Chương 114: Chapter 113: Beansprouts and Spirits

Petra's bakery was tucked into a narrow street behind the cathedral, sandwiched between a candlemaker's shop and what I was fairly sure was a fortune teller's tent. The building itself was old, a chimney with thick smoke coming out of it, and I smelled the goods long before I'd turned the corner. The wooden sign above the door read "Petra's" in faded gold paint. No surname, no title, just "Petra's". The inside was bigger than I assumed it would be.

A long wooden counter ran the length of the front room, its surface dusted with flour and lined with trays of pastries, breads, and cakes that looked beyond delicious. Behind the counter, a doorway led to a kitchen that radiated warmth. The woman herself was standing at a worktable, kneading dough with the practiced hands of someone who could do it in her sleep. She was older than I'd expected, maybe in her sixties, with silver hair pulled back under a cloth and flour on her forearms.

Two players were already in the bakery, sitting at a small table near the window, eating slices of something golden and flaky while checking their interfaces. They didn't look up as I entered, clearly too occupied with their delicacies.

"Petra?" I asked. She glanced at me without stopping her work.

"If you're here to learn baking, you're late. The lessons were at noon. If you're here to buy, the display is right in front of you. If you're here to ask me about the festival cake recipe, the answer is still no, I won't share it, and you can tell Gus that I'm not changing my mind." She's not a fan of this 'Gus', is she?

"I'm actually here about two things," I said.

"But I can talk to this Gus you're talking about, if you want." That got her attention. She stopped kneading.

"Ah, sorry, adventurer. I thought he sent you, too." She finished the dough with a practiced move.

"No need to worry about him, I can handle it." I nodded.

"I wanted to talk to you about a specific fish that I'd caught."

"A fish," she repeated.

"This is a bakery, young sir." I pulled the Dusk King Carp from my inventory and placed it on the counter. Its scales were still shimmering with the deep purple and gold iridescence that had caught my eye when I'd first caught it. Petra stared at it. She wiped her hands on her apron, slowly, then walked around the worktable and approached the counter. She leaned forward and examined the fish without touching it, her eyes moving across its scales, its fins, the shape of its jaw.

"Where did you get this?" Her voice had changed. The previous tone was gone, replaced by something closer to reverence.

"Caught it, as I said."

"Do you know what this is?"

"A Dusk King Carp. Berg at The Quiet Oak told me you might know what to do with it." She was quiet for a long moment, then she carefully picked up the fish, cradling it like it was made of glass.

"I haven't seen one of these in twenty years," she said softly.

"The last one was prepared for Duke Dayne's coronation feast. I was an apprentice then, chopping vegetables and trying not to burn anything. Chef Aldus prepared it himself. He wouldn't let anyone else touch it." She set the carp down on a clean cloth and looked at me with an expression that sat somewhere between excitement and disbelief. The fact that she was running a bakery clearly didn't bother her anymore.

"The Dusk King Carp is not just a delicacy, young man. When prepared correctly, it can change a person. A small change, mind you, but there nonetheless. Chef Aldus used to say that anyone who ate the Dusk King's flesh would carry a piece of the twilight with them forever." A permanent buff from a food item?

"Can you prepare it?" I asked.

"I can." She said it without hesitation, but then raised a finger.

"However, the recipe requires specific ingredients beyond the fish itself. Moonpetal herbs, which grow near bodies of water under starlight. Ember salt, which I happen to have in my pantry. And golden cream, which can be bought from any dairy farmer, though the quality varies." She looked up.

"And also…" She pulled a small notebook from beneath the counter and began writing in a quick, efficient hand.

"Lightsworn beansprouts." She handed me the list.

"Moonpetal herbs are tricky. They only bloom at night, they wither with the first sunlight, unless shielded by cover, and they're not common. You could see them near the lake north of the city sometimes, but I can't guarantee it; they are quite rare, indeed." She disappeared into the pantry, then returned soon after.

"I have Ember salt and I can whip up some golden cream as well, you can leave that to me."

"And those beansprout-things?"

"Yes, well. That is the problematic part, darling. Lightsworn beansprouts. More valuable than gold. One piece is worth several coins. Or at least it would, if anyone had stock, but I don't think I've seen one in almost as long as the Dusk King Carp itself."

"Where do they grow?"

"There is one place in Serendine. But it doesn't grow. It is harvested."

"From?"

"The Lightsworn Spriggan, my dear. A forest spirit. Back in my day the Spriggan was a friend of the people of Serendine and would sometimes gift the beans to those it favoured. But those times are long gone, young adventurer, and the Spriggan is not friendly anymore."

"How come?"

"The Greenveil Woods have been long corrupted by those malicious ruins that had appeared there." Berg had talked about those ruins, too.

"Appeared?" I asked.

"The ruins weren't always there?"

"Oh, they're old. Ancient, even. But they were buried, hidden beneath the hills for as long as anyone could remember. About two generations ago, the earth shifted. A tremor, not a terrible one, but enough to expose what was underneath." She folded her arms, her expression darkening.

"The Greenveil started changing after that. The trees grew wilder, the animals grew hostile, and the Spriggan… well. It stopped visiting us." The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"And nobody tried to investigate the ruins?"

"Plenty of people tried. Soldiers, scholars, even a mage the Countess brought in from the capital. None of them could get through the entrance. It's sealed shut, and no amount of force or magic has opened it." So the Spriggan was connected to those ruins in Greenveil; that was new information I didn't have access to before. I decided to send a quick message to Alice. Orion: Is there a Spriggan boss in Serendine? The answer came in about 30 seconds. Alice: There is, why?

Orion: How many times has it been killed so far? Alice: Just one. It's a level 25 Field Boss after all. Vanguard managed to kill it three days ago. No one could even try before that, and it hasn't respawned since. Orion: Do you know the respawn timer? Alice: We can only guess. No level 25 Field Bosses have a shorter respawn time than a day. And some of Phantom's earliest kills didn't respawn yet, even though the first one was almost 5 days ago now. It should probably respawn soon-ish, I thought.

Couple days, at most. Orion: Alright, thanks! Alice: Why did you ask? Orion: I want to cook a fish. Alice: Alright, keep your secrets. Orion: No, it's true! I got no answer to that.

"Petra," I said, "if someone were to… deal with the Spriggan, would the beansprouts still be harvestable?" She gave me a look that was equal parts concern and curiosity.

"You're not seriously thinking about fighting the forest spirit, are you?"

"Just considering my options."

"The beansprouts grow from the Spriggan's body. They're part of it, like fruit on a tree." She paused.

"If the spirit were to fall, I imagine they would be among the remains. But that is not something one person should attempt, darling. Even corrupted, the Spriggan is a creature of immense power. The hunters who've seen it in the Greenveil speak of it the way sailors speak of storms. It's dangerous" I nodded, filing every piece of information away. If Vanguard could clear it three days ago, it certainly wasn't impossible for today's players to do so.

"Thank you, Petra. You've been incredibly helpful."

"I've been talkative, is what I've been." She waved a hand, but I could see the faint resemblance of a smile.

"Bring me the ingredients, all of them, and I will prepare a meal that Chef Aldus himself would have been proud of. But the Lightsworn beansprouts are the linchpin. Without them, the recipe is incomplete, and I won't attempt an incomplete Dusk King preparation. The fish deserves better."

"Understood."

"Oh, and one more thing." She raised a finger.

"This fish can only be prepared once. One fish, one meal. If I ruin it, it's gone. I won't ruin it, but I want you to understand what you're putting in my hands." At first I thought that was obvious, but I quickly realized it was just the game's subtle way of telling me that once procedure is started, I will lose the ingredients, including the rare fish. This was my chance to back out if I wanted to sell it or anything else instead.

"I trust you." She held my gaze for a moment, then nodded.

"Good. Now, you mentioned two things. What's the second?" I pulled the Blue Flower Cake recipe from my inventory. It was a small parchment, slightly worn at the edges, with an illustration of a layered cake decorated with blue petals. Petra took it and examined both sides, reading the ingredient list with the speed of someone who could evaluate a recipe at a glance.

"A festival recipe," she said.

"From one of the northern villages, if I'm not mistaken. Blue Mountain Flowers, flour, honey, and frostberries." She tapped the card against her palm.

"I have all of these, except frostberries. If you bring me some, I can make it for you. I will supply the ingredients free of charge, as my thanks for the chance of creating a dish worthy of kings, even!"

"I don't want to burden you—""No, no, I insist! The only thing missing are frostberries. They grow in cooler climates. You could go up the mountains to the north, shouldn't be too hard to find some!"

"Does this cake have any… special properties?"

"It's a cake, darling. It makes people happy." She said it as if I'd asked whether bread was made of flour.

"Festival recipes sometimes hold little surprises, but I can't promise anything beyond an excellent cake." She handed the recipe back.

"Bring me the ingredients for both, and I'll make you the finest meal this city has seen in twenty years!"

"I promised Berg he'd get a taste."

"Berg gets a taste, then!" She rolled her eyes.

"That old dog always knew how to get his hands on the good stuff!" Quest received: The Dusk King's Feast Petra of Serendine had agreed to create an outstanding meal from the Dusk King Carp, but she is missing some of the ingredients. Collect them and bring them to her! Moonpetal Herbs 0/10 Lightsworn Beansprouts 0/3 Quest received: Blue Flower Delicacy Bring frostberries to Petra, Serendine's baker, for the Blue Flower Cake!

Frostberries 0/10 I left the bakery with a shopping list, two quests, and a reason to investigate a field boss.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the eastern marshes not too far from the city, after I picked up another Gold rank quest that required me to hunt 50 Marsh Stalkers. They were ambush predators, reptilian things that lurked beneath the waterline before lunging, and the first one nearly took my head off before I learned to read the water for the telltale ripple of them moving just below the surface. Lune earned her keep.

Her ears caught the sound of Stalkers moving beneath the muddy water before I could see them, and she'd bark sharply whenever one was about to breach. It saved me twice in the first hour and several more times after that. Each fight was its own puzzle. The Stalkers couldn't be kited the way boars or gorillas could; they'd retreat into the water if you put too much distance between yourself and them, then lunge again from a different angle.

I had to stay close enough to keep them engaged but far enough to avoid the jaws. The plethora of movement skills I had access to were my lifelines, and Piercing Shot was my closer; it worked wonders against their scales, unlike Burning Arrow, that barely did any damage in the wet environment.

By mid-afternoon, the quest was done, and I turned it in at the Association, and to my surprise, I didn't need to collect materials for the other quest either; I didn't read thoroughly at the time, but it turned out the blacksmith wanted Gorilla Hides, of which I had in abundance. Two quests were done, I gained decent experience, and I was inching ever closer to level 25.

The moment the last rays of sunlight disappeared behind the western hills, I was already at the riverbank. The valley was quiet, without much traffic, the farms around were shuttered and the road was almost empty. The only light came from the faint glow of the city behind me. Lune used Foxfire, and we went off to look for the necessary flowers. To my surprise, we didn't have to wander for too long. The herbs had indeed grown here.

Their petals were spread wide, glowing with a silvery luminescence that made them impossible to miss against the dark mud of the bank. I crouched by the water and harvested them carefully, one by one, until all of them landed in my inventory. I had sixteen of them now, more than what was needed for the meal. The easy part was done.

The hard part — the Lightsworn beansprouts — required killing a corrupted forest spirit that had only been killed once, by one of the strongest groups of the county, and I had no idea when it was going to respawn. I had to find a strong group for it. I doubted I could get Athos and Second Wind come over to Serendine, and even if I could, the guilds of this county would probably not appreciate a foreign group taking over a Field Boss spawn. That leaves me with— Alice: Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?

Orion: I bet I'm about to find out. Alice: One of our Clerics had found a clue in the Library. According to a book — a recipe book, believe it or not — the Spriggan should respawn tomorrow morning. Orion: And I guess it's King's Glade's turn to take it? Alice: Oh, Vanguard will try, too. But it's right at the border of our respective territories. That means first come, first serve. You in? I looked at my quest log, at the Lightsworn Beansprouts needed to complete the Dusk King's Feast.

Then I opened my inventory to check on the Echoes sitting tightly in two adjacent spaces. It's time to hunt a forest spirit. Orion: Yeah. I'm in.