He laid out the poison that night and then went to sleep. Waking up the next day he discovered way too many messages to read that excitedly included a level!
*Ping*
Congratulations! You have killed something!
…
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[16]!
So hey, that was neat. Turned out that a creature could eat so much of something that it would kill them, even if just a little bit of that something was mostly harmless!
Chef called it ‘death by over-eating.’ Via poison.
He ran around to gather up all of his kills and got back to his standard massive cooking excursions. Mimicking what he saw the humans do, he used magic to fill the sack with salt and then put the meat in there in the interim. It helped keep the food fresh while also adding flavor! Chef wished he’d known about this before he left that other forest.
But even after gathering everything up, he still found no large game. Apparently, he’d need to use better bait in this forest. That or the creatures worth killing were like that giant bear from before and already resistant to poison. Hopefully it wasn’t the second one, but Chef didn’t like his odds.
There was exactly one way to find out, but he wasn’t terribly excited to try it. He continued to bait and trap and forage and cook, but after another day with no real success, it was time to figure it out.
Chef laid out over a dozen cooked rabbits covered and filled with powerful poisonous goop. He’d even fried the meat with oil in order to make it extra tasty and smelly. But, you know, the good kind of smelly.
After a few hours, he was finally able to see what happened to the meat he’d been laying out the past few days.
Another giant bear wandered up, ate all of it, and then wandered away.
Perfect. Great. Another poison resistant giant. What the hell am I going to do about this?
Out of curiosity, Chef followed the giant to see what else it was doing and, well, he definitely found something. It lumbered its way back to a large cave placed on a hill which was seemingly in the middle of nowhere. As it headed in, he could hear the sounds of mewling young crying out to the giant. Chef was fairly certain that he was hearing at least four more voices coming from within.
Perfect! A five in one deal!
Chef had been worrying about how to deal with this giant creature, but burning grease worked so well the last time he tried it, that he just figured he’d to do that again. Heading back to his clearing, Chef focused on making as much oil as he could as quickly as he could. He used the small pot to boil down animal bones with some fat in order to get some more of that wonderful bone jelly.
Heating it all up in the big cauldron, Chef looked over his massive boiling mass of liquid and felt very proud of himself. He made a bunch of thatch and dried out a good amount of wood as well while he was at it, preparing for operation smoke out.
He had a plan: build a wall of flame at the entrance to the cave and burn everything that comes out.
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He never said it was a complicated one.
Slowly, quietly, Chef moved his dried wood and thatch over towards the cave and carefully placed it just inside, forming a wall of combustibles between him and the bears within. Over a couple of hours, he managed to move everything in place such that the smoke would end up going into the cave rather than outside of it. He had piles of wood and thatch as well as a cauldron and jug of oil, all ready to go! Now carrying the overflowing cauldron of near boiling oil, Chef for the first time gained an appreciation for flat ground. Not because this ground was flat, but just the opposite.
*Ping*
Congratulations! Your Kitchen Heat Resistance has increased!
He probably spilled a tenth of all the oil in the cauldron by the time he got to the cave, with at least half of that splashing on him. Truly, he appreciated his resistances more and more each day. Once there, he poured the oil onto and past the dried-out plant matter, letting it spread into the cave itself.
It was time. He could hear the inhabitants stirring within. Anything could have woken them up, really, but it was somewhat likely that wetting them with oil was what did it. Before they could do anything though, he created the two hottest fires he could some distance from each other but right under the wood at the cave entrance.
Flames filled his vision immediately. Chef then grabbed even more wood nearby, throwing that in as well. Holding his jar of oil in hand just in case the giant came barreling out at him, he watched and waited. But unlike the last few days, this was much more entertaining.
The giant and its young tried to escape their home turned inferno, but the hottest flames were directly in their way. So, they instinctively made the worst decision they could; they ran from the heat, further into the cave. Chef cackled as he stood there, holding a ceramic jug menacingly, wearing the hide of their kind as he anticipated the feast to come.
After a few minutes, the creatures within became desperate. He saw the silhouette of the giant charging the flames just before it broke through. Chef didn’t hesitate, tossing his jug of oil straight at the thing, watching the fires rise even further as the ceramic shattered.
Now, weaponless, he saw the opportunity to retreat and did just that. Scrambling up the largest tree he could find nearby, Chef ignored everything but the giant bear below that was now determined to kill him no matter what. So, he did what any sane person would do when watching a flaming giant bear climb up the tree you were hiding in. He climbed even higher.
Now the first problem with being chased upwards by a burning bear was rather obvious in hindsight; fiery fur creates a lot of smoke and, as it turned out, Chef also couldn’t breathe smoke.
He began to cough more and more violently as the bear got closer, but then the second problem arose. The fires had been going for quite some time and oil, as it turned out, would flow downhill. Which, unfortunately for Chef, was where his tree was. So, the combination of the burning and smoking of this whole hillside along with some of the flammable stuff rolling or flowing downhill was a deadly cocktail when added to one still burning bear.
All of that to say that his tree caught fire.
Chef looked down at the specter of death chasing him, eyes appearing to bulge as the flames arose around them both, and did the most reasonable thing in the world.
“Aaaaaahhhh!”
He screamed.
This is it. This is how I die. Goodbye cruel work full of horrible things like berries that make your mind get all weird and bears that are on fire for some reason.
Chef thought his goodbyes completely unrepentant of who he was or what he did when suddenly, the giant fell. He looked around before daring to check his notifications.
*Ping*
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[17]!
Chef was so excited to see the news that he forgot about the fiery nightmare about to consume him. He had also, in his panic, forgotten one very important fact up until the fire finally reached him.
“You know, for standing in a fire, this doesn’t hurt all that much.”
By using oil and cooking fires all this time, Chef had turned the entire hillside into his kitchen. Shrugging, he began to climb his way down the burning tree, ignoring the slight levels of damage he was taking all the while. Once at the bottom of the tree, Chef surveyed his surrounding, watched them in all of their burning glory, and sighed.
“I’m naked again.”
He had once again burnt his only clothes.