Chapter 33 33: Reikland Blue

This may not be the most entertaining chapter to read, but damn, I had so much fun studying to get it right. ------------------------- If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know. Leave a comment; support is always appreciated. I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see. ------------------------------- Nachexen-Marktag, 25th,2488 IC Moments like this... they're the ones that almost make me cry. I went from relative privilege to being more in debt than I've ever been. I owe twelve times what's currently in the treasury, and with the current income, I barely make it to the end of the month without adding anything new. I've got an extra fifty people mining limestone, a hundred working on clay bricks, and forty blacksmiths... nearly all of the soap profits go straight down the drain in salaries. What's worse, the income from iron tools has stopped. All production is focused on nails, because that's what we need right now... but the process is slow, maddening... almost useless. Paper is still out of the question. The carpenter has no idea what he's doing, and now he's working with the blacksmith just to try and assemble what I asked for. A huge delay. Paper production could be the only real way out of this hole, but that'll have to wait until the presses are ready... So, unless I find gold in the Miracle Mountains or silver buried beneath my feet... I'm left, once again, with no choice but to seize my fate by the horns. I didn't want to do it. Because of the risks. Because working with minimal safety precautions will probably leave me with a nasty chemical burn... a truly awful scar... or worse... turn me into the laughingstock of everyone. And who knows when the Margrave will send someone to drag me back... if they find out I've buried my family in debt... no... To hell with precautions. I need gold. And I've had this business in mind for days. It's just that my fear of sulfuric acid had held me back. But now it's that or disgrace. Rutger brought me some of the things I needed from Altdorf... I spent about fifty crowns on essential materials for my craft. A copper still. A crucible. A mortar made of volcanic stone. Glazed ceramic flasks. Linen cloth filters. Hand-blown glass bowls. All expensive. Very expensive. Many of them custom-made by specific craftsmen. But Rutger managed to get them fast. Kurt walked into my office with a serious face while I stared at the door. "My lord... the thing you asked for... it's ready," said the young blacksmith, bowing his head as usual. "Good... you may leave. And Kurt... you didn't see anything. Understood?" I said, locking eyes with him. "Yes, my lord," he answered without hesitation, then left to resume his duties. I finally stood up. Climbed to the top of the castle's tower. Long ago, one of my ancestors used the place for falconry. But my father thought it a coward's sport... he preferred to kill with his bare hands... so the place had fallen into disuse. Now it was my chemistry lab. Primitive... Good ventilation. Low fire risk. Thick stone walls. I looked over everything I'd requested. A small furnace. Several burners. A good amount of improvised glassware. My clothes waiting for me: heavy brown leather garments, thick gloves, and rags infused with activated charcoal I'd prepared days ago. They would serve as basic filters. I got dressed in the daylight. Put on the gloves. Wrapped the cloths over my face. Took a deep breath. My goal was clear: produce Prussian blue. Lapis lazuli is an incredibly expensive pigment. A few grams are worth dozens or even hundreds of crowns. It's used to dye noble garments, for temple paintings, or portraits of emperors. If I could make it... not only could I sell it. I could refill the treasury. Pay off debts. Invest in paper. Set everything straight. Or... I could die burned alive by a mistake. A miscalculation. A moment's hesitation. I approached a container filled with vinegar and pulled out a bunch of old nails and rusted iron scraps. They'd been submerged for days, and the liquid had turned dark and dense. I filtered it several times using linen cloths to remove any visible impurities... then poured the liquid into a clay tray and placed it into the furnace. I lit the fire with dry wood and kept feeding it until I had a steady flame. I stared for long periods, watching the liquid, waiting for signs. Finally... it began to crystallize. When the process finished, I carefully removed the tray. Took the crystals to the stone mortar and began grinding them calmly, rotating my arm like a machine. I ground everything down to a fine powder. "Jesse... we need to cook... ha, ha, ha," I muttered to myself, laughing alone while I crushed the crystals. A dry, bitter laugh... with a nervous edge. In total, two kilograms of crystal. Without delay, I prepared a second batch. Pulled out another jar of vinegar and iron oxide and repeated the procedure. I poured all the powder into the still. Lit the burner strongly. When the fire was roaring and devouring the wood like it had a hunger of its own, I placed the still and ensured everything was in place to capture the condensation. I waited patiently, motionless, until the first drop fell into the glass flask. Sulfuric acid. Impure. Green vitriol... From two kilograms, I should get about 300 ml of acid, more or less. I placed the receiving flask with a mark I'd made by eye... probably imprecise, but close enough. Imperial alchemists use their own arcane measures. I'm the only lunatic who talks about milliliters and kilograms. That's why, whenever I open my mouth, people look at me like I'm insane. I took the thin pieces of wrought iron I'd asked the blacksmiths to make. They were shaped exactly as I needed. I prepped the container. Made sure it was clean. With the acid ready, everything would be easier. The next piece was ferrous sulfate. And now I could make it quickly. I repeated the process. This time, using rusted iron directly with the sulfuric acid. It started bubbling instantly. Same process as before... only purer, and faster without the extra vinegar elements. While that mixture rested, I started working on another essential component: ferrocyanide. I lit another burner. Boiled water. When it began to bubble, I poured in a generous amount of ash. Potash had to form with the boiling. As the mixture boiled, I took the leftover iron scraps and began filing them down. Iron powder. It took me nearly an hour of tedious work. The potash was ready. So was the powder. I grabbed the crucible. Poured in the potash. Then added nitrogenous materials: dried blood, bits of leather, ground cow horns, iron powder... and my urine. Which I had left to evaporate for a few days. Well hidden. I couldn't let the servants see it—or think I'd lost my mind. I placed the crucible over the fire once more. The heat would do its work. Finally, I sat down. Allowed myself to relax a little. The most dangerous parts were over. From the window, I watched over my lands. Hours had passed, and the sun was beginning to hide behind the mountains. My work continued. I approached the crucible and saw that a black mass had formed. It looked perfect. I carefully transferred it into a clay container and left it to cool near the window, where some fresh air still flowed. Then I set another pot over the fire and heated water again. I turned to the tray where I had left the ferrous sulfate and saw that it had completely crystallized in the warmth of the room. I began grinding it once more, preparing it for the next steps. This time it had to be much purer than the vinegar-based sulfate. The reaction would be better... and also more dangerous. The powder reacted faster when exposed to air, so I sealed it in airtight jars as soon as I was done. While I waited, I lit the torches in the lab. It was clear I'd be working all night if I had to. Once the black mass had completely cooled, I started grinding it. It was tough—dense. But I didn't stop until I had a fine powder. I couldn't allow large fragments. Everything had to be uniform. When I was done, I poured the powder into the boiling water and let it steep. At that moment, I felt an itch on my arm. I jumped immediately toward the slaked lime bucket in case it was a burn... but no, it was just an itch. I sighed in relief. When the boiling stopped, I saw that the liquid in the pot had turned a dark yellowish hue. I placed a linen filter and began filtering it. I passed the liquid from one container to another several times, changing the filter with each pass. In the end, the resulting liquid was a bright, pale yellow. Potassium ferrocyanide. I began preparing wooden bowls and spoons. This was the final part of the day... or rather, of the night. There was no sunlight left. I opened one of the jars of ferrous sulfate, took a spoonful, and dissolved it in a glass bowl with a bit of water. The liquid turned greenish. In another bowl, I poured the ferrocyanide and began adding it slowly to the first one, stirring with the spoon while watching closely. And then it appeared. A deep dark blue precipitate, nearly black at the edges. Prussian blue. I let it settle while repeating the same process with all the ferrous sulfate and ferrocyanide I had prepared. Soon, I had several bowls filled with the same precipitate. After letting it rest, I filtered the contents through linen, and in each filter was trapped a dense blue mass. I took the solid and washed it several times with clean water, then left it to dry to the side of the lab, on clay trays. Prussian blue... Relief washed over me at the final result. All the exhaustion hit me at once. I was starving. I had been so focused for so many hours that, when I finally relaxed, I nearly collapsed to the floor. There was still work to be done. No time to rest just yet. I had no way to weigh the product precisely, but by eye, it looked like about 250 grams. Paint. Dye. Even high-quality ink—if I could manage to make pure alcohol with the still... though that could explode. And if there's something dangerous, it's pure alcohol. I stored all the dangerous materials in their jars. Finished grinding what remained, sealed everything tightly, and began meticulously cleaning the lab. I had created a work of art in there. But now... the hardest part came: selling it. But I couldn't sell it under its real name—it sounded strange for the Empire. So it was better to rebrand it as Reikland Blue... my Reikland Blue. I removed the heavy leather clothes I had worn throughout the entire process and left them soaking in water, to neutralize any lingering chemical residue. Outside the lab, I washed myself thoroughly with soap, making sure to leave no trace on my skin. Triumphant, I went down to the castle cellars. Took an entire leg of salted ham and devoured it without mercy, alongside several apples. With my stomach full and my mind dulled, I climbed up to my room and collapsed onto the bed. Slept like the dead. ------------------------- If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know. Leave a comment; support is always appreciated. I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see. -------------------------------