Veronica was still angry, but it was also true that she had a major project she had to finish before she could move on from this floor once and for all. She has been considering what to use for her first floor's tavern for quite a while now. Ever since she first received alcohol as a tribute, she had been compiling a list of other options she could potentially make. However, she was still rather limited in her options for most of the menu because she was still lacking a lot of basic ingredients for the types of things she wanted to include.
It wasn't exactly the end of the world to make a menu based on what she did have. There would be other floors higher up in her dungeon tower. Plus, she could always change the menu on the first floor when she had better options available. It was just that she really hated wasting her dungeon points on researching something that would be merely temporary. Maybe that would change, one day, but it certainly wasn't something she felt comfortable with today.
Veronica was actually planning to include a proper menu with all of the food [Items] listed on it. She had heard from Seraphina that dungeons tended to be finicky about the written word, often charging by the word. A menu could easily end up being more than 50 words, but it wasn't like she'd forever be limited to just that. Soon she'd have a new mana cap of 100 and, later on, it would be even higher. So, she was planning to do things based on four categories that she'd put on an official menu, when the time came. Light fare would be for appetizers, soups, and salads. Hearty fare would be for the proper entrees with everything from roasted meats and vegetables to casseroles being included. Desserts would, of course, be sweets like cakes, pies, or puddings.
Then, finally, there were the libations, which, essentially, just meant any drink, alcoholic or not. While the word 'liberation' meant the act of setting someone free or freedom from thoughts and behavior, 'libation' means the act of pouring a liquid in the honor of a god, especially alcohol. 'Liberations' was often used on old-fashioned tavern-themed things for events such as Renaissance festival, but it was actually incorrect, so Veronica didn’t plan to follow their lead.
Veronica had personally worked at such a festival a few times as it was a good experience for learning how to deal with large crowds. A bed and breakfast, like her parents, was known for having far fewer rooms than a proper inn. However, when big events and festivals are held in the local area, it is common for all sorts of businesses to be flooded with far more customers than they normally would. Her parents even tended to join in on the fun by setting up booths with special set menus to help advertise their business as well as rake in some extra cash. It helped keep them afloat the rest of the year when business was slow, so it was something that Veronica knew she had to learn how to deal with as well.
Regardless, she had work to do and it was time to get the drink researched.
Would you like to spend 20 DP to research a bottle of sparkling water using the [Base Resources] water, air magic, glass, cork, paper, blue dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 24 DP to research a bottle of yuzu soda using the [Base Resources] water, honey, yuzu, air magic, glass, cork, paper, yellow dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 24 DP to research a bottle of lychee soda using the [Base Resources] water, honey, lychee, air magic, glass, cork, paper, red dye, brown dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 24 DP to research a bottle of apple soda using the [Base Resources] water, honey, apple, air magic, glass, cork, paper, green dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Despite requiring magic to make the final result, none of the drinks require a magic crystal to be present in the final product. They just needed carbonation added to the liquid to make it fizzy. While it would slowly stop being fizzy, over time, it wasn't a big deal. Besides, that was the whole point of including the glass bottle with a cork, so the carbonation wouldn't escape before it was opened. Veronica even included labels with the name of the drink and a picture of the fruit on the bottle. They'd have to be stocked up on before opening the tavern and when they sold out she wouldn't be able to replace them until the inn side was empty again, but it should work fine.
Veronica planned to have a sink in the bar section to fetch tap water from as well as a fridge for storing the sparkling water and sodas in. As she didn't have to worry about replacing the tap water, she planned to charge a single dungeon point for a glass of it. Throw an acorn her way and you'd be set. Smiling to herself, she carefully considered what to write down for the other prices. She planned to just post a hand-written menu in a few places around her tavern, for the time being, but she still needed to carefully consider what to write down.
Unlike the inn rooms, which just required daily cleaning, she would have to manually make many of the menu [Items] and spend mana for any ingredients or [Items] she needed. That meant she couldn't charge as little as she was to rent an inn room for the night. However, she also already knew that charging as much as a single inn room for one drink would seem unbalanced to guests. Yet, what could she really do about that? Sighing, she wrote down that the sparkling waters would be 5 DP per bottle while the sodas would be 10 DP each. While her own cost wasn't that different as they were only 10 MP and 12 MP per bottle, she thought it made sense to charge more for something made with fruit and honey.
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As the price in mana was still significant enough that it could take a few hours to restock everything in the tavern, she planned to spend nights on the dungeon side, spawning in everything she needed, before manually carrying them over to the inn side. That would give her, at least, eight hours a day where she was getting anywhere from 480 MP to several thousands, depending on whether she only had one inn guest or several. Her second floor would help with that problem by a significant amount, she knew, but the logistics of moving things down a set of stairs would make it too difficult to move most things from the second floor to the first.
Honestly, Veronica really wished an elevator was a more feasible option for the future. She didn't know how they worked, beyond the basics, though, and it wasn't like this world had most of the modern-day technology to make it work anyway. Maybe she could get a blacksmith to make a dumbwaiter and her dungeon would allow her to invest in something like that? Shaking her head, she couldn't help but feel it was unlikely. After all, everything she had heard about dungeons, as little as it was, seemed to suggest the floors would be very disconnected from one another. It seemed unlikely the dungeon would allow such a thing.
The dungeon began to shake around her once more as she began to get too worked up. Between Bo and her frustration with this world's systems and rules, she was having a hard time controlling her emotions lately. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself as she started to research the next [Items] on her list.
Would you like to spend 20 DP to research a bottle of dandelion wine using the [Base Resources] water, dandelions, yuzu, honey, wild yeast, glass, cork, paper, yellow dye, green dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 20 DP to research a bottle of elderberry mead using the [Base Resources] water, elderberries, elderflowers, honey, wild yeast, glass, cork, paper, green dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 20 DP to research a corkscrew using the [Base Resource] steel?
Yes
No
She already had falernian wine, which was a special way of making grape-based wine, and also blackberry wine from previous tributes she had received. Veronica had decided to include those on her menu at 15 DP per glass, which was only really higher because it was alcohol. It was a universal fact that most businesses that served alcohol made a large profit margin from their alcohol. Why should that be any different here? Still, she had also wanted to have her own version of wine, so she took inspiration from an anime she had once watched and made dandelion wine, which she planned to charge 20 DP per glass for. It was 5 DP more than the others, but she figured she could get away with charging more for the novelty of sharing something new with her patrons.
Veronica had received an elderflower nectar, but she had decided to make a mead instead. Generally, wines are made with grape must and yeast whereas mead was made with honey, water, and yeast. Why dandelion wine was called wine, instead of mead, when it had nothing to do with grapes she wasn't sure. However, she still thought it would be a good idea to include a mead as a similar, but different option to the wines on her menu. Of course, since it was something she was offering as a specialty of her dungeon, it was set at 20 DP per glass.
Would you like to spend 10 DP to research a bottle of ale using the [Base Resources] water, barley, yeast, glass, iron, paper, brown dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 10 DP to research a bottle of robust porter ale using the [Base Resources] water, barley, yeast, glass, iron, paper, brown dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 20 DP to research a bottle opener using the [Base Resource] steel?
Yes
No
The wine had been as expensive as it had primarily because of the number of ingredients used and the size of the final product. Since the mana cost was almost always half of the dungeon point cost when initially researching it, the size you'd get when making the final product had a direct correlation on the cost when researching it. The ale bottles were smaller and had a simpler ingredient list, even if it did need some metal for the bottle cap. That also meant she now needed a bottle opener alongside the corkscrew she had made for the wine and soda bottles.
She had considered making the soda bottles with metal bottle caps, but had decided that the cork and glass would make them seem fancier, which was good if she wanted to be able to sell them. The other [Items] on her menu would make her more money, but she did still want to share ideas from her old world with others. That was half the point of doing something like this anyway, right?
Of course, because she had to also consider what was familiar to the people of this world, she had included the posset ale and spiced braggot ales on her menu at 15 DP each. Ale would be familiar to them as well, so it was a similar price, but the robust porter ale was marked up to 20 DP per bottle.
Would you like to spend 24 DP to research a bottle of rum using the [Base Resources] water, sugar, yeast, glass, cork, paper, brown dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 24 DP to research a bottle of spiced rum using the [Base Resources] water, sugar, yeast, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, glass, cork, paper, brown dye, white dye, and black dye?
Yes
No
Strong alcohols weren't really a thing in the earlier times of the world, from what Veronica knew of the subject. Things like wines and ales required less fancy methods to produce and, even then, they were often watered down by the people of the world. So, she wasn't sure anyone would even have an interest in buying stronger alcohol. Rum seemed the most similar to what she had seen among her tributes, so she had decided to make both a basic and a spiced version priced at 25 DP each, making them the most expensive option on her libations menu. Still, she found that it felt like it rounded things out quite well.