We walked together across the manor.

Irje was heading out to do her tasks for the day. While I tagged along with her to check if everything was doing great. Intent to check on my new facilities afterwards.

I also wanted to check on Yeva, dreading the upcoming awkwardness. We left on a high note yesterday, but I haven’t seen her since. How would I greet her? Like I did all this time? Or differently, and if so, how?

Yeva needed a lot more careful attention than Irje.

Irje was mature and had a lot of willpower and personal experience to keep herself stable and bounce back no matter what. Using it to her extreme advantage.

She milked me for concessions all the way through the morning, playing up her outrage. It took me a while to catch up to her act. By that time I already promised her two new sets of oils, one separate for massages, massages themselves, and new clothes to show off her status. Surprisingly enough she didn’t argue about punishment, choosing more pragmatic rewards.

I’ve felt relief initially, assuming it slipped her mind. But then other tidbits started to form a completely different picture.

She didn’t fear the punishment as much as she said. What she wanted was to struggle. To buckle around until my suggestions turned into demands. Until I had to stop my dallying and make her submit. I didn’t know if that was her upbringing, or she somehow found solace from such actions when they were done by me. Or perhaps she liked to rock her socks off by a hard but loving hand, revelling in the dissonance.

Suffice to say that the revelation brought her fake outrage to an abrupt but satisfying stop.

“You know, you didn’t have to spank me that hard.” She winced, rubbing her butt.

“Uh-huh. And you didn’t have to moan that loud when I did so.” Fool me once.

She showed me her tongue. “Worth a try.”

The working area was already bustling with activity. Even without Irje’s watchful eye, people were setting up fires for the water baths. The place looked professional with proper fire spots to collect the ash as well as to hold large pots full of water in a secure manner. A nearby building housed the ‘sensitive’ materials. The door already unlocked - Yeva was inside.

I left Irje outside to attend to her duties and headed in.

The loft was full of herbal scents, copious amounts of Glassworts were hanging there to dry before they would be burned for the next batch. The rest of the building contained the early storage where the soap was curing, as well as the ‘chemical’ room that produced the lyes in relative secrecy.

Yeva sat inside, absentmindedly scraping off the crystals after evaporation. Her eyes gaunt. A large pile beside her, she had been at it for a while.

Well, I definitely didn’t expect to see that today.

I walked up to her, frowning.

“What is wrong?” My hands descended on her shoulders, massaging new kinks out.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She mumbled, nuzzling into my arm.

“Do you wanna take a break? I'll take your spot.”

“No.” She sniffed, rubbing her face.

I leaned in and hugged her. “You can take my bed.”

She hugged me back, fiercely. “Idiot. It would still be cold without you.”

I sighed and picked her up with ease, only to plop her down into my lap. “And yet you didn’t come back last night.”

She fidgeted, assuming a better position. “She smelled the oil on me, spent the day telling me about the things she would say to you. I…I didn’t want to intrude.”

I stroked her back slowly. “Did she invite you, though?” I got a shallow nod in return.

“That means she was fine with you being present, and there was nothing to intrude upon. Irje was playing her tricks again.”

My voice was soft as I spoke. My breathing tickled her ear with warm air. I could feel her warming up in my embrace as the colours returned to her face.

Irje found us a few minutes later with Yeva sleeping in my lap.

XXX

I twisted my neck in different directions, as I observed yet another building assigned to me. Domina was true to her word. It was far away from other buildings, hugging the outside wall of the manor.

It was already stocked with a plethora of ingredients and reagents to make any professional alchemist drool. Or a chef. I haven’t seen that many different but dried up lizards ever.

I went around, inspecting more. A piece of wood and charcoal in my hands to record anything decent, or write down orders as I came up with ideas. There were good finds like sticks of sealing wax or chalk, apparently to draw alchemical symbols. And then there were jars of pickled eyeballs and fermented snakes.

My first reaction was to throw the garbage out, or donate it to the kitchens so they could make something nice out of it. But I shouldn’t be hasty. The knowledge that was eager to brand this as garbage was the same one that had no idea how magic worked. Which meant that I might be looking at extremely useful magical ingredients and didn’t even know since I was a murk.

I might need to bring Irje to take a gander at these, with her magical sense.

Apart from the haphazardly stored reagents and thriving population of rats, the rest of the building managed to break every other safety protocol necessary for a lab. Very little ventilation, dark rooms and centuries-old wooden beams. If I didn’t know better I would have assumed Domina gave it as a punishment or out of spite. But I had a sinking suspicion that this was the norm in this day and age.

I wonder if wer could be actually harmed by slow-acting toxins and other things like carcinogens. Or their innate magical endurance simply ignored them. The entire healing part of magic needed a closer inspection. Do wer even have cancer? Or maybe they have a magical super cancer? What about autoimmune diseases? Both cases had the body fight with itself. Which side would magic choose?

Or maybe it wasn’t keeping them healthy but magically waving off the boo-boos? That could work. Would break causality, the second law of thermodynamics and bend the flow of time over the knee. But it would keep them ‘healthy’.

I showed my wayward thoughts away for now. Perhaps when I get that codex I would have more leads to follow.

Right now I had my own personal workshop. Another place to call my own within this manor. And I refused to keep it in such a destitute state.

Suffice to say I needed glassware, I needed piping, and I needed better reagents. It was unlikely that I could get pure chemicals but I could purify plenty, and synthesize even more. I also needed to renovate parts of the structure, and definitely clean it up a bit.

The main difference was that I could have them now. The plank in my hands wasn’t wishful thinking anymore. It was an order list.

The biggest challenge was the nomenclature. I would get cursed at if I asked for sulfuric acid. But the oil of Vitriol wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow.

I also needed to come up with directions I needed to explore in order to assure my own survival and wellbeing in the future. The name of Kiymetl would shield its golden goose. But it would also make sure the eggs kept coming. Disregarding my future opinions on the matter.

Explosives were…dangerous to create. Especially something simple as gunpowder. I’ve seen how quickly the people around me dissected the ideas that were almost millennia ahead of this civilization level. Something as simple as the mixture of easily obtained powders wouldn’t even last a day under their scrutiny. I wouldn’t even need to tell them ratios even, simply knowing the ingredients was already enough.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some would come up with reagents themselves even if I told them about oxidation and the rate of reaction. People of Emanai didn’t have advanced technology, but that didn’t make them stupid.

More advanced explosives could be possible, but many of them were too stable and required detonators themselves. There was another issue with explosives. Psychological one. If I flashed a dagger coated in an oily substance and said it was poison - people would be wary. If I raised a black cartoonish sphere over my head and yelled that I had a bomb - people would be confused.

Boom hadn’t begun striking fear in people yet. Maybe there were magical alternatives, but as a murk, my attempts at mimicking that would yield similar results as ears did.

Note to self - find out how deadly magic actually was. Samat had strict rules on weaponry and magic use within its walls. While it made my research harder, it also probably saved my life during the chase.

As such boom boom was out of the question for now.

Poisons, yes. Something that doesn’t spoil too quickly but with fast effects. Not too much, I wasn’t planning on becoming an assassin for her either. Few vials for personal use under extreme circumstances. Most likely never.

Next. Golden eggs. No matter if Domina gave me this building as a gift for the loom I would still expect her to show up in a few weeks for an inspection, or simply demand my report. So I needed a few baubles to keep her placated as well. Something easy. Something like additives to soap to make it even better. Or new things like conditioners.

I bet that would be a hit with all wers. Even those without tails tended to have long hair with customary braids upfront.

These were my short term projects. For a long term project, I had much more daunting tasks.

Personal defence and body enhancement.

I was aware of three methods that were capable of producing something tangible. I needed advanced technology to protect myself and mine. Unfortunately, two out of three options we unavailable to me at this moment. This planet didn't have a large industrial complex to produce any tech I wanted on a large scale.

The second possibility was Bio-printers and Gestation vats. These were part of the living tech, thus relying on nutrition to operate. They were unparalleled in low scale manufacturing of other living tech extremely useful for me: Organic exosuits, modified organs and bio-implants.

They could produce inorganic components too but were slow at it. Something like that was necessary for an organic-inorganic interface.

Unfortunately, I had no means of growing one on the spot. A trip to the wreck could provide me with one, but I needed to get there first. I would not put all my eggs in one basket and hope that I will be able to reach it in the near future, or that it would actually have these.

That left the final method. The slowest, least flexible and personal. And the least conspicuous. Nanite modification. With the supply of mostly pure ingredients, I was capable of slowly upgrading my skeletal structure, muscles and ligaments in order to increase my physical capabilities beyond human limits. That is beyond murk limits and, hopefully, beyond wer limits too.

And, if I had access to better alloys I could increase my nanite count as well. Which meant faster response time to flesh modification. Large scale regeneration and a plethora of other passive bonuses.

My fingers drummed on one of the tables. Where would I get titanium?

My musings were suddenly interrupted by a screech at the entrance. I turned around and saw Wrena. And a rat.

“I expected you to have a cleaner workshop.” She stated, breaking the rat’s neck with her fingers.

Well, at least now I knew rats weren’t part of the alchemical ambience.

“Sorry about that. I just got the place.” I spread my hands apologetically.

“Hmm. Well, My rates are reasonable if you decide to renovate.” She mused, looking around critically. “But that is not why I am here. Come, I have something for you.”

She didn’t mince her words nor did she expect any retort from me as usual, already leaving.

I shook my shoulders and followed her, intrigued.