Kit felt his chest rise and fall at a rapid pace, sweat soaked his body from the intense pace he set to get to the cemetery. His hands slid to his knees as he bent over recovering his breath. When he lifted his head after he recovered, a half constructed stone fence was the first thing he saw.
A huge grin spread across his face, he had never been so happy to see a stone wall! He took in the rest of the surroundings in awe. The place that had been picked for the cemetery had the same view as his restaurant. It was being built next to the beautiful lake with the mountains as the backdrop.
Once the respawn arch was completed it would make an amazing first impression to new arrivals. His gaze retuned to the stone wall and he walked closer so he could see it better. A few familiar faces came into view the closer he got the fence.
“Kit!” Pretzel waved frantically at him in greeting.
“Hello Pretzel.” He couldn’t help widening his smile at the boy’s enthusiastic greeting.
“You’re finally back! Are you here to help construct the cemetery?” Pretzel placed a stone onto the waiting wet mortar, once it was firmly stuck in place the boy came to Kit’s side.
Before he could open his mouth to answer the young boy, Snickers caught sight of Kit and stomped over with heavy steps. Kit guessed she was angry about the Piabbits taking over the restaurant grounds. He opened his mouth to tell her that he had made a deal with the creatures when Snickers stood on tip toes and slapped the back of his head.
“Snickers! What the hell!” It wasn’t his fault that the Piabbits came to Spartan Fire.
Snickers pocked a finger at his chest. “Why are you here! You are supposed to be making new items for the menu! You promised!” A pout formed on her lips at her last words.
He had completely forgotten about starting to experiment with all the new ingredients. With everything that had happened since he logged back into the game it completely slipped his mind. “Ahh sorry Snickers, I got caught up with the Piabbits, then found out about the cemetery and got excited.” Kit explained why he wasn’t currently bogged down in cooking.
“Oh well that makes sense, you do get distracted easily.” Snickers started to scratch her temple. “I should send someone back with you to keep you on track.” Snickers started to look around the construction site. When her eyes landed on Crackers, she waved the girl over.
“Good morning to ya Kit.” Crackers greeted as she ambled over.
Snickers pulled Crackers arm. “I need you to watch over Kit to make sure he starts cooking as soon as possible.”
A big grin broke out on Crackers face. “No problem!” Crackers saluted Snickers.
Snickers then turned back to Kit. “About those Piabbits, Grandpa and I have been brainstorming what to do about them. Hopeful we will come up with a solution soon. Thankfully they only turned up yesterday, so the running of the restaurant has only been affected for these two days.”
A frown of frustration appeared between her delicate brows. “Until it’s resolved, could you make do with working at the boarding house kitchen? The rest of us will help with the cemetery construction until we can enter the restaurant again.”
As Snickers spoke Kit realised that she had no way of knowing that he had already taken care of the newest problem with his restaurant. He then explained to Snickers what had happened before he arrived.
“KIT! Why would you allow them to stay!” Snickers looked horrified, then a small sigh left her lips. “Never mind what’s done is done. Next time your Snowball brings creatures home don’t automatically let them stay.”
This was the second time today he had heard this sentence, he was starting to think this was going to become a regular occurrence for the little dog to bring strange creatures home. He made plans to have a talk with Snowball, quite frankly all the animals that he had brought home so far were scary.
Sounds of construction made him look around the developing cemetery with a heavy heart, he wanted to be able to stay for its completion. He didn’t want to miss this magical event. “Snickers do you know how much longer it will take before the cemetery is completed?”
“Not too much longer, the main structure should probably be completed by tomorrow. Then all that will be left is to wait for the bones from the spiritual beast, then it will be finished.” Kit felt his heart rate pick up at Snickers words, he looked at the broad smile on Snickers face and realised she was just as excited as he was.
He really wanted to help with the construction, but had to console himself with being able to contribute next time. He quickly greeted all his employees, then left with Crackers to head back to the restaurant.
Kit stood in front of his restaurant with a complicated expression. Vines had grown all over the walls of his establishment. It looked quite beautiful the only problem was that you couldn’t tell that this was a restaurant. He would need to talk to someone about getting a sign board made and a path to the front door.
When he attempted to open the door, he met with some resistance. He had to clear the vines away from the door so he could enter. He hoped this wouldn’t be an everyday occurrence and the removed vines wouldn’t grow back overnight. He looked around the inside of his restaurant to make sure there were no changes inside.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Relief flooded him when he realised the vines were contained to the outside of his building. Crackers followed him into the kitchen and they soon got to work putting a sample of each of the ingredients onto the bench.
“What ya wanting me to do now Kit?” Crackers glanced at Kit waiting for his instructions.
A book appeared in Kit’s hand as Crackers spoke. “Nothing for the moment. I’m just going to have a look in the book to see what might work well together.” He looked at Crackers crestfallen expression, he didn’t know if he could handle her staring at him like that for long. He decided it would be better to give her something to do.
He racked his brains for an idea. He looked outside the kitchen window at the new scenery as he scratched his head in thought. When his eyes locked onto a chicken scratching on the ground, he realised that he hadn’t explored the area outside. There would be new ingredients waiting to be found right outside his door!
“Crackers could you collect some ingredients from outside. When we entered the Piabbits domain in the Twisted tunnels we didn’t get a chance to collect many items.” Crackers looked out the window with a frightened expression.
“Ya be wantin me to go out there by myself?” Crackers paled right in front of his eyes.
Kit couldn’t blame Crackers for wanting to refuse. If he hadn’t had Snowball accompanying him earlier when he met the Piabbits he didn’t think he would have had the courage to deal with them. Kit’s eyes brightened when he thought about his companion.
“Not by yourself, I’ll get Snowball to accompany you. The Piabbits become putty in his cute puppy paws.” Kit strode over to the back door and started to call out for Snowball. It didn’t take long for a black fur ball to rush over to his side.
A trail of Piabbits followed the little dog. “Hey buddy, can you do me a favour?” Snowball cocked his head as if waiting for Kit to continue. “Can you take Crackers around to find some ingredients for me?”
Snowball started to excitedly bark, then wandered over to Crackers. Kit watched as Crackers eyeballed the Piabbits, then reached out to greet Snowball with shaking hands. When the Piabbits didn’t react to her movements, she let out a relived breath. “Ok Snowball, I be in your care.”
Crackers left with a bouncing Snowball and Kit went back to his book. He thought about what was missing from his current menu and decided to come up with a dessert first. He looked at the ingredients on the bench and his eyes landed on the large glowing fruit he had gotten from the bear cavern.
He found the page with the fruit’s description,
[Glowgo tangy magical fruit.]
Found in the Twisted tunnels of Spatlicaan wilderness. A precious fruit that thrives in cool dark, damp places. A burst of sunlight each day is needed to complete the magical ignition of the strange fruit.
When eaten raw will recover 500 magica.
Warning: when eaten raw 3% chance for consumer to glow for 24hours.
Can be used in potions and cooking.
Possibility to combine with other ingredients for better results.
When Kit read the fruit would recover 500 magica, he felt his pulse start to race. He didn’t have a magica replenishing item on his menu yet! He decided that he would need to taste the fruit to see what sort of flavour it had so he could come up with an appropriate dessert item.
He went over to the Glowgo and peeled the glowing skin back, inside was a soft green flesh. He brought the fruit to his mouth and took a small bite. A refreshing creamy fruity sweet flavour burst in his mouth. It automatically brought about thoughts of summer.
Kit’s eyes crinkled in delight at the taste. He could straight away pinpoint what it tasted like to him, mango! The distinct flavour was hard to forget. He didn’t even have to wrack his brain for a recipe, he automatically thought about a mango sorbet.
He put the mango down and pulled out a piece of paper and quill, then wrote his idea down. He then moved his sights over the ingredients on the bench once again.
The wiggling of a glow worm caught his attention. He couldn’t place this in his book to get any information as it wasn’t part of a plant. But the similar glow to the Glowgo tangy magical fruit made him think that they might be connected somehow.
His lips twisted in refusal as he picked up the worm and brought it to his lips. He would need to try the worm if he wanted to use it. He closed his eyes tight, then placed the worm on his tongue. The wet slimy worm started to wiggle making Kit gag.
He didn’t give himself a chance to spit it back out. He quickly pushed the worm towards his molars and bit down.
The taste that entered his mouth was completely different to what he thought it would be. The glow worms tasted quite similar to crunchy noodles. Kit felt that if he cooked them in the oven that would give them the crispy texture for the actual crunch needed to make it perfect.
He swallowed relaxedly and the worm disappeared down his throat. A small shudder accompanied the action, he made a mental note not to eat it raw again.
Another idea rang in his head for a recipe, he could make crunchy noodle salad and add in the Glowgo as well! His enthusiasm stopped when he realised, he didn’t notice any change to his body after consuming the glow worm.
Upon inspection of his stats he understood that it had added 50 to his magica for 2 minutes. His excitement burst at this discovery. The glow worms and Glowgo should be able to combine in theory. He quickly wrote this on his piece of paper, then moved his sights around the bench once again.
The possum meat stopped his perusing of the ingredients. He really wanted to make something with this meat, but so far hadn’t come up with an idea that grabbed him for a recipe. His finger tapped on his chin as he became lost in thought.
He had a feeling the meat would be on the tougher side. The only idea that popped into his head was to make a possum stew. After not being able to come up with anything else he just decided to go ahead with this idea. With a small sigh he wrote it down on his list, he didn’t like that he wasn’t completely taken with the idea but left it for now.
The coloured fish were sitting right next to the possum, swimming around in a small tank. The fish didn’t need any thought from him. When he found them, he already had the idea to make sushi. Especially when he had looked at the bottom of the lake where he had found the fish and there was a plant very similar to seaweed.
He added sushi to the list then looked at the last piece of meat on the benchtop. The bear meat was a huge slab of meat, the ribs practically danced in Kit’s eyes. BBQ ribs floated to the front of his mind and he smacked his lips in anticipation of the taste.
The slab was so large he would need to think of ideas for the rest of the meat, the ribs would only use one part of the bear meat. He decided to leave thinking of an idea for the rest of the meat for later.
He looked at his list and realised he had more than enough recipes to start with, he didn’t want to become overwhelmed trying to create too much at once. Kit started to pack away the ingredients from the counter in preparation for him to work.