Chapter 12: Fishy Food
Fish, she soon discovered, really didn’t taste all that great as a human, or at least raw. This might have been a disappointment normally, but she had a recipe she wanted to try out. She’d consulted Harq earlier, and learned that the kitchen was actually more stocked than she’d originally realised. The preservation wards and space compression wards made it very easy to have a little bit of everything, and the ship had no shortage of funds it seemed.
She currently had before her four fish of various sizes she’d purloined earlier, the biggest of which spanned a bit more than twice her palm’s width. The recipe had just called for a kilo of cod or haddock fillets, but she had no idea how to turn the fish from corpse to fillet. She’d left this part until last, having peeled the potatoes, chopped the celery and onions, and added the cream, but she found herself at a loss as she eyed the four fish on the chopping board. The pot was simmering away by now, so she just decided to have at it, sawing away flesh from bone.
She thoroughly mangled the first two, but noticed most of the bones could be bypassed by slicing directly down the belly and cutting off the flanks. The third was a bit raggedy still, but she managed to get it off in one piece.
The fourth and biggest fish proved toughest, not due to the fish guts sliming up the handle of the knife she was using, but rather the flesh was more reluctant to part with the bone, as though some power of the fish still clung to the body, even after death. It had faint gold stripes crossing its black skin, and smelt vaguely of… gold? Gold was the imagery that came to mind, anyhow, though she did not know what it smelled like if it even had a smell. Now with three fish worth of experience, she skillfully parted the meat from the bones, though some flesh remained stuck.
“Congratulations, amira. That last one looks not half bad,” and unexpected voice behind her sounded.
She jumped a bit, fumbling the knife, dropping it point first into the floorboards a couple inches from her feet, fish parts sloughing off it onto the floor.
“Dammit Harq, don’t surprise me like that. I know you did it on purpose too, because I didn’t hear you come in.”
With a faint smile, he strode forward and retrieved the knife. “Mm. I was going to start dinner, but you seemed to be doing just fine on your own.” He expertly trimmed off some flesh she’d failed to separate with her earlier experiments, throwing it next to the fillets. “You were making this for everyone, right?”
She hadn’t actually considered it, intending to just make the chowder for herself and Dantes, and then figure out what to do with the leftovers later. “Yeah, of course.”
She heard a bit of a nose exhale to accompany his ever-present smile as he gathered some flour in a bowl and added some milk, along with a few other things she didn’t quite catch, though she recognized the black powder he sprinkled in as baking powder.
They worked on in silence for a few minutes, Mitty tasting the chowder perhaps a bit more than necessary, and Harq silently rolling the dough into biscuits and popping them into the oven, and soon an easy silence overtook the kitchen as the two waited for the food to finish cooking.
“Those biscuit thingies smell pretty good. You have a recipe for those?” Mitty broke the silence after a minute or so.
“Mm. On the top shelf over there,” he pointed.
As the swordsman said, a leather-bound notebook occupied the top shelf, and inside, neatly written recipes lined its pages.
“It’s the captain’s. Or his late wife’s at least, but he doesn’t mind people looking at it. Page 34.” he pre-empted her question.
“Oh, it was baking powder. I was wondering if it was the same stuff I had,” she said, withdrawing the satchel of baking powder from her pocket.
“Mm. Al’s baking powder is the best. And tasteless. Makes some stuff look weird though, since it turns everything black. Say, amira, is that a magic pocket?”
“Hehe, yup. The entire robe is magical actually. Soulbound, with a spatial enchantment, and weight reduction enchantment, or so I’m told. It also looks pretty cool and mysterious if I do say so myself.”
“Rowan would appreciate the skill of the enchanter who made that. Flexible material is hard to enchant like that, much less with multiple enchantments.”
After a little more conversation, the two went about cleaning up the kitchen while the chowder simmered and the biscuits baked.
***
“Say, why are we whispering again?” While he liked pretending he knew what he was doing, it wasn’t to the point of pride, as with Mitts. Currently Dantes was crouched behind the captain’s table, out of line of sight from the door while Will tapped some floorboards with his knuckles.
“Because dad will skin me alive if he finds me in here. Hey move over, I haven’t tried those ones yet.” Will tapped against the floorboards before settling on one he had previously been crouching on. He pried the board out with some difficulty to reveal a long wooden case beneath, almost perfectly built into the floor surrounding it. “Here it is. Take a look at this.”
Inside the simple unadorned box was a very old scroll, lying on top of a sheaf of yellowed parchment. Motioning he look, Will unrolled the scroll across the floor. It was a map of the entire Red Sea, and a little bit beyond. Several straight lines of ink were drawn across the map, intersecting a small cluster of islands in the southwest, which was circled a few times. The map was devoid of land markings, but several lines were written neatly on the right side, where he had learned Esthar lay.
They read:
* 212: Ettil – 0
* 316: Eskel – 0
* 420: Far Toly – 0
* 732: New Vairon – 96
* 836: Arcadian Jungle - 201
* 940: Windshear – 48
* 1044: Kel-Ator – 131
* 1148: Little Mountains (Runo) – 359.31
“So what’s this?” Dantes was pretty sure maps weren’t really that special, given he’d seen one quite like it back in Esthar, though that one was a lot prettier with pictures of monsters lurking in the sea.
“It’s dad’s treasure map. There should be a big hoard right here.” He pointed to the circled islands. “It’s a small archipelago we go to from time to time. We’re actually headed there now. Here, look.” He grabbed the papers from the box and laid them out. “Every hundred years or so a new direction is marked down, and they all point to the same place. Right here.”
“Not in the same place. It changes by several kilometers every time.” Filling the doorway stood the captain, having apparently entered without their noticing. He continued, “not like it matters. There’s no treasure there. Naught but sand.” He frowned as he spoke. “If I recall correctly, we made a deal earlier, did we not, William? You scrub and polish the deck, stitch the sails and pump the bilge, clean the mess, and in return I don’t throw you overboard as shark bait.
“Pa, I don’t think that was the deal…”
“I’ve altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further, young man. Get out.”
Wise enough to not argue further, Will darted out of the cabin, leaving a slightly bewildered Dantes behind.
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“What’s the map for if there’s nothing there?” Dantes asked, before remembering to read the mood.
The stormy look drained from the captain’s face, leaving behind only exhaustion. “A reminder of a failing of me and my ancestors. Nothing more. Every hundred and four years, during a total solar eclipse, we can obtain a direction to a great treasure, left behind by a voyager. The islands are barren, though. There is no hidden dragon’s hoard. Just rocks and sand.” The captain took a short look at the map before rolling it up, quietly adding “and disappointment.”
It was certainly intriguing, the idea of buried treasure. Dantes was trying to grasp how many roast chickens a dragon might hoard. Certainly at least a hundred, right? Maybe a hundred and fifty? Hmmm. Maybe he would have a look just in case…
“You done gawking? Shoo.”
It could wait another day. Dantes made his exit, finding Will just outside grinning conspiratorially.
“Come on, I heard Harq actually made some real food today. None of that reheated garbage we usually eat. You can help me with my chores later.”
Somewhat miffed by having chores foisted upon him but too distracted by thoughts of food to bring it up, Dantes followed Will to the mess where they found the rest of the crew pouring drinks while waiting for food.
***
It was actually quite fascinating, the logistics of maintaining the sheer number of enchantments he’d placed around the ship. Each new addition, a puzzle piece to be fitted into a greater part of a whole, each rune, a new challenge. Of course, he’d break the fragile web of conveniences he’d installed for himself over the past years, if necessity called, but he enjoyed the challenge of adding more pieces to the puzzle.
Every time he noticed something that even remotely bothered him in his day to day life, he generally took significantly more time making an enchanted solution to the problem than just dealing with the problem normally would take.
Rowan mulled over his latest addition, absently ladling some chowder into his bowl. This enchantment had been particularly difficult in application. In theory, an enchantment to ensure a spoon does not slip into the soup was simple. Just add some light attraction between the spoon’s handle and the rim of the bowl so the spoon stays in place would be sufficient. Practically, however it proved a bit more challenging. He had to account for the durability and light heating enchantments on the bowls, and with such a weak medium, the bowl wouldn’t handle a third minor enchantment.
In retrospect, the durability enchantments had been unneeded, more of a kneejerk reaction to get Sparrow to stop ruining them by using the bowls as flying pincushions to prove his skill with throwing knives. It was an impressive party trick, but once the wooden bowls started leaking soup onto his robes, it had gotten old. The heating enchantment had been an interesting addition as well, as often times he couldn’t eat straight away, concentrating on some project or another, as he was now.
The crew had left the mess, returning to their various tasks around the ship, leaving the space empty, though he could hear Will moaning loudly somewhere about how much work he had, maybe hoping someone would be foolish enough to offer their assistance. There were no such volunteers.
He returned his attention to the spoon. He spent a moment adjusting the mesh of the bowl’s enchantments to allow for nearby adhesion runes to be applied to the spoon. He wouldn’t be able to add anything new to the bowls, but a simple [Glue] on the handle of the spoon would do the trick, turned down to a low power.
He noticed something, tugging on the edge of his perception. Some foreign magic of a kind he couldn’t quite identify or locate. It was subtle, but he could feel its effects. He checked the boundaries of his enchantment, and noticed it wasn’t encroaching on them, which as unusual. As a general rule of thumb, he allowed for some wiggle room in his enchantments, just so an errant [Mana Bolt] doesn’t blow up every bit of crockery aboard the ship. That said, any sustained source of magic in or near another tended to have a disruptive effect if not properly compensated for, and what he was feeling was light, but certainly sufficient to fall into that category.
“But for some reason, it isn’t,” he muttered, holding up the spoon for closer inspection.
He could just use a [Mana Sight], but he wanted to see if he could deduce the source by himself. It felt non-harmful, and that spell gave him a headache anyway. Humans weren’t really properly wired to see mana, and the intensity aboard the ship was enough to blind him, though that was partially due to his own endeavours.
He lay the spoon back in the bowl, then noticing it was stuck to his hand, shook it a few times before bringing it back and modified the rune again, then set it down again, this time, successfully. Frowning in mild annoyance, he catalogued the changes he’d made recently. He was pretty sure he hadn’t done any Abjuration enchantments on the dishes, ever since he’d made that plate that protected its contents from harm. That’d made cutting steak rather difficult. Making the plates immune to throwing knives had had some unforeseen side effects. In his defence, it wasn’t really his fault someone was putting holes in all the plates and bowls.
That was what he loved about his craft though: solving a problem in such a way that the side effects are mitigated, counteracted, or unimportant. The trial and error involved was addicting, and if it involved the occasional sticky spoon, so be it.
Deep in thought, he absent mindedly had some more chowder. It was pretty good too, not like the stuff Harq usually made. Ever since the previous cook retired, Harq had taken over the role of cook, but he rarely did much in the way of food preparation despite the facilities the ship had for such activities. While he knew how to cook, it was frowned upon for warriors to take on such roles in his tribe. It was probably miss Mitty who’d made this. He’d overheard somewhere that she was interested in this sort of thing. He’d have to ensure he remained in her good graces so long as she remained with them, if only for the improved fare. Perhaps some sweets? She certainly acted younger than her appearance implied. He shelved that line of thinking for later.
He felt it again, this time integrating with his own network. He double checked the signature, ensuring that it was non-harmful. Abjuration, protective, enchantment. It seemed safe enough. Now that it was integrating with his own network, he could keep an eye on its actual effects.
The foreign mana slowly seeped through his circuits, gathering on the surface of his skin, where it slowly crystalized into a static mesh. He flexed his fingers, seeing the mesh flex with them. He retrieved his dagger and poked his finger. Instead of breaking the skin with the wickedly sharp point, it was as though he pushed his entire hand at once, spreading the force out over his entire hand. “Fascinating craftsmanship. Such a complex enchantment with excellent use of force redistribution and one-sided flexibility. Though it looks like they aren’t using the standard fractals for it… Interesting. It is quite weak though.”
Examining the fractals closer, despite their complex nature, were prone to shattering. He slammed the pommel of his dagger on the back of his hand, feeling the enchantment give before shattering around his hand, where it slowly began to regrow around the damaged area.
Intrigued he followed the source of the mana to his circuits, and from there to his stomach. This was extremely unusual. Only potions were known to act similarly, but while potions were common enough, the complexity of the enchantments they can cause are extremely limited, nowhere near what he was seeing now. Well, short of an extremely expensive potion crafted by one of the best alchemists in the world. But rather than subtlety, potions relied on power, leaving him at a loss to explain what was happening. He hadn’t even consumed a potion either…
Rowan eyed the chowder.
The chowder eyed him back.
Or so he imagined. He reached for the handle of the spoon, annoyingly resting slightly below the surface of the chowder, and examined it closely. He couldn’t feel any ambient mana coming from it. He sighed in defeat and prepared one of his least favourite spells, and muttered it under his breath. “[Mana Sight]”
The whole room scintillated in colours indescribable, and he winced, but his attention was entirely focused on what he held in front of him. Rather than a beacon of light like the surrounding enchantments of his own making, he held in front of him a starry night sky, with fine strand-like channels connecting faintly shining stars flowing loosely in the creamy soup.
Unwilling to let even the slightest thing go unnoticed he added to the headache he’d be feeling shortly. “[Microscope]”. His eyes widened. The thin strands were not just conductive, but actually transmitted some sort of signals between the nodes. For what purpose he couldn’t fathom, but looking directly at the stars themselves, he immediately cut off his spells. In that brief glimpse, he’d seen something so complex, something so microscopic, yet so vast he couldn’t begin to comprehend it. Mana flowed through corridors narrower than a strand of hair, in the most condensed circuits he’d ever seen. The circuits were both structured and unstructured at the same time, breaking all but the most fundamental rules of runes and mana, but came together in some sort of organized chaos, a harmony of discordancy.
Upon seeing it, he immediately understood why it didn’t encroach upon his other enchantments. While the effect was significant, the overall power it emitted was low, and the amount of leaked mana was near nonexistent. It was so efficient, it could be a thousand times more powerful and still not break its medium, which was gods damned cream chowder. Somehow.
“But how did you even get in there?” He could feel the headache coming in: punishment for glimpsing the workings of reality itself. He sighed, before emptying his flask at his hip. A key tool for someone in his profession. With his hip half a pint of whisky lighter, he poured the chowder into the now empty flask, intent on studying it later. Some things are best studied without a pounding headache.