Berry came through, and in way less time than I was expecting. She delivered 50 [Common Mushrooms] to Ambition before an hour had passed, collected her (what I thought was way-too-small) reward, and then stuck around for a while to talk with Mel. Which was great and terrible. I was glad Mel was opening up to more people. She was so afraid of humans when we first met, and had been hostile to basically everyone before we came to Mystic Falls. No longer was she hiding under my shirt collar the second someone unfamiliar showed up. I wondered if it was Mystic Falls that was helping her, or if it was something like spending a bunch of time around my dumb ass.

But, see, the genius chef was trying to cook. I needed to concentrate so that I could master these recipes and wow the adventurers of Mystic Falls.

Not that I could get myself started.

Fucking anxiety.

All I'd done for the last ten minutes was stare at my preparation space and sweat. Oh, and put on an apron that Liam had given me. It was plain (thankfully) and simple, and the cloth was rough to the touch. But it would also protect my most important bits from any hot splashes or falling knives.

Fuck. I realized I was stalling.

Genius was very difficult, it seemed.

Like in the forest, I just felt woefully unprepared. Whereas I didn't have the gear to face down the Helltooth out there, I didn't have the skills to take on cooking here. Sure, I had all the gear. Some of them were even decent quality. But it felt like I was trying to walk across a frozen lake. One false move and the whole affair would shatter around me, and everyone would see the fraud I was.

No pressure, right?

"Alright," I said to myself, employing the self-motivation techniques that worked so well in the wilderness. "Let's start simple. Stew. Everyone likes stew." I opened the cooking menu and read along, pointing to the ingredients I already had lined up on my preparation space. "To make [Duncan's Delight], I need one giant-ass [Yellow Onion], four lumpy [White Potatoes], three misshapen [Carrots], four delicately delivered [Common Mushrooms], a questionable [Slice of Beef], my precious [Adobo Spice] mixture, [Salt], [Ground Peppercorns], and [Clean Water]. I need a [Chef's Knife] to cut, a [Soup Pot] to cook in, and a few [Ceramic Bowls] to serve in." I breathed in deep, and let out a sigh. That was it. The entire list. "Everything's here, jackass. You're ready to begin. This is... this is fine. Everything's fine. You got this, Harper."

I noticed that the [White Potatoes], [Carrots], and [Common Mushrooms] all had a little debuff icon floating above them. It said [Dirty] in tiny letters. When I concentrated on one of them, a little notification popped out.

Dirty: These vegetables need to be cleaned before cooking with them, or you risk giving the eater [Food Poisoning]. For every [Dirty] debuff in the dish, the chance is increased by 5%.

"Easy enough," I said as if I were talking to a child. "I'll clean you guys in a minute. The [Yellow Onion] is at the top of the list, though, so it gets my attention first."

But, before I could begin, Mel poked her head in the kitchen. "Do you need help with anything, Harps?"

"Just a boost of confidence is all."

"Is that why you're talking to yourself?"

I tried to not glare at the pixie. "Pretty much." I brandished my knife at her. "So unless you wanted to send away your new friend and come help me, wanna let me get back to it?"

Mel snickered. "Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass."

I glared daggers at her until she left, even though her laughter (and Berry's as well) floated back to me, making me grind my teeth.

"Okay. Step one. Cut up the veggies."

I took the [Yellow Onion] and cut off the top and bottom, and then sliced it in half crosswise. Each half was then skinned (as a pile of scraps started to form on my preparation space, I realized I needed a scrap bowl or something to make cooking easier) and then cut into wedges. I wanted the final product to have large chunks of onion in it, and so slicing it thin or dicing it seemed like a waste.

When I'd cut up the last of the [Yellow Onion] the ingredient showed up in the menu as grayed out. There wasn't a line through it yet, though. Interesting.

I gathered the [White Potatoes], the [Carrots], and [Common Mushrooms] and threw them in a bowl, then took them out back to the well to give them a good rinse. It took a little elbow grease and water to scrub away the debuff, but after about five minutes, everything was debuff free and I was ready to continue.

Preparing the [White Potatoes] wasn't much different than the [Yellow Onion], except I didn't need to decapitate either end. I cut them up into rather large chunks, with the skin still on. It was how my mom had prepared stew when I was younger, giving the potatoes something to hold onto as they cooked. Helped them keep their shape. I wasn't making mashed potato soup, after all... although that did give me a new idea for something I could cook in the future.

The cooking menu alerted me that I needed to add ingredients to complete the process.

"That's it!" I mumbled under my breath as I chopped up the remaining potatoes. "I've discovered a new recipe!"

I took my time to scrap away the top layer of skin from my [Carrots]. Even though I'd gotten rid of the [Dirty] debuff, there were still dark bits trapped in the uneven skin, and I didn't want my stew to be dirt flavored. My [Chef's Knife] worked fine enough for that, as I scrapped away the layer of skin carefully, but I swore there had to be a better way. Perhaps someone made a tool just for this.

Some sort of... I don't know... vegetable peeler.

My knife skills weren't great, though. And so I ended up scraping away some amount of the flesh of the [Carrots] as I skinned them. Which was annoying, but was just something that would get better over time.

When the [Carrots] were mostly naked, I chopped them into nubs roughly as long as from my thumbnail to the first knuckle. I wanted to make sure they cooked all the way through, but still had some crunch to them. Since I was flying blind here, I had no idea if this size would achieve that... but we were doing it live. No guides to help me.

I immediately thought of Lizbeth and hoped she was doing okay.

Day was such an ass.

Last up under my knife were the [Common Mushrooms]. I chopped these up pretty fine - I wanted the flavor and the stat boost from the mushrooms, but I didn't want giant chunks of the fungus in the stew, just in case someone wasn't a fan of mushrooms. If they were small enough, they'd basically melt into the broth anyway.

When all of my vegetables were prepped, I looked over my menu. Next up on the list was the beef, but I wanted to do something a little special.

My mom had been a master of cooking stews. She used a lot of different ingredients in her various stews during my childhood. Some were hearty meat-and-potato types like this, while others used barley or beans.

I missed my mom.

She would have really enjoyed the idea of Ambition.

I prepared my [Slice of Beef] by trimming off some of the excess fat that was too thick to cook away properly. After that was done, I coated it on all sides with my [Adobo Spice] powder, a lot of [Salt], and a generous handful of [Ground Peppercorns]. After coating the [Slice of Beef] with spices, I rubbed it down, convincing the spices to penetrate into the meat itself.

Which then made me realize my mistake. I didn't have a source of fresh water. Forgot to get a bucket or something set up. So now my hands were coated in spices and raw beef, and I had nothing to clean with.

"Good job, Harper," I said to myself.

And of course, as soon as I realized my hands were too filthy to touch anything, that's when my nose started to itch.

A powerful itch, too.

"Son of a... Hey Mel? Can I get your help for a moment?"

The words were barely out of my mouth when the pixie fluttered into the room in her winged form. She turned back into her human form and looked around for where the fire was.

"I, um, need you to fetch a pail of water."

She took one look at my hands and snickered. "Oh. I see. Hey Berry, false alarm! He's still got all his fingers!"

"Damn!"

"Seriously? You guys better not be betting real money on me hurting myself."

"Oh, Harper, lighten up. Of course we are." Mel shot me a grin and then ducked out the back door to get me that water.

Pixies.