiled a bit. “Well, with something like this we could always use ink mixing,” he said with a laugh.

“As for the second method of ink matching, that’s the one we would probably use here,” he gestured to the rocks. “Basically, we analyze the mana composition with the same methods we used on you with the chair, more or less. Then we find a pattern that uses that particular mana mixture and try to substitute.

“The less unusual the mixture, the more options there are,” he said in an excited tone. “Sometimes the new ink doesn’t work. Sometimes it doesn’t work well. Sometimes it even works better. In fact, on rare occasions using a new ink can mutate patterns in a manner similar to wild magic, creating new and unique subpatterns.”

The more I learned about scribing, the more fascinating it became. I was tempted to try to take up the actual art myself, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to devote my time to it. No, letting Bran take charge of that aspect of our development was a better idea. I still needed to find time to pass him Wilbur’s pattern, but we’d been a bit busy with this whole necropolis thing and the incursion from the Ten Thousand Doors society.

Still, it felt nice not to worry about it so much for a while. Sitting around breaking rocks and mixing it into water was a surprisingly soothing activity. I’d learned from building with Paul that construction was a good way to destress and distance yourself from problems, but it turned out that any manual labor could be helpful.

“So, how did you learn to do this?” Bran asked as we worked.

I shrugged. “I developed an interest in certain kinds of traditional crafts from my home a while ago. Making this stuff was one of the projects I watched a bunch of times. There were a bunch of them, actually. Making shoes, making furniture, making instruments. Watching traditional crafting methods is pretty soothing.”

Of course, I didn’t mention they were youtube videos, because explaining that whole concept would have taken way too much time. Still, he seemed interested in some of the projects I’d watched, so I spent some time describing how to make some interesting stuff.

Ultimately, it was one of the more peaceful days I’d had since arriving, and after the stressful mess with the Lord meeting and buying the house, it was something I’d really needed.

Finally, we finished making the dye (I MIGHT have cheated a bit by selling the waste byproducts as we worked to speed up the process) and Bran was given his first view of ultramarine. “This is…gorgeous,” he said in awe.

I nodded in satisfaction. “Yeah, it’s a famous pigment. One of the most vibrant blues in the world. So, do you think that repeating the process with mana infused Lapis would create something useful?” Part of the reason for going through all this was to find out how applicable it would be to actual scribing.

“Of course I do,” he grinned. “In fact, I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one. I think we should look into a partnership for this stuff. If we can get our hands on some mana infused stone, we can trade it to the old man for access to more patterns, or even application. And worst case we make some money.”

“You know,” I said slowly as I considered the possible benefits of licensing that stuff, especially since I didn’t have anything else to do right now except train. “I think you might be onto something.” After all, money was power, in my case, and there was no reason Alistair needed to be my only source. Time to diversify my investments.