Chương 62

"So it didn't go well?"

"A few casualties, nothing permanent. But no, it did not go well. The Trolls' numbers grow denser every day." Grunkle admitted as he rested on the chairs in El'Tela's study. He looked tired, but he had waved away my offer of Inner Fire.

"Hmph. Of course it didn't work. A war like this isn't won, in one battle. Now this little strike of yours, do it again, and again. Every day. Multiple times a day if you can. Kill the Trolls constantly until you break them." Grunkle listened to El'Tela's snappish remarks, and just sighed.

"Unfortunately, that is unlikely. They may not be able to use their magic thanks to the Ban'Dinoriel. But they can still find our teleportation spots."

"Pfft. Then make new ones."

"It's hard Grandmother, They are filling every space they can to make sure we can't." This time instead of a snappish comment, she just huffed, and nodded, walking over and taking a seat on the couches sitting beside me across from Grunkle.

"You fought well?"

"As well as could be expected under the circumstances."

"Then you make your family proud." She added simply and Grunkle smiled at her half a smirk as if he knew such a small compliment was rare from the woman.

"Did you kill many Trolls? I mean the entire assault?"

"Many, but not enough, and we lost track of our target. This Warlord leading them is cunning. He shows himself, just enough for us to lock in an attack, only to vanish just after."

"Sounds like he's hunting the king, just like we're hunting him."

"Very likely. Not that it'll work. The king has plenty of escape methods should the worst come to pass. All the Trolls are doing is giving us a chance."

"Not much of a chance if he is always gone when you arrive." He grumbled at me, and I just smiled.

"We'll have a meal to celebrate." El'Tela decided and I perked up.

"I did promise Grunkle a meal when he got back!"

"You?" El'Tela asked, giving me a look.

"I doubt any of us are partial to your muffins."

"Hmph… Hmhmhmhm! Hehehehe!" I retorted, a slow building laugh that El'Tela was not accepting as anything but me being a moron.

"Get on with it girl. You made a breakthrough?"

"Well you already know I figured out the issue with my conjured Refreshment. Which you could have told me!"

"It's better for you to discover it on your own. You have a tendency to figure things out just fine that way."

"Sure but… Nevermind. It's not important. Because I've been practicing!" After all, Better drinks are a good way to restore Mana faster, and it's so much easier to chug something when it tastes good. I hadn't intended on grinding Conjure Refreshment as I had other things to focus on, but well. Sometimes it falls into your lap. Besides, I wanted good food.

"Now sit back in awe, and my wonderful arrangement! Ah, this'll take a minute. It's a multiple part conjuration." I admitted and El'Tela went from blandly looking at me to looking interested.; I stretched my hands, and then reached out. I'd been working on the idea since I visited the Kindergarten and realized I'd been doing it wrong, but I was still struggling in some respects to get the really complicated meals done correctly. After failed attempt after failed attempt I realized I was going about it wrong.

The Elementals that were conjured and formed into matter in exchange for mana, didn't like forming things outside of their niche, so conjuring a complete meal in one go while possible was much harder. So the idea had struck me after conjuring dozens of flatbreads that failed to summon any of the toppings. Pizza dough by itself wasn't tasty, obviously. But, I conjured the dough, already formed like a crusted pizza. It looked right, but like all conjurations it was just cold. This was the easiest part.

A flat bread was easily recognized by the elementals, and they were quick to do so. The next part was harder. Tomatoes were a vegetable, and they tended to not want to conjure into living matter, but they would with the proper urging. And as my Conjuration had shot past level 20, I'd had it. [Conjure Refreshment Lv 22 13/220] [Journeyman Mastery] [Mastery Benefit +10 Spirit] Pushing the spell past just muffins had always vastly increased leveling time.

It was such a relief to be able to cast the spell once and get a point instead of a dozen times. The second conjuration created a blob of Tomato sauce, filled with seasonings. Not that they properly existed up in Quel'Thalas, but I remembered the taste, and that was all the Conjuration properly needed. With a motion the blob of sauce lowered onto the flat bread and spread out. I used Mage hand and with a flourish it flowed all over the bread leaving a lovely red tomato sauce, full of bits of green. Lovely.

It wasn't perfect, I was still adding more remembered seasonings and such, but it tasted fine for now. Then I started the third conjuration. And a ball appeared, it lowered onto the sauce, falling apart into a pile of cheese. Ah, cheese! Life's little wonder. I mage handed it around once again. For the final conjuration, Pepperoni slices appeared and thunked onto the almost done pizza. I once more spread them out with Mage hand until I had a fairly okay looking pizza. Of course the problem was it was all cold.

Cold pizza was good when it was properly cooked, conjured? Not so much. But I gave another smug look at the older elves.

"Multiple conjurations into a single meal… Wasteful, but if you want to make a meal taste better, not a bad solution. You should be integrating all of it into one casting though." El'Tela said simply.

"I know! I'm working on it! This is a prototype! Besides, it's not done just yet, see, this is nice, but it doesn't quite hit right. It's cold after all, a meal should be hot."

"Cold meals are something we all get used to." El'Tela said with a simple shrug, so I sent her my smuggest look.

"Do we?"

"Oh?"

"Not done yet. You might have noticed the tray the pizza is resting on."

"Pizza?'

"What I'm calling this dish. Shush Grunkle." I reached out and with a bit of work lifted the tray the pizza was on up, revealing there were two parts to the tray. I pushed the other half out the way and set it back down before lifting the bottom half and flipping it around. Dropping it on top of the pizza.

"Taadaaa!"

"You covered the food? Wonderful." Grunkle said flatly, and I scoffed at him.

"Grunkle, open your eyes and see my genius would you? Conjure Refreshment allows you to conjure a container to bring the food or drink in, all I had to do was adjust my thinking to get exactly what I needed. I don't have a heat food spell, but I do have a heating spell that can work." The tray having been conjured together showed barely any seams and perfectly covered the pizza. But I reached out and pried open the now top of the conjured tray.

Inside there was an indent I finished my last conjuration needed and poured some water into the new space then closed it back up.

"Heat Water." I declared and the water inside the little enclosed space of the tray quickly heated into a boil. A small hole let the steam escape to keep from an explosion happening or something… Totally hadn't accidentally done that once. Either way, the tray was now heating up, as the water boiled on it, which was spreading the heat through the tray into the enclosed space the pizza was in below.

"You are heating the food."

"I am!" I said grinning at Grunkle, who actually leaned in.

"There are actual spells for this."

"None that I know! I just used what I knew."

"Hmm. Silly Girl. I'll get the food heating spell for you, this is… Interesting, but rather silly." The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I just pouted at him, but Grunkle might be teasing me, cause he did seem to like the steam oven I'd created. I kept the heat on for a while, and El'Tela was giving me looks for doing this in her study…

"Should we move to the dining hall?"

"That would be wise." She said simply and I just grinned, lifting the whole thing with Mage Hand so I didn't burn myself and we all moved to the dining area. I placed it on the table and kept the heat up. It took a few minutes to properly heat the pizza how it should be. Melted cheeeeeese.

"So this is what you have been working on." El'Tela said as she took her seat.

"It is good you are expanding your conjuration, but I hope this hasn't taken all of your time outside of my teaching."

"Course not. I worked on other spells and stuff too. I just had an interest in making some food."

"Well, I can't argue that food is important." She admitted, as she rested back.

"Okay it should be done." I used Mage Hand to pull off the top part of the tray, steam and the smell of cooking pizza flooded out, and I breathed in deep.

"It does have a fragrant aroma to it. What did you call this?"

"Pizza!" I said happily putting the tray top to the side, it was demanifest eventually. And there it was, a cheesy pepperoni, with the cheese melted and crispy looking. Mage Hand once more coming into play, as it lifted a slice of the PIzza from the group. The dough had come pre sliced, but in almost perfect cuts, so it made this part easy.

The cheese perfectly stretched across the slice as I grabbed a plate and with a bit of work stretched it free and placed the plate in front of El'Tela, and then did another for Grunkle. Then I grabbed my own, practically drooling. Not having Pizza for over a decade was too long! I settled in, and without concern grabbed the warm crunchy crust and with a quick fold brought it up and stuffed the end in my mouth. Cheese! Sauce! Even a bit of Peperoni! Yummy!

"Hmm. Still need to add a bit more seasoning to the sauce." I decided, it was still coming off a bit too sweet, and not enough oregano? Maybe more Basil as well.

"Dorah, please have some manners." El'Tela sighed at me, as she used her own knife and fork to cut the pizza. That was definitely some sort of heathen sacrilege, but I shrugged. To each their own. Some people cooking their pizza like it was a deep dish pie. I mean they were wrong, but that's fine. It was okay to be wrong sometimes. Deep dish was good in its own way. They were of course still wrong.

"You're supposed to eat it like this." I said, waving the cheesy slice at them.

"But you can eat it that way if you want."

"I do. Honestly eating with your hands." She grumbled, although I noticed Grunkle had looked half way to putting his own fork and knife down to do what I did when she spoke. He slumped just a miniscule amount and went back to cutting. Heh.

"Hmm. An interesting meal." El'Tela responded slowly after taking her first bite.

"Right? I've been working on another thing, but I can't get it to work…" I said, flopping my spare hand back and forth as I took another bite of Pizza. My ears wiggled as I chewed down the cheesy treat.

"What are you having trouble with?" El'Tela asked, and I finished chewing and swallowed.

"I need sparkling water, like fizzy water? But I can't quite get it yet."

"Ah. It is an advanced conjuration." She focused for a moment, despite the fork and knife in her hand, and the noise of a conjuration rang out. Then in a pop a few bottles appeared on the table.

"Sparkling water!" I gasped in delight as I put my pizza down and reached for one, checking it over. Because it was carbonated the bottles had like wine caps on the top to keep the water sealed, I checked it over, and nodded.

"I can work with this." I said my eyes practically shining as I popped it open, the fizz of carbonation reaching my ears. Ah! Carbonation! How I loved you! What kind of pizza eater could I be if I didn't have the best thing to drink with a Pizza!? Soda! This had been easier, Soda was just a syrup, basically a sweetener that was mixed with the carbonation. This was the second project I had trying to get the taste right, but without Carbonated water, I'd struggled.

In my hand a ball of brownish sugar basically appeared and with a bit of effort I pushed it down into the bottle… Hmm. Shaking it was a bad idea, I needed… Grabbing the spoon beside me I turned it around and stuck it down into the top of the bottle and did my best to stir.

"What are you doing?"

"Can't shake the bottle up too much, carbonation doesn't like that, but I need to mix it." I explained. Luckily it was made to mix with water. And done! As much as I wanted to just chug this sucker back, I could always do that later. I leaned over the table a bit, getting a look from El'Tela but I carefully poured some into the cups set beside the place mats at the dining room table. Then filled my own. Using up most of the bottle. Carefully I picked up the cup, it looked right… Mostly.

I took a sip, and then couldn't help but start to giggle. The taste was a bit off, but holy crap that was Coca-Cola! I took another big gulp, mostly to hide how I'd almost wanted to tear up a little. It was stupid, I didn't even really miss my last life, this one was so much better, and yet… There were still things I remembered fondly.

"Interesting." Grunkle offered, as he'd taken a sip, then another.

"Too sweet. Honestly." El'Tela grumbled, after trying it herself, although she was looking at it with interest. Staring into the bubbles through the glass.

"I quite like it actually." Grunkle said, after having just taken a longer pull, and then to my delight, he suddenly burped. Looking absolutely horrified, I just giggled, El'Tela sent him a look.

"Sparkling Water will cause that if you drink too fast."

"I… Excuse me." He said looking irritated, and sending me a look.

"Don't worry Grunkle, everybody burps!"

"You knew that would happen." He snapped at me, and I just sent him an innocent smile. Scoffing, he went back to eating the pizza glaring at everything for a bit as he devoured a few more bites.

"I would not mind another slice." He said after a while, and I grinned. Total Cultural Victory! No one could resist Pizza and Coke!

"That smells good, what is it?" Mama called out, coming in, as round as a barrel, as she looked around.

"Mama! I made dinner! Come try!" I called out, and soon I had Mama, and then Papa when I ran off to drag him in.

"This is quite good Dorah. Good job." Papa said simply as he ate the pizza. The entire thing was nearly gone, but I'd made a second bottle of Coke and poured that out for Mama and Papa to try.

"Hmm.. The fizziness… I don't mind it, but it feels a bit too sweet for me right now." Mama admitted, as she sort of patted her chest a bit.

"Oh this is quite interesting isn't it?" Papa said instead, surprising me, as he'd only shown his normal interest in any food in the Pizza.

"You made this?"

"Well, El'Tela made the water, I'm still struggling to get the Sparkling Water conjuration down, but I made the flavor."

"Hmm.. It's nice."

"We could sell it." Grunkle said suddenly, rather out of the blue, and I looked up.

"Huh?"

"This drink. We could sell it. In the shop. We've done treats before. It has been a while."

"I remember." El'Tela said in a tone that told me she was remembering something painful.

"We could. Speak to Tira'Nore." She ordered, and I blinked realizing I was kinda being told to do something.

"Oookay? Are you sure? I mean… Wouldn't people just be able to make their own after trying it?" El'Tela gave me a look like I was saying something stupid.

"Child. You once more vastly overestimate the amount of effort fools will put into anything. No, they will buy it from us, because learning how to make it themselves will be a task they won't even consider." I shrugged, drinking down the last of my soda.

"I'll talk to Tira'Nore then-" I burped, putting a hand to my mouth and then giggling at the look El'Tela was giving me.

"Excuse me!" —---"Magistrix conjured these?" Tira'Nore whispered, looking a bit awkward about it as she looked at the row of bottles.

"Yeah, I'm still working on it. Shouldn't take long to get it down." I assured her, but she was still looking at the bottles like they were made of glass… I mean other than the fact they were made of glass. I had already popped each one, filled it with coke flavor, and sealed it back up. So now we just needed to sell them. Which was apparently happening. I felt kinda awkward about the whole thing, but honestly it wasn't like I had to do it myself.

I filled them and prepped the drinks and then just handed them off to Tira'Nore.

"I'll do my best Mistress Dorah."

"Ah, well… It's not a big deal. Zo'Talana had the idea, so yeah."

"What should I say about them?"

"Huh. Oh right, you haven't had any…" I shrugged and grabbed one of the bottles, and then went hunting for a glass for. She watched me a bit confused as I came back down and then popped the bottle and poured it then offered it to her.

"Oh I couldn't-""Just try it. I'll just take this one. It'll be a nice treat while I go do some spell training."

"Should you? That must be quite expensive."

"It's just conjured Sparkling Water." I denied, a bit amused at the idea of it being worth anything really. She took the cup and took a sip and then another.

"It is quite sweet."

"Yeah, it's just a nice drink. Kids will love it." I added, was giving young Elves Soda evil? Probably. Mwahahaha! Evil Dorah the purveyor of soda across Azeroth! I shrugged it off, and looked at Tira'Nore.

"Don't worry about it. It was just an idea Grunkle had, so if you don't sell any that's okay." I assured her, and she bowed at my words. With that I headed into the back. I'd spent a lot of my free time working on food recently, I should refocus and get some more work done on my buffs. The Trolls were becoming more and more powerful and food was a nice treat, but it wouldn't solve the problem. It wouldn't protect people.