Chapter 154 - Wickleaf Investigation (one)

Alric had hung the wickleaf near the cellar vent because the room had the right kind of air for drying herbs. Cool, moving, and not too damp. It was one of the few places in the building that could be trusted to do a simple job without needing three people and a meeting.

The bundles he had hung were finally ready.

They hung from the line in small tied groups, each one marked with a scrap of paper. Washed, warm washed, salt washed, warm washed again. The leaves had curled at the edges and gone duller in colour, though the blue veins were easier to see now. They ran through the leaf in fine lines, almost like cracks under green glass.

Alric untied the first bundle and carried it to the worktable. The leaf felt dry, but not dead dry. Brittle at the tips, still a little flexible near the stem. He broke off a piece and held it under his nose.

Bitter. A strong grassy and herbal scent. There was something else though, he couldn't quite place it.

Granny Wax’s notes said it was safe in small amounts. Alric had learned to respect that sentence, because it usually meant someone had discovered the large amount and Alric suspected they had been remembered in the margins of Granny Wax’s original notes. He broke off a small amount and put it on his tongue.

The grassy flavor came first then a soothing menthol followed by overwhelming bitterness. It spread quickly, each flavor overwhelming the last. Finally something else followed all of it, faint but clear. A slight zing of citrus. Not lemon exactly or even orange. More like orange peel, sharp and pale but the pleasant part hidden under the bitterness.

Alric chewed once, grimaced, and spat it out. “Interesting,” he said, rubbing at the corner of his mouth with his thumb. It was not pleasant, but neither were hops the first time a sane person chewed them. 

Not beer, probably not beer. Maybe beer. Although beer has enough bittering options.

Options that did not come with a warning from guild masters about alchemists. But spirits were different.

A clean spirit could carry bitter and citrus if handled carefully. Juniper, if this world had something close enough. The menthol and citrus peel. Maybe a little floral note if he could find one that did not taste like perfume.

Gin? A herbal, menthol, citrus Gin. Sounds delicious, this might surpass the gins I knew. I'd need juniper berries, not the bark like they use in the beer here.

He wrote that down.

Get rid of mana nonsense so alchemists leave it all alone. Dried wickleaf is bitter. There is a soothing menthol note and a faint citrus peel. Could make an excellent gin.

He stared at the line, then added another.

If I can get rid of mana stuff, the grassy note and get the bitterness under control.

That was the right direction. Flavour first, extraction second. He nodded to himself. Mana only because mana happened to be part of the problem.

This is not alchemy. Liquid with mana is alchemy, get rid of mana parts. Stromni wants me to look into that, but I’m just not cut out for hero work.

This was flavour work. Extraction work. Drink work. The fact that the drink work required mana testing was an unfortunate clerical error in reality to this world. 

He put two fingers lightly on the dried leaf and pushed a narrow thread of mana toward it.

The mana came back hard.

Alric pulled his hand away before he meant to, fingers closing into a fist. He stood still, looking at the leaf.

This didn't feel like failure. Water took mana and let it fade. Wood took almost nothing. This had rejected him, it felt almost personal. Alric had been rejected by guilds, nobles, and common sense, but being angrily refused by a dried leaf felt new. 

He opened his hand and flexed his fingers.

Well. That is new. Rude plant.

He touched the leaf again, this time with less mana and more care. Margaret’s lesson sat in the back of his mind. Less force, more control, a thread, not a shove. The result was the same.

The wickleaf pushed the mana away out. No flash, heat or visible change. Just a sharp refusal in the sense he still did not have good words for. He wrote slowly.

Dried wickleaf rejects mana strongly. Active rejection, not simple failure. Do I add mana rejector to final gin? Could make people sick. Disregard last.

He was just about to underline dried before he remembered he had some fresh. He went to the fresh wickleaf Rosa had delivered.

The fresh leaves were darker, softer, and more waxy against his fingers. When he tore a tiny piece free, the smell was sharper and greener. He tasted that as well, because flavour was why he was here, and because he was trying not to let the entire afternoon become a secret potion experiment.

The fresh leaf was harsher. More stem and grassy than peel. Bitter and less useful. The citrus note was there, but buried far deeper.

He spat it out and frowned. He set his fingers against the fresh leaf and tried mana. The rejection, this time felt more violent than before.

The mana touched, met resistance, and was thrown back. The fresh leaf did it with more force, or perhaps the moisture in it amplified the effect.

I got rejected far gentler in my university bar days I think.

He left the fresh herbs where they were and headed to the work desk again, he wrote.

Drying may strengthen flavour and weaken mana rejection.

That line bothered him.

Useful flavours are often strengthened with drying. That was normal. Herbs concentrated, water left, oils became easier to draw out. If the rejection strengthened with the same process, then the thing he wanted and the thing he wanted gone may be closer together.

He drew the pestle and mortar closer. The first crack of the dried leaf under the pestle sounded too loud in the cellar.

He worked slowly, grinding the curled pieces down to rough flakes and powder. The smell rose as he crushed them. That faint citrus edge. Also something waxy and unpleasant underneath, more obvious now.

Alric paused with the pestle in his hand.

The table held notes, herbs, cups, oil, wine, alcohol, and clean clothes. There was a recipe nearby that mentioned bluegrass oil and iron avoidance. Pavise’s warning sat in his head like a hand on his shoulder.

This looked too close to alchemy. He looked down at the ground wickleaf.

Flavor, citrus gin was popular in the old world too.

He pressed the pestle down again.

Extraction, bitterness, aroma. Just get rid of the mana part, mana makes it alchemy.

The thought helped, a little.

He divided the ground wickleaf into ten portions. They were not perfectly even. He needed a finer scale for that, and he made a note to ask Stromni who would ask questions but stay silent. Still, they were close enough for first tests.

Ten cups went onto the table out of his item box.

Water one. Water two. Water three. Alcohol one. Alcohol two.

White wine. Red wine. Oil. Dry one. Dry two.

He put a paper label beneath each cup, then checked them again because a wrong label could make the whole morning useless.

Water went into the first three cups.

His medical alcohol went into the next two. It was too rough for drinking and would need to be cut with something.

Each liquid went into the correct cups, then he added the herb measures.

The water darkened first. Pale green-brown bled out from the powder. He smelled it and made a face. Bitter, weak, almost no aroma. He made another note.

Water pulls bitterness. Little citrus. Menthol is still there.

The alcohol took longer to change, but the smell was more useful. The citrus note came forward, sharper than before. Unfortunately, so did something harsh and medicinal.

Alcohol pulls citrus. Also harsh medicinal scent.

The white wine was more complicated. It brightened the citrus, but in the wrong way. He touched the stirring stick to his tongue and winced.

White wine brightens citrus. Sour-bitter clash. Menthol is gone?

The red wine was worse.

He did not give it much ceremony. He smelled it, tasted the smallest trace, and wrote:

Red wine muddy. Bad.

The oil changed the most.

It clouded as he stirred, turning dull yellow-green. The smell became stronger, but not better. Bitter-green, waxy and harsh. The citrus was still there somewhere beneath it, but the unpleasant part dominated.

Oil pulls bitter-green fraction. Strong clouding.

He leaned closer to the oil sample.

That mattered somehow but he did not know if it mattered for flavour, mana, or both. He tested the samples with mana.

Water rejected. Alcohol rejected. White wine rejected. Red wine rejected. Oil rejected. Dry rejected.

He worked through all ten and wrote the result beneath each label. By the end, the muscles in his hand were tight from expecting the little shove before it came.

Grinding had not solved it nor had using different liquids.

He sat back and rubbed his thumb across his fingertips, trying to separate what he had actually learned from what he wanted to have learned.

The dried leaf had stronger flavour and weak rejection. The fresh leaf had weaker flavour and stronger rejection. Alcohol pulled the citrus. Oil pulled the harsh bitter-green part and clouded badly. That was enough for another step.

He took one of the water samples and set it in the small copper pan on of the spare magical heating stones. The stone warmed quickly, then the liquid began to tremble. After a few moments it boiled. The smell grew more bitter.

He let it boil, then moved the pan aside and placed the cup near the vent to cool. Steam rose in a thin line and vanished through the grate. He marked the paper.

Water heated. Boiled. Cooling near vent.

Then he waited. Waiting was worse when the work looked important.

He stirred the other samples at set intervals. He checked the colour and smell. He moved one cup, realised he had broken the line, and moved it back. The alcohol grew sharper. The white wine did not improve. The oil remained cloudy and unpleasant.

After an hour, he tested them all again.

No change.

He began heating each sample in turn and checking them.

So no change, so it's not heat.

He strained the first heated sample through cloth into a clean cup. The liquid came through pale green-brown, leaving the wet herb mash behind.

The strained water accepted a thread of mana and lost it. The wet mash rejected him, or rather his mana but it was getting hard to tell. Alric wrote quickly.

Heated water extract accepts mana weakly, fades fast. Mash still rejects.

He took the wet mash and put it in a wooden cup. Then he added bluegrass oil, because the old recipe had mentioned it, and as much as he hated that recipe, there was just enough plausible information.

He stirred. The oil clouded almost at once. Alric stopped stirring and watched it.

The clouding was stronger than with cooking oil. Pale threads moved through the bluegrass oil and gathered around the wet herb. The smell was not pleasant. Blue grass oil had a distinct sulfur scent that overpowered everything else.

He touched mana to the mixture. Rejected.

He touched the oil near the top. Rejected.

He touched the wet mass near the bottom. Rejected, but not as cleanly. There was something muddled there, something hidden under the oil and water and mashed leaf.

He set it aside and wrote:

Bluegrass oil clouds strongly. Still rejects.

He took another heated portion and added it to white wine, following the recipe more closely. The colour shifted badly. The smell sharpened, then dulled. He tasted a trace and immediately regretted it.

The recipe did not care about flavour, but that did not surprise him. He wrote:

Recipe version with heated white wine: flavour poor. Not for consumption. Not sober anyway.

He felt it a polite way to say potion people had no standards.

The strained water from the boiled sample went into the prototype still next. If something useful came over with the vapour, that mattered. If something stayed behind, that mattered too.

He set the copper vessel in place, arranged the arm, and reached for the heating stone. The liquid warmed slowly. He would let the still run and proceed. He wrote:

Don't know the temps. Leaving still to run on lowest.

He nodded and returned to the bluegrass oil mixture. It had changed while sitting.

The top had cleared a little. The lower portion had darkened. The cloudiness had not vanished, but it had shifted. He held the wooden cup toward the grate, angling it through the last grey light from outside.

There were layers, the top oil and the lower wet mass were no longer behaving as one mixture.

Salt.

He did not know if the salt mattered because of water, oil, plant matter, or magic. That was irritating, but it did give him something to test. He took a pinch of clean salt and touched mana to it. Nothing strange. The salt did not accept much and did not reject him.

Normal enough.

He added the salt to the bluegrass oil mixture and stirred. For several breaths, nothing changed. Then the oil began to clear. Alric leaned in, elbows braced on the table.

The cloudiness drew downward in faint threads. The top layer remained yellow and thin. The lower layer grew darker and more uneven. Small flecks gathered where the oil and water met.

He waited longer than he wanted to. Then he touched mana to the top layer. Rejection. Sharp, immediate and violent again. This time with more teeth.

He touched mana to the lower layer. It entered. It was weak and poor. It spread, thinned, and began to fade almost at once. But it entered.

Alric stared at the cup.He tested it again because one test was a rumour. Top layer rejected. Forcefully. The bottom layer accepted mana weakly. He set the cup down very carefully.

There you are.

The thought arrived with too much satisfaction. He distrusted that. Satisfaction made people skip steps.

He took the cooking oil sample and checked it again. It had gone cloudy as hell. The smell was now the worst part of the wickleaf, bitter-green and waxy, with almost none of the citrus.

He touched mana to it. Rejected. He touched lower, near the soaked herb powder.

Still rejected, though the sensation was less clean. The oil was carrying something. Or blocking something. Or both.

He wrote until the charcoal tip dulled.

Rejecting compound is mean but seems to be oil-soluble, it's also the grassy flavor. Salt seems to help separate oil/water fractions.Bluegrass oil with salt: top rejects, bottom accepts weakly. Oil sample carries bad bitter-green flavour.

He paused, then added the line that mattered most to him.

Bad flavour may be same fraction or compound responsible for the mana rejection.

If that was true, then removing the foul bitter-green part might improve the taste and reduce the rejection at the same time.

That was brewing. That was extraction. That was absolutely not something he needed to describe to Pavise in full.

He added salt to one of the plain water samples as a comparison. The salt dissolved after stirring. Nothing dramatic happened, though a faint sediment began to gather after a few minutes.

He labelled it and set it with the others. Only then did he notice the light had gone.

The grate above was dark. The lantern had become the only real light in the cellar, and the table was covered in cups, labels, cloth, oil, wine, alcohol, salt, and wet green-brown residue.

His back ached when he straightened. Somewhere upstairs, the supper bell rang. Alric looked toward the ceiling, then back at the samples. 

He had missed time again. That was not unusual. It was only a problem because everyone else insisted on putting meals at reasonable hours and expecting him to notice.

He washed his hands in the basin. The bitter smell stayed under his nails, so he washed them again. Then he covered each sample with cloth and weighted the cloth with small stones.