1.64 – Bread

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The meals typically came with a choice of salad or soup. Maple ordered a nice-sounding salad with walnuts and a sweet dressing, Bailey a soup, and Emma the super salad. Which was a thing, and included almost every 'salad' food item they had.

For the main dish, Maple stuck with a smoked sausage pasta, with a mushroom red sauce as anything with cheese or dairy was already marked up higher. Bailey, some kind of fish from the local river, and Emma...something weird.

On top of already four baskets of bread sticks, her meal was gelatinized meat mixed with vegetables, beans, and even boiled eggs. Aspic, in short. Maple stared at the abomination. Her girlfriend had weird taste.

"Is that...good, cutie?"

Emma nodded between bites while her hand absorbed another bread stick. She didn't scarf it down, but happily savored all of it, carefully choosing which flavor would come next or simultaneously. Salad, aspic, bread sticks, hot barley tea, all of them at once.

Maple offered her a bite of her pasta, and some of her drink: chilled water with juniper and almond. Both were good. It was exactly the kind of reprieve Maple needed before whatever came next.

"Thanks Bailey, this is great. The SIB lady said SuQ Dairy is probably shutting down, so I won't be able make any money for a while until I figure something else out."

"You're welcome. Yeah, that's unfortunate. Were you still trying to sell those, uh, sketches?"

"Hm, I'm not sure yet. I didn't really get to try last time, but Maz didn't seem optimistic about them. And I don't really know where I'd sell them now."

She had those images safely tucked away at the inn. She wasn't sure she'd pursue that again even if she could. Selling them in-person might be too...personal.

And of course, there was the thing. It was probably best not to mention that to too many people. She glanced toward the direction burned into her head. That lady should have at least included a sense of distance.

"The bazaar, maybe, but you'd need an actual covered tent to sell anything like that. Or, if you processed it first, you could sell milk there."

Syber's bazaar, he explained, was a place where anyone could rent a section on a day-to-day basis. Smaller farms used it, along with other craftspeople not large enough to justify a storefront.

It cost, so in either case, she probably didn't have a high enough volume for it to be worth doing unless she stocked up in advance. But some of the stalls also purchased things, so she'd check it out sometime.

There were the food stands and carts of trinkets scattered about the city, but those apparently required a larger fee and approval from Syber directly. Again, volume. Bailey was one gnoll, who drew only as a hobby, and Maple wasn't about to dedicate her body to milk production.

Emma's empty baskets were piling up. She'd already made one stack of 10 and was working on making another. Like anything that entered the slime, Maple didn't know where it was all going. She thought she might have a little more mass to her, but she couldn't tell for sure.

Maple drummed on the table. She was finishing her meal slowly. They'd probably end up waiting for Emma to beat a record, and more importantly, she wasn't looking forward to leaving.

"So, um, what is the city watch thing about? What will they...do to me?"

Bailey took a drink of his birch kvass, a low-alcohol drink made from fermenting bread, sweetened with locally-made birch syrup in this case. Maple had asked, and even stolen a sip. The flavor wasn't something she was used to, to put it kindly.

"Hrr. Nothing, hopefully. Maybe a fine, but I can't say anything for certain. It's about your use of a mass effect Skill within the city, which is normally illegal, but exceptions are made for states of emergency. You'll just be giving your statement, about that and SuQ Dairy, and a decision will be made from there."

"But it fixed everyone, so I should be fine, right?"

"They should take that into account, yes."

Emma nodded firmly, they'd better. Bailey looked uncomfortable, so Maple dropped the subject. Olea brought out three baskets at a time now. Emma consumed them all. 16 baskets and she finally slowed down.

Pitcher of water, please?

Olea came back with one. Emma chugged it, rubbed her hands together, and kept going. She made it look easy.

"You sure can eat, cutie. So, Bailey, anything new? How have you been?"

"Same as always, just working. Hrr. I was thinking of using my time off for the meteor shower this year."

"Oh? Meteor showers are cool. When's that?"

"Yeah, Eruvia's meteor shower. It's still over a month out, but there's a festival and everything so I have to request it early. I was thinking of taking a trip out of town for it, and was probably going to see if you wanted to go..."

He was almost asking, but Maple felt there was a lot underneath. Was Emma's invitation inherent? She'd established Emma's strong role in her life, right? She didn't want to disappoint him if he was looking for solo-time with her, not that they couldn't have that, but a meteor shower honestly sounded like something she'd want to do with Emma.

"Oh, out of town where? I don't know if I'll find a job by then, and I'd want Em to be able to go too, but it sounds interesting."

"Right, yeah, I did mean as a group. I'd invite Dragirth if he was interested, and you could bring anyone else you know. The place I'm thinking of is a hot springs resort next to an observatory, but it's roughly, a 30 kilometer trip from here. So we'd have to leave in the early morning, and arrive at night a day or two early. I wasn't sure you'd have enough time available, or how much you enjoy walking..."

That sounded far. If she halved it to estimate, it must be around 15 miles. She'd have to push her body to do it. Hot springs, though, and she'd have to get used to long hikes if she planned to keep on living in this world.

"I honestly don't know if I can walk that far in a day, but I'd try, if everything else works out. How much would it cost?"

"Yeah, that's why I can never find anyone to go with me. I've always wanted to, but it wouldn't be very fun alone. We could rent horses, but that would be just as bad if you're not an experienced rider. The price isn't bad if we pool our resources and share rooms, and I could cover it if it's just us three."

Maple would chip in, if they did go, but basically he was removing cost as a factor in her decision.

"Well, yeah, I'd like to go then. As long as they don't arrest me today, right? Haha."

Bailey didn't laugh at that as much as she'd wanted, but tentative plans were made. Bailey would try to get time off, and if the hot spring plans fell through, there would still be local things to do.

Maple would start walking more to try to prepare her body, and also try to recruit anyone else she knew. Rachel, Sasha, maybe Anemone or Azure Bond? Emma's job was flexible enough she'd just need some notice ahead of time, and she had her bottle to sleep in on the way.

Emma finished her 20th basket, and slapped the table in victory. She leaned back and rested her hands on her belly. One more bread stick and she'd beat Rudor's record. It almost didn't feel fair.

"Good job, cutie. I knew you'd do it."

Emma nodded and grinned. Olea came over with another basket, but Emma held up a hand.

What happens if tie?

"If you stopped now? Well, I guess I'd have to keep both your names up there. You want yours next to his?"

She nodded again, and then wrote down how she wanted her name painted.

"Heh. Oh, he's gonna laugh when he sees that. I'll add it right now since you're so adorable. Unless you wanted to paint it yourself?"

It was just the thing Maple would expect her to want to do, but Emma shook her head and cited her full tummy as the reason with a pat. She did look a little, well, bulbous.

"He comes here often? Who is he, anyway?"

"You've never heard of him? Rudor's a famous adventurer. S-rank, now, but he's been coming here since he was a wee little D-ranker. Well, not so wee, even back then. He still comes by every few months or so, when he's in the area, and he's gonna be shocked the next time he does. It's been years since he set that record. I'm kind of glad I don't have to paint over it."

They stayed long enough to see Emma's name added to the wall. Olea even used a blue paint, after realizing she had some and asking if Emma wanted that or black.

200 Bread Sticks

Rudor, 'the Gentle Mountain' & Emma, the 'Gentle' Soap Slime