• Solo • Broken Chickens

[Devin]

Cylus 11, Arc 720

Morning.

“I’m afraid that our chickens are broken”, Rosalind, a young woman with brown hair that she wore in two thick braids, ruddy cheeks and hazel eyes told Devin who had shown up at her father’s little farm in Scalvoris Town in order to buy eggs, just like he did every fortnight. “Maybe somebody else has eggs for sale though”, she continued. “The chickens don’t normally do that”, she added in a very apologetic tone of voice and blushed slightly. It was obvious that she was very uncomfortable at the moment.

The young Mortalborn who was dressed in a very thick and stylish violet cloak, a hat and a scarf in order to fend off the cold, among other things, on the other hand was not uncomfortable at all. On the contrary, he perked up noticeably at the mention of broken chickens. He had heard of chickens that were sick or refused to lay eggs, but broken chickens?

That was new!

In which way were they broken?

Maybe they had suddenly mutated!

“Show me the chickens, please”, he asked Rosalind and flashed her the most brilliant smile that he was capable of. The farmer’s daughter looked at him a little strangely because she had never seen anybody get so excited at the mention of broken chickens before, but then she shrugged her shoulders and gestured for him to follow her to the stable.

The Mortalborn did so with a little spring in his step, holding the basket that was meant for the eggs in one hand and a lantern in the other hand (it was quite dark in Cylus, and he was not very fond of being unable to see a lot and running into all kinds of things as a consequence).

Notes

From the Scalvoris calendar:

On the 11th Cylus, farmers awaken to an odd sight. All the chickens and egg-laying birds across Scalvoris (farmed and in the wild) lay two eggs over night - every single bird. One of these is a normal egg, the other has swirling, glowing colours on the shell. Scientists and alchemists and any interested parties investigate! Was it something which happened in the Sea of Light Festival? Is there an egg-conspiracy? Who isn''t intrigued by a glowy-egg!?

[Devin]

“Just take a look, Doctor Thorn”, Rosalind who was approximately eighteen said in a desperate tone of voice once Devin had set his lantern down on a table near the stable door and pointed at where a couple of brown chickens were walking around. Devin did as he she told him and made a step closer to them even though they didn’t look very interesting, to be honest. They were in fact quite boring, and not mutated at all from what we could tell.

A moment later, a most peculiar shimmer suddenly caught his attention, and his eyes widened so much that they nearly threatened to drop out of their sockets. He immediately went down on his knees and reached into the straw on the floor in order to pull …

… a glowing egg out?

He stared at the egg whose shell was covered with a myriad of swirling, glowing colors for a moment before he held it up, as if he wanted to ask Rosalind if she could see it as well.

“Earlier this morning each of our chickens lay a brown egg and one of … these”, Rosalind told him. “I put the brown eggs into a basket, but I don’t know if they are actually edible. I wouldn’t eat them if I were you. I’m not sure why the other eggs look like that either. Father said I should leave them where they are for the time being while we decide what we should do now, just in case they do something weird”, she explained to the Mortalborn who had begun to search the straw for more of the glowing eggs.

“Huh?” Devin asked, looked up for a moment and met the gaze of the girl who looked quite flabbergasted and confused. “They are safe to touch. I don’t know why they glow like that – maybe it has something to do with alchemy, or maybe your chickens just ate something wrong – but I’ll buy them! All of them!” he informed her and smiled quite brilliantly at her because he had just had a most amazing and totally reasonable idea.

“I’ll even pay three times the normal price”, he told her before she could change her mind and quickly reached into a pocket of his jacket in order to pull out his wallet and remove a lot of shiny nels from it.

“Do you … do you want the brown eggs as well?” Rosalind who didn’t understand why he was so eager to buy eggs that were probably poisonous or at least tasted kind of disgusting asked. Devin immediately shook his head. Why should he buy brown eggs when he could have glowing ones? As far as he was concerned, she could sell them to someone else!

[Devin]

Later that trial, the young Mortalborn was finally standing in his kitchen. He had changed out of his winter clothes and into a comfortable, but no less stylish pair of midnight black pants and a matching shirt, and he had put a checkered, red and white apron with a lot of frills on. He was really excited to try and make something with his new eggs. He just didn’t know what he should make with them yet. Cake or cookies? Maybe he could make breaded chicken, only with glowing eggs instead of normal eggs for the batter!

He had also considered just making fried eggs, but he would need one egg for every fried egg, of course. He’d get more out of the eggs if he used them to make batter for breaded chicken, so he decided to do just that. That the inside of the eggs might not glow or that they might not be edible – which was what poor Rosalind had been worried about – didn’t even occur to him. Besides, the idea was too good to just give up on it!

So, he got his cookbook, filled one plate with breadcrumbs, another one with a mixture of flour, pepper and salt, cracked two of the glowing eggs open and put them onto the third plate. As he did so, his eyes widened noticeably, and a moment later, he began to smile all over his face. What had been inside the eggs, glowed just as much as the shells. Speaking of the shells …

He looked at the glowing eggshells that he had been about to throw into the trash. They glowed so prettily that he was reluctant to just get rid of them. So, he washed the eggshells very carefully before he placed them into a mortar and ground them into a very fine powder. Following that, he mixed them with cornstarch which was what you usually used in order to make homemade makeup powder. He’d decided to make glowing glitter makeup.

It would look soo good on his face and in his hair!

You could never go wrong with glitter!

He had just put some of the glitter powder into his hair when he realized that he should probably take care of his glowing breaded chicken next, so he got a few chicken breasts, sliced them and covered them with flour, glowing egg stuff and breadcrumbs before he put them into a pan where he had already heated a bit of oil. As he did so, he sang quite loudly and totally off-key because he was so excited.

Soon, a most delicious smell that made his mouth water filled the room.

[Devin]

Breaded chicken made with glowing eggs, the Mortalborn realized, could get burnt just as easily, and the breading could come off as well if you weren’t careful, but he managed to prevent any major disasters. Before long, he had arranged a few pieces of wonderfully glowing breaded chicken on a plate. He was just about to alert his roommates whose rooms were upstairs that lunch was ready which turned out to be unnecessary. Just as he was about to get them, both Aidan and Talieson walked into the kitchen and looked around curiously.

“This smells wonder…” Aidan, a dark-haired young man who was a little older than Devin began only to stop dead in his tracks, stare and pointed. “The … the …” he stammered, stopped for a moment, took a closer look at the plate on the table and eventually blurted out, “The chicken glows! Devin, what on Idalos have you done this time?”

“I made breaded chicken for us”, the Mortalborn replied in an almost overly calm tone of voice. “When I went to buy eggs this morning, Rosalind told me that all the chickens had laid glowing eggs. They looked really pretty, so I bought an entire basket full of them! Isn’t it great?” he asked the older man who looked a little freaked out, to be honest.

A moment later, he got a fork and a knife, cut a piece of glowing breaded chicken off and put it into his mouth, making a content little sound as he did so before he grinned at the two men (Talieson just stood there and stared; the bard seemed to have temporarily lost the ability to speak). He was just about to eat another bite because it had tasted so good when Aidan begged him with a desperate look on his face, “Can you at least wait a few bits in order to make sure that it doesn’t make you sick?”

“I'll wait if you give it a try as well afterwards. It’s totally edible and in fact absolutely delicious”, Devin added in order to persuade him and grinned. Aidan hesitated for what seemed like an eternity before he finally let out a sigh and nodded. He wasn’t too keen on eating glowing food because it didn’t really look edible in his opinion, no matter what Devin said; but if that was what it took to save him from himself, then he would do it. He didn’t want to be responsible for his death!

That was why Devin, Talieson and Aidan (who had watched Devin closely all the time) sat at the kitchen table approximately half a break later, eating the glowing breaded chicken that had gotten a little cold in the meantime together. As he ate, something suddenly occurred to Devin. He could make more glowing breaded chicken with the rest of the eggs! There were probably people who would be willing to pay a lot of money for this new kind of food. Maybe … maybe he’d even be able to ask an onyx nel per piece of breaded chicken!

And what more, he could try and sell his glitter egg powder as well!

Little did he know that Rosalind's chickens had not been the only ones that had laid glowing eggs. In fact, all the birds in Scalvoris had done the same!

[Pig Boy]

Devin

Experience: 10 no magic xp

Knowledge:

Cooking x2
Cosmetology x1
Detection x1
Persuasion x1

Renown: none yet.

Skill Usage: Appropriate to level.

Loot/Losses: A basket full of glowing eggs & homemade glitter powder!

Injuries/Conditions: none

Consequences: Devin, when he looks into the matter of the glowing eggs, does indeed procure more of the glowy foodstuffs. In addition, he overhears someone whispering about a glowing chick that has hatched in Gunvorton. Perhaps this is the start of a brand new species of chicken!

P.S. If you pursue this rumor of a chicken, please dev the new bird as a submission to the Scalv Dev forum, and if approved, feel free to thread about it.

Comments: This was hilarious from the first line, "I'm afraid our chickens are broken." is probably one of the most unintentionally funny thing I've read a person saying.

The glowing breaded chicken sounds really delicious. It makes me wonder if glowing cakes are possible for bakers, or glowing cookies, maybe glowing giraffe?

Good luck with Devin's future culinary endeavors.

If you have any concerns about this review, please PM me about them.