CWD: Sewer Skewers ~ Thirty-Two

He awoke to bees, lots of bees—both the Mis-Bee-Haves and the Bumble Dumpers. Active Cooking was officially over, but his team was still smack dab in the middle of combat. Something new had appeared, furiously buzzing down from a big gaping hole in the roof. Somehow, the bees must’ve gnawed through the ceiling, and the opening allowed their queen, the Beehemoth, to swoop down.

That giant insect thing had to be a Tier two. Nacho couldn’t get a good look, but it was strange and waspish, with far too many appendages. Reuben scooped up the woozy Nacho and started running after Kala. Somehow, the Death Knight knew the location of a place called ‘the Green Room’ and was leading them to the more defensible space. Nacho struggled out of his friend’s grasp and stumbled back to Hana Banana’s body. He collapsed next to the feathery heap and grabbed the monster drop, only then allowing Reuben to help him stagger along.

“Whatcha got there?” Reuben questioned with his characteristic joviality.

“Not sure,” Nacho stated shortly as they loped after the others. They were being cautious; thankfully the eggs weren’t cracking open, now that Hana Banana was dead, but the stink of the place was vile, and they stumbled on a couple of dead Buffalo Chicken that hadn’t started to liquify yet. Brie and Abby, bringing up the rear, had the presence of mind to drag the bison-headed poultry up a couple of floors and haul them along the Green Room.

The Warrior and Berserker slammed and locked the door behind them, only for the killer bees to hit it with a thud and angry *buzz* in almost the same moment.

No one spoke for a long time.

The first sound came from Kala breaking down, sobbing for her lost father.

Eduardo joined her in weeping, and Nacho looked him over, doing a double take when he realized that the bugs that had been infesting him all this time from the sonic pigeon attacks were littering the ground around him, dead. Reuben had been constantly forced to heal the man throughout combat, else he would have been chewed to pieces within minutes. “How-?”

The cook paused and bit his tongue, realizing that it was not the time for questions. Their losses had been terrible, but the dead were already dead. Crave had the Ivory Talon, and he also knew about the golden puzzle door. If they didn’t stop the Guild Master, he was going to have a weapon in his hands that would enable him to kill not only them, but anyone who wouldn’t submit to what was sure to be the start of a tyrannical rule.

No matter what happened, they had to heal up and get out there.

What Kala had called the ‘Green Room’ was just a concrete square area with industrial carpet covering the floor, a few rickety tables, and several mismatched folding chairs. Nacho, like everyone else in the room, waited for the end of Active Combat… but it appeared that the message wasn’t coming. The angry buzzing just beyond the barrier keeping them safe might be the issue, but it was upsetting to be considered in ‘active’ combat while they were all just sitting around.

To the cook’s great annoyance—though he fully understood why—Kala spent the first few minutes incoherently mourning over her father. They needed to make a plan, and it was highly unlikely that she would agree to anything they wanted unless she had a say. In her current state of nearly catatonic grief, that wasn't possible. Nacho counted the others in the room and realized that only a handful of her people were left alive. The remaining members of the Chips Guild had grouped around the tables, trying to catch their breath and adjust their mindset.

His eye alighted on a stairwell at one end of the room, and he rushed over to find that it dropped down a few floors. It seemed unlikely the steps would lead to the KC Cesspit, but they had a built-in option for egress. That more than anything filled Nacho with relief. “Thank goodness for the old-world fire code. Everyone, we're going to be able to get out of here! I know it’s hard, but try to keep it together until we are actually in a safe location.”

To his surprise, it was Kala that got moving first. Clutching her Death Knight helmet, she dried her tears and attempted to take over: an admirable emotional swing. “Form up, group! We’re going to heal up, get Mana back, and then we’re going to run out there and fight our way through those bees. I’m not a fan of the Chips Guild, but we’ll work together to kill Crave and every last one of his Final Victory monsters pretending to be humans! Every. Last. One. Of. Them.”

Nacho let her talk. Even though he did not agree with everything she was saying, he had something very important to consider. Specifically, he needed to read over the monster drop that he had retrieved from the slain Boss. When he activated the item, which looked like a silver feather with golden edges, it shifted into a three-by-five index card. Scanning over it, he realized that it had become a recipe for Honey Buffalo Chicken Shish Kabobs. “That’s an… interesting drop. I wonder if it’s important for the success of this mission?”

When Kala ran out of breath from elaborating on what they were going to do to their fellow humans—which took a disturbingly long time—Nacho opened his mouth to offer a better plan… one that wasn’t tantamount to suicide.

Eduardo beat him to it, thin rivulets of blood still trickling down his body from everywhere the sedulous lice had been tearing into him. “Yeah, we’re going to destroy them all, Kala. For Scrubz, man.”

“No,” Reuben firmly stated. “At the end, he proved himself, and we were friends. I don’t think he resented the fact that he chose to be with us anymore. To me—and I hope this is the same for all of you… Bill was someone I respect. Deeply, and truly.”

Congratulations, Player! Active Combat is over! Well, that was a close one for most of you. Our condolences to your guild members. In lieu of flowers, we’ll give the Chips Guild fifty credits and the Sunrise Brigade fifty-one credits. We really liked Kala’s father. What was his name? Can’t remember, but we liked him.

Kala went on a new rant about getting a measly fifty-one credits for her father getting detonated from the inside and the Patrons pretending not to know his name. All Nacho could do was tune her out.

Once his Mana Regen topped off, he did a little shopping for ingredients, then dove right back into Active Cooking. He wasted no time in removing the Putrid Mana from the two Buffalo Chickens in preparation for using them in his new recipe. After he’d butchered the meat, he stuck it into an unused Storage Slot. He paused dinner production to focus on making a generous batch of his peanut butter balls—the only recipe he could whip up without needing to heat anything.

He was even able to purchase all the ingredients from the system, so he decided to make two different batches for the different Tiers, since the cost-to-benefit ratio made it worth his time to separate them out. Of course he planned to imbue both sets of treats with his Cooking Magic, but he wasn’t about to waste credits.

When she saw him fiddling around with peanut butter ratios, Kala stormed over looking like she was about to take a swing at him. “What in the name of all the semi-sweet Patrons are you doing?”

“Making peanut butter balls; they’ll be ready in a minute. Had to buy a bowl. Heads up: the System forces me to charge you, otherwise I’d give you them free of charge. Sorry about your dad.”

“You… you can’t just feed us and assume everything is fine!” Kala wiped angry tears off her face with her wrist, leaving a smear of blood across her cheeks. “Fifty-one credits… why aren't you fighting me about running out there? You clearly disagree. I could tell by the look on your face.”

Kristie quietly took the lead. “We’re hoping the stairs in the back lead down to the KC Cesspit, which would take us to the inner sanctum’s golden puzzle door. That’s where Crave is heading. If I'm guessing correctly, Nacho thinks that we will be able to cut him off even if we take the time that we need to prepare.”

Nacho merely nodded as he rolled his hands back and forth in smooth motions, not wasting any effort as he dropped a completed ball and started forming another.

“We can't go out there.” That fact seemed to dawn on Eduardo in lieu of him making the connection logically. “We’re marked. At least… Bill was. So I can go out there.”

He’d replaced his crying with raging, but Kala ignored him as she furrowed her brow and took a fresh grip on her huge sword. “I’ll take my people and go the normal way, right through the center of anything that gets in our way. Tell us how to get into the KC Cesspit.”

Brie barked out a scathing mimicry of a laugh. “So you can kill Crave, grab the Ivory Talon, and get the Dragon Spear? It’s not happening, Kala. Our way or nothing.”

“That’s right!” Abby agreed with gusto, sending a bit of side-eye at the grimacing Death Knight. “You’re going to follow our lead, Kala. We have the power, and we have the Cooking Magic. It’s delicious and nutritious, full of superstitious!”

“If you think that I am going to listen to you-” Kala broke into a full bellow as they all devolved into yelling at each other, and in an instant, chaos flooded the room.

“Nah.” Nacho calmly collected his cooking equipment, crossed over to the steps, and started down. He felt terrible for Scrubz. He shook his head. Whoops… they were calling him Bill again, after Reuben’s impassioned words. It was strange that Kala’s father was killed as well. It was almost as though the Juxtaposition had fixed events in time that the Patrons wanted to make happen. Or was it all chance and chaos? Nacho couldn’t decide which was worse: having the entire universe out to get him at a specific moment in time, or having a chance to live… then dying no matter what, just because the people around him were so nightmarish.

He went down to the first landing, his Firefly Potstickers *buzzing* around to ensure that nothing crept out of the darkness to catch him unawares. He could still hear the yelling, but it was less intense, and he could easily sprint up the stairs in case someone called for him.

Dropping back into the smooth, practiced rhythm for his personal catharsis, Nacho rolled all of the Tier zero peanut butter balls and stored them on one tray until the mixture was completely finished, then got to work making his Tier one snacks. He needed to clear his head, but his thoughts were screaming in his skull as loudly as the argument one floor up.

“Crave has the Ivory Talon, and he knew about the inner sanctum’s golden puzzle door… how? Probably because his Patron had told him about it, or it was part of the information package he got for betting his entire guild on winning,” Nacho muttered sullenly, completely ignoring the fact that his Patron was trying to help him in a similar manner. “Dirty cheater… clearly, Fourtuna’s helping him. Then there was that thing with Hana Banana being resistant to magic knives? That was blatant favoritism and an attempt to off me, I just know it.”

It could have been that the Patrons were furious at Kronos for giving Nacho the Probability Vision, which had allowed him to become a Common Cook. Or it could just have been the fact that he was a Satiation player, and Kronos being his Patron had nothing to do with it. The Patrons truly seemed to hate anything that would impact their desires for bloodshed and violence, especially when Humanity was doing it to themselves.

Nacho heaved out a sigh. He shouldn’t feel bad about Bill. Players died. It was part of the Juxtaposition. The game was terrible, unfair, and there was no changing it. Yet at the minimum, losing Bill and the Ivory Talon in one fell swoop had infuriated Nacho like nothing else ever could. Beyond the fact that he was down a friend and effective teammate, Bill had been one of his main detractors. Nacho had worked hard to sway the obstinate man to his side, and with him gone, the cook was likely going to need to deal with a new opposition leader that might not come around to Team Dinner Party being in full control.

He heard footsteps as his thoughts slowed, and he expected that Reuben had come to talk to him. Instead, Taye came shuffling down with the hood of his Robbin’ Hoodie armor thrown back. Nacho eyed him, then nodded at a stair. “Sit down. Can I get you something to eat?”

“Not sure.” Taye sat with the end of his bow resting on the floor between his legs. “That arguing up there got to me. Kala hasn’t changed a bit. She’s the same old power-hungry control freak. It’s weird… she wants power and will do anything to get it. I was offered all the power I could take, and I didn’t want it. It’s ironic.”

Nacho held out a treat with an apologetic smile. “Can I offer you a peanut butter ball in this trying time?”

Taye winced even though he took one. “That’s a reference to a meme of some kind, isn’t it? It’s cringy to see old people-”

“You watch your mouth; I’m nowhere near old.” Nacho waved at his magnificent self. “Look at this strapping young body, wiry muscles, and debonair good looks.”

“You’re not helping. What college student says ‘debonair’? It’s like you’re an old man in your head, and it’s freaky.” Taye sighed as he ran out of tiny insults, missing the spastic twitching on Nacho’s face as the cook held off on spilling his own secrets. “Even though I’m down on Hunger Points, I just don’t want to eat. For a second there, I thought Kala would join us, but then she went right back to being… Kala.”

“She has her own issues, for sure. We all do.” Nacho shrugged as Taye met his gaze and nodded seriously. The cook narrowed his eyes. “Don't look at me like that; I’m right as rain over here. You know… when I saved her life back there, and when she saw what Brie and Bill could do, she changed her tune real fast. You need to remember, she’s just lost her dad and she’s under a huge amount of stress. Her people are looking to her for answers while the leader of the most powerful guild on this planet makes peanut butter balls and whistles like nothing could ever phase him.”

“This is weird.” Taye chuckled even while speaking his mind. “You, standing up for Kala? Never thought I’d see the day.”

Silence surrounded them for a few moments, aside from the slight *swish* of batter being rolled back and forth into a shapely shape. Nacho had braced his Aria open and was casually browsing recipes between balls, searching for another option that people could easily swallow that could turn his round snack into a square meal. “I bet you thought about leaving people on their own and going off to succeed privately when the Juxtaposition first hit. It couldn’t have been easy to have Kala breathing down your neck, let alone so many other people doubting the advice you were giving them.”

Taye nodded and tapped his bow on the concrete step. “You bet I thought about leaving. It would’ve been… just so much easier to do everything on my own. But it would’ve been harder too, in a way. I mean, being alone when the world is ending is worse than being with people, unless they’re all jerks. They weren’t. Abby was supportive, Kristie was nice, and Mayor Dan and Iron Becky were like clueless parents trying to understand the game their new kid was playing. It was kinda nice.”

Both of them chuckled. Mayor Dan was good with people, but the gaming elements eluded him just like changing the manifold in an engine eluded Nacho. The cook didn’t know what else to say—having used the entirety of his empathy in this conversation already—so he just reached over and patted Taye’s leather-armored leg. He realized too late that his hands were still goopy from rolling balls. “Uh, I got your armor dirty. Sorry.”

Taye laughed self-deprecatingly. “No point in keeping it clean; it’s going to get bloody anyway. Sorry I was starting to lose it there for a minute.”

Nacho patted the archer again, this time intentionally smearing more peanut butter on him. With a chuckle, Taye grabbed a ball and bounced it off Nacho’s face in retaliation, though he still caught it and gulped it down. They all knew better than to waste food. “It’s funny… I sometimes like the Juxtaposition, especially after upgrading. I kind of like it a lot. But at times like this… bleh.”

More footsteps resounded down the stairwell from above, and both men went silent as Reuben came tromping down to join them with his leather helmet in his hands. His Sausage Clips of Striking jingled merrily as the Healer casually stated, “Breaking news: I’m pretty sure that Abby is going to bash Kala’s brains in. Also, Myron completely creeps me out. There are a few cool people who just don’t want to die… and I gotta tell you, they’re looking at the Chips Guild with hardcore envy in their eyes. Betcha we could get a couple of them to join our side.”

“You’re forgetting that the contracts are magically binding. They can’t jump ship unless Kala lets them. We all know that isn't happening.” Nacho finished the last of the Tier one treats and felt better, as well as more prepared for going back to dealing with people. “I think I have a plan for your wife, Reuben—something she can eat without choking in combat—but I need to buy a new recipe.”

“All we need to do is win, Nacho.” Reuben shrugged and started back up the stairs. “Then we get an entire year to show them that our way is better. Magically binding and everything.”

Nacho regarded the face of his best friend and felt a deep sense of gratitude. They still weren’t out of trouble yet, and winning seemed like a longshot, but the simple fact that he, Reuben, and Brie were all breathing? That solitary fact gave Nacho some much-needed courage. His mind drifted back to the recipe problem. “I could buy yogurt and strawberry jelly, but I need a third ingredient. What could it be?”

Some purposeful searching in the Store yielded exactly what he needed. A single recipe, Tier one. While it would be pricey, it was perfect. He ordered it and the required ingredients, then went back into Active Cooking to whip it up while Reuben and Taye had already retreated a flight of stairs above him, still slowly climbing.

With a satisfied smile, the cook loaded up the sweet yogurt mixture into plastic cups and stowed them away into his Storage Slots. He’d just finished when the stairwell echoed with Abby’s roar, “Get out of my way, Brie! I’m going to knock that armored emo witch into an early grave!”

Only, Abby hadn’t said ‘witch’.

“Better get up here,” Taye called worriedly. “I'm so glad I'm not the one that has to be in charge of telling them to calm down.”

“No one is ever going to be forced into the task of telling a group of armed ladies to ‘calm down’.” Reuben patted Taye’s head. “You might be able to survive monsters, but you have a lot to learn about not dying in a ‘safe’ area… like your own house.”

The three of them laughed, then speeded up the stairs when they heard metal clash against metal. Nacho zipped past them to lead the way, cursing under his breath.