Wish upon the Stars chapter 1062

I hadn’t really spoken to my Cooking demon much, since Gehenna was founded. I’d spent quite a bit of time in combat or running from one mess to the next, and even when I HAD cooked, it hadn’t really been at the forefront of my mind. Now though, I was looking forward to seeing what my demon was capable of. It was simplicity itself to reach into Gehenna and tap Cooking for incarnation, allowing him to dwell within my body.

With most of my demons, incarnation gave me access to unique applications or techniques, or sharpened ones I already had. With Cooking, though, the simulated lifetime he’d undergone wasn’t anything complicated like learning to refine power use or creating a technique. 

For Cooking, the sole pursuit of his entire existence, his sole passion and goal, was truly only one solitary act. The one he was named for. Cooking…cooked. It was all he did. All he wanted to do. I had vague memories of a demonic court flashing by outside the kitchens where cooking honed his craft, but they were fuzzy and indistinct. Not because or any issues with the simulation that created him, but because Cooking himself didn’t CARE about those things.

A thousand recipes, a million repetitions. As a tier seven demon, Cooking was a Grandmaster of his craft, but as I’d found with Inventing when I granted Benny the skill so long ago, ranks were a spectrum. Learning a skill was often about specialization, about picking a direction unique to you. No one could do everything.

But the higher you got in the ranks, the wider that pool of knowledge got. Like an inverted pyramid, the depth of what could be considered “complete” knowledge to a Minor skill user vs the same for a Grandmaster was a difference measured in orders of magnitude. In exponents.

Cooking wasn’t THE cooking Grandmaster. That would be impossible at that level. No one knew everything about a Grandmaster ranked skill. But he WAS probably the most thoroughly studied and learned chef at that rank in the universe. He was a savant, and more importantly, an obsessive, and his memories flooded into me, driving me forward with an almost psychotic passion for food preparation.

The first thing I noticed about being in a kitchen when I was inhabited by Cooking (Cook for short because I liked to give my demons person sounding names), was that the way he viewed the world was just…different.

Ingredients stood out in a rainbow of colors, scents swirled together and apart in cascading riots of sensation that stitched complex illusions of delicious dishes across the backs of my eyelids. The whisper of sensation from fermentation, or heat, or a dozen other energy applications, drifted across my skin, and I could even taste the dishes I was envisioning on the air, like I was sampling possibilities yet to be.

The combination of all these inputs wove together, creating a cavalcade of flavor and Perception that played through the kitchen like a sonata of sensation, guiding me through all the recipes I could imagine like the steps to a dance I had memorized without realizing.

My hands flew as I pulled ingredients, pots, pans, and utensils from cupboards, some of them things I had no right to be locating so quickly. But the kitchen was Cook’s domain, almost the same way Gehenna was mine, and with his unnatural skill, every cooking related task became child’s play.

The exact moment to take something off a boil, the precise instant I needed to remove a dish from the oven, precisely when bread was finished proofing, or when I’d kneaded just enough for optimal gluten development, just by feel. I was so caught up in the actual ACT of cooking I didn’t even realize I’d barely thought about what I was making. I’d been cooking for an hour or two by this point, and there was a large flock of children standing at the entrance of the kitchen, watching me work as Sister Chloe appeared to try to shepherd them away.

“Oh, hello,” I said sheepishly. “The food is almost ready. We’re having…” I looked down at the spread scattered across the counter. “Breakfast for dinner.”

Waffles, pancakes, grits, eggs, country fried steak, bacon, sausage, hash browns, potato pancakes, croissants I’d apparently baked fresh, muffins, danishes, cinnamon rolls, biscuits and gravy, omelettes, and even a few quiches. I had gone all out on breakfast, and I was REALLY glad there were so many children, because I was positive even my absurd stomach couldn’t hold this much food.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d KNOWN there were kids here, though thinking about it for more than a second it made perfect sense. The Order of Mercy were exactly the kind of people who would take in orphans. Not for any nefarious reasons, but because being orphaned was a very real pain, and I couldn’t imagine Bernadette not wanting to reach out to those kids to let them know they weren’t hurting alone. I could tell from their excited smiles and chipper attitudes that they were well cared for, and that was really all I needed to know.

Chloe giggled as she looked over the spread. “It seems like you really love breakfast.” She turned to the kids. “Children, how about we help Mr. Mephistopheles carry all the food out to the dining room. Salma, Declan, you two can set the table.” Her face lit up. “Oh, we can eat on the good plates since we have guests. Where are those? Up in the attic? I think I left my gardening gloves in the attic, actually. I wonder how the petunias are doing?” She turned and wandered off towards what I assumed was the garden, muttering to herself about flowers.

The two kids she’d singled out chuckled, and the rest of them started grabbing food and carrying it out of the kitchen. Declan, the boy, a red haired kid who looked about twelve, grinned wryly at me. “Sorry about the Sister, sir. She can be a bit scattered, but she’s a lovely person.”

“I noticed,” I grinned as I picked up a casserole dish of layered potatoes and bacon. “But yeah, she seems like a nice lady. Actually, I was going to go get a friend of mine to eat with us, she’s waiting outside, can you go let Sister Bernadette know?” I wasn’t willing to leave Dayna stuck in Gehenna while I enjoyed delicious food, and now that we were inside the priory I didn’t think it would be an issue to let her out.

Declan nodded, darting into the dining room to deposit a basket of muffins before scampering off to find Bernadette. Meanwhile, I stepped into a side alcove and accessed Gehenna. Dayna appeared almost instantly, but the almost was interesting, because there had been a slight delay. I cocked my head. “You busy or something? I can send you back if you want?”

She blinked at me before shaking her head. “Not at all. I was simply speaking with Agares about some of his artistic musings. He’s quite the expert designer, and he’s given me many useful ideas about directions to take my tattooing.”

I blinked, because that hadn’t been something I was expecting. I wondered what they’d talked about, but I figured she’d tell me if she wanted me to know. “I was just about to tuck into dinner. I put together a huge feast for the kids here, and there’s plenty to go around. Thought you might be hungry.”

As I got to know Dayna, I was able to read her better and better. Before our trip, I’d have assumed she was being polite or didn’t care, given how she shrugged as she said “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” Now that I knew her better though, I could tell that she was actively excited to try the food, and the little glint in her eye told me I’d made the right call inviting her.

When we got back to the dining room, Bernadette was already there. She raised an eyebrow at Dayna, but was used to seeing me travel with friends so it didn’t seem to be too big a surprise to her. If anything, the fact that Dayna was C-rank seemed to spark some momentary interest, but she moved on from that fast. She smiled at my elf friend. “Ah, a visitor! Mephistopheles mentioned you’d be joining us, though admittedly later than I’d have liked. He DID cook dinner though, so I suppose I can forgive him an unexpected guest. I’m Sister Bernadette, the prioress of this place, welcome to Our Lady of Perpetual Torment.”

Dayna nodded solemnly. “Thank you for the warm welcome. I am Dayna, a friend of Mephistopheles.”

Bernadette then proceeded to ring in dinner (after sending one of the kids to go find Chloe and bring her back from wherever she’d ended up). The rest of us began eating, and I had to admit even I was shocked at how good the food turned out. I hadn’t had any particularly high tier ingredients to work with, but Cook had made the most of what I did have, and he seemed to know exactly how best to manifest the most exquisite application of every ingredient, and how to mix them together in a way that made them more than the sum of their parts to boot.

We all tore into the food like hungry ghosts, no one bothering to talk or use our mouths for anything but shoveling more food into. By the time it was over, the kids looked like they’d been hit with a plague, and Bernadette sent them all off to bed early with a laugh as they groaned and patted their stomachs, creaking out of the room like miniature old timers from overeating.

She leaned back with a satisfied sigh. “You DO have a gift for making food, Shane.” She paused. “I assume your friend here knows your real name?”

“She does,” I acknowledged with a laugh. “And thank you for not making a bigger deal of her presence. I didn’t want to leave her out of dinner. I’m glad you enjoyed the food though, have you given any more thought to what we discussed?”

Humming, she nodded her head in thought. “I have. To tell you the truth, I had already made up my mind some time ago. I was waiting for dinner, however, to see how you interacted with the children. You can tell quite a bit about a person by seeing how they treat those weaker than themselves.” I blinked in surprise, and she laughed. “I know. My demeanor here and when I’m out on assignment are a bit different. Responsibility will do that. I can be a bit more free spirited when I’m guiding new recruits.”

Her grin told me she knew exactly how amusing that was for US, and didn’t much care. I didn’t begrudge her a little teasing, given how much fun I had tormenting my own apprentice. It was the circle of education, after all.

“Well,” I said with a wry smile. “Don’t keep me in suspense. Are you going to help?”

She snorted. “I’d have thought that much was obvious. Yes. I’ll help. I can’t get you an audience with the goddess, but I have certain contacts who might be able to help. I’ll reach out and do my best to convince them.”

I grinned, holding out my hand for her to shake. “Well, then I guess all that’s left to say is welcome to the team Bernadette. We’re either going to save the universe or die trying. But if I have anything to say about it, this war will end as soon as possible.” I could feel the blaze of hope kindling in my gut. We might really pull this off.

As we settled in to try to plan our next steps, I couldn’t help but look around the priory in awe. This just reinforced what I’d already been feeling. The vanished gods and their worlds were just as capable of caring and kindness as the six. These people were worth saving just like mine, and I was going to do my damnedest to make that happen. As for the Void…well, they’d better stay out of my way, because anyone that tried to stop me from ending this war was going to be removed with extreme enthusiasm. Nothing was going to get in my way.