240: Healing

I might have been a little hasty with my desire to cook right away. When I reached downstairs, I saw the innkeeper Bardo serving a stew and bread to the merchants and drivers, who all gave me and Liane a nod as we entered.

I didn’t even get to ask Bardo for permission however, before Crisplet charged on ahead and went into the kitchen.

“Sorry.” I muttered to Bardo,

He just laughed it off, waving me in.

I muttered a “thank you.” As I followed Crisplet inside.

The room was nothing special, there was a central table, a stone oven and grill on the side, with a water rune and drain on the opposite side, clearly storage was at a premium though, as nearly every surface was being used outside of the central table.

Crisplet had already gone into the fire, but I ran into a problem.

If I wanted to do the voidscale hare, there would be no chance I could comfortably butcher it in here, but before I worried about that, I needed to plan what I was going to do to help heal the villagers.

I needed a strong regeneration, which was fairly simple to get. I’d use ground blood owl beak, blood tears, and virfolium. I would also make a soup, as that tended to be the easiest thing for a sick person to eat.

And just to cover all my bases I would use stock reduction on one of the leaf bladed spiders I’ve not cooked and that will provide minor poison resistance, truthfully I wasn’t sure if the poison resistance helped I’m sure Liane might make a comment about me using it here, but she’ll just have to deal with it, sick people came first.

I got the spider out of the way first, pulling one from my storage and using my stock reduction ability on it, watching the sickly green orb form.

“Hey, that was…” Liane started.

“You saw nothing!” I cut her off with a laugh.

The soup itself, I didn’t want to go too crazy on stats. I had no idea who would be eating this, so I needed to make sure I focused on regeneration and didn’t go overboard with the rest.

I pulled out two blood owls; these had been in my storage for what felt like forever now, but they would be a great base. Rather than make a chicken and corn soup, I would make a blood owl and corn soup.

First, I would need to clean the birds, leaving a lot of meat on the bones. I separated the blood owl’s breast to use later. I roughly chopped up some onion, carrots, and celery to start my stock with.

Once they were soft, I added the carcasses of the blood owls to the pot and covered it in water, putting that next to the fire to boil while I got to work on my next item.

Deciding there was not enough room in the kitchen itself for what I needed to do, I had an idea.

“Crisplet, I’m just going to step outside and skin the voidscale hares, okay?” I said, getting a burst of sparks.

I knew Liane would follow me, although it was only just then that I remembered about that feeling of being watched today, and felt it best to let someone know before I went outside to start work.

“Liane, before we go out front though, I need to quickly talk to Milo.” I said.

“I’ll wait here,” she waved it off.

But I couldn’t help but hesitate, “I’d prefer you didn’t; this is important.”

She had a small frown before getting up, however, I immediately felt confusion and concern from Crisplet, stopping me in my steps.

I needed to tell Crisplet too, or he’d be upset with me.

“Liane, any chance you could bring Milo here? Crisplet should hear it as well,” I asked.

“What is this about, Trev?” Liane looked serious.

“Uh, I can’t say without a sound dampener, I don’t think. It’s probably nothing, but it’s something I just remembered and need to tell you guys.”

I tried my best to play it off casually and not cause a scene. For all I knew, it was nothing at all, but with everything that has happened since leaving Dunhearth the first time, I knew things rarely ended up being nothing.

“Fine, I’ll get him.” Liane said, heading out of the kitchen.

I felt worry and concern from Crisplet again.

“It’s fine, I’m sure Crisplet, just being overly cautious is all.” I tried to reassure him.

While I waited for Milo, I was adjusting the knife to what I felt would help best with the voidscale hares. The scales didn’t seem overly thick, so cutting through wouldn’t be difficult, but it looked good, so saving the hide was a must.

I felt like it would be more in line with a lizard than a rabbit, so I went with an extremely thin and sharp edge, which would help me cut the fibrous connection between the hide and the meat.

I was interrupted by Liane, Milo, and even Hari, all entering.

I felt the air mana immediately spread past me before Milo had even said anything,

“Spit it out, Trev, what did you do?” Liane said with a grin.

“No, it’s nothing like that. It was, well, it’s probably nothing.” I began.

Milo let out a laugh, “So probably something really important then?”

I carried on pretending not to hear it; Hari being here as well just made me more nervous now. “When the fight with the quill beasts finished, and I was collecting the carcasses, it felt like I was being watched.” I explained.

I immediately felt silly as I said it, like I was wasting their time, especially with the frowns on Milo’s and Hari’s faces.

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“When you felt it, from which direction, and what did it feel like?” Milo asked seriously.

“Uh, the right side of the wagons towards the hills and, hard to say, like a prickling sensation on the back of my neck.” I said.

There was a look exchanged between Milo and Hari.

“Well, it’s concerning based on what we know, and more concerning that you’ve waited until now to tell us; however, there really doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. Jen’s perception is by far the highest, and she didn’t mention seeing anything,” Hari said.

Which surprised me, as I expected him to want to shut me away again.

“You don’t think the quill attack was related to it, do you?” Liane asked from the side.

“Hard to say, though I doubt it. They usually can’t be provoked and directed like that, but I’ll try to talk to some villagers and get some more information.” Hari commented.

“I don’t mean to rush you out, but I have lots of cooking to do, so I’m going to head outside to butcher one of these voidscale hares.” I said, feeling better about telling them.

Hari frowned again, and I was dreading the next words to follow, but he surprised me.

“You’re not serving the villagers something you’ve not made before, are you?”

“No, I’m making the hares for us, and a regeneration bird and corn soup for the villagers. If everything is alright though, I’m going to get back to cooking.” I explained,

Seeing a nod from Milo, I decided it was good enough and left the kitchen with Liane following closely behind.