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Description

Tholyth Hall was a moderate estate in the mountainous interior Galthirith, not too far from the frontier. Three centuries prior after the fall of House Tholyth it had fallen into the hands of House Noljas; which had used the compound as a hub for local forestry, ranching and mining operations and occasionally as a hunting lodge. It's care was handled by a set of junior Noljas family members and a rotating selection of figures from vassal houses who regarded it either as either as mild banishment or an easy if boring assignment. Daijan ti'Noljas had been in the former category when he spent a bland decade there nearly a century ago, but saw it from the latter perspective in hindsight. Either way, as he approached the old manor house on nightdrake back it was a good place for the project he had been sent to inspect. Twenty five Drow specialists and a hundred slaves had been dispatched to this remote posting officially to upgrade the sawmills and turpentine production, but that was only part of the matter.

After the usual courtesies of the housekeepers reserved for an official visit, a change of clothes and a warm cup of coffee and some spiced pastries by a warm hearth, Daijhan met the woman he'd come to see on what was once a bedroom on the second story. She was a minor daughter of a vassal minor house, but for all that she had proven to be an unexpectedly valuable asset in recent years. She was no great mage or warrior, but she was an master of the alchemical arts who had a respectable grasp of the mechanical. The room contained numerous tools of her trade plus a variety of mechanisms as well as a faint rumbling.

"Tharsien ti'Uival." He said.

She gave a respectful bow "Lord Daijhin, I trust your journey was well."

"Reasonable," he'd never been much of a flyer but complaining about it to her would be of no use "But I've heard you had made a breakthrough."

"Indeed my Lord. We've had some false starts over the past three years even leaving aside the explosion last midsummer." That event had come dangerously close to getting the project cancelled "Even so, we've managed to work out a proper method of refinement based on reports from the Coldlands." She picked up a small glass bottle of brownish black liquid and handed it to him and gestured to the device outside in the wall, puffing away and gurgling. "The important thing to realize is that stone oil will break down into multiple substances when distilled, each one condensing at a different temperature." She took back the jar of Stone Oil and replaced it with a small white candle. "A sort of mineral wax* is one of the products you can get out of it, according to the test the ones we've been making burn like the finest tallow."

He stared at the object, unimpressed. "I doubt the Committee sailed around the world to make better candles."

"I would say the same thing, but there are a surprising number of applications for wax. Vharaj also says it could be useful as a lubricant, grease to smooth the motion of wheels and pistons. Demands for which are going up. But as it the real prize is this." She produced a bottle of clear liquid from underneath a table and handed it to him.

"Stone Oil Distillate, Clear**" Daijhin read. "I trust it burns better than the raw rock sludge?" He had the misfortune of being near the stuff when it burnt when it was used as an incendiary by privateers in the Interterran Sea. Even a couple seconds dealing with it's thick black smoke was a miserable experience before it was snuffed out.

"Oh yes, in fact I'm burning some right now." She led him to a small device which turned out to be a small steam engine of the sort that were now being made as training aides. His knowledge of said things was limited, but he soon noticed that there was no real firebox. Just what looked like a spirit lamp underneath a small metal boiler with light spilling out of a small hole in a pipe between them. "And it looks like it will be going...now." The main piston was slowly pushed forward as a hiss of steam was let out and was then brought back by the reciprocating motions. The next turn was faster, the one after that faster still."

A short while latter she looked at a gauge "And we have fifty...fifty one, fifty two revolutions per minute." She put up her finger. " What we've made is a clean burning potent liquid fuel."

"Could you power a ship with this?" Daijhin asked.

"Ships, sawmills, stoves, trains, threshers, heaters and basically everything that works by burning something. We can also produce Dark Distillate***, which burns well but is more noxious than Clear Distillate and a few other things."

"Alright, let us suppose that my esteemed Grandmother decides to take your research and apply it commercially. How long could it be before you could distill, say a hundred barrels a day?"

She paused for a moment, giving it some thought. "A Still that size would take about two years to build and test if everything went right, maybe three if things did not or we took our time ironing out the kinks first. Rushing it would be a bad idea. Similarly would be the need to train up a workforce to properly operate it. A shoddy still manned by idiots blowing up will get House Noljas nothing. But the team was thinking about more ambitious goals than just processing a hundred barrels a day. They were thinking about starting off with building a still able to handle twenty to thirty barrels a day, making several more of them and using that to work out how to scale up to five hundred for the next generation. There's a lot of Stone Oil in the northern districts and reports of more of it in the colonies. I could see Clear Distillate replacing wood and coal for cooking in coming years my lord, though it would need new stoves."

The last sentence was a bit off in Daijhin's reckoning. As far as he was concerned the main value of this project lay in naval applications. That's what the Infrastructurals were apparently using it for. That the Committee reached around the world and was willing to fight the Dark Elven states for Stone Oil was enough to convince House Noljas of it's value and to investigate what they were doing for the past five years. They had not been able to get their hands on any Engineers involved in the practice, but they could work out the basics of the process by observation and spying their activities, including the big Distilleries that they'd been building at Borogskov and Daagsgrad. Daijhin knew they were not the only ones doing so, but as far as they can tell they were in the lead including House Valcas. Even so, it was not a bad thought. "If new stoves and ovens are required, that's just one more thing for our factories to make and our factors to sell. I'm looking forward to the full report and I believe I won't be alone."

*Paraffin

**Kerosene

***Fuel Oil

From the Beginning...

Previous:Infrastructure: Part Three Hundred and Twenty Two

Infrastructure: Infrastructure: Part Three Hundred and Twenty Four

Description

Tholyth Hall was a moderate estate in the mountainous interior Galthirith, not too far from the frontier. Three centuries prior after the fall of House Tholyth it had fallen into the hands of House Noljas; which had used the compound as a hub for local forestry, ranching and mining operations and occasionally as a hunting lodge. It's care was handled by a set of junior Noljas family members and a rotating selection of figures from vassal houses who regarded it either as either as mild banishment or an easy if boring assignment. Daijan ti'Noljas had been in the former category when he spent a bland decade there nearly a century ago, but saw it from the latter perspective in hindsight. Either way, as he approached the old manor house on nightdrake back it was a good place for the project he had been sent to inspect. Twenty five Drow specialists and a hundred slaves had been dispatched to this remote posting officially to upgrade the sawmills and turpentine production, but that was only part of the matter.

After the usual courtesies of the housekeepers reserved for an official visit, a change of clothes and a warm cup of coffee and some spiced pastries by a warm hearth, Daijhan met the woman he'd come to see on what was once a bedroom on the second story. She was a minor daughter of a vassal minor house, but for all that she had proven to be an unexpectedly valuable asset in recent years. She was no great mage or warrior, but she was an master of the alchemical arts who had a respectable grasp of the mechanical. The room contained numerous tools of her trade plus a variety of mechanisms as well as a faint rumbling.

"Tharsien ti'Uival." He said.

She gave a respectful bow "Lord Daijhin, I trust your journey was well."

"Reasonable," he'd never been much of a flyer but complaining about it to her would be of no use "But I've heard you had made a breakthrough."

"Indeed my Lord. We've had some false starts over the past three years even leaving aside the explosion last midsummer." That event had come dangerously close to getting the project cancelled "Even so, we've managed to work out a proper method of refinement based on reports from the Coldlands." She picked up a small glass bottle of brownish black liquid and handed it to him and gestured to the device outside in the wall, puffing away and gurgling. "The important thing to realize is that stone oil will break down into multiple substances when distilled, each one condensing at a different temperature." She took back the jar of Stone Oil and replaced it with a small white candle. "A sort of mineral wax* is one of the products you can get out of it, according to the test the ones we've been making burn like the finest tallow."

He stared at the object, unimpressed. "I doubt the Committee sailed around the world to make better candles."

"I would say the same thing, but there are a surprising number of applications for wax. Vharaj also says it could be useful as a lubricant, grease to smooth the motion of wheels and pistons. Demands for which are going up. But as it the real prize is this." She produced a bottle of clear liquid from underneath a table and handed it to him.

"Stone Oil Distillate, Clear**" Daijhin read. "I trust it burns better than the raw rock sludge?" He had the misfortune of being near the stuff when it burnt when it was used as an incendiary by privateers in the Interterran Sea. Even a couple seconds dealing with it's thick black smoke was a miserable experience before it was snuffed out.

"Oh yes, in fact I'm burning some right now." She led him to a small device which turned out to be a small steam engine of the sort that were now being made as training aides. His knowledge of said things was limited, but he soon noticed that there was no real firebox. Just what looked like a spirit lamp underneath a small metal boiler with light spilling out of a small hole in a pipe between them. "And it looks like it will be going...now." The main piston was slowly pushed forward as a hiss of steam was let out and was then brought back by the reciprocating motions. The next turn was faster, the one after that faster still."

A short while latter she looked at a gauge "And we have fifty...fifty one, fifty two revolutions per minute." She put up her finger. " What we've made is a clean burning potent liquid fuel."

"Could you power a ship with this?" Daijhin asked.

"Ships, sawmills, stoves, trains, threshers, heaters and basically everything that works by burning something. We can also produce Dark Distillate***, which burns well but is more noxious than Clear Distillate and a few other things."

"Alright, let us suppose that my esteemed Grandmother decides to take your research and apply it commercially. How long could it be before you could distill, say a hundred barrels a day?"

She paused for a moment, giving it some thought. "A Still that size would take about two years to build and test if everything went right, maybe three if things did not or we took our time ironing out the kinks first. Rushing it would be a bad idea. Similarly would be the need to train up a workforce to properly operate it. A shoddy still manned by idiots blowing up will get House Noljas nothing. But the team was thinking about more ambitious goals than just processing a hundred barrels a day. They were thinking about starting off with building a still able to handle twenty to thirty barrels a day, making several more of them and using that to work out how to scale up to five hundred for the next generation. There's a lot of Stone Oil in the northern districts and reports of more of it in the colonies. I could see Clear Distillate replacing wood and coal for cooking in coming years my lord, though it would need new stoves."

The last sentence was a bit off in Daijhin's reckoning. As far as he was concerned the main value of this project lay in naval applications. That's what the Infrastructurals were apparently using it for. That the Committee reached around the world and was willing to fight the Dark Elven states for Stone Oil was enough to convince House Noljas of it's value and to investigate what they were doing for the past five years. They had not been able to get their hands on any Engineers involved in the practice, but they could work out the basics of the process by observation and spying their activities, including the big Distilleries that they'd been building at Borogskov and Daagsgrad. Daijhin knew they were not the only ones doing so, but as far as they can tell they were in the lead including House Valcas. Even so, it was not a bad thought. "If new stoves and ovens are required, that's just one more thing for our factories to make and our factors to sell. I'm looking forward to the full report and I believe I won't be alone."

*Paraffin

**Kerosene

***Fuel Oil

From the Beginning...

Previous:Infrastructure: Part Three Hundred and Twenty Two

Infrastructure: Infrastructure: Part Three Hundred and Twenty Four