Hands down the most popular adult beverage
in the Dreamworld, fermentae can be
carefully crafted to retain almost any
flavor. Caramels and candies, fruits,
vegetables, wood, blood, freshly tilled
earth... Any substance containing moisture
can be sapped through the unique brewing
process behind the drink.
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Derived from diony seeds, great care must be
taken when raising the plant itself. Diony plants
will ravage nearby fauna and gardens if left
unchecked, and can be a nuisance to remove.
They don't damage nearby greenery directly,
but by sapping moisture from the ground. Voraciously
consuming every bead of wetness in their environments,
the liquid is absorbed and stored in their root
system, comprised of one hyper-porous seed.
The amount of moisture absorbed by the seed
can be stupendous - one plant was recorded as
containing over two hundred and thirty-six gallons.
Regardless of how much the seed absorbs, the
diony plant never grows substantially larger
- everything is stored, ever more pressurized,
in the modestly proportioned seed. Tightly compressed,
the moisture is refined into a nectar - the
higher the internal pressure, the richer and
more potent the nectar. When the plant dies
at the end of its one year lifespan, the stem
wilts and detaches from the seed - releasing
all of the stored moisture in an abruptly spectacular
spray. Germinated with microscopic diony seeds,
the squirted nectar sows the surrounding ground
with the next year’s diony plants.
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The
culminating spray of nectar, or fermentae, has
a pleasurably intoxicating effect when ingested.
The first hapless dreamkeepers to learn this died
horrible deaths, as the moisture was drained from
their bodies over the weeks by the tiny seeds
growing within them. Raw fermentae is inevitably
lethal. However, some determined soul soon discovered
a method for making the nectar safe to drink.
By either boiling or freezing fermentae, the microscopic
seeds are destroyed. Each technique gives the
fermentae a different flavor, and is referred
to by a different name.. Frozen fermentae is 'Forreyd',
and boiled fermentae is 'Shayed'. After learning
this, more experimentation began with the beverage.
Dreamkeepers tried growing seeds in different
types of liquid - diony can grow in fruit juice,
coffees, saltwater, gravy, jelly, anything that
contains moisture. The nectar will derive flavor
from the moisture it is grown in. The techniques
for creating and purifying different flavors and
strengths of fermentae has become very refined
over the ages.
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