"The machines are used to form metal into regular shapes. The soundscape, as I'm sure you've realized, is ambient more than it is precise, meaning that fine details like cracks and warping are hard to detect. Once the raw materials are in a form we can predict, we work them into all manner of things. The bells are a prime example, but they are far from the only thing. The eruption of the Red Year left our cloister isolated for half a century. It was necessary to learn how to make everything we might need. In the case of caring for our home, that means quite a lot of nails."

She laughs, and this time he's able to appreciate how her bells sing as she does so.

"Once our works are generally formed, we are then able to stamp and sculpt them. Our flesh is blessedly impervious to fire, so we can form fine details into red-hot iron as easily as we might with a particularly firm lump of clay."