Mirelda and I made our way down into the depths, picking up Annie on the way. The two chattered happily about books, life, and the news. Mirelda was forced to duck down to walk, but managed with nary a complaint. I made a ntal note to consider making our public tunnels a bit taller.
“Do you know what Pete’s being all mysterious about?” Annie asked, as we ca to an intersection. We bumped into a pair of overall clad tunnel supervisors, and they gave us a jaunty salute before trundling off. The area beneath the Liminal Inn was still under constant construction, as [Engineers] and [Mattershapers] worked tirelessly to expand the clan holdings. Normally there were land rights and mining laws to adhere to, but in this land we were the kings!
“No. He’s been rock headed with too.” Mirelda said brightly, tapping on my helt. I swatted her hand away.
“We’re here,” I grumbled, as we ca to a newly installed door on the cliff face. “Please send any complaints on ta be shredded by my new secretary.”
The two ladies giggled.
I swung the door open to reveal a small but well-lit kitchen. Solstones on each of the walls lent a warm air to what was otherwise a fairly featureless cave room. The walls were all nicely smooth and polished, with so basic etching to break up the monotony, while the floor was made of interlocking tile. Other than that, there were a few storage cupboards, a cistern in the corner, and a long work table.
“Welco to my Rice Wine Workspace!” I proclaid.
“It’s pretty small…” Annie comnted, looking around. “This isn’t going to scale well. Will you really be able to make enough rice wine for our custors?”
“Eh, probably not. But we can always expand it later. I made sure ta leave space in tha plans fer it. If not, I can convert it to other alcohols as I grow bored. Think of this more as my private experintal brewing facility for now.”
Mirelda walked around the room, running her hands along the walls and wooden surfaces. “This is all very good workmanship.”
“Workdwarfship,” Annie and I said at the sa ti. Mirelda laughed.
“Worksdwarfship,” she corrected. “I still can’t believe I’m underground, it all feels so clean and bright.
“Oh, wait until you see the next room,” I snickered. “This is the prep room fer my Nuruk, or Qu as it would be called in China, or Loogpaeng in Thailand. It's the magic that will make our rice into wine.”
“Those were all on the continent of ‘Asia’ from your maps. Right?” Annie asked, walking around the room. She opened one of the cupboards and rummaged through the sacks inside. “Oh, this is what you did with all the wheat and barley you stole from the brewroom?”
“Aye. Ta make nuruk you first need a good mix of grist – that’s ground grains. I’m usin’ a fifty/fifty mix of barley and wheat right now.”
Mirelda frowned. “I thought this was rice wine.”
I smirked. “And we’ll get there, but we still need that pesky saccharification first. And wheat and barley are still the kings of ferntation.”
“Could you use rice?” Mirelda asked, peering over Annie’s shoulder into the cupboards.
“Yup, though wheat and barley are almost always used in so proportion. The combination and ratios of the ingredients of your nuruk play a big part in the balance of the wine. I’ll need to spend so extra ti casting [Gluten to Bacon], or an equivalent that I’ve been learning, but it should work out in the end.”
“So, what is it?”
“In order to get our mould, we need a proper breeding ground for it. Like a sourdough starter, but mouldier. The nuruk we will be making is just one of the traditional ways of doing that.”
Annie grimaced. “Enough dawdling Pete. Let’s see how this stuff is made.”
“Of course! Wash yer hands with the little bottles labeled sanitizer first, please.” I did as well, then wandered over to another cupboard and pulled out so small tal mixing bowls. “If you could be a dear and bring one of the sacks of pre-mixed flour out, Annie?”
Annie reached into the cupboard and hefted out a large sack of coarse–ground grains, laying it on the floor beside the central workbench. While she did that, I passed Mirelda one of the large tal bowls and gestured to the cistern. “Let’s fill these and put ‘em on the table.”
Three half-full bowls, so splashing and feminine screams (not all from Mirelda) later, and we were ready to go.
“This is the most difficult part,” I declared, grabbing a large asuring cup and ladling flour from the sack into my bowl. I kept going until the bowl was pretty much full.
“Why?” Mirelda asked, looking on in confusion as Annie made desperate shushing gestures across the table. “Looks easy so far.”
“Because it kneads a lot of effort! Nyuck!” I stuck my hands into the flour/water mixture and began to mix the water and grist evenly, creating a damp mush.
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Mirelda laughed whole–heartedly and began doing the sa. Annie followed suit a mont later, a grimace on her face.
“Gods, I hope you don’t start doing those too.” Annie muttered under her breath.
“Oh, I’m not that good at puns. But I am an aficionado of good word play.” Mirelda muttered, her focus on kneading the water into her mix.
“Nothing about that is good word play.”
“Hey!” I interjected. “I’ll have you know that my word play is very good! Why, just last week it saved a kitten from being run over by a cart. It does good deeds all the ti!”
“You see what we put up with in this house?” Annie muttered darkly. “It was an ill on the day that dwarf ever darkened our door.”
“What now?” Mirelda asked, as she flicked clumpy wet grist off her fingers.
I grinned, showing my teeth. “Take your shoes and socks off.”
Annie began dutifully pulling her boots off, but Mirelda choked. “I never took you for a foot man. Gods, this is just like my old fan mail.”
“You should read Pete’s.” Annie grimaced.
“Foot dwarf,” I sniffed. “And no,we’re gonna be packin’ the grains into those wooden forms in the cupboard, then stamping them with our feet. It doesn’t need to be feet, but it’s tradition.”
Annie reached over and put a hand on my forehead. “You alright, Pete? You’ve been saying ‘it’s tradition’ a lot recently,” she said with faux concern.
I smacked her hand away. “Bah! I can have things I like ta do too. This is more fun.”
I grabbed one of the wooden forms and placed it on the table. It was a pretty basic set of 2x4s set in a checkerboard pattern with a large square in the middle. I then grabbed a pre-sanitized square of cloth from the cupboard and laid it inside the form where it ford a makeshift bowl.
I narrated aloud as I continued working. “This form is the shape that the nuruk slabs are going to take. The cloth helps keep our dirty feet from contaminating the flora, and keeps the grains within the form. It’s a mould mold!”
I poured wet mush in until it was nearly level with the top of the form, then wrapped it up with the cloth.
“You first, bigfoot?” I asked Mirelda, placing the form on the floor in front of her. “Just stamp on this until it feels solid underfoot.”
Mirelda stuck her tongue out, and gingerly stepped into the cloth, forcing the mush inside to conform to the shape of the mold. “Eep! It's cold! And squishy!” After a few minutes of solid stomping, jumping, and a little jig, she proclaid, “Done!”
I picked up the form and unwrapped the now damp cloth to reveal densely packed nuruk, and *thumped* it onto the table. What was revealed was a greyish mottled square slab that slled faintly of wet cereal. “One nuruk slab down, many to go!” I said, gesturing at our still mostly full bowls.
We each got to work, grabbing a slab and laughing while we perford impromptu dance offs atop our molds.
When we were done, we’d worked up quite a sweat, and Mirelda pulled at her neckline to air out her blouse. “I wasn’t expecting exercise. Please tell the next step isn’t a one minute mile!”
“Nope, the next step has nothin’ to do with steps. Promise. We just need ta open the door on the left.” I walked over to the aforentioned door and swung it open to reveal a warm and slightly moist room. Nothing close to a sauna, but definitely warr than the usually cool and dry tunnels that dwarves lived in.
“Welco to my nuruk ondol,” I proudly proclaid, gesturing to everything.
The room was a dark cave about four by four ters and two ters tall with a wooden floor. Nothing huge, but enough for my experints. Each of the three back walls had tiered shelves. Most were empty, but a few had mats of straw on top of them. It wasn’t visible, but a series of enchantnts ran under the floor to recreate the Korean ondol heating system.
Annie glanced inside, then waved her hand in front of her nose. “Phew! It’s dank in here!”
“Aren’t all caves dank?” Mirelda asked, craning her neck to look around. Human night vision wasn’t quite as good as dwarves, and she clearly struggled to make anything out of the gloom.
“That would be the mold. This ferntation room is specially designed to foster the growth of the necessary micro-organisms for saccharification. The fungi and yeasts that co ta rest in our nuruk have a major impact on the flavour of our final alcohol, so it’s important ta foster a good environnt fer ‘em. All we need to do is lay our nuruk slabs on a rice mat, then cover ‘em with another mat.”
I did so, grabbing four slabs and laying them in a line down a shelf, then covered them with a long mat of straw. “The straw is rice straw that’s full of that wonderful Aspergillus mold. We leave the disks in here for a few weeks to a month, and then remove them and give ‘em another couple months to dry in the open air.”
We ferried slabs into the ferntation room, and then we were done.
“That’s it?” Annie asked, disappointed. “What about the brewing part of it.”
I shrugged. “That’s for when the nuruk is done. Say, five months or so? We’ll have so nice rice wine for the new year.”
“Can’t you just use [Rapid Aging]?” Annie asked, tapping her foot impatiently.
“Probably. But I always do a control batch the long way first. Just to make sure.” I closed the door on the ferntation room, and on this chapter of my rice wine experint. “Let’s go grab a drink.”
“Aye!” The two cheered.
*Baaaah!!* [Translated from Prima Donna Goat] “Aye!”
We all jumped.
“Penelope? When did you get here?” Annie muttered as the three of us stared at our little princess. She was standing right between the three of us, her tail wagging happily.
“That goat’s a ninja…” Mirelda whispered.
mories of flashing weapons, acid bombs, and screaming gnos surfaced in my mory, and I shivered.
This world was not ready for ninja goats.
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