Chapter 38: Secret Recipe for Aged Mead
"Then let's go and take a look," said Darien.
Although the map is only a small piece, the actual journey is much longer than the map.
The road leading to the storage room is very bumpy. I don’t know what happened in the war. The road leading to the storage room was almost cut off. In some places, the walls were broken through and bricks and stones piled up into a small hill. In some places, the road was completely broken, revealing a dark hole underneath.
After climbing over one brick and stone mountain after another, they finally came to a huge cliff.
There used to be a wide stone bridge connecting the two banks, but now only two broken ends facing each other remain.
"Did you bring the transformation potion? We have to fly over there." Miss White Stork put her bag on the ground and stretched her body.
"We have too many things with us, so it's not easy to fly over. There are plant roots here, so I can build a bridge." Darian looked around and found that the stone wall was deeply rooted by vines.
He took out the potion from his pocket and sprinkled it on the roots. They grew and expanded rapidly, climbing all the way from the wall to the broken end of the bridge. After growing about two or three meters, they stopped.
It was at least twenty meters away from the other side.
"This is not enough." Miss White Stork scratched her head.
"I'll pour some more." Darien coughed twice.
He walked forward a few steps and tried to step on the extended vines. They were very solid. People would just shake when standing on them but they would not collapse. He watered as he walked.
The vines under his feet started to sway, causing his body to sway slightly, as if he was about to fall into the dark abyss below.
"Go back a little. It's too scary standing there. I think you're going to fall down. Hey, hey, hey, that butler... I remember your name is Seville. Why are you running up there too? Why don't you go too? At worst, we'll fall down together!" Miss White Stork shouted.
"Just shut up! I hate bad mouths the most!" Darien controlled himself from looking down and tried hard to stand firm on the vines.
"Dear master, I will try to speak less in the future." Seville's voice sounded in his ears.
The crow came up behind him at some point and put its hands on his waist, like a support frame, smoothing out his swaying arc.
"I hate people who say bad things, but you don't count for now." Darien turned around and rolled his eyes at him.
Sewell chuckled, then held him tighter.
Miss White Stork ran and crawled, and when she was halfway there she found that as long as she squatted in place and grabbed the vines, they would grow to the other side by themselves, shortening the distance she had to walk, so she sat down immediately.
Darien emptied three potion bottles, and the thick vines finally grew to the other side.
"How much longer do we have to go?" he asked Sewell.
"Go in from here and walk through the last passage to reach the storage room." Sevier replied.
Darien glanced at the map. The spot marked by the owl was already at the edge of the storage room, so he probably wouldn't have to walk too far.
He is a little tired.
"Then let's hurry up, we're finally here. Maybe there's mead from more than 400 years ago in the storage room. I'm really curious about what it tastes like." Miss White Stork walked forward holding the torch.
"It would have dried up long ago after so much time." Darien poured cold water on her.
"Oh, I mean just in case." said Miss White Stork.
"I heard that foods pickled in honey can extend their storage life. I wonder if Hallownest's honey will last longer than ordinary honey." said Sewell.
"Let's go in and take a look." Darien didn't know the answer either, but now they were very close to the answer.
Soon they arrived at the first storage room.
There were no corpses along the way, so it was estimated that this place had not been looted yet. Maybe it was just like what Miss White Stork said, there were some valuable heritage left here for them.
The door to the estate is firmly shut.
"Why should I open the door? I am a distinguished guest!" Miss White Stork turned to look at Darien and Sevier who took two steps back at the same time.
"Because it was your suggestion, you came," Darien said.
"This is an additional charge." Sewell nodded slightly at her.
"I really can't stand you guys." Miss White Stork muttered and reached out to pry open the door.
It didn't move.
The door in front was carved from a whole piece of stone. The smallest worker bee under the Queen's command was two meters tall. These storage rooms were specially built, and it was difficult for the light-bodied Miss White Stork to pry the door open.
"Stop looking, help me, I can't open it by myself." Miss White Stork tried to knock on the door, and the door trembled slightly.
"I don't have enough strength, why don't we just blow it up." Darien took out a Molotov cocktail from his pocket.
"Wait, they won't let us bury it here directly, right?" Miss White Stork looked alert.
"No, the stone walls here are very hard. The most likely scenario is that they can't be blown open." Darien replied.
Miss White Stork retreated silently until she was a hundred meters away.
Darien weighed the Molotov cocktail in his hand, stood a little further away, and then smashed the bottle against the door.
The liquid in the transparent glass bottle was red, and it contained compressed fire elements. Once the glass bottle broke, the fire elements expanded violently when they came into contact with the air, and there was a loud bang, and the entire ground shook three times.
More than four hundred years later, the once sturdy Holy Nest was much more fragile than Darion had imagined. A single Molotov cocktail blew up, and the entire passage was covered in a rain of bricks and stones.
"Ahhh! Didn't you say you wouldn't let us be buried here? I'm going to be crushed to death, ahhhh!" Miss White Stork screamed and jumped around on the spot.
Darien was not in a much better situation. He was closer to the explosion point and bricks and rocks were falling from above his head like a rainstorm, ready to blow his head off in a matter of minutes.
Fortunately, there were plant roots crawling on the wall on this side. He quickly summoned them to reinforce the top of his head and blocked the bricks and stones from falling down.
Half of his body was covered in dust.
Sewell leisurely took out a small clothes brush and started sweeping the dust off his head.
"Wow! You guys are really going too far!" Miss White Stork put her bag on her head and ran over with great difficulty, only to find that they were actually tidying up their clothes, which made her very angry.
"Stop sweeping." Darien kicked Sewell expressionlessly.
"Okay, master." Sewell put away the brush regretfully.
When the billowing smoke and dust cleared, a large hole was blown out where the stone gate had been, allowing three people to pass through side by side.
"Fortunately, I ran far away, otherwise the continent of Aristu would have lost a precious rare goods merchant." Miss White Stork sighed as she touched the edge of the charred crack.
"It smells weird in there." Darien frowned.
"The ground is covered with dried mead," said Sewell.
With the help of the light from Miss White Stork's hand, looking through the hole, there is a thick layer of black substance on the ground, which has long been dry. It should not be sticky when you step on it, and you may hear a crackling sound like ice breaking.
Near these black marks, there were many large pieces of glass shards and half-broken pottery jars that had fallen on the ground. All the precious mead was shattered here.
"I'm lighter, let me try it first." Miss White Stork tentatively stretched out one foot, and her other hand hooked on the wall so that she could retract it at any time.
She stepped on the ground with her foot and found it was not sticky. She then shifted her body weight there and it did not collapse.
"It should be okay, let's go." She said, turning around.
Darien walked in and looked up at the ceiling, which was two or three stories high.
"It's so high up here that the bees have to flap their wings to get bottle after bottle of mead to the top," he said.
"I can fly up," said Miss White Stork.
"The shelves around here are all empty. The explosion just now must have accidentally blown down the remaining glass bottles. The situation inside should be better." Seville walked to the shelf and looked at the fallen glass bottles.
This was just one of the storage rooms, which was very large. They walked inside and finally saw the very neatly arranged mead shelves.
Darien summoned a little wind to blow the dust slightly.
"Wow." Miss White Stork brought the torch closer, and the light elemental stone inlaid on it illuminated the wine rack more clearly.
The mead neatly placed on top did not completely dry up over time, but the full bottle of wine was concentrated to one-third of the bottle, and the color was like gold. I wonder if the wine inside has deteriorated.
"It's not completely dry. The worker bees have sealed the mouth of each bottle with beeswax to prevent air from getting in. Maybe the mead inside can still be drunk." Darien was also a little surprised.
"I want to take some back to study." Miss White Stork started to sweep.
Her pockets were like bottomless pits; she could sweep a whole row of mead into them and still keep filling them.
"Should we take some too?" Sewell asked Darien.
"No, I still have more than a dozen bottles in my wine cabinet. They were given to me by Queen Roland. They taste the same." Darien shook his head.
He rarely drinks mead, which tastes like honey mixed in beer. Although it is not unpalatable, he prefers the taste of champagne or whiskey.
Miss White Stork stopped after scanning a row of wine racks nearby. She was not sure whether the mead in the bottle was still drinkable. She could come back later anyway, and it would be a big loss if she took too much if it was not drinkable.
They walked inside again until they touched the end of the wall, but they did not find any trace of royal jelly. There was only countless mead.
Miss White Stork was a little melancholy: "Do we have to start bombing again?"
Darien nodded. "Yes, I brought enough Molotov cocktails."
Miss White Stork became even more melancholy. "My dream since childhood has been to be a two-meter-tall, strong woman who can tear open a stone door with my bare hands."
However, due to racial restrictions, her slender body could not grow large muscles. No matter how hard she tried, the flesh would stick tightly to her bones, becoming a boost for her flying.
Sewell said, "You remind me of another young lady who really could do it."
The memory of Darien's death resurfaces.
He would never forget Miss Tina, the two-meter-tall werewolf who could tear a wall apart with her bare hands. Traveling with her saved him a lot of Molotov cocktails.
She will definitely be able to clear the entire Hallownest once she gets here.
Miss White Stork was in awe and asked for Tina's information, saying that she would make friends with her after she got out.
After coming out of the mead storage room, they blew up more than a dozen storage rooms, leaving the place riddled with holes. If it weren't for the support of many thick walls, this place would probably have collapsed into ruins.
"Why is it all wine? There is no royal jelly at all. According to common sense, the storage of royal jelly will only be more than that of mead. It is not only for sale, but also for the young bees in the hive to rely on it for food." Miss White Stork said puzzledly.
"Perhaps the last food reserves have been used up, and only mead is left here," Darien guessed.
"There is indeed no honey here. Do you want to go to the brewing area? It's right in front." Seville asked.
"Go ahead, maybe there's a secret recipe left for us. Now that we're here," said Miss White Stork.
Most people couldn't resist the words "since we're already here", so they headed towards the brewing area.
Darien threw the Molotov cocktail skillfully, Sewell took out the dust brush skillfully, and Miss White Stork squatted with her head in her hands skillfully. They maintained this combination throughout the journey.
The bricks fell for a while, and when they stopped, Miss White Stork rushed out.
"Let me see! Let me see! It's said to be a top-secret mead-making area. No one from outside of Hallownest has ever witnessed the mead-making process. They can only taste the sweetness of the mead in the bottle." Her curiosity had reached its peak.
"What an ordinary place," Darien commented.
The scene here was indeed disappointing to Miss White Stork. The brewing area was cleaner and emptier than any storage area she had just visited. There were only a pile of neatly arranged vats and some bottles and jars inside.
"Is that it?" Miss White Stork looked disappointed. "This is not the brewing area I imagined."
"So what do you think it will be like?" Darien asked.
During the fruit-ripening season in the tower, when the fruit trees are full of fruits that cannot be eaten, they will make fruit wine together in the kitchen. It is basically a process of mixing various things together, and all they need are wine bottles and tools for cutting fruits.
"At least it will be like an alchemy room, with a complete set of distillation vessels and various bottles and jars." Miss White Stork said depressedly.
"What's written on the wall?" Sewell touched the words on the wall opposite them.
These words were very special, like distorted notes jumping on the wall, and were not the common language of the continent of Aristo.
"It's their writing, the language of the bees. Let me see, this is the recipe for mead." Darien said after taking a look.
"What! Such a precious thing is actually written on the wall!" Miss White Stork was excited. "Quick, quick, quick! Read it out!"
She and Sewell simultaneously pulled out their notebooks and listened attentively.
"10 gallons of water, 30 pounds of honey, 11 pounds of god berries or maraberries, 10 lemons, and 1 packet of fruit wine yeast." Darien read out the recipe.
"When I get out of here, I will try to brew honey wine from the bee colony. I wonder if the effects will be different due to the difference in honey." said Miss White Stork.
"I guess so. They produce their own honey, and Hallownest's honey is never sold to outsiders." Darion said.
"That's a shame," Miss White Stork sighed. "It seems that people nowadays have no chance to taste mead from beehives."
"What time is it now?" Darien asked Sevier.
"It's 7:23 pm now," Sevier replied, glancing at his pocket watch.
"We missed dinner time. What are we having for dinner?" Darien frowned.
"Ham and bread, smoked sausage and pickled olives, as well as eggplants in oil and canned fish." Sewell opened the picnic basket and took out simple food from it.
"I want canned fish," said Miss White Stork.
"Bread and smoked sausage, and eggplant soaked in oil. Do you have any butter? I want to eat buttered bread slices." said Darien.
"Yes." Sewell handed the can of fish and a fork to Miss White Stork, then washed his hands and buttered Darien's bread.
It wasn't too cold here, and with Miss White Stork's bright torch, they simply didn't light a fire, but sat in a circle and started eating right away.
Darien waits for his sandwich.
Sewell spread salted butter evenly on two slices of bread, then sliced the smoked sausage and sandwiched it with the oil-soaked eggplant.
Darien took it and took a bite.
The soft bread was baked by Mrs. Fitch early this morning. The rich wheat aroma and salty butter together give it an oily and milky taste.
The smoked sausages were firm and applewood smoked, supposedly with an apple flavor, but Darien didn't taste it.
The oil-soaked eggplant brings the aroma of basil and pepper to the entire sandwich, making the cold sandwich less unbearable.
Darien ate his sandwich seriously, Sewell continued to take cans out of the picnic basket, and Miss White Stork struggled with the can lid with a fork.
Suddenly, Seville and Miss White Stork stopped at the same time and looked at the blown-open door.
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