Oliver's Olives

“Hey, Oliver?”

“Uh huh?”

“You’re doing this because you need olives, yeah? And it can’t be regular olives. Your deity demands red olives?”

“Uh huh.”

“And natural red olives are apparently rare, but there’s some on the other side of this troll cave?”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re life is a lot more action packed than I’d assume, for someone with a food deity.”

“. . .Uh huh.”

Oliver sighed in defeat. Ever since making a deal with the food deity, his life was a lot more action packed than he’d expected, also. Oh not all of it. He did cook, inventing new recipes and “perfecting” others. But his deity could be extremely particular. And most of the magic the deity gave him in exchange for his culinary skills involved identifying plants, cooking, speeding up fermentation. Things like that. Not, perhaps, magic that was good for fighting trolls.

Shilla also had magic, and luckily hers was a bit more helpful. He was glad he had her help. He knew he could look a bit intimidating. He was tall and muscular, and could use magic because a deity granted him power. The fact that that power was related to food did little to reassure some people.

They were, at the moment, approaching an area where the underground tunnel opened up into a cavern. There was a fire pit, with about five trolls gathered around it.

Oliver looked back at Shilla. She raised a wand.

“I can only effect one sense at a time. We’re either invisible, or we don’t make a sound,” she whispered.

Oliver grunted. “Well, seeing as we’re talking right now, and they haven’t noticed us, I think sight is more important.”

Hopefully the sound of the crackling fire, and the grunts and groans from the trolls, would disguise any sound they made. And if it didn’t, well, it was hard to fight what you couldn’t see.

Shilla nodded. She swished her wand back and forth and muttered something. The spell was so quiet, Oliver didn’t hear it beside her, just saw the corner of her mouth move to form the words.

They disappeared, and not just from the trolls. Oliver couldn’t see himself. Looking down revealed the cave floor where his shoes should be. He could feel himself outstretch a hand, but couldn’t see it in front of him. He couldn’t see Shilla either.

Well, the spell wouldn’t last forever. They both knew what they were using it for. He’d just have to move quietly, and hope that Shilla was also moving in the same direction. And that they didn’t bump into each other.

***

Oliver and Shilla stood at the exit to the cave. It opened up into a field of trees, familiar small round things growing on their branches.

“Olives?”

“Olives,” he confirmed.

They were in some sort of clearing, the ground lower than it normally was, emphasized even more by the mountains surrounding it. He’d been skeptical when he was told the troll cave was the easiest way to get into this clearing, but maybe it had been true.

“Alright. What are we waiting for then?” Shilla asked.

She walked up to the nearest tree and reached for an olive.

“Wait.” Oliver said.

He walked over to the tree and raised his staff. It was a wooden thing, with a crystal nested in the top. The crystal stayed inert and a little gray and cloudy in the middle.

“Not this one,” he said.

“What?” Shilla looked back at the tree, then followed him when he walked farther down the row. “Looks red to me.”

“Apparently not.” Or at least not red enough. “I’ll know the right tree when I see it.”

Oliver, who was seriously considering a name change at this point, brought his staff up to multiple trees along the row. The staff stayed dull. Then, as he got to the back of the field, the crystal glowed a white light from its center, when pointed at multiple trees in the back. Maybe not many in the grand scheme of things. But there were a lot of olives on a single tree. The three that he’d confirmed as good enough would be more than he needed.

“Alright. These are the ones,” he said, as Shilla joined him.

He reached for an olive, only for one of the branches to come to life. It swung out, scaly and noodle shaped, with slits for eyes and fangs when it opened its mouth. It looked like maybe a normal snake, only then it let go of the tree entirely, and kept floating in the air. Namely, it let go of the tree to lunge at him, biting at his face.

“Dear fucking God!” he cried.

He raised his staff, and the snake bit into that instead. However, its tail did whip around as it lurched forward. He heard a crack of impact as it hit Shilla, blood appearing on her arm.

“Shilla? Shilla, a spell!”

“I’m good at stealth, not attacking!” He could hear the panic in her voice.

The snake let go of the staff and quickly struck at Oliver again and again. He brought his staff up, continuously trying to block it. He didn’t get the chance to do anything else. He failed and the creature’s teeth sank into his arm at one point. Hopefully it wasn’t venomous, or this would all be for not.

Oliver stumbled back, trying to get some distance between himself and the snake. Shilla grabbed the snake by the tail, stopping it from immediately following him. It whirled around, towards her, teeth bared.

Shilla had given him enough time. Oliver had sputtered out a spell of his own, staff pointed at his target, and cooked the magic snake. It wasn’t a flame spell. He didn’t hit it with fire. The heat generated directly inside the creature, evenly across it. His deity liked to say it was a spell that cooked with microwaves.

The scales made it less obvious, but it smelled less like an animal, and more like meat now. It dropped to the ground, limp and steaming.

Shilla stared at it, then him. He could see fear in her eyes now. It was fair, he supposed. He’d just cast a spell that seemingly cooked an animal inside out, with no way to avert the effect. (Unlike a fire spell, that you could dodge or counter.) No one would want that spell turned on them.

Still. She’d been attacked by the snake. Her arm was bleeding where it had whipped her. Her hands were also bloody where she’d grabbed it. But it was him she was afraid of.

***

Pieces of cheese, coated in flour, were sizzling in a pan. The olives he’d made into olive oil, to insure it wouldn’t stick. He was using the oven for this, not the microwaves spell. This recipe wouldn’t cook well that way. As it was, it smelled . . . good.

Sometimes, Oliver wondered why he did this. He could cook before he’d made a deal with the food deity. He’d been good at it. It was why the deity had singled him out. The magic and knowledge he gained helped him, but it did also mean he was pulled away from cooking to battle monsters sometimes, and people were worried about him cooking them from the inside out. He wasn’t the most social person, and he’d been intimidating before the magic. He’d used it to his advantage. But the magic did create new concerns.

Oliver sighed. His deity had been very particular about this recipe. Not just the red olives, but all the other ingredients had to be the specific ones he wanted. But, it should be done now.

Oliver transferred the cheese out of the pan and onto a plate. He waited until it was a little cooler, enough not to burn his mouth, and took a bite.

Oh. Oh this is really good saganaki.

Oliver had liked the fried cheese to begin with. But the deity’s specific ingredients and instructions had made it even better. And he had ingredients left over. He’d made sure he would when gathering them, if he was going to go through all the trouble. He could make more. He could share it with others, and eat more himself.

He took another and piece and chewed it slowly, savoring. He took in the taste on his tongue, the warmth of cooking in the small room, the smell wafting from the pan.

He was going to keep working with the food deity, wasn’t he?