229 (II)

  Volunteer [II]

  What followed the Weaveress egg vault were whole orc corpses. Hundreds of them. The Challenger simply laughed in the backdrop of his mind.

  "Right, I was gonna ask when I saw the dining table… You guys eat orc meat?"

  "Certain customers have developed a preference for the grayskins. Many that come from the South harbor a particular animosity toward the bestial creatures. Though an orc's flesh is lean and gamey, there is also a faint acidic scent that you can't quite find anywhere else. It is unique. It is sublime.”

  "Huh," Shiv replied. "Never had orc before. I should try it sometime."

  There came a croak from Helix. "Insul, I must advise against that. We orcs, we're not exactly—"

  "It's just curiosity," Shiv said. "And also—well, I have plenty of orcs, don't I?"

  Helix gave a nervous chuckle.

  "Don't worry, Helix, I don't need to eat all of you. Just a chunk. It could be good for my Biomancy lessons as well. I eat some of you, and I try to grow it back using my Biomancy. Sounds pretty smart, doesn't it?"

  “I—but…”

  "No, you're probably the best," Shiv insisted. "After all, you're the one that can heal himself. And if I accidentally give you cancer, well, you know, you’re good for that too. Don't worry, Helix. It's a great honor. If I want fried orc, it's gonna be you.”

  The Biomancer stammered hopelessly, and Adam's mirth spilled over in a series of laughs. “Don't giggle at me,” Helix snapped. “He's planning to eat me. He's planning to eat me after seeing these demented savages use my people as ingredients. Why, you are outraged at the spiderfolk getting eaten. Why not me?”

  "Because you're orcs," Adam said flatly. "Because your kind probably cooks and eats humans all the time for whatever cruel delights you so desire.”

  "That's different," Helix shot back. "We do it because it's cruel and vicious, and it psychologically damages you."

  Adam snorted. "And we can't do the same to you otherwise?"

  "Well, do you want to eat an orc?"

  The Gate Lord hesitated, and Shiv knew Adam had no interest in tasting an orc. But if it meant making Helix uncomfortable—

  "There's a first time for everything, and there's a reason to try everything," Adam said resolutely.

  Helix scoffed. "You're both just abusing me now. Ridiculous…"

  “There’s just something about you when you whine, Helix,” Shiv said, trying to hide his grin.

  "Chef," a low, grumbling voice called out from ahead.

  Shiv looked past Velly and saw a short, stocky figure standing before him. Behind him, a dimly lit room enwreathed in waves of pluming dust pilled into the ingredient chamber. The Deathless did a double-take as he realized the short, stocky figure was also entirely nude, covered in cooking oil, grease, and what appeared to be bits of bread speckled across his body.

  “The fuck?” Shiv muttered, trying not to look down.

  "Bowden," Velly greeted in return, utterly indifferent to the man's state. "How goes our attempt to breach the kitchen through the Wine Vault?"

  "Not good, Chef," Bowden said. "Not good at all. They fermented the walls. We can't get through, even with the drill. We managed to dig through the outer layer of the wall, but now the drill itself has been disassembled, and we were forced to seal part of the Wine Vault to stop the bread from overrunning us."

  Shiv snorted. It was just such a stupid thing to hear someone say; being overrun by bread was simply ridiculous.

  The short, stocky human folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at Shiv, regarding him for the first time. His dense beard swayed in the air as he sneered at the new Commis. "So, you are a volunteer, then? You don't look like much. You don't look like much at all. You barely look like you can pick up a weapon. Where are your muscles, boy? Where is your strength, your mana field?” He grimaced. “Chef. We have a contract with that fool, Matlock, and he sends us—what good is this?”

  Shiv was about to say something when the head of a skeletal rat popped out from Bowden's dense beard. Its eyes glowed with the baleful light of Necromancy, and it gave a pitched squeak as it glared at Shiv. A second later, another rat appeared beside the first, and then another. Shiv's mind whirled. “Is… Are those undead rats in your beard?”

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  He gestured at the creatures, but the short man seemed utterly indifferent. "Is this one simple as well?" Bowden complained, facing Velly. "No. There are no rats in my beard.” The skeletal rats kept glaring at Shiv, their Necromantic eyes glinting in the dimness of the freezer. “We need some people with mettle. We cannot just accept anyone that lout Matlock sends our way."

  Velly crossed his arms. "The boy has potential and a keen eye. He saw some crumbs in the air of the lobby and in the restaurant itself… The bread have taken the filtration system and will compromise our air mana spells soon."

  Bowden sucked in a sharp breath. "This is... we don't have long then?"

  "Yes," Velly replied, "not long at all, Grillmaster. We must prepare."

  A piercing scream interrupted their conversation, and Shiv flinched. He looked past Bowden's body as a female elf emerged from the narrow passage behind him. She, too, was undressed, and whorls of bright green mana decorated the expanse of her grease and cheese-covered flesh. Her blue hair dripped with cooking oil, and she had a chain of baguettes hanging from her neck. Her eyes were like piercing emeralds, and though she regarded Shiv once, she looked away from him as if he were of no consequence. She held up a severed tongue in her left hand, and a dark expression lingered behind her eyes.

  "They cut off Dylan's tongue and threw it through the gap. Our attempts at disguising ourselves as bread didn’t work.”

  “Dylan,” Bowden whispered. “No… How… We need to go save him! I won’t leave my brother in that place, with those monsters! I won’t!”

  Something inside Shiv’s mind popped as he nearly recoiled from her words. Disguise… as bread…

  Just then, another wail of agony came from the Wine Vault. The elf closed her eyes, and the short, rat-bearded grillmaster couldn’t take any more.

  "No! Dylan!" Bowden wailed. He tried to throw himself at the passage, but Velly reached out, grabbing the short man from behind. At the same time, the mice in his beard leapt down and began pulling at his legs as well. Shiv stared on, and Bowden let out roars of ragged rage. "Dylan! I’ll come for you! You Faebread pieces of shit! You, let our people go!”

  Laughter rose in the distance, and a voice that sounded like a rising wind echoed through the chamber. “No, Eater! I don’t think we will! In fact, he will go in the cauldron next. You wanted to taste us? Well, now we shall taste you…”

  With that, Bowden began sobbing as well. He collapsed onto his knees, and the undead rats hugged him. Velly soothed him from behind as well, running his clawed hand down the naked man's back. He made eye contact with Shiv, who just grunted uncomfortably.

  A sigh came from Adam. "Shiv, what in the Broken Moon did you get us involved in?"

  "I have no idea," Shiv said, "but I can't tell if I'm really, really entertained or if I really, really want to leave."

  "Chef," the elf said, her tone serious, her fists clenched. "We're running out of time. And not even to protect the rest of the restaurant. They are threatening to kill the rest of the staff. To peel them away bit by bit and boil them in the Cauldron of Many Flavors if we do not negotiate our surrender and their passage back to the Fairwoods."

  "Out of the question," Velly said. "They are part of the food group today. The appetizer must be delivered. Our word is adamantine.”

  "But, Chef!" the elf hissed. "We cannot even hold our own kitchen! They're mutilating our people! What worth is our word when we are little more than bloodied meat! Our obligation—"

  "They knew what they signed up for." Velly rose. "As did you, Nornsong. I gave you the position of Saucier because you were the one that completed things, that prepared the sauces, that knew how everything comes together. Right now, I need you to hold your nerve. These are trying times, but to see your dish complete, we must not waver. We must be unbending, even if it costs us our lives."

  "If it costs you your pride, you mean?" she snapped back. “Because that’s what matters. The only reason we included the Faebread was that you didn’t want Stranger Delights to outdo us. To be the superior place for exotic dishes.”

  The chef glared at her. His vertical pupils burned, and his Pyromancy began to rise. "You overstep, Saucier," he growled.

  "No! As you said, I am the one that keeps perspective, I am the one that finishes the meat, and right now, I am telling you that we are outmatched. The bread are more devious than us! They know our ways! They've listened to us, pretending to slumber! They attacked when we weren't ready! And now they press us, they drive us against each other. Look at us now!”

  "You think I don't know that?" Velly snarled. "You think I'm unaware of how—"

  Oh, for the System’s sake, Shiv snarled internally. He loudly cleared his throat. "You know, I could go and talk to them or something. See if I can get your people released.”

  The elf fell silent, and the lizard man turned to stare at him. "You would do that, Commis? Even if it has a high chance of costing you your life, even if they might capture you, sever your fingers and feed them to you because of their hateful ways, you would do this?"

  "Why the hells would they feed me my fingers?" Shiv muttered.

  "Because they fed most of my staff their fingers when they were taken." Velly stared off in the distance. "They despise them because that's what we use to touch the bread. And so they took that from my people. I had to listen to their screams earlier. Their screams..."

  He clutched his head, as if trying to hold in the trauma, and Shiv stared on, trying desperately to take the scene seriously.

  "Yeah, that's really fucking messed up, Chef. But it sounds like they're going to start killing more of your staff soon if someone doesn't intervene. So, you know, maybe I'll see if I can get them to release some hostages or something."

  And suddenly, Nornsong looked upon Shiv with newfound appreciation. "You have nerve, boy, but I fear this nerve will not be enough. The Faebread despise us. They despise being captured by us, and they despise the fact that we ate one of them. We were never meant to be their tasters. They were bound by and part of Princess Plum Blossom's story. For us to taste them in her stead presents a grave wrong and has inflicted them with the pain of narrative transgression. They are barred from going home now until they take a pound of flesh for what was lost. And not until their hearts are empty of rage—”

  “So that Princess Plum Blossom will know only sweetness when she bites into us,” the distant voice said. On instinct, Shiv looked up, and he saw it—they were so fine and faint he missed them the first time, but the air was dense and choked with glitter. Bread particulates. It was against the ceiling, along the walls, being inhaled by Nornsong, Bowden, Velly, and—

  Ah, shit. Shiv’s eyes widened as he looked down at himself. Something inside him was glittering brightly as well. That’s… This isn’t telepathy… They were getting inside us the whole time. That’s pretty cle—

  And then Shiv felt himself burst apart from within.