I headed back to the fire, The Jambalaya’s smell informed me it was already almost ready, and I opened the lid to check. Yep, the rice had expanded nicely but when I fished a bit out with my finger it still had a little bit of crunch to it, but the Ham had absorbed the moisture well and left stained spots in the rice where flavor had leached out. This would be good.

I crouched down beside the fire and used those minutes to do something very important. I slipped down into my soul space to watch Mnemosyne, who was staring intently at the draconic blob, which was looking more and more like a true sphere rather than a blob. The day’s travel had allowed a lot of the outer coating on my core to dissipate, and I was starting to see a shining, translucent sphere inside.

She glanced up at me and smiled. Every time. “Mnemosyne. Could I get you to look something up for me in draconic?”

She nodded, and said, “I heard your conversation with Mae. You had me worried when she grabbed you and put the knife to your throat, but our time in this group has already started paying off… The terms she used, cultivator, chi, cycling, and foundation. If that was what you were going to ask?”

I nodded to her and she continued, “Well, singly those terms are very rough. I mean, cycling included a bunch of stuff about riding two-wheeled vehicles effectively and parts of foundation you could have absorbed easily, as they involved construction that you are already well aware of. But when you put the words together the information was very different. It is not so much like a search as it is having to put words together the right way to unlock information.”

She looked very proud of herself. “Think of Draconic less like a… I guess you would call it a databank, and more like a puzzle that comes clear the more pieces you put together. It’s just a matter of finding the right pieces, or words, to put together to get the whole picture, and knowing the right ones since Draconic is so precise.”

She beamed, “When I put together [chi foundation] I found some really neat information, basically it is a way of getting your body ready to start handling energy. We are already doing some of that by clearing your core, and then we can direct energy down your pathway to your meridians. Once all of your pathways are cleared, we can start adding energy to certain parts or systems of your body to strengthen and enhance them, just like your skills. Each stage is dangerous, though, and you have to do them in a certain order which I am not sure of, but I hope to figure out more as we go along.”

She shrugged a little, leaning back against the tree she was sitting on again, and continued,“ the [chi cultivation] abilities are ways of setting up our energy flows in your soul space to enhance the speed and power of your ability to draw essence into your core. Right now, with your core partly cleared, we are drawing every bit you can handle naturally, but as we soak up quintessence from kills and food we can improve that a lot. Natural Draw is super slow, but supposedly there are meditation techniques that can improve the speed, especially for aspects.”

Mnemosyne added, “Obviously, Quintessence can be used to enhance yourself, unlock evolutions, and empower abilities, but aspected essence can be used to do stuff in the outside world. Did you notice we have enough connections now to utilize [push]?” At my nod, she continued, “When you use [push], it allows you to draw from some of those coiled aspects you have floating out there.” She gestured at the slowly rotating colored strands orbiting my core.

“If you stretch one of those to your aura, such as your hand, and then [push] it out, it charges your aura with that particular strand. This is very simple stuff right now, but it lets you add the aspect to, say, an attack, and should enhance the attack in a way specific to your aspect.”

“The only aspects that have enough mass to do that are Temporal and Frost. Frost should add cold into your attacks, let you freeze or cool things with a touch, and maybe cool air off around you if you are careful and budget your energy carefully. Temporal should allow you to move whatever body part you push it to almost as quickly as your zone without damaging it or totally draining your fatigue, or increase the entropy in an object.

“The last one,” Mnemosyne stated, “Is ‘[chi cycling]. That subject is way too complicated to express easily right now, but apparently, like all of the techniques, you are supposed to figure it out or learn how to do it from someone else. Apparently, it can involve special patterns, magical runes, and all sorts of things inside your soul space, and it directly affects how much energy you can move around, and how quickly you can [push] or use other verbs to fill something with an aspect or quintessence.”

“So basically the foundation determines how quickly you learn and your potential, cultivation is how fast you can recharge spent energy, and cycling determines how powerful stuff you can do is. There is a lot of stuff under [cultivator] though, and until Mae opens up a bit more about what is possible, we are sorta stuck here. It looks like lots of things are possible though, like adding aspects into your cultivation to help you gain affinity with them, or using internal patterns to give you special abilities.”

She tilted her head again and started brushing her hands towards me. “They are getting hungry now.” I had noticed that the group had gathered around the fire, but Mae had asked a question that I missed in my concentration, so I dropped out of my soul space, “I am sorry, I was meditating. What did you say?”

Mae lifted the lid of the pot, which wafted a delicious thread of scent out. She had a wonderful sense of smell, being a fox, and had a lot of experience with knowing when rice was done. “Should I take it off?” she asked. At my nod, she wrapped one of her heavy silken sleeves around her hand, and pulled the pot off the spit, setting it on the ground.

Shiana was crunching on a ration bar and apparently didn’t trust my cooking. I got my big spoon, and stirred the rice, doling it out into the bowls for the rest.

It was the best thing I had tasted since I had gotten here if I do say so myself. The rice was perfectly cooked, the vegetables and sausages perfectly steamed, and the salted ham’s smoky flavor almost delicately blended with the rice and vegetables.

Eating my fill didn’t take very long, Mae ate one large bowl, Cassie ate two slightly smaller ones, and Rik, unsurprisingly, after the first bowl just kept going back for more until we were scraping the pot clean to load his bowl. The silence and sounds of chewing and little breathing noises were a tribute to my cooking that was only occasionally interrupted by a low moan from Rik.

“This,” he said, talking with a mouth half-full in between spoonfuls, and slurping a dangling bit of ham into his mouth, “Is absolutely amazing. Way better than,” and he took another spoonful to start chewing and talking at the same time, “inne stew, and even better than real-life crap. The simulation is amazing, I didn’t realize that things even,” and he interrupted himself again, “COULD taste this good. And this is meat, from like a real animal, it’s so much better than Meeta.” and he smacked his lips, sucking up more rice as I guessed the word he used didn’t refer to something cut from a body.

Your Jambalaya is delicious and magical, due to certain mushrooms you added to the recipe. For the next 24 hours, your essence absorption has improved by 50%, and your minor regeneration has doubled. I have intercepted system messages from your party, they have gained 50% improved experience gain and mana regeneration, and improved health pools.

In addition, Rik’s bracelet is transmitting something, but I cannot decode it.

“Wow! The system said I just created a recipe, and have the opportunity to trademark it. It is asking if I wish to distribute it to the system for a 5% surcharge whenever the dish is made and sold to someone else. Should I?” Rik asked.

“Umm… I mean, any Jambalaya?” I asked him curiously. “No,” he replied, “just this exact recipe. Recipes have to be followed exactly, but can be quickly prepared if you have all the stuff. It’s funny, though, since my cooking skill is so low I have a hefty failure chance, it is an advanced dish, and we can collect the proceeds at any bank.”

He looked startled, and Cassie let out a noise of surprise at the same time. “Holy crap! A 24-hour experience bonus? Dude! This is awesome! 24 hour 50% bonus pills are worth like dozens of gold each! Places that make this will probably put it on the menu at ten gold a bowl, plus it raises mana recovery and health pool at the same time. Heck, I’d buy it if I could afford to before adventuring.” Rik added, “We could make some serious bank out of this, even if it takes high-level cooking skill and rare mushrooms.”

I shrugged, “Do it if you want to.” I didn’t care that much, since I could make better if I had better ingredients. Jambalaya was often referred to as a leftover dish since it was often filled with whatever you had leftover that was clunking up your fridge. It tasted decent but was not particularly amazing. I wondered what kind of bonus a good shellfish bisque or Swedish meatballs over homemade sourdough would be worth? Heck, with the right ingredients maybe even fried grits could be worth a fortune. Not like I would be earning anything from it, with my disconnect from their system.

“What should I call it?” he asked. “The system is asking about its name.”

I thought quickly. Probably best to go for a commonplace name. “Bran’s Jambalaya?”

“No good,” Rik replied. “It says that the name is denied because it’s false advertising. There’s no bran in the dish. That’s just stupid, it’s not an ingredient, just a name.” He stared at something for a moment and then grinned. “Brantley’s Hambalaya took. I think, you know, ham, now you have a brand name!”

Again I shrugged, “Not really. I am just an NPC along for the ride, a diced-up brain, remember? Now YOU are a brand.” At his stricken look I added, “But you are welcome to cut me in if we live to see any profits.”

Rik nodded, looking more like an oversized school kid than ever. “I promise if we get any more recipes most of the profits will be yours.” He then stared off into space for a moment, “Ugh, it won’t let me seal a deal because you are not banded.” He shrugged a little, “Well, if we find a way we can seal a deal, anyway.”

Shiana stared at me intently, and then muttered, “It is so nice to have another girl on the team. Since you are already bonded, you shouldn’t be scared of sleeping with us in the comfortable pavilion. I promise the rewards will be worth it, he is very handsome.” and then shook her head a little as if confused.

Rik had turned an interesting shade of purple. Funny that a player could actually blush in this ‘game’ they were playing. I guess it added to the physical realism, and since I was highly amused with Shiana’s poor timing, I decided to play along a bit. The funny noises Cassie started making, a choking gasp was egging me on.

“I am sorry, Shiana, but my species is not currently sexually mature or in season. I am certain that when I am ready, however, I would be more than pleased, even eager, to join you and the handsome gentleman in your tents.” Cassie had both hands over her mouth and was choking, tears streaming from her eyes, and Mae had turned away and was covering her hand with her mouth.

Shiana seemed to focus for a moment and then said gravely, “I understand completely. I wouldn’t want you to commit to anything before you are ready. But if there is some substance or medicine you require to come into season, please do not hesitate to let us know. We will all be happy to help you acquire it.”

I wrapped up since I seemed to be getting through to her script, “Of course, dear. I cannot wait to snuggle into both yours and the handsome gentleman’s warm embrace, and the thought of rubbing all eight of my ovipositors on your intestines fills me with excitement.” I was getting creative now.

She smiled brightly, “I too, cannot wait to engage. At higher levels, my sentience will increase and I will be much more responsive. I will eventually unlock a class that will allow me to add magical effects to my ranged attacks, and we should eventually be able to venture into Fey Gallinian without being attacked. I am also an expert in woodlore, and if you need some information on local lore you have but to ask and I might be able to assist you.”

Whups, the script was back. I guess I had pushed it too far. “Well, I guess we should set up watches so we can get some sleep.”

Rik quickly shook his head, “Are you kidding? We have a 24-hour boost! We need to use it as much as possible before it wears off. We can sleep after we have leveled like crazy for the next day. I intend to catch up to the beta testers as fast as possible, and get past them if we can.”

I shook my head. “Bad idea. Cassie and you are both tired, Mae looks ready to fall asleep, and I just switched from a nocturnal to a diurnal schedule.” At his slightly puzzled look, I restated, “I am normally awake at night time, but I am lagging because I switched to day time. I have more stuff and intend to make apple honey cakes for breakfast, so we are not going to burn through bonuses unless we run out of food.”

“In other words,” I added, “We are fine to get some sleep tonight and we will need it… Goblins are night hunters and we want to catch them tired or asleep, while we are fully charged and without any unrested debuffs,” I said, hoping that my assumption that lack of sleep had a negative effect. It certainly was having one on me, and I still had some work to do before I crashed. At Rik’s serious nod, I smiled a little. “So should we set watches, and do we want to kill this campfire so it doesn’t ruin our night vision and attract predators?”

“Kill the fire?” He asked curiously, “Umm. I am not sure how to do that. When you light it, it lasts for two hours unless you add more wood, although you can make it last for four if you add enough.”

I looked at the fire. He was right. There was probably a good half an hour left before the scrap he made it out of was coals, but even then, the smoke scent and warm coals would probably cause an attractive nuisance for predators, especially the two-legged kind, for several more hours.

I wanted to try out the new verb, so I held out my hand toward the burning embers and mentally commanded [pish] to my soulspace, thinking of the frosty strand of mana revolving around my core. In a moment, I realized I had done it wrong by speaking push before picking which kind of aspect to use, but the temporal aspect rushed to my palm, causing the fire to burn much more brightly for a few seconds before the wood completely collapsed into cold ash. It seemed to have at least a little bit of range, but that was probably because the fire was within that sphere right outside of my aura, where it used to rest. I seemed to be able to work at about a foot away as long as it was inside that sphere.

“Okay, that worked.” I mentioned and noticed that on my view of my core my ‘mana’ dipped by eight percent. The fluid in the illusionary bottle seemed to be gurgling or flowing, and as I watched it increased to 93%. After about 5 more seconds it was about 94%, which meant a recharge time of about one percent per five seconds. Considering how dangerous this had the potential to be, I was fine with the delay until I could work out cycling.

“Dude, you can cast spells now?” Rik asked, wide-eyed. “Not really, I guess I can cause minor effects by touch. I guess I could call it a gift.” Despite Mae’s knowing look, I wasn’t going into details for Rik about how it worked.

We worked out shifts. Rik was the one with the worst night vision, so he got the early morning shift while the sun was coming up. Mae would take the first shift, she had decent night vision and would be relieved by Shiana, who also had something called elven low-light vision. Cassie and I, with full darksight, would each take the darkest watches before Cassie would wake up Rik.

I was planning to do some work with Mnemosyne before I crashed, but I could work on it tomorrow, and it really had been a long day after an almost sleepless night previously, so I rolled onto my blanket pad and curled up for sleep.