7: The Pantry

Slowly heading my way back to the inn, I noticed a few notifications coming through

Notifications:

You have earned 25 experience for making an enjoyable meal

You have earned 25 experience for making an enjoyable meal

You have earned 25 experience for making an enjoyable meal

Well, I guess lunch service had started at the Inn—I’d completely forgotten that leftover stew could also provide experience. Would I hit Level 5 today, after all?

I rushed back to the inn, eager to be there in case help was needed. Inside, I spotted more than just three people with stew in front of them. Heading into the kitchen, I found Geo smiling.

“How’d you go?” he asked right away, before I could even ask about the food.

“Great, I think. I spoke with Elder Peter about the class. He suggested I invest my points in Intelligence and Charisma. Martin also recommended I help out at the Medical Pavilion—not just for the experience, but because my healing could actually help people,” I explained.

“Yeah, that makes sense. Your Charisma is pretty abysmal; you’d be hard-pressed to convince anyone to try your food if you were running a street stall—or even at the Pavilion,” Geo laughed. “But honestly, Trev, it’s a great idea. I think you should do it. The issue is that if Larry sees you cooking here and taking food elsewhere, he might murder someone. Do you think they’d let you cook at the temple once or twice a week?” he asked. “Maybe I’ll have to ask the Elder.”

Thinking it over, I doubted the temple would have the space, but then I remembered someone with an overly dusty kitchen I could borrow—and offer to clean in exchange.

Changing the topic, Geo asked, “Have you gotten experience today? I’ve already served ten or so customers.”

“I got three notifications on the way here,” I mentioned.

“Sounds like the ‘enjoyable’ part of it is more than just explanation text,” Geo said thoughtfully. After a moment, he added, “The stew is never as good the next lunch service—mainly because it’s served with day-old bread and not as hot. That’s why we only charge a copper for lunch instead of two for dinner,” he explained.

“Four venison stews, please,” Micca’s voice called through the door. Jumping into action, I took the bowls out to the table, Micca pointed out.

On returning to the kitchen, it was back to business as usual. Today’s dish was going to be a boar meat pie—a meal I found much simpler in practice than I expected. It basically ended up being several large dishes filled with diced boar meat and vegetables mixed in gravy, topped with mashed tubers.

Geo explained these pies could be made with a bread-like shortcrust pastry to keep everything contained, but he said that with the number of people we’d be serving, it wouldn’t be worth the extra effort.

Once lunch service was done, we had served around twenty more people, and I had received nine notifications.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I blurted out, staring at my status.

“What is it?” Geo asked, a little concerned, as Micca poked her head in the door.

“I’m just three experience points short of levelling up!” I said, frustrated by the close call. Of course, I’d be that close to Level 5!

“Lucky I haven’t had lunch yet,” Micca said with a big smile. “I’ve always loved your cooking,” she added.

“You’ve only had my solo cooking once before,” I retorted with a laugh.

Taking her bowl along with a freshly cooked roll, I left the kitchen and heard her say, “Exactly! Still always.”

A short time later, the notification came through

Notifications:

You have earned 25 experience for making an enjoyable meal

You have reached Level 5 in Arcane Chef

You have +2 unspent stat points

You have gained a new ability

You have a new ability selection

Wow, I thought, I get two abilities for level 5. Pulling up the selections; I read over my options.

—————————

Choose from the following options:

Clean Cut

Skill type: Passive

Cut to the very soul

Infuse your knife with mana, allowing you to make cleaner and more precise cuts.

Infused Flavour

Skill type: Active

Never underestimate the power of good flavour

You actively infuse mana into your food, allowing you to bring out extra unexpected flavour!

Handle the Heat

Skill type: Passive

No need to leave the heat, You're here to stay

Provides a fire resistance buff for all cooking-related heat.

—————————

Looking over the options, I almost immediately chose the Handle the Heat ability. I hesitated for a moment, though, since it sounded very similar to what Geo had described—basically the standard skill cooks used to manage heat in the kitchen.

But then there was Infuse Flavour, which was clearly unique to the Arcane Chef class. It required actively putting mana into a dish to enhance its flavours, but what did that actually do?

It felt like a gamble—stick with the skill I understood, or venture into the unknown. But I was already on this uncertain path, so I decided to commit and selected Infuse Flavour.

Congratulations! You have gained the ability Infused Flavour.

Congratulations! You have gained the ability Chefs Pantry.

Chefs Pantry? I wondered, pulling up my abilities to look them over:

Basic Meal Prep

Level: 1

Experience: 50/100

Can craft basic meals at an increased pace.

Butchery

Level: 1

Experience: 25/100

Able to identify usable parts, Increased yield from target.

Knifework

Level: 5

Experience: 174/1056

Efficiency with a kitchen knife.

Infused Flavour

Level: 1

Experience: 0/100

Never underestimate the power of good flavour.

Chefs Pantry

Level: 1

Experience: 0/100

Every chef needs a place to store the special stuff.

I groaned audibly. “Why does every skill need to be so vague with descriptions?” I asked no one in particular, forgetting Geo was still there watching me.

“What did you get?” he asked with a gleam in his eye. “The early levels are so much fun; you get all the abilities quickly before it slows way down past level 20.”

“Uh, I’ve got two abilities. One I had a choice of three, the other I was given as part of levelling up,” I explained.

“First, the one I chose is Infused Flavour. It said I could actively infuse mana into a dish to increase the flavour. The other options were the fire resistance buff on cooking-related items you explained, and the other was more precise cuts. Honestly, it was super vague on how it helped beyond what Knifework already does.”

I paused for a moment, still staring at the skill I was given without a choice. “And the other is called Chef’s Pantry, and all it says is that a chef needs a place to store the special stuff, but I don’t know what that means.”

Geo thought for a long while. “You’re not wrong; they are very vague descriptions, but as a guess, it sounds like some form of storage. A cook’s pantry will always hold ingredients.” Geo grabbed a tuber off a nearby counter and threw it to me. “Here, mentally try to store that,” he said.

I nearly dropped it, not expecting something to be thrown at me so suddenly, but I did as I was instructed and mentally tried to store the tuber, though I didn’t know where.

Would you like to store 1x [Common] Tuber for 5 mana? Yes/No

Mentally selecting yes, the tuber vanished from my hand. I stared down at my hand, shocked—even Geo’s jaw dropped at that.

“It’s like a Bag of Holding!” he said excitedly.

“Uh yeah, it said it costs five mana to store that tuber.” Geo winced a little.

“Five mana for a single item is going to get costly quickly, but we need to test this. You have mana to spare, right?” he asked with a gleam in his eye as he practically dove into the cupboards, pulling out a variety of different items—a pot, a bag of tubers, plates, a coin, and some rags.

While he did that, I was trying to figure out how to view what was stored in the space, mentally trying to pull it up. Eventually, I figured it out when I thought about my pantry inventory with my status window open.

Chefs Pantry Contains:

1x [Common] Tuber

Well, that was going to be useful, I thought. I was broken out of my thoughts by Geo.

“Right, here we go. We’ll start with other stuff and leave the bag of tubers last in case it uses all your mana,” he said, passing me a pot.

Would you like to store 1x Iron Pot for 5 mana? Yes/No

Again selecting yes, it vanished. Next, I was handed a copper coin.

Unable to store, not eligible food-related item.

“No luck on the coin,” I said, frowning a little. It would have been nice to store my coins in a place no one could take them.

Next, Geo passed me two different plates and placed the rag on top of one of them. “Here, try this. It’s a kitchen rag, so who knows.”

Holding the two plates and the rag, I again tried to put them all in my holding space.

Would you like to store:

1x [Common] Small Plate

1x [Common] Small Plate

1x [Common] Kitchen Rag

For 15 mana? Yes/No

Selecting yes, all three items vanished. Geo practically clapped at that.

“Okay, finally let’s try this. It has around twenty tubers inside, but don’t run your mana dry if it’s going to cost too much,” Geo said as I nodded and took the bag from him.

Would you like to store 23x Common Tuber for 5 mana? Yes/No

Selecting yes, all the tubers vanished, and what remained was an empty bag.

“How bizarre,” said Geo, taking the empty bag. “Did you run out of mana or something?” he asked.

“No, it only cost me five mana for all 23 tubers, but it cost me five mana per plate,” I said, a bit confused by it all.

“Hmm, so it seems you can stack items of the same type for a single mana cost. Those were two different plates, so they counted as two separate items. Alright, time to pull it all back out. I want to see if tubers rain down on you if you try to withdraw all 24,” he said with a chuckle.

Deciding to get that embarrassment out of the way, I mentally pulled up the inventory and thought to remove all the tubers.

Would you like to remove 24x Common Tuber for 5 mana? Yes/No

Selecting yes, I flinched instinctively, expecting the tubers to fall on my head, but was pleasantly surprised to see them neatly piled onto the bench-top.

“It cost me five mana to pull them out as well,” I said to Geo. I withdrew the rest of the items, which also appeared neatly in front of me.

I was now at 115/170 mana, remembering I had gained two more Intelligence points from my level up.

“And you said it’s an ability, right?” Geo asked. “You should check whether you gained experience with that.”

Pulling up the info, I saw Chef’s Pantry was at 11/100 experience.

“It looks like I get one experience every time I store and withdraw items,” I said, “but not for every single item—the bag of tubers counted as one experience.”

“Right, well, there’s only one thing left to test,” said Geo, which confused me. I thought we’d figured out the pantry skill by now. He pointed to where the meat for the pies was cooking near the stove.

“Try to infuse flavour into that,” he said with a grin.

Of course! I’d completely forgotten I had received another skill. Following the instructions, I went close to the pot and, unsure of what exactly to do, placed my hands near the stew-like mixture and tried to infuse flavour into it.

Food not eligible. Not made by Arcane Chef.

“It didn’t work. It said It’s food not made by Arcane Chef,” I said, frowning.

Geo’s face lit up. “Oh, but we still have a small bit of stew left over from last night that you made, right?” he said excitedly, pulling over the dregs from the lunch stew pot.

“Here, try this,” he said.

Would you like to Infuse Common Venison Stew for 50 mana? Yes/No

Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to try, I selected yes.

Immediately, the stew glowed. After a short time, it returned to its normal colour, but there were no visible changes.

“I think I did it?” I said, confused. “But it didn’t mention what it actually did outside of infusing it with mana.” I looked down at the last bits of stew, trying to spot any difference.

Geo came alongside, also peering into the pot. After a moment, he said, “Guess we try it then.”

Before I knew it, he had two bowls and was portioning out the last of the stew.

“Well, bottoms up,” he said before taking a bite. I couldn’t read his expression. I took a bite of mine. It didn’t taste very different — or maybe not different at all. I couldn’t tell.

“Did it do anything?” I asked.

Geo took another bite. “I don’t taste any difference,” he said, then presumably brought up his status screen. His eyes went wide.

With no other information, I opened mine, but everything looked normal.

“Did something happen?” I asked, a little impatient after seeing his reaction.

“You didn’t see it?” he asked in shock.

“See what?” I said, confused, pulling up my status again. “There’s nothing different,” I added, feeling like Geo might be pulling my leg.

“It gave me a +1 Dexterity buff,” Geo said in awe. “Food doesn’t give stat buffs, only potions. Expensive potions at that.”

“It doesn’t say how long it lasts, though,” he added.

Geo was lost in thought for a long while before he seemed to snap out of it.

“Well, damn, we need to get dinner prepared—and fast. Get those pies in the oven now, Trev,” he said, realising how late it was getting and how much time we had spent testing and messing around.

Dinner was more hectic than usual, partly due to small delays from the pie, but also because I was so distracted by the day I could hardly keep myself focused on the task. I really needed to speak with Micca, but the night didn’t allow us even a moment to talk.

Especially with Larry being extra hard on her, blaming her for, and I quote, “leaving me to basically die here alone.” I found it a bit dramatic, but I didn’t say a word about it—well, not at the inn, anyway.