"Are you sure you want the lab to be in the basement?" I ask Melanie who seems fairly certain about her choice. "I know there's not much to look at there, but the odd window is nice."

"It will be safer to have everything surrounded by solid stone." The alchemist replies. "And, Cyril is right, keeping the more dangerous chemicals entirely separated from the rest of the business will make it harder for them to hurt someone. Whether intentionally or not."

"Alright, but I'm going to add some fiber optic cables, so you can at least get some natural light down there." I say emphatically, even if they don't know what I'm talking about. "You'll need proper ventilation too; I'll use a mix of passive and powered just to be safe. Have you finished testing that charcoal yet? I don't want us to be venting any fumes if we can help it, but I'll still be filtering the air both coming and going. And, then there's heating and cooling, but I should be able to add a radiant system to the floor easily enough. That reminds me, I still haven't made the water heater for the house yet."

Felicia and Cyril just stare as I start making a long list of what needs to be done, including detailed drawings and even some models. Melanie, and her apprentice, Catherine, though; they just wait me out patiently, already somewhat used to the way I work.

"Then there's all the safety equipment. Showers, eye-wash stations, fume hoods, protective clothing, goggles, gloves, respirators if needed." The list just keeps growing. "And, of course, fire safety. Water isn't going to cut it for chemical fires, so... hmm, that might work; I was gonna have to collect nitrogen for the Haber process anyways. But, I'll need to find a way to compress it down to first, and I should be able to make liquid CO2 that way too. And, ugh, Struhl is going to drive me nuts when she finds out. Cyril, you and your people will need some safety training, as will janitorial once I hire some, at least so they know what not to touch. Melanie, keep a modular design in mind when you're laying everything out; better to keep each section separate so accidents don't spread. I can make large parts of the walls out of glass, so it'll still feel open though. Felicia, your work isn't as dangerous, but you'll still be getting a fire suppression system and dust control. Do you have any other needs or wants regarding safety?"

"Uh..." The poor weaver looks a little flummoxed.

"Don't worry, Dear." Melanie pats her on the arm. "You'll get used to him... eventually."

"Is he terrorizing the new hires already?" Amelia enters with a laugh. "Babe, you just hired them, try not to scare them off just yet." She rubs the soft petals of my hair before sitting next to me; Apricot taking my other side.

"Hah!" A snort of a laugh escapes from Cyril. "Are you kidding? This is the first time I've worked with someone this decisive in years. He saw a problem and had a detailed plan for dealing with it within minutes."

"A lot of this stuff has been floating around in the back of my head for a while now." I say. "This is just the first time I'm sitting down and getting it all out. And, I may have only been a student in a tangentially related field, but I do have some practical lab experience. So, I already know what safety measures are needed."

"If you say so, Sorrel. If you say so." Apricot pats me on the knee. "And, is that the building? It's so cute."

"Yes, I finally got around to collecting those bees on my run this morning." A few of them appear and settle down on the back of my hand before waggling their butts in greeting. "They were still on my mind when I started thinking up building designs. You were right, by the way, no problem at all to store them."

"Speaking of cute." She holds out her hand and the fuzzy little things drift over. "I always loved playing around with these girls... and, stealing their honey. Hehehe. It's weird to see them so small."

"He has bees in his storage spell?" Felicia looks even more flat-footed than before.

"Try to ignore it when he does something you think should be impossible." Melanie pats Felicia's arm again. "It's just easier that way."

"Mhm." I roll my eyes at the cheeky alchemist. "Amelia, now that you're here, you can help us with logistics. We're going to have supplies and finished product that is going to need someplace to live, and who better than someone with some warehouse experience to tell what works and what doesn't."

In the end, most of the first floor was earmarked for storage and offices. With one corner devoted to Sinclair's workshop since he'll be working with a lot of iron and it would just be stupid to have to move that up and down levels.

The second floor became the domain of the weavers. Felicia was able to poach enough people to run three looms, four if she works herself. Unfortunately, only a single seamstress was willing to follow her. Blanche spent more time with them and thus had them much more cowed than the weavers that she mostly left to Felicia. But, this works out fine as we likely won't be sewing much stuff. For now, at least.

The third floor is the dormitory and Cyril said he was going to speak to some people tonight and will likely have a full crew ready before I have the building put together.

"Alright, everything is looking good." I go over the model which has been broken down into separate floors. "We still need a cleaning crew, and Melanie needs some more workers. Felicia, I'd like you to handle the former and help Melanie with the latter. Since the last time I sent her to get workers she came back with an apprentice."

"Heh." The alchemist snorts. "Just showing this model of the lab in the guild will have half the alchemists in town scrambling to work for you."

I did put the most work into that section of the model. The alchemy floor is broken down into four main sections, the largest, taking up half the floor, and being dedicated to making rubber and rubber products. The second largest being for cotton silk, and cellophane, along with gas collection and ammonia production. The third, a dedicated testing lab. And, the fourth, a personal lab for Melanie and Catherine.

"If you can find someone who is willing to work under you, then feel free to hire them." I give her the go-ahead. "Most of these jobs won't need full alchemists though, so try to limit it to just one or two for the testing lab, unless you can see the need for more."

"Mhm, you're right." She agrees with a nod. "These jobs need skilled workers, not full alchemists. Still, I might need a couple more to work as supervisors once everything takes off, as you like to say."

"Still need to build that aircraft one of these days." I laugh when Amelia narrows her eyes at me. "Okay, it's getting late, so you can all head home. If nothing else comes up, I'll be working on the building tomorrow. And, I hope to have Apricot industries up and running in its new headquarters the day after."

"You don't mess around, do you?" Cyril laughs. "Decisiveness is an excellent quality in a leader."

"Oh, I'm no leader." I wave the notion away. "I just want to get all this crap out of the way, so I can just relax for a bit. I have been way too busy lately, and I really need a break."

"Well, at least you have your priorities straight." The man laughs again.

...

"Is this what you were working on earlier?" Apricot asks when I go back to my landline experiments after everyone left. "What are you trying to do?"

"Just trying to reach out and touch someone." I reply with a stupid grin for the old jingle. "I got lonely earlier and wished I could just talk with you. I already have runes that can listen and speak, so now I just need to make them work over a long distance without spending all of our money on enchanting supplies."

"You're trying to transmit mana over roots?" Apricot tilts her head to one side and her eyes start to sparkle as she examines the long planter box in front of me.

"Roots and mycorrhizae." I say and send a test signal for her to follow. "I tried with just roots but didn't get anywhere until I manipulated both the plant and its fungal symbiont. That slow pulse is the best I've gotten so far, but I can just feel that the solution is right around the corner."

This whole experiment has been an exercise in listening to my instincts and just letting the magic guide my hand.

"Oh, I hate this." Apricot huffs. "I can almost see what you're trying to do, but you're on another level when it comes to nature magic. I have no idea how to help you here."

"You may just have." The sun is almost down and I'll need as much mana as I can get, so I dash upstairs and pump as much magic the mana node in the bathroom as I can before the light fades. Collecting the just formed mana stones, I give Apricot her tithe and powder the rest as finely as I can.

"Nooo." The pixie lets out a soft whine as I pour some of the powder into the soil.

"Oh hush." Amelia tousles her hair.

"Mycorrhizae aid plants in the uptake of water and nutrients." I explain to them. "But, there's no reason they can't increase the uptake of magic either. Now, the plants themselves don't need the magic, but the signal does. The power level is too low, that's why the pulse is so slow; it's like it has to slog through mud just to get there."

Sinking my consciousness into the fungi, I will it to grow and evolve until it can draw in the mana just like any other nutrient. The plants take up that mana, but it just starts leaking out again right away. But, the test pulse I ran when they were full zips across faster than I can trace.

With a wide grin on my face, I try out hundreds of different plants to see how they reacted to the excess mana. Several held onto it but started to change in subtle ways, those I set aside to examine later. It ended up taking me a while, but I eventually found several trees that could accept the increase in mana without being affected by it.

"Hmm, they still leak a little." I comment after finding something I could work with. "But, I can always line the roots with powdered mana node. Expensive, but I won't need much to let them replenish their losses."

"I think you might have broken Apricot with that last sentence." Amelia laughs at the forlorn look on her lover's face.

"I can grow as much as I want, Sweetie." I somehow manage not to roll my eyes at her dramatics. "Look, I'll try to breed the trees to leak less, just like I did to make dandelions with more sap. Okay?"

"Okay, but you have to give me the rest of that powdered mana stone." She bargains.

"Can, I try something with a pinch of it first?" I beg.

"Just a pinch." She nods sternly.

"Now, let's see if this works." I collect a scoop of the soil into my hand and mix in the pinch of mana dust before extending a series of fine roots out of my palm. "Mmm, I can see why you like the way these taste. It's almost like drinking dappled sunlight, much more so than when I refill directly."

"Oh, no fair." Amelia huffs. "You can already recharge from the sun. Did you really need another method?"

"Says the woman who is connected directly to magic via our little glutton here." I laugh as Apricot mixes the rest of the powder into a drink and slurps it down with a look of bliss. "And, I doubt I'll be using this method. For one, I have no idea how I'd ever manage to keep a supply of stones safe from Apricot."

"Shut up! I'm not that bad." She swats at us when we just start giggling.

"Sure you're not." I pull a full-size mana lollipop from storage and we both laugh again when her eyes lock right onto it.

***