[Solo/Research] Frozen Not-so-Delight

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Frozen Food
Materials Required: 3 Food Ingredients
Posts Required: 2
Requirement: Level 5 Chef
An alternate recipe to ordinary food that requires refrigeration or Britain Snow, or a recipe to create completely frozen food; proposed by Chef Caerbannog after a whole day of being lost in Snowdonia. This creates a cold meal or dessert that can cool down the user. May cause brain freeze. May provide HP restoration or MP restoration, but not both. After using this item, the character takes 10% less damage from Fire-based attacks but takes 10% more damage from Ice-based attacks for their next post. The Chef that crafts this item may rewrite its name and description, but must retain its effect.

1000 words		Fire and Preparations
Left or right? Everything looked the same... white here, white there, white all over. Gods damn it! Caerbannog was lost, and in Snowdonia, no less. She had always disliked the cold what with her small body that could barely stay warm. The samurai trudged on in the snow, all black and menacing; her Malice Striker armor was a stark contrast against the pristine snow. She looked all around her yet the wolf-hair could only see snow for miles and miles. She might have to put up a tent or find a cave if she wanted to rest already. The convenient skill Call of Home beckoned to her, but Caerbannog was in Snowdonia for a noble purpose. She wanted to make ice cream. Yeah, that's right, ice cream! Well, not actually ice cream. The samurai, who had neglected her chef subclass for a while because she trained her other classes, had always wanted to research some chilled thing. Brewers had chilled drinks, so she wondered if she could make a specific recipe for frozen desserts in general. For that, the wolf-hair needed tons and tons of ice or snow; so where did she go? To the snow-laden Snowdonia... wow that sounded repetitive. ANYWAY. Caerbannog found herself in the correct area but the directions that she received for some small hotel or house for rent were blown away by strong wind. Literally, the piece of paper that had a small map and handwritten directions were blown away by a gust that greeted Caer as soon as she set foot on the snow. The samurai put her heavy armor on because it was her thickest piece of clothing. Despite all the metallic bits, the inner part was insulated by leather and cloth so the cold stayed outside and the warmth stayed inside the armor. That would not last for long though as the laws of thermodynamics also worked in Elder Tale. The leather insulation could only spread the cold and the warmth evenly, but as the temperature falls outside, the heat that the samurai's body generated would be eaten by the cold. It was rather ironic that she had arrived in Snowdonia to create frozen foods as she thought that it would be convenient to be close to the source of snow, but in the end Caerbannog had to go through so much more trouble because she had gotten lost. Everything remained white all around her so the samurai stopped trying to look for the hotel. Instead, she looked around her for some cave or crevice where she could start a fire and rest. She was in luck, or out of luck, for Caer soon tripped down a small hill with a cave at the bottom. Because the fields were white, she had not noticed the slope. The silver lining to this grey cloud was a sheltered hole at the foot of the hill which, due to the wolf-hair's size, was a convenient little cave. The wolf-hair checked it to make sure that no dangerous creatures lurked within and once she was certain of that, Caer began to look around for some twigs and things that she could burn. "Got to build a fire..." the samurai huffed as she psyched herself up. She was so close to her source of ingredient, Snowdonia's fields and sky; if anything, she could just cook the food's base and freeze it right then and there. What an idea! Crazy but it might work. It would probably help that the wind had been growing stronger by the minute... probably a blizzard. It made navigation so difficult but with the strong, cold winds she could finish her research in no time at all! That is, if she was able to get a fire going first. Ice cream was easy to make in this instance and it was the most recognizable of frozen foods, so the wolf-hair settled on crafting that. She had seen ice cream and frozen yogurt at Londinium, but they were mostly just ordinary food or sweet confection. Caerbannog wanted something specific, perhaps a foil to Spicy Snacks. After a few minutes of digging around in the snow, she gathered enough sticks for a fire. She quickly shook the snow off so that it would not turn to moisture on her important firewood, and then the wolf-hair took out her flint to start the campfire. "Huh... troublesome," the wolf-hair sighed as she found it difficult to use the flint while her hands had heavy gloves. Caerbannog took parts of her armor off, perhaps a bad idea in the long run but if she managed to start the fire quickly, it would matter little. With her hands free and her vision no longer obscured by her massive helmet and its black mask, Caer rubbed the flint a few times and got a spark or two out of it. The dry bits of wood caught the spark and soon, a small flame lit of the cave. The samurai carefully tended to that small flame until at long last, it spread through the rest of the firewood which were bunched up in the middle of a circle of stones. There was another bundle of firewood to the back of the cave, but that was Caerbannog's spare in case a whiteout prevented her from leaving that place before she completed her research. "So much trouble, maybe I should have just bought overpriced snow," the wolf-hair sighed, but she thought it even more wasteful to turn back now. If things got out of hand, she could just Call of Home. And so Caerbannog sucked up the annoying clammy feeling on her nose and her hands as she leaned close to the warm fire. First, she had to stop shivering before she could attempt cooking. The wolf-hair spent a few good minutes in front of the fire that she created; its light flooded the cave and kept most icky creatures at bay. Not that she would mind the company of icky creatures though.

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1005 words		Sweet Cream, Milk and Vanilla
Taking some time to warm herself up also allowed Caerbannog to collect her thoughts. She had gone to Snowdonia on a whim and wanted to make an assortment of frozen desserts, but in the predicament that she found herself in, the samurai had to narrow down her list of to-craft items into just one. The simplest of all frozen desserts: vanilla ice cream. Appropriate too for if she remembered correctly, and she probably did, she was yet to study and craft a recipe called Rien's Ice Cream Cake that required some vanilla ice cream. She did not know who Rien was but the recipe was a good idea for the cake itself helped her to tame Foreman Mukade IX. She had one piece in her inventory, but the samurai had already put her mind to making more! So that was that and the first step was to make her own ice cream. Before anything else, Caerbannog pulled up her inventory and used a subclass change scroll to switch to her Chef crafting class. It would have been pointless to cook as a blacksmith after all. The wolf-hair then looked over the cooking utensils that she had on her person: a sauce pan, a mixing bowl, knives, spoons, cups and a container with a lid. She had forgotten to craft a toolset for her chef subclass but ah, that could be done later. Caerbannog laid the utensils in front of her and began to look over the ingredients for the ice cream recipe. What was ice cream without cream? Just ice, of course. Some fresh milk, refined sugar and vanilla beans were in her list too. Caer sighed as she noted the fruits that she brought along for her crafting but now they would go unused because of her unfortunate circumstance. "It's pointless to mope about it!" the little samurai cheered herself on. To start the craft, Caerbannog put the cream in a sauce pan and swirled it around with a spoon. She stayed close to the fire so that the heat from its flames would maintain the ideal temperature for mixing ingredients. After every few stirs, she would put the pan over the fire to heat it up without bringing it to a boil. The chef checked the cream carefully so that no lumps or bubbles would be formed, and then she steadily added some sugar as she stirred the cream. This went on for about two minutes until Caerbannog was satisfied with the consistency and sweetness of the cream. She then measured a cup of fresh milk which was about half the amount of sweet cream that she made. Caer put the cup of milk beside the sauce pan of sugared cream as she crushed the vanilla beans in another cup using an extra spoon. The three ingredients for her ice cream were then lined up: sweet cream, fresh milk and crushed vanilla. The cream was just the right consistency; neither too heavy not too watery. The milk was as fresh as it could be, taken from a nursing cow at some farm and sold right in front of the barn, and then subsequently stored by the samurai in her inventory. The vanilla was fragrant and its darkness was a stark contrast against the white milk and ivory cream. Once Caerbannog had thoroughly checked the ingredients, she began to pour the milk into the cream little by little while the sauce pan was again put over the fire after every few stirs. Using a spoon, she stirred constantly but not too quickly for she might accidentally whip the cream. A bit of the milk was poured before she stirred the cream a few times to mix the two ingredients together. Outside, the wind began to howl as the whiteout was right on top of Caerbannog but the chef was focused on her crafting and thought little of the ruckus beyond the little cave. She did check the fire every now and then to make sure that it did not need more wood, and fortunately she gathered good firewood for her source of heat did not go out so easily. As the last drops of milk trickled into the pan of cream, Caerbannog stirred the mixture a few more times. She checked to make sure that no part of the mixture remained too watery or uncombined. The warmth and the light of the fire near her made the crafting comfortable enough for the chef. Sure the cave was quite damp and she was lost in the middle of nowhere, but she had gone to Snowdonia with a goal in mind; no storm or blizzard would stop her. Caer had experienced worse things and this was not the first or last time that she would be inconvenienced. After having taken a moment to breathe and collect her thoughts, the chef took the crushed vanilla and began to fold it in little by little into the hot milk and cream mixture. She was extremely careful with it because a concentration of vanilla on only one part of the ice cream would upset the whole batch. It would make one side slightly bitter while the rest of the ice cream would have only a slight hint of vanilla. This step took the most time because the fire flickered due to the strong winds which at times managed to drift into the cave. Caerbannog would stop her crafting during the momentary dimness of the cave and then she would resume once the fire was strong and bright again. The mixture was soon done and so the chef set it down beside the fire. She let it cool down for a few minutes and then Caerbannog poured the cream mixture into the container that had a lid. The container, in turn, was put into the larger mixing bowl so that it would be easier to carry around. The lid was not put on the container just yet because the steam from the still-hot mixture might add unnecessary moisture into the cream and milk.

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1015 words		Stirred, not Shaken.
The howling winds continued to blow outside but the chef remained safe in her little cave at the foot of the hill. The fire within crackled and spat but Caerbannog made sure to keep the rest of the firewood, and her crafted mixture of course, away from the jumping embers. The container which she had left to cool was then covered with a lid and, along with the mixing bowl, set upon the covering of snow at the mouth of the cave. The chef placed it there carefully and made sure that it would not soon be covered by a mountain of the powdery white substance that fell from the roaring sky. Now the only thing that she needed was time. The mixture had to be cooled but occasionally stirred so that it would not freeze over completely. To make sure that she would not forget about her task, the wolf-hair sat near the mouth of the cave with her back turned to the fire warmed by its glow. Every few minutes, she looked over her shoulder to make sure that the fire had not spread to anything else and that it still crackled in such a lively manner. Without any untoward incidents for the first cooling of the cream mixture, Caerbannog opened the container, stirred the contents and placed it back on the clumps of snow. The waiting time between each stirring would gradually shorten as the mixture became colder, so the chef made sure to time it carefully. "If I stir too much, it would never freeze," Caer reminded herself, "But if I stir too little, it would freeze over!" The samurai chanted that repeatedly to keep herself awake. Falling asleep in such a place with strong winds howling all around her was dangerous not only for the ice cream that she was crafting for also for Caer herself. She was out in the middle of nowhere and no one knew where she'd gone to. The worst case scenario was that she would fall asleep forever due to the cold, but would never die due to her high level; a Rip Van Winkle sort of thing. Caerbannog shuddered at the thought. Beards were not cute! Her mind almost drifted off in pursuit of that story, but a gust of wind knocked her head back to her current situation. The chef pulled the container out of the snow again, opened its lid and stirred the contents. It was almost at the right consistency what with the much needed Britain Snow all over the place. The temperature outside was just right too and Caer imagined that a freezer would be warmer than the whiteout in front of her. For what she figured was the last time, the chef put the container full of cream mixture into the mixing bowl and placed it on the clumps of snow. The wolf-hair then began to count jumping alpacas in her mind. "One alpaca, two alpaca, three alpaca- FOUR!" she began, and the chef happily continued way past ten. Eventually, she reached the count of a hundred and twenty which was roughly two minutes. Because she felt that the container had been cold enough when she last checked it, Caer did not wait long before she checked the ice cream mixture again. Just like before, she carefully pulled it out of the snow and brushed the loose white substance off before she removed the lid. She poked the vanilla ice cream with her spoon and, to her delight, it was acceptably done! With the tip of her spoon, she scooped a tiny bit of the ice cream just to taste it and to the chef's relief, the sweetness was just right. She sighed happily and then she put away the tub of ice cream in her inventory. Next up, the wolf-hair began to clean up the mess that she made in the cave. Even though it was no one's house, Caer did not want to leave her trash in it. She was a wolf, not a pig. The utensils were put away first; she could clean them later. The firewood was checked over again to make sure that they did not acquire moisture and if they did, the chef would wipe them dry. The winds outside still howled so it was best to be ready for a long night in the cave. But while she thought of that and tended to the fire, the strong winds slowly died down. Caerbannog blinked at the wide sky that seemed to be trolling her, and as if that was not enough, once the curtain of wind and snow disappeared, the wolf-hair noticed a massive dark figure nearby. Caerbannog stood up and wondered how a tree could grow so tall and big... that is, until she realized that right across the cave where she stayed, there was the 'missing' hotel. The blue-eyed wolf-hair silently cursed the Twelve Gods of Eorzea for what just happened but she knew that it was pointless to dwell on it. She turned back to the crackling fire and put some snow and dirt to kill it dead. Caer then walked out of the cave, a successful crafting of vanilla ice cream on her belt, and then she skipped over to the hotel. She did have a reservation there so she might as well use it. A warm shower would be nice after all of the shit and cold that she went through. Without a word to anyone, the wolf-hair proceeded into the hotel and only pointed to her name on the reservation list when the lady at the front desk asked for what she needed. The snow on her hair or her almost-blue lips and fingers might have clued the attendants in as to what she had gone through, so they were kind enough to leave her alone after they led her to her room. While she sat in the tub with warm, sudsy water all over her, Caerbannog called up her dead husband Kumori to inform him of her whereabouts and that she had successfully crafted vanilla ice cream.