"Sophie, any questions?"

Shrug. "My part seems straightforward. Go ahead."

Thank god, Sophie doesn't think he's evil or if she does it's drowned out by profit motive.

"Alright." And walk walk walk to the workshop.

A group of three including Scorpius Lake is bound to not be attacked by anything, so indeed they are not. The way is much more well lit than it was when Scorpius and Lex went there, at night, and shorter, too. They make it there in short order.

Lex heads over towards the locker in which he's collated the relevant ingredients, then hesitates and hands the key to Scorpius instead. "I'm terribly frightened," he deadpans, "would you be a big strong man for me?"

(Sophie rolls her eyes.)

Scorpius accepts the key with a grin and opens the locker to reveal—you guessed it—exactly the ingredients Lex left there and zero jumping mals. "I'm always happy to help," he says, starting to grab stuff to be spread out wherever it needs to be for assembly.

"It's remarkable," Sophie mutters as she starts the burner for the glass. "Some would say it's his most memorable character trait."

Lex collects the other reagents. "Don't want to see you stirring one-handed this time, Lake, if you try to tell me this job's in affinity I'll have some hard questions for you."

"Yes, sir, I'll be a good boy."

Sophie is a good bean Scorpius is happy Lex has her.

"Terrible," Lex says primly.

The ingredients and tools are carefully arrayed, and everyone gets a chance to look at the recipe. The whole affair will be timed pretty tightly. If anything goes wrong, the glass will cool into a fused, lumpy mess, or the orb will come out bubbly, or any number of other things, and they'll have to start entirely from scratch.

"Everyone ready?" Lex asks. 

"I haven't picked up any new questions," Sophie confirms.

Scorpius cracks his knuckles and nods. "Ready."

Lex begins chanting over the sizable crucible of fine white sand, powdered aconite, and cobalt dust (along with half a dozen trace ingredients), then signals for Scorpius to put it on the flame and start mixing and pouring in mana. (There's a Radiant Mind crystal with a precisely portioned amount of energy on the table next to him.)

Precisely portioned is good, Scorpius appreciates that. He can get to his part, and do it competently enough. He's alchemy track but clearly not due to his affinity, so he's not a genius by any means, but he has had enough practice over the years to manage just fine.

The aconite bursts into flame first, producing a cloud of mildly poisonous smoke (which Lex feeds back into the flame) and a trace of residue essential to the process. The cobalt melts and trickles through the mixture as the sand heats to a glow and begins to dissolve, like sugar on a stove. Stir, stir, stir - Lex signals to Sophie to begin the glassblowing.

She takes up the hollow pipe and scoops up the glass from the crucible and begins spinning it, gently, using tongs to pull it out a bit, measuring it precisely. Anyone watching would have no idea this was out-of-affinity for her. Scorpius just needs to keep up the barest trickle of mana, keeping the material mystically labile while she handles making the precise changes to its physical structure and Lex scaffolds the magic itself.

There's a faint tinkling sound behind her, as of windchimes.

"Motherfucker," sighs Scorpius, grabbing the nearest object capable of blunt trauma—a hammer, hammers are good, he likes hammers.

Lex doesn't pause his chanting. In fact he gets faster - the chant comes to a crescendo, and then he switches midflow into a different language, Latin from the Coptic of the main incantation, and there's a rush of energy, and the pair of sirenspiders that had been descending from the ceiling to devour Sophie stop their singing. They twitch once, twice, and then trot over to Lex and kneel before him.

He gestures impatiently at Scorpius.

...whine.

He can easily imbue the hammer with a spell and go to town, then, and soon enough the pair of sirenspiders have been neatly torn to pieces. Lex's spider control spell is good.

Sophie acts for all intents and purposes like she does not notice this happening. Spin, blow, pull, spin some more.

And once the spiders are very definitely dead, Lex resumes the main chant, starting as fast as he left it and slowing back down until he finally wraps it up, as the sphere cools and shivers into being.

Sophie deposits the sphere on the table.

"You did not need to pause the chant to show off," she says coolly. "Scorpius was right here."

"Thank you, Lex, for saving my life. No problem, Sophie! I love to help."

"From a practical perspective I unfortunately have to agree with Sophie."

From a somewhat less practical perspective that was so hot.