Even with the little detour to the stables we got back faster than I thought we would. So, I had a chance to talk with Granville about the whole chocolate-making process. He agreed with my methodology of test roasting different batches at different temperatures for different lengths of time to see what tastes best. He's even going send a message to an earth mage friend to have them build a grinding mill.

"Are you good to go now?" Elise asks from the doorway.

"I've got everything under control for now." Granville answers for me. "Just don't keep him all day."

"Mhm." She gives the cook a non-committal grunt, and gestures for us to follow. "I know you can't heal again so soon, but I was hoping you could take a look at a patient for me. She's deaf and I just want to see if you think you might be able to help."

"May I ask why you're so eager to have me look at her?" I say somewhat hesitantly.

"I know I'm being selfish here." She lets out a tired sigh. "But, it's my wife's daughter from her first marriage. It's how we met actually, Glynda's husband died from the same fever that took her Anne's hearing. It's been nearly a decade, but..."

"I understand." A sad smile slips onto my face. "But, I'm not sure how much help I can offer. If it was caused by a fever the damage might be in her brain, and I'm very leery of messing around in there."

"Just have a look, please." She opens the door to what must be her private rooms.

Glynda is sitting there with a young woman who, despite having different, more pointed animal ears is clearly related. They seem to be using some rudimentary form of sign language along with what sounds like a normal conversation, though her mother is exaggerating her mouth movements slightly.

"Auntie Elise." Anne has a surprisingly lovely voice but sounds quite exasperated. "I understand that you found a new healer, but did you really need to pull me out of work?"

"Sorry." The healer looks a bit sheepish after getting dressed-down by her step-daughter.

"Hello, Anne." I speak normaly, taking care not to exaggerate my mouth movements. "Sorry you had your day interrupted, but it should only take me a moment to see if I'll be able to help or not."

"You've been around deaf people before." Her sentence is a statement, not a question.

"When I was younger." I nod. "We weren't very close, but I learned what annoyed them."

"Hahahah." Her laugh comes out as more of a bray, but I kinda like it. "Alright, you can take a look."

Stepping closer, I take her head in my hands and close my eyes as the magic quests for the cause of the problem. "The canal and eardrum are fine, as are the ossicles. Hmm? There's some damage to the cochlea, but I think that was caused by exposure to loud sounds after the illness. The problem is the auditory nerve where it connects to the cochlea."

Pulling back, I ignore the blush on her face and write out what I just said in case she couldn't read my lips from so close. I also included a drawing that details the extent of the damage on each ear. Her right side is worse off, but they're both pretty bad.

"Will you be able to fix her?" I don't know who's more nervous-looking, Glynda or Elise.

"I won't know until I try." I shrug, not willing to commit myself. "It should be doable, but she's going to have to wait until I finish with Myra."

"Of course." Anne nods emphatically. "Mom was just telling me what you did... are still doing for her."

"I'm hoping to finish up tonight, so I should be able to see you tomorrow. Though, it might be later in the day depending on how much I can do for Myra tonight."

"Thank you." Glynda takes my hand as tears well up in her eyes.

"Thank me after I've actually done something for her." I don't have any doubts about being able to heal her daughter, but I don't want to raise any hopes in case I'm wrong. "If there's nothing else, I'd like to get back to the kitchen, the first batch should be done roasting soon. And, I very much want to make some chocolate."

"Actually." Elise speaks up while looking at the drawing I made of Anne's ears. "Your illustrations are the best I've ever seen. And, I would very much like to commission a series of anatomical drawings."

"Between you and Erick commissioning clothes, I get the feeling that I'm going to be making a lot more pigments soon." I chuckle softly. "But, if you can arrange the models, I have no problems with that."

"I wouldn't mind being a model." Anne says a little too swiftly. "If I go back to work now, my boss will just yell at me... for all the good it does him." She lets out another one of her donkey laughs.

"Well, let's go down to the kitchens." I want my chocolate. "We can talk about exactly what Elise wants while I work on the first test batch."

"You really do want this chocolate of yours." She stumbles over the word slightly, but does fairly well for never having heard it pronounced.

"You have no idea." I smile at the beastkin and head out of the room.

"Ooh. Somebody's got a crush." Apricot using her ventriloquism spell to 'talk' directly into our ears.

"I noticed." I use my version of her spell on the flowers in their ears. Amelia doesn't seem as upset about Anne as she did Catrina, but I still keep my reply short and to the point.

"Nnh, I need to learn how to do that with water." Amelia grumps in a hushed voice as we walk back down to the kitchen.

"I'll try to walk you through it later." Apricot smiles up at her. "Might take a while, but you should be able to vibrate the moisture in the air to get the same effect."

"Speaking of learning spells. Do you think Martin's idea of piggybacking spells on my healing sap will work?" I ask our magical expert.

"I don't actually know." Apricot ponders the question for a bit. "But, you're already really good at slipping past a person's resistance and getting inside them." *Ding* Temmie laughs at her joke. "There's a reason Elise hasn't seen better illustrations, that's because most people can't see that well inside someone else."

"Sorrel. Good timing." Granville has a guest in the kitchen and they seem to be trying to piece together a mill based on my earlier description. "Edsel was just trying to figure out that grinding mill of yours." He's a tall, somewhat average looking man, with dirty-blonde hair that looks like he's let it grow shaggy to hide the fact that it's starting to fall out.

"You're pretty close." I make a wooden model based on what I remember. The grinder is simple, it's just a cylindrical tub with two large, stone wheels that spin around a central pillar. "All the ones I've seen were powered from below, but it would probably be easier to add a belt drive on top, like so. Also, can you work with harder steel, I've got a little project that I need a good earth mage, or blacksmith to help me with."

"What do you have in mind?" The man seems intrigued. "Oh, my." He exclaims when I bring out my bicycle. "Where did you get this beauty?"

"Made it, based on a popular vehicle where I come from." I answer with a hint of pride. "But, there's only so much I can do with compressed wood. I need hardened steel ball-bearings, a metal chain, and gears. That, and a ratcheting mechanism inside the hub to disengage the pedal while coasting." I bring out wooden examples of each.

"Hey!" Granville snaps. "Chocolate first, you work on your toys later."

"Sorry Gran." Edsel chuckles when the chef fumes at the nickname.

"I told you I hate being called that." The cook speaks through clenched teeth.

"I know." he laughs even harder. "Why do you think I keep using it. Alright, alright. I'll get back to it. Are you sure about these grooves?" He directs that question to me.

"I've seen older models with plain wheels." I Shrug. "But, all the newer grinders seem to have them."

"Hmm?" He strokes his chin. "Might as well try it."

"Just what are you making?" Elise interjects. "I see those nasty beans that Holt is always drinking, but they don't smell nearly as bad."

"The lad says he knows how to make a treat from these things that puts that blasted drink to shame." Granville explains. "I'm humoring him in the hopes that I can get that stuff out of my kitchen."

"Hah!" Anne brays out another sharp laugh.

"Trust me." I turn to face her, so she can see my lips. "It's a pain to make, but the final product is very much worth it."

"Well, the first batch is done." Granville says. "Let's see what your magic can do."

"The shells barely even cracked on these, but that's easily taken care of." The nibs are freed from their casings and fly into a mixing bowl. "Normally this takes hours or even days of grinding. And then, it's pressed to remove the cocoa butter, and the leftover cake is ground again into a fine powder. Finally, everything gets mixed up for hours or days again. And, even then after all that work, the chocolate can be ruined if it's not tempered properly."

The beans are being ground and mixed up by magic as I speak, swiftly changing from coarse grains into a thick sludge and finally a silky smooth paste. Dipping a clean stick into the chocolate liquor, I bring it to my lips for a taste.

"Hmm, it's a bit gritty still." I smack my lips as Granville gets his own taste. "I'm glad the Baron has such a nice garden, I would have run out of magic by now if there weren't a lot of plants around."

"I'm glad you like them." The man himself says while stepping into the kitchen. "But, I do hope you're not hurting Seymour's plants."

"Not at all." I shake my head. "It's just a little trick to help me draw in mana from sunlight. Any skilled nature mage can learn it, though being Plantkin certainly helps. Oh, this is much better, as it is this would be considered baking chocolate, and tastes fine just a bit of sweetening." I say after testing the chocolate again after a minute more of grinding. "But, I want that cocoa powder, and it's much better when you go through all the steps."

Granville takes a small sample and mixes in some sugar. "It's still bitter, definitely an acquired taste, but this is already far and above Holt's drink."

While he's giving everyone test samples, I line my oil press with a thick cloth bag. I'm just starting to twist it down when Anne steps forward.

"Let me, I'm stronger than I look." The girls smirk when she flexes her muscles.

"I'm sure you are, but so am I." I hand her Blackthorne after shifting him into bow mode. "If you can draw this, I'll let you help."

"Well, you're just full of surprises, aren't you?" Pepi laughs as his cousin's wife's daughter tries and fails to draw my bow all the way back. "I didn't see you with that last night."

"Oh, I left it in the wagon." I say while squeezing out the cocoa butter as best I can. "One of the stable hands was playing around with it earlier, so I went and took it back before he hurt himself."

"I give up." Anne slumps in defeat. "Can you even use this thing?"

"I'm still a bit out of practice." I take the bow and easily pull it back. "But, it's slowly coming back to me. Though, I still need to cheat a bit to keep my grouping tight." I hand her one of my spiral arrows.

"May I see that?" The baron asks after moving into Anne's line of sight. "This is one very nice arrow. Just what kind of grouping are we talking about?"

"About the width of this press at over a hundred meters." I start to blush when everyone stares at me. "Well, I think I've gotten as much cocoa butter out as I'm going to with this thing." I change the subject.

There's a bowl about half-filled with a creamy yellow liquid at the base of the press. I was only able to get that much out by pushing on the wood with magic. I may need to invent a hydraulic press sooner rather than later.

"May I keep this?" Erick asks while still playing with the arrow. "I'd like to show it to Hollen."

"Of course." I nod absentmindedly while prying the pressed cake of cocoa out of the machine. "It's just firewood and a bit of cotton. Now, this is usually ground up again in a high-speed rotary mill." I create a model that looks like an over-size herb grinder. "Though a ball mill would work fine." One of those gets modeled next.

"I thought you said you weren't very mechanical." Amelia teases me.

"Heh, spinney round things are about my limit." I smile at her and grind the cocoa into a fine powder with magic. "And, if it wasn't for working on so many bicycles when I was younger, I never would have been able to recreate one."

Setting aside some of the cocoa powder, the rest gets divided between two bowls. These and a third bowl get cocoa butter and sugar added, two of the three get milk powder. While those are mixing, I take some cocoa powder and mix it into some warm milk with some sugar, and a tiny pinch of salt.

"This is how we usually drink our chocolate back home." I hand the cup to Granville. "The powder can also be used to make quite a few baked treats."

"That... is not bad." He mutters after testing a spoonful. "I'm not sure if Reinholt will drink it, but this. I don't mind having this in my kitchen."

"High praise indeed." Pepi laughs and takes a sip of his own when the chef passes the cup around. "Hmm? That is rather decent."

"And, that's just the first test batch made by an amateur." I interject as the cup makes the rounds. "There are people where I come from that have spent decades perfecting their chocolate. Alright, I've sped up the mixing as much as I can here, so I think these are ready for tempering."

I always hated this process when making candies, but I can 'see' the crystals forming now, and that helps quite a bit.

"Now, this part I'm interested in." Edsel speaks up. "Does this share a lot with steel making?"

"I know very little about blacksmithing." I admit. "But, chocolate forms six crystal types that each melt at a higher temperature. You first need to heat it just enough to melt everything. Next, you pour two-thirds out and agitate it to form crystals again. Once that happens, the mush, as it's called, gets added back into the still molten chocolate. Then it's heated again to melt the first four crystals and slowly cooled. For weeks even, if you want the tricky sixth crystals to dominate."

"How did anyone even come up with this crazy process?" He scoffs as I pour the three different chocolates into wooden molds.

"People love chocolate." I laugh. "Let's just give these a minute to cool, and you'll see why." I used fairly shallow molds so they would cool more quickly.

"After tasting that drink, I'm certainly interested." Pepi lets loose a chuckle of his own.

"The waiting is always the hardest part, isn't it?" I say while cleaning up the mess I just made. "Alright, the crystals look good now. Amelia could you bring them down to room temperature, so we don't have to wait forever."

"Gladly." She starts doing so while I keep a close eye on the chocolate.

"That's good, thank you." I flip the molds over and flex the wood they are made from to release the tiny chocolate bars. I created nine of each type, one for each of us. "They look good, nice and shiny with a decent snap." I break a tiny piece off of my dark chocolate bar and let it melt on my tongue. "The bar itself turned out great, especially for how much I sped up the steps. The taste isn't quite there, but hopefully one of the other roasts or a blend will fix that." I'm talking, but no one is paying attention to me.

"Sorrel, baby." Amelia sidles up and tries to snag my un-eaten chocolate before Apricot can. "You really need to make some more of this." I just laugh and split my remaining bars between the two of them.

"I'm trying to be objective here." Granville says while taking small nibbles of his chocolate, he's the last one with any left, by the way. "But, she's right, we definitely need more of this. We need to be thorough in our testing after all." He pushes forward one of the batches he took from the oven while I was working.

"""Hahahah.""" We all break into laughter at his words.

***