"...Hmm yeah, I'll probably need to buy a sample of the ore from someone, as I expected really."

"That vial's seventy-five gold."

"Mmhm, and I might come back for it if other options don't pan out, but the raw ore, being unprocessed and a lot less concentrated, has a lower barrier of entry for what I want to try."

"Oh, just like, as they'd pull it off the mine wall? Yeah, I don't have that, I get it from the Quinder House First Daughter."

"Yeah, if we can get some of that for- What, a few gold? That should tell me what I need to know, Belmarniss."

"Ugh, a House. You have to go direct to the First Daughter about it?" says Belmarniss.

"There might be somebody else who can sell the rocks but I sure don't know who."

"Ugh."

"Don't want anybody else on their revenue stream, I guess. D'you think it makes more sense to just save up a while?"

"Honestly, it might? Fucking with full-blown Houses is messy."

"...Mmhm. Let's not rush into that, no. Even if everything worked out perfectly I'd need the rocks, too."

"I could ask the First Daughter for you," offers the shopkeep. "If she can source me a raw rock."

"No thanks."

Once they've made their excuses and are well away, "She's gonna tattle on us, isn't she?"

"She would if we'd asked her to get the rock, but maybe not otherwise."

"Kinda hate this place, not going to lie."

"If you can make it, it is worth taking you upstairs."

"Might want, like, numbers, of how confident I am I can make it, just how big a deal it is if I can, to see if it makes sense as a risk to take..."

"You saw how much those little flecks cost, right? It's pretty linear till you're going through a lot."

"Yeah. This is - I can already feel the Spark trying to mull it over, but there are so many kinds of metal, it's going to be one of the ones you find in trace amounts in one mountain in fucking Moldova- Well, there are multiple kinds, apparently, so probably several of the really heavy elements that are exceedingly rare-"

"I think the refining is the hard part but I could be misremembering."

"I can make drilling machines if the mining is hard too. A lot easier than the refining even. I don't know about the refining, though. I'd give myself... Better odds than your average rich, intelligent person here given what I've seen of alchemy and glassware, but doubling one in a billion is still going to be two in a billion, you know?"

"The strawberries are plenty amazing for now, just..." Shrug.

"Hard to be content with one cookie when you see a twenty-pound cake up for grabs?"

"Not really how I'd put it."

"How would you put it, then? It sounds like it would be insanely lucrative and also is a, uh, strategic material, that gives massive advantages to whichever authority has it. I get it, it's a big deal."

"It's a big deal and there's more going on in the world than cake."

"Cake being a stand-in for 'things to want', sure. Honestly, if I'm the only spark and I never have kids- I probably shouldn't, we all seem to be tugged chaotic evilwards by the nature of the power- What y'all need is a good industrial revolution. Or a magic revolution. Gotta start that upward exponential."