FINAL CORE - Chapter 109 (Patreon)

Dungeon Harpy Stew

Serves one party of four, or five with a side

To prepare this hearty stew, you will need:

• 1 kilo of roughly diced harpy meat*
• 2 helmets fulls of water
• 1 dungeon tree root, whole
• 1 garlic, whole
• 1 old potion bottle (medium) of slime drops for acidity
• 1 elf’s fistful of salt
• Throw in bitter stones from the walls to taste

Optional

• Any seasonings. Kobolds will often carry roots and herbs with them
• If tubers are found within your dungeon instance, add 3 for every 200g of meat

Heat cooking vessel over medium heat. Add meat and cook until a crust develops

Add root, garlic and bitter stones, brown

Pour in the water, stirring to combine all of the ingredients. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the salt, Continue to simmer the stew for an additional 10 minutes, or until the harpy meat is cooked through.

If tubers are available, add and cook on low heat for 10 minutes

Place cooking vessel into ice. If utensils are unavailable, drink out of leather glove

*Generally, the leg of an adult harpy will contain 10-20 kilos of extremely fatty meat

If a pot is unavailable, consider using an overturned iron breastplate, multiple helmets

~ An adventurer’s guide to life, Cooking in the Western Ice Dungeon

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Taishi-shi

Vildt (Rabbit), Male, Priest of Isaiah

Location: The Distant Eastern Continent, Church of Isaiah

“Taishi-shi, Taishi-shi,” says the young girl, pulling on his robe as the winds howls around them. He looks down over at her, as they stand outside of the small church of Isaiah. The waves of the ocean crash to the nearby shore. Her eyes are uncertain, which he finds understandable, given the nature of the situation. He used to be the smallest, oddest and most outcast of the gorup of wild, as they call themselves.

After the destruction and war that has ravaged the eastern continent for so long reached their homes, only the youngest, them, managed to get this far and to escape the anarchy of it all. Here, amongst these others of an age near to his own, he has taken on a new role, as a patriarch of sorts, because of Isaiah’s blessings laid out over him. He does not feel as if he is ready to hold this role, but as he looks at the girl and the other uncertain faces taking shelter in the church — the only structure for days' walk, a structure that has only been erected because of his faith in Isaiah — he understands that he needs to be.

“What is it?” asks Taishi-shi, looking down at the girl.

“I am hungry,” she says. He nods, seeing the truth of this statement written on her gaunt face. Her cheekbones are as sharp as the rocks along the shoreline. “Will Isaiah let us starve?”

The boy blinks, looking at her and then around at the others. He holds sermons and teaches lessons that he mostly just makes up on the spot. But he does not hunt, fish, or gather food. Mostly, they all simply survive on their own, in their own ways, and then gather here at the church in the evening to play games, to sleep, and to listen about Isaiah.

Taishi-shi shakes his head, pulling out a small book and flipping through it, looking for a line that he recalls finding before. He finds it, and points to the text as he reads. Not that she can read, not many of them can. He is one of the few. But it adds legitimacy when he points to it while speaking. “Isaiah tells us that those who work for the betterment of the soul will find nourishment for their hearts.” He nods, feeling as if he’s found a solution. But the growling stomach next to him and the weak fingers tugging on his sleeve let him know that he has not.

“Taishi-shi,” complains the girl. “I am hungry!” she whines, almost about to cry.

The boy rubs the back of his head, looking at her. She’s not someone he knows too well, they’ve only ever spoken briefly now and then. She’s listened to his sermons fervently and has always prayed along, even when the others seemed skeptical, even after everything. Taishi-shi looks around himself, trying to think of something. On a personal level, he does not feel responsible for her hunger, and the question comes to the forefront of his mind, why she’s pestering him with it. But as his eyes look back down to the book in his hands, he realizes that she’s come to him with her problems because that is the role he has himself declared to have taken.

He is not just Taishi-shi, he is the priest of Isaiah and, by extension, the only person of authority in this enclave of escapees, survivors, and runaways. He is not an adult, but he is the only one who is here, claiming to wear the mantle of a man.

In that way, following Isaiah’s teachings, her hunger is his hunger. A chirping comes from a nest in his tree, and it is his duty to listen to its cries.

Taishi-shi nods, his long ears flopping. “We will find food together,” says Taishi-shi.

She purses her lips, shaking her head. “But I am too hungry, Taishi-shi!” she argues. “Please help me!” begs the girl, pulling on his robes. “If Isaiah is good, why does it not feed us?”

He looks at her, trying to answer that question. It is difficult. Isaiah has already intervened on their behalf, it has given them shelter from the heavy storm, a roof and walls to keep them dry and warm, it has blessed him and given him a class and a new sense of hope for life — these gifts are many and precious.

But they mean nothing to the desperate eyes of a hungry child — not hers, and not to those pairs that belong to others in the church, who listen to her pleas but do not join in on the asking. They listen, nodding, however, and with each moment that passes, he understands that he is losing the validity of his authority, legitimacy, and trust.

Hungry stomachs will not pray to Isaiah, even if they shelter in its house from the storm. They will abandon the faith and him. They will scorn him, and for his failures, Isaiah will scorn him too.

But to be so plain and logical with children, one of which he himself had hoped to simply be, will not work. They are not willing to act in the domains of reason.

“Isaiah is good,” states Taishi-shi, nodding to her and planting a hand on her head. “I will prove it,” he says. “Isaiah will feed us, in body and in spirit.” He turns, heading to the door. “I will find food.”

The young priest steps out of the church and into the storm, closing the door behind himself.

Isaiah can not provide everything for them, but it does provide faith for him, to allow him to act as proxy, as the outstretched talon of the divine being.

He will deliver unto them the bounties of Isaiah.

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The rains howl down around the lands around him.

Taishi-shi uses his ability to hover to navigate the soaked terrain, floating through the darkness in search of food. However, he is not a skilled hunter and all of the easily gathered berries and fruits here are long since gone.

Vildt have some difficulties that other races do not, when it comes to food. As a species, that have, in the very distant past, been created in the image of the animal gods. Their features are those of men, but also those of beasts. Obviously, one does not hunt humans for food, but the morality of a vildt hunting animals is just as dubious. For a person with the ears or the features of a rabbit, depending on the depth of their animal side, to hunt a wild rabbit in the forest, let alone eat it, is difficult.

Things become even more awkward in cities, when meat is freely for sale.

In order to keep social cohesion well in bound, vildt society as a whole has mostly outlawed or strongly disavowed the hunting of animals, and developed instead a strong monster hunting and cooking culture, far more than the humans of the other continents, who often view eating monsters as dirty and beneath them.

However, times are difficult.

Because of the chaos across the continent, old laws and traditions are quickly being forgotten in the face of hunger. In some regions, there are rumors of cannibalism.

Taishi-shi says a prayer to Isaiah and floats off into the night.

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Beulah

Human, Male, Shrinemaster

Location: The Northern Wild-lands

Yellow eyes shoot through the darkness, cutting through the storm like the trailing glow of a darting swarm of fireflies. Beulah kicks off of a branch, jumping across to the next tree over as he and a trio of fox-like shadows shoot through the night, cutting through the darkness on their way to the distant regions and cities of the world, in order to erect shrines and monuments to Isaiah.

The man stands on the limb of the tree, looking back behind himself at the single star that shines alight, flying high in the air of the night.

— Something scampers through the forest below them, escaping from a flooding burrow.

Beulah looks back, watching as the shrine-maidens take off, giving chase to the rabbit as they give in to their hunter’s instincts. He watches them vanish, darting off into the night in pursuit.

The man looks back towards the tower one last time, before turning his gaze back to them and vanishing.