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This was the final test that Indu would be conducting. The final cooking experiment - to determine if someone had truly placed some sort of curse on her and an kitchen coming together. Every time she tried to prepare something since coming to the school, it had ended in reality tv shenanigans, or gnomes everywhere, or something else equally inane and stupid. To add insult to injury, it was always in a crowded and public environment. The ghoul's ego was more fragile than she'd willingly admit, and she felt that cooking was the kind of skill she should have down. It was just being organized, following instruction, and basic time management, three tasks that she'd list off as some of her strongest. Even at home, while she'd never been dragged into the kitchen, she had occasionally helped her parents out and it had been fun. Now, the sight of a cookbook made her eyes narrow and her fists clench. It was time to get scientific on this weird phenomenon and figure out if the third time was the charm, or merely the third embarrassing experience in a row. Thankfully, Indu had prepared this time. This time, she was cooking alone.

She was back in the Home Wreck classroom, there was no question of cooking in her room, and the dormitory kitchens were too crowded for her taste. That had left the school cafeteria, which was unlikely, or asking to use the classroom when there was no course going on. She had used the words 'independent study' and lo and behold, had gained permission. It turned out a reputation as a studious and diligent student had many perks, including teachers trusting you to not burn the entire building down. Indu couldn't help wonder, as she pushed the door open with a foot and stepped in, arms full, how well-placed that trust was. After all, she was currently the potential carrier of a culinary curse.

Waddling over to a table, trying to see from behind a jumble of raw baking goods and a teetering cookbook, Indu dropped everything on the counter with a huff. After chasing a few errant ingredients that had rolled away and setting up her workplace, she flipped the book open. It was shiny and new, she'd never owned a cookbook before. Her mother had owned plenty, but everything she had done at school had been from a given recipe, or drawing back on something prepared at home from her childhood. She wondered if this is how everyone began to amass 'adult' objects - through weird solitary experiments to determine how in control you were of your life. Finding the page that she had previously marked with a surprised-looking dried frog, an anxious look flashed across her face as she re-considered what she had chosen to prepare.

Spider cake (with fresh spider) was always tricky. The trick was to avoid a crunchy texture - what you'd get if you left too many feelers in. It was also preferable that the spiders didn't survive the baking process, no one liked a piece of cake twitching off their fork halfway to the mouth. A few minutes in to the recipe however, and Indu had yet to have any horrifying disaster strike. While this served to make her slightly more twitchy in anticipation, she dismissed the idea that the reason behind this was she was actually paying attention to her work. She always devoted herself one hundred percent to the project - and if she also happened to get distracted by chatting with someone else or something, the situation didn't strike her as any different.

However, she had to admit to herself that the curse was not striking this time. Free from the distractions of other students or other students, invisible food, and tv cameras, the cake came together without much fuss. One spider did make a run for it and find a bright new world under a cabinet, but for the most part Indu had let it go unmolested. The cake had sat quietly in the oven as she had leafed through the rest of the book, critically dissecting the flavor profiles in her mind. Finally the fresh cake sat on the counter, the rest of the ingredients had been cleared away, and Indu sat in front, wracking her brains over how she was going to eat an entire spider cake on her own. On reflection, something smaller would have probably been a better idea, but as always, she had overshot. Thankfully, this time the results were delicious.

There was one activity in the DETH book that Indu had seen and earmarked for getting done immediately. She wasn't actually, when it came down to it, really fond of cooking. It just seemed to constantly re-appear in her life, like she was training to be a master chef rather than a famous ToTer. She had circled the cooking-based DETH activity not out of love for it, or eagerness, but simply to get it done and out of the way. The curse of the oven had been safely disproven due to recent testings earlier that week, and Indu was eager to do what was hopefully the last bit of school-sponsored cooking for the rest of her academic career. After all, she was a strong independent young ghoul, as she reminded herself often. It wasn't good for people to start thinking that your entire life revolved around shaking things into bowls in a kitchen. Stereotypes were there to be torn down, and all that. As she had re-read the instructions while out gathering ingredients, she realized with a faint tingling sensation that she would be cooking with minipets again. Well. It wasn't like she had become inherently biased against them after her experience at Hell's Kitchen - it was more that she kept imagining there were cameras around. And people yelling.

She had, of course, toughed out the tingling of her nerves and picked up the proper ingredients. This time Indu was also confident enough to cook in the dorm's kitchen, rather than squirrelling herself away in an empty classroom. She felt like some part of all this had payed off, as she went to work slicing and dicing the minipets. Maybe she had gotten more confident wielding sharp knives. She wondered, idly, if she should try reshaping her FEAR into some daggers. All in all, she'd gotten far more practice handling knives than her own weapons since she arrived at the school. There was a faint tinge of guilt there - it meant that she hadn't been keeping up with everything she had planned to. But really, Indu didn't find fighting to be any bit interesting. It was outdated - peacefully scaring humans was obviously the way to go. She didn't care about becoming a bogeyman or having any reason in the future to be aggressive, uncultured, and or warlike. Zoning out as she cooked, Indu quietly considered if perhaps she should be working on reshaping her reaper weapon into something entirely else. A crystal ball - easy to summon? A pack of tarot cards? It would take effort to conscientiously change it, but it was something that was worth investing the energy into. Your weapon was you, after all.

Snapping back to reality, Indu looked around at the table. The minipets were in the bowl and she was halfway through seasoning them, her body steering itself along on auto pilot as she got lost in her own thoughts. Giving the plate a thorough inspection, she frowned. It didn't look particularly human. In fact it looked very much like a halloween dish. While it was debatable just how different the cuisine was in the human world, she couldn't help but have a nagging doubt over if they even had minipets. Maybe it was the flavor profile that she was re-creating, rather than the exact recipe. That seemed more likely. Sliding the finished bowl into one of the haunted ovens, Indu took the time to affix a note saying to NOT TOUCH OR SHE WOULD HUNT YOU DOWN AND SEND YOU BACK TO THE PUMPKIN PATCH. She was all too aware that students looking for a quick snack would sneak in and help themselves to dishes left by others, the lazy so and sos. Cleaning up the remainder of her ingredients, and making a mental note to return in an hour, Indu trotted out of the kitchen, striking the task out in her planner. No. More. Cooking.