“You can count on us!” Heidi exclaimed.
“However, your highest priority should be making the ink. If you don’t finish an order before the due date, I’ll cut off your funding without a second thought.”
“Eek!”
“You’re the kind of person who loses sight of their surroundings when they get absorbed in their research. I need to make it clear what your priorities should be, and lay out a punishment for when you fail to stay on track,” I said to Heidi as firmly as I could.
“Birds of a feather sure know how to clip each other’s wings, huh? Looks like you know exactly how to keep her under control,” Lutz said with a chuckle, while Josef plopped a hand over his own mouth to hold back his laughter. He seemed like he would be able to keep Heidi in check.
“Well, that takes care of colored ink. I think I want to start working on the wax stencil next.”
The next thing I needed to get ready was the wax stencil, an essential part of mimeograph printing. We would first need to make thin wax paper, but then we would be able to make stencils by writing out what we wanted to print using a metal stylus, which would be much faster and easier than cutting out the text parts like we would for normal stencils or setting up rows of letter types. This would also allow us to print more detailed art, which would let Wilma’s work shine even brighter.
“The stencils we’re using now aren’t any good?”
“It’s not that they aren’t good at all—they can make picture books, after all. But with wax stencils, we’ll have a wider range of expression available to us. It’s way easier to just write on wax paper using a metal stylus than it is to cut each individual letter out of normal paper, and it’ll let us use more precise lines.”
To make wax stencils, we first needed paper thin enough that one could see through it. But while Lutz and I had spent the past two and half years making paper, those in the orphanage didn’t even have a year of experience. The thick paper we used for picture books wasn’t so hard to make, but getting thin paper of equal size was a little rough. They were already trying in the Myne Workshop, but were failing a lot more than they succeeded. Apparently the paper kept ripping when they were taking it out of the frame or putting it onto a board to dry.
“This would be a lot easier if we could just use trombe wood.” Lutz crossed his arms and frowned. Trombe wood fibers were thinner and longer than volrin fibers, which made it easier to swish them into an equally thin sheet of paper. But trombe wood was too rare and valuable for us to make into stencils.
“It’ll end up really pricey if we can’t make these out of volrin.”
“...Yeah.”
All I could do was leave Lutz and Gil to keep trying to improve the paper. As the workshop continued to make paper for the picture books, they gathered the people with the most dexterous hands and set them to work making thin paper. Days passed as everyone worked hard to see what could improve their success rate, until one day Lutz came to my chambers after lunch.
“Myne, a message from Master Benno. Sounds like he got in contact with a wax workshop. They’re free if you’re available tomorrow afternoon.”
“Really? Perfect. Now Gil can have his own diptych.”
That night, I asked Dad to make a diptych the same size as Lutz’s for Gil. All it needed now was some wax inside. My own diptych was running low on wax, with most of what was remaining having hardened to an inconvenient degree. This was a good opportunity to fill mine up as well, so I went ahead and scraped the remaining wax out.
“Good morning, Benno.”
“Heya. Let’s get going.” Benno hefted me up on the spot and started walking. Over his shoulder I could see Lutz and Gil racing to keep up with him, Gil hugging the diptych frame I had given him close to his chest.
Damuel faltered for a second at seeing Benno roughly pick me up out of nowhere, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that I never would have been able to keep up with Benno’s strides. He followed after us, trying to match Benno’s pace.
“Benno, if I had a method for making wax not smell, how much could I sell that for?”
I had to have a quick business discussion with Benno before we reached the workshop. I didn’t want him yelling at me for being out of control or doing things I shouldn’t have later.
“It’s better to sell that kind of info to the whole guild like we did with the ink production process. A single workshop doesn’t have the funds to make a deal like that.”
“Oh, I see.” It seemed a lot of money was involved in these kinds of deals; I would likely end up funding the research, development, and refinement that each of my Gutenbergs needed to perform.
I began thinking about how the negotiations would go when Benno interrupted me in a low voice. “I’ll handle the negotiations for this later. Don’t put yourself front and center here. They might have someone like Wolf in their guild.”
“...Okay.” I let Benno take care of the negotiations for the salting-out method. We could talk later about our cut of the profits and how the negotiations would go down.
“If we’re putting off negotiations, is there any point in us even going to the wax workshop today?”
“I want to fill my and Gil’s diptychs. Also, I want to buy different kinds of wax.”
“Just buy?” Benno asked, and I nodded. I wanted to first see if we
