I peeled various vegetables, chopped up nuts, and milled grains for most of the day. Lizbeth warmed up to me, the longer I hung around, and eventually she even joined me at my rickety table to talk to me while I worked. She answered a few questions I had about being a chef, and I found out how she'd gotten roped into the whole affair.

Mel wasn't wrong. She hated her partner, something fierce.

According to Lizbeth, he opened the "inn" to fulfill a whim. He had a lot of them, and was constantly flickering from one thing to the next. However, this one actually started to pay out. They were making decent money from it, and so Lizbeth decided to stop being a seamstress so she could help him out with it.

Except Day was bored. And as soon as she started to help, he fucked off and did whatever the hell he wanted to next.

It meant that she was left managing an eatery when she absolutely didn't want to. And she didn't have the skills for it. But she learned, eventually, and did her best to make sure the business didn't fail.

Eventually, Day started to pay attention to it again and tried to take back over it. Which was why the place was in as much disarray as it was. She just didn't have the energy to both do the cooking, and to repair the things he fucked up.

I actually got to meet the illustrious Day while I was working. He was a shriveled old prune of a man, short and topped with more gray than a snow-capped mountain. He was polite as hell - more so than his bitter partner - but the second he realized I was a chef he didn't want anything to do with me. So, I guess they were two peas in a pod, even if they hated each other.

Lizbeth fed me while I was working. I wasn't expecting it, and hadn't asked. But she actually brought me a plate of cheese and nuts at midday. I was expecting something similar for the evening meal time, but instead she actually brought me back into the kitchen and showed me how to cook a simple chicken-based meal.

I'd love to say I took notes, studied her techniques, etc. But she moved so fast and just talked her way through the cooking process as if she were discussing the weather.

"You take this," she said, shaking the freshly trimmed chicken corpse, "and you put it in here." Lizbeth dropped it into the metal box she'd called a roasting pan. "Dress it. Salt. Pepper. Whatever. Just don't use anything sweet."

"Why not?"

"Tastes bad." She tossed some ground herbs and spices on top of the chicken, and then coated the whole thing in a bit of oil. "Massage. Makes sure spices stick." She rubbed the dead bird tersely, and then flipped it over and repeated the process.

I almost gagged when she touched the spice containers with her chicken-juice covered hands, but decided to not critique. Granted, I might never eat another thing she cooked for fear of getting sick, but this wasn't my kitchen and I wasn't the one who was more than level five.

Once the chicken was thoroughly seasoned, she shoved the whole thing into the wood-burning stove. "Hour. Maybe more. Maybe less. If it looks too dry, add water."

"Fascinating," I said, dryly. She didn't seem to notice. But I was super frustrated. I didn't feel like I was actually learning anything.

Out of curiosity, I glanced at my character sheet.

The number next to the cooking skill was larger than it had been before, so I guessed I was actually learning. Just maybe not as ideally as I would like.

After the chicken was in the oven, Lizbeth showed me how to turn peeled potatoes into a mash. Which basically was just throwing them in a pot of boiling water, waiting until they were pliable, and then beating the hell out of them with a fork. She added some spices to the potatoes as well, but didn't tell me exactly what. It looked like salt and pepper, as well as some pale beige thing she added to the chicken as well.

"There. Potatoes are done. Chicken's finished in minutes. Then you'll have cooked a meal."

"How do you know how to do this?"

"Chef menu," she said with a grunt. "Once you have a preparation space, it'll prompt you to create a menu. Tells you ingredients, cook times, and techniques to use. If you go off script, you don't get a meal."

"What do you get?"

"[Inedible burnt mush.]"

"Sounds disgusting."

"Is."

As if alerted by some internal alarm, Lizbeth turned to the wood-burning stove and extracted her roasting pan of chicken with the help of a kitchen towel. She then grabbed a plate (hopefully a clean one) from a stack nearby and put a scoop of mashed potatoes and a few slices of chicken on it. "Dinner." She pushed the plate towards me.

Congratulations! You've completed your first meal, which has given you enough experience to gain level three in the Chef class! What a great job you've done! Keep it up!

"Huh," I said.

"Level?"

"Yep. Total of three now."

"Good. Eat."

I was shooed out of the kitchen at that point, which was fine by me. Maybe it was all the learning, but my brain hurt. I kind of just wanted a nap. But the meal in my hands (as disgusting as Lizbeth's technique had been) actually smelled good. I made my way out to my rickety chair and dug in.

The chicken was a little dry, but it was seasoned well. And the mashed potatoes weren't the worst thing I'd put into my mouth. They had a delicately spicy flavor to them, which was also present on the chicken. All together, it was a serviceable meal. And so I devoured it. My plate was nearly empty, aside from a few discarded chicken bones, by the time Lizbeth joined me at the table.

"Thank you," I said, as she dug into her meal. "It was very good."

"You helped."

"Yeah, but you didn't have to show me how to do it. And so I appreciate it."

"Not showing is rude. You worked hard. Deserved reward." She scooped a mouthful of potatoes into her mouth.

"Well, I appreciate it anyway." I glanced at the front door and noticed it was getting dark out. "I should go soon."

"Buff's almost worn?"

"That too. But Mel will likely think you decided to serve me for dinner."

"Nope. Just serve you dinner."

"Very important difference," I said with a thin grin. Lizbeth nodded as if I were spouting some philosophical bullshit. "Hey, before I go though... what was that spice you used? The beige one?"

"Adobo," she grunted around a fork-full of chicken. "Mix of herbs. Karina blends."

Interesting. I had never heard of such a thing, but that wasn't really surprising. "Is Karina someone here in town?"

"Yep. Runs the Spice Rack. Sells spices."

"I would have never guessed," I said with a laugh. Lizbeth shrugged and returned to her meal. "I appreciate the help. I'll go see Karina and maybe she'll be able to sell me some."

"Also Antonio. Produce. And Dean. Butcher."

"Oh." I felt immediately uncomfortable. Was she telling me people to talk to? People who would be able to sell me materials that I could use to cook food?

My discomfort must have been obvious because Lizbeth stopped eating. "You're a good person, Harper. I'm a crotchety old woman, but even I see it. Go cook food for adventurers. Give them buffs. Bring lots of money to Mystic Falls. It'll mean more mouths for me to feed."

"... Fucking hell, Lizbeth. I think that was more words at once than you've ever said to me combined."

The older woman laughed, and then flipped me off, almost casually. "Piss off, level one."

"There we go."

And then I left. At Lizbeth's insistence, before I headed out, I grabbed a container full of the meal we'd prepared together back for Mel.

By the time I got back to the eatery, it was well after dark. Mel was, in fact, worried, but she tried to play it off cool. Especially since I brought her food and she got to eat while I told her about my day.

With a mouthful of potatoes and chicken, she also shared how her day went. Apparently a few more supplies were delivered, including all of the [Cut Stone] and [Cut Timber] we needed to make the second story. The blacksmith had dropped off a few cooking utensils, and promised the stove and the rest of the cookware within two days. The potter had come through with the storage jars, and the carpenter had brought over the giant wood preparation surface.

All together, the various bits and bobs made the eatery feel full and almost like it was coming together. There was still a lot of work to do, and so many things that needed to be checked off Derick the Inspector's "honey do" list.

But with a few levels in various skills under my belt, as well as the actual levels to the Chef class, I was feeling pretty good.

I watched as the last few seconds of my buff faded out and then vanished.

For some reason, I expected reality to come crashing back down. For the excitement of the day to fade away back into the crushing despair I was used to. But it didn't. And Duncan didn't waltz through the front door, either, demanding payment in one form or another.

It was enough to make me feel hopeful.

Like I was turning a corner.

I shared with Mel the various contacts I'd learned about, and we made plans to go into town together to meet with them. Then after that, we could spend the afternoon repairing and building and doing all the things neither of us actually wanted to do. It would mean we'd be ready to call Derrick back for round two just after having all the various pieces that would make this place an actual eatery.

I still needed to think of a name.

Shit.