[log] Chopped: Link's Exploded Backpack Edition

Who: Anyone who wants to salvage the Unreasonably Large Food Pile left in the kitchen ... and elsewhere ... by Link's departure.
What: An Unreasonably Large Pile of delicious fresh food!
When: April 1st
Where: The kitchen and surrounding areas in the Lobby. The bugs and lizards might spread ...
Content warnings: Contains live insects!! Potential insect-eating. Should be pretty tame otherwise!

It starts with a hurried post on the bulletin board in Illarion's efficient script:

There is an enormous pile of food in the kitchen that needs to be saved.

Anyone who can prepare or preserve it welcome.

After an hour or two, a tidy little inventory appears beneath the initial message, along with an attempt to track -- by name or description -- who's taken what, and how it's been used. There are some inventive descriptions on there for the items Illarion doesn't recognize.

(It doesn't look exactly like this -- because Illarion doesn't know the names of everything in the pile, or everyone who stops by, and certainly wouldn't make a spreadsheet -- but the poor digital substitute will have to stand in for his glorious real list.)

Those who do respond to the urgent missive will find the kitchen exactly as described: Absolutely full to overflowing with fresh produce that could've grown in the Library's garden, alongside a veritable market wagon of fresh fish, meat, and more produce. (Along with ... rocks and wood?)

Oh, and there's also a minor infestation of live bugs and reptiles actively escaping into the stacks.

Illarion's right in the thick of it for hours, first tirelessly triaging the mass into what should be cooked or preserved first, what will store well in the icebox, and what can be kept around on the shelves. Then he turns his hand to preparing the meat and fish for drying (and saving the fat from the richest cuts).

Once he's certain the most perishable items are taken care of, he sets aside some of the fat, honey, and berries for himself. Then he goes out hunting, pursuing the bugs and lizards loose in the Lobby and stacks. He's got no shame whatsoever about chasing them under furniture or up bookshelves, and soon has his sabertache full of squirmy tidbits.

Then it's back to the kitchen, to render the fat and make crunchy insect pemmican from his prizes.

(He's enough of a magpie he can't resist making off with some of the gems. There's someone out there who will look stunning in rubies and amber...)

((OOC: Feel free to use this as a jumping-off point for whatever you wanna do with your top levels! No need to tag Illarion -- go wild.

The spreadsheet above is fully editable -- feel free to put in what your guys take on tab 2 ~~& I'll eventually get some automation going to track the item inventory~~ and tab 1 will do inventory for us. Have fun!!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I don't know half of these fish and plants," Dunk willingly admits out loud. He looks down at Jun. "We could fry one of the fishes on the big cooking box?" he offers the young boy. "The circles on top work a little like cookfires."

He means the stove.

... Damn this guy is tall.

"You'd need a skillet or something. Don't put stuff right on the stovetop, you're going to get stuff all over it that's going to be hard to clean." Are they even safe to eat, though? They probably wouldn't be here if they weren't...

He is! Jun would have seen him at werewolf lessons with Lady Amalia during the last few days of the story, but it would be forgivable to assume he was only that tall for story purposes. But nope! He's really just that big.

"Aye, I do know I need a skillet," Dunk says, looking for the frying pan. "There's nothing on this box to let you properly stake a fish for roasting anyway."

... Dramatic effect seriously likes this guy, wow.

"Stake a fish - oh, like over a campfire." He nods, then tilts his head a little. "Is that what you're more used to? Since you don't seem to know much about stoves..." That probably comes out harsh, but he didn't mean to actually be mean. ... This time.

"It is," Dunk says. "I spent most of my life on the road and even those times I was at a castle or an inn, there weren't any cooking boxes or buckets like they have here, just hearths and large ovens."

He doesn't seem offended. He knows that plenty of people here come from places where marvels and magic are everyday.

"Huh. Yeah, I've... cooked over a campfire, but not regularly." He grabs a skillet and turns on the heat.

"We'll need some kind of oil..."

"There's a bottle of rapeseed in the cupboard," Dunk says, already familiar with the contents of the kitchen--though the bottle he fishes out for Jun reads 'canola' on the front of it instead.

"That'll do." He's heard of it called both things, after all. "Do you eat fish often? It's very common where I'm from."

He's trying to be friendlier at least?

He is! Dunk appreciates it, having already recognized what a melancholy boy Jun is.

"When Egg or I manage to catch some," Dunk says. And then, because he's not sure if he's explained Egg to Jun just yet, he says, "That's my squire. I took him on two years ago. You're what, three and ten? So he'd be two years younger than you."

The hell is a squire, he doesn't remember... like an assistant? Hm. "Oh. And yes, I'm thirteen."

... Huh. "Do you get left to your own devices on food a lot? I thought knights got food from their bosses. ... Lords?"

"You do when you're working for one," Dunk says, "but I've mostly been a hedge knight and we're not sworn to any lord in particular, but go wherever we're needed. So when we've been on the road we've had to make due for ourselves. It was hard on Egg at first, since he's highborn, but he got used to it."

Hedge knight... so like a freelance knight? Hm. "I guess that would be hard if you're not used to it. I don't think I could do it. ... I can cook for myself okay, but I can't... make a campfire."

It's a basic skill and one he knows he's lacking, but it's never been an issue before... hm.

"If you want me to teach you later," Dunk offers, "I could see if the Sewer Man can send us to the safe forest. It's got a good clearing to build a fire in."

Um. "The... Sewer Man?" He has not run into anyone he could describe as that.

"He's extremely tall and spent the last Story hiding in the sewers," Dunk explains. "I don't know his name, so I call him the Sewer Man."

"You know what, that's fair." He glances around. "Or we could just knock over a bookshelf."

"... we could," Dunk allows. "Do you want to?"

"Maybe later." He looks down at the fish. "Not now. But we could. It's boring enough here that it might be interesting."

"It is, isn't it?" Dunk says. "I don't want to complain, but I am not really a man who is made for libraries."

"I like books, but I don't like that they're all unfinished. And it's really difficult to find what you're looking for, anyway."

Dunk nods. "Or even which room you're headed to."

"Exactly. There's no logic here..." His frustration is pretty clear. "Hm... I think it's time to flip it."

He grabs a spatula and starts trying to move the fish.

Dunk meanwhile gets a large fork to help in the flipping.

He braces the fish up against the side of the spatula and lets Dunk flip it with the fork. Might as well make the big guy feel useful right now...

Thanks, Jun. You're a pal.

And— FLIP.

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