112: Pie

The recipe was fairly simple. I would first crush the sugar-reed into juice; then, it was a matter of simply adding yeast and water — this would create a wash.

The most difficult part was separating the wash from the yeast product that would settle at the bottom. Once it was added to a vessel that either Crisplet or Milo would be able to make, it was heated just enough that the alcohol would move over.

Apparently, the part most people had difficulty with was keeping a consistent temperature. I knew this wouldn’t be a problem with Crisplet’s help.

Once it was distilled, there would be three parts: the head, the heart, and the tail. Milo insisted we needed the heart — the middle part; the rest could be discarded. And finally, once that was done, we’d have alcoholic sugar-reed juice.

For regular, non-alcoholic juice, it was just a matter of crushing the reeds, extracting the sugars, mixing them with water, heating it a little to really infuse the flavours, then letting it cool before filtering off all but the leftover liquid.

I was happy to try both!

I also really wanted to make some food. Micca’s cooking was nice, but there was something really nice about monster meat, and she wasn’t using any at the moment — mainly sticking to chicken, buvul, and boar.

I spent the rest of the night using my abilities to try to adjust to the pain. It still hurt. A lot. But it was getting better — I wasn’t needing an hour’s break between attempts anymore.

What I did manage was to finally look up the buffs for the eel I cooked. What I saw shocked me.

[Rare] Spice Infused Mana Eel

• Fire Immunity.

• Poison Immunity
• +8 Intelligence.
• +4 Wisdom.
• +2 Dexterity
• +4 Endurance
• +2 Perception
• Increased Elemental Magic Potency
• Major Regeneration
• Ambush Efficiency
• Increased Passive Mana Gain.
• Superior Mana Restoration.
• Advanced Mana Collection.
• Mana Sight.
• Memory of Magic.

This might have been the largest list of buffs to date, and overall I couldn’t immediately see what caused me the issues — that was until I looked closely and saw things I didn’t really know: increased mana gain and mana collection. Also, it was the first time seeing the “Superior” tag.

I supposed the combination of it all was a compounding effect that ended up causing far more restoration and mana than my body could handle. What was really concerning was that it would have lasted for nearly three hours.

I went to sleep that night dreaming of the juice I would make, as well as what I was going to cook as soon as I was able to — and I’m fairly sure I will manage it tomorrow, likely with a judgemental stare or two from the others.

***

Early the next morning I rose. My legs were still stiff, but I could at least stand up and move around without too much effort. Waving good morning to Crisplet, I also poked my head outside to see who was on watch.

I was surprised to see George sitting next to Milo, with Jen closer down by the river that passed through.

“They roped you into watch?” I said with a smirk.

George just gave me a grin back before Milo spoke. “It’s good practice for them to get used to it, and understand expectations as a guard — especially travelling ones if Micca decides to hit the road one day. And they have done a great job, although I suspect George may be inside the wagon today at some stage getting sleep.”

George’s grin fell as Milo chuckled. “You can’t hide those yawns very well.”

I looked excitedly at Milo. “Does that mean I’ll be able to ride Sable today?”

“No,” he said flatly.

Letting out a deep sigh, I listened as Milo continued, “You’re still in no position to be riding yet — but even more importantly, if those soldiers are looking for you, then we want to keep you out of sight for as long as possible. We know we can’t hide you anymore, but we don’t need attention too soon.”

I just nodded. It made sense. I missed riding though.

Heading back inside, I noticed no one else was up yet, and I wanted to see how I would go doing breakfast, so I went with something simple: a basic porridge with milk and rolled grain. I winced every time I pulled an item out, but Crisplet got to work heating it.

I was pulling out fruit, but I quickly realised the pain was building up pretty rapidly. This was still a great result, so I was happy despite the pain.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

On top of the porridge, I pulled out some of the fruit pastries I’d picked up. Which gave me a great idea: I had a lot of berries, and I’d been reading a recipe for a berry pie which looked rather simple.

My mind was made up immediately — I would try to make that tonight.

When Micca woke up, she gave me a glare as she approached.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I don’t mind cooking. We don’t want you hurting yourself.”

I nodded. “I need to use my abilities. It hurts, but I should be okay. If it gets too bad, I’ll stop — I promise.”

This seemed to placate Micca, who just took a seat next to me as I placed the pastries on a platter. Pulling out some regular honey, adding some to the porridge, also scooping out extra to put on the side.

I was reaching my limit in terms of how much pain I could handle, so the last thing I did was pull out all the rolls I had left, which was around ten.