“You sure you can do this?” I ask Truffles as we stand across from the cheese stand.
“Yes,” he looks at me, offended. “Cheese doesn’t smell great, but what you are asking for should be simple enough. Truffles are much harder to spot.”
“Okay, let me explain what I’m looking for again,” I say before repeating my explanation to Truffles. “So, normal cheese is made with casein, which is the main protein in milk.”
Also, yes, I have explained what proteins are to Truffles. Credits to the blondie – not only did he believe me when I told him about them, but he was also super excited about hearing what he referred to as ‘food alchemy.’
He blinks a few times forcefully, recalling the rest of my words.
“So, the main smell of the cheese is given by casein. But you want cheese that doesn’t smell like cheese but has more salt than the rest. Not intense. Fresh.”
Goddamn, this guy knows his stuff.
“Yes. If you sort that out, not only are you eating free cake, but I’m also paying you for your services, my man.”
Truffles shoots me a weirded-out glance after I called him ‘my man,’ but the promise of money he can use for alchemic reagents trumps everything.
Why am I looking for cheese, you might ask.
Some would probably think that, coming from the Big Apple, I might be shooting for a cheesecake classic, right?
Wrong.
While a cheesecake might be a delicious dessert, it’s not a fancy one. In a bake-off, unless you are both going for the same thing – in which case it’s all about the taste – you need something with a great presentation.
And that’s why I’m looking for a completely different style of cake that very few people outside Italy actually know—a cake that is older than the US itself. And yes, soft cheese is still part of the recipe.
So, what cake am I going to make?
Wait and see.
“So, which one?” I ask Truffles as we stand in front of the stall of a guy that deals cheese.
The thin blond Elf fidgets with his hands as he sniffs around. The peg is off his nose as he puts to good use his prodigious sense of smell. He sniffs around like that for a good minute.
“Sir, are you sure I can’t just tell you—” The [Merchant of Cheese] looks at me with an insufferable expression.
“Shush,” I tell the guy that has stared at us since we arrived.
“So, Truffles. Sheep cheese. Not too strong. Fresh. Slightly salty but not too cheesy. Anything?”
He keeps sniffing around wildly, moving his head left and right, cringing a few times. Honestly, I don’t know what I was waiting for exactly, but after three seconds, he puts his giant peg back on his nose and points at a closed bowl.
“That one.”
The [Merchant of Cheese] looks at us with a weird expression, but I ask him to hand me the bowl. “Can I try this out?”
“No trying without paying, Human.”
Damn.
No filthy Humans close to Elven food, huh?
Whatever.
“Sure thing. I’ll give you four silvers per bowl. And I’ll get ten.”
“Two golds for ten.”
I stare at the [Merchant of Cheese] and click with the side of my mouth.
“Four silver per bowl,” I keep my smile on.
“I said—”
“That it’s two golds for a type of cheese of which you clearly don’t have much. So, you probably bought this for a steal just to see if someone would be interested in it. It turns out that sheep cheese is not everyone’s favorite, though, is it? I stared at your place for more than thirty minutes. Not one person has bought any sheep cheese or even looked at it. Much less the one you have there. So, you are not selling this until it goes bad. If you sell this to me for four silvers, once bakeries start picking up on it, I’ll direct them to you. You can double-check my words with a truth-stone if you wish.”
I see the guy dropping his gaze under the counter, where he’s probably been hiding a truth-stone. Sneaky little…
Stolen story; please report.
“Deal,” he says swiftly. “Four silvers. Do you need anything else, dear customer? I am currently running a sale on the Serum of Ethereal Cattle. I’ll sell it to you for two golds per gallon. If you have a wife, she will know just how good it is for the skin and—”
“Yeah, no. But I’ll come back, friend. I want to know more about Elven Cheese,” I say as I put a couple of golden coins on his counter.
Greed flashes in his eyes as he hands me more bowls of the soft, serum-based cheese.
Hehe.
“Let’s go, Truffles. You gotta take a shower. I gotta get Stan, and I’ll come back later so we can teach some upstarts a little lesson.”
…
“Friend,” Stan smiles at me as I approach him.
“Sup, Stanimal,” I say with a smile. “How you doin’?”
He eyes the people behind me – Truffles, Tiberius, and Quintus.
“Is something the matter?” The giant Elf asks as he caresses Grigio.
“Nope,” I smile, “just here to make you an offer you can’t possibly refuse. Nothing sketchy, of course.”
“Yo, guys, can you give us a moment?” I turn to the trio at my back.
They go back to the camp, as I take a seat under the statue that my favorite homeless person loves to sit under.
“What’s this guy’s story?” I ask, pointing up.
The tallest Elf in Amorium looks at me with some confusion before looking up and sighing.
“[Prince] Vespasianus,” Stan nods gravely. “He was supposed to bring peace to the Elves and the Humans more than four hundred years ago.”
Well, I suppose that didn’t go as planned.
“Why do you ask?”
“I wanted to know,” I shrug. “I have been kind of dodging some side-quests, but I think it’s fair that I should know more about you if I have to ask you a favor.”
“Is this anything troublesome?”
“Nah, I just want to make sure I’m not getting swindled by [Merchants] at the market. I need to shop for a few ingredients, and I have half an idea that you might know where to find one of them specifically.”
“You involved Truffles?”
“Yep. Again, it’s nothing sketchy. It’s all legal and perfectly fine. I just need a hand. And I can pay you for your service. Five golds?”
Unlike the others, he doesn’t look swayed by the money in the least.
Stan bows his head and closes his eyes, muttering a few words. It takes a moment of contemplation before he opens his eyes again and shoots a glance at our three friends in the distance.
The worry is not just in Stan’s eyes. His gestures, his sighs, and the fact that his eyes are now darting back and forth; all of this points to the fact that he cares more about Truffles than any homeless person would rightfully care about someone with a similar condition.
I don’t know if it’s the spark at the back of my mind, but I feel something that I normally wouldn’t. I see Stan looking up at the statue of [Prince Vespasianus].
I have seen a bunch of homeless people in my life. A bunch, ok? Or maybe even more than a bunch. I have seen so many you can’t possibly imagine. And you know how it surprised me that these people would help each other out so much? Well, there’s something more in Stan’s eyes.
There’s a story greater than my own fears.
“Hey, man, you good?”
“You concern yourself with us,” Stan says, lowering his gaze to meet mine. “You involve yourself with people who are not nearly as interested in your well-being as you are with theirs. Why?”
“Haven’t you asked me already? I mean, if you want a different answer, I’d say I need a crew. At my bakery, everyone knows each other, and they have been working together for God knows how long. Plus, they are all women. I need some testosterone energy—which means male energy. Sorry about the lingo.”
“[Prince] Vespasianus,” Stan says, “he sacrificed himself. He wanted to be the symbol of what it takes to create bridges. He believed that even if he died, the Elves shouldn’t have waged more wars.”
“A pacifist, then?”
Stan nods.
“You have a similar energy,” Stan says in a low tone. “But you are Human.”
“Hey, I’m no Jesus Christ or Vespasianus, Stanimal. I’m just trying to make a few cakes, really. If I can help a couple of friends while doing that, why shouldn’t I?”
“Plus, have you ever tried some really good cake? As I said, I’m going to bake a few tonight. Would you like to come to Happy Bakery – you, Tiberius, Quintus, and Truffles? Even Claudius is coming. I would like you guys to have a taste of something special.”
Stan’s worries seem dispersed—even if just for a second. He looks at me with a slight smile. Even though there’s still a bit of worry in his eyes, it has now toned down.
“I am not sure our presence would be welcome, my friend,” Stan gestures at his dirty clothes.
“I have some excess soap and a few items of special clothes. How about you wash yourself up while I bring Truffles to the market? I wasn’t entirely sure about your size, though.”
Lesson Two from Lorenzo’s Gospel. You can only taste good things in good company. When you eat alone, food doesn’t taste the same.
Yeah.
This is what life is about.
It’s not about being petty little idiots. It’s not about lashing out at others just because they don’t know any better.
And even if life isn’t perfect, even if nothing pans out with Lucinda, and even if I get fired because of this…
As I look at a surprised Stan, I know what I’m all about.
...
“So, I just need a hand with something, Stanimal. And you have two hands that can probably help me out. Also, probably some juicy knowledge.”
“I am not sure how I can be of any service,” the giant Elf mutters after taking a quick shower. His hair still looks pristine, somehow. I swear, this guy must have a [Fashionista] or a [Beauty in the Beast] kind of class.
Now, why do I need Stan?
Lorenzo’s slap reminded me of something.
I don’t remember who said it exactly, but apparently, [Druids] have been extinct for a very long time. [Druids] mess with animals and plants in video games, right? Ok. So, while I could have asked someone like my landlady, Agostina, who’s a [Green Mage], I doubt she’d know so much about transforming products. I expect a [Green Mage] to know much more about how to grow stuff but less about the processing; that’s because you have to know a specific fruit’s properties extremely well to understand what I’m talking about… And to be honest, I really don’t want to mess with Agostina.
But what has this to do with Stan?
Oh, come on. Give me a break. A guy taller than Gandalf and with a giant wolf at his side, staying under some national monument of a guy who tried to broker peace on an intercontinental level?
If this were a game, I would have gotten something like this:
Mission: Find the Last Druid
Difficulty: S
And then, Stan would have appeared right in front of me because game designers are idiots. It’s like trying to guess which rocks in Dragonball Z will be destroyed in the current scene.
“Have you ever heard of chocolate?” I ask.
“Chocolate?”
Different name, then.
“Cacao fruit?”
Stan shakes his head.
“Ok, let’s go with the specifics, then.”