Akien assesses it. "I think I'm going to need to alter the ritual to be a little less – circular – but that should work? Might be a bit slower than I'm used to, it being smaller."

"That should work, then. I could arrange larger fireproof areas given time... But I'm not sure that's a worthy investment quite yet."

"No, probably not yet. Do you have a chunk of wood, something I could transmute?"

He fetches a few smallish branches, about as wide around as a finger. "I've got larger timbers if you need that, but could you try with these?"

"… Mmight take a while since this place is small and also that's unprocessed wood, but it should be doable. Uh – do you have a knife? It'd be better if I could strip off the bark now instead of having to deal with impurities later."

"Large timbers are hard to get." He produces a glass(?) pocket knife with a flourish. It reflects in different colors when he turns it, and seems... Dark, somehow. "You can use this."

Headtilt. "What's it made of?"

"That's starglass. If the knife will affect your ritual - well, it's basically glass, but tougher. Nice and unreactive."

"It shouldn't affect the ritual, not in great quantities, unless it's something very weird. But thanks." Pause. "Do you have somewhere for me to put the bark…? I assume I shouldn't just discard it onto the floor."

"Hm, here, this bowl. I'll feed it to the composter later."

He gets to cutting the bark off one of the sticks.

"So – since he'll probably be at this for a bit, how about we go look at those books?"

"If you like. Oh, I'd appreciate it if you two helped me with some chores, there's a fair bit of those to do, but since I already talked about fare..." He walks towards a different room.

She follows! "I can help with chores – once he gets started he really shouldn't be interrupted."

He unlocks the room to reveal a study with the same mirror-arranged light as the workshop. "I see. It'll make the trip faster, which is nice. Well, here's my books."

"Ooh."

She goes to investigate.

Nick starts reshelving a few.

The books are as described: Various flavors of nonfiction on a lot of different topics, for the most part. There are maybe a hundred total. Two dozen look like personal notes.

She stays away from the personal notes and instead tries to work out which of the nonfiction books will be most useful.

Anything on production of tools or fancy construction of buildings? She knows he mentioned they weren't as high-tech as they seemed, but it's possible he was underestimating…

A thin volume titled very straightforwardly "How to Make Starglass" stands out. Three books on airship construction/operation and best practices. Two on engines - one is more of a physics text and the other is a manual of some kind. One titled "Everything You'll Ever Need to Know About Electricity." One on control systems. The author is listed as "Nicholas Streiss."

Huh. "Don't suppose there's any relation?" Point.

"We're one and the same, actually."

"I wouldn't have expected people to own their own books. Then again I've never written one."

"If I had written a biography maybe not, but it's a useful reference. And kind of a trophy."

"How hard are books to produce around here?"

"You can just literally write it if you want. If you want a lot you hire a typesetter and pay for a print run on some big town's printing press."