Complete Private Quest ✪ Finweald [Homecoming] Buddylicious

[Elesis Blackstone]

Elesis chuckled, waving away at the air once her self-awareness made her nose tingly. "Sometimes I think I can smell the fish swimming. It's really bad, but I guess I just need to expose myself more to strong odors." Her hands reached for a pair of serrated knives, eyes never leaving Hanno's. "Good thing onions don't make me cry unless I cut them, I'm enough of a crybaby as is." A nerveous giggle as she reminded herself how far she's gotten thus far through the game, and yet speaking of her real self like this made the introvert inside of her concious of both her excitement over cooking, and the fact the former made her drop character entirely.

Surprising for her, she wasn't the only one who could feel embarassment here, peeking curiously at the faerin. "Your mom must have been awesome at cooking if you learned from her. I only had books to guide myself with so you can see why I always try to go by the rules... Culinary rules!" She exclaimed, a hand reaching out for the cloth bag filled with bread. Despite how well shut it was, it's hard to compare the quality of mass-produced bread to recently baked. Still, just the crunch on it felt different to the industrialized bread she's used to: It has far more love... Or maybe magic. "I hope you keep teaching me your cooking tricks. I can kiinda handle things myself, but I want to get better."

She paused, waving over for Ghast to come closer as the Faerin wandered too close to the pot, yet by the looks of it there was nigh-a crumb or bit of meat on her teeth, not that she could spot in the second the little abomination spoke.

When they had begun to work on cutting open the bread, Elesis focused on instructing Ghast with 'Hanno's super secret bread technique': Cut the loaf of bread in half like a regular sandwich would. A simple yet effective technique.

"We are good! Taught her your universal Bread-Cutting Style Technique so she can be as good as every other baker in Terrasphere." Hopefully the lie wouldn't go too far, but there were few things that could make the little gremlin do mundane work like this. "There's a loot of sandwiches to make huh. We better start with it right away." Even she felt tempted to take a sandwich for herself, but a quick glance back to Ghast reminded her who she had to give an example to. "Let's make some extra sauce and dump more meat, captain!"

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

Hanno chuckled, raising an eyebrow while looking back at her. "Just try to not expose yourself too much." He adviced, separating the sauce into bowls so they could use them on the sandwiches that were soon to be prepared. "My mom is an amazing cook, yeah. But following the book is also great, and seeing how skilled you are at following it, I want to taste your food. So let's get these sandwiches ready!" He grinned.

The faerin waited patiently for the two to return from their 'special bread cutting' session, and with their return, Ghast had her chest all puffed, proud of the much better sliced bread loaves,

"Look at this, Futaba. We did it, without your help. Heh."

Hanno crossed his arms at the shield's smug remark, taking a good glance at the breads. "Oh yeah, you guys did a great job. Which means... The sandwiches can get ready now." He smirked, looking at @Elesis Blackstone and nodding. "Of course, we need as much filling as possible. There is just too much bread, but there is even more mouths to feed-"

He leaned in with a conspiratory tone-

"And we need to make some to us too, right?" Hanno winked, and Ghast beamed about it.

"Yes- YES! I want some too! I will make mine!"

 

[Elesis Blackstone]

"I'll be fineeee. Like I said, so long as it's not onions- Or garlic." She shudders at the thought of the latter, it's only thanks to Hanno that she could handle it this time around, and only with the power of his nostalgic memory chat.

Unsureness tickled her as he begun to compliment her, rushing to recap in her head all the steps taken thus far, but the memories felt muddy despite how early they were. Most of the preparation for the sauces had been done out of reflex, and it became hard to pinpoint if she ever screwed up any of these in a way Hanno would be disapproving of...

"Eh?" She tilted her head over to the pair as Ghast begun to boast about their bread. Curious of the shieldgirl's work, Elesis checked only to find nothing seemed out of the ordinary this time around. "Oh nono, she did almost all of it. Ghast's a fast learner. And... Way too fast with a knife." She chuckled, resting her hands over her hips. "How about we leave some more cooking while we start making some sandwiches. The festival's not blowing up yet so we got some time to spare!"

Leaning closer, an all too suspicious squint rested on her face as Hanno proposed a well-deserved meal, her tail wooshing from side to side like it was about to take flight by itself. "We still got fresh ingredients to spare, so I'm sure we can make a few." Elesis replied, nodding over to Ghast and turning back to her captain, stepping forth as to whisper in the most inconspicious way she could. "You sure it will be enough for Ghast..?" Truth to be said, she had to worry given how insatiable the little faerin looked. "I mean, something tells me she can eat the entire sandwich buffet by herself." She giggled, pushing the bread onto stacks separated on each side of one of the tables for them to sit down when ready to prepare these sandwiches.

"Need help with the pots? It would be good for our legs to sit down while we prepare them. Don't wanna wear 'em out too soon, we got lots and lots of walking ahead of us today." And all the confidence in the world that they could tackle the task, even if it meant she would be more exhausted than when she got into the game on the first place.

@Hanno Futaba | @Ghast

 

[Hanno Futaba]

"See? I did good!"

Hanno hummed, nodding to Elesis words and Ghast's boasting. "Seems like it was a job well done. Very good, the two of you. This will be the smoothest sandwiches they will ever see." He grinned, confident on the quality of their work, until Elesis approached to whisper to him.

"I think it should be fine, Lassie-" Hanno glanced at the shield girl, that was with a tentacle-tongue sticking out, licking her lips while she excitedly waited for the sandwitch to be liberated, while ominously chanting-

"Sandwich... Sandwich..."

Hanno narrowed his eyes, which meant it almost closed, before turning to @Elesis Blackstone and pondering. "Okay, maybe it won't be enough, but she will have to deal with that." Hanno shrugged. They had to deal with it too!

Following Elesis, he took a seat and pushed the pots away when he was done distributing everything onto bowls, even though there were some leftovers on the pots, that they could use for extra sandwiches later on if they wished. "I think we are good. Just gotta set up the sandwiches... But yeah, let's keep our legs rested for now. I don't want to strain ourselves before we get to the actually physically rough part of our job today." He chuckled.

 

[Elesis Blackstone]

Even if she wanted to trust him on that one as usual, the sight of the overly-eager Ghast only seemed to confirm her suspicions, rising a brow back to the faerin in the most 'are you sure?' expression she could muster. "So long as that reward you spoke of is good enough for her..." She smirked, her most indirect way to remind him of that little promise as the three of them headed down to take a seat.

With how clean the tables were left, working on them wouldn't be a bad idea, so long as they took the opportunity to clean it afterwards. "It's gonna be the hardest part you mean. We gotta push through masses and try to convince them we sell the best sandwiches out there." Just thinking about it almost felt exhausting. In comparison, taking a glance around made her notice how quiet and empty the kitchen was, and yet how alive it could feel despite being the three of them present only. "I was spooked that we would have to work with a lot of people, but I'm glad they trusted us with this. It's really hard for me to cook with a crowd." She admitted, her eyes never leaving the sandwiches as she piled them up next to her, glancing over in Ghast's direction to see how well the shield-girl was doing.

"At least we have you Cap', I'm sure people run to shake your hand around Astorea. If I market them as 'Hanno's sandwiches' then we gonna run out of stock." She giggled, mostly to herself as the envisioned version of Hanno almost seemed like a comic-book superhero rather than her knight captain.

@Hanno Futaba

 

[Hanno Futaba]

Looking at Elesis, Hanno nodded. "Heh, you can bet it will be good. It is even something she has been complaining to me that she wanted." He shrugged.

"Yeah, I am glad they trusted us too. It has been pretty fun so far." Hanno smiled to @Elesis Blackstone, finishing to prepare one last sandwich himself, before putting it along with Elesis'. "Besides, I don't think I would be able to hear how you actually talk if there was a crowd here. And even if in both ways it is nice, it is good to learn a bit more about you." He grinned, ignoring the mention of how people would be handshaking him on sight-

Which was something he wasn't quite sure how to feel.

Hanno then reached for a sandwich she had prepared, with the sauce she had cooked, before taking a big bite and humming about it.

"It is very tasty, by the way. Good job... Ghast!" Hanno called, and the shield girl hurried, happy to see that it was finally time to take a bite.

"Yeeeeees! YES!"

She leaped on, and chaos started...

 

[Elesis Blackstone]

With how much Hanno seemed to hype up this surprise, even she started to feel intrigue over what could the little eldritch really wish for that only he could offer, but by the sound of it it wasn't his soul or something else to nom at.

The last sandwich he prepared was the one she aimed for instead, far more curious about his cuisine than her own. It didn't help her when she realized no one's taken a bite just yet, and hiding her embarassment through stuffing her mouth full of it wouldn't quite work this time around. "Y-you already heard me talk a lot of times though! We just never talked about food. It's one of those things too close to reality I can't roleplay about." She cleared her throat, admitting her own act just felt far more awkward than continue to doing it so. "I did learn a good deal from you though, Cap. Hope we can do this again in the future..?"

Finally it was time to give their sandwiches a taste, and with one large bite, Elesis dug her fangs in and chomped away. "Woah, it's pretty good too, Captain. You really-" Her voice was suffocated by the esxcitement of the little faerin, an omen of what was to come, blinking as she watched the other begin their carnage with the leftover sandwiches.

"Captain she's gonna eat them all! GHAST WAIT WE ARE HUNGRY TOO!" She shouted, scrambling to salvage one or two sandwiches for Hanno and herself before the demon could swallow them all...

@Hanno Futaba