Blaire finished inspecting the injuries of the team members and her face showed deep concern. At the very least, 4 people were unable to continue the task and the worst part was the need to return them to the village for further treatment.
There was no way to continue the expedition for the time being. The shields also took a heavy beating and there was no way that they could provided any sort of protection in the upcoming fights. After careful consideration, they decided to send the healer and the warrior back with the 4 wounded people as well as the banged up shields while the rest of the team set up for the next day of hunting. During his time in the village, the warrior was responsible for taking the damage shields to Rahz father for restoration and to request 2 new shields.
Once they had their instructions, the warrior picked up the scout with the worst wounds to their legs and started heading back to the village. The Task Team opted to continue the expedition with only six people as there was nobody else in the pre-evolution category that could really help them, anyone else they brought along would just be a burden to the Task Team unless it was a First Evolution Fighter.
The Elite Team plus Arne went up to the surface and prepare a camp so they could wait for the remaining members to come back from the village and take a well deserve rest.
Bhirl requested Arne to bring a couple of beast so they could cook them while he started preparing the fire. It had being and extremely long time since they had Rahz's BBQ and they were salivating. Rahz skills only got better with the passage of time and he had been experimenting with different herbs and spices during his trips outside the village in order to take BBQ to another level.
Rahz went around the area and pick up some berries and other herbs before returning to the camp to make a marinate paste for the meat. Blaire had been studying medicinal cooking with the elder and found it fascinating that somebody without any guidance could come up with recipes that turned something so uninspiring like a meat on a fire into something so delicious.
Rahz pulled up a chair next to a decent size rock with a flat surface and tossed snow on it to clean his working station. He smashed the berries with his hands until they were completely mushy and placed them on the surfaced of the rock before he took out an elongated rock in the form of a rod from his leather pouch.
It had taken Rahz hours to convince his dad to help him polish a piece of rock into a rolling rod , and then hours of convincing both of his parents that he was not losing his mind.
Rahz decided to cook a BBQ for them using the rolling rod to prove he was not crazy. He created a paste with his new invention and coated meat before placing it in the fire, the smells floating out of the BBQ pit were incredible. After tasting the results his mother made her husband create another pestle for her.
When Arne came back to the camp and saw Rahz making something extremely pointless like putting weeds into a pile of mush and rolling them, he was pissed. Arne stepped forward to tell Rahz to do something more productive with his time but he was quickly stopped by Bhirl and Blaire that told him to go prepare the beast and to not disturbed the chef.
Arne reluctantly went to skin and prepared the creatures to place on the pit and thought about cooking his own meal since he didn't want to be sick of the stomach from eating something that looked so weird.
Rahz finished combining all the herbs and after adding some salt to it, he used his knife to scrape every little bit from the rock. He took the paste and was about spread it on the beast when he saw that a big chunk was missing from one of them. Rahz sneered at Arne's actions and continue preparing the meat.
Bhirl helped Rahz place the animals on the fire sat and sat down beside the fire waiting patiently for the masterpiece. Once it was cooked, the competition for the legs would be fierce and he did not want to miss out.
Arne which was cooking his steak on the side found the situation amusing and in his opinion the Elite Team were in for a rough night in the woods due to indigestion.
It was magic!!
As soon as the fire started hitting the marinated and the fat started rendering from the meat it created a wonderful smell that made the mouths of everyone water. Even Aya that was protecting the team in the shadows found her stomach growling and craving for a piece.
As time passed, Aya couldn't take it anymore and rush towards the meat with a fierce momentum that made the trainees feel that death was upon them. Bhirl knew better than to attempt to take a piece before Rahz said it was ready and used all his will power to stop the scout leader but he was too slow.
Stop!!
"If you want to eat my BBQ again you need to wait until is ready or you will be banned for ruining the other people's experience"
Aya stopped in her tracks and felt extremely embarrassed as she saw the self discipline that Bhirl and Blaire were showing. She decided to ask Bhirl how could he endure such a delicious smell and the answer to her question shocked her.
" Because the difference in taste if we wait for Rahz to say is ready makes all the difference in the world"
20 minutes Later Rahz gave the signal and the fight for the legs began. Since Aya had saved his life before, Bhirl decided to offer the leg he managed to get for himself.
"Scout leader please have the leg is the best piece, thank you for saving me back there".
Aya was amuse by Bhirl's behavior but once she took a bite everything change. The meat was so juicy, and tender it melted in her mouth. Every bite contained so many different tones that contributed to an indescribable experience.
Aya couldn't help but think how can meat be so delicious.
Arne was in an embarrassing position now, he really wanted to try a piece but he had cooked his own steak and rejected Rahz cooking by proxy.
Blaire saw the conflict in Arne's eyes and decided to helping out by taking a piece of steak to him. Blaire realized, that at the end of the day the team had fought together and having a pleasant dinner time fostered their friendship.
The piece of meat taken over by Blaire was a revelation for Arne. There were no words to describe how touch he was that he was included into their group and bow to interact more with the Elite Team that seem so distant to him in the past.
The rest of the dinner was very enjoyable filled with stories about hunting and failed tasks.
Since they had to wait for the new shields to arrive in order to continue hunting inside the mine Rahz move to doing maintenance on his Axe while he went over the battle in his mind.
The next day the remaining members came back and the team reassemble at the entrance of the mine. This time around there were only six people remaining but they were the best Helgahvall had to offer. The cleaning of the rooms went faster than before but contrary to expectation the Elite Kobolds inside the 9th and 12th room were barely level 9 and were very easily disposed off.
The team made their way towards the next Elite and had a harder time with the room 15 as all of the Kobolds inside the room were level 8 but they were still able to come out unscathed.
Room 16th was a checkpoint in their expedition as it was an Elite room. However, when Arne came back from inspecting the opponent he was extremely pale.
" That mob is death incarnate, I couldn't get passed the doorway before he seem to notice that something was off. He is just there eating copper ore like they are snacks. He is way stronger than the Rock Thrower and seem to be a close combat type".
"Good!! I need a challenge and if we managed to kill it, there is a good chance I can reach the energy required to get my Evolution quest"
After resting for some time and returning to peak condition the Task Team took a deep breath and went into the room.