My eyes were darting from my palms where I imaged great magic to be born and the door where great adventure beckoned, when I noticed the grumpy woman moving to dump a board full of meat into the pot of water and I naturally jumped to stop her, my mind quick for the first time since I’d gotten here. Desperation will do that to you. I’m not saying my mind was quick now, not with a five in brains (whatever that meant), but there was just something about raw meat being dumped into a cold pot of water that made me cringe.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the grump snarled, rearing back to backhand me as I darted for her wrist. I noticed for the first time that her teeth, now bared at me threateningly, were slightly canine in length and shape. I had a few second thoughts, but I saw that lump of rags in the corner of the room and decided to take a chance. Scullery maids slept in rag heaps, but cooks had rooms. And there was no way this grumpy woman was a cook if she was about to dump raw meat into tepid water.

Perception +1

Will +1

Luck +1

“It’s just… there’s a better way to get flavor out of that meat,” I stammered feeling like an idiot, but brave with new conviction. Not really, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, you stupid scribbling piece of a buzzard corpse.

“You, the dullard, think you know better than me how to cook a stew?” the grumpy woman laughed, a mean tinge to the sound that set my very normal teeth on edge. Having not seen my reflection yet, I hadn’t been sure I had normal teeth, but a quick swipe of my tongue over the back of them made me reasonably sure they were my teeth, straight and not pointed.

“Unless you have some magic to bring a dish back from the brink of boredom, I absolutely can produce a better stew than you,” I asserted, ready for the backhand that she swung at me. I ducked and grabbed for the plank of meat chunks. “And I’m not an idiot!” I ground out almost inaudibly. I don’t know if she heard me.

Dexterity +1

Luck +1

Skill learned: Dodge – Do that again! That’s a skill! You want those!

I spotted some of what looked like cleanish animal fat and grabbed it and a thick metal plate she’d been using to bake up the bread among the banked coals. There was no saving that bread, but I could make the stew edible. I held up a commanding finger, then pulled it back at the thought of her trying to bite it if I swung it too close to her face.

Skill learned: Intimidation – it’s not always about looking scary.

Foodies rule. I seared the meat quickly on the hottest point of the flames while the grumpy woman sniffed disdainfully at it. There is a magic to the smell of any meat searing in a hot skillet. I darted out of her way and while she halfheartedly tried to stop me, I could tell she wasn’t as upset as her gruff exterior portrayed.

Perception +1

“You’ll overcook it and make it hard as rocks.” She reached to take the pan from me, but I used that new skill again and pushed her back slightly with a look every mom knows how to do.

Dodge +1

Intimidation +1

“Give me a shot,” I wheedled, more attention on the meat than grumpy-woman.

“If I had a bow, I’d eagerly shoot you in the ass!” she stomped, my intimidation not working for long. I didn’t care. I stiffened my spine and took on an authority that I’d earned in my old life.

Will +1

“Do you have spices? Salt?” I demanded, hoping for salt and pepper at least. “Flour? Maybe just a touch of wine? Milk maybe?”

“I’m not wasting my spices on you,” she protested, but I found a chunk of crystals that shattered into what was sharp enough to be real salt (if with a weird aftertaste), and after sniffing a few of the odd-shaped stuff laying on the counters, I found something that smelled like garlic. A single clove was the size of my head, and when I hacked off a small chunk of it, I had to pull out ribs that reminded me of celery, but it sizzled into the pan of meat and fat in a wave of aroma that set grumpy woman back a bit. It would have to do.

Skill Learned: Cooking – you’re on a roll, now if you can only make one with a little jam on the side?

Cooking was something I could do. I was more than just a foodie. I was a kitchen wizard and that was saying a lot coming from a world without tangible magic. I could and had taken food boxes from the food bank and turned them into some delicious meals for days. You never knew what they’d pack into those boxes, but I’d taken them and made something good every time.

Grumpy woman backed out of my way when I grabbed what could almost be a butcher’s knife down off the wall and spun it like a baton on the palm of my hand before applying it to a dozen vegetables that I didn’t recognize.

Dexterity +1

Memories of working in the homeless center kitchen came back like an old friend. I cut a bit off of each and every vegetable spread on the counters. There was a potato that turned out to be more like celery and a yam-shaped thing that smelled like okra that I set aside gently. It took slicing into an apple to find my version of onion, and carrots were more ginger shaped, but sweeter than expected. Still, it was enough that I could almost recreate the trinity of mirepoix.

Cooking +1

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I noted the text that the quill produced, but otherwise put it out of my mind. If I didn’t want to sleep in a pile of rags in the corner, I had to focus on what I could do right then, not the fantasy gamble that might be outside the kitchen door. I could peruse my progress in the leisure of a private room at day’s end.

The key to cooking was to taste every yummy or vile lump in the kitchen. Taste it. Taste it all and blend the flavors you had. As long as I didn’t come upon a potato that slimed up like okra when it cooked up, I’d be fine. My mind spun around the room, locating a sack of what looked like flour, and a string of root vegetables that were hung like I’d hang garlic but turned out to be dried citrus. As soon as it hit the water, it plumped up into something lemony that gave me the bright I was looking for.

Cooking +1

A snag of grease and flour gave me a roux, some salt that had a persimmon aftertaste, and a little heat from that red mushroom, and I had a sauce that had grumpy-woman more eager than grumpy. I dumped all the water I’d brought from the well into a series of bowls and finished the stew base in the big pot, giving no-longer-grumpy-woman a taste here and there. The next time I asked for wine, she came back with a mug of ale instead. That worked as well as wine in a pinch. There weren’t beans or rice, but there was a nice starchy thing that was close enough to potatoes. Each of the potato-like things were four to five feet long and two inches in diameter, but two of them filled out the pot nicely. I used half the water and more of the ale, thickened it up with a flour paste and let it sit to stew up. Meat and starch. No man or even grumpy woman turned their nose up at that in a nice stew. That was some of my grandmother’s wisdom. I didn’t learn much more of it before she died but it was something. More of those bulbous carrots, apple-like onions, and garlic and it was ready to simmer for hours.

Cooking +3

Dexterity +2

Perception +2

Constitution +4

Luck +1

Charm +1

“What do you say?” I leaned against one of the work benches and gave the woman a raised eyebrow, meeting her eyes for the first time since I’d actually managed to intimidate her.

Charm +1

“You’re not quite as dumb as ya look,” she admitted, eyeing me consideringly. “I don’t know where ya came from, but I’ll give ya, ya can cook.”

“Am I hired or what?” I pressed my advantage.

“I’ll give ya the corner of the kitchen and two meals a day for the first week,” she offered with a miserly grunt.

“I’ll take a room, two meals a day and … a gold a week.” I stumbled over the money, not knowing what kind of economy to expect.

Skill learned: Bartering – Ask for the moon! It’s not likely at your level of luck but hey, even a small percentage is still a chance.

Charm +1

“Ha!” she scoffed with an angry wave of her hand. “The king hisself aint paying a gold a week for a cook, girl. Just when I think I misjudged you, you say something so pig-stupid that I go right back to thinking yer crazy as gnomes on spicy tobacco.”

“It was worth a try?” I hedged, giving her what I hoped was a charming half smile. “A percentage?”

“Don’t be making no weird numbers cursing at me.” She turned, and I could feel the advantage slipping.

“A room and two meals a day and one out of every ten coins they pay on the stuff I make,” I wheedled, trying and failing not to sound a bit desperate.

“Deal.” She turned back with a cunning smirk and stuck out her hand.

“Deal.” I shook her hand knowing that her bartering skill was higher than mine but content enough that an interaction had gone my way for once. I could feel a slight buzz when the bargain was struck.

Bartering +1

Charm +1

“Thank the gods.” The woman brushed her hands on her apron, pulled it over her head and dumped the wadded-up material on the counter next to a pile of vegetables. “Daisy got herself married last week to a bloke three towns over and my cooking is emptying out the main room faster than dwarves drink me out of stock during raid season.”

I gave that pile of rags in the corner a scoffing look and turned back to my kitchen to see what else I had to work with. I rubbed my hands together. This I could do. There was an answering buzz in the palms of my hands that I itched to play with. It was the magic. It had to be.

Perception +1

I might not have known how much money was worth, but I knew I’d need equipment to beat Beau and that would cost money. Now that room and board were assured, it was time to take stock. I took stock of my kitchen first.

My apron and hands had gotten clean while I’d been doing dishes, and now I took time to clean my kitchen. I found a sourdough starter that was almost dead, so I fed it with ale and flour and my cooking skill went up again. I tasted everything in the kitchen and then put the spices in order and tossed a few of the meat scraps in a pot with water for a stock for tomorrow. I used the flour and animal fat to make a crust, then threw a few sweet-tasting fruit looking things with something that acted like sugar but wasn’t. You couldn’t go wrong with a cherry-like pie, right? There were three pans with lids that looked like they could make pies, so I filled them all, and buried them in some banked coals that I hoped were even.

Cooking +2

When it came to the fire, I’d been thinking on it as I’d been working. I knew I had magic, but what kind of magic? The buzzing of the bargain, and the tingling in my fingers when I worked with the hearth fire to modulate the heat of my cooking areas was too tempting to resist. The kitchen was enough in order to play just a little. I had enough stock for a few days if I got a little more meat sometime before morning. If this buzzing was magic, then Beau definitely knew about it already and had quite a head start on me.

In chemistry, you learned that excited chemicals created friction which created heat. My hands were already tingling with excitement, so I moved them closer to some fading coals in the fire and imagined them heating up. It didn’t work. I tried to remind myself that emotional excitement wasn’t chemical excitation. I focused on my hands, and I could feel that they wanted to do something. It was like potential energy. I tried a push, then a pull, but the tingle just sat there, making me feel very silly.

Will +1

Trying to clear my mind, I rubbed my hands together and was startled by the over-obvious realization that the friction of my hands increased the tingling sensation. I rubbed some more and then pushed my palms toward the fire expectantly. Nothing. I checked the corner of my vision for blinking notification lights. Nothing.

Character Sheet

The only change was that my mana was higher. I had 13 out of a total 10 mana if I was reading it right. I was overcharged? I looked at my hands and back at the character sheet. I rubbed my hands together vigorously and watched my mana go up another point. Now I had a notification light. It was yellow. I pulled it up.

Warning: You have overcharged your mana for the first time. You will not be warned again…

There was more but I didn’t get a chance to read it as my hands decided to betray me by discharging that mana overage into my face. This time the sparkling across my vision wasn’t caused by some game mechanics or an aneurysm. I nearly caught my own hair on fire. I quickly turned them into the fire pit where the overage dispersed harmlessly, and by harmlessly, I mean they did nothing. Nothing at all. In waving my hands around in the air, I had somehow dismissed the notification and I had no idea how to bring back whatever other glimmer of information the notification might have contained.

“Okay,” I muttered to my empty kitchen. It was clear that magic overage only hurt me. “Friction increases mana. Mana can be overcharged. Overcharging mana discharges it erratically.”

I tested my hypothesis, like an idiot scientist in a magical world.

Luck +1