The village of Bothernot hadn't changed much in the centuries since it had been founded. It lay sheltered by the surrounding hills, surrounded by fields and farms and forest at the fringes. Most of its structures were halven houses, of living sod over wood that melded into the landscape. The exceptions were the shops in the village square, and the old stone church that overlooked it all, the only stone structure in the whole village.

The church was more or less the town center. It had been here before the halvens had. They'd found it an old ruin, cleaned it up and cleared it out, and decreed it a church to Old Koss. Old Koss was the patron deity of farmers and the simple life, and it was the favorite place for the oldest members of the community to hang about on quiet days (which were every day, really,) and complain about young people. About how skills made everything so easy these days. And jobs were just asking for trouble!

They weren't talking about regular skills, and regular jobs, when they said these things. They were talking about the changeover. The old folks who sat at the church and complained about society were old enough to remember a time before everyone had status screens, a time before people could “unlock” jobs, and become knights or wizards or terribly exciting things just by accepting the devil's bargain that the mysterious words offered.

Jobs gave skills, which were tricks that let their users bend reality. The more they got used, the more they could do. And then there were levels, which gave the job user more power and more skills that could do bigger things... it was a horrible path that led to that most un-halvenly sin of excitement and worse yet, drama.

Fortunately, in the land of Laraggiungere, which Bothernot nestled in like a ripe grape on a twisting vine, concerned parties had sorted that out long ago. Now there were rules, and penalties, and people with very big armies to make sure that nobody got any funny ideas.

Of course, pragmatism being what it was, they couldn't entirely forbid jobs. Some of the skills were just too useful.

Which was why Chase found herself in the back of the church kitchen, standing before a table groaning under the weight of dough. Behind her sat a table full of walnuts, and to her left squatted a table heaped with bowls of eggs. Just to her right, sealing off any avenue of retreat, stood a table stacked with jars of honey.

Trapped between the tables, trapped in Bothernot, trapped with an errand she couldn't escape.

The story of my life, Chase glared at the sheets of dough as if they were bricks in a prison's wall.

“Are you going to get started, here?” A nasal voice whined from beyond the tables.

Chase glanced over at Millie Wheadle. Even for a halven, the child was short. Her red hair stuck out from under its bonnet like unruly weeds, almost obscuring her eyes with heavy bangs. Chase had a full head on the diminutive girl, who was sitting, drumming her knuckles on the back door of the church.

Then Chase sighed. “You could come and help me with this.”

Millie grinned wide. “Nah. My job is to carry the cakes to Mother Bloom. That's the deal.”

“Maybe we can make a deal?” Chase offered. “I found a way to give people more intelligence...”

“I don't need any of that. If I get too smart Donny Larkpie won't fall in love with me and marry me and then I can't settle down and have ten babies.”

Chase stared. “Does Donny know about this plan?”

“Not yet.” She grinned. “I'm as smart as I need to be. Don't need any more brains.”

Chase felt her ears pull back. That attitude summed up so much of Bothernot, and encapsulated just why she had to get the hells out of this place. But that was a matter for another day. For now...

Chase grimaced, and looked over to the stone oven set into the wall, well away from the tables. Precisely ten feet away from her spot in the center of them, as a matter of fact.

No, there was no way around it. Chase was going to have to work.

Nonetheless, Chase studied Millie one last time, setting her mind to clicking along the lines this could go. The only way she could handle this task and make her appointment on time was with help.

While she thought, she put her hands to the dough, and started her task.

Fifty years ago, everyone cooked the same way. They mixed ingredients together, put them into an oven, or some other appliance that administered heat, and waited for an appropriate amount of time.

Chase had never known this method.

With her mother's insistence, she had been forced down a different path. Given a bowl of salad and a fork, she had been told to mix it until the proper words appeared. They had, she had accepted their offering, as her parents insisted, and now Chase was a Cook, with a capital “C”.

So when Chase put her hands on the dough, and envisioned what she wanted, two things happened.

One was that a brownish sort of hollow rectangle appeared in front of her, and slowly filled up, left-to-right, with solid gold color.

The other was that the ingredients required to finish the recipe disappeared from the tables around the young halven, popping into one of the dough sheets, and expanding it upward and outward. From ten feet away the oven crackled, releasing a glorious smell of walnut pastry even though the dough was nowhere near the fire.

The entire process took thirty seconds from end to end. When it finished, she opened her hands to catch a round, plate-sized brown cake, hot and fresh-baked and smelling of earthy goodness. It was called dinoche, and it was a special treat that the villagers only got at the harvest fest. The walnuts that made up the bulk of the stuff just couldn't be found in sufficient quantities for everyone to get some outside of a few days in fall.

The first pastry was done... but Chase wasn't.

With a sidelong glance at Millie, Chase took the pastry and turned her back to the girl, scratching at the bottom of the heavy cake with a small knife. The scraping against the crust was quiet, and Chase frowned, scraped harder, until she was sure Millie could hear it. Then she smiled and turned around, meeting the puzzled girl's eyes with a cheerful grin. “Here you go!”

“Okay...” Millie shot her a look, then took the cake, and hurried out of the room.

Chase got to work on the next cake, but she left the honey out of this one, mentally removing it from the ingredients list. She scratched the bottom of this one as well, but did it more clumsily, marring the crust and carving out a small section. This one she set off to the side. Then she resumed baking, adding the honey back in and finishing up a third just as Millie returned.

Words trickled up from Chase's vision, as the last cake baked;

Your cooking skill is now level 14!

But this was expected, so Chase paid it no mind.

When the smaller child reached out for the marred cake, Chase slapped her hand.

“Ow! Hey, what was that for?”

“Don't take that one. I screwed up the... uh, never mind.”

“The what? You baked it wrong?”

“No, the baking part went fine...” Chase finished the next cake, turned her back on Millie, and worked her knife again. She glanced over, caught Millie trying to sidle around the tables. “Don't look!”

“Why shouldn't I look? What are you doing?”

“It's a Cook thing. You wouldn't understand.”

“I'm a Cook!”

“What level?”

“Five!”

That was higher than Chase. For a moment she despaired, but... well, Millie didn't know Chase was only level three at the job, now did she? The strategy could continue.

“Only that?” Chase asked, frowning. “Oh, don't worry about this then. You don't need this trick at that low a level.”

“What trick?”

Chase handed her the carved cake. “Don't worry about it. Here, run this back.”

“Tell me the trick! What does it do?”

“What do you care about it? You didn't want to help cook these anyway. You don't need to know it.”

Millie took the cake, heading to the door, glancing back every few steps. Chase watched her go then turned back to baking, hiding her smile. Just a little more...

The next time, she didn't hear Millie approach until the girl asked her “What are you cutting, there?”

Chase jumped, startled, and glanced down. Millie had wormed her way under the tables to get a peek at her knifework. She put on her best frown. “I'm not telling you! It's a secret!”

“Tell me! I'll... I'll help you cook the cakes.”

“No! I can handle it fine. This is why it's my job. You'd just slow me down. Have you even done this before?”

“Well, no...”

“Pfft. Just carry the cakes. We're wasting time.”

“No, tell me! I'll... I'll owe you one or something.”

“One favor?” Chase raised an eyebrow. “I don't know...”

“Two favors! And I'll tell you a secret, too.”

Inwardly, Chase cackled. Outwardly, she made a show of considering it, before nodding. “All right. We'll cook these together and run them to the Mother in batches. That should save time, and my hand IS a little twitchy today. It'd be nice to have someone fresh to help with the sweetest cuts.”

“The what?”

“Look.” Chase held up a just finished cake, turned it over, and painstakingly scratched a symbol into the bottom. It was a nonsense symbol, just a star with a few twisty curves in it. “The sweetest cut.”

“That's it?”

“That's it? That's it?” Chase raised her voice in indignation. “Try a bit!” She shaved off a tiny part from the side, and handed it to Millie.

The younger girl eyed her uncertainly, then popped it in her mouth. “It tastes like dinoche. I don't notice anything different.”

“Right. Because the cuts were proper. Now try THAT one.” Chase pointed her knife at the one she'd made without honey.

Millie eyed it, peeled off a small chunk, and ate. Her eyes went wide. “It's bitter!”

“Right. That's because I messed up the cuts.” Chase lifted up the cake, showed her the raw gouges on the bottom. “All the essence of the honey ran out! The humors of the cake are imbalanced! It's all caloric now, and that's no good.”

“What?”

“It's a higher order cooking thing. The four humors,” Chase smiled, recalling that book she'd found in the old trunk a few years back. Something about physickians, and getting unsick. It had lots of impressive sounding ideas and words, and best of all, she was certain Millie hadn't read it. She could use anything she needed. “Caloric, Flame-atic, Soggywine, and melon-colored.”

Millie bought it, so Chase spent the next few batches cooking merrily alongside the smaller girl, and showing her the proper cuts to make to balance the essence of the honey without letting it all escape the cake. It was all nonsense, of course, but it got the job done in half the time.

In between batches, Millie told Chase the big secret.

“My da went out last night.”

“Out where?”

“I don't know. He took his pitchfork and headed out into the night.”

“That doesn't seem like much of a secret,” Chase said, but her thoughts went back to his father and that sword. Here was another one of his peers out on what had to be the same errand.

“No, that's not the secret! The secret is that he didn't come back alone.”

“What?”

“There was a woman with him. A dwarf.”

“What?” Dwarves were not a thing that Chase had ever expected to see for a very long time. Oh sure, they were out there in the world somewhere, but definitely not anywhere around Bothernot. Chase scrutinized Millie through narrowed eyes. She didn't seem like she was lying.

Millie seemed to get the message. “It's true! She's in our summer kitchen now. Tollen's watching over her.”

“Okay, now I'm sure you're pulling my leg. Tollen's our hunter. He's out trapping coneys.” Fresh coney stew, cooked in an enormous pot, was one of the highlights of the festival. No coneys, no coney stew. And they had to be fresh, the meat just didn't keep so well otherwise.

“No, he's not! He's sitting at home, making sure she stays in the kitchen.”

Chase almost dropped the cake as it formed, managed to catch and set it aside. “This is a lot to believe.”

“Yeah,” Millie nodded. “It's why I haven't told anyone. Um, that and Dad told me to keep it quiet. So please don't tell anyone, okay?”

Chase blinked. Now you tell me this? Not too smart, Millie. But she could understand where the younger girl was coming from. This was a big secret. She must have been bursting for a chance to pass it along.

It was also a secret that couldn't be kept for long. Tollen's absence would be noted sooner or later. The lack of rabbits was going to be an issue, and soon... and surely Millie's parents knew that.

Something was afoot, here. The adults were acting beyond strange. It was time to put wiser heads on the matter. Glancing out the window, and marking the sun, she nodded in satisfaction. Just enough time, if we hurry.

Chase put a smile on her face. “Well! You've kept your end of the bargain. Almost. Let's get this batch done!”

Midway through the final task, Chase felt energy rush through her, as words appeared directly in her view.

You are now a level 4 Cook!

LUCK +1

PER+1

Chase exhaled. She knew what was happening, here. She had finally gained enough cooking-related experience to level up as a Cook. Leveling up in any job refilled all her pools of energy. She was both glad for the boost and the attributes that came from leveling, but sad for the fact that it was wasted on the Cook job. That one hadn't been her choice, but her parents' choice. It was another stone weighing her down, and tying her to Bothernot.

But there was nothing to be done about it right now. Chase shook her head, and bent to her task, hiding her unease. Time to mourn what could have been later.

Soon it would be time for her REAL job in the village, and she was looking forward to getting business done.

CHASE'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Chase Berrymore

Age: 15 Years

Jobs:

Halven level 8, Cook level 4

Attributes / Pools / Defenses

Strength: 40 Constitution: 28 / Hit Points: 68 / Armor: 0

Intelligence: 45 Wisdom: 54 / Sanity: 99 / Mental Fortitude: 25

Dexterity: 59 Agility: 51 / Stamina: 110 / Endurance: 0

Charisma: 69 Willpower: 36 / Moxie: 105 / Cool: 25

Perception: 43 Luck: 70 / Fortune: 113 / Fate: 16

Generic Skills

Brawling – Level 7

Climb – Level 15

Dagger – Level 2

Dodge – Level 9

Fishing – Level 14

Ride – Level 10

Stealth – Level 11

Swim – Level 6

Throwing – Level 18

Halven Skills

Fate's Friend – Level N/A

Small in a Good Way – Level N/A

Cook Skills

Cooking - Level 14

Freshen - Level 10

Unlocked Jobs

Archer, Farmer, Grifter, Herbalist, Teacher