186: Planning
Entering the kitchen, I really didn’t want to make anything complicated, especially since I had spent the last few hours cutting and hanging meat. As I looked through my storage, I pulled out five rolls, along with a piece of Baelvryn I had left over from today. Pulling out the chopping board, I put my finger to the rune and channelled my mana, watching as it turned bright white.
Next, I cut the steaks all thin so I could make this into a steak roll.
I also pulled out two onions, cutting them in half with the new knife. I nearly cut my finger, realising that all the muscle memory I had cutting these vegetables was now gone. I pulled out my old knife instead and finely sliced them up.
I added going back to basics with the new knife to my mental checklist of things I needed to do.
For the onions, I heated a pan with a small amount of butter before putting in all the sliced onions and adding a small amount of seasoning.
Inspired by a meal I had seen at the markets, I pulled out the Buvul cheese I had purchased. For this, I used the new knife, since trying to cut the cheese with the old one, the knife had struggled to cleanly slice through. The new knife, however, was absolutely no problem at all; it sliced through the cheese as if I were cutting soft butter.
Next, I looked at what greens I could add to the sandwich. At the market stall, they had a leafy green plant. I didn’t have that, but what I could use instead was what I landed on: virfolium leaves. They had a slightly peppery taste to them, and it was one of the few fresh greens I had.
I continued to slowly cook the onions until they were soft, golden brown, and caramelised.
Once they were close, I transferred them out of the pan, adding some buvul fat to it. I then toasted the inside of each roll, giving them a nice golden crunch. Then finally, with everything else ready, I cooked the steaks, which only took a minute, just getting them a nice sear on each side, before adding a layer of the caramelised onions, followed by the steak, a slice of cheese, and then the virfolium leaves.
In the end, I only infused the onions and the steak, even then only doing it for Lily, as I suspected the cheese stopped me from infusing the whole steak sandwich.
Heading into the dining room, we joined Milo, who had gone back to studying, placing a sandwich in front of him, and Lily was inspecting her two on the plate.
“You know what this needs.” Liane said, having just taken her first bite.
“Garlic grass sauce, it’s what they use on the street stalls; it really pulls everything together. I’m really surprised the leaves work as well as they do, though,” she added.
Taking a bite myself, I had to agree it was missing something.
“You’re probably right, but I’ve never tried it before,” I said.
I wondered if the cookbook would have a sauce like that, and pulling it out, Liane just chuckled.
“I’d be very surprised if you found it in there,” she said.
Looking up, I was confused why. There were lots of sauces in here; it’s where I learned about the jus after all.
Shaking her head, Liane said, “There is often a disconnect between nobility and the general population, especially when you’re talking about street food, and you often won’t find that stuff in noble houses. They consider it cheap.”
I shook my head. That sounded stupid. If it tasted good, who cares where it came from.
“It’s similar to the meetings you’ve done, Trev. Appearance is everything. A noble house cannot appear to be eating cheap food; they’ll be judged as being poor,” Milo said.
“That’s stupid. I’m not going to eat only expensive food if something cheap tastes better,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yeah, but you’re hardly a normal noble, even if you have the name, and I doubt anyone will call you poor in fear of Lily cutting them down,” Liane laughed.
“It didn’t stop House Valrith confronting me,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, they just believe themselves above the rules, and suspected there would be no fallout they couldn’t control from it,” Milo said.
“Really stupid if you ask me. What if Lily was there?” Liane said with her mouth full.
“Then we’d be one house shorter,” Milo chuckled.
Lily was watching us as we spoke, so I quickly added, “No need to deal with it Lily, this one we’ll handle.”
There was a knock at the door as Archie appeared in the doorway. “Sir, you have a delivery of goods from House Fellwood.”
I practically launched out of my chair. This was going to be a lot of bulk goods, but also something I could work on right away if it arrived.
I quickly followed Archie out of the room, noticing Lily quickly stole the rest of my sandwich as I left, making my way out front where I saw a carriage followed by three wagons, all stacked high with boxes.
I was surprised to see Reginald here in person to deliver it.
“Hello, Lord Ashmoon, I figured I would personally accompany the first delivery to ensure its safe delivery, and not just as an excuse to visit you again,” he said with a coy smile.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“This tree is remarkable; the closer I look at it, the finer the details I notice,” he said, turning around.
Crisplet just let out a burst of sparks in response.
“Thanks! Crisplet has been working really hard on it, but I don’t think it’s finished yet, so I’m waiting till it’s done before Crisplet can show me it all,” I said, watching the leaves burn as sparks softly rained down.
“It’s permanent?” Reginald asked, turning around.
Even I wasn’t sure of this, but looking down at Crisplet, he let off a burst of sparks.
“Amazing,” Reginald muttered before something caught his eye.
“Is that the Phoenix?” he asked, pointing to Alira sitting on the lower branch.
Crisplet let off another burst of sparks, but before our eyes a giant wall of ash came up between us and the tree, obscuring our vision.
I laughed. “I think we should wait until he’s done before inspecting it too closely.”
“Right you are. Well, the goods, let me show you. Some of the items I took directly to the cafe; however, these I’ve been instructed are for you. First off, we have five large barrels of sugar. Those two other wagons behind are just salt, but the good stuff,” Reginald said, approaching a bunch of stacked crates.
“In these crates we have bundles of lemon tea grass, picked fresh as requested. It caused quite the stir at the adventurers guild when the job board was flooded with requests for these, and it was collected from all over the countryside, but additionally, and I’m happy to pursue it if you’d like, we had several farmers come forward saying if we require it, they could plant and harvest this rather quickly for us,” Reginald explained.
I just looked at Milo, who was standing behind us now, getting a nod.
“Let’s do it!” I said happily.
A giant smile came across Reginald’s face. “The farmers will be thrilled about that, this is a very easy crop to grow and can be grown in all conditions except snow.”
He moved onto the next crate. “Now, we could only secure a couple of crates of the other herbs. It seems the Alchemist guild has been making moves to secure as much stock as they can buy, but some people will sell to anyone except them for personal reasons, so we have a couple of crates of virfolium, but the exciting ones are these two.”
I shuffled the crates around, pulling forward the first one with a white paint mark on it.
“A whole crate of fresh mana tears, surprisingly the alchemist guild had not purchased it all yet, so we managed to get everything the guild had to offer, both here and in the local area. We also got this one…” he said with a giant smile, pulling a much smaller crate forward.
Opening the top, I let out a gasp.
“Mana truffles,” Reginald said proudly.
“You got so many!” I said excitedly, picking one up and inspecting it.
“These are always sought after in the noble houses, but never in bulk, so several merchants were happy to release some of their stock they had been holding onto for a long time,” Reginald explained.
“Thank you so much, this is perfect,” I said, already reaching out and starting to store everything away, crate and all.
Reginald just raised an eyebrow at me.
“That’s quite the storage ability you have,” he commented.
“It’s very useful,” I grinned, now storing whole barrels.
Reginald only stuck around briefly, discussing the rest of the delivery with Milo.
“Trevor, if I may make a suggestion, it might be useful for you to set up a storage room so you’ll be able to have people just drop it off and when you have a spare moment you can drop by and store it all, but for now I will leave you to it. I look forward to seeing you at the dinner,” Reginald said.
Climbing back into his carriage and waving as he rolled away, with the empty wagons following.
“Now you just need to dry it all and get it to Micca for the opening day,” Liane said.
“When word gets out every cup of tea is providing a speed buff, the alchemist guild is going to lose their minds, but we should probably alert the royal house before we do it, as I expect there might be some retaliation,” Milo added.
“I’ll be there for the first day, and Lily and Sylverith will be there too,” I said.
“Yeah, but it won’t be the first day they do something, since the royals will probably attend as well if you’re there. No, it’ll be the week after,” Liane said.
“Which reminds me, we need to prepare you for your dinner, so come inside when you’re done out here and let’s discuss the plan,” Milo said, walking back up towards the door.
Looking back, I saw Crisplet already heading towards the tree, so my plan of trying to work out how to push my mana better with Crisplet wouldn’t work, but looking at Lily, I wondered if I could practise with her?
Sitting on the stairs leading up to the door, I gave it a try, reaching out my mana in the same way I do with Crisplet towards Lily. I tried to push across more than just a raw emotion, this time attempting to push across a question.
Lily looked at me from where she was lying. I felt nothing in return, only getting a sigh before she vanished, appearing under the tree.
Liane laughed. “What did you do? She just huffed at you and left.”
“Uh, I tried to reach out with my mana like I do with Crisplet?” I looked confused.
Liane was still chuckling. “It’s easy to forget how dangerous she is when she acts like a regular cat.”
Letting out a sigh myself, I went back inside, making my way to the dining room. I was over the politics, and the sooner this dinner was done and we could leave the capital, the better.
Entering the door, I was surprised to see Hari, Milo, and Archie waiting in there.
“Perfect, come, Trev, take a seat,” Milo said.
“First things first, we need to decide who is going with you to this dinner,” Milo said.
I didn’t have to think about this at all. “Liane,” I said simply.
“Are you sure?” Milo asked.
Liane came up behind me. “Don’t worry, I’ll not start a war, but no one will mess with Trev either.”
“I’m sure,” I added.
“Right, that’s easy enough then, now clothes, wha…” Milo started.
“I’ll wear the suit I had made.” Again, I knew I should wear the phoenix outfit, but I wasn’t about to change it now and fall in line. I represent Crisplet, Lily, and Sylverith, not Alira, so my mind wouldn’t be changed on that.
“Do you think the tailor could make me a matching outfit before the night?” Liane asked, looking at Archie.
“Uh, I can definitely ask, miss,” Archie said with a bow.
“Please do,” she said.
I heard Milo let out a sigh, and couldn’t help but notice the smile on Hari’s face that he was trying to hide.
“Honestly, it’s better Trev does his own thing,” Liane said.
“I actually agree. We can’t fall in line here, then expect a pass when we don’t follow rules or protocol elsewhere. Right now, Trev is an absolute wildcard that no one wants to piss off, well, except the alchemist guild, so own it,” Hari said.
This surprised me; seeing Hari being rebellious was unusual, and it was something I expected from Liane or maybe Jen, but not him. Yet, when it came to nobles, he really seemed happy to watch me shake the system.
With that decided, Milo moved on.
“I expected all this to take longer to work out, but let’s discuss what to do if you’re confronted at the dinner, or someone tries to coerce you…” Milo began