Peek: The Best Thing (Patreon)

The gnome wipes sweat from his brow as he carefully calibrates his latest device. It's come together much quicker than he would have expected. It's been hardly a month since he was able to witness Lord Thedeim's core, and have a vision. Jinue's life was irrevocably changed after that, which he probably should have seen coming.

The society of voids was nearly incomprehensible, but one thing stood out in stark, simple clarity: a variety of food. It's elegant in its simplicity, but to actually produce what he saw takes much more work than he could have ever imagined.

Meats and cheeses are simple enough to source. After the kobold refugees from the Maw, there's no shortage of talented curers and cheesemakers. They're still working to perfect some of the other cuts he saw and smelled in his vision, but the dried cured meats are coming along well.

As are the cheeses. He still has no idea how one actually makes cheese, but he knows he needs ones of a specific hardness. Soft, spreadable cheeses are all well and good, as are the hard grating cheeses, but he needs to be able to slice the cheese to reproduce what he saw.

Condiments are easily gathered, too. The smooth yellow condiment must have been a variety of mustard, and he may work on reproducing that after his current project is finished, and seeing what must have been mayonnaise was also odd. It's a salad dressing! Why put it on bread?!

Tomatoes and greens were easily recognizable as well, though he's unfamiliar with what the pickled things were. He personally enjoys pickled onions, so perhaps he'll use those until he can find the green things?

But all of that is moot if he can't reproduce the bread. He's seen the meals made on rolls, but what really stood out was the slices! Thin enough to be easily eaten, thick enough to still provide structure. The first thing he did after the vision was to go out and try to find the right bread! While there are certainly breads for slicing and buttering, they need to be cut too thick to use for what he saw.

And so the experimenting had begun, leading to his latest prototype. He has no head for making bread, but the local bakeries are happy to try to make what he's after. Loaf after loaf, they've iterated on the bread, and loaf after loaf, he's iterated on properly slicing them.

Slicing bread is surprisingly difficult, he's come to realize. A good crust resists a blade, while the soft interior is all too prone to tearing instead of cutting. He first tried steel blades, as that's what anyone uses to slice bread, right? But trying to slice a loaf all at once leads to a pile of crumbs and regrets. He then tried several different elemental blades, hoping they might process the loaves how he needs.

Water was a disaster that he should have foreseen. Fire almost worked, leaving a few slices crisped just enough to lend extra structure, but still had too much waste. Still, he'll need to return to fire to see if he can produce the wonderful toasting, once he has the slices handled.

And now, he's going to try raw kinetic force. This will be his third attempt with kinetic runes, and may be the final one. The first attempt simply squashed the loaf flat, the 'blades' clearly too wide. He probably shouldn't have tried to mimic Olander Wideblade as his first prototype.

The second didn't cut through, leaving the loaf sliced only two inches deep. The size seemed right, and the loaf itself seemed to have the proper consistency, but the runes weren't powerful enough to get fully though it.

He sighs and takes a step back, recognizing he's trying to delay because of his nerves, but there's nothing left to check. He has the protective backstop in place, in case the blades are too powerful, to stop them from thinly slicing his table and floor. He gingerly loads a loaf in and steps around to the activation rune, and offers a quiet prayer to Lord Thedeim, hoping for a change from failure.

A small bit of mana activates the device, and a loud crunch signals it at least did something. It wasn't as loud as the squashing one, so hopefully that's simply the sound of a loaf being sliced from end to end all at once. He peers around and can hardly believe his eyes, as he sees the loaf leaning over, sliced cleanly. He takes a piece, his smile slowly widening.

"I did it. I did it!"

Before he gets ahead of himself, he runs down to his cellar to get the other ingredients, and quickly puts the meal together. Mustard and mayo on the bread, thin slices of meat, then cheese, then the tomatoes and pickled onion, and topped with lettuce before crowning the entire thing with a second slice of bread.

He takes a bite and chews, a tear of joy running down his cheek. He did it, and it was worth it. A meal that doesn't require any utensils to eat, no fire to prepare. Even the cellar isn't required, as the meat and cheese are already prepared to last when stored properly!

He'll need to talk with the bakers about the bread, and convince them to use his slicer and sell the new meals. They'll be able to sell more than simple snacks now!

He finishes his last bite and smiles, remembering the odd name for the food. Dirtmage is a strange thing to call it. He might have tried to come up with something different, if he hasn't managed to catch the name of it in the vision, through all the deafening silence of the void-speak.

But if dirtmage is what Lord Thedeim calls it, who is he to change it?

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Inspired by a bit of silliness on the discord, heh.