Chương 9: Chapter 8: Here There Be Soup

Turns out, the Inn had a magical means to get water. I hadn't realized that until I'd gotten dressed again and made my way into the kitchen as sunlight began to streak into the ruined building once the sun had risen high enough in the sky for it its burning gaze to shine into the room. There was a sink, but I don't know what I actually assumed there was - plumbing? A city water supply? I had no idea what to actually expect.

I had not expected Gelidia to point out a bit of grayish metal with some kind of symbol scratched into it and tell me it was a water rune, and I definitely had no idea what to do about that. I stared at it for a moment, then blinked at her. She pointed impatiently at it, like 'hello idiot, it's right there! Use it!' and I blinked at her again.

"What? What am I supposed to do with that?" I asked, and she returned my blank stare stupidly.

"... You mean you don't know?" she asked, tone incredulous. My cheeks heated again!

"No! I don't have stuff like this where I'm from! What do I do?" I said, and she SIGHED impatiently.

"World oh world. Look, just put your hand on it... and push mana into it." she said, and obediently, I did just that. Well... I tried to. I could see my mana bar, but... She waited for a moment or two, arms crossed, and I couldn't hear her spectral foot tapping impatiently, but out of the corner of my eye I could certainly see her body moving as if she were.

"... I'm sorry... how?" I asked after a few moments. She blinked at me yet again, and began to slowly shake her head.

"How do you not know? You're... even Peasants use things like this all the time. I..." and then it seemed to click.

"Wait... where you're from. Where is that exactly?" she asked, and I shrugged at her, feeling like my words were falling into deep, deep pit.

"... Uhhh, Wisconsin, in the City of Milwaukee?" I said meekly, and she looked totally at sea with my answer.

"I'm not... um, I don't know how weird this is going to sound, but... my world... it um... I died, kinda...?" and the way her eyes widened at me was on par with how she'd stared when I changed shape.

"... Oh. Oh wow. You're a Riftwalker." she said"That... that explains so much. I just thought you were ignorant, but you're... you're actually a Riftwalker. Oh wow." The ghost must have seen my confusion because she said"You're from a whole other world, Emily - the World drew you here after... whatever happened to you. Did it tell you anything? Apart from your cores being unstable?" she asked I nodded slowly.

"It said... I was judged and... my fate was unjust? It also gave me a quest." I explained.

"Survive, Thrive, Be Free." I said and I might as well have slapped her with how she reacted, jerking her head back from me!

"It... it WHAT? What kind of quest is THAT?!" she said, incredulously!

"You're putting me on! It was something terrible wasn't it!" she said, advancing on me, pointing at my nose! I held the skillet up as if to shield myself and shied back with a squeek! I shook my head, wide eyed!

"N-no! That was it! I can still see the prompt if I look for it! That's all it says!" I defended, and her shoulders slumped.

"... The World... just told you to be..." she said, almost dejectedly, before her head quirked to the side slightly and she slowly looked back up into my face again.

"... Wait, what did you say was your Destiny class again? Before you subsumed it? I still can't believe you did THAT, by the way! Now you're stuck as a monster!" My jaw worked as I tried to relax, but I couldn't think of anything but an honest answer.

"It... it was... it was Red Hand of Vengence. It was HORRIBLE, I didn't want anything to do with it!" I said, thoroughly on the defensive at this point.

"It... it felt so much worse than the Lycanthrope, and no way was I going to... to choose THAT over peasant! I'd rather be a commoner and a monster than... than whatever that horrible class was!"

"Red... hand... of... Vengenence. Red hand of vengence... what a strange class. I'm sorry, you told me that yesterday, Emily, it's just... I swear I've heard that before. What kind of class is that?" Gelidia asked, starting to calm down at last. My heart was racing! So much for being a big scary monster - one ghost girl, my friend, getting in my face was enough to make my heart pound! My Wolf thought that was hilarious, which only made things worse! My cheeks were on fire.

"It... had the Combat tag. The synergy skills I got from Lycanthrope and that one um... have the combat tag too?" I said sheepishly, as if asking permission.

"Did I do something wrong?" She seemed to notice my disposition for the first time, and her expression softened.

"Oh... no, nono, you're an idiot, but you're the right kind of idiot, I think. You said that class felt evil?" I nodded, calming down as well.

"Then you're probably fine. Red Hand of Vengence, a combat core... huh." she looked around the kitchen, then at the water rune. She nodded.

"Well.. that explains things anyhow. I can teach you how to use the rune. Inside you - do you feel a kind of... pool of cool water?" I tried to concentrate on how my body felt. I could feel a kind of vibrant strength welling through my legs, and the fire of my hunger burning, muttering at me even now, but... there was something else. Something... cool? That wasn't the right word. It was a kind of energy though, something I could sense in me, like a lake of... cool water, underground! I nodded firmly!

"Alright... just touch the rune and close your eyes. Think about that lake. It's the resevoir of your mana." she said, and I could see it in my mind's eye.

"imagine it flowing down a channel, into your arm" she said, and a cool sensation spread down my shoulder, into my bicep, then forearm, then hand, then fingertips. On its own, the Rune started drawing from this wellspring of mana and...! Cold, clean water began to flow from the faucet over the stone sink! My jaw dropped, and I opened my eyes! The moment my concentration broke, the flow petered out, but I could easily start it again, now that I knew how.

"There. Just like that!" Gelidia said, satisfied, clapping for me.

"Good girl!" she said, laughter in her voice. My cheeks heated, and I glared at her, mouth pursed into a tiny little pucker! That only made her giggle and let out a belly laugh! Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You should see your face, wolf girl! You look like an angry little puppy!" she hooted with laughter, and it was contagious! She was being kind of mean, but... it didn't feel mean. I sighed and chuckled"I told you... I'm... I'm not a dog." I muttered, as I experimented with the water rune. It could only run so much mana at once, and it didn't need much at all to make water for me, but it could accept a kind of resovoir of mana from me - when I gave it ten points, it ran and ran and ran.

With a bit of cobblestone, I scoured the cooking pot I'd found, scraping that cast iron clean as well of its rust, and threw the bits out reddish flakes out of the basin, which seemed to drain the water away into a grating that led... nowhere.

"There's a kind of enchantment that breaks the water back down into mana again on the grate." she explained.

"It recycles the water back into background mana." she explained. I filled the pot up, and looked at the stove. That... didn't have any kind of fuel box, but it did have another of those runes, and a dial. Pressing mana into it and fiddling with the dial revealed its function - just like an electric stove, really. It provided neat, even heat across the heating element - some kind of stone? It looked strange, that material, but it heated up just fine.

The rune itself never actually got hot - good thing, too - but touching it did tell me how much power it actually had stored... and gave me a sense how long that would last in there. Neat! My eyes were bright when I looked over at Gelidia!

"This is so cool!" I cheered!

"There must be so many runes like these!" Gelidia smiled to herself, and when the water began to boil, I dropped in some of the bones to blanch. As they did, cleaning away the sinew and excess... crap, I started with the vegetables. Cleaning the potatoes and ramps, I used my roof tile knife to chop them up as best I could. It wasn't well suited, it was better suited to hewing flesh and sawing through things, but it would do just fine - a sharp edge was all I really needed.

Half of the ramp bulbs, cleaned up and chopped, got sauteed with some of the sage leaves for the broth I was making, and once the bones were white after blanching them, I dumped most of that water. An oven had another fire rune, and after some fiddling, I got that to work too! A metal tray didn't need to be pretty in order to work for my purposes here - it just needed to hold the bones so they could brown up a bit!

Already the scent of the ramps and sage was getting pretty intense, and though my eyes were watering a bit, I persevered.

"Does that... stink?" I coughed and nodded, trying to speak - only with sputtering mixed success, coughing up chunks of words instead of whole thoughts. GOD, errr WORLD these things stank! It was a good stink, they'd taste amazing, but hooooly moley! While that was going, I used a my ceramic knife to cut the venison into chunks and strips. It was good dark red meat, and part of me... thought it looked appetizing. What? It wasn't cooked... but it looked... so tasty. I was hungry, too, so it was...

Next thing I knew, I'd popped one of the red cubes of raw venison into my mouth and bit down without warning. Blood and meat filled my mouth, and it was... well, it was... hard to describe how satisfying it was. It was coppery and cool and... sweet and... strange. Not bad though. I guessed... being what I was, I'd... better get used to this, and indulged that impulse. Why fight it? So, as I chopped up bits of meat, I would occasionally pop a bit of the raw venison into my mouth and monch at it!

Nothing bad seemed to happen, but my terrible hunger was, by degrees, slaked. The water rune produced something for me to wash the taste of blood out of my mouth, and I was feeling much better in short order.

"..." Gelidia was staring at me. I felt her eyes, and glanced at her.

"... What?" I demanded. She shook her head.

"I didn't... say anything, Emily. It's probably fine." she defended, holding her hands up in mute surrender.

"I'm just glad you're wearing clothes!" she said, and I blushed a little at that. It was the only thing said for a little bit as I seared the meat and chopped veggies. It took me some time to think about why her mute stare bothered me, but... after a bit, it became obvious.

"... I'm sorry." I said eventually.

"Didn't mean to be... sensitive. I guess I know it's a little weird." I said, and she seemed to relax a bit.

"No worries, it's fine." she said.

"I'm... sorry too. I don't mean to be judgy. I mean, I'm an incorporeal shade of an aristobrat! I don't have much room to judge you! So long as you don't eat somebody, we're fine." said with a chuckle in her voice. I found myself smiling. Even if I could heal, I wanted no part of grabbing the hot tray with the bones on it with my bare hands! It took a few minutes to find two pairs of tongs, but I pulled out the golden brown bones and into the pot they went, along with some more water and the herbs.

"... Bone soup?" the ghost asked. I shook my head.

"Naw, just bone broth" I said as I washed my hands fastidiously.

"It'll be the base for the stew! This stuff is gonna be so good! The venison is super tasty!" I explained cheerfully. You have learned a new skill: [LIFE] Cookery Oh! [LIFE] Cookery, Rank F: 10% - the ability to make tasty, satisfying meals. Ohhhh! Neat! Wait, that was a skill? I blinked at the notification and tilted my head, prompting a bout of giggles from Gelidia.

"What's wrong girl? What's up?" she said teasingly, as if I were an excitable pupper! I ignored it as best I could!

"I... got the Cookery skill!" I said "It's a life skill... not a craft skill?" I asked, and she chuckled.

"Oh - yes. Life and Crafting tags actually border each other for a great many skills. The difference is that you're not making fine cuisine with Cookery - just making good food. If it was Craft Cooking or something, you'd be more focused on making dishes than meals." Gelidia explained. I grunted - that made a lot of sense actually!

"Ahh, I get it. I'm not making haute cuisine, just grub." I said, and she bobbled her head.

"Something like that, I expect..." The soup was coming together. Once the stock had had a chance to simmer a while, in went the chopped up tatoes and the rest of my ramps and sage, along with a big chunk of chopped up bits of venison! I had to have used like five or six pounds of the stuff, but I definitely had some to spare still! Soon the scent of SOUP was filling the inn, and the eye watering scent of Ramp oils on my hands gave way to a hearty scent that had me drooling!

I just wished Gelidia could have some stew, too! I got the impression it would not only be good company, but... would probably rank my skill up faster to have someone else who enjoyed it with me! Even so! Once I judged the soup done, the meat cooked through and the scent almost unbearably good, I got a notification as I turned off the heat! Your [LIFE] Cookery skill has improved, and is eligible for rank up! Rank E is a free rank! [LIFE] Cookery, Rank E: 0% The ability to make tastier, more satisfying meals!

Heck yeah! Just like that, I'd gotten a skill AND Ranked it up, all in one go! I- Ding Ding Ding! Your [LIFE] Peasant core has reached level 2! You have gained 1 skill point! Health +10, Stamina +15 Wow! A hot rush of powerful tingles wiggled their way through me, and I couldn't stop the happy laugh that escaped my lips! Gelidia grinned at me and tilted her head, confused as I danced a little in place! Not skillfully, but certainly with enthusiasm!

"Ding!" I cheered! She laughed at that and nodded"Leveled up, did you? Again so soon? Wow! That must be some soup!" she said. A wooden ladle I'd been using to stir it carried some to a bowl, and I spooned myself up some of the steaming goodness. Here there be soup!