The Makings of Klava in Istaria

[awdz]

Awdz gave Project X a final kick after taking him down. The machine had camped in her Da?s old workshop in Rachival, destroying much that had survived the original invasion. Stepping around the still form, she began to search for clues to her Da?s outcome from the invasion.

Most of the contraptions he had been working on were either missing or in pieces. Bits of metal lay everywhere, though none of the finer metals her Da worked with were evident. Awdz supposed that either he took them with him as he made his escape, or that the Blighted ones had looted them.

One drawer left in his smashed desk yielded some small treasures: a couple of her Da?s old journals. Paging through them, Awdz saw his sketches and instructions for overspaced cargo disks and various other gadgets in the first book. The second book held notes on only one thing: his klava maker. Awdz paused dreamily, remembering the special occasions when her Da would work up his mithril contraption and serve the most delectable drinks she had ever had. Sighing wistfully, she stowed the journals in her backpack.

Rummaging around in various corners of the workshop, Awdz found little else of value, until she peeked behind a door that had been jammed open. With a gasp of hope, she moved debris out of the way until she had fully uncovered it: a steel prototype of her Da?s klava maker. Carefully she pulled out her deluxe obsidian cargo disk and piled the device onto it.

Awdz looked around the ruined workshop once more. There was no indication in the rubble about what may have happened to her Da. It was possible he had gathered his most important possessions and escaped, but she saw nothing indicating to where he may have fled. Sighing again, she pulled her disk and headed away from the blight-infested area.

[awdz]

Gangaf Tagley was tinkering with his formulatron when Awdz arrived in Dalimond. Approaching cautiously to avoid startling him, she jumped when he addressed her.

?You?re not going to knock into my invention with your load this time, are you?? Gangaf looked around the formulatron, a twinkle in his eye. Awdz blushed, recalling the barrel incident that had become a standing joke between them. Grinning, she replied, ?Well, you might not mind this time, given what I?d be bumping it with.?

Gangaf?s ears perked with interest and he moved closer, adjusting his glasses. Awdz pulled the journals out of her backpack and carefully maneuvered her cargo disk closer.

?I finally booted Project X out of the way so I could look for signs of what may have happened to me Da when Rachival was invaded,? Awdz began. Gangaf sighed, having long since assumed that E. Gadfly Gazortenblatz had perished and that the young gnome was chasing a hopeless dream. Oblivious to Gangaf?s sigh, Awdz continued.

?I could not tell what happened to Da or most of his things; very little was left intact and the Withered Aegis had been tromping over the area for too long for any trail to be left. However, I did find a couple items of interest.? Awdz passed over one of the two journals to Gangaf, who took it carefully. Opening the old, dusty book, Gangaf?s eyes widened as he realized what he held.

?Egad?s journal! This information was to be shared at the annual tinker?s conference but the Withered Aegis invaded three weeks before it was to be held!? Gangaf?s eyes bored into the books, greedy for information. ?Aha! The oversized disks plans! Hmmm?? He studied the scrawled notes carefully. ?I do not think I can make use of these, but I know another tinker, Tarbash, who has been working along these lines and will find these most enlightening! Do you know he has been struggling for some time with his designs, unable to determine the secret your Da put into those few disks he sold in Aughundell? This very well may be the breakthrough he needs to make life easier for crafters everywhere!?

Turning pages in the journal, Gangaf nodded, chuckled, or said, ?Oh ho, clever!? His formulatron stood forgotten while he poured over the diagrams and tried to decipher the tiny handwriting. Awdz gave him a little while to browse before interrupting his thoughts.

?There is one other thing I brought back, that I was hoping you could help me with,? Awdz said, sliding her disk forward. ?I found this tucked in a corner and forgotten, and need help to get it working again.? Gangaf looked up, his interest caught by Awdz?s implication of a challenging gadget. His breath caught as he saw what she had on her disk.

?That cannot be? is it?? Gangaf asked hopefully. ?Egad?s klava maker?? He took a closer look. ?No, his was definitely of mithril. Ah! The prototype! So he used steel for it?? Gangaf circled the device, muttering thoughtfully to himself and lifting a flap here, tapping the blimpernup, twirling the splinner and pulling the slopjet piston in and out a few times.

Gangaf looked up at Awdz sharply. ?I only saw him make the klava twice ? heavenly beverage! ? and he was very secretive about how it was constructed, as it was to be the highlight of his presentations at the tinker convention. This will likely take me a very long time to sort out??

Awdz smiled, ?Well, I have every confidence in you? and something more. I?ve done what I could to replace damaged components, but my skills as blacksmith and scholar are insufficient for the finer tinkering needed. I would not have touched it at all if it were not for this?? She held out the second journal to Gangaf. ?It?s me Da?s notes on creating and using the klava maker.?

Gangaf gave a low whistle and gazed at the journal reverently. ?Do you know what you?re offering me?? he asked, tearing his gaze off the book to look up at Awdz. ?Technically, this is one of the greatest challenges a gnome could hope for! But should I succeed?? Gangaf?s eyes grew dreamy. ?The most delicious drink anyone has yet created ? better than ambrosia ? and there is nothing like it for getting going in the morning. And you are offering the sole means of producing it to me?!?

Awdz shook her head and spoke emphatically. ?No. I?m asking for your help in repairing this so that I can make klava. I made a copy of me Da?s journal so I could still make minor repairs on and make klava with this original device while you can make new ones, but if you keep it all for yourself I will go to other tinkers with the information until I get a klava maker I can use. I will also let everyone know you have a klava maker, and you can just imagine how long the line will be of folks interrupting your work, wanting some klava.?

Gangaf blanched at the thought of so many interruptions, then grinned at Awdz, chuckling. ?Ah my dear, you always have a way of getting what you are after. But before I begin working on this, I need your guarantee: I want a supply of klava always ready for me as I tinker, once this is fixed.?

?Klava is for sharing. I will happily keep you supplied with all the klava you can drink as soon as I can,? Awdz replied. ?I?ll come by weekly to see how it?s progressing, and to decipher me Da?s handwriting for you anytime that you?d like.?

Nodding, Gangaf moved the steel device further into his workshop and waved as Awdz trotted off. This was a project worth immediate attention.

[awdz]

Awdz yawned sleepily as she approached the klava maker. Gangaf had really come through on the repairs, especially once she explained her Da?s journal codes to him.

Checking her notes on how to use the klava maker, she spun aside a flat disk on the top of the contraption (the disk was labeled a splinner in the notes) and dropped a large number of acorns in the hole now exposed. The notes were specific that cedar nuts would not work and elm seeds would not give as good results; the notes further stated that she must not use maple or yew seeds, else the klava maker would likely be destroyed. At first this had puzzled Awdz as she remembered helping her Da collect yew seeds for his klava making; then she thought about her different crafting skills and recalled that working yew required mithril tools, and her Da?s klava maker had been mithril. Since her contraption was made of steel, she was trying to keep all the components she used compatible with it based on what she knew from her other crafting work.

Awdz spun the splinner back into place and consulted her notes. ?Okies, prime the slopejet next,? she muttered. Turning to a piston-like tube, she pulled it out of its shaft and applied Sslik grease liberally upon it, dumping a little extra down the shaft before replacing the tube. She did not know where the Sslik got their grease, but it worked beautifully to keep the slopjet piston moving smoothly. Once she had forgotten to apply the grease, and the contraption had made horrible squealing metal sounds before she shut it off. Grabbing a towel, she cleaned off her hands before touching her notes again.

?Ooh yes, that reminds me of the next thing!? Awdz scrambled over to a large store of cotton fibers, carefully carried a large pile over to the klava maker, lifted up a flap, and tossed in the fibers one oversized handful at a time until her entire load was crammed in. The flap was located underneath a mass of protruding sticks that her notes labeled the blimpernup. These sticks moved in and out frantically when the klava maker was started up; as Awdz had interpreted from the notes, the blimpernup wove the towels. Originally she had tried just loading the contraption with a couple of handfuls of cotton, but the blimpernup used a great deal of fibers in weaving the towels and had only produced small pieces of towels instead of the proper sized ones. She had been dismayed at that, for her Da had trained her to serve klava properly, a towel over her arm and one for the recipient; this had been vital with young gnomes gadding about and unexpected explosions possible anytime from the many contraptions in progress in Rachival. As much to honor her Da when serving klava as anything else, Awdz felt a duty to get the towels right.

Dropping the flap back into place, Awdz turned to check the level of essence in the twirdle. The essence was a bit on the low side, so she scurried over to Wisp Island and gathered a disk full of glowing essence. Whatever did not fit in the klava maker, she would craft into glowing orbs for resupplying what she had borrowed from Gwillimena. Awdz never stinted on the essence. Opening the cap on the twirdle, she used her essence siphon to transfer the glowing substance over to the contraption. Her notes were particular about the type of essence to use; dim or pale essence would leave the klava tasting flat or bland, while bright or shining essence would cause the klava to bubble over and likely explode the klava maker.

Awdz replaced the cap and watched the pinwheel pressure relief valve begin to spin as the glowing essence reached the top of the twirdle. Moving faster in order to make use of as much of the essence as she could, Awdz scurried about the contraption to finish preparations for the making of the klava. Pepper berries were danced down a chute into the kawndensiter, water was fountained into the tall slosh tower, and barley was loaded into the crunchiter. Twiddling knobs and throwing switches according to her notes, she remembered just in time to scoop extra sugar into the schweetiums next to the sap reservoir.

Awdz snitched chocolate from Gwillimena?s supply to add into the trimmiteriansk. The trimmiteriansk was a particularly unique component of the klava maker, in that the ingredients placed into it were not always consumed, depending on who was going to drink the klava. This portion of the tinkered contraption had stumped both Awdz and Gangaf until an extremely careful study of her Da?s notes revealed that it tapped into the temperocontingent probability continuum. Awdz really did not understand how it all worked, but Gangaf said it used the power of the essence in part to check the future so it could get the proportions right for whomever was going to drink the klava. Once in a while, the rune stylus attached to the trimmiteriansk would be activated and write onto the hide drawn tightly below it the name of a needed ingredient for the klava. Awdz had found that whenever she forgot to add the chocolate, it would request some, presumably because she loved chocolate and enjoyed her klava flavored that way.

The notes about the klava maker indicated that alcohol would not be called for and was never to be added to the klava until after it was served. Apparently Egad had run into some mishaps with dwarven brews in the klava maker and had therefore put in safeguards against it. Nothing was mentioned about components from blighted creatures like Awdz's other crafting called for; she supposed that was because the notes were from before they were generally available after the blight invasion. She would be leery of risking the klava maker with anything blighted anyway; so far it had not been an issue. Adding in a variety of other ingredients the klava maker called for, Awdz reclosed the trimmiteriansk and consulted her notes again.

Finally loading snowballs into the chiller and oak logs into the furnace of the contraption, Awdz stood back and waited. The klava maker whirred, clanked, groaned, whistled, and shook tremendously as the batch of klava was made. Finally the contraption gave a final toot and clank, popping open the pour spout and dispensing the klava into the large catch tub (Awdz had made a new steel catch tub to replace the one that had been blighted in Rachival).

Carefully Awdz pulled the large batch out from the contraption and set it up for serving. She avoided mixing it too much, never stirring it, lest the servings get out of order and disappoint the recipients. Her Da?s mithril klava maker had seemed better at adjusting for such things; Awdz supposed that was due to the extra clarity shining essence would give the trimmeriansk. Helping herself to a large mugful of klava as a check that it had turned out well, she held her towels and cups ready for serving klava to any who wished some.