--- Kat --- (The Next Morning)
Kat was making breakfast for everyone and Nixilei was watching. It was nice to see that even without infinite food storage she still had a chance to make things for people. It was nice, and brought back memories of getting up early and failing to make breakfast with Gramps. The fact she got to actually make the food in this case was obviously better.
Nixilei was providing the ingredients. Kat didn’t have much in her storage ring. Perhaps a week’s worth of meals from Nixilei? That is, a week’s worth of meals if you take into account how little Kat and Lily needed to eat these days. For a normal person it was somewhere between two and three and definitely not enough to feed everyone in the tent for long. Luckily, Kat didn’t have to.
"Thanks for doing this Kat," said Nixilei as she sipped on her tea.
"It’s no problem. I’ve come to enjoy it. Not only is it a touch nostalgic but it’s something to do in the morning when everyone else is asleep without feeling like I should be training or doing something more useful. Making sure everyone is fed IS useful and I obviously enjoy it. Though… why did you guys look so relieved when I agreed to cook yesterday? Not you so much… but everyone else," said Kat.
"We’re all pretty shit at cooking," admitted Nixilei. "I… partially don’t mind because I was trained to be able to handle nutrient potions and a few other less palatable meal options that taste awful but provide the correct nutrients. So I have no issue just eating unprepped ingredients or lightly cooked meals that are barely edible. Normally we hired a chef to help out or order food at the taverns.
"On the road though? We stick to stuff we can preserve as best we can… or hope that we find some fresh fruits and vegetables around. The preserved stuff isn’t completely terrible but it’s a far cry from what feels like a proper meal,"
"Doesn’t your storage ring stop time in it?" asked Kat.
"No? Should it? That’s a pretty highly priced feature you know?" responded Nixilei.
*Huh… Thyme seemed to think that was standard… but I guess if you’re messing with space through the lens of time that make sense. Plus it probably IS standard for them. As for demons? Not quite so sure… but I can see it being a necessity too often.* "Fair enough," shrugged Kat not wanting to admit her ring could slow time to a major degree.
On the cooking side of things Kat was doing up a bunch of salad alongside some eggs and bacon, or well. It looked like bacon and she had no idea where the eggs came from, but Nixilei had provided the ingredients for everything so it was probably fine. Kat had simply cut the salad up while chopping off the parts that didn’t seem right to keep after taste testing a few or double checking with Nixilei.
As for the protein? They were mainly for Kress and Gareth. Nixilei had showed off an enchanted metal hotplate that she was using for it, as well as a secondary plate that kept everything on it at the current temperature because the hot plate was barely big enough for one of the eggs. Though in fairness to the hotplate the eggs Kat had been provided where a bit larger then her closed fist. Kat was a little worried about asking what they were from. The yolks looked normal at least so she knew how they should look when cooked.
The bacon looked just like it should. Only the fact it smelt completely different clued her into the fact that it wasn’t from a pig, or at least not a normal one. Kat was feeling game enough to ask about it too. "What’s this meat from?" asked Kat.
"Hmm?" mumbled Nixilei around her tea. "I think… that packet is from Rolly-Pollies,"
"What are those?" asked Kat.
"They’re… kinda cute actually. They’re these ball shaped monsters that grow really quickly… and die rather violently. Picture… you know dandelions?" asked Nixilei.
"Yeah…" responded Kat confused.
"Imagine a pig mixed with one of those. They’re big, fluffy white coated monsters that start at their life high up in the air. Spores from them land on high ground and then roll down hills, gathering up nutrients from other things they run over until getting to the bottom… and then exploding into spores to repeat the cycle. Though they roll really slowly compared to what gravity would imply," answered Nixilei.
Kat glanced down at the meat, "Ok… that is pretty freaky to think about. How do you get clean cuts of bacon though? If they explode?"
"Ah, you’ve got to kill them before they stop rolling. If they explode not only do their remains go everywhere but what’s left of them doesn’t have much, if any, nutrients in them. It’s take a lot of breeding to get them to efficiently store nutrients at all in fact. Though their short and somewhat brutal life cycle does prevent people from complaining about farming them. Even if you need a plant mage or a lot of fertiliser to set up a form for them," explained Nixilei.
"That… I guess I can’t say anything against that but it’s still a bit weird. So the way you farm them is growing other stuff, letting them roll through it and then only killing what… like half of them?" asked Kat.
"Oh, no. You can kill way more than half of them," responded Nixilei. "One explosion makes around a dozen so you want to try and kill about one in every ten, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. It depends how well the land is managed and if the tracks they’ve left in the ground need to be fixed up at all,"
"Right. Just… how does that keep the ecosystem healthy? It just seems… pretty crazy to me I suppose," said Kat.
"Well we farm them now but before plenty of other things would eat them instead. They mostly just suck up plants and a few bugs during their passing. They have an extremely powerful stomach that lets them digest everything exceptionally fast… a bit too fast sometimes. If they don’t have enough food the stomach acid eats them alive," continued Nixilei.
Kat flinched back. "How are these things still alive?"
"Well the ones that we didn’t domesticate? They explode into quite a lot more spores then just twelve. They can also hibernate in the ground for a while before expanding up into a proper monster. Oh and the old explosions could kill everything nearby. Other monsters that attack them would get a face full of stomach acid," said Nixilei.
"So… they’re actually kinda deadly? Or well they were…" said Kat.
"Yup, and you have to be careful to manage their mutations because they can get weird really fast if you don’t kill of those ones," explained Nixilei.
Kat, deciding that not asking for more details was the right decision instead switched to more immediate problems as she took the first lot of bacon off the hotplate. "Well… what about more immediate threats? What sort of monsters should we be concerned with?"
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"Hmm… well the Blur Birds are fine as long as you don’t get too close to their trees…" started Nixilei.
"Are they the small little birds with sharp beaks?" asked Kat.
"Yes… um… hmm… why not explain to me what you’ve seen so far?" asked Nixilei. Kat nodded and started to describe the various monsters from her trip out to the bridge. Kat’s explanations did occasionally include things Nixilei didn’t understand, but her knowledge of the area meant she could puzzle together what Kat meant.
"Right so, the Blur Birds are fine, just don’t get close to the trees. They’re actually harder to kill then you think because they can reform at those trees they’ve bonded with. The Mole Moguls you saw, the things with turtle shells are also pretty easy to deal with. They’re a lot more aggressive but pretty slow and not that tough despite the shell.
"The frogs are indeed called Maned Frogs and are actually one of the more deadly things in the forest while the ’Noodles Birds’ and yes I know it’s a silly name… well they tend to avoid travellers for the most part. As long as you don’t fly up to them they’ll just ignore you as not worth the effort. The frogs though… they’re tongue has some pretty potent poison on it and as you found out can be cut off with minimal consequences.
"They’re skin is rubbery and does well at absorbing blunt impacts while in the rain they can secrete a thick goop that prevents slashing attacks. They have almost no magical defences though and in fact trying to eat them despite the fact they can only digest water based attacks,"
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"Anything that would need all that lightning I saw at the bridge?" asked Kat.
"Sorry, but not native to this area… or at least nothing that SHOULD be native to the area. I don’t know if it’s something new that’s cropped up, not a monster at all, or something that’s more migratory. There are a few options but without seeing it there’s too many things it could be," shrugged Nixilei.
Kat sighed but nodded in understanding. "Right well… is there anything else to be aware of?"