Chương 161: Chapter 156 - Wickleaf Investigation. Part 2.

Part 2.

By the time Alric returned to the cellar, the prototype still had gone cold. As much as he wanted to investigate that, the cellar now had a magical lock on it, and he'd need to do everything himself. He began by carefully sorting the herbs Rosa had retrieved. He sniffed each of them in turn. Sunspur. Hearthleaf. Glassmint. Sunspur had a slightly sweet scent; it reminded him faintly of vanilla. Hearthleaf had an earthy scent to it.

Glassmint was the herb that stuck out most; it had a strong scent of guarana, and it reminded him strongly of energy drinks. He grinned widely; he began hanging the herbs in small bundles, along with the extra wickleaf Rosa had brought. Each would be a small puzzle, he figured. He hummed to himself as he did it. His thought turned to the distillery as he hung the herbs. They were nearly ready to run completely; Stromni was overseeing the still being cleaned and the construction.

Brandy was far more forgiving than whisky wash would be. Once that was finished, he turned to the still that he had left running with the wickleaf extract. The heating stone beneath it had faded to a dull red. Nothing dripped from the end of the arm, and the small receiving cup held less liquid than Alric remembered placing in the boiler. That was generally the point of a still, but the difference always felt faintly disappointing. He let out a sigh surveying the scene.

As much as he knew he was enjoying this, a big part of him wanted him to stop. The biggest part of him remembered his best mate, they had made brandy yesterday. That friend had given up his smithy to do it with him. That same friend had said "If it's a puzzle ye can't solve, none o' this matters. None o' it. So solve what's in front of ye first, is always been ya way, or fail at it properly and we forget it happened." The moment he said that, Alric was committed to giving it his best shot.

He set his notebook on the table and lifted the wooden cup that had done the catching. The liquid inside was clear. Not pale green, not brown, not even faintly yellow. If he had found it elsewhere, he would have assumed someone had poured water into a cup and then forgotten it. He poured into one of the dark green glasses he was borrowing from Margaret. He held it up to the light; it was clear. Alric held it beneath his nose, inhaling deeply. There you are. Sneaky sneaky flavour.

The scent was weak enough that he nearly missed it. The strange grassy smell that smelt like boiled seaweed was gone. He touched one drop to his tongue. The menthol flavour spread gently across the back of his mouth, followed by the faintest edge of orange peel. Alric stared into the cup.

"That's it," he said, rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The still had carried exactly the parts he wanted. The bitterness, waxy flavour and extreme bitterness had stayed behind. What had crossed the arm was clean, cooling and faintly citrus. This is much more controlled. I can use juniper or something for bitterness, add this menthol and citrus, this will make excellent gin. The flavour was far too weak, but weak was a quantity problem.

Quantity problems were usually solved by using too much of something until Vale became involved. He wrote beneath the previous notes. Distillation carries menthol and citrus. Rejecting flavour does not cross. Concentration far too weak. He underlined far. More herbs might solve it. A stronger extraction before distillation might solve it. Several weak runs combined into one batch might solve it, though that sounded like a great deal of work to create a small amount of flavoured water.

Boiling down won't help if it came through the still. Can't concentrate that way. That was a later problem. The important part was that the useful flavour could be separated. Alric set two fingers against the side of the cup and pushed the thinnest thread of mana he could manage into it. The liquid accepted it barely. The sensation was so weak he thought he might have imagined it.

He tried again, closing his eyes and using the control Margaret had shown him rather than his usual method of threatening reality with quantity. A tiny amount entered the distillate. It lingered for a few breaths, then thinned away. Alric opened his eyes. Letting out a deep heartfelt sigh, he lowered the cup carefully. That will not do.

A liquid with mana was alchemy, according to the alchemists, and Alric had no intention of explaining to Pavise that the cooling gin was only alchemy in a very small and legally inconvenient way. He tested it a third time. The result remained the same. The distillate accepted almost nothing, but almost nothing was not nothing. Alric looked toward the small still. Most of the water had crossed into the receiver. Whatever had allowed the heated extract to accept mana should have remained inside the boiler.

If a tiny amount had crossed, it might have travelled in droplets with the steam. The prototype still was useful, but no one would accuse it of delicate separation. He began separating the parts till he investigated the bottom of the still pot. A pale crust covered part of the bottom. Most of it was cream rather than white, with a thin green-brown ring where the last of the liquid had dried against the copper. It was not much. Scraped together, it would barely cover the end of one finger.

Alric found a clean wooden spatula and worked the residue loose. Some came away as powder. The rest broke into thin flakes. He smelled it. Almost nothing, a faint trace of the bitterness maybe? The flavour had crossed. Whatever this was had stayed. Alric looked between the powder and the clear distillate.

"Right," he said, placing three clean cups in a row.

"Let's find out what you are." He added water to the first cup, his clean alcohol to the second and white wine to the third. Then he divided the residue as evenly as he could and dropped a portion into each. The powder disappeared into the water after a little stirring. The liquid became faintly cloudy, though it remained much clearer than the original herbal extract. In the alcohol, the powder behaved badly. Some clung to the wooden stirrer. Some floated at the surface before sinking in little clumps.

It was not refusing to dissolve entirely, but it clearly preferred water. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The wine took it more readily than the strong alcohol. A faint cream cloud spread through the pale liquid, then disappeared after several turns of the stirrer. Alric began with the water. Mana entered smoothly; the water got a faint shine he hadn't expected, and he nearly dropped the sample. Not only a thread this time.

The cup took enough that he felt the liquid change beneath his fingers. The glow faded quickly, but the mana settled into it rather than passing through at once. When he withdrew his hand, it remained. Alric counted slowly. By twelve, it had weakened. By twenty, some of it had faded. By thirty, some remained. He wrote quickly. Boiled-down residue accepts and holds mana. Most mana-holding material remained in the boiler. The words seemed so much worse after he wrote them.

A dry powder that made water hold mana was exactly the sort of thing Pavise had warned him not to discover while attempting to investigate flavours. Alric tested the alcohol. Mana entered the liquid, though poorly. The clumps around the bottom seemed to take more than the alcohol surrounding them. It held less than the water sample, but it did hold some. Poor dissolving. Not necessarily destroyed. He moved to the wine. The mana entered and vanished almost immediately. Alric frowned and tried again.

He added slightly more mana the second time, enough that the water sample would have held it without difficulty. The wine lost it quickly. He sat back and looked across the three cups. Water worked. Alcohol worked badly, but the powder had barely dissolved. Wine had dissolved the residue and still refused to hold mana properly. Alcohol could not be the only reason. The spirit had far more alcohol than the wine and performed better. Wait.. Wine is sour? Alric lifted the cup and smelled it. White wine had acidity.

Not enough to make anyone think of it as vinegar, but enough to sharpen fruit, preserve a drink and annoy anyone who had liked sweetness.

"Acid?" he said, turning the cup slowly. He gathered the notebook, left the three cups where they were and went upstairs. The kitchen was busy preparing the evening meal. One trainee cook was cutting onions near the long table, while another kneaded dough with both hands. The last, a man Alric would have described as portly, was overseeing the pair. The three cooks Seren had employed.

With everything that had happened with the innkeepers' guild, she said finding cooks had been easy; the brewery had one and headquarters had gotten some for some time, although the man in charge sure loved to make stews. The head cook noticed Alric first. His shoulders stiffened. Alric had begun to suspect that the man was afraid of him. He did not know why. Alric had never criticised his food, threatened his employment or entered the kitchen carrying a weapon.

He had, admittedly, destroyed the guild the man had worked for, but that was a technicality, barely counted.

"Can I get some vinegar?" Alric said, stopping beside the worktable, smiling and holding out one hand.

"Please." The cook looked at his empty hand before glancing toward the pantry.

"How much, Master Alric?" the cook asked, wiping both palms down the front of his apron.

"A cup should be enough," Alric said, looking toward the shelves. The cook crossed the kitchen quickly. He selected a small clay jug, then hesitated and took a larger one instead. Alric watched him pour.

"I only need a cup," Alric said, raising one finger.

"Yes, Mister Alric," the cook said, reducing the amount with visible care before offering him the jug with both hands. Alric accepted it. The kitchen had gone quieter; the cooking staff had discovered tasks that required them to look in his direction without appearing to do so.

"Thank you," Alric said with a what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He held the cup against his side. The cook nodded quickly and stepped back toward the hearth. Alric left before his presence delayed supper. Back in the cellar, he prepared a fresh cup of water and dissolved another scraping of the residue into it. He pushed mana inside and waited long enough to make certain it held. Then he added roughly a tablespoon of vinegar. The liquid clouded faintly. Alric touched it again.

The mana entered, but not as easily. What did enter began fading almost at once. He added about the same again. The next thread of mana barely settled. Alric stared at the cup, then added enough vinegar that the smell became obvious. He tried once more. The water behaved like water. It accepted the smallest trace and lost it.

"Acidity then," Alric said, lowering his hand to the table. Acid damages whatever it is that holds mana. It might change its property somehow, break it apart, or stop it dissolving properly. Margaret's recipe used wine, I am starting to think the alchemists planted that recipe. He repeated the test and found the same result; anything with strong acidity seems to destroy the effect. One time was a rumour, two was information. Alric reached for the distilled flavour water. The tiny mana response was still there.

He added about a teaspoon of vinegar, stirred and tested it. It gave up the mana quicker and seemed to hold less, but Alric had no way to measure that. More vinegar got rid of it completely. He tasted the distillate again. The acid was noticeable now, though only faintly. It sharpened the citrus more than he expected. The cooling flavour remained. Alric's mouth shifted into a grin. This could work. There were fruits, sour wines and other ingredients that could provide acidity without ruining the flavour.

The exact choice could come later. He looked over the table. For most of the previous day, the samples had felt like separate problems. Water, wine, oil, salt, heat, mana, bitterness, a recipe written by people who believed dawn was a temperature. He wrote more slowly this time. Bad grassy flavour and mana rejection move into oil. Salt improves separation, I think, might help with layers. The citrus and menthol flavour distils across. Mana holder remains behind, but a small amount crosses.

Acid destroys mana-holding effect. He read the four lines twice. That was it. Not the potion. He did not care about the potion. This was the route to the drink. Wash and dry the herb. Use oil and salt to remove the harsh rejecting fraction. Distil the cleaned liquid. Increase the concentration until the menthol and citrus stopped behaving like schoolgirls. Add enough acidity to destroy any trace of the mana holder that travelled across. Gin without alchemy. It would take more work.

He had no proper botanical spirit base yet, no juniper equivalent and no idea how much wickleaf would be needed before the flavour became noticeable rather than background. Still, he knew where the flavour was now. That was the part that mattered. Alric's gaze returned to the cup of water and residue. Acid destroyed it. The opposite thought arrived immediately. If acid damages the mana holder, something alkaline might preserve it, maybe? Even strengthen it.

Perhaps it will do absolutely nothing and prove I'm out of my depth?

"I don't want to make mana potion," he said softly to himself; he gave himself a congratulatory nod. He repeated that to himself. But I do need to understand what preserves it so I can avoid doing that. That was reasonable. More reasonable than discovering later that a harmless ingredient had turned his gin into an international incident. He tried to think of something alkaline in the cellar. Nothing came. The salt was not enough. The oil did something else.

Limestone might work, but the distillery had the useful limestone, and he did not intend to begin stealing pieces from Stromni's water filter. At the same time, the dwarf was finally proud of something. Ash water, maybe? I mean, lye is alkaline? It's in old soap, I think. Needs to be mostly wood ash. He stood upright, his hands moved to his hips as he thought deeply, trying to remember and piece together. Eggshells are mostly mineral as well? Calcium, I think, or was it carbon? No, it's both.

Crushed and prepared properly might give me a weaker option. Alric looked toward the cellar stairs. The cook was not going to enjoy this. He returned to the kitchen. This time, the cook saw him before he had crossed the doorway. His hand stopped halfway through lifting the lid from a pot over a low fire.

"Mister Alric," the cook said, lowering the lid carefully.

"Do you need more vinegar?"

"No, no," Alric said, as a maid stepped around him carrying a basket of chopped vegetables.

"I need everyone to eat more eggs." The cook's face became still.

"How many more eggs?" he asked, resting one hand on the edge of the hearth.

"I don't know yet," Alric said, rubbing at his jaw.

"Just collect the shells for me, oh, and I will need some wood ash too."

"All of the shells?" the cook asked, glancing around the kitchen.

"All of them," Alric said, nodding.

"For a few days." The cook looked more concerned, though he nodded. Alric left them to it. The cellar smelled faintly of vinegar when he returned. He covered the residue, sealed the distillate and moved the notes into his item box. The lock Margaret had arranged had been imprinted on the cellar door. The magical part was almost invisible until Alric touched it. He fed mana into the small circle on the front and felt what could only be called a gripping sensation.

The lock recognised him, and according to Margaret, the only way in would be to dig around the door. Alric stood outside the cellar for a moment, trying to think of another ordinary alkaline material he might already have. Nothing came. Eggshells and wood ash. It was not a long list. The alchemists probably mess around with the mana rejection oil to get an alkaline. I doubt anyone else is going to understand PH very well.