"The simple reason is that paper isn't just going to be used by us two in the future," Kivamus replied. "Right now you can't even imagine just how widespread the usage of paper can get in the future. We can use it to give children sothing to write on, we can replace the costly parchnts for us, and perhaps even print books in the future. It also takes several days to convert a hide into parchnt, but paper can be made much faster than that in a larger quantity, which will make books accessible to everyone who wants them." He looked at the majordomo, who still looked sceptical. "Just trust on this."
Duvas smiled. "Of course I trust you. You have proved the usefulness of your ideas ti after ti, no matter how absurd they felt in the beginning." He added, "By the way, you ant to write new books, right? I don't understand what it ans to print books."
Kivamus smiled. "Printing... is a little difficult to explain without actually showing it. Let's leave it for the future when we are ready for it." Once the majordomo nodded, he looked at the waiting carpenter, who looked eager. "This wouldn't be a single, individual machine, but will have several parts which will be used in sequence for the whole process of making paper." He pointed at the blueprint he had drawn. "Most of the parts look simple at first glance, but they need to be sturdy enough that it wouldn't break under load."
He put his finger on the sketch of a rectangular wooden fra. "This is the simplest part. You will need to make around a dozen of these for now, one of these will beco the deckle while the other will beco the mould. I will ask Cedoron to make a bigger fine sh to attach to half of these, just like he is making for the new safety lamps for the coal mines. Later I will show you how to attach the sh to the fras when both are ready."
Darora frowned. "You ntioned this already but these are still too simple... I can easily make them by tomorrow evening. Is this all?"
Kivamus chuckled at the impatience of the young but talented carpenter. "Hardly. After this I need a wooden tub, just like the ones the maids use to wash clothes in, as well as a wooden beater - again, similar to the ones they use for washing clothes."
Duvas looked at him with raised eyebrows. "This sounds like you just want to order more maids to wash clothes... Is this really how paper is made?"
Kivamus ignored the jibe, and continued, "We will need a dium to large sized cauldron for boiling, but we can just use an extra one from the kitchen for this. We already have enough ropes we had bought from Pydaso before winter, so those can be used for drying." Thinking about it, he muttered, "Hmm... We will also need to make so felt for this, since I haven't seen any of it here, but it should be doable from the rabbit or wolf hairs. We will also need a good amount of lye." He looked at the majordomo, "Are you still dumping the wood ash in holes in the ground like in the past?"
"Of course not," Duvas huffed, "I'm not that forgetful! We've already started to gather it in big earthenware pots to use as fertilizer in the farms after you told about that a month ago. They are being stored outside the manor like you had ordered, so there wouldn't be any chance of it catching fire and damaging other buildings."
"Good, good. There should already be enough ash for making lye then. If we can make it in a decent quantity, we might even be able to start making soaps here."
Duvas stared at him. "But we had already bought enough soap from Pydaso to last the whole village for the winter - although they'll likely last a month or two longer since the villagers are habitual of using the smallest amount they can get away with to save so coin."
Kivamus frowned. "No, that won't do. Tell them there is no need to be frugal about that. Like you said, we have a lot of it in stock." He added, "Also, soap is sothing we just can't do without even after the winter ends, and I don't want to buy sothing which is that easy to make and at such inflated prices from that money-grubbing soapmaker guild of Plumron. Anyway, that's an issue for the future, since Plumron basically has a monopoly on soapmaking and it's not going to be easy to go against them."
Finally, he focused back at the carpenter who looked impatient by now. "Now this is the difficult part for which you are here." He pointed at one of the blueprints made on the parchnt. "I need you to make a trip hamr, like this one. We certainly can't spare enough iron to make even the head of the trip hamr from it, so it will be made of wood, with a layer of iron around it."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not ant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He explained further, "There will be a simple rectangular fra around a man's height, With the pivot of the trip-hamr attached to an axle in the middle of that fra. One side of the hamr will have its iron wrapped head, while the other side, which is the haft - or the handle in case of a normal sized hamr - will be pushed downwards by a cam." He added, "The cam is just a smooth triangular piece of wood shaped like a single tooth - which will push down that side of the hamr and raise the hamrhead on the other side of the fulcrum - the pivot - which will then fall down under the force of gravity."
Darora scratched his cropped black hair. "I know the concept of a cam, but how will the cam push down the hamr's haft? This whole hamr will weigh as much as half a dozen n, if not more. I don't think it can be done by hand."
"Of course it can't," Kivamus agreed. "I was getting to that part. That cam will be attached to the water wheel we will install under the dam on the eastern stream. It will take maybe ten more days to remove all water from the mine shafts, and after that we can shift that wheel to that stream. We will use a long wooden axle to shift the rotational motion of the water wheel under the dam to another wheel located on the shore. This arrangent will be enough for the trip hamr, once you have made the second wheel with cams on its circumference. Later on, we can use gears to transform the rotational motion of the second wheel from a vertical plane to a horizontal one, in case we want to use it to grind grain or so other stuff like that, but that's for the future."
Seeing that Duvas was getting confused now, while Darora was squinting his eyes looking at the blueprint, he added, "Leave the details of how the full system will work to . I will explain whatever is needed if you have any problems, but for now you should start making the fras first, and then you should return to make the third crossbow. By the ti that is ready, we will have started the construction of the dam, and you can start making the trip hamr and the second wheel and axle arrangent. That would be completed around the ti the dam is finished, and after that we can start the installation of everything there."
Darora nodded. "Even though I will have to start working on the trip hamr only after a week or so, I will still take this blueprint with , so I can familiarise myself with the design in my free ti. The wooden fras are simple enough, but the blueprint will be helpful to see the dinsions for reference."
"That's a good idea. you can take it right now," Kivamus said as he rolled up the parchnt. "Co back here with all the fras when they are ready, so I can show you how to attach the wire sh to it once Cedoron has made them."
"Of course milord," Darora said before he took the parchnt, and exited the manor hall.
Kivamus looked at the majordomo. "Call up the blacksmith tomorrow morning, so I can explain about the wire sh to him." Once Duvas nodded, he continued, "We have enough pelts stored now, so order a few servants to take a few of them and pluck the hairs from them. We will use so hot water and repeated agitation and compression to make felt from those hairs, which will be used to compress the paper later." Please read this chapter on its original platform—M|V|L1EMPYR.
"Won't it be a waste of those precious pelts?" Duvas asked. "We can sell them for a good price to rchants after winter."
"Don't worry, only two or three pelts would be more than enough for now." Kivamus added, "Tomorrow morning, tell a servant to bring up so of the stored ash, so we can boil it to make lye. That can be a little dangerous, so we will do it outside the manor walls in the east, and I will supervise the process. Once we have so lye, and the mould and deckle have been built, we can start the process of making paper. The final product, at least that of a decent quality, will have to wait until we have the trip hamrs ready, but we should still be able to start making so of it once we have so felt made from the hairs. Ideally we will also need a separate paper press machine for making the final product, but we can just use the wood press machine for this in the beginning, since by that ti we will start mining coal again and we can spare that machine for a while."
Duvas took a deep breath. "You have thrown around a lot of new terms here, and I hardly understood half of them, but I will trust you once again that you know what you are doing. I will give the orders to the servant and call Cedoron tomorrow. I know I shouldn't doubt your admittedly extraordinary ideas by now, but every ti you ntion sothing new, I start to think if sothing that complex can really be made in Tiranat..."
Kivamus smiled. "That's alright, Duvas. It's okay to have so doubts, I hardly know everything after all. Either way, I believe it will be many years, if not decades, by the ti I start to run out of ideas which are simple to implent, and by that ti even I wouldn't be sure if any advanced designs can be made in Tiranat. We'll see what to do when we reach that stage." He grinned. "For now, enjoy the journey!"
Duvas stared at him for a while then shook his head while smiling. "I wonder how you can even think of so many unique ideas..."
Kivamus returned the smile, without giving an answer. Gorsazo had basically raised him since he was a child, and considered him like his own son, which is why there was no real risk of his forr teacher calling for him to be burned at the stake when he had revealed everything about himself. However, Duvas was much older and had a similarly traditional mindset. He had no doubt that Duvas wouldn't betray him in anything, since the old majordomo considered Tiranat to be his ho now, but in case he revealed his real origins, he still wasn't sure what Duvas would do. That's why it was better to be safe than sorry. Perhaps one day, he could tell more about that, but for now, it was better to keep his secret to himself.
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