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Umbral Feast - Chapter 147
🕑 Added 2025-09-12 21:00:18 +0000 UTC<~> Chapter 147
The seven of us were poorly attempting to hand-toss our lumps of dough. The one who seemed best at it was Aria, but even she tore her dough a few times before having to start over. Alto was coming in a close second, even though he was less dexterous than us empowered delvers.
"Interesting! I've never seen this kind of technique to stretch dough before! I wonder what other kinds of dishes I could apply this to," Alto said. He was happily spinning the pizza dough in the air. He paused his rambling to concentrate each time he tossed it up before picking up where he left off when he set the dough aside to start working on the next one.
"This seems silly. Does this really make this special food better?" Iris asked. Naturally, Iris was having a hard time with the task since her arms were shorter than the rest of us, and she wasn't as magically empowered as we were yet.
"I think it helps the texture of the pizza. To be honest, I was planning on making it on something like that flat bread from Piper's hometown. I didn't expect Alto to be as curious about this as he was," I said.
"How could I not? This is such a novel way to stretch the dough! I have plenty of ingredients, why not try it?" Alto said happily.
I put the mostly round disk of dough on the table. "I think this looks like the right consistency, but to be honest, I didn't really cook things from scratch often. I've never tried to make pizza dough myself before. It's supposed to be pretty even in the middle with a bit of lip on the edges for the crust. Then we put a thin layer of the sauce."
There was a bowl of sauce that we had prepared earlier from a savory fruit that wasn't a tomato. I was still going to mentally refer to it as a tomato though, because it was close enough. It actually looked more like a bell pepper in shape, but it tasted almost the same. We mixed it with a small selection of herbs that I had gotten from Phoebe, that spice merchant I saved on the way to Ironcastle, to create the best approximation of marinara sauce I could come up with. I think I came up with something pretty close.
"You have to spread it surprisingly thin, especially in the middle, or it can get a little soggy." I demonstrated by pouring a ladle of sauce and spreading it around the pizza dough while everyone watched. "You want to stop near the edge of the crust so that everything stays in."
"This seems similar to making a giant savory pie. Does it have a top crust?" Alto asked.
I laughed. "People sometimes call it a 'pizza pie,' actually. But no, pizza doesn't usually have a top crust. It doesn't need it. There is something similar called a calzone that is like a pizza folded in half to get a nice crust on all sides, though. Some people like it, but pizza is much more popular."
Piper scooted a bit closer to Alto. "Will you help me with this part? I don't want to tear my dough."
"Sure! I'd love to help. It looks like you did a good job, though!" Alto said as he got even closer to her. The two of them were almost touching shoulder to shoulder now. "Here, I think it's like this."
Based on the way that Piper was smiling and lightly blushing, I don't really think she needed the help. She had been clearly looking for an excuse to get a bit closer to the cute excitable guy. Ever since that conversation, she had gotten bolder.
I turned to Luna, who had her tongue peeking out of her mouth as she very carefully spread the sauce across the pizza crust. She stood back confidently and looked over to me with a happy smile. I laughed at her cute face partially covered in flour.
"Come here, Luna. You got something on your face there." She giggled as I wiped the flour off her face with a cloth. Once I finished, I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, which immediately had her blushing. Despite the two of us proudly displaying our braids almost all the time, she still got embarrassed by public displays of affection. I couldn't do a lot more than this without her burning up in embarrassment.
Iris cleared her throat. "What's next? Everyone's getting all mushy, and I'd like to actually eat this eventually," she said in a deadpan.
Piper and Alto suddenly looked self-conscious and took a few steps away from each other. Aria swatted the back of Iris's head, which made Maxwell laugh.
"Hey! That hurt," Iris whined.
"Stop being such a twerp then," Aria said with a grin.
"Alright, alright. The next step is the spices and the cheese," I said.
Earlier, I had also created a blend of spices for this part. Luckily, something approximating garlic and onions was common in this part of the world, so the blend heavily featured dried forms of the two. I scattered a generous handful of my mixture of herbs and spices on top of the sauce before handing the bowl to Luna. She followed my lead before handing the bowl to Piper, who hesitated. "Are you sure you want to use that much? Weren't these spices kind of expensive?"
"We're in the middle of making my favorite food. I don't mind using some extra spices for this. I can buy some more from Phoebe the next time we're in Ironcastle anyway," I replied.
When Alto was handed the bowl, he expertly spread the mix evenly across the top of his pizza. "This must be a pretty high-class dish since it features so many spices and so much cheese. You also seem well-educated. I hope this isn't improper to ask, but are you noble-born, Helena?"
I sighed as all of my friends laughed at me. "No. I'm not a noble. I'm just from a place that was rich in spices and had a wide variety of food. I was also... a kind of scholar before I got involved with dungeons."
"Oh, that's interesting. What were you studying?" he asked.
I sighed. "I'd rather not talk about it if that's alright. Next up is the cheese." I took a handful of the shredded cheese and spread it around the top of the pizza. I was already pretty excited by this, despite the amount of money Alto charged me for the cheese wheel. He'd been fairly liberal with ingredients other than this, but unsurprisingly, cheese is quite expensive. "Try to get an even layer across the top," I told them.
"Don't worry, she opens up more once you get to know her," Piper said while she watched me spread the cheese across the surface of my pizza. "Her past is pretty complicated."
Alto nodded. "I hope I didn't overstep. I know a lot of delvers are touchy about their past. Many delvers only start because they don't have any other options."
I chuckled, "That's true enough for me. I got stranded and had to learn to fight and survive after I was already in danger. These guys saved me."
"After you saved our lives first. You like to conveniently leave that part out," Maxwell said with a smile.
"Is that true?" he asked, turning to Piper.
Piper nodded. "We were surrounded by goblins after we had gotten caught trying to sneak through their tunnels deep in the Fallow Dungeon. At the time, it was just me, my brother, and Luna. We had managed to make it to a lake, so we would at least be able to fight them with the water at our backs, but there were so many of them that I thought we were dead."
"Then Helena showed up," Maxwell continued. "Remember in that meeting last week when the other delvers were talking about her being a shapeshifter? Helena showed up already shifted, and I thought that things had gone from bad to worse... until she started protecting us. Imagine a giant umber hound suddenly showing up, and right when you think you're already dead, she scares off or kills all of the goblins. Then she walks up to us in tattered clothes, speaking a language you can't understand. I didn't know what to think at the time."
"I've never seen an umber hound before," Alto said.
Aria nodded. "They're giant black furred wolves with glowing white eyes. Helena looks just like one when she's shifted, except she stands on two legs most of the time."
Alto nodded. "I've... heard the rumors."
I paused. "And you're not afraid?"
Alto shrugged. "I don't know... you've always been nice to me. I hadn't heard anything about you until after you talked to me about the crabs. All of you have been so nice that I didn't think it was worth worrying about. I wouldn't be here at all if I were scared of delvers and some of the strange things they can do." Alto gave a shy look to Piper, who smiled back at him.
There was a bit of a lull in the conversation while everyone finished spreading their cheese across the surface of their pizzas. I grinned while looking over at everyone's pizzas. It has been so long since I last had pizza. I really hoped that these came out okay.
"Alright, the last step before we bake them is toppings. I can't even begin to tell you what's in my favorite topping, since I don't actually know, but a lot of things work well on pizza." I have no idea what pepperoni is made of, other than generally being some kind of sausage. "Pretty much any kind of vegetable, meat, or sausage works pretty well on it. It's all a matter of taste."
"I'm going to try this!" Alto said excitedly while grabbing a bowl of crab meat from the other table. Of all the proposed toppings... crab meat was the one I was the least sure about. It sounded kind of gross to me, but I know some people like seafood on their pizza...
I topped mine with a thinly sliced sausage that Alto had on hand. It tasted a bit like salami, which was sorta close to the taste I was looking for. Luna opted for a variety of peppers, Maxwell had something similar to dried bacon, Aria and Iris went with precooked poultry, and amusingly, Piper put just about everything she could on it. Her's looked like a supreme pizza. I urged her to at least avoid crab for that one... I really wasn't sure about it.
"So, you said that it should be cooked at a high temperature until the crust turns golden brown?" Alto asked.
I nodded. "Yeah, it shouldn't stay in too long. That's why I suggested the meat toppings should be precooked. They won't have enough time to cook through otherwise."
"Alright, let's hope this comes out well!" Alto slid his giant bread spatula thing under the first pizza and skillfully slid it into his big oven. I was surprised he had something that looked similar to the pizza paddles I was used to on hand already. The huge brick oven was heated with charcoal and had been assembled shortly after we had initially arrived. It also just so happened to be perfect for cooking pizza.
Most of us went to wash up and clean all of the loose flour that had gotten all over us. The only ones who stayed near the oven to watch were Alto and Piper. I hadn't thought much of it until I heard them talking. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to listen in once I heard them talking.
"Hey, Alto. Thanks for all of this. I had a really hard day in the dungeon, and this really cheered me up," Piper said quietly.
There was a pause while Alto shuffled his feet. "You're welcome. I didn't want to ask what happened, but seeing you come back looking so sad made me want to cheer you up. Cooking something from my hometown usually helps when I feel down, so I thought I should offer it."
I could hear the smile in Piper's voice when she replied. "It really did help... And preparing Helena's weird food was really fun too. I haven't helped in a kitchen since I was a girl. I never really liked that kind of thing when I was younger, but goofing around and doing it with you... I really enjoyed it."
"I... uh. What are you, mmph!—"
I grabbed Luna and pulled her over. ("Quick, look!")
The two of us peeked around the corner and saw Piper pressing Alto against a wall and kissing him deeply. Alto seemed stiff at first, but quickly melted into the kiss and wrapped his arms around Piper's waist.
("They're kissing!") Luna said excitedly.
("Piper really moved fast after we talked to her about it,") I replied.
The two of them kept making out for a while, but then Alto suddenly jumped and tapped Piper on the shoulder.
Piper looked a little disappointed when Alto quickly pulled away, but froze when she saw him grab the bread paddle thing. "The pizzas! I almost forgot about them. Quick! Help me set out the serving platters!"
Her expression softened and turned to mirth as she started lining up the platters on the counter for him. I shared a smile with Luna before the two of us snuck away. We walked around a little bit before returning from a different direction so they wouldn't know we were spying on them.
"How's the pizza coming?" I asked when we got back.
Alto's ears were down, and he had a big blush on his face. "I uh, maybe burned a few of them." Piper coughed and looked away with a blush on her face as well.
I chuckled. "Well, I'm sure it's fine. None of them look too bad. Let's talk about cutting them into slices..."
Comments
UnderwhelmingBird
Clumsy gal! Very clumsy! I love it honestly, and is fair since she's not really indulged in a relationship of her own from what we know This tiny goof opens the door to future teasing. Such as one or more of their pals commissioning a kitchen timer from the dungeon craftsfolk to help them keep track of things better. Just in case. Egg timers are oooooold tech and a just a little bit of nudges/prompting could give em the right idea for how to create a version of their own. I figure some of those peeps could use a side project so they arent repairing the same spear for the upteenth time while their brain turns to goo
