There is some consternation when the big anvil starts floating, particularly from the trader, but several of the Foundhome briars have at least heard of the Bed Floating, and when they glance at Allegra and she doesn't seem at all worried about it none of them make any particular further comments, although the trader is definitely somewhat nervous about Deskyl throughout.

"And you," replies Angharad warmly. "I look forwards to hearing all about you when there aren't extra ears around!"

Broker Catrin doesn't seem to know whether she should respond to DZ directly or not, so turns to Allegra. "I also have a message from a Ytha Foundhome? Apparently no-one in Seren was confident they could deliver to her specifications, but she got a specific referral to a workshop in Sarvos that might be able to do it."

"Good to know," replies Allegra. "Do you suppose you can shift twice as much mana as usual without a price drop? We've had a little overproduction but I'm not sure whether that will lead to a dip in future months."

"Should do, it's all just going into the Seren mana markets which are a lot bigger than the supply from here," replies Catrin. "Anything else you want to special order while we're here, save you sending another runner in? Although I'm sure they like the exercise..."

"Yes ma'am," DZ replies to Angharad, and then she goes stiller when the broker delivers the news about the wire order.

"Deezee, is there anything you can think of that we might want to get from Seren while we're at it? We've now got a well-stocked normal artisan's forge on its way to being set up, but not much in the way of materials other than a few test ingots of this and that." Allegra attempts to look sympathetic at DZ's reaction but she's not very good at it, and seems to think the best cure for being worried about something is to think about something else.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't know what materials you have available; if you can list them for me I might be able to make a recommendation."

Allegra gestures at Catrin as if she clearly expects her to contribute; Catrin takes this as permission to talk to the weird herald thing.

"Are you interested in building materials, everyday goods materials, magic materials?" she asks briskly. "Seren's best in the world for herbs and alchemicals, most things you might need everyday are available, might have to order out to the Leaguers if you're looking for pre-made parts or bulk metals."

"Materials for building and everyday goods, please, ma'am. And you may want to get samples of the magical materials to show to Master Deskyl, ma'am," she adds to Allegra.

"I ordered a starter kit for the artisan, there should be enough to look through there, just not enough for any big projects," replies Allegra.

"Brick, stone, wood, plaster and such? Brackets, hinges, nails? Woods, fibres, metals, ceramics, lightstone, other crystals, resins? Glues, paints, pigments, inks?" asks Catrin.

"Most of the things Master Deskyl knows how to make are primarily metal, ma'am, with some ceramic; she does use crystals for some things but I expect that won't come up here. Glues will be useful, and mechanical parts like brackets and hinges. The type of metal may be important, though, and I'm not familiar with what kinds of metal you're able to make."

"Your standard metals are iron, steel, bronze, brass, copper, gold and silver, I can get as much of those as you can pay for and will fit on the wagon. We can also source lead, quicksilver, tin and zinc without much trouble. I think there are some unusual non-magical metals available up in Temeschwar, platinum's the obvious one, I'd have to go ask around what the others were called. Obviously then you've got orichalcum steel, green iron for complex shapes, weltsilver for springs and such, and mithril at the top end.

For clays you're best off telling me what properties you want, there's a huge variety from bone china to bulk terracotta clay; your tradeoffs are price, load-bearing, brittleness, how thin you can work it, what temperature it needs firing at, unglazed colour, how well it takes glazes, how smooth a finish you can get. Glues similarly, how fast drying, what surfaces are you trying to join, load-bearing, long-lasting, resilience to sudden jolts, gap filling, we probably have something if you can trade those off.

Pre-made brackets and hinges will mostly be iron or bronze, steel more expensive and more durable, orichalcum steel or mithril if you want the top end."

"I expect Master Deskyl will primarily want steel for structural components, ma'am, and copper wire and small amounts of gold wire and gold leaf for electrical components. I'm not familiar with green iron or weltsilver but they sound likely to be useful; I'm also not familiar with orichalcum steel or mithril. I expect her preferences for clay to depend on the project it's being used for, and I'm not sure what kind of brackets and hinges she'd prefer; steel is probably a fairly safe guess."

"We can get you steel ingots that should be processable in your forge; if you want wire to Ytha's specifications we'll have to follow her supply chain, we can get you basic jewellery wire in Seren but apparently that wasn't sufficient in some respect. Gold leaf is also standard jewellery and detailing supplies. Green iron, for mechanical uses, it's quite like lead in malleability but much more durable and also helpfully not poisonous? Much more expensive, though, mind. Weltsilver, I'm not sure what to compare it to, you can draw it right down into thread or you can alloy it with copper or iron for basically any kind of mechanical property you like, as long as it's on the 'light and springy' rather than 'very durable' side; copper/weltsilver cookware is what the Dawnish use when they want something that heats up as soon as you stick it on the range. Orichalcum steel is like steel but better - basically, same kind of property changes you get going from iron to steel, but more so. Mithril, well, it's mithril - lightweight, practically indestructible, a right pain to work with obviously but a little weltsilver and green iron in the mix can really help there.

If you're not sure what you're after, we can bring a range of sample brackets and hinges, and of the more exotic metals, on our next trip for you - if you're going to still be here next week. Or you can come back to Seren with us and pick them out, although we're off up to First Voice as our next stop."

"We'll be here next week, yes ma'am; Master Deskyl isn't prepared to travel at this time. I expect her to be interested in orichalcum steel as a structural material, and to want to check at some point whether her powers are useful for working with mithril. Overall I expect that she'll want a sample of green iron and eventually one of mithril, a larger but still relatively small quantity of weltsilver - enough to experiment with to see what it can do - and a good amount of orichalcum steel and a smaller amount of regular steel, or the reverse of that if it seems impractically expensive; I'll defer to Master Allegra on that, I don't know what the local economy is like."

"We have a little green iron and weltsilver already; if I could put a larger sample of weltsilver prepared for industrial usage, doesn't have to be artisan pure, and a good sized ingot of orichalcum steel, on the next order? If you somehow find a mithril sample available at less than five crowns, even if it's quite small, I'll also take that," concludes Allegra. "Let's see what we can do with what we've got, and then we'll work out whether it needs orichalcum steel and if we've got the funds for it," she adds to DZ.

"Yes ma'am."

Allegra motions another of her people forwards and they hand over a box of mana crystals to Catrin. "There's a dozen in there, I'm expecting same as always," Allegra tells Catrin. "We might be producing some weird stuff soon, if you want to get on finding a market for it; I'm not sure exactly what, probably starting in the next two weeks, probably something like the clockwork you get out of Holberg but actually good for anything rather than just toys. I'm sorry to be vague about it, but, you know."

Catrin nods solemnly, she does indeed know about Vate Bullshit and its propensity to occasionally produce extremely profitable but dangerous things on an unknown timescale.

"I'm hoping it'll be more repeatable than usual and we might be in the market for selling plans, too," Allegra adds. Catrin seems politely skeptical about this.

(Deskyl hasn't come to a conclusion yet about what parts of their story she wants to make public; DZ stays quiet.)

Allegra steps back from the wagon to let the other people who have gathered around talk to Catrin and get news of friends elsewhere, sell whatever they've put together, and collect their own orders.

"I'm assuming as it's going to be a few days for the wire, you want to wait for Deskyl to get back here before we head all the way over to the forge?" she asks DZ. "She makes it look easy, but I'm not convinced me or Angharad should try carrying you."

Angharad looks like she is entirely up for trying to carry DZ; she looks pretty strong for a human, but not exceptionally so.

"Yes ma'am, one moment." She waits for Deskyl to be looking vaguely in her direction, and then her eyes flash briefly with light; the Sith notices and heads over.

"Let's get you all over to the forge site where we can talk, I think nobody needs me up here hovering while they sell things." She does glance at Catrin as they are heading off, but Catrin waves her off cheerily.

The forge site is also somewhat busy with construction, but it's well away from the trade wagon with the two traders.

Deskyl will carry DZ over there, then; DZ signs to her on the way, and she looks concerned about what she's hearing, but of course with her hands full she can't reply.

Once they get to the forge, Allegra smiles and nods at a few people, then says, "So. Introductions. This is Angharad Foundhome; I've hired her for at least the next month on a stipend, I'm hoping she'll like it here and decide to stay with us. I've heard excellent things about her work on cart suspension in particular, it seemed relevant and she was interested in coming and working on mysterious unspecified projects that might not amount to anything.

Angharad, this is Deezee and Deskyl; I think they'll want to explain themselves, although I'm happy to give it a go if they'd rather."

Angharad is attempting to look serious and professional and definitely not absolutely bouncing with excitement about being summoned to work on secret projects with a mysterious metal person and her very strong friend who has some kind of lifting things magic?

    "Yes ma'am," DZ says to Alegra, and then to Angharad, "Master Deskyl and I are from another world; she's a Sith, a type of person with what you'd understand as magic powers, and she was unexpectedly able to bring us here a few days ago to escape an attack. The world we came from has much more advanced technology, and Master Deskyl is an engineer, so she intends to introduce some of the technology she's familiar with; this will in some cases involve reinventing it, or experimenting to figure out how to make it with the materials available. She's also recovering from a previous attack by another Sith, so she's currently sleeping quite a bit and also deaf, but we expect both of those to resolve over the next few months."

Deskyl signs again when DZ stops speaking, prompting her to continue: "I'm a droid; we're manufactured, in my case as a servant."

Angharad is super excited throughout the entire explanation except for right at the end where she flips suddenly into feeling violently angry on DZ's behalf, much more suddenly than a human even with strong reactions to this kind of thing would normally do so; despite being an open book about most of her feelings, it looks like she has some practice not obviously displaying anger about things (although not as much as Allegra; her facial expression is definitely showing her anger).

"I'm not angry with you, I'm angry with whoever thought manufacturing people as servants was a good idea," she explains. "You are, like, a person, and not like a herald or something, right?"

Deskyl doesn't bother to hide her delight.

    "Master Deskyl thinks so, ma'am."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, and I hope we can get to a place where you do, too," replies Angharad. "Right then. What are we going to start on? I can tell you all about how artisanry works and the state of the art in ox cart design, but it's probably more useful if you suggest some projects that might be do-able from your side. Uh, apparently without whatever you need really high quality copper wire for, at least for the next few days; I can do a wide range of smithy work but I'm not much of a jeweller."