Then he will carefully undertake to do that... or well to be ready to do that when it's needed. This is fascinating he wonders what she was making.

There are a number of vials of liquid on the racks behind him, but none seem to be a match for the translucent fluid in the distillation apparatus. (There's two fluids, actually, one that mixes with the first before the mixture enters the heated section, but the second fluid seems to be full enough.) There's a funnel and a glass tube attached to one end of the setup, but it looks like it's upside-down for some reason? 

... He is drawing a bit of a blank; he really should have asked her instead of assuming his limited knowledge would carry him through. Why would the input funnel be upside down? Is there some sort of magic liquid that falls up or something? He will pick up the vials do any of the fluids behave strangely when he gently tilts them? He knows better than to shake alchemical fluids.

Several fluids do behave somewhat strangely - one is weirdly heavy, one doesn't flow at all - but none look to defy gravity. While Alex is searching, however, he may notice that the fruits clumped together in the larger jar don't seem to be touching the bottom at all.

"Aha!" He exclaims. Floating fruit might just have floating juice. He'll carefully pull one of the floating fruit out of the jar and then collect the screw press and try to juice the fruit so the outlet of the press is below the funnel.

He's going to run into the problem that (a) the fruits like to clump together and (b) as soon as he moves the lid they're all going to try to float up to the ceiling. Thankfully it doesn't catch him by surprise since he's already expecting something of the sort, and with some fiddling he does manage to juice a few of the fruits. The clear liquid dribbles up the funnel and tube, and mixes with a darker one, which seems to weigh it down enough that Alex can get it to flow down past a valve into the distillation glass. 

Some minutes later, a mist begins to form below the steadily thickening salve, which starts to ooze upwards towards the top of the jar it's in. 

Right! He hurriedly removes it from the hot plate. He will track work to get most of the rest of the fruit back from the ceiling and try to keep an eye on whether he needs to juice more.

Pipette returns shortly thereafter, carrying a basket of fresh linens that barely fits in the hallway. She plops it down outside before bustling in to peer at the distillation setup. 

"Oh good it's finished, thank you!" 

"You're welcome. What kind of fruits are those?"

"The scholarly term is zephyrines, but my grandmother called them buoyberries. She told me there's a way to make a syrup out of the juice that makes people fly. It's supposed to be really hard, though, and I'm working on a simpler project first. 

"Apparently enough of them could lift a building, once, but since the Forgetting they're pretty rare. Hard to grow without lots of steam. I think most cultivars might be extinct, now. These come from the Isle of Wheels." 

"They can lift a whole building? That's amazing! Are they rich in auram vis or do they lift by another mechanism? I think I heard once that steam rises because it's hot so maybe ignem?"

"Yeah, that's what grandmother told me. Wennelthlim-That-Was used flying warships against the Scaled Ones and during the wars before the Forgetting; I've seen a few paintings that survived, they were huge.

"Auram is what makes the buoyberries float, and you can render a bunch of them down into Auram vis. I think the steam is useful for generating a cloudlike environment? Not many people know how to grow them anymore." 

"Interesting, come to think of it I wonder if temperature matters then. Maybe there's a way to make low temperature steam or something. I don't think clouds are boiling hot."

"Oh, I know this one! I read that the air is more rarefied the higher up you go, and water condenses more readily in rarefied air. I'm not sure how to make rarefied air, though." 

By learning about the mundane workings of Creation, you have gained 1 XP in  ̴͙̾̃ ̸̳̎͜ ̸̛̣͉ ̶̙̉̂ ̷̻̟͠ ̴̤̼̿̈ ̷̫̭̐̑ ̵̧̯̇͝ ̷͓̓ ̴̰̌ ̸͓̌ ̵̖͓̾̃ ̶̱̮͝ ̸̥̺̿̿ ̷̞̒͊ ̵̨̬̽̈ ̷̨̍͘ ̶̢̾ ̵̻͝ ̸͉̫́ ̵̼͇͋̑ ̶̯̕ ̸̼̀ ̴̬̄ ̸͕̗̒̕ ̴̛̻͖ ̵̢̄͛ ̷̲͘ͅ ̸̈́̾ͅ ̷̲̽̈́ ̴͓̿ ̷̓̈́͜

That's alarming. If he was less tired me might be able to keep that off his face but he is in fact tired. He gives a soft gasp. After a second he gets a hold of himself. "What does it mean for air to be rarified?"

"Neat, isn't it?" agrees Pipette, completely misreading his gasp. "It means...spread out, I suppose? Like the difference between a lake and a rainstorm, or mud and dust. Also hotter and drier, more fire-like, closer to the Form of Ignem. And lighter, having more up-ness to it." 

"Huh, if the air up there is always rarified is it up there because it's rarified or rarified because it's up there? Or I guess some complicated combination?"

"I don't know! Maybe Wennelthlim did, though, and we'll be able to figure it out eventually."

"I'm sure it's just a matter of time," he agrees. "I wonder how you would test that." He pauses a second. "I never asked what you're making did I?"

"I'm trying to recreate a recipe for cloudwalking salve! It's a Muto Auram effect that makes smoke and mist support the weight of what it's smeared on, at least in theory. I hope this latest batch works out, I'm almost out of buoyberries and it's way harder to work without them." 

"That's so cool! I hope you get it working."

"Thanks! I hope you get some sleep. I should, too, really, I can test this in the morning. I won't need the Little Lab for that." She pats the worn table affectionately. "Thanks, Little Lab. Ya did great." 

At the reminder about sleep, he yawns. "Thanks; hopefully I'll see you again and you can tell me how it went."

He collects the linens and makes his way back.

Pipette cautions him to skip the third step on the hallway stair, as the solvent is likely still working on the glue.

What's left of his evening is gloriously undisturbed.