Chương 173: Chapter 168 - Lye

Alric let out a deep sigh, his hands on his hips. The cellar had been put back together, but his previous Wickleaf experiments did not survive. The oil sample still had a dark layer at the bottom. One of the water samples had settled into something nearly clear above a line of greenish brownish something. All of it looked usable. Before the royal brandy thief had arrived, Alric had put every suspicious cup, herb, the prototype still, and a vaguely suspicious brush into his item box.

The item box, however, had stored individual items as individual items. Unimaginatively. While the labels were intact, they were no longer under the correct cups, and nothing could be trusted. He could probably figure out which sample belonged to which label, but probably was not a standard he would trust. He began gathering the previous samples and throwing them into a bucket to be thrown out later, then got to cleaning.

"Start again," he muttered to himself as he got started. Once all the equipment was drying, he went to check on the herbs. The hearthleaf looked dry until he bent one of the thicker stems; it folded. The outer leaves had dried faster, but grinding the leaves would mix in damp plant material. Guess I won't be looking into these today, then. He checked the others and found the Glassmint was worse. The thin leaves were curling and dry, but the central veins were still swollen.

Alric pinched one gently before remembering Rosa's warning specifically about bruising Glassmint. He left that bundle as well. The Wickleaf, however, cracked satisfyingly when he bent it. The leaves had faded further since his first experiments; the blue veins were clearer now. Thin, fine lines crossed the shiny green surface, resembling narrow cracks beneath glass. He began untying one bundle, then another. He put them in a pile before he tilted his head toward what remained. Rosa had brought a ridiculous amount.

The pile he had was easily four times more than in his previous attempts, but it was less than five percent of the total by his measure. Alric decided he would need to tip her more. Alric pulled the mortar closer and began working the Wickleaf in batches. The mortar was nowhere near big enough for the amount he chose, so every few minutes he emptied the crushed flakes into a clean pot and started again. The repetitive work gave him time to think, which was always an issue.

Water pulled the bitterness, oil carried the foul grassy parts, salt helped the oil and water separate, and distillation carried the menthol and citrus flavours he wanted while leaving most of the bitterness behind. Acid destroyed the mana-holder. That should have been enough. Add enough acidity to the final drink, find something like juniper, and make a cooling citrus gin that wouldn't excite the alchemists. Stromni, however, had asked him to investigate properly.

He pushed down the pestle harder than needed, and the scraping sound echoed in the cellar. The dwarf was right; he knew that, but it was still irritating. Destroying the mana-holder was easy, but destruction was not understanding. He had no idea what the material was, why acid damaged it, whether it could be restored easily, or if a different ingredient might protect it by accident. He could make a drink that held no mana when it left; someone could add something later and discover it was alchemy in a serving jug.

The thought process had been bugging him for days. If he could not understand the process, then none of the rest mattered. Flavour, extraction, and repeated assurances that it was only a drink would still be dangerous. If it wasn't already. He emptied the final mortar into the pot and mixed the crushed Wickleaf to combine. Then he divided it into roughly three portions. None of this was exact; Stromni had made a scale for the brewery, but he would need something very fine for this.

At this scale, a few flakes aren't gonna matter. There is a bunch of stuff I can't measure anyway, like mana. Each portion went into three separate pots of different sizes. He poured distilled water into the first. Green-brown colour bled outward in small clouds; he stirred until all the leaves were completely wet. He sniffed it.

"Ugh… Consistent, at least," Alric said, putting the pot on one end of the worktable. He put a slip of paper under it and wrote water control on it. He'd gained a new appreciation for labels. He set a separate pot of water to start heating over a magical heating stone and turned to the new supplies he had been given. There was a basket of eggshells and a deep bucket full of ash. The kitchen had rinsed the shells before giving them to him. They were dry now. Alric picked up a small piece and inspected it.

Safe enough to eat, at least, but putting crushed eggshell into water will do pretty much nothing. Useful later, maybe… The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Strong heat could change it into something reactive, he knew, but he didn't trust his memory enough to start baking mineral powder in a cellar. He put the shell fragment back. The ash, on the other hand, was far less subtle. The bucket had several days' worth of wood ash.

Having asked the kitchen to keep the ash aside for him had been taken with the type of seriousness Alric would have expected for divine instruction. Fine grey ash covered charcoal fragments and many dark clumps he decided not to think about. There was also a small, blackened bone near the side. He removed that and put it aside. Wood ash meant potash. Potash meant potassium. His notes upstairs had various bicarbonates listed. Remembering the names felt important at the time and still was.

Bicarbonate could be mildly alkaline and safe to consume in reasonable quantities. Potassium bicarbonate didn't need sodium, and the ash had the potassium he needed. Alric looked toward the heating water. A strong alkali was the quickest way to find if the direction mattered. He could make a concentrated lye; if that did nothing to the mana-holder, then struggling to make a weaker bicarbonate would be a waste of time. If lye changed something, then he would at least have direction.

Alric lifted the ash bucket and carried it to an open space. He placed coarse linen over another bucket and began scooping ash onto it. Shaking the cloth or using the scoop to move the ash around saw the fine ash fall through the cloth. The larger chunks he threw back into the original bucket. What remained was not clean; it was simply ash without chunks of headquarters left inside it. He repeated the process with finer cloth. Nearby, the water began steaming. Alric moved the inn's lye maker closer to the table.

It was a wooden bucket fitted on a small stand. There was a hole in the bucket with another bucket underneath. Seren had shown him the lye maker when he asked how it worked; she explained the process and made him repeat not touching the liquor with his hands more times than he cared to remember. He started by packing sheets of folded cloth over the hole in the bottom of the bucket, sealing it. Then came the ash. He poured it in layers, shaking the maker and packing it down to help it settle.

Seren had warned him about that too; she had sounded a lot like Stromni at the time, Alric recalled. He replaced the bottom catching bucket with a deep ceramic bowl before carefully pouring the hot water onto the ash. The water disappeared quickly into the surface. He bent over to look below. Nothing. He frowned, looking closer. Still nothing. He checked the top again when he heard a drip. Looking back, he saw the drips continue, slowly becoming a thin, irregular stream. The liquid looked completely ordinary.

It was slightly cloudy and a bit darker than the water he poured in. It did not smoke, glow, or give any useful warnings that it could burn skin. Alric thought that was rude; dangerous substances should have the courtesy to look dangerous. The dripping slowed. Seeing it slow, Alric swapped the ceramic bowl for another, being careful not to touch it. He poured the liquor through the ash again. The second pass took far longer; the ash was already wet, and it dropped slowly.

Alric used the time to clean the general area and take notes about the process. First pass through filtered wood ash. Second pass through same ash. Unknown strength. Do not drink. Doing third pass. The "do not drink" note didn't feel scientific, but it did feel responsible. Performing the third pass felt like enough; repeating the process again would become ritual at some point. Three times felt meaningful only to people who liked the number. Seren had explained one test to him.

He took two clean sticks and dipped the ends into the liquor. He then rubbed the sticks against each other. They slid easily. Slippery.

"Strong enough, then," he said, keeping his hands away from the wet ends. He stood around awkwardly holding the sticks for a moment before putting them on the edge of the table to drip on the floor. The liquor was ready. He glanced over the crushed Wickleaf. He had picked a ceramic bowl deliberately; he did not want copper or iron to add some other reaction. He poured off some of the lye into the other bowl before adding the herbs. He watched it carefully. The same clouds formed, but much more unevenly.

He stirred gently. Both bowls would need to rest overnight to compare them properly. Beer had taught Alric that staring at it didn't cause liquids to change faster. He nodded to himself and looked at the lye maker as he was leaving. The ash stayed dark inside the bucket, with drops still falling into the collection bowl underneath. The following morning, not much had changed. The cellar smelled strongly of bitter herbs and damp ash. Alric opened all the vents without saying anything.

He checked on the plain water version first. It had settled, so he stirred it slowly, and the faint bitter smell returned. He gathered a small thread of mana through his finger and tried to push it into the liquid. There was an immediate, sharp rejection, but he had expected that. He rubbed his finger against his thumb and frowned. He added the oil and salt before putting it aside. Moving over to the alkaline sample, he gathered the same thin thread of mana and pushed. It resisted. Alric frowned harder.

That was new; it hadn't thrown the mana back like he was used to. He tried again; the resistance stayed firm. He stared at it for a long time. Untreated Wickleaf felt almost hostile. Mana touched it and was driven away. This felt more like pressing against a locked door; it didn't strike back, but it didn't enter either. He wrote: Wickleaf in water rejects as normal. In lye liquor it resists. Alric stared at the word 'resists'. It was not precise, but he decided he lacked the language to describe magical feelings.

Gathering a stronger thread of mana, he pushed it at the lye liquor. The resistance held. He gathered more, with the same result. Alric stared at the sample for a moment, narrowing his eyes at it. He stood back and held up a hand. Margaret had shown him a delicate, controlled thread. Alric understood the principle but opted to be less delicate. He pushed out more of his mana and pushed it at the sample. It still resisted. Alric felt his irritation rising. He wanted an answer and decided to stop knocking politely.

He opened the taps hard and flooded the cellar. He began gathering it to the bowl, building pressure. He felt himself sweating. A small crack in the resistance came to his awareness, and he pushed harder at it. Eventually, there was a sense of give, and some mana pushed through. Withdrawing his mana to himself, he approached the sample. He could feel it; there was mana in the sample. He counted to one hundred slowly; the sample held the mana.

"Alric?" came a muffled voice from outside the vent.

"Everything is fine," Alric shouted back at the vent. There was only silence. He sighed, turning back to the sample. The alkaline treatment may have lessened the rejection, but it did seem to preserve the mana holder. He added the oil and salt to the sample. Tomorrow, he would have to try to make potassium bicarbonate.