//------------------------------// // Chapter 64: Dinner Dash // Story: Spike of All Trades // by Ariamaki //------------------------------// Eight hours later and all three of them were meditating: Twilight had broken off of her binge-testing to teach the earth pony the technique and Pinkie was incredibly appreciative. They also maintained a humming pattern to keep ‘Birthday Telegram’ maintained as a low-grade Cantus. Not only did it help Spike’s training, but it let them cool back down after the vertiginous influence of the montage. Anypony looking at this from the outside would probably be concerned (perhaps rightly so) that they had stumbled into some kind of weird cult or religious ceremony. Still, don't knock it when it works: None of them were being sick or collapsing, they'd all achieved their goals, the door knocker was clacking, dinner was ready... Wait. Door. Knocking. Spike dredged himself up out of the Innervision and turned to look at the others. Pinkie was the first to follow his lead and stop humming, at which point she began bouncily pronking into the kitchen to get the dishes and set the table. Twilight cracked one eye open and stretched with a yawn. "Set it for four, Pinkie: I doubt anypony is just coming over for business this late, and we made plenty." "Roger dodger!" Spike flicked through his own personal gains as he made his way over to the front door. Two new effective recipes, plus multiple levels of Dragon's Kitchen and Cooking. Levels in every one of the other Dragon's skills, several levels in Cantus, Omphaloskepsis, Exposure... Not much progress on the resistances front, since neither Twilight nor Pinkie had been comfortable subjecting him to the repeated brutality which the Crusaders were so cavalier about. One new skill in the form of the stupidly mana-intensive Photographic Speedreading: It seemed to take advantage of a mix of his Eidetic Memory and Observe, plus some other stuff, in order to instantly 'record' and then 'absorb' all the information on any page he looked at. Downside was? It rudely burned not just several MP per page, but an additional couple of points per second, making it his most expensive skill so far... Unless you count supercharging Dragon's Heart, but semantics. Still, the absorption speed was enough to make Twilight jealous, and also inspired her to try developing her own spell with a similar effect. He was confident she'd make it happen: She was Twilight Sparkle for crying out loud. Speaking of loud outcries, the pony at the door was knocking again: Spike was fine with letting them stew out there for a minute... If only so he could admire his precious babies, the real biggest gain from this montage. Not the new song, the new skill, all the skill levels... No, it was the stats. Every single one of his attributes had hit 20 sharp, a total of eighteen extra points! Given that in the same amount of time Twilight had only gotten her Strength and Vitality up by two points each? He knew for a fact that The Gamer had some big bonuses to training times. And speaking of times, it was about time that Spike actually answered the door... It wasn’t the biggest surprise in Equestria when he found out who had come around this late. Rainbow Dash was standing in front of the Library with her hoof a mere inch from where the door had been before he opened it. The pegasus smiled sheepishly as soon as he came into view, and he felt a bit of rekindled pride and joy that she had to look up to meet his eye-line for a change. "Aaay, just the dragon I wanted to see!" He tried to raise an eyebrow at that, but he didn't really have those. The ridge of scales managed a good enough job regardless. "Really?" "I dunno dude, would I show up to your house if I wasn't looking for you?" "It's also Twilight's house. And the library! For all I know you're here for a book." "First, I'm Rainbow Dash. Second, Twi hasn't put another good adventure novel on the shelves in months. Third... It's already pitch black out! What pony is coming over for a book this late?" That got her a proper shrug, even as he cleared the way for her to come inside. "Point to Dash. Wanna cash that point in for some free grub? We're just setting up dinner and we made waaay too much food." Rather than follow him inside, Dash recoiled when she heard that. "We made? I've seen what happens when Twilight tries to cook before- I'm probably fine!" "Oh! No, sorry, I forgot to clarify. Pinkie came over: Twilight prepped ingredients but she didn't do anything in the kitchen itself, no need to worry about that." Dash did a total about-face at his correction, stepping inside and moving past him towards the kitchen. He probably should have been miffed on Twilight's behalf, but given that Dash was hurrying so much for his (and Pinkie's) cooking? Completely fair. When they got through the door into the adjoining room, Pinkie immediately caught Dash in a tackling-hug, swinging around the shorter pony by her neck in a brief display of gravity-defiance. "Rainbow! Super-duper neat to see ya so unexpectedly! Whatcha doin'?" Dash brought a hoof up behind her head and nervously scuffed the back of her mane. "I... mostly came to apologize to Spike." He saw it coming, but it would probably be rude to point out that her title spoiled her plan: It still hadn't changed from last time he saw her, when she was marked [Penitent Pegasus] after the whole Scootaloo argument. "Apologize?" "Yeah, some stuff went down that... Well, I want to apologize and thank him." He took his seat at the table and gave credit to Twilight for setting the table for four: She'd probably heard the door and correctly assumed he was going to invite whoever in to eat. "So I guess Scootaloo is feeling better?" "Hundred and ten percent dude: You're a real lifesaver. And I promise we're not going down that road again anytime soon: Me and Scoots set some new boundaries for our practice. No more peeking or spying without a planned-ahead time window, that sorta thing. It'll be a fair game!" "Fair's the best we can ask for, right?" She nodded and took her own seat at the table, sniffing a few times before smiling widely. "Awww yes, cornflower tea? I gotta be careful with it so I don't dehydrate, but I love that stuff." Spike raised his own glass and tipped it to her before leaning back to sip at the chilled drink. "My own new recipe: Give it a shot, see what ya think." Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, and Twilight all swigged as well, but only the makers of the meal saw the phantom text box that appeared after. Sapphire Cornflower Iced Tea: Enhanced recovery from debuffs and diseases, 4 hours. "Mmmh, perfect. I don't even usually like it cold: What's your secret?" "Sapphires!" Before the pegasus could do a spit-take, he held up a claw. "And I figured out some fun new tricks, like making gems palatable for ponies. Plus this one: Invite Rainbow Dash." She startled back from the box before tentatively poking it with one hoof-tip. When nothing visibly changed, Spike started explaining how the Party features worked. While Dash scrolled through her various menus and got extremely excited over her own stats, he took the opportunity to grind skills. With her permission he used Layer to extend the tea's benefits, then passed her all the other buffs he knew except for the mana boost... And the main course for their meal. They knew that this would produce results: Dragon's Kitchen had sapped quite a bit of MP while he and Pinkie were working on the food, and he suspected that 'failures' only took a fraction as much mana. That, and they had explicitly developed this next recipe based on knowledge from past successes. Yesterday's speed-boosting souffle had, according to the chart, gotten its main aspect from the sharp cheddar cheese and not the eggs themselves. So he went out of his way to think of another good dish to use the same cheese, and after a few failed experiments one of Pinkie's ideas worked. He had to admit her reasoning was kinda weird, but especially where Pinkie was concerned, weird didn’t even come close to meaning wrong. She'd pointed out that his skill descriptions leaned epic and poetic, and that the recipe names were often either alliterative, or they had rhymes and other repeating patterns. So they'd gone with griddled corn fritters using hot peppers and cheddar cheese, and his first bite would prove if it had worked or not... Crispy Calcite Cheddar-Chile Corn Cakes: Improved reaction time and reflexes, 4 hours. That... was interesting. He nudged Rainbow and made sure she tried some (she was still engrossed in reading through her own skills) and then used Layer to boost the buff for her. A quick pass around the table refreshed everything on Twilight and Pinkie as well, and then himself... He wouldn't have been able to spam out this many enhancements this fast, before they finished cooking. But he'd managed to pull out his 20th point of Wisdom for figuring out the appropriate gem for the corncakes, and that had revealed something big. Apparently his base MP recovery of 1% per minute was actually 1% per 10 base Wisdom per minute, and it didn't do rounding. So as soon as he got to 20 it instantly snapped up to 2% per minute base, and with all of his new skills and training... Well, he had far more MP to spare. Eventually Rainbow Dash stopped being so concerned with her character sheet and the Party system, and they got down to some serious eating. It was good food, and Pinkie had brought some extremely nice high-end butter and salt from Sugarcube Corner to complement the corncakes. Within a few dozen minutes they were all leaning back and letting things digest... Until Rainbow poked him with a wingtip. "So like, are you just eating for the buffs now or what?" "What? I didn't stop liking food when I became the Gamer." "Right, right! But did you stop needing it? Because I can't think of a game where you NEED to eat. Sometimes it's like a healing thing, but..." "...Oh. Huh." She kept going, oblivious to his sudden self-reflection. "I mean, I dunno if you even have to sleep anymore! You sleep to skip time or save in a few games, but that's about it right? I mostly only play the action ones or the cooler flight sims." Gamer's Body specified that he could heal himself and restore any injury by sleeping for eight hours. Why phrase it like that if he would be sleeping every night anyways? And that wasn't even taking into account his meditation, which some ponies already used to replace sleep... "No joke, I hadn't thought of it quite that much before. Do you really think I might not need sleep or food anymore?" Dash shrugged, a big exaggerated motion with her wings behind it. "Eh? I'm not the egghead super-scientist. I'm just saying you could probably test that stuff out. I know I'd be crushing my race times if I had an extra half of the day back." Twilight wrinkled her muzzle. "Rainbow Dash, eight hours is only one third of the day." "Uh-huh. And?" That got the entire room laughing because... Yeah, that was Rainbow Dash alright.