The Way Ahead

Chapter 54: No Place I'd Lather Be

Inion kept to her side of the Bargain quite nicely and didnt bother Edwin as he started following the instructions in the Grimoire. It was a nice surprise, that there were no crazy twists that meant hed screwed himself over well, not yet anyway. But that meant he was able to work without distractions, so it was a win.

First, he needed ash from the tree in question. That was easy enough, he had loads of extra wood that werent the right size for his cabin that he could burn. They were smaller, too, which meant they were much easier to carry around.

Inion only took a bit of convincing to use her Skill to process these as well, which meant Edwin didnt have to spend the time needed to peel the bark off. He didnt know if leaving the bark on would interfere with the process, but he didnt know that it wouldnt either, and he had enough variables to account for in this formula without adding an additional one. Maybe hed be able to try it in the future, once he had enough ingredients, though not today.

In any case, Edwins first attempt at getting ashes failed in a really stupid mistake. He hadnt failed to account for holding the ashes- no, hed made sure to build the fire inside the metal bowl he was still dragging around from the dwarves- instead, hed flexed his Firestarting to make the wood burn fast and hot. It worked, even getting a Firestarting level out of it, but had the unfortunate side effect of burning so fast and hot that it didnt leave any ashes.

That had set Inion off laughing for a good ten minutes- what was just so funny about that? and by the time she had recovered, Edwin had his next attempt already well underway. This time, he just let the whole thing slowly burn while he prepared the next ingredient.

Curiously, despite its inclusion in the preservation of flesh variant of the recipe, Edwin, fortunately, did not need drying seagrass. After all, he didnt have any left at this point, what with his use of the stuff back when fighting Niall and his minions. Instead, he needed oil. What kind of oil wasnt specified, but given Edwin only had something which looked and smelled vaguely like olive oil, he didnt have very many options and just had to hope it would work.

Stupid vague instructions, not telling anything useful.

According to the book, once he had the ash, he needed to mix it with water to form a paste, then add oil, stirring until the mixture achieved a frothy texture

Hang on, isnt this just how you make soap?

It used oil instead of tallow and didnt involve concentration of lye, but ashes and oil were the main ingredients used for soap creation. Was that principle involved somehow? Curious, he reassessed the pages outlining the process.

The mixture was combined with some ground dried firevine leaves, which was a kind of ivy whose leaves looked like tongues of fire. Edwin had a decent supply of them, but he had no clue what they might provide to the creation.

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They were ever so faintly magical, though. If he focused really hard, he could tell that much. It was also one of the primary constants in all variations of the formula, so whatever it provided, it was clearly important. Maybe it had some kind of fire mana imbued in it, that helped burn off the water, or canceled out the moisture in some way? The Grimoire claimed that it would leech and burn the lifeblood from the tree, in death as it did in life. Hed need to test it out.

The formula then wanted salt to replace the removed hydration, which Edwin supposed he did have, though hed forgotten about it when making food- not that he had enough to really use it on his meals. He could deal with the lessened flavor, it had better uses- Now, he was going to use it to make salted logs. Did it even do anything?

Something Edwin felt even more strongly was probably a vestigial ingredient in the process was fine sand, taken from a riverbed and dried over a fire. It was supposed to be able to flow as smoothly as water from his hand. If it were pure white, that was a bonus but not required, as it would be adequate though left uncleansed of the aquatic essence. Then again, he was dealing with magic, so how could he really know?

Next up was sunstalk, a common yet endlessly useful grass whose growth traps the essence of the sun. The bundle which Niall had labeled as such just looked like straw to Edwin, though like the firevine, did feel like it might have the faintest tickle of magic to it, though it was so faint it may well have been his imagination at that point.

To ensure no life is brought forth, he also needed dust. Honestly, Edwin wasnt sure how that was meant to be something to avoid, let alone how the heck that was even supposed to work, let alone how the dust was meant to prevent that. It did mention sawdust was acceptable, but it needed to be fine enough as to be carried upon the gentlest breezes. Given all the logging hed been doing, it was easy enough to come by, if nothing else.

Finally, chopped and crushed fresh stalks of Rhoreed, which forms the barrier between the river and the land, separating that which is dry and that which is wet, which so far as Edwin could tell wasnt exactly papyrus, but was pretty close. The fact Polyglot didnt translate it as papyrus seemed to indicate that it wasnt exactly the same, but at this point he wasnt sure if any plants or animals were a complete and total match for their Earth equivalents, just pretty close.

Once everything was mixed together, he was to stir it over a fire until it reached a consistency like dried tree sap, which Edwin was skeptical would ever happen considering how many random things were involved in the process. Then, he was to apply it to the logs in question, allow it to sit for a day in the sun, then set it all on fire. Supposedly, the fire wouldnt damage the logs and would just burn off all the moisture inside of them.

Once again, Edwin was skeptical how that was supposed to work, especially with the seemingly miniscule amounts of concoction in comparison to the amount of wood it would supposedly work with, but who was he to argue with the Grimoire? Thats why he was testing it, anyway.

In any case, Rhoreed was perhaps the hardest ingredient for Edwin to properly get ahold of, and while he at first thought he might have to substitute additional dried sunstalk straw, which was apparently a suboptimal though functional replacement, he thought to ask Inion first.

Oh ya! I can totally get you some of that. Theres a little bit right before the Edge on this one nice little side creek that I found last night thats open enough for the stuff. Theres loads there, I can grab you a few armfuls if ya want me to?

Uh, sure? Just as much as you can get? I think I can use it for a bunch of stuff, even beyond this.

Gotcha! Ill be back in a bit!

Neat. Well, while Inion was taking care of that, Edwin worked to make his totally-not-soap. How might that even work? Thinking about it from a semi-magical perspective combined with chemistry

Soap worked because it had a long nonpolar tail and a polar head, which meant it was both hydrophilic and hydrophobic. The nonpolar portions of the molecule were attracted to oils and dirt and anything which water couldnt mix with which enveloped the substance in a bubble of sorts. The outside of the bubble was thus polar and therefore hydrophilic, which meant that it got washed away with water.

Clearly, this couldnt work quite like that. Burning soap (which was more or less not flammable, though at this point he could probably get it to catch on fire with Firestarting) wouldnt carry away whatever it was bound to, it would just leave it all where it once was. Also, the long nonpolar tails would be a hindrance in the process, as there would be way more random debris which bound to the molecule per water molecule that would be able to interact with the polar head.

His current hypothesis was that there was some component in the rest of the mixture- he suspected the firevine, though the sunstalk was also a possibility as one of only two seemingly magical ingredients- which altered the nonpolar side into something more flammable, possibly only after binding to several water molecules, and could burn it all off without affecting the wood too much.

How all of that would work, he had no clue, but at the very least he had a working hypothesis. He didnt have the materials needed for a full, rigorous test of everything, but fortunately, he didnt need to. If he truly was making soap, but backwards then he could lean into that side of things slightly more than he might otherwise.

By then, Inion had returned with armloads of the rhoreed and his ashes were finished cooking into a bit of a paste. The oil was easy enough to mix in, though given the tiny quantities he was working with, mixing anything in would be relatively easy.

The firevine addition went essentially as it was supposed to, though nothing in the Grimoire made any comments about how the new mixture was supposed to give off heat. His pinch of salt made no discernible impact, though he did his best to scale all proportions correctly. If anything, he might have added a bit too much, though he had his doubts that it would actually have any impact.

Sand may have been in the same category of does this even do anything, but that didnt stop him from still trying to do everything correctly. This was his more or less control batch, after all. No sense in messing it up just because Edwin wanted to be stingy with the ingredients he had plenty of, after all.

The sunstalk blades were broken and ground as appropriate and tossed in. As Edwin continued, he got the distinct impression that doing so seemed to give the sand already in the mixture a bit of a glimmer. Wait, did the sand actually do something to aid the overall formula? That would be a surprise. There were still some hints of magic throughout the formula, though his sense wasnt even close to being precise enough for Edwin to figure out what parts actually had some magic lurking within it.

In comparison, adding sawdust went exactly as Edwin had anticipated. The thick mixture (he added a bit more water to maintain the paste-like consistency described in the book) took in the small amount of sawdust and began to dry out. To counter that, Edwin added the crushed rhoreed, where the juice from the plant stalks hydrated his creation just enough to make it stir-able.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his first batch did not turn out well in the slightest. While he only made about a cup, maybe two, of the mixture, nothing happened as it was supposed to once he had everything added together. It never reached any sort of partially liquid-like consistency, just drying out and cracking along the inside of the bowl he was using.

Edwin sighed. Ah well, thats why he didnt try to do everything at once. It wasnt a complete waste, at least.

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Alchemy Level 5253

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He must have been doing something right, even if it wasnt what he wanted.

The second mixture turned out better. He was a bit more generous with adding water this time around, and that resulted in a superior consistency for his final mixture. It was even vaguely syrupy!

Unlike his first attempt, which was an obvious failure, Edwin actually had to test this batch, which meant pulling out a spare log, too small for his log cabin uses but still large enough to work as firewood. Inion wasnt being petty and actually helped him prepare it for application.

After spreading the unusually liquid-like paste down the length of the entire log and setting it up in as direct of sunlight as he could manage, that meant there was nothing to do but wait.