Second floor common room, Friday evening

[sairis]

Having received a thorough grounding in how to use the internet from Arden, Sairis had been making use of it ever since. It was frustrating that he couldn't be sure how much was true, but he'd learned to research and cross-reference texts, and that seemed to help.

He'd learned a lot about electricity! And how stoves worked. He had his priorities.

So here he was, having found some eggs and meat and carrots in the icebox, and cooking them in a pan on the stove. There was a spice rack, and most of them made no sense, so he'd tasted them. Which was why he was using salt and pepper (those he knew) and something called "chili powder" to season it all.


[Open common room is open!]

Comments

[not_a_haint]

Caleb had only tried hunting once, and it had made his curse strain extra hard against Granny Amburgey's dampening gift.

"If we're lookin' hard enough for 'em I s'pose but they're awfully small. I think maybe they'd make good snoops because gen'rally people wouldn't be on the lookout for 'em. All of which is to say I have no idea."

[sairis]

Sairis shrugged. "Making the alcohol is probably easier." He was already making mental note of the equipment he'd need. He couldn't believe there wasn't a workroom for students!

[not_a_haint]

How to construct a still had in fact been part of the practical trade lessons older kids received in the Cradle.

And there was a science lab but perhaps that was reserved for classes.

"Just gotta be careful not to blow ourselves up." And something tickled in the back of his brain where the stuff he didn't want to know was stored. It reminded him of how ruthless moonshiners could be. "And...make sure no one gets hurt."

[sairis]

"Why would anybody get hurt?" Sairis asked. Then he paused. Right, there were other people living here. "I'll put a sign up to warn people not to touch it, in case we have guests."

That was the concern, right? Look, Mistala had no weird sheriffs to break up moonshiners.

[not_a_haint]

Caleb didn't know the specifics of the law, even back in his own world/time. He only knew...

I met my daddy for the first time when I was five

...that it could be dangerous.

"I'm not sure what the rules are here. But back in my world makin' and runnin' moonshine could get someone in enough trouble that some folks were willin' to go to extremes to make sure no one knew. Or maybe they were bein' selfish with the product." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm prob'ly bein' paranoid."

[sairis]

"Why would they get in trouble?" Sairis asked. "And what's 'running it'? Selling it?"

[not_a_haint]

Caleb tried to remember what he'd heard about all this. They'd been taught how to build a still, but that they had to be careful who found out.

"Uh let's see...for a number o' years alcohol of any kind was illegal anyway, but that got repealed recently...oh it was a tax thing." The 'dat gum gubmint' demanding a cut of sales or something. Caleb had been too young at the time to really be paying attention to anything about taxes.

"The government back home collects a tax on lots o' stuff and I guess alcohol is one of 'em so they don't like people makin' and distributin' it without gettin' some money from folks. And yeah 'runnin shine' is sellin' or smugglin' moonshine.

"Come t' think of it it wouldn't surprise me if folks who make other forms o' alcohol had somethin' to do with it all because they don't like the competition." Man being an adult was complicated.

[sairis]

"Oh, it's a government thing." Sairis rolled his eyes. Government was often stupid.