Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick barely finished breakfast before Poi announced that there would be guests today, if Erick would have them, and of course he would. Ratchet and Arial had made great progress on working with chocolate. The two greyscale ladies in question showed up at the front door not twenty minutes later, both carrying their own basket of goodies.

“Welcome, ladies,” Erick said, moving aside so that they could come in.

Ratchet stepped forward, giving a momentary ‘how do you do’ before immediately launching into, “We managed to temper your chocolate!”

Erick’s heart swelled with joy, as he said, “Fantastic!”

They moved to the chocolate room. The ladies had left with 50 kilograms of chocolate liquor the other day, but they came back with much, much less than that in product. A lot of chocolate had been ruined by experimentation, but once they got their methods down, the rest came easy enough.

With baskets emptied, a table in the chocolate room stood full of chocolate desserts; the fruits of their labor. Dense chocolate cakes, chocolate-covered candy, chocolate and caramel cookie bars, chocolate-covered fruit, chocolate covered pretzels, and more, and of course, solid bars of chocolate itself. Dark, half-dark, milk; all solid as could be, with a sheen to the surface and no swirls or blemishes upon them.

“How’d you do it?” Erick asked, picking up a bar of milk chocolate to smell it. “It smells and looks better.” He snapped it. “Good snap.” He tasted it.

Divine.

Ratchet chuckled, seeing Erick taste the chocolate. She said, “It’s good. Nice taste, nice presentation. Different from other candies, too.”

“So how’d you do it?” Erick asked, again.

Arial said, “We—”

Ratchet said, “You figured it out, Arial, not me.”

Arial smirked at Ratchet, then continued, “We crumbled the chocolate into pieces, then submerged it into a hundred degree, water-boiling [Temperature Ward], just long enough to get the chocolate to melt, and then a single second more. Then we took it out, and put it into a 30 degree [Temperature Ward], stirring all the while, like you suggested. The chocolate turned glossy fast enough. When the heat was gone, we started pouring it into molds. From there, we left it in 22 degree room temperature [Ward]s.” She smiled wide, saying, “And it set! Just like you theorized it would.” She fluttered a hand at the milk chocolate and middle-dark bars, saying, “Those were just variations on the method. Bit lower maximum temperature, otherwise it burned.”

Erick asked, “Did you try the seeding method?”

Ratchet said, “That didn’t work. Or else we couldn’t do it.”

Arial said, “I tried. This method works, though.”

“That’s fine.” Erick smiled as he gazed upon the chocolate. He grabbed the dark chocolate and snapped off a corner of the glossy block. He popped it into his mouth. One of the niceties of chocolate was that it melted at body temperature, and this was no different. The mouthfeel was fantastic, as was the taste. Dark chocolate wasn’t really his thing, but he could still appreciate the flavor. “This is really good.”

Ratchet and Arial giggled like schoolgirls, proud of their achievement.

Teressa, Poi, Kiri, and Justine had stayed on the other side of the room while Erick interacted with Arial and Ratchet, but Erick invited them to try, and they came rushing over. Teressa loved the dark chocolate. Kiri liked the middle-dark. Poi and Justine both preferred the milk chocolate.

Justine asked, “Is there, perhaps, a more milky version possible?”

“Oh yeah! There is. I had forgotten.” Erick said, “White chocolate is an option, too.”

Ratchet rapidly asked, “What’s that?”

Arial’s eyes went wide, as she waited for an answer.

“White chocolate is…” Erick blanked. “Uh.” He looked to Poi. “Anybody seen Jane? She left so fast after breakfast… She would know.”

Poi said, “She’s at the Barracks. She should be back later.”

“Then I’ll have to give you an answer later, Ratchet, Arial. But I think it’s cocoa butter and sugar and milk solids. Vanilla is a good additive, as well.” Erick added, “No cocoa solids at all. You have to press the solids out of the fat, and just use the fat. You can save the cocoa powder for hot chocolate, though, so it’s not really a waste.”

“There are similar treats made from the oils of the uranga tree and the oils of fatflower berries.” Arial said, “Those two tend to be savory or floral, but I could try those recipes. They might form a good base for the ‘white chocolate’ you suggest. I will try this with cocoa butter.”

“Thank you.” Erick said, “I have yet to speak to the Garden Council on the matter of purchasing some land for a cocoa tree farm, but I was planning on doing that today… Along with a few other tasks. I might have an answer for you by this afternoon.” He said, “But for now…” He looked to Ratchet and Arial, and asked, “Could I commission you two to create some cakes and bars and goodies? I need enough for a large party, tonight. In ten hours. I’ll fill the backyard garden with cocoa trees for you to use in the meantime.”

“In ten hours?” Arial frowned. “What are you doing for Shadow’s Feast? You’re not hunkering down like the rest of us?” She rapidly added, “I mean. Course you’re not. But… I would expect you to go on high alert with all rest of the Army. But a party?”

Ratchet shifted from joyful to serious, as Arial spoke.

Erick said, “Upon threat of unknown danger, I’m required to visit the Feast they’re holding in Ar’Kendrithyst.”

Arial gasped. Ratchet harrumphed.

Erick couldn’t blame them for their apprehension. It was only prudent for them to be like this. But it still stung, because the way they looked and the way they stood, made him think that they were ready to walk out right this moment, and never return. It was like when Savral and Al agreed that he and Jane needed to move out of the Sewerhouse, because Erick was playing around with forces beyond normal magic, and Jane was talking of fighting Shades.

Serious as a heart attack, Ratchet asked, “You gonna be okay? Are we gonna be okay?”

Erick almost answered that he had no idea if they would be okay.

But then Ratchet clarified, “I mean, as in Spur. Arial and I already talked and we’re fine playing in the background with you as our patron. Archmages are targets, and we talked, and we’re fine with it.”

Arial quickly nodded, “Uh, huh. That we did.”

Ratchet added, “But we need to know if there’s an immediate danger to Spur. Something to prepare against, aside from the normal night terrors. We’re both staying with our families tonight and lighting real fires to drive away the shadows, but if we need to move out of Spur for the evening we can do that. I just need to know.”

Relief.

Erick felt a body-thrumming warmth, hearing Ratchet’s words, and seeing how her stance and eyes changed from one of worry and trepidation, into that of a warrior, ready for battle. He smiled, and said, “Silverite has assured me that the only danger will come from me not going. So she’s required me to go to prevent that unknown danger.”

Arial put a hand on Ratchet’s strong shoulder and slumped a little, experiencing her own tide of relief, as she said, “Ho oh oh, thank Rozeta.” She stood up under her own power, saying, “Had me worried there.” She laughed. “Isn’t nice to do that to an old lady like myself.”

Ratchet warmed, saying, “Good to hear.” She turned stern again, saying, “We’ll have your desserts ready by this afternoon.” She waved a hand at the cakes and candies on the table, asking, “Which ones do you want? No charge.”

Erick’s smile returned.

They spoke for twenty minutes of cakes and candies, and designs Erick wanted. Before long, Ratchet and Arial went back to their business to get certain things ready, while Erick went to go to the backyard, to the experimental garden, which he began transforming into a cocoa tree grove. Seeds went into the ground, while platinum rain raised them all into tall trees. Erick cast [Tree of Light] on a few as an experiment. Those trees then produced almost double the number of beanpods, but if that product was better or worse than the rest, only time would tell. Time that Erick did not have.

He did have a little bit of time, though, so for the last row of cocoa trees, he instead planted seeds, and then cast [Grow], imbuing the spell and the seed with all of his ideas for coffee that he could think to try. He stripped the oil from the cocoa, while leaving a certain bitter dryness. He implanted the perkiness of a morning cup, and the energy to get through the day. Three iterations was all Erick could put into this crafting, so he left the fourth generation maybe-coffee trees in that last row, hoping that he had done everything correctly. The [Cleanse] of the trees came back negative, so hopefully it was good. The preparation of coffee beans was almost the same as the first steps in preparing cocoa beans, so that was good.

Meanwhile, Erick had asked Teressa and Justine to help with cocoa liquor production, and they did.

When he was done with the maybe-coffee trees, Erick set a few Ophiel with instructions to begin making person-sized diamonds in stone tanks to the side of the yard. When that looked good, he blipped out into the Crystal Forest. It was time to complete his Class Ability Quests, one way or another.

- - - -

The sun beat down from above. A warm wind scraped across an endless sea of orange dunes. Ophiel floated in the air, just above Erick, while Poi and Kiri stood behind, protected under a [Prismatic Ward]. Erick looked at his Quests.