Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.1      Finding her Feet

1.1.2    An Immersive Experience

1.1.2.8  Workin' gals

Lelia came forward, a pleased expression on her face, the moment Kafana entered the kitchen:

“Welcome back, Madame Kafana. I am hearing very good things of you from Mariella, and Mariella rarely has good things to say about anybody! You mentioned helping out earlier. Do you think you could sing a bit more, like you did for Matteo? I noticed how much it spurred everybody on with their work.”

“It would be my pleasure. And, if I may have access to your beautifully cared for pantry, I’ll try to cause as little fuss as possible.”

This time she tried to be a little more ambitious. Unchecked speed in a kitchen could be dangerous. She wanted to boost cooking skill level, precision and creativity too. But by what ratio? Hmm, no, that was too mechanistic. Her style of magic was powered by emotion, and she couldn’t get passionate about numbers. She needed a single thing to concentrate on. She remembered back to her happiest moments when cooking, wrapped up in the creative process, everything flowing naturally and going right. Times when being in the kitchen felt like home, like the right place for her. Yes, that would work. She visualised the atmosphere she wanted and then considered what she could sing that would match it. Something fast paced yet catchy enough to get people's feet tapping would be good. "Working Man Blues"? Close, but not quite perfect...

She started fiddling with the lyrics in her mind, altering them to suit the kitchen and the gender of most of those working in it. Back when Kafana had been a teenager just starting a public career, writing an original song or even re-arranging an existing one had taken days of struggle and left her as exhausted as any hillside hunter. Worse off, in fact, for instead of displaying a heroic haul of hides and heads, the composer's only visible prize was a handful of paper sheets. She'd even written a ballad entitled "Bard's Burden" about a world where writing lyrics required the singer to run each word down like a fleeing animal and then climb the craggiest of mountain peaks to place it.

But Kafana had never been good at giving up. She'd persisted and over the years her view had changed. The process now felt less like her consciously doing something, and more like her conscious mind stepping out of the way so she could become a conduit for the words themselves. The muscles in her face relaxed. The change in her mental state wasn't a jarring one, like that faced by a traveller in a land foreign to them; it was a flowing change, so natural to her that Kafana didn't even notice it happening and would have been surprised to learn that she'd just managed to startle a computer.

Minion, the expert system in the tiara scanning Kafana's brain activity, was still getting used to interpreting the personal variations in her readings; when she'd switched role, the change in readings was sufficiently outside his expectations that it automatically spawned a background process tasked with generating a quick rough probability estimate for common alternative explanations. Indeed the change in pattern and amount of brain activity had been so dramatic that, milliseconds later, a warning code raised by the process reporting that its highest initial estimate went to "external attack", interrupting the 'attention' Minion normally spread between among multiple ongoing tasks and causing him to do the closest thing to panicking that an expert system can do - he trigged a full alert. Over the next second the equivalent of thousands of man-hours were focused upon her, as every computing resource Wellington had given Minion access to abandoned their normal responsibilities in favour of analysing Kafana mind, down to the smallest detail.

It was a lot of work and, whether or not it was a waste of effort, it certainly went unappreciated for Minion never told her. Which was ironic because, at that moment, she started singing her version of "Workin' Gal Blue", pouring her heart in the performance and confusing her invisible watchers again as she submerged herself into the song and being, for that eternal moment, a persona for whom the story of this song would be authentic.

*ding* [Your party’s reputation with Lelia has increased by 10.]

[Skill “singer” has reached level 2. You adapt song lyrics to the circumstances.]

Her mana bar had dropped 30 points this time. She wondered whether it was the length of the song, the number of people affected, or something else?

{System, display effects upon other people that are due to my songs. Remind me to reprise the chorus when the buff is about to fade. And log under a new virtual document ‘SONGBOOK’ the songs I sing, their mana cost, duration, effect, etc.}

She looked at Matteo, who now had a new icon underneath the health bar above his head. She tried concentrating on looking at the icon, but nothing happened.

{System, help me, in what ways can I indicate that I want to view details about something in my field of view, like an icon or herb?}

[You can ask me to display the details. You can craft a lens artifact or potion of true sight. You can define an orglife overlay that lets you use a gesture. You can have me display a magnifying glass tattoo on your off-hand palm, which you’re allowed to touch even when paralysed or otherwise immobilised, and use it to train me to recognise patterns of brain signals indicating that you intend to view details.]

{Thank you, System. Please give me the palm tatt.} Damn, there she went again, treating expert systems as people. Perhaps reflexive politeness was a survival trait? Until proven otherwise, be nice to entities who are helpful, in case it turns out they are capable of resenting lack of gratitude. Come to think of it, wasn’t that the basis of Animism?

She looked at Matteo’s icon and pressed the new icon on the side of her forefinger, using her thumb. A circle taking up a big TV screen’s worth of her vision showed a greatly magnified view of what she’d been looking at, with written notes underneath:

Working Buff

+1 modifier to level of occupational skills

+5 stamina regen per minute

Duration : 10 minutes

Time remaining: 6 minutes

Two effects; nice! And the icon was a pair of work gloves, with part of them shown faded to grey, like the passing of a clock hand. As she watched, the timer ticked down and a bit more of the icon turned grey. Feeling pleased with herself, she headed towards the pantry past the crone, who let her by without a murmur.

Let’s see. Salt, pepper, mustard, butter, cream, garlic, onion, red wine, white wine, brandy, a bit of flour and some trenchers of bread, tomatoes, shallots, olives, beef stock and bacon. She stored it all in her inventory box and shamelessly took extra, to use when cooking for the party in later days. Turning to the herb area, she resisted the temptation to take everything, and settled for juniper, mace, thyme, rosemary, sage, cloves, bay leaves and parsley. Oh yes, and she should get the stuff to make a dessert too, while she was here. Sugar, honey, olive oil, coarsely chopped nuts (they had walnuts, hazelnuts and pistachios), oranges, lemon juice, cinnamon, and, ah, no sheets of phyllo pastry. She’d have to ask the determined young assistant she’d seen earlier in charge of baking.

Back out in the kitchen, she found herself some clear space on the benches and gathered the boards, knives, bowls and other things she’d need. In one bowl she started mixing up some flour, salt and ground white mustard seeds. She was aiming for a healing effect with this one, for Tomsk’s warriors, so she wanted pale ingredients where possible, to symbolise the Zer rune. Regretfully she left out the black pepper. She didn’t know what effect shadow magic would have, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She was interrupted by someone at the door asking for her by name. Raising her head she saw a player named Mary-Lynn, with bombshell blonde hair, a wasp shaped waist and breasts straining against the white shift that looked like they owned more to plastic than to human flesh. Privately she made a bet with herself that the player was actually a young man, but that was fine; in velife people should be free to be whoever they want to be.

“Can you handle a boning knife?”

“Oh sure, I grew up on a farm. The farm work is all automated nowadays, but mama insisted I learn what she called ‘the proper’ way to do things, too. What do you want me to start off on?”

Kafana produced a pile of skinned rabbits, and asked Mary-Lynn to chuck any schmutz, put the saddles on a plate ready for frying, and put the rest into jugs, ready to be marinated.

She left her to it, and went over Giada by the ovens, who pointed her towards a shelf of bowls covered with damp cloths, and supplied her with two large baking trays and enough phyllo dough to make Baklava for 60 people. Optimistically, she set them up on another bench, in case Wellington was able to dig up a second assistant for her, and then returned to check how Mary-Lynn was doing.

Mary-Lynn was doing a very neat job, and already had a small pile on the plate. Complimenting her, Kafana tried singing a line from her buff song:

I'll be working long as my two hands are fit to use

Her mana went down by 5. She checked both Mary-Lynn and Matteo, to see what effect that had had. Matteo’s buff was extended back up to 10 minutes again, but Mary-Lynn remained unbuffed. Obviously casting a buff and maintaining it were two separate things. She tried singing a speed buff, designating just Mary-Lynn and Matteo as targets, which cost her another 10 mana. This time Mary-Lynn had a buff, and Matteo had two buffs. They were cumulative! Cool, that could be very useful. Mary-Lynn looked up at her, curiously:

“Kafana, are you casting magic on me? My arms feel lighter.”

She nodded. “Yes, it’s a buff that should help you. I’m going to try making some food magic too. I can’t promise you any items or experience points for helping me, though I think you might well get some from the steward if the feast this evening is a success, but if you like I can tell you what I’ve discovered so far about magic?”

Mary-Lynn practically bounced at the prospect and, after that, she stopped treating Kafana as an NPC and they gossiped happily as they worked. Kafana asked System to add Mary-Lynn to her contacts as a friend, but not as a party member, and she used private 1-to-1 chat in order to teach Mary-Lynn about out-of-character game mechanics the NPCs would penalise them for discussing openly.

Kafana set one very wide pan over a roaring hot part of a smaller fireplace. Together they dusted the pieces of rabbit and then brought them over to the fireplace where Kafana seared them on both sides while Mary-Lynn used a second smaller pan at a lower temperature to cook the shallots in butter until soft and transparent. About 15 minutes later she raised the wide pan to a medium height then used the shallots to garnish each rabbit steak with a heart shape while intensely concentrating on the image of the Zer rune as a healthy heart beating in a sound body.

She could almost feel her own heart beating in time with the image, and concentrated harder, pushing her emotions into it, the joy and enthusiasm of Tomsk’s hunters and how they might desperately need healing. She felt the same sensation of mana flowing out of her that she’d felt when healing Alderney as she splashed a dash of white wine into the pan to reduce the temperature a bit and add moisture, then put the lid on firmly.

{System: remind me in 30 minutes velife time to take the rabbit out of the pan.}

“Want to have a go? I’ll give you some possible ingredients for jugged rabbit, and let you pick which to use for a marinade. Don’t forget what I said about emotion, intention and symbolism.”

She produced from her inventory box the brandy, red wine, beef stock, garlic, onions and a selection of herbs. For herself she got out the cream, parsley, olives, tomatoes and bread trenchers. She chopped the parsley, sliced the olives, and spent 10 minutes carving tomato slices into heart shapes. She also maintained her working buff each time System reminded her to. Setting it all ready, she decided to catch up with the other party members while she waited for the rabbit to finish.

{How’s it going? I’ve learned a couple of things about magic and the System. Tomsk, if it has worked, I may have some rabbit sandwiches with healing properties to send your way in about 20 minutes. Wellington, thanks for Mary-Lynn. I’ve not seen any musicians from you. No luck on that front? Also, is there any way to record from my point-of-view and send it to you? I have a feeling some things might be easier to understand if you experience them, rather than just listen to me talking about them.}

Tomsk replied first: {The heals will be really useful. Each of my parties has taken down one boar, and they’ll get faster as they level up and put stat points in strength and dexterity. But the current limiting factor is how slowly they get their health back when damaged. We’re just standing around doing weapon drills while we wait between combats.}

Wellington went next: {I’ve been sending the musicians to Alderney who is trying to kit them out with instruments. When you get a moment, can you drop by to weed out the ones you can’t make use of? If you flick back to arlife, you can tell your tiara to record your game session, and I’ll look it over during downtime.}

She flicked her eyes sideways to the rainbow portal back to reality, but quickly looked away again. She knew that if she went back, she’d get dragged into her normal routine of dealing with customers, and she didn’t want to lose her current mindset, her current role. She was surprised to realise how much she was enjoying this, and how little she wanted to go back.

Alderney chimed in: {I’ve got the circus performers too. It’s quite a sight. We’ve taken over the courtyard. I’ve made a pair of stilts, some fire clubs and some cheerful tabards. Dante’s joined in. He made some throwing knives, and he thinks he might be able to borrow Lord Claudio Landi’s violin for you, if the Lord turns up - apparently he likes to be thought of as a patron of the arts.}

[Reminder: “take the rabbit out of the pan”]

{Gotta go, cooking emergency. Alderney - see you in a bit!}

She removed the pan from the heat, and carefully moved the steaks onto a plate, before pouring the juices into a sauce pan which she asked Mary-Lynn to use to mix in the cream and parsley then reduce a bit. She arranged the steaks, tomato and olives onto the crusty bread trenchers, poured on the sauce with a final heartfelt visualisation of what she wanted the magic to achieve, and put each completed sandwich straight into her inventory so it would stay hot.

“Good job, Mary-Lynn. Could you roll out those pastry dough balls into flat sheets that match the size of this baking tray. I’ll be back in about half an hour, and you can tell me then how you plan to cook the jugged rabbits once they’ve finished marinating.”

She tapped her box tatt and then held down the magnifying glass tat while looking at a sandwich:

Lapin à la moutarde

Quality: ???

Effect: ???

Obviously someone needed to try eating one, or maybe use an ‘identify’ spell on it.

{Tomsk, if you send a runner to meet me at Alderney, I’ll pass over the sandwiches. They’re ready. Smell pretty nice too, if I do say so myself, so tell him you’ll check that he brings all 25 of them. :) }

{System: create new log ‘RECIPEBOOK’, record appropriate stuff in it, please.}