The Destill - Home of Dwarven Spice

A tavern in the heart of the Underground, run by a Dwarf who likes spice. Spices are made from magic moss, a magically infused substance that is potentially fatal to any who consume it as it messes around with the magic inside a person, and their descendants. As Dwarves and Dark Elves already have the moss in their genes, spice is (theoretically) not harmful to them, though there are often still side effects. The proprietress of the Destill utilises these side effects in order to give her customers unique experiences. She also creates similar side effects with a non-toxic version, 'fake spice'.

Design

The Destill has a typical Dark Elven build, with walls of purified stone (black). There are three levels: below, bar, and factory. Below and factory levels are predominantly for spice and fake spice production and storage.

by TaraFaeBelle

Dwarves have added their decorative input. Gaudy, maybe, but the luminescent crystals leave no need for other lights. Of course, there's still the wall paint made from the luminescent magic moss. Does that increase the effect of alcohol? Well, the easier it is to gather information, the better.

The liquid feature walls in every room double as a security feature. They contain an inner layer of building material set up for ease of lockdown by certain Dark Elf staff.

Tavern Hall

Next to the entrance is a raised platform - a stage for all who want to play, given they bring their own equipment. Sales and demonstrations of spice are also run/broadcast from here.

There are 'rooms' available (on both bar and factory levels) for reserved VIPs and their guests. Entry into these rooms is via a specific card that ignites upon use. There are windows to Belacoushe, but they are set up for easy Dark Elf manoeuvring into a windowless wall upon request.

Behind the kitchen is a large freezer, with a level underneath it, only accessed by the freezer. Tax forms claim it is for the spice and fake spice, but few know better. Them and their 'guests'.

Freezer

Behind the kitchen is a freezer the size of the kitchen. It stores much of the fake spice materials, both before and after they have been mixed. Once mixed, there is little time before the fake spice tastes off, so there are several electric components to the freezer in order to make the storage more efficient in its usage.

There are movable shelves that move according to the identifiers input into the individual shelf space. For example, a fake spice mix shelved at 9 am would be given a certain identifier. Every 15 minutes, the shelf would move closer to the kitchen door, and at 2 pm, the shelf would move to the opposing end of the freezer, changing its identifier to 'rubbish'.

Below Level

The trapdoor in the back corner of the freezer is the only way to the below level. Here, there is more storage space, particularly for 'seasonal spice' mixes and a special chair. The chair doesn't look particularly fancy, but the expanding draw sets around it make it look formidable, at least, when the drawers are expanded. When everything is closed and clean, it looks a little odd, but can be dismissed as 'old office junk' if needed.

Distillery

Using the natural magical properties of both heat rocks (found in the underground) and cooling rocks (found in the ocean), a large amount of water piping is mitigated. Thus, where the two large distillation columns are found does not need to be very wide, with the heat exchange doubling as walls. One column deals with the distillation of regular alcohol, and the other deals with the distillation of spiced alcohol. It is very important to keep the materials of these two columns separate.

On the top level of the Destill is a large area for fermentation and storage, keeping separate areas for spice, fake spice and non-spice entities.

Destill Tavern

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Workers

Proprietress

Trixie is the Dwarven proprietress who runs the place (at least on paper). She is often in the dining room or bar, cheering on guests and keeping the peace. She's a tough cookie, with a firmness when it needs to be shown, otherwise the best whisperer in town, good at getting others to share secrets. Or at least loose enough to. She herself doesn't care for the secrets but for the paycheck from those who want the secrets. She is well-loved by many, in any setting she is found in. She knows her strengths and uses them well.

Does she love the Destill? She loves what she can do there - the spice making (both magic-moss and fake). The curious inventiveness is what allowed her to develop the electrical papers of the black menus unique to the Destill, and the efficacy of fake spices.

Trixie uses the Destill as a place to show off her creations and research, doing demonstrations and sales from there, sending recipes all over Turien thereafter.

How Trixie came to be the Proprietress

Before her, the Destill was run by Trixie's Uncle. Stubborn as a Dwarf who is curious about something is, Trixie has always been interested in spice and fake spice. Before she came along, fake spice was not a viable thing so she has researched ways to make it a viable thing (even if only viable for half a day each). That's why she wanted to be part of the Destill staff - there was plenty of space to research and a way to spread the fake spice to customers.

So Trixie jumped in on every meeting and the like, though she was kicked out when it involved Those Ones (though she didn't know them then). In her running through the tavern, she found a trap door in the freezer to an experimental research lab/extra storage space when she was 14. She used that space for the next two years to pick on people she thought would react 'well' to her spices. Only when she forget to get rid of a body did Those Ones find out about her research and recruited her, as magic moss spice was related to magic and their overarching goal. From then on she was allowed in every meeting and fully took over the Destill at 24 years of age.

Staff Members

Hall staff: many are Beast-kin, specifically Wolf-kin and Rabbit-kin. They generally keep to their humanoid forms, with ears and occasionally tails showing. There are generally five staff in the hall at a time.

Bar staff: usually, there will be one Beast-kin and one Dwarf or Dark-Elf behind the bar at all times (there is room for up to four workers). They will be either serving and mixing drinks or adding final touches to food in the mini kitchen in a very showman-like way.

Kitchen staff: mostly Dwarven and Dark-Elf, there are 9 staff. At least two are specialised in spice and at least another two are trained under Trixie in fake spice.

Distillery staff: mostly Dwarven and Dark-Elven. They are all specifically chosen by Trixie.

Delivery staff: they 'move the moss'. They retrieve magic moss and send fake spice where it needs to go. They are legally hired and those are their legal duties. Their illegal duties include retrieving experiments/slaves and handling them on the lower floor.

Cleaning Staff: work closely with the delivery staff. They are hired to clean every level of the Destill, from fake spice waste to blood splatters to fermentation overflows to beer spills.

Training

All staff have some training in showmanship (as well as bartending) when they are first hired. Particularly for those working behind the bar, when working in the mini kitchen area adding the final decorative touches to any food is made to be a show in itself. The table between the stage and bar is reserved only when a show is on, thus allowing the bar staff to show off their skills.

Food and Drink

Menu Design

The menu is black. It is an electronic page that allows the changing of menu items at any time (from the computer behind the bar). This is most useful when fake spice items have gone sour and can no longer be served.

The colours of the writing are white, yellow and blue for the three different menu sections. The Underground Flash Flavours section is yellow, the Typical Tavern section is white and the Dwarvish Poisons section is blue.

There is a black section, that is a fancy design of a dark grey pattern, so as to not compete with the lighter colours of the menu items, which covers the black writing of the Demonic Provisions section. Like a holo-card, the words can only be seen at a certain angle and only by enhanced eyesight (through a particular coding set into the papers themselves and not adjustable from the computer. This, of course, was an idea by Trixie, constructed by her Uncle when she first started working in the Destill.

Menu Sections

Typical Tavern:
There are three dishes and three drinks that are found in every Tavern across Turien. You can thank a fanatic Elf listening to a Fairy's mutter that they didn't like to eat different things for that. Still, it does mean that there is food safe for all customers available at all times.

Dwarvish Poisons:
Only recommended to those who have magic moss in their genetic veins or those who wish to die an excruciating death.
These foods and drinks have various amounts of non-lethal (to dwarves and dark elves) amounts of Magic Moss in them. As most customers are beings who live in the Underground this is a large selection of the menu.

Underground Flash Flavours:
These are available for any customer, magical, rich, or not, made with 'fake' spices (synthesised flavours of magic moss, made from non-toxic/safe ingredients). However, the flavours quickly turn to less than, so they are made daily (sometimes twice a day) and often menu items will be taken off the menu at odd times of the day. The Destill boasts the most varied fake spices for all customers.

Demonic Provisions:

Even on the menus, these options are only able to be seen by an illegally enhanced eye. Even with those eyes, only the right angle shows the illusionary bump of the black writing on the black menu. As secret as they are, their prices reflect their secrecy, so even if by a crazy chance someone unrelated saw these experimental drug-like existences, the price would put them off, or give them a laugh for the ridiculosity of its magnitude.

Spice Trade

As Trixie loves her spices, she wants the monopoly. But she also wants to simply show off her creations (as any true Dwarf would). Thus she became the trade leader for spice and fake spice. She has reformed the top-level factory of the building to include more fermentation space for her spice research and production.

Below Level

When not needed to look useless, it is used as a small laboratory to test the effects of spice and fake spice on participants. Many participants are those found by the delivery staff, or handed to Trixie through Those Ones. This is one of the reasons why she has kept the VIP rooms still functioning as guest rooms. At least until after pub hours, participants are held in the VIP rooms and only taken to the below level when they have been knocked out.

Most participants go home the next day none the wiser of their experimental trip, however, various side effects may occur. These are all monitored by the delivery staff.

Turien    World    Locations      The Underground      Belacoushe      The Destill - Home of Dwarven Spice

by TaraFaeBelle with HeroForge

Trixie: Destill's Proprietress

Parent Location

Belacoushe

Tax Time

Trixie looks at the tax papers and sighs. There are so many numbers. They say they made this easy centuries ago, but why are there still so many loopholes? Stretching her fingers and cracking her neck she looks down again, circling in red the pieces she has to 'justify'. It's what she does, though, no worries. She just has to double-check both outgoings match perfectly. No seems to be seen.

As she continues working, light chatter is heard from the dining hall.

"The Badsworth Company! No one wants anything to do with them! And now we have to design their logo?!"

"Hey," a slur responds, "It's not the company, but their crash. We still don't have to do with them."

"Their crash? Yeah. Like that helps make a logo easier. What are going to put? A printer machine on fire? An executive in chains? A mysterious symbol appearing on the instruction manuals of children's toys?"

"I like fire. It's warm. Not children. They ask too many questions."

As the slur sleeps the other slurs. Trixie scoffs, the interns at lunch had the better idea: a half-burnt paper with that 'mysterious' symbol. Little did they know that symbol was an old logo idea stolen by the Destill before the interns remembered they'd drawn it. A lovely decoy.

Just like her spice. Well, for her, the spice was most important. For the Destill and 'Those Ones' , not so much.

A Long Term Experiment

17 years ago, a scared Rabbit-kin was an invited 'guest', who ran out before the night was over. She was still found by Those Ones though, and her son is still being subjected to their magical experimentations with magic moss.

A short Rabbit-kin with white ears submitted her resume to a bar staff. Trixie oversaw this exchange from the large window in her office. Although Rabbit-kin are often short, this one seemed unusually so. Trixie saw this as interesting, and decided to let her stay as a 'guest', before checking her capacity to work.

For this, she asked one of Those Ones to invite this Rabbit-kin for a night in a guest room with bar on tab (usually this is for drinks not yet sold, still in research phase) as part of Trixie's experimenting. Those Ones found one of their contacts who is a Destill VIP customer to invite the Rabbit-kin as a guest for the night.

Turns out, one of the experimental spice drinks (a very diluted spice, potentially within safe toxin parameters), for this Rabbit-kin was more of an aphrodisiac than a poison. The VIP complied, but before the night was over the Rabbit-kin ran out the window and made her way back to the Beast-kin towns. One of the delivery staff followed her and kept tabs on her.

After she gave birth to twins with unique problems, severe enough for one death, Those Ones contacted her and helped keep her second son alive. He now attends the All-Races Classroom.