Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Death’s Head White Chocolate

hey tried to eat more of the venison stew granting the Fleet-footed spell, but there was no effect. It turned out that they could only use the spell once a day. Which meant the stew wouldn’t have any other effects except for filling an empty stomach until after midnight.

So, they had to trek back the old-fashioned way, which was by foot at a normal speed. And since Nay was Iron Rank and had the convenience of legs, she found herself carrying Nom along the Bluerun back to their boat.

“Strange girl, that one,” Nom said.

“She seems interested in you,” Nay said.

“What can I say? I do have a way with the ladies.”

“I wonder how many like her are left.”

“Who knows? Doesn’t sound like many. If her kind were the first ones who inhabited this world, I wonder what happened to decrease their numbers.”

Nay considered this. “She mentioned patrolling ‘outposts’. What do you think she meant by that?”

“They’re monitoring the affairs here, keeping watch. As for what they’re watching for specifically? Wouldn’t be able to say without flat out asking her.”

“Maybe you should do that when you two have your ‘chat’.”

“Seems fair.”

By the time Nay had rowed across Lac Coinescar, it was past lunch and they would have a few hours to kill before dinner. Nay had wanted to nap, but Nom begged her about the Delicacy. “Sleep later, cook and eat Delicacy now!” he had said.

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They had been following the directions from the activation recipe granted to Nay by her Chef’s Kiss passive, which was the ability that granted Nay the power to be an Epicurist. She had discovered a section in Jezabelle Childe’s cookbook volume titled, [Recommended Delicacy Recipes]. She found the Death Head Delicacy listed under desserts. The recipe was as such:

Death’s Head White Chocolate Strawberry.

Scrape Death Head marking off hide with the edge of a blade. Use a mortar and pestle to grind Death Head Delicacy into a powder. Take note: One Delicacy will only yield one serving.

Melt white chocolate in a bowl. Add the Death Head powder until the Delicacy is blended and incorporated.

Dip a strawberry (or fruit of your choice) into the white chocolate mixture and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet to dry. Slowly cool until the chocolate is hardened.

They had to their chef's knives to scrape the Death's Head marking off the piece of Vampra hide. It flaked off like pieces of dried paint. They collected all the pieces into a bowl. By the time they had ground the Delicacy down with a mortar and pestle, they were only left with a tablespoon or two of Death's Head powder.

Since the Delicacy would only yield one serving, then only one of them would be able to eat it.

So, since Nay already had two Delicacies activated, it was only fair that the Death Head Delicacy go to Nom. Plus, he was so excited about unlocking another skill tree there was no way Nay was going to take that away from him. But she did help him prepare the Delicacy for activation.

They used a bar of white chocolate that had been imported from the city of Delicatessa on the Peninsula. Quincy had told her all the best chocolatiers operated in Delicatessa. In fact, it was the capital which housed the Culinary Guild, so all food produced there was of the best quality.

She tried a bite and Quincy was right. It was the best white chocolate she ever had. It was sweet and milky in just the right way, which she liked as she was more of a milk chocolate girl than a dark chocolate girl. The white chocolate had that taste that comes from creamy, coagulated butter. It was smooth and melty with hints of vanilla and honey.

She gently warmed a bowl with her Chef’s Thermometer ability to melt the chocolate. She watched the solid bar, missing a corner from where she had took a nibble, melt into a white puddle.

Nom upturned the stone mortar bowl, pouring the Death Head powder into the melted white chocolate. He stirred it with a wooden spatula, mixing the powder into the chocolate. He watched the gray powder become one the white chocolate. Gray motes of light bubbled out of the chocolate, denoting the magical properties of the Delicacy.

They didn’t have any strawberries so Nom chose a winter apple. Since there was only enough for one portion, he cut off a slice and dipped it into the melted white chocolate. He set it on a baking sheet and used Chef’s Thermometer to chill the piece of fruit, hardening the Death Head white chocolate into a magic shell. White motes of light rose off the piece of fruit, giving the desert almost a beatific and holy aura.

“Well, are you going to eat it or are you just going to stare at it all day?” Nay said.

“It’s just so beautiful,” Nom said. “I want to savor and remember this moment.”

“It’s a shame we don’t have phones here,” Nay said. “Kind of a basic tool for a foodie to have, to take photos of all their meals, recording visuals off their dining experiences.”

“There’s gotta be some magical object here that does the same thing,” Nom said.

“If we ever meet a gnome tinkerer we’ll have to commission them to make a camera. How else can we be proper foodies?”

Nom grabbed the Delicacy and consumed the white-chocolate covered winter apple. As he chewed his color began changing. From purple to violet to gray and then back through to purple and to red. He looked like one of those cabochon carnival light boards, blinking from color to color as his biology absorbed the Delicacy and it worked its magic, birthing another skill tree inside of him.

He lowered himself to the floor and curled up in a spiral as the changes happened. His Cyclopean eye remained wide open and Nay thought she could see a galaxy zooming by within his pupil. She went and fetched him some water. She held a flagon up to his beak and he drank greedily. “Well?” Nay said. “What’d you get?”

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Nom rose up, his body finally settling to his normal purple color. He grabbed a winter melon and put it in one of the unlit fire alcoves. Then he came back to where he was. He tilted his head forward. The tip of his head stalk began to glow red. Nay felt a charge of electricity in the air as energy gathered around Nom.

Then a red beam blasted out of the top of the tentacle, the ray lasering across the kitchen and hitting the melon. The fruit exploded in the alcove. Nom’s headed shifted from red to purple again.

“Holy shit,” Nay said. “So you did unlock a combat skill tree!”

It was like Vampra’s bunny ear blast.

“It’s a Disintegration Ray,” Nom said.

“That will be useful,” Nay said. “Ranged attacks are great.”

Nom handed her his chef’s knife. “Throw this at me.”

Nay looked at the knife in his fin. “No, I’m not doing that.”

“C’mon.”

“No, because I don’t want to ruin your chef's knife. If it hits the floor and chips, then that’s not cool. We gotta be respectful of our tools.”

“Oh, good point.”

Nom thought for a second, looking around. He grabbed an eggplant out of a vegetable basket. “Use this.”

Nay took the eggplant. She walked to the other side of the kitchen.

“Now chuck it at me,” Nom said. “Throw it hard. Really try to hit me. No mercy.”

“Alright,” Nay said. “Don’t get mad at me when I beam you.”

She gripped the eggplant like it was a boomerang. She reared back for a throw and then released it with all of the power and momentum her Iron Rank could muster. The eggplant spun end over end like a tomahawk. Right before it hit Nom, his purple skin took on a silver sheen. Silver scales seemed to shimmer for a moment in the light.

There was the thud of eggplant against metal and suddenly the vegetable was flying end over end through the air right back at Nay. Nom had reflected the projectile back at its thrower.

It would have beamed her if not for her Iron-enhanced speed.

“Oh, thank celestia both of you are –“

The eggplant splattered against the hearth wall and exploded, splattering Nay and Gracie, who happened to be walking through the kitchen door just as the vegetable burst upon impact. She stopped in the threshold, startled. Purple and yellow squash mush speckled across her cheek, chin and hair.

All three of them looked between each other, stunned.

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After dinner service, Nay was dead tired. Staying up over twenty-four hours, travelling to Maer Scathan, doing a dungeon dive, fighting monsters and then travelling all the way back to work a full dinner service at the Lodge had taken enough energy to exhaust her at Iron Rank.

During the service, Quincy had reminded her that she needed to stay on top of the moon cake production. She was reminded again in her quest log.

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[Quest: Bake Moon Cakes]

[Accept Quest Y/N?]

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So, she couldn’t go to bed quite yet. There was one last bit of business to take care of. She accepted the quest and headed outside.

Nay found a place behind the Lodge that was higher up on the cliff facing Lac Coinescar. It was out of view of the cobblestone street leading towards the Lodge and the path that led towards the back where the kitchen was. There was a plot up here next to the red-leafed mountain ash that towered and bloomed over the Lodge. Covered in constant snow, it was quite a beautiful sight, with hints of the vermilion leaves peaking out from underneath the white powder.

She had carried some lumber planks that Quincy had stored in the stables, and she arranged a makeshift rectangle in the soil. She’d come back later and assemble a better raised garden bed, but for now she just needed to mark off the area. She used a trowel to dig a hole in the soil. The surface was hard, almost frozen over, so it took her a minute to make an adequate break in the surface. The dirt underneath was soft and fertile, a decent area for planting.

She pulled the box Aule gave to her out of her inventory. She opened it and poured the elder flower seeds into her palm. She planted the seeds in the holes she dug, then used her bare hands to swipe dirt back into the holes, covering them up. She crouched, looking up at the green-tinged moon, the ribbon of magenta gas decorating the outer space around it.

“That’s plenty of moonlight,” Nay said.

She grabbed handfuls of snow and used Chef’s Thermometer to melt it into water, sprinkling it over the freshly dug garden. She whispered at the seeds buried in the earth. “Grow.”

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