[Job Thread] You've Got Something Under Your Nose

[Ialari Pythone]

16th Day of Winter in the Year 517 AV

Ialari awoke with a plan for the day. She would eventually be delivering the narnvayt oil she’d extracted from the plants she harvested the day before to the Panacea while dropping off a couple of intact plants to Uta. Before doing that however she wanted to experiment a bit with a way to help combat the horrific smell of the oil. The oil itself was meant to be consumed by someone who had ingested some form of poison. The oil would cause them to vomit thus expelling much of the poison from the body. The problem was that the oil smelled so much of fresh animal dung that it was difficult to swallow even when one’s life was on the line. After waking up, taking a quick dip in the ocean that her ranchero was perched on, Ialari indulged in a bit of fruit and some jerky before getting to work.

A quick trip to the Mercantile and a handful of gold mizas later, Ialari had picked up a small amount of beeswax, a couple of glass bowls and a small collection of pots and pans. The wax would serve as one of the main ingredients in her experiment. It wasn’t as much of an experiment as it was simply making a bit of balm. The next acquisition was actually quite easy. As she returned home, she stumbled upon a mature, brown coconut lodged between some driftwood on the beach near the ranchero. Back in the ranchero, Ialari sat the wax and coconut on her work table and began making notes in her journal. Ok, so I have the wax, no if I remember right, a bit of coconut oil and something for fragrance should just about do it. Hopefully I’m not confusing the types of coconut. I think it was brown and not green… Back at the Silver Tower, years ago, she’d been required to take part in classes on philtering as a part of her poison studies. One of the most basic products of philtering were balms. She’d toyed around with making them back at the Retreat in Syliras but that had been awhile and she’d lacked the beeswax.

Out loud to herself, “I’m going to need to make the coconut oil first since I’ll need it to mix with the wax. So, let me see…” She proceeded to sort through her philtering gear; thankful that she’d picked up a brand new one at the mercantile the day before. Moving over to the hearth, she used a bit of flint and steel to spark up a fire to heat up the pot of fresh water than hung there.

While the water was heating, Ialari took notes on what she was doing for future reference. She also flipped through the early pages of the book to see what she’d written back when she was taking the classes in philtering. Those notes were a bit simplistic as they were meant more for quick reference than detailed instruction. Between the notes and memory, Ialari recalled needing to break open the coconut to reach the meat within. “This should be easy enough,” she muttered as she laid the coconut on the edge of the stone hearth. Making her metallic hand into a wedge, she brought it down hard on the coconut, splitting it into two rough halves.

[Ialari Pythone]

With a short-bladed tool from her poisoncrafting kit, she began scooping the coconut meat into a one of the bowls she’d bought. Carefully she held each half of the coconut in one hand while scooping and cutting the meat out with the tool in the other. When she’d removed all of the meat, she set up another bowl and picked up a small grater from her poison kit. Normally it was used to reduce poisonous material for easier processing but for her current purposes, it would work perfectly. It was a small handle with a strip of metal attached to it. The strip was filled with several small holes. Dragging the strip across the desired material, it would grate it which made for easier handling with things as delicate as poisons and philters. There was a similar one included in her philtering kit but it was shaped just differently enough that Ialari felt more comfortable with the one in the poison kit.

Holding each chunk of coconut meat in her metallic hand, Ialari grated it with the tool held in her other; letting the flakes fall into the second bowl. She did this with each of the small pieces of coconut she’d cut from each of the halves. When she’d finished grading the coconut meat, she paused to think about the next steps. Alright, I need to turn this into something of a paste. She turned to her mortar and pestle. It was small but would serve her purpose well. She picked it up along with the bowl of grated coconut and walked over to the hearth. There she sat on a chair and sat the bowl on the hearth edge. With a ladle, she poured some of the now boiling water into the mortar and added some of the grated coconut. With the pestle, she ground and crushed the coconut until it mixed with the water to form a thin paste. She continued to do this a little bit at a time; as much as the mortar would allow, before colleting it all into another bowl.

With a small pot set up on her work table, she laid a bit of cloth from her philtering kit over the top and secured it to the pan with a tied piece of leather. She then started pouring the thin coconut paste onto the cloth; softly pushing against the pureed pulp to squeeze as much liquid from it into the pot. Periodically she’d pour some more hot water over the material and continued to press it into the cloth until there was little to no more fluid left to strain through the cloth. When she’d finally separated the coconut debris from the milky fluid, she poured the fluid into a pot and placed it in the hearth.

[Ialari Pythone]

If I got the steps right, this shouldn’t take long to work. At that point it was still morning, with a little bit left until midday. She made sure to stir the mixture in the pot as it simmered; carefully giving attention to the fire in the hearth to keep it from getting too hot. The idea was to let the cream that formed from the heated coconut milk to separate from the oil. She’d done it before back at the Tower but those coconuts were quite different; having been transported from an environment similar to that in Syka to the icy wastes of the mountains of Kalea. At least they seemed like they’d be different to Ialari. Whether or not they were would become clear soon. As she periodically stirred the mixture, she also took the opportunity to record more in her journal while also looking back on the notes taken so long ago when she studied at the Silver Tower.

She chuckled to herself as she remembered her time there. She’d learned so much and experienced even more. Her chuckles were speckled however with deep sighs as she recalled the harder times. The bullying, the frustration and the hatred. She hated so many of her classmates. It wasn’t a jealous hatred, just simple hatred. She saw them as so single-minded, simple-minded and unable to see the possibilities that their futures held. While she always felt alone and broken even as a child; even as she excelled in her studies at the Tower, she still had some loose grasp of what was possible in her future. She envisioned herself as a powerful wizard who would one day achieve greatness in the name of her people; in the name of the isur. She imagined wiping out the human threat she perceived as the harbingers of doom for the isur.

She remembered, as she sat in her class on the magical theory of morphing, thinking that it may be possible to transform herself into a massive serpent and devour entire humans whole. She recalled listening to the instructor in her theories on reimancy and the elements class and thinking how she wanted to release her djed upon all of humanity in a fiery storm of molten death. So much hate. She’d hated so much for so long. As she stood over the pot, stirring away, she tried to remember when the hate began but couldn’t. It was as if it’d always been there. From her earliest memories she hated humans. She heard the stories of how their greed and mindlessness had brought about Ivak’s wrath upon the world. She was at a couple of the trading posts above ground when human barbarian tribes attacked. The source of the hatred though, it didn’t come from those experiences or those stories. While it was strengthened by those things, it didn’t start there.

[Ialari Pythone]

Ialari stared into the fire of the hearth as she stirred the pot and allowed her mind to wander in the memories of hatred. The source, it was there, always on edge of her mind yet never able to be reached. Even during the exercises in mental and emotional puzzles that she often engaged in with the Shade of Berliotz in her Dominion, she still couldn’t reach the source of that hate. It stayed on the fringe, poking at her; digging like the tip of a dagger being rotated as it barely penetrated her flesh. While she thought she’d sacrificed her hatred for the secrets of Dominion, she realized some time ago that she’d only sacrificed her conscious hatred. Below the surface however it remained, as unidentified as it was out of touch. She felt that at any point, the poking annoyance of hatred’s blade would thrust itself into her; causing an explosion of unbridled rage. The feeling had become gradually more prominent as time progressed. It was a feeling that…she almost welcomed. The release, the relief, she almost yearned for it.

Ialari, calm yourself, pull back. You’re digging too deep. The voice that wasn’t her own but at the same time was, the voice of the shade, the echo of Amir Berliotz that served as the manifestation of her inner self. It often pulled her back from digging too far into the parts of her mind that she was not yet ready for.

Blinking, she looked away from the flames and back to the pot. Taking a few deep breaths, she refocused her thoughts on the mixture in the pot. Some time had obviously passed because, as she looked into the pot she saw that the coconut cream had darkened slightly and separated from the oil.

Turning back to her work table, she pushed the dark thoughts from the forefront of her mind and locked them away once more. She then set up another bowl with some cloth and retrieved the pot of cream and oil. The cloth was far thinner than the last bit she used which would allow the oil to strain through while separating it from the cream. Slowly, she poured the contents of the pot over the cloth and into the bowl. Eventually, the two were fully separated leaving a small bowlful of cream as well as another small bowl full of oil. The cream would make a good addition to flavoring her next meal while the oil would be used in the creation of the balm. While the process looked like it worked, the cream was a little darker than she would have liked which meant the next batch would have to be taken off the heat sooner. She resolved herself to not get lost in thought next time. With a little time left in the morning, Ialari figured she had enough time for another batch.

Ialari took a break for a long drink of water and a few more bites of fruit and jerky. She then went back outside and strolled about the beach in search of some more brown coconuts. It was a nice bit of relaxation after letting her mind wander too far. The sounds of the crashing waves, the myriad of sea smells combined with the feeling of the sand on her feet and the sun on her skin was comforting. As she walked along the beach, she did indeed find a couple of brown coconuts but also found a number of seashells of varied sizes. She could never get enough of finding seashells. Not only were they beautiful and uniquely shaped, they also worked great as an ingredient in paint.

[Ialari Pythone]

As she gradually made her way back to her ranchero, Ialari also pondered the lights she saw in the sky a few days earlier as well as the sound that accompanied them. She looked back off toward the jungle. It was nothing like anything she’d seen before in the mortal world. Even in the Ukalas, it still differed from the crazy things she’d seen. It still felt like it could be a sign of sort, maybe divine in origin? she considered. Still, there was something about it that didn’t feel quite right. She’d been in the presence of gods, she’d been touched by two of them directly and the feeling she got from the lights in the sky wasn’t the same.

Finally making it back to the ranchero, Ialari tossed the collected shells in a dish on the stand just inside the door. She sat the coconuts on the worktable and got to work cleaning her equipment for another round. The next batch, she would make a greater effort in monitoring the heat in the final stage so as to keep the cream from getting too dark. It almost burnt the first time which was a complete waste. The frustrating part of the whole process is no matter the size of the coconuts, no matter how much meat is collected from them, when all was said and done, the amount of oil produced was comparatively quite small. Three coconuts would hopefully give her plenty of oil for making the balm. If they weren’t enough, she could always go out and get more but it was time consuming and she hoped to finish the balm before it got too late. While she wasn’t really under any time constraints, she wanted to make a good impression with those whom were providing her with mizas in exchange for her services. It was simply good business; something that even Ialari, so detached over the recent years from her isurian home, held in high regards. In fact, the entire agreement she had with Mathias, Jansen and Uta involving her services in dealing with the various poisonous and toxic animals and substances in and around the settlement was something she took very seriously. Just as working a forge was seen as a religious experience in isurian culture, engaging in business transactions was a close second.

With that she continued with making a couple more batches of coconut cream and oil. Perhaps she could even share some of the cream with Uta as a bonus treat.

[Ialari Pythone]

Thread Grade

Philtering: 5
Cooking: 3

Lore: Philtering: Making Coconut Oil
Lore: Philtering: Using Philtering implements to extract oil from coconuts
Lore: Cooking: Producing Coconut cream from coconuts

Items:

Three coconuts worth of coconut oil and cream
A bowl full of small seashells