L [o/i] ve is a journey

Sleep, Eat, Study, Repeat | A Fever

A week later, Lunaris closed a book on the topic of the basics of magic. He reached a point where he realized, they all have been describing the same process over and over again, and he had found the resolvement to try more onto the topic of practice. But, he also remembered something else: he could cook, yes. But he had no idea about the local condiments and ingredients available in this area. Not to mention he also didn't knew anything about the regional wild plants available.

He should probably focus on that, too. The basics were already sinking in, and as far as he understood, as somebody with the affiliation of light, there wasn't a lot he could do except healing and literal light balls.

Not very useful, and if the book he got from the tempel didn't list a lot of very complex skills and how to perform them, he would have been disheartened again. But some of them were really powerful, and if it was true his affiliation to the element was a large one, he might be useful after all. Really useful.

But until then, he wanted to make sure to learn about plants, materials to brew some medicine and maybe cook up something really good from what seems to be absolutly nasty. He had listened to Nerivie's stories of how she ate the tail of a desert scorpion, that tasted like a watermelon previously eaten an hour ago and vomited up again, mixed with sand and in full detail, too. It was disgusting, and more disheartening to hear she had been so hungry at the time, she just realized the taste when she was nearly done and her stomach was nearly filled.

Really weird was it, that they had a stew a few days later that had the same type of monster in it, and it tasted delicious. She then went on, with him together, to eat every possible dish that contained sand scorpion, and even if he was hesitant at first, he soon realized how tasty these can be. But, while Nerivie wondered how it was possible, he was sure of it: they had to be prepared in a specific way.

Maybe they had a gland that just ruined the taste. Maybe they needed to be pre-cooked, or burnt, or cut. He knew of a variety of animals and plants that could not be eaten as is, but needed a specific preparation to become not only edible, but delicious.

Lunaris put the book on his pile of wisdom, and went to look into the subject. Everytime he thought about cooking, he wondered about how these receipes came to be. How did people figure out what to eat, without dying in the early days? How did they realized one thing was poisonous when eaten raw, but totally edible when cooked throught?

And that's just the easy one: some of the things on the list of what people can and cannot eat are partially safe to eat, if you cut these out carefully. Or threw them together in alcohol. Or just let them rot for a while. It really was amazing, when you started to think about it.

Some plants people ate are poisonous, except for the roots. Some are poisonous except for one particular leaf, or fruit, harvested at a specific time of the year. Who comes up with that?

Lunaris thoughts rotated about this topic, when he grabbed an encyclopaedia about hunting and cooking the most common dishes in this desert area.

As he thought, the desert scorpion was actually one of the „do not eat, except for these parts". The tail wasn't exactly poisionous, except from the tip, where the poison gland sat. But that gland bittered and fouled the taste of the meat in the surrounding area of the tail, so it wasn't worth to eat it anyway and had to be removed in a specific way. And even then it was not of great taste.

The gland and the body was primarily used on making medicine, while the pincer and the legs were a culinary delicacy, if prepared correctly.

The book talked about the sizes, which were enourmous, so one scorpion could feed them for a while, and also talked about times when not to hunt them for various reasons.

One was the breeding season.

That was kinda obvious you leave them alone during that time. It guaranteed a stable number of these animals, and the other, very sensible reason was, how ferocious they were during that time. One would think, they are bad outside the season, but no, they gathered in much larger groups and were fighting to death, if neccessary.

In his mind, getting one of the poor fuckers that had the short stick of the evolutionary war should be a risky, but quick way to get some dinner for a few days. He would dare, probably... or better not.

Lunaris read how they were prepared, and took notes what to use how. He decided to open a second notebook for medicinal applications and receipies, too. It wasn't only the cooking and receipies linked to them while they were fresh, preserving them in a way that they still were tasty- or at least could be turned into a tasty meal, had an equal importance in his mind.

One talked about preserving them in a really strong hot sauce, which would lead to a form of fermentation, but mentioned a strong smell. Drying, salting, and conserve them in a pot by heating them was also mentioned.

He was so focused on the animals in this area, how to hunt them, when to hunt them, what could be used for what, do they fetch anything of value, and so on, that he didn't realized the colourful carpet of light faded into darkness. The books that kept piling up on the read side of his table got bigger, until he was reminded of his grumbling stomach, that he was hungry.

Very hungry.

The man named after the god of the moon looked up. Weird. Nerivie should have been here by now. Maybe, she was held off by something? How late was it, anyway? Judging by the tiredness that suddenly kicked it, very late.

That wasn't great. In fact, it was bad! A sense of dread kicked in. A familiar feeling in his stomach, other than being hungry: the fear of being abandoned.

He stood up, hurridly, and walked out of the grand Libary with weak knees. No, she would not leave him behind. She can't. She won't. This is not possible.

But it has had happened before- his head reminded him. Again, and again, and again, until there was nothing you could do. you have been useless to all of them. You are useless, no matter what.

He ran up the stairs of the room where she stayed at, not even knocking, and was caught by a feeling of relief finding her behind the door, sleeping.

Yes, he was reliefed to see her. The moon reflected on her white skin. The mask she wore took the light in, and the effect the light blessed the artifact with fascinated him. And then, he realized it: Something was wrong.

Her breathing was deeper, faster than normal, and her cheeks were blushing red. He saw sweat glistening on her skin, and he walked to her, laying his hand on her cheek.

She was burning up!

The fever had a heavy grasp on her, and he again panicked. This time in fear to just having her caught in a terrible sickness she would die of.

No. No. Keep calm! Think! First of all, you need to get her body temperature down! This place is hot enough, so making sure she evaporates the moisture on her skin quick helps a lot. And making sure the heat also gets reduced by wet sheets and a refreshing herb. Think, Lunaris, you read about that today! What was it called?

He skipped through his notes of today, and then stopped. Minze. The name of the herb was Minze. Easily to come by, and also good in tea. He also should get a Amoebius, a slime like creature that was a giant, singular organism. They had to be killed in a specific way, then dried, and cooled, to serve as a helpful tool to bring down the body temperature of a really bad fever.

Since these were ingredients to the kitchen, it should be easy to get them at the reception. Or, at least, ask for them.

He took a note and wrote down, who he was, what he needed, and the question of a price. Then he went down.