fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day

And while a good deal of his attention was pouring into listening at these events, it was rather impossible, wasn't it?, to ignore the beckoning call of his sense of smell when the aroma of a campfire and something absolutely being cooked on it, from a direction far from the grill intended to supply the picnicers, and Ignis was...intrigued. Someone camping in the preserve, perhaps? But, no, it was much nearer than that, and he eventually started to follow the scent, stopping abruptly when he realized it wasn't that far at all, but rather just off to the side of the picnic proper.

"Excuse me," he said, "but what is that you're making?"

He could certainly pick out a few scents to lead him to guess (and, in fact, he was feeling like he was on the edge of a new recipeh himself), but he was just fascinated at the idea of someone setting up a cookfire during a picnic in which plenty of food was already readily available.

True there was plenty of food and Senshi was glad of it, especially seeing a few little ones in the crowd, but it was still a poor guest who didn't provide something for the table. Also, here he was with new ingredients to experiment with; why wouldn't he want to make something?

"Oh, well, a take on a dish I had growing up," Senshi explained gruffly. "Though I'm changing enough of the ingredients that I don't rightly know if I can call it the same thing. Rather than toasting rice, I toasted some of those sweet buns there to turn 'em into croutons and now I'm grinding 'em in mortar until they're rough crumbs. Gonna add some salt and pepper and a few other seasonings as well. In the pan now, I've crumbled up some of those minced beef patties and those terrible little sausages - I'm hoping the flavor of the oil and the vegetables will make 'em less offensive. Had to see if I could try, anyway, don't like wastin' food. Once I'm done grinding up these breadcrumbs, I'll toss 'em in with the meat, along with some sugar, lime juice, and one of my sauces--" he tapped a bottle attached to his belt, "--and then follow that up with some of the vegetables I grabbed - some of the corn right on this cob, onions, carrots, scallions, and some herbs, like mint and cilantro."

So saying, he did so, first adding the breadcrumbs and whatnot in and stir-frying that for about a minute or so, and then adding the herbs and vegetables, most of which had been pre-chopped already. The herbs hadn't been, but he didn't mind tearing then up by hand, and he'd just sheered the corn off of the cob with his mithril knife directly into the pan.

"Let that fry up for maybe another minute and then I'll spoon that stuffing into these lettuce leaves and there we go. Minced Beef and Skinny Sausage Larb in Lettuce Cups. You gonna want some?"

Ignis could already feel an immediate sort of kinship with this fellow almost as soon as he answered, an impression that would only grow deeper the more he explained, with a great deal of admiration for his process weaving its way in to tighten it.

But what really solidified it, as evidenced by the soft grin that surfaced, was the mention of those terrible little sausages and the dedication to repurpose their offensive nature...and repurpose quite a lot of it, actually.

"I would love to try some, yes," he said, "thank you. That is a rather impressive deconstruction you have on your hands. I am incredibly intrigued by how it all might come together."

He then gestured to the spot in front of the little fire with a "May I?" as a request to join him, but, really, Ignis was already lowering himself down to sit.

"Please do," he said, gesturing slightly, though most of his attention was on the larb. "The name's Senshi. Wandered in from the dungeon, still not entirely sure how I got here, Mr...?"

"Scientia," Ignis offered, settling in, and just taking a moment to really appreciate the sounds of cooking, the aromas they produced that wafted up to greet him as well. "Ignis Scientia. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Senshi. You're teaching a class here, aren't you? I believe I've signed up for it..."

But this comment was slightly distracted, his attention more on the sympathetic, understanding nod. "And yes," he added. "That tends to happen often with some people. I myself have once stepped put for a walk on a different planet and wound up here instead..."

"Just Senshi," he said. "I'm not big on fancy titles. And you did?" Senshi asked. "Can you tell me what it's about? My teachin' buddy over there--" he nodded towards Raiden "--said I was teachin' one, but if I wanted to know more, I'd have to go talk to some kinda monster in an office somewhere."

Look, the island didn't have moose, and Senshi was going on things he knew. Which were cooking and monsters, mostly.

"He was also tellin' me about different universes and stuff, but I didn't much follow," he added, spooning several large helpings of larb into lettuce leaves and arranging them neatly on a plate. "Here ya go," he added, handing it over to Ignis. "Let me know what you think."

"Senshi it is, then," Ignis said, with a nod, and a small pause to access the feel of everything before tentatively reaching out to take the plate, having to feel around the air for it just slightly before he managed to take it with confidence, "and that'd be the moose, at the school, yes."

Ignis himself would need to have words with that troublesome beast next week, but he was, currently, blissfully unaware of such a need.

"And let's see," he said, "what I can recall of the listing." Plate settled in his hands, he put off trying the food a moment longer to go back in his memory, to the recordings of the course listings this session, and what had caught his ear about Senshi's.

"Delve into a dungeon to learn how it works as a thriving ecosystem and how adventurers can maintain a healthy and delicious diet by preparing and eating the monsters that live there," he said. "Something along those lines, I believe."

As if he hadn't practiced quoted it exactly...

"As a former chef adventurer myself," he continued, "it was very relevant to my interests. I almost went with a similar class to teach myself, only with more of a focus on the wilderness than dungeons,but decided to run a course focusing on coffee instead."

And, with that now all said, Ignis could finally take a bit of his lettuce-wrappes larb.

"Oh," he said, his chin lifting slightly as he chewed, taking another bite to better work through what Senshi had put together. "Oh,that's...very cleverly executed..."

Senshi watched the momentary hesitation before Ignis grabbed the plate and that Ignis hadn't bothered to turn to look when Senshi had gestured towards Raiden. An easy enough conclusion to draw, especially when paired with the glasses.

"Well...huh," he said, after Ignis had finished reciting his class description. "That is the kind of class I'd teach if I was signin' up to do that. Don't like whatever magic is goin' on that made it happen, but...could be worse."

And then Ignis complimented his larb and Senshi smiled. Even the sighted would have difficulty seeing it below his mustache and helm which didn't move even when he spoke, but the ways his eyes squinched up made it obvious - as did the clear pride and happiness in his voice. "Good to hear. You can't really taste the little sausages much?"

"That certainly does seem to be the mantra to keep in mind when dealing with this place's particular brand of....magic," Ignis noted, with a tone to suggest that he used that term very loosely, and he took another bite, this one to specifically search for hints of those little sausages.

"Not in any way that makes them evident," he decided, "unless you're intentionally aware of their presence. But remarkably well done, considering what you were working with, though it sounds like you're rather used to making the most out of what's available to you."

"Good to hear," Senshi said. "Well, about the little sausages, not the magic. But--" He shrugged. "What is, is. And yes, I've been livin' in the dungeon for ten years now. I still have to trade for a lot of processed things, like oils and flours and grains I can't grow myself, but even for that I trade for it with the extra produce I grow. So long as you take care of the area around you, it's not hard to be pretty self-sufficient. And that includes learnin' to be creative with how you approach cookin'."

Ignis nodded, chewing as he listened, with a soft hum of agreement before that last bite was able to make it down into his stomach. "A fact I am quite familiar with myself," he said, "though not one that comes easily to many, unfortunately. Tell me more, then, about this...dungeon? Where is it that you hail from, Senshi? In a place like this, where people come from boundless different worlds and planes, there's a very good chance I've never heard of it, but I would like to know more about what it's like, if you don't mind."

"Well, I was born on Izganda, on the Eastern Continent," he said, helping himself to some larb as well before beginning to ready things for the next dish. "My parents died when I was still a boy, barely thirty-five, and I ended up bein' taken in by some miners. After a dispute in the mine we worked at, my group ended up leavin' Izganda and headed to the island a little ways off the coast of Kahka Brud. I think Gillin must have fought in the war against the elves there, before it was given over to Tall-Men, and had probably found it diggin' some of the tunnels the dwarves and gnomes used in that war. He figured we could find some artifacts, maybe some old warm equipment and make money selling it. That didn't work out so well, and but I still ended up stayin', learnin' to be a warrior rather than a miner, takin' on the monsters I found in there."

He sat with the slight groan of a man who has aged a little past his prime and knows it, even if he's still hale and hearty. "Now, mind, this was a good fifty years before the dungeon was officially discovered - that happened about six years ago, when some ancient king tottered out of the mouth of it, told folks that he was the king of the Golden Country that had been swallowed by the dungeon on the order of the Lunatic Magician, and anyone who could defeat that guy would become king. Then he turned into dust, over a thousand years catchin' up to him all at once. Of course, people bein' what they are, folks started swarmin' in, peelin' the gold of the very walls. By this time, I'd stopped bein' a warrior, too, content to live on the third floor of the dungeon and take care of it but most folks were just in it for the treasure. Not that there's much anymore. The gold-scrappers came in and took pretty much anything that wasn't nailed down, till there was no more treasure left in any of the upper three floors.

"Each floor is more dangerous than the above, correspondin' to different parts of the castle and its environs. The uppermost floor is the remains of the graveyard of the village the dungeon ended up displacin' when it got too big to remain wholly underground. That's pretty well populated with merchants and adventurers, as well as a demi-human slave market. I don't much care for that, so I don't spend much time up there. The second floor is filled with tall trees and towers, linked by wooden bridges; the folks who come in to study the dungeon think that it's the very top of the castle that was sealed away. My floor, the third, is the entrance to the castle, with a buncha winding corridors and the like. I've only gone down so far's the fourth floor, mostly to trade with the orcs that live there. That floor is a cave made up of the castle and an underground lake; at the bottom of the lake is the castle town. I've heard folks say that the fifth floor is the town itself, but I've never seen it."

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling

Re: General Mingling