"This is great!" Cookie started eating by the time Raven moved over to join them.

"Wow, this looks good." Raven took a plate of food.

"You coming, Tony?" Lucas asked, looking at his friend that was still fishing.

"Not until I catch a fish." Tony grumbled. "I've been fishing for a while. I’m due for a bite."

"Oh, alright." Lucas lowered the plate of food he had been holding up. He looked at the two women sitting near him, eating away. "Try not to lose the forks. I spent the last of my coins on them at that shop. It's the only eating utensils I have right now."

"You should have said something, sweetie! I would have given you some of my money. I don't even know what I would use those big pennies for." Cookie said after swallowing a bite of food.

"That's alright. I'm sure we'll get more money when we kill monsters and do quests." Lucas took a bite of his fish. It was the right amount of crispiness, but the flavor profile could have been expanded on. Not much he could do about that, given his lack of ingredients. The side dish of vegetables was good too, though a few more herbs or spices would have helped. "This didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped."

"Oh, hush that thought!" Cookie dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "This is delicious! Better than anything I could make."

Raven nodded her head. "Mhm, this is good, and I don't normally go for fish."

"Why's that?" Lucas asked between bites.

"Fish is usually... Fishy, you know? This isn't fishy at all though." Raven answered.

"Fresh fish are never fishy." Lucas explained, then took another bite of the fish. "Frozen fish is usually fishy, the cheap stuff anyway."

"That would explain a lot. My mom loves buying food in bulk and tossing it all in the chest freezer." Raven shook her head. "I'd rather-"

"Aha, I got another big one!" Tony exclaimed, causing the rest of the group to turn their attention to him. "Just wait, and see. Strong arm!" The tip of the kobold's rod glowed blue as the Kobold pulled back hard on the rod while reeling in. "My fishing skill will make this a breeze!" He laughed, reeling in the fish much quicker than he had the last two times. "Got it, see-" The kobold reeled in a small fish that wiggled at the end of his line above the water.

Raven smirked, stifling her laughter mid-bite. "To-Tony please, don't make me laugh when I'm eating."

"Oh, shut up." Tony hastily removed the fish from the hook and flung open his bag to toss the tiny excuse for a fish into it. His fishing rod followed into the bag before he moved over to join the group. "It's just bait I needed to catch for the big fish to come." He took the last plate of food. "Dang, Art. This looks good!" The kobold complimented before digging in.

The party quietly ate their meal, the hunger that had been gnawing away at them fading away as more food disappeared from their plates. Soon, all the plates had been stacked onto each other on the grass, forks sitting on the top plate. Tony stood up as someone approached them. It was the dog-man they had followed before.

"Hey, uh..." The man scratched a finger in his bearded chin, his other hand holding onto the tails of two fish. "I saw you cooking from across the way and, uh..." He cleared his throat. "Could you cook one of my fish for me, please? You can keep one of the fish for yourself. I'm really hungry, and I have nothing to eat."

The party turned their attention away from the new arrival to Lucas, who had a look of concern.

"Oh." Lucas glanced at his cooking supplies, still having plenty of oil and butter to fry some fish up. "Yeah, sure. I can do that."

The dog-man let out a sigh of relief, stepping forward to hold out the two fish. "Thank you so much! I haven't eaten anything since yesterday."

Lucas accepted the large green fish and the slightly smaller yellow fish with black stripes. "Sure, it's not a big deal. The only thing is, I have nothing I can offer as a side dish." He set the fish aside onto his bedroll, then turned back to the dog-man. "Is it alright if all I give you in return is your fish cut into fillets and fried up? It won't make for a diverse meal, but either of these fish should be able to fill you up."

"Yes, that's perfectly fine. Thank you again!" The dog-man exclaimed with a smile, tail wagging behind him.

Lucas moved the bigger fish onto his cutting board, much more glad to have the cleaver. "It will take about fifteen minutes until it's done, if you want to take a seat." He stated before promptly chopping the fish's head off, switching to his cooking knife to fillet.

"Sure, no rush!" The dog-man sat down, crossing his legs as his tail kept wagging.

Raven had returned to her spot during the conversation, sitting against a tree and pulling out her book. Cookie offered to help, to which Lucas politely declined. The pan of oil was moved back onto the fire, needing to be hot again before it could fry anything.

"Did you try buying food from the town?" Tony asked the dog-man, pulling his fishing rod back out from his pack.

"I did. Every place I tried was empty." The dog-man grumbled. "I had the idea to pick fishing as my job, then realized I don't have any way to cook fish."

"Yeah, we tried getting food, too. There's too many people and not enough stores or stock." Tony pulled his tiny fish from his bag and stuck it onto his hook. "Art, I'm gonna try to turn this tiny fish into a big fish so we can have dinner for later."

"Alright." Lucas replied, not looking away as he finished cutting up the fish. "Oh, yeah!" He pulled his magnifying glass from his pocket and leaned forward at the fish guts he had removed, seeing that they had a low number for durability. It was a measly three out of three, and a few pokes of his knife caused the entrails to disappear like they had before. The fish fillets were examined next, and they had a decent amount of durability. When he sat up from his brief experiment, he saw the dog-man and Cookie both giving him a look of concern.

The Draconian explained his findings to their guest, Cookie, listening in as if for the first time. It wasn't until the fish was placed into the hot oil that he realized he had nothing to serve the fish on. He voiced his concerns and Cookie offered to help by taking the plates and forks to the river for cleaning. There were no objections, and so she went off with her new task. She returned after a few minutes with perfectly clean plates and forks.

"Wow, that was easy!" Cookie smiled, taking a seat after passing the plates over. "I dipped them in the water, and the bits of food immediately washed away."

"So much for realism. The game grants us one ounce of relief, and it's easy to clean plates!" Tony called out, keeping his eyes on his fishing line.

"I'll take what I can get. That would have been nice to know last night." Lucas eyed the fillets in the pan, then flipped them. He transferred them to a plate once finished, giving the two fillets some last touches. "It's nothing special, some butter, salt, pepper and a spritz of lemon." The Draconian offered the meal, along with a fork, to their guest. "I hope it's alright."

The dog-man's ears perked up after taking the plate, the smell of the fish quickly hitting his nostrils. "If it tastes half as good as it looks, I'll be happy!" His fork easily cut through the soft flesh before crunching into the crispy skin. "Uh... It still has the skin on it." He turned to the Draconian with a look of concern.

"Don't worry about it, I properly removed the scales and made sure the skin side was put in first so it would come out nice and crispy." Lucas reassured.

"It's a video game, dude. You'll be fine." Tony added in, still listening to the others as he fished.

"He just made fish for us, and it was cooked the same way. It was good, I promise!" Cookie said.

The dog-man took a tentative bite. He chewed carefully a few times, then quickly and swallowed to take another bite. "Wow, I've never had fish like this before." The dog-man said between bites. "This is great. Thank you!"

Lucas smiled at their guest, then turned to his cooking area that was becoming a mess. "You're welcome. I'm glad you like it." He began cleaning up, checking the durability of the fish heads before dropping them into his bag. "I wish I had more ingredients to work with, or something to serve as a side dish."

The dog-man shook his head as he swallowed. "Simple is fine, and it's good anyway." He finished one fillet and was digging into the second, now at a calmer pace. "Even if it was plain fish, I would've been happy. I was so hungry."

"We're so glad we could help you, dear." Cookie patted their guest's shoulder. "Being hungry is terribly awful. I hope those stores realize their demand is high and provide more food so everyone can get some."

"I doubt that the game is smart enough to have a system like that in place." Tony looked back at Cookie. "I'm sure all the stores have preset numbers for how much stock they refresh every day. Which means, no matter if they sell out every single day, the stores will keep getting the same amount when they open up."

"Well, that's not right!" Cookie spoke with a stern expression. "There are a lot of people that need to buy food, and they should get more! Why wouldn't they? Those stores would make even more money if they sold more!"

"I-" Tony sighed, turning back to watch his fishing rod. "That's not how the game works. Those store owners are NPCs, a bunch of code to look like a person. They don't care about making money, they don't need it."

"Why don't the people that made the game make the stores restock more, or give us food?" Cookie persisted. "Can't they make things better?"

Lucas and the Dog-man watched the two converse. Lucas organized his things and put them away, while their guest finished eating his food.

"Hey, uh... Thanks again." The dog-man set his plate and fork down, getting up and heading off away from the group.

"That's not how that works! It doesn't even matter, because they're probably all busy trying to fix the log out issue. They might not even know about the food being a problem, and even if they did, they have bigger problems to deal with." Tony argued back.

"I guess I'm too old to understand these video games, but they should be able to do something!" Cookie stood up with a huff, taking the dirty plate and fork with her as she went down to the start of the river.

"What do you mean?! You're not old. You don't even look like you're in your thirties yet!" Tony called out, watching the other walk off. "Jeez, she must've grown up with strict parents or something."

"Why do you say that?" Lucas asked, moving the pan to cool on the grass.

"I would guess-" Tony began.

"She probably grew up with parents that went on and on about how video games are childish, and how you're supposed to focus on more important things." Raven scoffed. "Telling you how games are a waste of time, same for most of the hobbies you enjoy."

"Would you stop interrupting me?!" Tony nearly yelled. "But yeah, that's what I was getting at."

"Huh, I hadn't thought of that. Must be why she doesn't know much about games and thinks they're for children." Lucas said. He had put away most of his supplies, except for the pot, pan, cutting board, and knives that needed to be cleaned. If a dip in the river cleaned them real quick, then it'd be a breeze. He couldn't help but wonder, would it be okay to dump oil in a river, even if it was just a game?

"Excuse me." An elderly sounding voice interrupted Lucas's thoughts. When the Draconian looked up, he saw an older man with graying hair. In the man's hands were two fish. "We heard you were cooking a fish in exchange for a fish."

"We?" Lucas repeated, leaning to his side to see a small line of people behind the man. "Uh..."

"What's all this?" Cookie had returned, giving a confused look to the line of people. Every person held two fish in their hands, and it didn't seem to be a big variety of fish. She saw the same green fish Tony had caught, the yellow and black striped dog-man had brought, and then a green and red fish.

"More people want their fish cooked." Lucas glanced back at Cookie.

"Oh, great!" Cookie bent down to add the plate and utensil to the rest, then went to the older man and collected his two fish. "Art, sweetie. Let me know how I can help, alright?"

"Wait, what?" Lucas was the one with a confused expression now, the man's fish being placed down onto his cutting board and bedroll.

"You're going to need all the help you can get so these people don't go hungry!" Cookie smiled. "Like I said before, I can follow directions!"

"Right." Lucas relented, the decision having been made for him. "Okay, so... Can you clean out the pot?" He held up the pot he had used to cook their side dish. "It's not ideal, but I can use that to cook fish too."

"Sure thing!" Cookie took the pot and hurried off to the river.

"What the hell?" Tony looked back at the line of people. "Why am I even fishing, if all these people are going to give us a fish as payment?!"

Lucas had gone back to his bag's menu, pulling out everything he had put away. "I guess that's a good point. We'll have plenty of fish this way."

Tony grumbled, his grip tightening on his fishing pole. "Well... I guess I'll stop after this next fish since I'm not needed."

"Er, sorry Tony." Lucas replied, getting to work on preparing his sad excuse for a workstation. A campfire with a cooking rack, the pan of oil being returned onto it, and his closed bedroll protecting his ingredients and cooking tools from the dirt and grass. It certainly wasn't much, but it was the best he had to work with, and it would allow him to help feed others in need. The Draconian set aside the smaller of the two fish, and prepared the larger one.

Once Cookie returned, Lucas instructed her to add it onto the cooking rack and to add olive oil into it. He could use the pan and the pot to fry up fish, allowing him to cook for two people at once. That would let him get through this line faster. By the time he had gotten the old man's fish sliced up and placed into the pan, the pot's oil was hot enough for him to collect the two fish from the next person in line. Cookie had the old man step out of line and sit down, reassuring him it shouldn't be too long of a wait.

This set the pace for the rest of the line. The old man was soon sitting to the side and enjoying his fish fillet, freeing up the pan for the third person in line. The only limiting factor was the lack of plates they had. Thankfully, people were eating rather quickly. Cookie helped by collecting the fish for Lucas, striking up conversations, and by running plates and forks to the river to be cleaned. Lucas solely had to prepare the fish and fry them up, getting a good rhythm that came naturally. It helped that the game made things easier, the unwanted parts of the fish disappearing without a trace and the lack of blood kept things clean.

Tony reeled in a fish by the time the third person in line was having their fish sliced up. He pulled in another green fish, a largemouth bass, roughly the same size as before. The fish and his fishing pole were deposited into his bag before he left the edge of the pond. "I'll be practicing if you need me." He said as he walked past Lucas and Cookie, both acknowledging him as they worked.

The kobold sat down in the shade of a tree that was one tree over from Raven. He glanced over at the elf who was busy with her book, then pulled out a booklet from his bag. Tony retrieved his flute from his hip and opened the booklet. After a few minutes of studying its contents, he brought the flute to his lips and played several notes.

"What are you doing?" Raven turned her head to the kobold to give him a curious look. "That sounds awful." She added, listening to the strange sounds.

"I'm well aware, thanks!" Tony lowered his instrument. "I've never played the flute before, and this kobold muzzle is kind of weird for this."

"Why are you trying to learn the flute, anyway?" Raven set her book and quill into her lap.

"I have to play the flute to be able to do my skills." Tony explained, flipping through pages of his booklet.

"Don't you just cast spells like everyone else?" Raven asked.

"What? No. I have to play a song, and depending on what song or tune I play, I activate a unique skill." Tony dropped his flute into his lap. "That's why I was completely useless this morning. I couldn't play my flute to activate my skill."

"That's rough. I only have to point my wand and say the spell." Raven looked up to the branches and leaves. "Do you know how to play any instruments?"

"Yeah, I play piano and guitar, but no wind instruments." Tony sighed. "I love music, but I never intended to dip into wind instruments. Not to say I hate it, it just never seemed like I would get the chance." He glanced over at Raven. "Are you drawing again? I take it that's what you like to do?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Raven held up her book, giving the kobold a look into her two recent drawings. Though, given the distance, he couldn't make them out very well. "I love drawing, and here I get to do it all I want."

“Where did you get that book and quill, anyway?” Tony asked.

“I’m a scribe, it came with the job.” Raven answered.

"Oh yeah, I didn’t even look into that one because it sounded boring.” Tony said. “Isn't it hard to draw with a quill, and aren't they supposed to be dipped in ink constantly to work?"

"After I found out scribes get sketch books and a quill, I decided on picking it. The quill isn’t that bad, actually. I only have to dip it into ink every once in a while." Raven turned the page of her book to a blank page and wildly scribbled onto it. "Plus, the feather side does this." She grazed the end of the feather across the big scribble she had made. As the feather moved over the page, it erased any ink it was brushed over.

"Ooh, a built-in eraser. That's pretty cool." Tony grabbed his flute and pointed it at the elf. "So you get a cool, easy-to-use quill, and I have to teach myself how to play an instrument." He retracted his hand. "This game is weird. I shouldn't have to learn an instrument just to do skills."

"Why don't you change to a different class and stop whining." Raven set her book down.

"Pft. That's not how games work. You can't just change classes whenever you want." Tony scoffed.

"Sucks to be you then." Raven said. "Try to get better fast, so I don't have to listen to you being bad."

"I will!" Tony raised his flute to his muzzle with a huff.