38: Pastries
When I awoke the next morning, I saw there were another 23 notifications.
Pulling up my status to see where I was at,
Name: Trevor
Class: Arcane Chef
Rarity: Rare
Level: 18
Experience: 5997/13613
Hit points: 210/210
Mana: 510/510
Stamina: 210/210
Strength: 13
Dexterity: 28
Endurance: 21
Intelligence: 51
Wisdom: 24
Charisma: 10
Willpower: 12
Perception: 8
Luck: 6
Unspent: 6
Looking around the room, I saw that everyone was still asleep. The fire was still alight, but it appeared to be breathing. I had to assume Crisplet was the cause of that. I was torn about where to put my stats. I hadn’t run low on mana at any stage except when we pulled the stunt at the adventurer’s guild store.
Until yesterday, I had taken no significant damage either, but now there was an impulse to just throw all six unspent points into endurance. I remembered what Geo had taught me—he always said Charisma would be helpful for appearing trustworthy enough that people would try my cooking, but did that really matter if people knew there were buffs involved? It certainly didn’t seem like it when looking at the party I was with currently.
I could absolutely notice the difference in dexterity. I was cutting noticeably faster, and my balance on Sable was improving by the day. Even now, Luck seemed useless to me since it only affected loot chances from dungeons, and so far, these guys had never even mentioned dungeons.
Wisdom, I remembered Elder Peter telling me, was something normal cooks often took due to its assistance in menu writing, but also in reading books such as cookbooks and the memory associated with that.
Lastly, there was Willpower, Strength, and Perception. Willpower, I wasn’t overly clear on what it directly affected, but I believed it was mostly focused on keeping your nerve in battle. This was certainly something I struggled with, but I doubted they envisioned a fresh adventurer facing an adult Galvonson when they said it would help.
Perception was much easier. It was just about noticing your surroundings. Being in the company of Liane and Jen, it didn’t really assist me at all. Lastly, Strength was pretty self-explanatory. It was directly associated with physical strength and damage with melee weapons. At the academy, we were encouraged as warriors to focus on Strength, Endurance, and Willpower.
Ultimately, I put four points into Endurance and two points into Wisdom. The reason being, once I reached Boltron, I wanted to get a book on rune carving, and I suspected I’d need a decent amount of Wisdom to retain that information.
Next, I attempted to pull up a list of my inventory and was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of items. But I’m lucky I looked; there were items here I had completely forgotten about.
In particular, in all the excitement of getting Sable, I had forgotten about the baked goods I received the evening before. Deciding we needed a good breakfast after yesterday, I pulled out five Honey Glazed Pastries and five Fruit Tarts, taking them over to Crisplet’s fire.
“Morning, Crisplet,” I said into the fire, receiving a burst of bright sparks before the little flame elemental seemed to form from the flames themselves.
“I have some pastries I’ll be serving for breakfast. We don’t need to cook them, but if we could warm them up, that would be perfect,” I said to the little elemental, placing the pastries down on a couple of stone plates I had stored.
It wasn’t long before the smell of the pastries filled the small room we were all in, rousing everyone from their sleep. I also pulled out the Lemon Tea we had prepared, placing it next to the fire. I would need some mugs from Milo once he was fully awake.
Overall, I felt good, despite the near-death experience yesterday, or the cat appearing again, seemingly confirming everyone’s fears that it was, in fact, following us. Even the nightmares from the first battle on this trip were few and far between now.
“Morning,” Jen muttered, coming to sit near the fire, looking at the food laid out nearby as Crisplet had an orange stream of flame flowing toward them all, but it didn’t feel overly hot.
“Morning,” I returned. “Help yourself. I got one of each for everyone, and some tea for us all to drink. I just don’t have any mugs,” I said, as I saw Hari and Milo getting up and stretching. The only person still in her bedroll was Liane, who had instead pulled the blanket over her head.
With a chuckle, I called over, “Liane, they’re special pastries; you’ll really like them.” Before I could even see the lump in the bedroll vanish, she was kneeling beside me.
“What do you have?” she asked in a hushed voice, looking at the plates before taking a honey-glazed one and falling back.
“So good!” she said, finishing it almost immediately. “Did you make these?” She asked before grabbing another one. With a chuckle, I pulled out several more Honey Glazed Pastries and tarts, since one each clearly wouldn’t work.
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“No, I got these from that last town, but completely forgot I had them after getting Sable and everything that happened with that,” I said, slightly embarrassed that I had forgotten.
“You what?!” She looked absolutely outraged, which I couldn’t take seriously at all since she still had her mouth full with the second pastry.
“How could you forget to share something so wonderful?!” she got out between bites. I just let out a chuckle, pulling out one of the Blueberry Cakes I had also gotten.
There was a pause as she looked at the new cake, then at me, moving her gaze back and forth before demanding, “What else are you hiding in that storage?!”
“Nothing!” I started saying. “Well, lots of things, but nothing sweet like those,” I added, which seemed to satisfy the early-morning Liane. Milo, Jen, and Hari were all silently chuckling now, having helped themselves to the food. Milo was pouring out the tea and thanking Crisplet for bringing it to the perfect temperature.
The whole thing just felt good, and I knew I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
It wasn’t long before there was a knock at the door, and Hari went to answer, finding Troy on the other side. After a brief discussion, he came back inside.
“We’ll all be heading up to the longhouse in a few minutes, then get back on the road after that,” Hari said. In that very moment, I looked away, and the two remaining fruit tarts vanished from the plate. Turning to look at Liane, I saw she appeared to find a spot on the wall very, very interesting.
Storing away the empty plates and rolling up my bedroll to store with Sable, I reached down to grab Crisplet. But instead, the little elemental ran straight past me, up to Jen, with a burst of bright sparks.
“Ha, I guess Crisplet wants to be able to see today, if you don’t mind, Jen,” I said with a chuckle.
“No problem at all,” she said with a smile, reaching down and picking up the little elemental, even without it turning into its orb. “Come on, little guy, we need to go speak to the chief of this village,” she said before heading outside.
I followed the others, seeing Troy and Saddie already speaking to Londor. The wagons and horses were all ready to go. What surprised me the most were the villagers—already up at this time of the morning—awake and working to repair the damaged buildings.
I really didn’t listen to the conversation much, but from what little I gathered, it was Londor not being sure that both were really dead.
“Trev, could you quickly pull the two Galvonson out for us?” Hari asked, looking over at me and drawing my focus back to what was happening.
“Oh, yes, uh, right here?” I asked, looking around. The town centre was fairly large, but I really didn’t know if it would be big enough to hold both Galvonson. Shrugging, I withdrew both, leaving the head in storage, figuring we didn’t need that as well.
The appearance of two massive beasts in the centre of town clearly startled a group of villagers. I heard more than one scream from the other side of the bodies.
Londor’s own eyes were wide as could be. “Thanks, Trev. You can put them away now; no need to scare the villagers even more than we already have,” Hari said.
“Now that you’ve seen both are dead, we’ll be taking these back to the adventurer’s guild in Boltron, but if you have people arrive, the nest will still need to be checked, just in case the young Galvonson are old enough to fend for themselves,” Hari stated.
Troy seemed to feel that was good enough before he cut in.
“Right, we need to get back on the road. We wish you all the best,” Troy said before turning away and heading to the wagons. Saddie gave a small bow, and Hari finished up the conversation quickly.
A few minutes later, we were all packed up on our horses. Crisplet appeared to be on Jen’s shoulder. I didn’t know how that was going to work, but I guessed I would see.
Then, for the second time, we left the village, heading down the mountain path toward Boltron.
Not having the overloaded wagons or the villagers on foot, we reached the site of the battle pretty quickly, and it looked far worse in the light of day. There were large gouges in the rock face, and you could see on either side of the road where Milo had repaired huge rends in the ground. What was most sobering, however, was the blood.
I was so quick to forget that we lost someone in that fight. I never knew the man’s name, seeing the blood on the stone was a sobering realisation of the dangers I would face—and that these adventurers face every day.
“What happened to the man?” I asked, looking at the blood as we passed it.
“He was taken back to the village for them to perform their burial rites,” Jen said sombrely. The conversation didn’t go any further than that.
It wasn’t until early afternoon that we stopped for lunch. Troy was about to pull out some salted pork when I spoke up.
“Oh, I still have that roast boar if you’d like that instead?” I asked, looking at the others as well. Seeing everyone nodding in agreement, Troy just laughed.
“Don’t need to tell me twice not to use my own supply,” he said, putting the barrel back in its place on the wagon.
“I’m going to miss having a cook when this is all over,” Troy said, helping himself to some boar. The others all came up and helped themselves as well. I had also pulled out a roll for everyone, and since I had gotten them fresh from the bakery, they were still warm, making them absolutely perfect.
Most of the boar was finished, so I left the carcass just off the side of the road. I didn’t expect the cat to take it, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping some creatures would eat it and go fight.
It was late afternoon when we saw movement on the road ahead of us. The group seemed a little on edge, with Hari having his shield out, and the rest of us holding our weapons. Even Crisplet had gone into Jen’s pocket.
But before long, a group of riders—six in total—approached on horseback, stopping a short distance away.
“Hello, travellers,” one of the riders called out.
“Hello,” Hari answered tersely.
“Is the village still standing? A villager reached us and said they were under attack, so we were dispatched to save those left behind,” the man said, seemingly unconcerned about Hari’s abrupt answer. This, however, seemed to shift the mood entirely.
“Oh? From the adventurer’s guild?” Hari asked.
“Yes, sir, we rode here as fast as we could from Boltron. The man said they were under attack from a Galvonson. Didn’t have any proof, though, so we figured we’d investigate and rescue the villagers if required,” the man stated calmly.
“Ah, well, yes, they’re still standing, and yes, they were under attack. However, it has mostly been dealt with now. The Galvonsons are dead. A group will need to find their nest and clear it at some point... Kevin, is that you?” Hari explained. Everyone seemed to relax, putting their weapons away, when Hari recognised the man.
“Do we know each other?” Kevin asked, momentarily distracted from the initial conversation.
Hari chuckled, which broke the tense mood almost immediately.
“It’s been so long, I barely recognised you. For everyone else, I believe introductions are in order. We are The Polite Company. My name is Hari, leader of the group. When we travelled through, the village was actively being attacked by the Galvonsons, who made their nest in the mountains above,” Hari explained.
“Hari... Hari... Hari! Oh, now I remember! Wow, it’s been ages since that job. For everyone else, my name’s Kevin, and this is my group, The Starhops.” The others waved.
At this point, any lingering tension between the two groups had evaporated as everyone sheathed their weapons.
“You said you killed two Galvonsons? Two of them?” Kevin asked, bringing the conversation back to the task at hand.
“Yes, Trev, do you mind pulling the head out for me?” Hari called back to me.
I was about to pull it straight out, but then I remembered the size. I wasn’t sure I could lift it while staying on Sable, so I dismounted and pulled out the head. Honestly, it was a good thing I did—its size was larger than my torso, its beak still open as if mid-attack when it was killed in a blink.
“Well, shit,” Kevin muttered, staring at the head. “There were multiples of that size?” he asked, his gaze flicking back to Hari. I noticed the shocked expressions on the faces of the other members of Kevin’s party.
“Two of them,” Hari confirmed. “We believe they were a mated pair,” he continued, as I placed the head back in storage.
“And the village? Does it still stand?” Kevin asked.
“Barely,” Hari said. “The buildings suffered heavy damage, and there were some lost villagers, but those that survived are still there and were rebuilding when we left,” he explained.
There was a long pause before Kevin seemed to decide. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll head back to Boltron with you. We are not equipped to track through the mountains to find the nest,” he said, looking to his companions for reassurance, receiving nods from several of them.
“Fine by me,” Hari said. “We’ll be travelling another hour before stopping for the night. You’re welcome to follow.”
Shortly after, we started moving again, with Jen, Liane, and me heading to the back of the wagons, while Hari, Milo, and the new group stayed at the front. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself; this now looked like one of the most guarded caravans I could ever imagine.