EZMode !iIyIHD.1G6 2010/06/15 (Tue) 21:41 No. 38949 [x] "There... there have to have been cookbooks in that library, right? I could draw on that. Maybe."
- [x] ... besides, how hard can it be? Between you and Patchouli, you should be able to come up with something if you work together!
“This might be a bit of a stretch, but you wouldn't have had some kind of... I don't know, cooking manuals in your library, did you?” you ask off-handedly, trying to think of a solution to get through this situation.
“Cooking manuals? You mean, cookbooks?” Patchouli asks, sounding just as confused over your wording as you were to put it like that, “not that I know of. There were a lot of books in the library that weren't magical, story books and such, some from other worlds, but if they didn't have anything to do with magic, I didn't pay much attention to them.”
“Right...” you sigh, trying to refrain from sounding defeated, “you wouldn't happen to remember anything that might be a cookbook? Or where I could find it?” Patchouli shakes her head.
“If anyone would know, it would be Koakuma. She handled mot of the organization after I summoned her, and I admit my own memory of the libraries organization has slipped a bit since, given that I no longer actively maintained the books entirely on my own,” Patchouli replies, “I spent most of my time researching or taking care of the books. Koakuma was the one that sorted and shelved them.” Koakuma again, seems like she'd be able to get you out of this mess right quick if she were around. You find yourself considering going back to wake her up, but quickly dismiss the idea. You're a devil, damn it. Sure, you're now relegated to a non-combat servant position, and need help, but you're still way too proud to go ask help over something as trivial as this.
“Fine then,” you say, cracking your knuckles, “I suppose I'll just have to make this work.” Patchouli gives you a slightly doubtful look as you stride into the kitchen with newfound purpose. You make it a whole five steps before you stop in your tracks, looking around the room. You don't even know what you need, let alone where it's kept. You know the large storage room located off the back of the kitchen, where Cottonsky kept her snack earlier. You could find something in there, no doubt, but given the look of this kitchen, unless they have a spit and a fire pit, you're out of your element. You walk over to one set of cupboards and pull them open. Plates, not needed. You move onto the next, glasses and cups. Nope. You spot some drawers in the counters, and start searching through them next. Various implements of some sort, varieties of tongs and some more tongs, and what is that thing even supposed to be? Some kind of stand? Move onto another drawer, knives and forks. This is looking right. You pick out a fairly decent sized knife, setting it on the counter, just in case you need to cut... whatever you find to cook. You move onto larger drawers, and find pots and pans. There, you could use a frying pan, so you grab one and set it on the counter as well. With what implements you think you'd need gathered, you turn back to see Patchouli watching you with a mix of amusement and curiosity.
“You got something in mind?” she asks.
“Nope, I'm going by what feels right, and I'm feeling that this will be handy,” you admit, puffed up with pride despite having absolutely no history with cooking anything other than whole animals on spits for a unit of devil soldiers.
“Well, you should at least light up the stove,” Patchouli says, gesturing to a large object across the kitchen. You hadn't really recognized it as such, given that it looks much different than any stove you've seen. Then again, you do remember Sakuya milling around over on this side of the room when you came to eat, but at those times you had your attention elsewhere. You head over to check out the stove, despite appearances, it's another wood burning one, just much, much wider. Now, all you need is something to cook. Your eyes wander to the door leading to the storage room, and then over to Patchouli. You wave her to you.
“Come on, let's both go find something. You'd be more familiar with this stuff than I am, I'm sure,” you say, and Patchouli makes her way over to the door as you open it, allowing her in. Once inside, the both of you wander around a bit, lost all over again, until Patchouli spots something.
“Ah, this would be good,” she says, picking up a large wad of meat partially wrapped in what looked like paper, “bacon.”
“It looks too big for the pan,” you say, wondering how much of it you would have to cut down.
“Well of course, this is a lot of bacon, we only need a few slices off of it,” Patchouli says plainly. You continue looking around, and this time you spot something you know.
“Ah, bread,” you call out, reaching to pick up a half a loaf sitting among other whole loaves. You don't even know if it could have any use beyond simply eating it straight, but no doubt you could combine bacon and bread for some kind of sandwich. In the meantime, Patchouli seems to have been inspired, and is gathering up other items into a basket. You take a glance, and see that alongside the bacon, she seems to be gathering eggs, as well as another large piece of meat. “What have you got there?” you ask.
“Eggs and ham,” Patchouli says, stepping back with the basket, “I think these should be easy enough for us to cook. Even I can make eggs, and ham... I don't think it needs to be cooked in the first place, actually.”
“Convenient,” you say, looking down at the bread in your hand. What a help you've been. You wave the loaf nonchalantly, “I got bread.” The two of you leave the storage afterwards, after you've taken the basket from Patchouli, and carry it all out to the kitchen, setting it out on the counter.
“Still need to light up the stove,” Patchouli reminds you, and you abandon the ingredients to tend to the stove. There's a small stash of wood kept underneath the thing, and you grab a few pieces and toss it into the open stove. Once you've got what looks like enough wood, you stick your hand in, place it on one of the pieces on the bottom, and a short moment later, a burning handprint ignites on the surface of the wood, and you withdraw your hand just as Patchouli walks over. “Oh, you didn't need matches?” she asks, sounding a bit confused.
“Matches?” you ask, turning to look at her, and noticing the box in her hand, the same things the fairies were using earlier to light candles. “Oh, no, I can create small fires on a whim, a handy thing when you need light fast, and useful for fighting.”
“Do you have some kind of control over fire?” Patchouli asks, her confusion giving way for curiosity. You shake your head.
“Not that I know of. I know a few small magical tricks, useful things for downtime when I had to solve problems without open violence, since it would start another battle,” you state.
“So you do know magic other than the Sigil system?” Patchouli proceeds to ask. It suddenly occurs to you that it might be a bad thing to be using some kind of magic that doesn't fall within the rules you've learned so far.
“Is that a problem?” you ask. Patchouli shakes her head.
“Oh no, I'm just surprised. I didn't think you had any prior magical talent,” Patchouli comments, “but now I'm curious as to what system you use.”
“System?” you ask, but you realize she probably means some specific form of magic, like the Sigils. “I don't even know, really. They're little things that a lot of devils learn for their utility. Creating fire, suggestions, telekinesis, mind affecting. Depending on what that particular devil does with their life depends on what and how much they know.” Patchouli seems rather attentive to your explanation, taking it all in.
“Interesting, interesting,” she says, nodding slightly. She starts patting down her robes, searching for something, but gives up quickly. “Shoot, I don't have any paper or anything on me. I actually just realized I should probably take notes for my own benefit.”
“Notes on what?” you ask, looking back to the stove, noting that the fire is catching to other wood now, and close the hatch. “Devils?”
“Your magic, more specifically,” Patchouli answers, “when I first summoned Koakuma, it was obvious quickly afterwards that she was a regular magic user, but she didn't use any identifiable system I'm familiar with.” After a moment, Patchouli places a hand on her stomach. “Though, I think that can wait until after breakfast.”
“Yeah,” you follow, walking back to the counter and looking over everything. Patchouli opens one of the drawers you went through earlier and takes out some flat implement, looks like some kind of small shovel-like object. You turn your attention to the meats, the easiest things. You take up the knife, and start wondering just how much you should be cutting. You take to the bacon first, slipping the knife through the meat easily. Patchouli notices, and speaks up.
“Ah, you're going to want to cut it thinner then that,” she says, looking at the hunk you've sliced off, almost as wide as your hand, “actually, you should slice that chunk down a bit.” You look back at the meat in your hand, and then take another slide at it, this time shaving off a slice about half the width of a finger.
“Like this?” you ask, holding it up. Patchouli looks a little worried.
“It's usually smaller then that, can you cut it any thinner?” she asks, and you shake your head.
“This is pretty much all I can manage,” you say. Patchouli shrugs too, and you place the slice aside, and cut more slices from the hunk of meat. Afterwards, you move onto the ham, and start to try to cut off a thin slice of that too, despite it's size, when Patchouli stops you.
“This can be cut a bit thicker,” she says, watching you. You move the knife out to about a fingers width, and Patchouli makes an agreeable sound, and you slice into it. The result is a little uneven, getting wider in the middle, and tapering off to a thin edge when you reach the other side. This doesn't seemt o be a problem though, and you go to cut a second slice in the same way. The second one is thinner in the middle, and thick at both ends. Clearly, there is some kind of trick to cutting an even slice of this ham. With the size of the individual slices though, it seems that only two would be needed. Patchouli's gathered up a second frying pan as well, and has cracked the eggs into it, carrying them over to the stove as you move the bacon. It's smaller and thinner slices than the ham, you figure they'll cook quickly. You set your respective pans down on the hot surface at the same time and step back.
“How long will these take to cook?” you ask.
“I don't know...” Patchouli responds, looking over at you. Now both of you are a little worried. Granted you'll probably know when they're burning, but by that point it would probably be a little too late. All you can do is stand by and wait. Patchouli busies herself rewrapping the bacon and ham, then carries them back to the storage room. She comes back, and once again is left with nothing to do.
“So, when do we know these are ready?” you ask.
“Well, when it's done, bacon is brown and a little crunchy and chewy. Eggs get a little spongy, but the yolk is still liquid,” Patchouli says, “I don't know how long that takes though, I think less than ten minutes.” Silence falls again, and you note the rising sound of the bacon in the pan, as a grease begins to form and spit.
“This doesn't seem too hard,” you say, looking over at Patchouli, “seems pretty simple after all.”
“I haven't cooked for myself in... ever, I think,” Patchouli says, looking a little embarrassed, “if I did, I don't remember. I just remember someone calling me to breakfast, and there'd always be something ready. It was random maids before Sakuya, and after Sakuya, it was the woman herself. Once I summoned Koakuma, she started bringing me breakfast, so I wouldn't have to leave the library, and I could make efficient use of the time I spent eating.” Patchouli pauses for a moment, then chuckles a bit, “though, I did tend to make a bit more of a mess of my notes and books when I ate.”
“At least you had exposure to all this,” you say, “I mean, I know about these things, various things that humans and, well, I guess youkai too, eat. General knowledge things though, since my diet mostly consisted of spit-roasted beasts, whatever we caught. Every so often, when my unit was on capture duty to take down a ruler that opposed my Warlord, we'd find our opponent was some fat Glutton, and it was hardly much of a fight. An entire staff of devils trained to wield knives can't hope to stand against an army of devils trained to wield swords, especially when their training consisted of cutting meat of already dead creatures.” You pause for a moment, realizing you're reminiscing already about a life you may not return to for you don't know how many years. “I always thought such things were pointless, putting so much attention on food. It frustrated me and the men to attack such a place. The cooks would usually just surrender, and we were usually under orders to not slaughter prisoners. We wouldn't get anything more than a few prideful cooks trying to take us on with decorative and weak weapons. What armed guards there were hardly put up a satisfying fight. It made everyone agitated to have to leave without a good fight, but it always made the next real fight that much more violent.”
“Your realm sounds like quite a troubled place,” Patchouli says after a few moments of silence, “all this warring and violence, I couldn't imagine living in such a place.”
“I wouldn't say it's that bad,” you lie, “it's part of our nature, to lie and fight and tempt others all for personal gain.” You cast a glance at Patchouli. “Of course, once under contract, we have no choice but to oblige, treat our contractor as if they were our most respected Lord and Master.”
“Out of pride, right?” Patchouli asks. You nod.
“Right, because among devils, we all value reputation as much as we value strength, or wealth. We could never dream of doing something that would damage our reputation, like break a contract, or outwardly defy standing laws. Finding ways to circumvent them, however,” you pause, deciding afterwards to leave it at that.
“I do hope you're not planning on trying to find a loophole in your contract,” Patchouli quips, with a slight smirk.
“Of course not,” you hastily respond, “contracts are absolute. Laws, they're more like guidelines.” Patchouli smirks wider, and looks back at the pans. She steps up with the flat thing and prods at the eggs, then looks over at the bacon.
“I think these are close to done,” Patchouli says. You prod at the bacon yourself, using the knife, flipping it over in the pan. The other side is a nice brown, and you start to understand how it should look when it's cooked. A few more minutes of near quiet, with the hissing of the bacon making the most noise. Patchouli gets some plates, and then scrapes the eggs onto them carefully. You do the same with the bacon, shaking what excess grease is on them off as best as you can, dividing it between the two plates. Even though it hasn't been cooked, both of you take a slice of ham as well, and Patchouli leads you to the table, where you join with the half of bread. Patchouli wastes no time in getting to her food, and you join not too long after. Not too bad.
“How is it?” you ask, hoping to get a bit of insight into exactly what kind of quality the resulting meal is.
“Bacon is a little overcooked and greasy, the eggs are fine, I think. Ham is cold, but it's alright,” she says between bites. “I am thankful that you made an effort to cook, even though neither of us really knew what to do.”
“It's the least I could do,” you say with a grin.
“Of course, I expect you to learn your way around the kitchen in earnest, so that I don't have to rely on Koakuma entirely for future meals,” Patchouli remarks, and you chuckle a bit. You can't really argue, though, if it's what Patchouli wants out of you. If your only duties to fulfill for her are the occasional magical nap and cooking, you're not going to complain. The two of you continue eating in silence, with Patchouli finishing her breakfast first. Afterwards, you take care of the clean up, placing the dishes in the sinks you remember seeing from the day before.
“That was an experience,” you say, returning to the table as Patchouli gets up.
“Indeed,” she replies, brushing aside some stray hair, “now all I have left to do is figure out what to do with the next 15 hours of my day,” she complains. You don't really know what you have to do until everyone else starts to wake up either, since you were hoping to get some direction from Sakuya or something.
[] Spend some more time with Patchouli for now.
-[] (Optional specific goals)
[] Find something to do on your own.
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I started writing this update under the impression it would be fairly short.
