Better Than One - Chapter 14 Housekeep

While I was taking care of our administrative duties, Estra and Bansari were ‘talking’ Alchemy using the slate board. Compared to Estra’s handful, Bansari knew a dozen recipes, along with locations where for the needed ingredients. Some of them were hard to come by, while others grew in specific locations, or during particular times of the year. Bansari has been gathering them for years, and once another table was brought over, she laid out a whole pile of them.

The bigger surprise was the vials that Bansari carried with her. A few were for alchemy, but most were for witchcraft. It was a branch of magic that Estra knew little about. It wasn’t part of any formal studies from her Academy years, nor part of any magic classes among the humans. Unlike other magic, Bansari was sure that witchcraft can be taught from any witch to witch without a need of a class system, or the sparse spell tomes. That piqued our interest. The bad news was that she only knew one spell, and it required reagents to use, such as what she kept in the vials.

The spell [Mist Cloud] was simple: take a reagent in a vial, flow mana through it, then designate a point for the cloud to appear from. The spell took care of the rest, causing the reagent to be disbursed as fine mist cloud. The longer and more mana is channeled, the greater the effect and size of the cloud. The great thing about [Mist Cloud] is its flexibility. Besides liquids, it also worked with powders and gas. Want an Acid Cloud? Grab a vial of acid. Want an explosion? Use a flammable liquid, or charcoal dust and then light it. The possibilities and applications were endless. I was itching to experiment.

Thankfully, Lan had saved a whole box-full of vials from years prior while engaging slimes. Though some vials had expired, evaporated or gone bad, many were still usable. I went to town with my [Inspect+] looking for the most concentrated acids, most explosive flammable liquids, and anything that could be used offensively smells included.

Estra couldn’t learn the spell. She tried and she tried, but nothing happened. She stood there with a vial in hand, cursing. Once I understood the process, all that was left for me was to ‘will’ it and it happened. It was magical! I even obtained a [Gained spell: Mist Cloud] notification and it took up a spot next to [Kinetic Spike] on my status page. Much like other spells and skills, it was upgradable with Essence.

It unnerved her to no end that a magic ‘simpleton’ like myself, as she called me, was able to learn it while she couldn’t. In the end, she gave up and we chalked it up to some restriction from being a fire mage that stopped her from learning a ‘witch’ spell. At least she had her fire spells to fall back on.

I had Kuuz add small leather loops to the back of my large shield so I could store a dozen vials. Included was a metal guard to protect the vials from getting crushed. It was like a medicine cabinet shield. I also had him add two large spikes to the bottom so I could drive it into the ground, thereby allowing me to free up my hand to grab a vial as needed. I got the hang of it after some practice and was able to cast a [Mist Cloud] while still utilizing the shield.

It was when Estra and I had started talking about how we were going to allocate the Essence we got last night, that Zoey showed up with Globba.

The problem was the lack of mammoths. They were simply gone, and it wasn’t some seasonal migration. The two spent hours searching but didn’t find any. Zoey put us at two to three weeks before we run out of food, and this was just the start of what is supposed to be a cold winter. We had nearly doubled our clan numbers, going from 78 to a respectable 131. Occasionally, we’d even get deserters from other clans. It was starting to get serious, and I desperately needed to figure out our food situation while we had the time.

“Let’s get the spiders!” Globba said, smacking her lips, and rubbing her small pot belly. Estra perked up, looking alarmed. “Mmm delicious spider eggs,” Globba said and it made me realize that her speech has drastically improved from when she was a cave troll. It’s possible that she was lacking the needed [Intelligence] stats to [Evolve], or maybe it was some racial trait. Regardless, she wasn’t muttering gibberish any longer. If only she wasn’t so cheery all the time. I don’t know why, but I was always suspicious of overly happy people. Like it was a pleasant facade. A charade.

“Are they actually edible?” I asked and Zoey reassured me that they were. Still, I couldn’t erase the image of Globba munching on a live spider from my mind. “And the cooks know how to prepare them?” Zoey nodded, while Estra was getting more agitated.

“How do we fight them? Anything I should know about them?” I asked. I saw the type of spiders Globba had in mind. They would put up a fight.

“No, no, no! No spiders!” Estra blurted out. “I’m not going!” She was shaking her head vehemently, stepping us backward almost stumbling.

“You’re afraid of spiders?” I asked.

“No! of course not. I just don’t want to go near them! They can go without us.” Estra was pointing at Globba and Zoey. “They’ll be fine. Plus, we need to, umm we need to … decide how to spend our Essence wisely.” Zoey and Globba were exchanging questioning looks between each other.

There was no helping it, so I delegated the spider the hunt over to Lan. I told him to make sure that nobody dies on hunt, even if it meant running away or not bringing anything back. He formed up a party of dozen, including Globba, Zoey and four dragonborn, and departed.

At least Estra was in an agreeable mood when we got down to spending Essence. She even shared her status screen and the upgraded [Fireball] spell status page. Since the start of our ogre days she had saved up around 9,000 Essence, and I had 9,832. Her [Fireball] spell was fully upgraded through tier 4. The previous upgrade of [Fireball] turned out to be as a result of increasing her [Intelligence] stat from 117 to 150.

We talked and we bargained, but finally agreed on a plan. First, we decided to take advantage of [Redundancy] by ensuring that each of us had stats that the other could gain. This meant that I’d increase my [Spirit], and she’d continue increasing her [Intelligence]. Second, she’d upgrade her [Aristocrat] profession. She understood that getting back at her brother might involve more than just the two of us getting strong. It also meant having strong, loyal allies. She upped Aristocrat through four tiers, each one giving a 5% increase.

Skill: Aristocrat [Tier 2 profession]

[t4] Loyalty, +20%

[t4] Work Ethic, +20%

[t4] Morale, +20%

And third, is that I would focus on defense, while she’d increase our offense. This meant I’d upgrade my shield skills, and she’d upgrade her fire spells. I went down the line and increased all twelve [t1] upgrades of the three shield skills I had to [t2] for 1,200 Essence, a bargain at 100 Essence each. The following [t2] options were double the cost, at 200 Essence each for another 2,400.

Most importantly, we went over our plans for [Evolve.] She had her Fire Mage tiers she could increase to gain new spells and become a stronger spellcaster, while I had [Evolve]. We had to decide on our future form because each option had different stat requirements besides the single lump cost.

Two-Headed Troll 24,000

Stat requirements: Constitution 150, Spirit 140, Agility 120

Racial trait:

[Troll Regeneration] increases the effect of Spirit stat

[Thick Skin] a layer of natural armor

[Dark-Vision] can see in the dark

Two-Headed Half-Giant 26,000

Stat requirements: Strength: 160, Con: 130, Agi: 120

Racial trait:

[Giant’s strength] doubles the effect of Strength stat

[Tall] increased effect of weather spells

Two-Headed Draconian 30,000

Stat requirements: Intelligence: 150, Spirit: 140, Agility: 120

Racial traits:

[Fiery Breath] can cast Fire spells from your mouth.

[Scales] a layer of natural armor

[Clawed hands] sharp and deadly

[Tail] improves balance, can be used to attack

Two-Headed Lesser Devil 32,000

Stat requirements: Agility: 145, Luck: 145, Int: 120

Racial trait:

[Devil’s Luck] increases the effect of Luck stat

[Hoof it!] increases sprinting speed

[Clawed hands] sharp and deadly

[Tail] improves balance, can be used to attack

I didn’t know how many [Evolve] stages there were. If it took its natural course, I imagined that the Draconian option ended as a Dragon, Wyvern or maybe a Wurm of some sort. The Two-Headed Lesser Devil would probably end as a Devil King, Emperor? I didn’t have much familiarity with Trolls or Giants, but I imagined similar more powerful beings.

Right from the start, she had no interest in either the Half-Giant or Troll. She decided against them simply based on aesthetics. Neither were going to be improvements in the looks department. It came down to Draconian or Lesser Devil and in the end what won over was our present situation. We were among kobolds and she felt the need to fit in, so Draconian it was. It also suited her the most, it being the spellcaster variant out of the four options. I was happy with our decision if we survived long enough it would be awesome to become a Dragon! All that was left was to get the needed 30k Essence and 150 [Intelligence].

With that out of the way, I left [Agility] as it was at 119, I figured in another five days of training I’ll have it at the needed 120. And increased [Spirit] to 140, so that Estra could gain it through [Redundancy] and because it was needed for Draconian [Evolve.] This left me with 2,690 Essence for later.

After that, we spent the time working on alchemy with Bansari. This yielded a bunch of simple, but useful potions. I was able to add three more reagents for my [Mist Cloud] spell: sneezing, sleeping, and itching powders.

Healing potion x 5

Mana potion x 3

Mana regeneration potion x2

Poison Antidote x 3

It was Estra’s turn to modify my medicine cabinet of a shield to also hold potions. She also had a leather belt made for us, with extra loops and pouches to hold even more potions. I ended up dumping 1,200 more essence into shield weight reduction to reduce it by another 20%. Once Kuuz added spikes to the front of the shield we started to look like an armored truck from a post-apocalyptic movie. Max would have been proud.

By the time it was getting late, Lan had returned with sacks full of spider eggs, and over a dozen spiders. Globba was dragging two in each hand, leaving a blood trail. It was a triumphant return full of bounty. Nobody died, except for spiders of course. Estra looked on with trepidation and disgust as the carcasses were deposited for cooks to prepare. I was looking forward to trying new food. It wouldn’t solve all our food problems, but it would extend our food supplies in the short term. Kuuz also showed up, but eager for spider carapace.

The kobold cooks had different ideas for preparing the spiders, as compared to Globba’s. She was off to the side ripping one apart by herself with a grin on her face. The large, ostrich sized eggs were also a delicacy, or so I was told. They looked a bit like caramel popcorn, oddly shaped and hairy. Crunchy sounds were heard as the cooks descended on the spiders like a busy day at the Red Lobster. Large pans and oil was brought out, and the place was filled up with an assortment of smells, both new and delicious.

Inside the eggs were small white to translucent baby spiders. They looked soft, but were fried up to a nice golden crispy outside. I seesawed between disgust and curiosity. Trying new foods was something that I always loved doing, but that didn’t mean I was ready to hit the back alleys of Japan in search for exotic.

The added honeyed sauce didn’t entice Estra to even glance in the direction of the spidery meal. I took a bite and found the taste to be subtle, tasting mostly the sauce, but with a hint of soft shelled crab. I was hungry, and it looked like a good source of protein.

After the eggs, was spider meat. The cooks spooned out the meat and fried it in oil. It came out in small chunks looking like scallops. Besides the meat, they served various organs in bowls, some were still raw but I wasn’t so adventurous. The meat had a good texture to it, almost crunchy, and reminded me of the subtle taste of sake. It made me wish for a strong drink.