“Yeah, that’s more reasonable.” Bierce nodded in agreement to Benno’s correction.
The two of them started working out the details, but I just wanted to start talking to Heidi about colored ink already. She seemed to be thinking the same thing, judging by the hopeful look she was giving me as she wriggled in place.
“Ma’am, want to come to my workshop? I’ve got all the materials I could think of laid out for you. Though Dad got real mad at me about that.”
“That sounds absolutely wonderful! Of course I would like to come!”
I could already tell that Heidi and I would be getting along just fine. We both stood up at the same time, but were grabbed and forced back down by our respective guardians.
“We’re not done talking yet!”
“Hold your horses, idiot!”
Our guardians were completely synchronized.
Benno let out a heavy sigh while still holding me down. “...Alright. I’ll take care of selling the ink for now. But all we’ll have a monopoly over is the plant paper ink the Myne Workshop uses. That includes the colored ink. Anything else is up for grabs by anyone who comes knocking to join the market. Give the guildmaster more targets to focus on.”
“Alright. Thanks, this is a big help.”
Benno and Bierce’s exhausting back-and-forth finally concluded, with sellers for the ink being decided upon.
“Can I go to the workshop now?”
“Let’s get to work on that ink.”
Heidi and I stood up, prompting Benno to call Lutz. He placed a hand on his shoulder. “Keep a close eye on them, Lutz. Seems like we’ve got two Mynes on our hands now.”
“Master Benno, that’s too much even for me. I’ve got my hands full with just one Myne.”
An extremely uneasy expression washed over Benno’s face, and I waved goodbye with a big smile as we headed off for the ink workshop. But it wasn’t long before Heidi ran out of patience with my walking speed and just sprinted ahead on her own, saying that she would get things ready for us. Bierce paled and apologized on her behalf, but I didn’t mind. It wasn’t anything to get upset about.
“So, Lutz. What do you think about Heidi? I think she’s funny and hard working, but kinda weird.”
“...You’re one to talk.”
The workshop Bierce took us to looked like a chemistry lab at school rather than a place to make ink; there was a ton of equipment lying around, with craftsmen using scales to carefully measure out materials that would be used to make gallnut ink. The plant paper ink was being made off in one corner. There were several jars packed full of the finished ink, which was where I found Heidi getting yelled at by a twenty-something-year-old guy. It sounded like his complaints could be summarized as, “Finish your work before playing around.”
“Bierce, is Heidi busy?”
“...Nah, that’s nothing to be concerned about. Hey, Josef! Don’t worry about Heidi right now. She’s got a customer to deal with today,” Bierce yelled over the din of the workshop. Heidi turned around with a beaming smile, whereas the man named Josef blinked in stunned surprise.
“Boss, are you insane?! You’re letting Heidi deal with a customer?”
“This here is an important patron who wants colored ink and is willing to pay a quarter of the development cost for it. We don’t need to stop Heidi’s research today. Just watch and make sure she doesn’t do anything rude.”
Their conversation was more than enough for me to infer how Heidi was normally treated here.
“Lady Myne, this is Josef. He’s Heidi’s husband and the de facto successor of the workshop. Hope you and him get along nice enough.”
“I’m Myne, the forewoman of the Myne Workshop. I have come to buy the plant paper ink you’ve made and also help develop new, colored ink,” I said, which made Josef give a sigh of relief. It seemed the lack of buyers for the plant paper ink had been making him nervous.
“This is how much we’ve made so far.”
“Please bring it to our store by the end of tomorrow,” said Lutz. He was buying the ink as a leherl from the Gilberta Company to then sell to the Myne Workshop later. It seemed tedious and unnecessary, but was apparently an important process.
I left the merchant business to Lutz and instead looked around the workshop. Damuel and Gil had come with us and were peering around too, intrigued by what life was like in the lower city.
“Lady Myne, over here, over here.”
I went over to where Heidi was beckoning me and saw small amounts of a wide range of materials placed on a table. They had all been turned into powder already, which made it impossible to tell what was what. There was also a variety of different oils.
“Heidi, what kinds of oils are these?”
“I got every kind I could. Just linseed oil might not be enough, right?”
“Indeed. I was thinking the same thing.”
An essential component of ink was drying oil, but the only thing like that in the city that I knew of was linseed oil—something I had been able to guess existed when I saw hemp and linen in this world, which were made from the plants that grew from the seeds that were turned into oil. But there wasn’t much linseed oil here, and it was all expensive. I had just been thinking that I wanted to search for oil that could be used in its place, and now would be a good opportunity to learn more about the different kinds of oil in this world.
“Some oils harden when exposed to air and some don’t, but it’s the ones that harden that are good for making ink,” I said. “They’re called drying oils.”
“Mm, there’s not much oil like that other than linseed oil. Just mische, pedgen, eise, and turm oil,” Heidi said, grabbing the respective jars of oil from the lined-up row. I hurriedly got out my diptych
