Maria began by demonstrating what could happen if they are incautious with gunpowder. It involved a chicken.
Less one chicken later, her new employees were looking horrified and some looked nauseous. It was, however, a very visceral demonstration of how dangerous what they were working on was. Some paled when she explained they would be learning to make large amounts of black powder, and looked slightly sick when she said that one barrel of the stuff would be enough to kill everyone in the manufactory, and three would turn the building to splinters.
That was probably be an exaggeration, since in her experience barrels of gunpowder had a small damage radius, but better then be overcautious than undercautious. The manufactory was designed to have three walls and a roof, with half of the fourth wall, on the side from which the least wind blew, having large wooden doors that could swing open to let in light so they wouldn't have to use lanterns. In truth it was not unlike many sawmills. The roof also had hatches that could be pushed up to let in more light or, in the worst case scenario, to let out force in the case of an explosion. Thus the building was actually pretty bright and airy, but could be secured when people left.
She began by teaching them how to ground the components to fine powder using large wooden mortars, originally used to grind grain into flour. They didn't need much teaching, but she needed them to know how fine the powder needed to be. After that, with the understanding this recipe was secret and having them swear an oath not to reveal the recipe to anyone, not even to a prince (if the king asked, she would have to tell them anyway), she showed them the proper proportions to be mixed together to make black powder, then demonstrated that mixing it together with water– not too much– made for a more even mix and prevented any unfortunate accidents. They seemed very relieved about that last.
All the new workers seemed to assume that they would be making gunpowder individually, and so had Maria, but Sophia had other ideas. She directed two to be in charge of grinding and keeping them with a steady supply of fine powder. One was in charge of measuring out the proper proportions and mixing them together– CAREFULLY!– in a large iron bowl into a slurry. One had to press the slurry into cakes using a cloth and a hand press, and the fourth had to line them up to dry.
"Shouldn't we just mix the powder?" Sophia said.
"That would be extremely dangerous to store," Maria said. "The advantage of forming them into pressed cakes is that those are less likely to be easily ignited, and we can ground them into different roughnesses as needed. But…"
They look at the relatively small size of the press and how long it was taking to make each cake.
"We need a bigger press," Sophia said.
"And more of them," Maria sighed. "I'll speak to the blacksmith. And the carpenter."
They had belatedly realized they had no worktables. For now they were making do with barrels, but… well, in future, they'd also need more barrels.
As Maria supervised the first day of production, Sophia put on her sunhat and headed for the town to make 'quality of manufacturing improvement' purchases.
Bit by bit, the Nightflower Workshop took shape. Worktables were installed, more presses commissioned, more materials ordered. While they couldn't visit it every day, Maria was able to take her still-unnamed horse, or ride with Sophia in her carriage, to the estate to check in before the workers finished for the day and went home, giving orders for what to do the next day. Slowly, bit by bit, they began to grow their stockpile of gunpowder. She also assigned two of her Armsmen guard the manufactory at night, both to watch the manufactory for fire, and to watch for thieves in future.
As they refined their manufacturing procedure, emphasizing safety, they began to create more materials, such as slow match and quick fuses and colored stars. At each new thing, Maria emphasized secrecy, making them swear the oath anew for each new alchemical mix.
Maria also commissioned metal badges for the workers of the workshop, similar to the ones Master Gehrman had made when he formed the Hunters. It was a simple thing, a disk not unlike a pressed cake of gunpowder with a stylized nightflower burst engraved on the back. They hung from simple leather thongs instead of chains, but as with Master Gehrman's badges, it gave them a sign of belonging, a talisman they would hold that affirmed their allegiance. She made one for herself and Sophia as well, and despite its crudeness, Sophia seemed happy to wear it.
Maria had to admit, there was something… complete… about wearing a workshop badge again.
On the day after Maria had taught them how to make nightflower charges, after the workday ended, Maria asked their workers, who now numbered seven, to stay briefly for a small snack and a demonstration. As they ate some of her sweets– which they seemed to enjoy– she demonstrated how to insert a fuse into the lofting mortars, filled it with gunpowder, and loaded one of their newly-made nightflower charges. She brought out and loaded six more mortar, tying them all to the same fuse and demonstrating why they needed so much. Then, thanks to the wonders of fuses that bruned slowly, she lit the fuse and joined them, telling them to watch.
Those who were they for the chicken demonstration were looking wide-eyed at the mortars, obviously fearing the worst, and flinched when the first went off with a crack like a tree breaking.
They stared as the first nightflower charge burst into an expanding bloom of colors in the sky.
By the time last charge exploded across the darkening sky, there were sounds of cheering and cries of 'TAMAYA!' from the children staring out of the manor's windows.
"I thought you should all see what your hard work creates," Maria said. "What a nightflower actually was."
"It was…" one of the men said hesitantly, sounding awed.
"Pretty…" another murmured.
"Loud," an older worker said, sticking a finger in his ear.
"Pretty loud," a fourth said as a compromise.
The fourth, the youngest and a cousin of one of the children's caretakers, still looked awestruck. "Can we do that again?" he said hopefully.
From the hopeful looks of the others, they obviously felt the same.
Maria smiled. "Next week," she said. "To test if you're making the nightflowers right."
Needlessly to say, the following week's nightflowers were of exceptional quality.
"Hey, Maria," Sophia said as they rode her carriage back to the academy.
"Yes, Lady Sophia?" Maria said.
"Didn't you promise me an alchemical weapon?" Sophia said.
She had, yes. "Would the Gehrman version 1 suffice?"
The flat look Sophia gave her was answer enough.
"Well, what do you wish?" Maria said. "It can't be one that can 'remove bridges, castles, dragons and inconvenient gods', unfortunately. "
"Something that can be fired six or seven times before you need to put in a new load of powder," Sophia said. "Maybe with some kind of metal cylinder that rotates to put a new load into place and that moves whenever you pull the trigger so that you don't need to move it by hand… "
Maria blinked. "That's… a good idea, actually."
"I know, right?" Sophia said. "I put some thought into it, and I even have some drawings…"
They spoke eagerly all the way back to the academy, and when they got back, Maria accepted Sophia's invitation to visit her room and see the concept drawings...
"Did you hear? Last night Lady Maria was seen entering Lady Sophia's room!"
"What?!"
"SCANDALOUS!"
"They were both late for dinner and looked pretty happy!"
"Damn it! Stupid, sexy Ascarts taking all the goodlooking girls!"
"I heard Lady Maria called Lady Sophia an ethereal, otherworldly goddess bathed in perpetual moonlight… in front of witnesses!"
"That's so romantic!"