There were so many questions that needed answering, questions that never existed before today. There were other questions which everyone has from the first moment they get a status of course, but having waited years and still receiving no answer to those, it was safe to assume that they’d remain unanswered forever.
It is said that once, long ago, the wisest men gathered in order to research the nature of attributes and what they precisely meant. Many important questions were asked that day, questions like “What is Status?” and “Why does the System exist and what are its limits?” By the time the final question “what is Hutzpah?” was answered, only one of the wise men had managed to survive. He returned to the kings and queens awaiting their answers outside and said “Some questions are better off unanswered” before promptly killing himself. Chef didn’t know this, of course, and so such questions continued to plague him along with most sentient beings. But the questions he asked today were of a more immediate concern.
What exactly does Goblin Confidence mean?
He specified the trait in his Status and willed its description into existence.
Goblin Confidence: Your confidence is boundless, for a goblin at least.
Not the most useless description I’ve ever seen, I guess. What about Goblin Spreading?
Goblin Spreading: You have choked your goblin enough to paint your surroundings.
That one just makes no sense. Ok, last chance, Mr. System.
Garbageman: You collect and compact trash.
I hate this stupid thing.
He ignored the ilooked once more at his status and his new title, confidence swelling in his chest. Cannibal was a badge of honor for a goblin, and he had long aspired to reach those heights. Chief was only accepted as the chief so easily because he had that very title. Well, that and having the chief class, but that was beside the point.
I suppose my first instinct was wrong. These are all good things I got!
His attributes had received a sizable boost from eating Chief, and he gained a ton of experience from killing all the goblins. And while the system didn’t inform him of the kills, he knew that assisting the wild animals in their hunts brought in some nice experience as well. Really, for being woken up by an assassination attempt, today was turning out to be a great day!
All that remained now was to look over his class evolutions.
Goblin/Poisoner
Goblin/Baker
Goblin/Chief
Goblin/Sous Chef
Poisoner/Chef
Chef/Poison
Chef/Poisson
Chef/Butcher
Chef/Sauce
Chef/Baker
It was the easiest decision of his life, honestly. He didn’t read any further as there was no need, mentally slamming the button as fast as he could.
Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[1]!
Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[2]!
Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[3]!
Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[4]!
Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[5]!
Congratulations! Your Cooking has increased!
Congratulations! Your Baking has increased!
Congratulations! Your Cooking has evolved into Kitchen Magic!
Congratulations! You have gained spells thanks to your Baking!
Congratulations! You have gained Kitchen Heat Resistance!
Congratulations! Your Mana, Power, Ability, Inexplicability, Sense, Intestine, and Hutzpah have increased!
Well, that was a lot of stuff. He called up his status again, annoyed that he had to do math.
Name: Goblin Chef
Species[Level]: Goblin[45]
Class[Level]: Goblin/Peon[10], Goblin/Cook[10], Goblin/Chef[20], Chef/Baker[5]
Health: 31/34
Mana: 22/22
Stamina: 23/23
Titles:
Cannibal
Skills:
Brawling III Convincing
Conniving II Running
Climbing Intuit
Kitchen Magic Butchering II
Poisoncraft II Poison Resistance II
Baking II Goblin Spreading
Kitchen Heat Resistance
Spellcasting:
Create Cooking Fire Set Temperature
Stir Sharpen Knife
Wash Dishes Breadbox
Knead
Traits:
Gluttonous Loathsome
Garbageman
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Boons & Banes:
Exquisite Taste (F)
Goblin Confidence (C)
Attributes:
Power 19 Hutzpah 47
Gusto 22 Intestine 45
Alacrity 17 Waagh 0
Sense 27 Ability 22
Inexplicability: 23
Why was it that every time one question was answered, Chef ended up with two more? He had more mana and power than before by a ridiculous amount, but when he activated his Create Cooking Fire spell it drained him to near zero mana. Being near zero mana also had the fun and exciting side effect of a head splitting migraine.
“Ow. Fucking why?”
Chef continued to ask extremely pertinent questions as he held his head in his hands, massaging his temples in a futile attempt to abate his suffering. The fire was quite good though, much more impressive than his usual fare, larger and less amateurish at least. Putting some of his cook’s utensils on it, he found that he could mentally adjust the temperature at will and didn’t need to add in any more fuel.
Magic is amazing!
He grabbed some nearby bones, all that remained of Chief, tossed them into the pot, and increased the temperature as far as it would go.
The temperature didn’t bother him at all which was most fortunate. After all, had he not been able to stand the heat, he would have been forced to get out of the kitchen. He took back whatever insults and unfair expectations he’d thrusted at the system earlier today in thanks for this most treasured gift.
After all, why complain that the disembodied voice judged you a monster when it also let you hold onto your cooking pot despite the high temperature? Life was a balancing act, and Chef knew his priorities.
Unfortunately, the extreme temperature increase did drain another point of his mana, causing his headache to hurt even more.
“Ow!”
But fortunately, the ridiculous temperature made short work of the bones. Well, more like it took less time than usual, but it still took quite a while. Between resting to relieve his splitting headache and the absence of the sun to measure the passage of time, it was hard to know just how many hours it took to turn the bones into Chief stock. Regardless, the resulting smell was heavenly, his mana recovered enough to enjoy the aroma without pain.
Of course, without the addition of water, it was more like a Chief gelatin. He could probably bounce a gold coin on it, assuming of course that he had any coins in the first place. Once he was back at full mana, he tried out some of his other spells but ignored the obviously useless Wash Dishes. Food tasted better with the previous food bits intermingled, making that one a waste of mana and time.
Sharpen Knife however was an over performer. Just one teeny tiny point of mana and his old rusted knife was brand new again. No more eating rust flakes for Chef!
Next, he tried Breadbox a few times, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was supposed to do. He decided to check its description.
Breadbox: Not quite a pantry, but it’ll fit a loaf or two.
Damn system and its descriptions.
He kept testing things out until he suddenly lost five mana, whisking his Chiefsteaks into nothingness. In a panic he reactivated the skill and they all reappeared. Using the skill on the same items resulted in them once again poofing out of existence, but this time it didn’t take more of his mana. He could even walk away before using the skill again and his food would follow him, despite him not carrying it around!
“I’m sorry, system. I never should have doubted you.”
Lastly, he activated his Stir spell and watched in amazement as it… stirred. Well, maybe he should still doubt the system at least a little bit. Whatever, now he just needed some appropriately powerful corpses to cook in his jelly. That or he needed a shitload more containers than he currently had.
Or, he thought. What if I could store a liquid?
And so, Chef took all of his Chiefsteaks out of the breadbox and cast the spell targeting the bone jelly. It worked! All the jelly disappeared, leaving behind a well-lined cooking pot, ready to bestow Chief juice onto whatever he cooked in it next.
One less thing to do then, but Chef still rather hated the idea of leaving all of those tasty morsels out there for anyone to eat. But then again, if someone or something ate them, they’d probably die and give him experience.
But then again again, if he added a little bit more poison to the mix but kept it as maddeningly desirable as batch number one, he could get the full kill experience for the entire forest! But then he couldn’t make a Turducken. Life really was a series of hard decisions.
The Turducken plan had gone so poorly so fast, though. Could Chef really justify trying to execute it in a large scale when it realistically had no chance to succeed?
The answer was obviously yes.
The time: midnight.
The location: the forest.
The person: a goblin.
The mission: berry and mushroom gathering.
Chef was a goblin at the end of the day, and goblins worked best in the night anyway. So that’s exactly what he did. He ran around, gathered up enough berries and mushrooms to fill his entire bag sans his pot, pan, and “utensils,” and ran away whenever anything resembling a predator looked at him. Failing that towards the end of the night, he scurried up a tree and took a nap.
Fortunately for him, wolves couldn’t climb and a bear wouldn’t waste its time on such small prey. Waking up feeling tired and hating the burning orb in the sky as usual, Chef climbed down his tree and got to work. He followed the trail he’d laid out for himself back to his original cooking fire. As it turned out, Create Cooking Fire could be made less mana intensive through some good old-fashioned willpower.
He got the idea from using his Set Temperature spell to turn off the fire entirely. When he used them in conjunction, he could summon a fire that was really just embers with a nice little stone circle to prevent the flame from spreading. That only used about 7 mana, which wasn’t nothing, but it did allow him to leave a trail through the night to find his way back to his base camp. Base camp in this instance translating to “where I left my stuff.” Stuff in this instance translated to “the cooked flesh of my murdered brother.”
But semantics never mattered to Chef before and he wasn’t about to start caring now. Getting out his pan and knife, he dug out the loose earth where he hid his Chief jerkies and steaks.
Some were missing, stolen in the night by some cruel thief. But Chef had spread them out and still had most of the food to work with. Perhaps he could have taken the food with him and hid the pot and pan instead to make room in his bag, but then they would have been dirty which he didn’t like. Now only his food was dirty!
He summoned a full cooking fire, held his head in agony, and then began to make his poisonous goop. He added what he had to for the substance to be potent, which was really just mushrooms and berries. Then he used his secret technique combined with the most powerful spell in the entire world: cooking and stirring.
He made two batches: gathering and hunting. In other words, he had some goop that would be similar to what he had used the day before and some other just regular old poison. Very potent and likely to kill whatever ate it, but nothing fancy.
The first batch looked identical to the one from yesterday, but he knew it would be even more potent. It had to be; his numbers were higher! And this time, the bait was as sweet as the poison. This section of forest was still fairly empty thanks to yesterday’s antics, but with this heavenly aroma being carried by the wind, that wouldn’t last long.
So, Chef, having learned from his mistakes yesterday, dipped all his remaining Chiefsteaks into goop one and spread them out, evenly spaced in a circle around the big tree. He then used the remainder of goop one on some unfortunately less poisonous berries he’d found and scattered them in around the meat circle. That way the beasts would go away when they got hungry and would eat each other last.
Then he climbed up his tree and waited. He knew that his plan would be successful this time thanks to how vastly different and not at all the same it was. So, he pulled out his pot with goop two in it, summoned a little bone jelly from his Breadbox, and got back to work. He sat there, far up in the tree branches, menacingly looking upon the scene below. Watching, waiting, stirring.
All he needed to do now was wait for his Turducken to arrive.