Chương 196: Psilocybin Ten

I had a meeting, and was only stressing out about it a little. Honestly, it wasn't like me to be too worried about things, but this... was a little different. It had taken a solid month and a half to get everything ready for larger-scale production. Initially, I was pretty excited to get things going, then reality set in. Setting up an entire new production facility was going to be expensive and time-consuming, and worse, I wasn't sure if I wanted one anywhere close to me.

If I ramped up Dreamveil production and things worked the way I wanted them to, then the farm would become an obvious target. That was why I wanted to work through the Union, at least initially. So I hemmed and hawed and only slowly ramped up the production of stuff in my farm. Nine racks of Dreamveil, each one initially experimenting to see what different conditions would lead to faster, better, growth. The first batches came in at slightly different times, with slightly different levels of quality.

That was fine, it allowed me to narrow optimal conditions down. The first batches were then preserved. I tried drying it first. It was a decent way to preserve some of my other mushrooms. It did seem like the more magically potent ones lost some of their potency when dried. I could literally feel that they were less magical, but some amount of the magic stayed in the mushroom, even over the long term, and that was good enough for me.

I was actually building up a nice stockpile of some mushrooms with interesting effects. And it made handling some of the more dangerous mushrooms easier. The Dreamveil dried relatively well. It wasn't too much of a 'wet' mushroom, so an hour or two sitting in a small pan within a stove that I had commissioned worked well. The stove wasn't anything too special.

A well-sealed door into a space to burn coal--I tended to buy the more expensive, cleaner stuff--a small chimney that poked out of the roof, and above that, an enclosed oven that could fit a small tray. I burned light, keeping the fire low the entire time. It was only barely enough to cut the chill, but that was fine. It took a few hours, but I could bake a whole tray of Dreamveil without leaving the farm.

When sampling the dried out mushrooms with my Poison Resistance skills pushed as hard as I could (and with a few mushrooms that could serve to detox on hand) I found that the potency of the dried Dreamveil was significantly lower. Good. No smell, easier transportation, and it just made the mushrooms easier to work with. Pros all around, basically. That wasn't the only thing I tried though. There were other ways to preserve mushrooms.

Refrigeration was one, but after researching it, I'd come to the conclusion that I wasn't anywhere near rich enough to do that. The other common way to store mushrooms for a long time was preserving them in vinegar. Basically, pickling them. There was one other method. Fermentation. There were technically mushroom alcohols, but I was thinking more something like milk-based fermentation? I wasn't sure how to do that, though, and I just hadn't found the time to research it.

A mushroom-based ale could be interesting, though. Probably gross, but so were most beers, and the relaxant and addictive properties would... ah, I was getting way ahead of myself. I'd pickled a couple of jars of the mushrooms already, and a squish test proved that it had worked. I had mixed in some cheap spices as well. It would impart more flavour, but I wasn't sure how I'd go about selling these. It was too cumbersome to carry around.

A glass jar filled with cheap vinegar was just on the wrong side of delicate for easy transportation. Maybe if I was aiming for a slightly different clientele then it might be worth it? Maybe a high-end kitchen or something? If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. It was probably not worth the effort. I sighed, then bounced on the spot a few times, trying to work out the jitters. It was almost time to go.

The girls were here with me, waiting outside. Bet and Willow and her sister. Moral support more than anything, but also a bit of a shield. Since I was predicting a profitable new source of income would be starting soon, I'd tasked the girls with selling mushrooms (of the tasty, non-addictive kind) around the nicer parts of the slum at-cost. It wasn't always nice.

The slums had become a little more violent as of late, but it was building us a reputation as a source of food in a time where food was just a little scarce. The goal was to have people step in to protect us. I wasn't sure if that would work or if it was just a delusion on my part. Humanity was a rabid animal, as likely to bite the hand that fed it as to be loyal. Still, it couldn't hurt. I finished loading up a satchel with everything I wanted to carry. There were three jars.

One with the pickled mushrooms, another with dried ones that I'd pressed in with a roller so that they were like flat little cakes, and a third with larger, fresher samples that I'd gathered just that morning.

"Did you want to come with?" I asked Sir Nibbles. The panbadger looked up from where he was laying on a cushion. The cushion hadn't been my idea. Bet brought it in one day, laid it down on his favourite napping spot, and earned herself the right to scratch the irritable little bastard behind the ears. Sir Nibbles glared at me, then hissed.

"Fine, stay here, then. See if I care." He made a deep, rumbly sound in his chest, then he climbed up onto his legs and shook as he stretched. The fat little badger leapt down from the table, then ran over and climbed up my side, his devilish little claws biting into my clothes.

"Ouch, damnit! This is my Sunday best," I swore.

"You're going to rip it! Oh, crap, you're too heavy for this!" Sir Nibbles didn't care, he just settled over my shoulder, head next to my neck. Shaking my head, I pulled the satchel on, not caring that the strap squished his dumb head for a moment, then I was off. I found Bet, Willow and little Daisy just outside. They were all in their nicest clothes too. Not that we had anything too nice. It was just clothes with fewer rips and which we had cleaned out in some fresh water, with a bit of lye soap.

It was all patterned clothes, with little flowers and a bit of colour. We looked properly innocent and cute. Hopefully, no one would suspect that we were hauling enough drugs to overdose a small army.

"Let's get going?" I asked.

"Yup," Bet said. Willow nodded, and Daisy seemed a bit distracted for a moment, staring at Sir Nibbles. I started walking, and they fell in around me.

"So, what are we going to do the union?" Bet asked.

"Is this like the cooking classes?"

"No, nothing like that," I said.

"I have a new product I want to sell. It's... somewhat secretive? Though I suppose I ought to let you know."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Mushrooms, of course. They're called [Dreamveil Fungus]""They Rare?" Willow asked.

"Not really. They're Uncommon. Though I don't think they grow naturally around here. They make you very tired, but are relaxing. Take one, and you'll have the best sleep you've ever had." Damn, I could still remember the sleep I had after taking one myself. I'd woken up, drool on my face, late the next day. I'd never felt so refreshed. I suspected that even without the chemically addictive properties, just that amount of comforting rest might make the mushrooms be habit-forming.

"There's a catch," I said.

"What's that?" Willow asked.

"They're chemically addictive. Once you take one, you'll want more. We're going to have to be very careful when handling them. If I find out that any of you have taken some, I'm cutting you off, cold turkey."

"Cold turkey?" Willow repeated.

"Never mind. It's an expression. It means that I won't allow you to take more, or touch any again. It's dangerous."

"Did you take any?" Bet asked.

"Yes, and I have lots of skills for handling mushrooms and even poisons," I pointed out.

"And even I found it dangerous."

"Okay, so what, tho? They worth a lot?"

"They will be," I said with a nod. A part of me was feeling a little guilty. Sure, I wanted to target the sales in the nicer parts of the city. So basically to what passed for a middle class in this city, but I knew full well that if things worked out, it would trickle down. But sometimes, you couldn't destroy something from the top down. Sometimes you had to break it from the foundation.