“Are you sure we can’t just cook this up as we wait after the wagons stop?” Chris, the head cook, was eyeing the setup in the back of the wagon. Elendria had used her ice to make braces to hold the legs of a tripod, from which we had hung our main cooking pot.

“I’m sure. The longer this stuff simmers, the better it’ll be.” I answered. “You’ll just have to trust me on this.”

“Very well. We’ll see about this new recipe of yours.” He sighed. “I’ll be supervising, so things can’t go too bad. By the way, do you have the cooking profession?”

“No, I haven’t earned any professions yet.” I shook my head. “Not even really sure how I could do it.”

“No worries, I can explain.” He seemed rather excited about that, which had me worried for a second. “The easiest way is to have a master take you on as an understudy. They pass on their skills, and the system makes it easier to pick them up. After years of study, they gradually increase the difficulties of tasks. After a few years, the student takes a mastery test, and finishes out their profession.”

“The second way is if someone is self-taught. Once they find a master, they can take an enhanced mastery test. This is a bit more difficult, as the test has to be hard enough to demonstrate multiple interconnected skills of the trade. Take a blacksmith. A suitable mastery test would be to smelt ore properly and repair a majorly damaged piece of equipment. They would have to hammer out the part properly, weld it without further damaging the equipment, get the proper hardness, and replace anything not metal as well. So if it were a sword, they would have to rewrap the hilt, things like that. Once that has been done to the master’s satisfaction, they can also claim the profession.”

“Those don’t seem too bad, though the self-taught person is likely going to have a bit of a harder time.” I said. “But that doesn’t explain why I got the option for slave master as a profession.”

“Bah, slave masters.” He practically spat the title. “Those are a dime a dozen. All you need is to have given a certain number of slaves a direct order, own a slave long enough for that addiction to kick in, and sell a slave. That’s all it takes. And they have the gall to call it a profession.”

“Enough of that. You need a proper profession. So we are going to do this the second way. You will be testing beneath me, though cooking isn’t without its own quirks. You will need to cook breakfast tomorrow, going only by my own directions. The last task will be cook dinner with everyone else, working as a team. That should be enough to unlock Camp Cook.”

“There are different cooking professions?” I asked. I assumed they would all be under cook.

“Indeed.” He said, sitting down as the rest of the camp started packing up. “And they all have their own bonuses. The elite title, Chef. Earned by making elaborate, flavorful dishes. Any dish prepared by a chef will impart feelings of satisfaction to those who eat it. Leveling in Chef will give bonuses to fame, agility and dexterity. Line Cook is for those who work in a restaurant. They make filling dishes for the masses to eat. While the food usually provides passive boost to stamina regeneration, the line cook gets a bonus to a wide variety of attributes as they level. Each level is guaranteed at least two attribute points split between agility, dexterity, and constitution. You will be earning Camp Cook. People often look at us like the lowest of the cooking professions, but that’s fine. We get the most leeway with substitutions in our dishes, and they tend to have stronger bonuses. Well, at least people tend to recover faster with our food in them. When you level up, you will gain bonuses split between agility, dexterity, constitution and endurance. A subtle effect is that you will work more seamlessly within groups.”

“Why do camp cooks get more attributes?” I asked, confused.

“We get the same amount of points per level, but our profession is more strenuous. We travel, often in dangerous territory. Hence the endurance and constitution. We also need knife skills, hence the agility and dexterity. Every five levels you get a point to strength, to help with loading and unloading supplies.”

“That, makes a lot of sense.” I nodded. “I don’t have a lot of strength just yet, is that ok? And how do you level camp cook? I know it can’t be just cook dinner.”

“That’s fine. We already have everything loaded. As for leveling, you are correct. You have to help out with your assigned position, which we rotate every week. Cleaning, prep, cooking, all of these are important. And I don’t mean let everything pile up with cleaning either. We clean as we go around here.”

“Understood.” I chuckled. “Since we are underway, want to get started on food?” I asked. Indeed, at some point we had started moving. Most of our group had been ignoring us, but they all slightly perked up when I offered to start.

“Sounds good. Here, one second.”

Profession Quest!

Camp Cook Chris has offered to let you take a supervised profession test. In order to pass, you have to display several skills required by the profession, and explain why you are doing things a specific way. Accept?

I really shouldn’t have been surprised by the existence of quests, but I was a bit. Accepting, I saw Chris nod. “Alright. First step, make sure your pot is hot.” I said, touching the bottom of the pot and channeling a bit of mana into it. “I’m using thermomancy. Basically heating it with mana, and looking for a medium level of heat.” I felt my mana draining, but it was just within the regeneration rate. That was going to be my biggest worry, and I took a sigh of relief.

“Excellent.” I said after a few minutes. Holding my hand about three inches above the bottom of the pot, I could still feel the heat. “Now that the pan is hot, I’m adding oil and flour in equal parts.” I added in the liquid first, then immediately the flour and started stirring. “Make sure to get out all the lumps, and when you are done it should be a white liquid. We are going to slowly cook this, and it is called a roux.”

Chris leaned in to see what I had, nodding his head. “This is the central point of the dish, and if you aren’t careful you could easily burn it. If you see black lumps in there? Throw it out and start over. You also have to keep it constantly stirred.” As I stirred, I was annoyed. Making a roux was hard enough, but to have to split my concentration and keep the pot heated? Yeah. I didn’t do the best job at keeping the heat stable, though I didn’t overheat it.

“Chris, if you want go ahead and take a look here.” I called him over after about ten minutes, when the mixture was closer to a beige than a pure white. “With a consistent heat, this would be reached a bit sooner, but we call this a blonde roux. It works great for thickening sauces, though it won’t add much to the flavor.” I kept going, constantly stirring. Always stirring.

When we were close to done, I was exhausted. For nearly an hour, twice as long as it should have taken, I had been stirring. My arm hurt. “Chris, this is the end of the roux. See the brown color? This is the chocolate roux. It doesn’t thicken nearly as well as the blonde variety, but the flavor you get in the final product is incredible. If you don’t mind, could you add in the diced vegetables?” I asked, keeping the milk chocolate colored liquid swirling. He nodded, and added in the Cajun Holy Trinity. Celery, bell pepper, and onion.

“Go ahead and add a handful of the seasoning powder as well, thanks.” I said, rapidly mixing everything. “The roux will coat and seem to clump a bit on the veggies, that’s fine. We just need to heat them until they wilt. Give it a few five minutes.” I stirred it occasionally, keeping a closer eye on the temperature. “Alright. Sausage next.” I said, doing this step myself. The roux was already finished, and the chance of burning it was negligible.

“We are just going to give this a few minutes.” I said, pulling out the bowl of cockatrice meat. “I’m going to go ahead and season this with the remainder of the spice mix.” I explained, making sure to keep my hands clean. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but touching raw meat and then doing other things without washing your hands is a bad idea. Unless you want to get people sick.”

“A wise precaution.” Chris nodded.

Once I had the sausage cooked for a few minutes, I dumped in the entire pot of strained stock we had made the night before. “From here on out, it’s pretty simple.’ I explained, making sure the roux was completely dissolved. “Keep the pot at a simmer for a few hours, then we will add in the cockatrice meat.” The rest of the day was the boring part. I had to keep a portion of my mind to keep the pot at the proper temperature, stirring every ten to fifteen minutes to make sure that the bottom didn’t burn. After a few hours, I added in the last of the meat and let it cook. Once I had the cockatrice meat cooked, I pulled out a spare bucket and a large spoon.

“This is the last of the steps, other than to keep stirring on occasion. See this yellowish liquid on top? That’s all fat and needs to go.” I said, carefully skimming the top layer off. “It’s ok if you get a bit of the darker brown liquid, so long as the fat is gone.” I explained, and when I was done I gave it another stir. The next two times I had to stir, I went ahead and checked the fat levels but they were much reduced. By the time the third stir came, there wasn’t any extra fat to scoop.

“So, what are you going to do for the rest of the day?” Chris asked.

“Heat control and train a bit of lesser telekinesis.” I said with a shrug. “I’ll focus on making sure that only the portions of the pot actually touching liquid are hot, while trying to juggle a few coins.”

“I see. This looks pretty good, what are we having with it?”

“Traditionally we would have just rice with it. That ok?” I asked.

“Sure. I can have the other cooks prep a thing of rice. They’ll appreciate the light night.” He said with a smile. I nodded and went back to my practice. By the end of the travel day, I was juggling six coins and using telekinesis to keep the spoon slowly turning. I had a few notifications, but I ignored them for now. They weren’t that important.

When we stopped, Chris hopped out immediately and grabbed two other cooks to help lower the pot without spilling it. “Want me to help out?” I asked.

“I don’t think you have the strength requirements.” Chris replied. “Besides, this will help let everyone feel included.”

“Ok.” I said. “You guys want me to cast Featherlight on the pot while you pull it down?” I asked, wanting to help.

“That, yes.” Chris said after a second. “That will help greatly.” I smiled as I cast the spell, and headed over to the water source to get a bit. Unfortunately, it was a bit warm for my liking. Luckily, the person I needed was still over by Chris.

“Hey Elendria, would you mind cooling this down for me? I need cold water, not frozen.”

“Sure.” She said with a shrug, touching the side of the glass. Almost immediately, frost spread from her finger. “What do you need this for though?”

“You have that bit of starch I asked for?” I turned to Chris.

“Yeah. Here you go.” He said, handing me a bit of cornstarch in a glass.

“This.” I told her. “Cornstarch will thicken everything, but you can’t put it in hot liquids or you will end up with clumps. It is one of the few things that dissolves better in cold water.” I explained, adding just enough water to make a thick liquid. “All we need to do is add this in, stir it a few minutes, and serve.” I said.

“Perfect, I can see the line starting to form. Let’s head that way, and then you get to explain it to everyone.” Chris said. “Oh, and you get to serve as well. Congrats.” He chuckled, but I was fine with that. It would help if anyone had questions about what was in it.

To my surprise, first in line was Chris. “Mentor’s privilege.” He said with a smile and a shrug.

“Fine with me.” I said, noting that he had a small mound of rice in the middle of his bowl. I filled in around the rice with two scoops of the gumbo, and explained. “This is called gumbo. It’s got cockatrice meat, sausage, onion, pepper, and celery. Enjoy.”

Instead of walking away, he took a step back, and got a large spoonful. Staring me right in the eye, he took a bite and mechanically chewed. His poker face was incredible. No muscle twitches, no widening of the eyes, no slightly upturning of his mouth. The entire line watched him. Everyone was holding their breath, waiting on his verdict. He smiled, and kept the poker face up for just a bit.

“Pretty good.” He said with a grin. “Good enough to get a pass. Congratulations.” He chuckled, and the rest of the line started clamoring for their food. Through the night I had several compliments on it, especially considering that they didn’t get a lot of new food types out in the wilds. Once everyone had eaten at least one bowl, and in Dramitian’s case a third bowl, I got my own and scarfed it down. The spices were slightly different, but that was always the case with gumbo. It was a slice of home though, and that’s all that mattered. The cockatrice was a bit earthier in flavor than straight up chicken, but it went well with the meal. The sausages weren’t quite andouille, but they did have enough of a bite that it was close enough. I savored each bite with a smile. While I was eating, I took the time to check out my notifications.

Profession Quest update!

You have created a passing meal for an entire camp! In doing so, you managed to display several requirements for a Camp Cook.

Delegation of work: Sharing mundane jobs to increase efficiency, you also demonstrated what was needed to ensure there was no confusion.

Knife skills: Skinning, deboning, and dicing ingredients.

Stock creation: Using castoffs to generate a stock liquid and minimize waste

Balanced meal: Your meal contained a balanced variety of ingredients for proper nutrition

Proportions: You were accurate in creating enough food for the camp needs, without too much extra

Temperature control: Altering the cooking temperature to ensure that the ingredients don’t overcook or undercook.

Serving: Though a simple preparation, you were willing to serve the camp

Results: Your mentor, Chris, is pleased with your efforts. Would you like to accept Camp Cook as a profession?

I accepted the profession, and got a slew of extra notices.

Notifications

Primary profession set to Camp Cook

Experience earned in primary profession! Camp Cook level 0 -> level 6

New recipe created: Roux

New recipe created: Gumbo

New spell acquired: Gently heat metal (5/5) (fire)

New spell acquired: Heat metal (10/10) (fire)

New spell acquired: advanced heat metal (20/50) (fire)

Lesser telekinesis (4/10) -> (9/10)

Attributes earned!

Every odd level of Camp Cook gains +1 agility or +1 dexterity, alternating. Every even level of Camp Cook gains +1 constitution or +1 endurance, alternating. Every fifth level also gains +1 strength

Totals for recent gains: +2 agility, +1 dex, +1 strength, +2 con, and +1 endurance

Well, the fire spells were a nice touch. That was one novice, and one apprentice spell down. It was also the basis for a particularly nasty set of attack spells. What does a mage do if he is facing a knight? Why not heat up all that armor! Either he takes it off and opens himself up to damage, or he cooks alive inside his armor. Not a particularly nice way to go, but it is effective. I suppose if you really wanted, you could just heat up his sword until it dropped, but that would be if you needed a prisoner.

It was a pity that the next set of spells I would have to focus on was water. Fire was just too dangerous to practice while travelling, and some of the upper tier fire spells were traditional battle spells. As in massive area of effect, burn the enemy army spells like firestorm. That was best practiced in a specially crafted facility, with supervision. Or in a barren landscape where explosions didn’t matter. Since we weren’t crossing anything like the salt flats in Nevada, I wasn’t going to be practicing those anytime soon. Getting up to clean my bowl, I headed back to my bedroll.

An hour of reading through the constellation book that Carrigan had loaned me would help me shut down. At least I could make a small light to read by and not disturb anyone.