"Yup. Be right back." And he goes over to his own house and sets that up and swoops back down. "It'll be easier to get good results because I can correct it but still way less hassle to let the computer figure out most of it rather than entering an entire dictionary and grammar textbook per."

"Makes sense!"

"I did give it the alphabets in advance, it can take the software a long time to figure those out."

"The Haelahar alphabet is prettier, right? My father likes Sanash better but he's the only one in the family and, you know, it's his native language."

(Haelahar uses letters with a more angular aesthetic and varied shape. Sanash has a lot of very samey letters with swooping lines and curves, somewhat sacrificing readability for elegance.)

"For sheer prettiness I have to disagree but I can read Haelahar faster and that's more important."

"Bah."

"Sorry! I'm sure it's possible to do absolutely lovely Haelahar calligraphy."

Tiro laughs. "It is!"

"I think my favorite alphabet is probably Arabic."

"What's it look like?"

Cam pulls up a sample on his computer: خلاف تعديل الحيلولة الا مع, أدوات بقيادة تحرّكت بلا عل. لكل وقرى لغزو المبرمة قد, بسبب العالمي ويكيبيديا، قبل من. الثالث والمعدات والإتحاد عرض أي, وإقامة الأوروبية بعد أن, لكون فرنسا ممثّلة وقد بـ. ذلك لم وجزر وبغطاء إيطاليا. دنو لم دأبوا وانهاء ممثّلة, بل أضف مايو وسوء. به، وصغار ضمنها لإعلان أم, بهيئة الأحمر وهولندا، من لان. مكّن فكان أطراف أم ولم, مقاومة تغييرات دون بل.

"Okay, that is really pretty."

"Isn't it? It's a nice language, really widely spoken."

"I like it! But Haelahar's still my favourite."

"It's lovely," Cam assures him.

Tiro grins.

And presently Cam pulls up some known plaintext, corrects the software's understanding of Haelahar, and then runs some alchemy books through the translation.

"Fun!" says Tiro, beholding the translated books.

"Very! Any of these look like the ones you were reading? We can see how much you got right."

"There's one of the recipe books I've got a bunch of copies of... and I think that one's one of the recipe books I don't have a bunch of copies of... I don't see any of the others."

"Wonder why there are a bunch of copies of some of them."

"The emergency magic kits each come with two recipe books, I guess so you don't forget where a line goes and accidentally make an exploding pile of dirt."

"Makes sense." Cam opens up that book.

It purports to be the Standard Introductory Alchemy Reference, Third Edition, published by the University of Kelarne.

The first chapter is called "Tools and Practices of Alchemy" and it explains all of the tools and safety equipment in a standard alchemy kit, what they are for, (in brief) how to make them, and (also in brief) why they are made of the specific materials involved. Anything that's going to come into direct contact with alchemical essences has to be made of something certified completely alchemically nonreactive. Standard alchemist's work gloves are made of alchemist's leather, developed for this purpose; standard essence plates are made of a nonreactive metal whose name translates literally as 'airsteel', and the paintbrushes similarly of 'airfoam' and 'airwood', and so on.

"That's interesting," comments Tiro. "I did notice that some awful fuckups can happen when liquid essences get on things, and the pictures in the safety guides are pretty clear that you shouldn't touch the essence balls directly so of course I, uh, completely ignored them and touch essence balls all the time, but I guess being a crystalline horror makes me alchemically nonreactive by accident?"

"Could be it. I wonder if I'm alchemically nonreactive?"