Bands

A band makes a vessel bigger without pouring it out: fitted on a standing vessel, Spillway Vessel or Alembic, it keeps the contents, and the holder holds more — a speculum band by half again, a fluxsteel band twice as much. A second band will not go over the first, but a stronger one takes the place of a weaker, and the removed one comes back to your hands; a vessel broken by hand carries its band along.

A bright band — four times as much. Brightsteel holds no murk: a vessel under it, broken other than by hand, spills not a puddle but silt — a handful for every eight parts.

A wootz band — six times as much: the distillate in it is compressed. But Murk cannot bear the pressure: a vessel more than nine tenths full of Murk bursts — a pool of mire ooze where it stood, and the chunk grows murky.

A still band — three times as much, and a vessel with it does not freeze in the Stillness: where nothing flows, siphons still fill and drain it. Without it, a vessel in the Stillness stands like the water — until a thaw lantern's circle.

A freshet band — ten times as much. What a spillway vessel under it spills does not go to murk as a puddle but returns to the chunk as flux — one unit for every four: the only overflow that does not murk.