Over drinks and food, -- a couple of Death Moths drunkenly, and soberly, -- tell me ways I could fix my busted cooking. Well, damn. I get to learn more about things that will taste well together, and I get dragged off to the closest cooking area to learn me something.
They describe things that they’re sure I’ll never eat, and they feel sorry for me. I go to my logs, get a read on them, set down a jar, tell them to keep an eye on it for me, --real “hold my beer” shit, -- and drop my anchor. In my kitchen I get fish, grilled and cooked ground fish, shave a dried Death Bean to sprinkle the shavings over the fish, then pop out of my anchor to get their opinion.
What ensues is a really fucked up cook-off. They casually insult my cooking, tell me about something they miss in as underhanded a way as possible, and then I see if I don’t already have it before getting them to show me how to do it properly. I’m not sure when the drink with Granin turned into a reality show with some boozy bitches, but we’ve got an audience, and everyone’s getting fed.
I get reminded of my yin and yang fish pond aquarium that the emperor set up for me, -- and I never actually go to see, -- but I have fucking seaweed when I transfer, -- on a whim, no less, -- to the spirit koi in my void. I didn’t think it’d send me anywhere other than the fish farm if it worked. There’s an underground cavern with a fake moon and a fake sun, and strange webbed, clawed hand people who try to drown my ass again.
[Piercing Shot II]
[Successful Use 1/100]
[Qi -50]
[Karma -15]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1,831,227/23,900,336]
[Current Qi: 1,905,120/957,945,100]
[Current Karma: 95,601,347/107,275,977]
[Max Will: 9,579,451]
[HP: 9,579,450]
[Mortal Wallet: 12E,692K,180P,697R,179Da,255De,2605k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1325Di,126Co,10680St]
I tag two of the assholes, -- this fight is going a lot better than the first time, -- and then carry them, still hissing and spitting, straight to the Death Moths. There’s a surprised pause until the “Water Monkeys” recoil, -- I swear they’re grimacing like a couple of teens that got caught trying to buy alcohol, and dragged home, -- then the Death Moths go full goblin-mode.
Today I learned Death Moths are toxic. Not just bitchy, wine drinking house-wives or moms trash talking each others cooking and cleaning, but their claws have the same toxins as Death Wood. And how unimaginative are Death Moths that they just go this stuff kills people, name it “death”. Sleeping Moss? Death Moss. Blooming Lady of the Night? Known as Mortal’s Folly, and, -- drumroll, please! -- Death Rose!
Granin nudges me, -- which I assume means he wants me to drop anchor, -- and then he turns on me, hissing with his claws out.
-Where did you find them?!-
Oh! Did not think that through. So here I am, face on fire, trying to figure out a way to say I had a space inside my void, that I maintained, that I didn’t remember, and I found them on accident. While I’m sputtering I go ahead and set up a harvest on the lotus and seaweed. Granin is staring at me, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised, lips pressed together tightly, and I wait for him to move on. He doesn’t. I sigh, take him to the underground cavern, and show him the difference between this beautiful underground oasis and the shit I set up.
I drag him back to the kitchen in the Death Moth ravine because he’s laughing too hard to stand, much less defend himself against the soggy assholes in the oasis. Pretty sure there were other peoples that were taking shelter there, -- I vaguely remember turtle and frog people, -- and I’m almost positive that the Water Monkeys killed them.
-What happened?- some cranky bitch snaps at me.
Most people have their wings partially open to help them maintain balance, but hers are closed. Or gone. She has no wings. How the fuck did she get here? Scratch that. If they can carry a jar big enough for them to swim in, filled at that, they can probably carry one of their fluff down light asses around. Speaking of light, I think Granin’s new wing might outweigh the rest of him and he’s just gliding like a boss. Fucking fuck, dude. Where does the awesome end?
Right here. I glare blankly as he points at me, sputtering incoherently and laughing so hard he’s drooling on himself. This is bullshit. It’s not that funny. If he knew even half the changes I’d had to deal with he’d be a bit more understanding. I roll my eyes before one of the more belligerent cooks shoves their way past everyone else to dig their claws into my arm and drag me back to the fires.
They didn’t kill the soggy bottom bastards. The Water Monkeys are still alive, just lightly leashed with brambles. Old Granny, -- that’s not a rip from me, she demands I call her that, -- loudly boasts that she’s going to teach me how to properly cook the fuckers, then demands that someone bring her more wine. She takes a sip of a proffered bowl before spitting it out over the flames, demanding that they bring her the Witch Tongue stuff, not the Umber Leaf, and I’m left dumbfounded.
Granin, -- sitting on his ass, snickering as he keeps drinking, -- has finally calmed down enough for me to get coherent responses from, so I turn to him.
-I thought Umber Leaf was another way to say Witch Tongue!- True, some batches were stronger than others, but I thought that was cook time, not species.
-They can be substituted in most recipes, but Umber Leaf is more sweet and mild than Witch Tongue. Witch Tongue is far superior,- he informs me, and I wonder if I haven’t accidentally just been planting black bushes thinking they were the same thing. Well, shit.
Old Granny slaps me in the face, admonishing me while dragging me back to the fire as I try to figure out if I’m in a fight or if she’s just too comfortable. Considering she hands me a knife and demands I follow along, gripping one Water Monkey while gesturing at the other with her own knife, I’m gonna settle on way~ too comfy.
Someone fetches jars that still reek of the tea, -- teas, plural. Fack. Wait, how many are empty, -- and then Old Granny tells me to pay attention. The Water Monkeys are put head first over a pot of their own. We then slit their throat, a quick slash to the side that drains the strange purple blood out quickly, the Water Monkeys quickly falling asleep before dying.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
There’s a cheer as the blood gets mixed as it blackens, Old Granny telling me they’ll make that into logs later. My head goes back as I try to figure out if she means we’ll be eating the blood and turning it into shit, or if “logs” is a name for a kind of food. People race up with bits and scraps of the snacks I made before Granin roars at them. He calmly asks me if I have any rice, and this opens the floodgates for people to make more requests.
When I ask if the rice has to be cooked or not, Old Granny snarks back with “why not both”. I cross my arms and glare back while people bring woven baskets forward for me to place my offerings. I fill the baskets, much to their shock, one with cooked rice, one with uncooked rice, and the silence is deafening. Then people start crying.
I sigh and bring out a chair to sit on, rolling my wrists for them to get on with it. Old granny casually tells me the baskets are made from strips of Needle Vine, gesturing towards the brambles as more people come with more empty woven baskets, and heads bowed in shame. I see some people stirring rice into the blood jars before Granin barks at them to stop.
-Tch! I’m a Devourer. You think I don’t understand being hungry? Feh!- I snap at them, looking away from their pain. -Did you want more rice or I have other things.-
I fill a basket with berries and Old Granny nods while saying “Blood Seed”. Some of these get mashed, the mashed put into one of the jars. I fill another basket with nuts, and she laughs while calling them Bone Powder, explaining that they can be milled to produce flour, and the powdered shell makes hunan bones very brittle. The nuts are shelled, some of the meat crushed, some of it ground to paste, and the mixture being put into both jars.
As a joke I drop several Dragon-headed eels, still alive, and everyone comes to life, squealing as they wrestle with the fresh fish. Meanwhile Old Granny is supervising people prepping the intestines of the Water Monkeys while the other organs are wrapped up except for what my inner advisors and Old Granny are telling me are a heart and a kidney. These get cubed and slivered as I drop some of my grilled Dragon-headed eel.
I’m told my technique sucks and I will a large jar with water for them to store the live eels in. Old Granny says she’ll teach me how to properly butcher and cook fish. The intestines are stripped clean, and, before they can toss the offal into the lava below, I bank it to use as fertilizer to make my crops less resource intensive. I wave for them to continue their work, filling another basket with fresh Death Bean and one with dried Death Bean as they put chopped cleaned intestine into the pots.
I’m assuming the organs, cubed and slivered, are put in the jars. Someone gets to work shaving Death Bean into a small bowl and I growl and bear my teeth. My brain goes nope, my hands snap up with a grilled eel between them, and I eat it, bones, scales, fin, and head. I take a breath, bow, hope my ass over the lava river, then leave my anchor.
It’s not like I’m making the food now. Why am I hungry? Does it not count until I unbank it? That makes no sense. If that’s true I’m fucked. I sit down at my table and just eat bread, berries, grilled fish, salad, and grilled eel. I need more variety. I remember I have rice and pull out a bowl. I wash down my meal with what I realize are actually blended teas. Not all the black tea is from Umber Leaf, not all of it is from Witch Tongue, and some of them are sweet and strong.
Wasn’t I gonna make soups? I kinda want beef, or mutton, or venison. Something other than my fish. I’ve been eating a lot of fish. Sure, it’s been a variety, and they do taste different, but red meat would be nice.
I remember that I had fried foods and grab a few to add more variety to my “Oh, shit!” meal. Maybe it was all the drinking? But shouldn’t I have gotten essence? Or did I just get overly excited by learning that I have new foods to eat and try? And I’m asking when I can just go to the logs.
“Oh, look! I’m an idiot!” I say chipperly before checking to see why I had a sudden snack attack.
Something triggered my Devour. So... I got hungry thinking of new foods, which aren’t really new foods. The only thing new would have been the Water Monkey --. That’s not entirely true. They taught me new recipes. I’ve got new ways to prep food now. Ooh! And a new area to farm! That’s a fair point. I get my urge to rend and feed down to “I’m not hungry right now, and I’ll probably have a snack later”.
Oh! New farm. New foods and I’m harvesting more bullshit. But the logs--. To be fair I didn’t read everything... I just looked for when Devour got triggered. Welp.
I drink up and casually sliver some brambles lengthwise. I put in a request for a woven basket and get something that looks like I made it, not something folded and ribboned the way I’d seen the Death Moths baskets look. I shrug, fill it with fresh lotus heads and seed pods, -- remembering to look for and add roots, -- and then go back to nearly plummet to my death before I Wind Walk, buoyed upwards by the draft from the lava river below. I transfer to my chair, but Granin’s sitting in it, and I just catch Old Granny calling him a bastard for hiding his wife while I try not to shit myself.
-You married that Death Seed lady?- I ask him.
-They think you’re my wife,- he says, completely unmoved as he casually sits, one leg crossed over the other, elbow propped on his knee and chin resting on his hand.
-I’m no one’s wife,- I sputter. -Or husband.- I hold up the basket of lightly steaming lotus bits. -An apology for nearly eating someone.-
Someone takes the basket with a light curtsy as they move away, and someone else brings me a small bowl with a variety of seeds.
-We give this to you with the understanding that you will give us seeds and produce,- Granin says. -New foods for you to try, we will teach you how to prepare and propagate them, we ask only for a small return to continue planting.-
I want to be mad, but I was just complaining about variety. I accept the plants then stare open-mouthed after Old Granny slaps Granin so hard she knocks him out of my chair. She demands I store the seeds and deal with them later, but for now we’re cooking. I sputter, not wanting to laugh or get the same treatment, and just sit down, putting the bowl away. Lotus seeds get hulled, some of the Death Moths eating the hull as the seeds get milled or crushed then added to the jars or moved to the side. They’ve either made a glaze or they have some kind of herby smelling syrup that they coat one of the seedpods with, not bothering to hull or remove the actual seeds.
I sniff as the smell of grilling fish fills the room. The Water Monkeys are splayed, poles going through their wrists and ankles, bodies spread open, skin removed, just being held over open flames. Old Granny says she knows it’s getting late, and she doubts they have accommodations for me while checking on the two bodies. She pinches something, making a few deft motions with her knife, cutting free a sliver of meat that she holds over the fire on the end of her blade to cook. She takes a bite, chews it with eyes dancing back and forth, narrowing slowly as her forehead wrinkles with her growing frown. Then she offers the rest of the piece to me.
I eat what I expect to taste like grilled fish, maybe a little smokey, and I’m met with a tender, delicate, fruit wine soaked delicacy. I don’t know what kind of face I’m making, but it’s really good and she looks really proud as the others laugh at me.
-Took you long enough,- Granin says playfully, casually lounging on the ground with his gourd.
I don’t know if it’s the fish, or finally sharing a drink with someone, or just getting a ton of shit off my chest. Hells, it could be the general feeling of community, and not worrying about my companions dropping dead from eating my food. Just hearing a simple reminder of sharing a meal and a drink, knowing they want something from me, but also knowing they’ll be paying me back? I’ve learned so much, -- I sputter as I flash back to my “lessons”. Old Granny does not hold back, -- and there’s knowing that there’s more than just a promise of more in the future.
-Go out, do what you must, but know that you are welcome here, even if you are unwed,- Granin says playfully, mocking his companions for their earlier distrust.