Destination Decided

"Today, we are visiting a friend's house. Her name is Jenny, and she has this pig-like creature at her side, named Kelp. Her mother is Margret and her father is Jack."

I briefly introduced Jenny's whole family as we packed for our small trip. That morning, I had told everyone that Margret had messaged me at night, and that we were going over to her place.

Breakfast had been a very simple and nutritious alternate porridge made with a certain type of flour that came from an animal. An animal based flour. When Oliver heard that, he made a face of disgust at the idea. I had chuckled at his expression and reassured him that was just the way the ingredients in this world worked.

Oliver was in charge of picking up the ingredients as usual, while I prepared the equipment. He returned with a small bag of red colored flour, small containers of clam powder and sun dust.

Today's breakfast was a type of pastry-like dish that looked like a small ball, donut ball.

I wonder if the names of the dishes really were just donut ball, or was it just forcefully translated over?

First, I took the flour and poured around a cup of it into a bowl. Then I measured 2 parts of water and mixed it with the flour until it formed a consistent dough like texture. To give more flavor to the dough, I then added a handful of clam powder and mixed the whole thing together until the dough was sticky but not enough such that it would leave remnants of itself on my fingers.

"Oliver, do you want to try boiling the donut ball?"

I turned on the stove to boil the water as Oliver washed his hands and went to stand on the stool beside me. I showed him how to make the balls.

"Take a little bit of the dough, make it such that it's around the size of your palm, and flatten it. Then we can dump it into the water to boil and it'll expand into a ball shape. You can use this scoop to take it out once the ball turns a nice velvet color."

Doing the first one as an example, I then let Oliver try his hand at cooking some.

The balls that Oliver made at first were too small, since his palm was much smaller than mine. When he saw the size difference between his and my example, he started to grab the dough with his entire hand and use his body strength to flatten it on the counter top. He would then climb the stool, place the dough into the scoop and lower it into the water.

After doing this several times, he got faster at making the dough as I stood beside the pot taking out all the ones which were done when he was busy.

Soon we made enough for the two of us, and packed the extras to give to Jenny and her family when we visited them.

Getting into the car with Oliver holding the container filled with donut balls at the passenger seat, and Sazzy and Ava were behind, I set the autopilot for Jenny's place.

"Next time we can try making the donut balls with some dips for them. During my research I came across at least five different types of dips for them. There is also the chocolate that can be sourced from Ferus. I have some friends there, Josh and Tim, who can send us some chocolate in the mail. We can't eat it on livestream however, since it is a confidential ingredient, but we can eat it by ourselves."

While thinking of the different dips we could make for the donut balls the next time we made them, since currently we had not enough time, I gave Oliver a rough summary of my time at Ferus.

"Sounds like Josh is overly jealous."

Oliver laughed as he heard of Josh's actions after I told him the two of them were dating.

"He sure is. But once he gets over his jealousy, he's not a bad person to be around."

As we were talking, the car stopped at the space near Jenny's house and we walked the rest of the way there.

When we walked up to Jenny's house, we heard her chirpy voice ring out throughout the house.

"Are they here yet!"

"If you want to see them so much, go outside and wait for them to appear. Alex did say that she was going to reach around this time! She is also bringing her little brother, so make sure you don't scare him!"

Right after Margret's large shout, the door opened with an auditable swing and we met Jenny face to face. The moment we met eyes, a huge smile shone on her face and she screamed back at her mother.

"They're here!"

After shouting to her mother, Jenny's gaze shifted from me over to Oliver.

"Hello!"

With probably the softest voice she could master, Jenny still greeted Oliver in a loud voice and grabbed his hands.

"My name is Jenny! My mother says I might be loud, but I'm a good girl!"

Dragging Oliver by the hand, she led us into her house.

"This is my brother, Kelp! His ears are soft to the touch, see!"

She pulled Oliver's hands over to Kelp, and Oliver tried his best to keep up with her speed. Seeing her actions as Margret came out of the kitchen, Margret sighed and shook her head.

"Be careful Jenny, if you pull too hard you'll make him cry."

I could see a pout start to form on Oliver's lips at her words, and Jenny suddenly released Oliver's hands at her mother's warning.

"Sorry! The kids in the village say that I'm rough, but I don't mean to hurt you."

Letting the children get along with each other, Margret called me over to the kitchen, where Jack was currently helping out in cooking breakfast.

Margret pulled out the preservative that we had given her family and handed it back to us.

"We went around several tribes, and most of them didn't recognize this. There were two tribes who had different reactions though. The Media Luna tribe, and the Fluvius tribe. When they asked where we got this, we told them that a friend found it and wanted to find a way to get rid of it, since it was poisonous, or get any information on it. The leaders of the tribes told us that it was confidential information, so they couldn't tell us. But if you went there yourself they may be able to answer some questions for you."

Margret sighed as she spoke. Then she pulled up a map on her personal terminal.

"The good thing about these tribes is that they are quite easy to travel to. Media Luna more than Fluvius. The Media Luna tribe worship the god of the moon and sea, so they live near coastal areas. This makes it easy to find them if you travel via water. Following the coastline will also lead you to their tribe."

Margret drew an arrow that curved around the coastline until a certain spot. Then she circled the area in front of the arrow.

"Their tribes are easy to spot due to them creating a statue of their god facing the ocean. You'll know it when you see it. After meeting the Media Luna, you'll need to travel more inwards of the forest to meet the Fluvius tribes. They worship the goddess of the rivers and the mother of life, so they build their tribes near the rivers that pass through the forest. Usually the deeper into the forest, the more likely you will be able to meet them. The tribe we went to is this one."

Margret drew another arrow, this one at an angle, until she reached a large river. She then circled a point near the river.

"The tribe we met is one of the larger Fluvius tribes. They regularly come to the AT center to make a small living. Their main cuisine is river creatures together with some of the poisonous plants, so they need a larger income then most other tribes. Their fishing nets and materials are usually imported from overseas. You'll see their tribesmen selling crafts at the AT center so you might have met some of them. After visiting the Fluvius, you can just travel with them back to the AT center. Since they go to the AT center more than once a week."

Margret drew another arrow to the AT center, which made a half circle.

After she sent the map to me, Jack plated the food he was cooking and the three of us brought them out to the dining table to eat.

On the table was the container which Oliver was holding before. It was slightly opened and there were several pieces missing.

"Jenny! It's breakfast time!"

Margret called out for Jenny and Kelp to drag my brother back to the dining table. And sure enough, Jenny replied back with a shout and ran towards the living room with my brother in tow and Kelp right behind them.

Jenny pulled out a chair and 'helped' my brother onto it, before grabbing a chair for herself and sitting right next to him.

As the three of us distributed the dishes, Jenny could not stop talking about how Oliver had very good drawing skills, and that even though he was shorter by her then a whole head, he was very smart in the head and was good at tying braids. As proof, she pointed to a braid on her shoulder.

I could feel Oliver start moving towards me, wanting to hide in embarrassment as Jenny continued to speak. Although he did glare at her when he mentioned his height.

Margret laughed as she thanked Oliver, and all of us sat around the table merrily eating.

Once finished, Margret ordered Jenny to go wash up as she sent us off.

"I'm sorry if Jenny was too excited today. She usually doesn't have many friends her age. A lot of the kids are older and usually help out around the village, so they have no time to entertain her. I hope you will still be her friend and come over sometime."

Margret switched to a soft voice as she directed her words to Oliver, who just nodded obediently.

Then we parted ways and Margret went back inside the house.

Entering the vehicle, Sazzy and Ava were speaking in soft whispers until they saw we were there.

[So what did Margret have to tell you?]

Sazzy leaned forward to ask as I set the car into autopilot back to our house.

"She told me that most of the tribes, bar two, didn't know what the preservative was. But the two who do know, will not tell us until we visit them in person. So, after we get back, we have to start preparing to leave. She already gave me a map and directions to them so we can go anytime."

I showed the preservative for a brief second before keeping it. Oliver glanced curiously at it, but didn't say anything. I guess he could tell this conversation was too serious for him to join in.

[I guess we know which destination we are going to go for the next couple months.]

Sazzy sighed as she sunk back into her seat. Did she know which tribes we were going to?