Chương 32: Chapter 29 ~ Imperial Gold

08/11/1111 EotTS 10: 00 Gysel awoke naturally and with a big yawn, followed by an even bigger stretch. She sat up in her bed, rubbed her eyes, and ran a hand down her face, wiping away the grogginess which tended to come with waking up later than one usually does: to-day was a day off.

The only thing more wonderful than having a day off with no classes or job, was having a day off when one was supposed to have a class, but due to one's own prowess in one's field, one did not have to attend aforementioned class: for the best 'student' in Operative Alchemy at the Thoranyn Academy of Alchemy and Magick, this was the first day of every quarter-maiden for the rest of the academic year.

Getting out of bed, Gysel quickly pulled the sheets up and folded the top over, and set Kawvel upon his pillow pile perch. The hardwood flooring was chilly as she walked to the wardrobe—what is there to wear to-day? what would be best? something comfortable, something that shows that one has earned one's day off, and can dress slovenly because of one's prowess...

yes, this will work—Gysel began plucking articles from the wardrobe, she removed: the classic, thick, brown-wool comfort sweater, with a high turtleneck that rubbed against one's chin (the sweater was large enough to look like a blanket had simply been wrapped around one's shoulders); a maxi-skirt made of a heavy wool woven in a checkered pattern of dark green and brown, and covered in crisscrossing lines of brown, beige, and bronze; calf-high, brown cotton socks, with white tightening tassels; and a brown leather belt with a brass buckle.

She set all of these on her bed.

Once she had removed her nightwear and stuffed it beneath the pillows, next to the Divination deck, Gysel dressed, tucking the bottom of the sweater into the skirt and flapping her arms causing the wool to be pulled up, and forming a muffin top over the skirt—there is something wonderful about the freedom provided by a horrendously oversized sweater, the way it keeps one warm, yet still provides enough space to be kept cool, if one tucks it in, and allows the extra fabric to hang below one's waist, forming a pouch which can be used to hold extra trinkets.

Gysel shut the wardrobe—does the typical rigid morning schedule apply to days off? of course. Gysel removed the divination deck from under her pillow and went to the desk. Untucking the chair, she sat down and removed the deck from its box. She put it in the position to do the standard overhand shuffle, but stopped—maybe it will be best to change up the method of the shuffling, maybe something like a bridge shuffle? where is the harm in trying something new? how does one bridge shuffle? like this... no...

not like that... now the cards are all over the desk... this is the harm in trying something new. After Gysel had finished gathering the cards and giving them a good old-fashioned standard overhand shuffle, she set them on the desk and asked her question.

"Will I see any birds other than finches at the gazebo's feeders?" Gysel asked the deck. She drew the top card: the Fifth Daughter of Mirrors. The illustration was not one that radiated confidence in a positive outcome: it was a shattered hand mirror, with the countenance of a crying woman reflected in its shattered glass.

With a sigh, Gysel shuffled the card back into the deck; this card assumably meant things will not go as planned, at least this was what the illustration conveys: a heartbreak (or perhaps the woman was simply to ugly, and the mirror was the first to inform her)—to-day will be another day of finches and squirrels, but a day of finches was better then a day of no finches. Gysel made her way to the right-side bay window, putting the deck back into its box as she went, and returning it to its place beneath the pillows.

Climbing onto the seat-board, she raised the glass pane of the right-hand window, and threw open the shutters—it is going to be another wonderful day of reading in the... rain? It stormed through the window in large drops, pulling the petrichor in with it and pelting the potted plants—saving the time of having to water them—and soaking the cotton socks, sticking them to the skin they surrounded. Gysel yanked the glass pane down as fast as she had opened it; there was no time to close the shutters.

Wiping the rain from her face with the neck of her sweater, Gysel clambered from the seat-board and turned to Kawvel.

"It was right! Yes, Kawvel, the deck was right... My expectations were shattered! It is awful, the day is ruined... no, you are right, we can still read inside... indeed Kawvel, we can read inside with tea and treats. We shall bring back treats with breakfast, and eat them throughout the day, and go get more if we run out. Let us leave." Taking Kawvel by the arm, Gysel hurriedly put on her shoes and left room '54.'

She pulled her arms into the sweater, setting the bear in the pouch, and set off down the hall for the cafeteria. The rain might have ruined the plan to read outside with the birds, but sheltered pages cannot get wet, and the day could still be spent reading inside, with tea and treats.

08/11/1111 EotTS 20: 00 The day had gone by rather quickly, unlike the spiced pumpkin tea that had been slowly sipped, and an assortment of biscuits, muffins and cookies, which had been precisely rationed, so as to allowing for generous nibbles upon the striking of new hour, or the completion of a chapter, but now, like the sun, all the food had gone somewhere dark, and unlike the First Lunar Priestess of the Myths, unfortunately, this surfeited reader did not have the appetite, nor the ability to consume the sun, for even the extra room provided by the overly-large sweater would not be enough to handle the bloat that would accompany a meal of such size.

Leaning back in her chair, Gysel looked at the ceiling, yawned, belched, and returned to her reading. After another chapter and fifteen minutes, someone decided they had nothing better to do at such a late hour than harass others: "Gysel." Her name came with a hurried rhythm of knocks at her door. The voice blended with the knocks, becoming indistinct. Gysel ignored the knocks; if someone asked, they would simply be told that it blended in with the atmosphere of the rain pitter-pattering on the window.

The knocks came again.

"Gysel, it's Wyohla, we need your help." Marking her place in Vlishathelby with a piece of scrap paper, Gysel groaned, rose from her seat, and went to the door. Wyohla stood behind it, arm raised and ready to knock again with her gloved hand. Her face was red, and she was breathing in huffs.

"Why?" Gysel asked.

"It's the project for Operative Alchemy."

"That is what, not why."

"Well, the 'why' is that we are stupid, and bad at Operative Alchemy, and you are not. So we need your help." Gysel licked her teeth, digging out a piece of oat that had found refuge between her grinders—that is a very true statement, Wyohla, but you are not as stupid as you believe.

"What do you need help with?"

"The project for Operative Alchemy."

"I'm exempt, so I have no reason to do it."

"Well, we are not, and we need your help." Wyohla lowered her hand and placed it on her hip.

"We cannot agree on anything, and Thyres is already done and is not being very helpful."

"Are you allowed to work in groups?" Wyohla fidgeted with the belt loop of her grey twill pants.

"No..." Gysel shrugged and began to shut the door.

"You should not be breaking the rules." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Wyohla blocked the door with her foot.

"Please. I bought you the divination deck and that book."

"Will you give me an allowance?" Gysel peered through the crack between the door and the frame.

"How much?"

"One gold piece a week, to buy books in town that are not in the Academy bookstore."

"A half-gold." Father, being a merchant, had bestowed upon his daughter a wealth of material lessons when it came to bartering: one of which was to walk away if one's desired demands were not met.

"No." She stepped back from the door.

"Fine, one gold piece a week." Gysel stuck a hand through the gap in the door and worked the fingers. Wyohla groaned, and after a short moment, there was a gold piece in the palm of Gysel's hand: she promptly pocketed it.

"What is the project?" Gysel asked, opening the door all the way.

"We have to make a Vegetable Stone. But right now we have to draft a plan for how we are going to do it."

"That is it?"

"What do you mean, that's it?" Wyohla said, as she reared her head.

"You should not need my help for that."

"Well, we do."

"Is this taken straight from the textbook?"

"I have no idea." Gysel stepped back into the room and headed to the bookshelves. Wyohla followed without permission; it was not a bother, but Wyohla should not make a habit of it. Gysel removed the book from the shelf; her papers on chrysopoeia fell out, and she hurriedly kicked them under her bed.

"What were those?" Wyohla started to bend to pick them up, but stopped herself.

"Papers," Gysel answered as she flipped through the book to the section on the Vegetable Stone. Upon finding it, she turned the book to Wyohla.

"Is this the project?" Wyohla's eyes went back and forth as she read the section over.

"Yes."

"All right." Gysel closed the book but kept hold of it, intent on bringing it with her.

"Let us go." Wyohla turned and headed for the door; Gysel followed, locking it behind her. The room Wyohla led Gysel to was identical to the rest of the laboratories throughout the school, and was a few doors down from the room Gysel had occasionally been using for practice. It was on the ground floor of the operative alchemy wing, with a single outside wall.

This wall (like the room's other three) was made of large grey blocks and had a hearth in the center that vented outside, with a large, curtainless window on either side. The flooring was stone, and the natural coloring of the grey was speckled with the occasional burn mark from human error.

A wooden table with a granite top sat in the center of the room; usually, a table like this would be used for Operative Alchemy, but at the moment, it was being used by five people to struggle with the simple first steps of Operative Alchemy. Against the left wall, there was a counter with cabinets above and below; the ones below had solid oak doors with brass hinges, and the ones above had doors with glass windows and the same hinges. A variety of laboratory equipment was visible behind the glass.

The right wall had a blackboard that ran its entire length. A crude drawing of Ardhy was on the board in white chalk: shirtless, he stood proudly upon a roof, with a sword in hand; he held it high above his head, pointed to the sky. There was a signature below it; it appeared to read 'Lyvahn,' but it looked like the squiggles a child would leave in wax crayon on the freshly painted walls of a nursery. Everyone was gathered around the table, with the exception of Thyres, who was reading at the far end of the room.

"Oh, good; you came," said Lyvahn, looking up from the paper at Gysel.

"I had to pay her." Gysel grinned.

"Better you than me," answered Lyvahn.

"So, Gysel, we need you to tell us who is right and who is wrong." One by one, each handed Gysel their steps. Lyma and Wyohla's were easy to read, and both had excellent handwriting (Wyohla's cursive was quite pleasing); the men, on the other hand, had terrible handwriting: Ardhy's was barely passable, and Lyvahn and Visi were barely legible—someone should make some sort of contraption that allows men to write with stamped letters, Gods know they need it.

"The only step any of you got correct was the purchasing of the lavender and dividing it into two five-hundred-gram batches, one for working with and one as a fresh sample," Gysel said, as she put the papers down in front of her. She pointed to the men, "And none of you can write."

"See," called Thyres from his corner.

"That's why I'm not helping; you won't learn anything." Gysel gave Thyres a sidelong glance: his writing was likely not any better. Wyohla walked to the door and locked it, probably figuring her highly paid tutor would try to leave, which was a good call, because the tutor did.

"Did any of you read the textbook?" Gysel set her copy on the desk. Silence, complete silence save for the rain hitting the windows and the sound of Thyres turning the page of his book—hopeless, all of them—Gysel removed the coin from her pocket and pushed it towards Wyohla.

"Oh no, no you don't," Wyohla said, "You're keeping that, and you're helping us." Gysel sighed and pocketed the coin once more.

"All right." She opened the book and flipped to the project and began to read and explain her steps.

"All right, once you have your dried plant matter, you need a Soxhlet before you start on the working batch. That will be Step Two. Step One: Plant. Step Two: Soxhlet." She paused and looked around; the others were hurriedly writing.

"Now you can start on the working batch. Step Three: Macerate the working half of the dried plant in a wine spirit for a minimum of fourteen days in a sealed vessel. Step Four: Use Soxhlet to extract the macerated material, run until solvent is clear, store the tincture and the plant matter separately. Step Five: Calcinate the plant matter in a closed vessel. Also, you do not understand calcination," Gysel said to Visi.

"The calx is what you want." He opened his mouth to answer, but Gysel started on the next step before he could.

"Step Six: Leach the calx in distilled water, filter, and evaporate to remove the salts. Step Seven: Repeat steps Five and Six until the remaining salt is white. This took me five cycles."

"This will be for Cohobation. Step Eight: Recombine the salt with a third of the tincture, then seal hermetically. Step Nine: place sealed flask in warm spot, watch for alcohol to form on the top, wait until the menstruum stops discoloring—do not do this for more than three days. Step Ten: separate the salt from the liquid; calcinate. Keep the liquor. Step Eleven: Repeat steps eight, nine, and ten until the liquor stops discoloring. Log every cycle throughout, and do not do more than seven."

"What happens after seven?" asked Lyvahn.

"Nothing happens after seven. The next steps are for fixation. Step Twelve: reduce the mixture by evaporating the menstruum; the product will be a colored paste. Step Thirteen: Begin drying the paste. I did not use lavender because I hate the smell of it, so you need to find this temperature yourselves. Step Fourteen: Test the paste, set a piece on a clean dish, and let it sit at room temperature—it must hold its form.

Step Fifteen: heat the small piece of paste to a temperature hot enough to boil water; it must not change. Step Sixteen: continue to let the paste dry while repeating steps Fourteen and Fifteen until both are passed." Gysel shut the book.

"I am leaving now," she said, and did just that. There was a cacophony of 'thank you' as she left. Gysel removed the gold coin, her weekly allowance, from her pocket. She set it on its edge between her and Kawvel, and spun it, watching as its rose gold coloring glinted in the sigil-light. As the spin slowed, the coin began to wobble; then it fell, and she picked it back up, beginning to inspect it.

This was not the standard gold-coin: this was an imperial gold coin; issued and approved by the broader elective monarch through out Ahgrelae; worth ten of the usual gold pieces issued by the smaller kingdoms, and good for those ten anywhere in the empire, no questions asked.

It was odd that Wyohla had this and worked under a framework where this was the 'gold-coin'—it will be best to bring it back and inform Wyohla of her error, but Wyohla is wealthy enough to know her money and its value well, this seem intentional. Judging by the very faint rose coloring and the weight, this coin was about ninety percent gold and ten percent copper.

Now, the gold coins issued by the kingdoms had a copper or tin core (this is dependent upon where the coin is from: northern kingdoms tended to use tin as it is more plentiful in the mountainous region; whereas the southern kingdoms used copper as it is commonly found in large veins in and around the dense coniferous forests), with a layer of gold gilding; commonly done by alchemical means.

The current emperor, Fwoensax III (this being pronounced; fvurn-ZAHKH in accordance with Northern pronunciation rules), was embossed on one side, great detail was placed into the accuracy of the Emperor's thick, curled moustache (When Fwoensax III was elected, Father dug through his stash of coins, and showed that one could accurately follow the growth of this moustache by using the portraits on the gold coins from the Kingdom of Eshkinkolmox, starting from its non-existence at Fwoensax's ascension to the throne at twelve, to his election as Emperor at thirty-eight).

The other side depicted a heron with grand plumage on its head and tail (likely a Letgwynox ove'metla; the large water bird of the south), and two swords with thin delicate blades, feathered cross-guards, and a pommel bearing the head of the heron were both above, and below it; the blade above the heron pointed forward, towards the head with the beak of the pommel facing up, and the sword below pointed backwards, towards the plumage of its tail feathers, with the beak of the pommel facing down.

"Kings or Herons?" Gysel asked Kawvel; he did not answer, so his answer was picked for him.

"Kings? All right." She flipped the coin, caught it, and placed it on the back of her hand: Herons.

"Then I am keeping it." Opening a drawer, Gysel dropped the coin in.