CWD: OE ~ Ten

Nacho had been cleaning for hours after this morning’s Great Donut Disaster. The Patrons had been right to warn him about the dangers of gluten-free cooking, and he was starting to understand the logic that Reuben used to explain what he had been missing. The cook muttered that advice softly to himself, “If the warning seems vague and throwaway, it’s deadly. If it’s over the top, they’re hiding a delicious secret.”

The problem was twofold. When it came to making them, the flour was so dry and unpleasant that it puffed up into a cloud, even upon impact with water. His first attempt had ended with the kitchen being absolutely coated with the stuff, and it got into all of his other cooking supplies; which changed the Composition of what he was attempting to make, and included itself as an additional ingredient. That had cost him dozens of credits to replace every ingredient that had been left out, and guaranteed that he needed to clean all of his utensils and workspace before making an attempt on a different type of food.

Nacho had originally thought that he would be able to ignore it so long as he was using that same ingredient, but millet  was attracted to itself, and ended up throwing the ratios off whenever he tried. Even when he finally managed to complete the first set of food, the donuts were so difficult to eat that anyone with fewer than thirteen points in Fitness was utterly unable to chew them.

The people that could eat them did not particularly want to do so. The fried disaster rings were tasteless, unpleasant things, and over thirty people had choked trying to eat them anyway—nearly to death in a few instances. Nacho hadn’t planned any other food for breakfast, and hadn’t noticed any issues at all when trying to eat them himself thanks to his inflated stats. That was why, when people practically started to riot about the ‘tree bark circles’, he hadn’t been able to understand the issue at first.

It took nearly until lunch to get everything sorted out, and make a new meal available to the guild. The Ghost Pepper Brigade had taken most of his donuts and any leftovers he had, but that was only because they were desperate for his food; both for the protection the millet flour offered, as well as his Cooking Magic that would improve their stats.

Now, there were shouts erupting from the market. There were calls for Nacho, and he could hear them without a problem even in the depths of his kitchen. Fearing a resurgence of the food riots, he left the building with his HungerCry blades held loosely at his sides. Then he saw the fear on Colleen’s face as she came to find him, and started running toward the commotion.

She skid to a stop and motioned for him to follow her, then they both took off down the stairs and raced along the well-worn path between the guildhall and the new eastern wing of the Citadel Apartments. Gustav and Gary were waiting for them in the center of a crowd, both without wounds, but looking worried. Simon Spear was there with them, though he was pale and seemed to be having trouble standing in one spot; weaving near drunkenly with what had to be sheer exhaustion.

Amir, who had inherited the Gauntlets of Monster Destruction from Young Bill, looked the most ragged, but that made sense. He’d been delving into the lower levels of the Costco UnderFun. Taye had mentioned that he was going to grab Amir, so he could help the Breakfast Club check out the new dungeon near the CrossWorld Portal. Amir wasn’t one to take breaks, but that moment, he looked like he needed a vacation.

Brie and Reuben were already there, talking about what was concerning these guys, and Mayor Dan and Iron Becky stood with the crowd that was rapidly increasing in numbers. It was fortunate that Old Bill and Kala weren’t there, but most likely, they’d show up once the news traveled through the community—it was clear that the news was bad.

Simon detonated with words like a volcano that had lay dormant for years erupting out of nowhere. “Guild Leader! CrossHumans attacked, that’s what happened, but we weren’t there. It was Amir. He was watching the Portal, and from what I understand, nothing was coming out or going in. Like, not a thing. The CrossHumans came from out of the forest, on our side. But Amir can tell you more.”

Amir stepped forward, opened his mouth, but Simon pounded his spear into the ground and kept going, “I guess there was this big, huge fight, and then someone appeared out of nowhere—we think it was teleportation. Some Mind Player who could teleport. He grabs Kristie and drags her through the Portal, which I guess smells terrible. That’s my understanding at any rate. But, Amir, tell him what happened!”

Amir squinted at Simon, then started to talk, only for Simon to growl in frustration and begin shouting once more at how long the man was taking. “Kristie is gone, right? You can probably imagine what happens next. Abby isn’t going to let her friend just be kidnapped. No, so she runs through the Portal.”

Amir shrugged, clearly having given up and just waiting to let Simon finish the story. “Taye and some others go running after Abby. But Taye is bright enough to know that someone has to come and tell us. That was Amir’s job. He races off, but then what does he find? Zombies! Like, actually reanimated corpses. He had to duck and dodge them, but Amir was good. He made it away from them. Anyway, he runs into us on the road. He told me the whole story, but you should probably hear it from him.”

Nacho didn’t like the idea of zombies around the Portal. “Were they Human or CrossHuman Zombies?”

“Does it matter?” Brie stood with her lacrosse stick across her shoulder, barely containing herself from smacking the chatterbox with it. “When did this all happen?”

Amir waved at Simon. “I guess he can tell you.”

“Thanks.” Simon was oblivious to the undertone. “It was the day before today, so yesterday? Amir ran all night. He had to dodge some serious mobs, but he wanted to find us as soon as possible. We escorted him, me and the rest of the Ghost Pepper Brigade. Gustav and Gary wanted to come up with us to let you know we’ll escort you back to the Portal and then to the other side. You’ll need the best, and we’re the best.”

Nacho’s mind churned through the story. Arriodd had finally made a move on them. This had to be the first move in a greater game. He had never heard of anyone being kidnapped by the CrossHumans before. Arriodd and his goons just killed people, got their credits, had themselves a breakfast snack, and moved on. “This is something… different.”

The commotion had brought a huge contingent of people, as well as some adventurers who were hauling huge caterpillar monsters that were obviously pretty high-value monsters. Nacho kept his grin internal: he hadn’t known what he was going to be making for dinner that night, but now they had a big old worm to cook up. The cook decided right then that no matter what anyone else said, he was going to buy that insect cookbook and add it to his Aria.

Though he’d messed up the donuts, he’d redeem himself with a brand-new recipe people would love. Nacho realized that he was stalling, and shook off the daydream just in time for Colleen to surprise him by grabbing Amir and leading him into the guildhall.

“I’m so sorry, Amir. That sounds tough. Let’s get you inside and sit you down. Nacho, do you have anything for Amir to eat?” In the next breath, she added a qualifier to that question. “You know… something good.”

“Yeah, let’s get Amir taken care of. We can talk in the kitchen. I can start processing those big caterpillars.” Nacho wasn’t going to tell people what his gyros meat was made from. It would be spiced so well that they would never know it had come from insect meat. For the time being, Nacho gave Amir some two-day-old tacos, wincing as the man wolfed down the sad, stale meal without flinching. “Does that taste okay?”

“Yeah.” The fighter informed him between bites. “Tastes just like everything else you make, so no issue here.”

Not wanting him to see the discomfort Nacho felt at that moment—as the cook realized that the food being old and soggy didn’t change the taste quality of his meals—he went to his kitchen to be alone with the giant caterpillar. Six feet long, and at least two hundred pounds. He sneakily purchased Insect Eats: Delicious Bug Recipes with a Middle Eastern Flair, a Tier two Class Item, for six hundred credits. A glance around guaranteed that no one else was around, so he went over the recipe and found that he needed to buy coriander seed, which was the only ingredient he didn’t have. He had all the optional ingredients—thyme, paprika, garlic, oregano, peppercorns, sea salt, lemons, and olive oil; having just needed to repurchase all of his spicves thanks to the Donut Disaster.

He could go through the rest of the recipe later—to process, he just needed to start getting the Putrid Mana out of the meat. As predicted, Old Bill and Kala showed up just as black goop began to filter out of the flesh. They grimaced and moved past him to join the rest of the people in the guildhall where Amir was retelling the story, with some unneeded help from Simon.

Turning his thoughts to the meat, Nacho placed his knives in position and started to carve away sizable chunks. The giant caterpillar was a level fifteen monster, meaning that if he got twenty rounds of processing, he’d get six hundred credits for the meat, which would be just enough to cover the cost of the cookbook.

On top of that, he could make ninety credits for a meal for three. Divide that into the thousands that would pay, and it would be a hefty paycheck. The taxes would start refilling the guild coffers, and his cooking magic would linger for quite a while. He considered, then discarded, the idea of trying to use the millet for some kind of pita bread. He wasn’t going to try to do any gluten-free baking for a while; at least not until he figured out what was the key to making it palatable. “I need to find someone that was a vegetarian back on earth. I bet they’d know what to do with this… demon grain.”

It wasn’t long before Reuben, Brie, and The Chips Guild’s de facto ruling council came storming into Nacho’s kitchen, still arguing about what they should do about the CrossHuman situation. This put a small frown on the cook’s face, as he preferred a calm and quiet workspace. He looked at the meat, and decided that he had gotten through more than enough. Running his hands under some water to clean off the grime, he stood tall and cleared his throat to get all eyes on him.

“Here’s the deal.”

Whether they would like it or not, he had been thinking about the issue the entire time that he had been keeping his hands busy, and he had come to a decision. Nacho felt a thrill about the upcoming adventure, one that he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing. His words echoed in the room, “We can’t send half of our high-level players to rescue the other half. It doesn’t make sense, and it would leave us unprotected. It just isn’t feasible. Here is what I think we should do-”

He paused for a moment and glared, until the last of the group that had exploded with angry demands slowly stopped speaking. “You think I want to risk myself like this? Be real, people. Mayor Dan will take over running things on Armor Mountain. Kala and The Ghost Pepper Brigade all stay. Reuben, Brie, and I will spend the credits to level up, then go to the Portal after what I hope are captives… and not snacks. It will just be the three of us, so that we can go in quick and silent, and get out just as fast.”

“All of this sounds like you planned it from the start.” Kala disagreed with a snarl. “How do we know any of this is even real? That it isn’t just you using guild money to level yourselves up?”

“The fact that you say that shows how little you know us. Frankly, it tells us more about you than what you’re trying to imply about us. Notice that no one else even had that cross their mind.” Nacho stared down the blustering Death Knight until she looked away, muttering under her breath. “That is a good point, however. We won’t try and get ourselves to Tier two with guild funds, we’re just going to finish getting to level fifteen. I'm not going to go into why that’s important, as it isn’t knowledge everyone needs. On a related unrelated note, I can say that we’re also on the lookout for dungeons that are… different.”

“That was one thing that Simon forgot to mention.” Gustav snapped his fingers as he spoke up. “There was a dungeon between the CrossWorld Portal and Muddy River. Only, it had already been plundered by the CrossHumans. I remember that it was weird, because it said something about being their Welcome Dungeon, and something about the two worlds being connected.”

“Or did it say the worlds were… Juxtaposed?” Reuben lifted an eyebrow and looked around to see if anyone would comment on his genius.

“Mighta been something like that,” Gary shrugged and finished his thought, “Not sure you’ll have time to really look, but… then again, you might as well keep them peepers open. Whatever happened to our people might be a done deal by now, or they’re keeping them alive for some reason. I guess it’s over, or you have time.”

“That’s very helpful, thanks for your input.” Kala furrowed her brows at the man, who merely fluttered his eyelashes and moved into different positions to flex for her. “I agree that I hate the idea of you three going off on your own.”

“Because you care?” Reuben tried hopefully. “That’s so sweet of you.”

“Be realistic, hubby.” Brie knew the truth, and let it out with a huff. “She hates the idea of us finding treasure or skills that she won’t get access to. Right, Kala?”

The Death Knight didn't bother to hide her smirk. “We also won’t have Nacho cooking. Cheap, palatable food is something that only comes from him. Why is he going anyway?”

“My food is better than palatable.” Nacho interjected mildly. “Also, I have a mission brief already laid out for the people that will be staying here. There’s a field of millet that needs to be destroyed before it becomes a Catastrophe-level threat. Mayor Dan has the details for you.”

“You of all people should know by now that he can do serious damage,” Brie explained none too patiently. “If he comes with us, he can continue to cook for us. We’ll need his magic. Lastly, he knows more about the CrossHumans than anyone.”

“I should come and protect him,” Gustav was the only one who nodded at the words. “Keep him alive. Protect his cooking hand. Wouldn’t hurt me to collect some skull trophies along the way. Always looking to add to my collection.”

Nacho was fairly certain Gustav’s collection was small, if not completely non-existent. Wait… monster skulls turned into Putrid Mana. He made a note to look into whatever skulls the spicy warrior had managed to collect. He also subtly moved a few people between Brie and Gustav so that she didn’t ‘accidentally’ collect a skull trophy of her own.

Mayor Dan put a hand on Nacho’s shoulder as he moved back to his position. “I don’t like this plan much. If we lost you three, we’d lose a lot of the reason why folks joined the Chips Guild in the first place. I do see your reasoning for only taking a small force, if we have to worry about zombies on top of everything else.”

“Nacho and his friends shouldn’t go alone. They should take Colleen and Simon with them.” Iron Becky insisted, keeping an eye on Nacho’s reaction.

“Sounds like a love triangle.” Gary chuckled in a low voice. “How do you feel about making it into a square?”

“Get out of my kitchen, Gary.” Nacho wasn’t going to let that comment linger. “Enough of this conversation. This is not up for discussion. Brie, Reuben, and I will leave tonight after making dinner available. See to your posts, and your people. Remember that bread always falls on the buttered side, so expect—and be ready for—trouble.”

“I guess we already have a square.” Gary muttered as he rolled his eyes and walked away as though Nacho were being unfair to him, getting plenty of laughter and high-fives from his Ghost Pepper group.

Kala eyed the mess of caterpillar meat and fluid puddling on his counter and dripping off onto the floor. “You’re not going to be feeding that to us, are you?”

“Just processing it for the credits.” Nacho didn’t let himself flinch. People didn’t need to know how sausages were made to enjoy them. Once they realized how delicious the food was, they wouldn’t ask many questions. As the area emptied, he chuckled quietly to himself.

“Wouldn’t answer those questions either way. Sorry, Kala… gotta work with what I’ve got.”