Northern Glass produces cheap goods in great quantity. The shop mostly makes storage jars and bottles but also sells bullseye glass window panes. Although greenish, streaky, and with obvious bubbles, it is still the best glass produced in the city. Thay’s other glassworkers mostly resell fancy imported goods.
The low quality of Kjal Orensaar’s raw glass is due in part to the iron-rich sand from the Horka River. The resulting goods are well formed and strong. They are neither decorative nor delicate but are long lasting and of practical design. The window glass is translucent rather than transparent and the concentric ridges distort the view. Nonetheless, wealthier customers prefer it to covering their windows with animal skins.
Kjal Orensaar himself makes very little glass these days and has mostly retired to running the shop and supervising his assistants. Irsa Haspik, 26, is the senior journeyman and has studied under two masters before Kjal. She is a skilled glassblower and chafes at the tedious work of continuously producing the same wares. Irsa spends her free time working on decorative items that she rarely sells. Borth Sagil, 43, is competent and unimaginative. He feels he should be the senior journeyman because he has worked here longer, but Kjal favors Irsa because he recognizes her natural affinity for the craft. Teryll Leredeth is a local lad in his first months of apprenticeship. He is not yet trusted to do much more than produce the glass mixes, stoke the furnaces, and to watch and learn.
The building’s ground floor is constructed of thick masonry. The accommodation floor above is light and airy in comparison, with large glazed windows of Kjal’s construction.