CWD: Sewer Skewers ~ Twelve

Kronos gave Nacho a happy little salute, which was disconcertingly out of place when a god-like entity was the one performing the action. The Patron was a tall man who looked kind of like a beloved fictional chaos theory mathematician traumatized by dinosaurs, but with fuzzy sideburns. As before, he wore a white toga and golden sandals. His wild hair billowed out from beneath a New York Yankees baseball cap, turned around so the bill faced behind him.

Nacho wasn’t sure what to say to that. For a second, he wasn’t quite sure if this encounter was real or not. Kronos was just… suddenly there, blue eyes twinkling, mischievous smile a mile wide. To the cook’s increasing confusion, the patron tapped a three-day-old biscuit on the counter. “I wasn’t sure if your culinary skills would improve, and it looks like my fears were justified. Are people actually paying you for your cooking?”

“You know they are. They’re forced to pay.” Nacho was suddenly ungodly Thirsty—ironic, thanks to his current company. He used two credits to buy an Epic Tier zero sports drink, orange flavored. He slammed the whole bottle in one breath but didn’t feel a thing. It was as though he had just sucked in a bellyful of air, and even though he was disappointed, he fully understood why. “Ah, man.”

Nacho was in a Tier one body now. Buying an Epic Tier one Juxt-Ade—the Juxtaposition off-brand sports drink—would run him twenty credits. Drink prices had just gone from one credit… to ten. With the Rarity Chart in action, Epic drinks were one hundred percent more expensive. No longer an option unless he wanted to go bankrupt, in other words.

Kronos laughed at his sour expression. “Rookie mistake, Nacho. You can’t make rookie mistakes any more. I have too much riding on you. If you mess up, I could lose everything. I bet everything I have on you. My power, my future. You’re not a novice, so stop playing around. Start breaking things.”

“Me mess up?” Nacho whirled the phrasing around to strike the Patron instead. “What in the name of… what is going on with you and the rest of the Patrons? Are you targeting me? Are they? This UnderFun opening situation is messed up.”

“You went beyond the bounds of what was probably going to happen. Once again, that's why your buff was called ‘Probability Vision’, and not ‘Future Sight’.” Kronos took off his cap and waved it around. His hair seemed to grow even more frizzy while they stood there. Somehow, Nacho was bothered by the Patron being affected by small issues such as local humidity, but not his knife. “You found the UnderFun before anything even had a chance to grow in there. That probably wasn’t going to happen for five entire years, if you’d let things be. The lower-level monsters were supposed to get more powerful. To get through them was going to require a full raid. We’re talking Tier three pizza rats; stuff the current you can’t hit at all with a spell or sword. You messed that up… and it’s awesome.”

“Five years? You’re happy about the change?” Nacho’s Thirst finally broke him down, and he bought a bottle of common Tier one water. He guzzled half of it before noticing it tasted like suburban pond water. “What happened with that Costco we found? What really changed?”

“For one, you killed the Bove. Fancy, fantastic work, that. You won’t understand how much this matters, but an entire Pantheon of animal Patrons lost all their influence on this world because of that alone. Think of the biggest animal rights organization in North America, only if they had power to kill people instead of just animals.” Kronos chuckled as he slid open the reinforced wooden door to Nacho’s icebox room before continuing to speak.

“For another, the river had some flow troubles. The unexpected flooding wiped out some of the monsters and exposed the entrance. It was all rather… improbable. The other Patrons are… what’s the word? Ulcerous with rage.They accelerated the timeline in the AKC, which is topping the leaderboard for the entire Starter World at this point. But the Starter CrossWorld still leads the betting. Those CrossHumans were always going to be ahead of you.”

“Why?” Nacho didn’t expect an answer to his throwaway question, so he flinched when Kronos slapped his cap back on and spun, speaking rapidly all of a sudden.

“Earth was behind in all the things. You should’ve spent more time—as a population—playing video games. I mean, come on; all that other stuff you were doing while you could’ve been gaming?”

Nacho couldn’t help but try to defend himself. “Not me, though.”

“Not you.” Kronos walked around Nacho’s kitchen, but it still didn’t seem like he had a real body. It was more like it had been before—a hologram of light that phased through anything that was inconveniently placed.

The cook took a minute to flex his upgraded body and mind, noticing appreciatively that he was feeling better than ever. He should be—his stats had just rocketed up by five points each for a total increase of twenty in one go. He felt stronger, his mind clearer and more focused, and he could almost feel his Mana pool expanding beyond its previous limits as his Thirst Points increased and his Mana pool began to regenerate. He was dying to look at his stats, but talking with his Patron took precedence.

“Are the other Patrons gunning for us?” Nacho decided that was the most important thing to worry about. “Fourtuna, for instance? I know he gave Crave a boon, and he’s talked with the guy, I think.”

“Anyone that lost influence can’t do a single thing. Everyone betting against you is gunning for you, and vice versa.” Kronos grunted at the sight of the big puddle of meat in the sink. “Ugh, gross. Good luck cleaning that up. Mmm, actually…. as to Fourtuna… yeah, he's the worst. Fishy as they come. Now, no one can gun for anyone in particular. It’s all very controlled, and very macro. Micromanagement isn’t worth the effort, in the first place. I can’t say much because of the rules, but I will say Fourtuna is a Patron for more than just your boy Crave. He has a lot of pawns. I just have one. You, Nacho. You’re my guy. Just keep playing the game like you’re playing it.”

“Should I go after the Dragon Spear?” Nacho prayed he'd get the answer he wanted.

Kronos scowled at him like he had just asked if toilets were seats for fancy dinners. “Of course you need to get the Dragon Spear. It was put out there to level the playing field against you. We had to do something to at least pretend to offer balance because of the boon I gave you. The boon wasn’t easy, mind you, and it brought me some much unwanted attention. But as long as things progress like I hope they will, we should both be good. For now. Things are watching this game closely, and I’m risking everything by coming here. I shouldn’t be talking to you, but then Fourtuna shouldn’t be talking to Crave. That gives me a little bit of leeway for sharing information with your sorry butt.”

Nacho sipped the nauseating Tier one water to give himself a moment to think. “Anything you can tell me about the Dragon Spear?”

“You don’t have a valid reason to care about it, at least not one your guild would accept. Not today. Can’t have you changing your mind without a reputable source of outside information; it would make you look weak.” Kronos paused for a drawn-out moment before waving his Yankees cap through the air. “You are correct to plan for the long term. It’s not just about me and you, Nacho—it’s not just about the credits I plan to make. Worlds die if you don’t win. Fun thought to leave on.”

The Patron started slowly dissolving the mess in Nacho’s big sink. The liquified meat swirled around, then slowly formed back around the bone. In seconds, the huge haunch of Cow Poke meat had been restored. “Here’s a little gift from me to you to celebrate your advancement to Tier one. Just remember that I’m in your corner, though it might not always feel like it. You should always be in my corner.”

On that cryptic and slightly worrying note, the Patron vanished. The cook didn’t pause to ruminate over the conversation; that would come later. He had a huge amount of Cow Poke meat to process and steak burritos to make. There was also probably enough meat to make the entire guild hamburgers, real hamburgers, from the Jimmy Cholesterol cookbook.

Now that he was a Tier one Common Cook, his skills were no longer capped to the previously low level. It only took nine hundred and twenty credits to upgrade his Ingredient Processing Skill from level nine to level thirteen so he could process the level fifteen Cow Poke meat.

As per usual, he was encapsulated by the power and flooded with warm, fuzzy feelings of fresh knowledge. After it ended, he crossed to the sink and touched the skinned meat. Before he could process so much as an ounce, the System flashed him a message.

Advanced Ingredient Processing – Tier 1!

You can now eliminate Putrid Mana from a distance. Yes, prep dinner from the other room! This is the standard boost to all Skills when you raise them to Tier 1: Skills at a distance! You can do some great stuff when you have some space. In most cases, that equals about fifteen feet, but not always. Gotta keep things interesting!

Ingredients, especially those at a lower Tier, are now easier to increase in rarity!

“Now that’s interesting. I’ll have to try that at some point; still gotta figure out how to increase the rarity of an ingredient in the first place, though. Let’s start cookin’.”

Reuben and Brie came charging into his kitchen through the side door just as scraps of meat started flying. The big guy let out a huge sigh of relief, both at the fact that Nacho was awake, as well as not getting a knife chucked at him for the surprise interruption. There was no way he could’ve known that Nacho had clearly heard them approaching well before they reached the entryway, his boosted characteristics bringing him ever further from human. “Glad you’re upright! I was freaking out a little bit. I didn’t want to come in here alone and find you still on the floor.”

“That’s why you came and got me?” Brie crossed to stand by Nacho, the look of worry on her face easing slightly as she observed his incredibly efficient and smooth movements. “Are you feeling well, Nacho? Reuben had me so worried.”

“Yeah, I’m just fine.” Nacho’s reply was slightly more abrasive than he had been intending it to be; he just didn’t like being the center of this kind of attention. “Actually, you guys can help me. I have got to process this meat as fast as possible. Once I drain out the Putrid Mana, it’ll have the shelf life of an average hunk of meat. Take what I hand you and stack it somewhere the Putrid Mana can’t drip on it.”

Nacho didn’t want to reveal that he’d talked with Kronos, not right then. There was too much information to work through before he shared it. First, the fact that Patrons were beholden to the system—needing to generate their own credits—seemed to be important information for the future. Were they actually just players that had reached incredibly high levels? Or was the System something else entirely?

Secondly, worlds were depending on him? How did that work? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

There was something else that he did want to know, and as he finished the maximum amount of meat that he could process in one go, he finally couldn’t hold back a moment longer.

Chugging his remaining water, he waited for Active Cooking to end so that he could purchase some food, as well as ingredients for the next steps. He pulled open his Stat Sheet to see how much more Mana he had available. Before, he had only been able to use his Ingredient Processing around eighteen times, which was where he had stopped in processing the Cow Poke to be safe, even if that amount might have changed now that he’d made such a big jump.

Eli ‘Nacho’ Naches

Class: Junior League Chef

Level (Aggregated Tier and level): 10

Experience Points: 14,400 to Level 11!

Current Credits: 0 (0 total Dinner Party pool)

Build Type: Balanced, Delayed

Body:

• Fitness: 20
• Metabolic efficiency: 20

Mind:

• Mental energy: 20
• Circuit: 20

Satiation:

• Hunger: 100
• Thirst: 100

Total Health Points: 50

Bonus Physical Damage: 10%

Health Regen: 20% Health Regen/minute

Total Mana Pool: 40

Bonus Spell Damage: 10%

Mana Pool Regen: 20% Mana Regen/minute

Skill Slots (3/4)

• Small Blades (Passive) Level 9: 18% bonus damage on all knife attacks
  • No Mana, Hydration, or Metabolic Cost
• Ingredient Processing (Active) Level 13: Remove Putrid Mana from monsters up to Level 15.
  • Tier 1 Enhancement: Process ingredients from 15 feet away. Increased chance to upgrade Rarity of ingredients.
    • Mana Cost = 5%
    • Hydration Cost = 5%
    • Metabolic Cost = 5%
• Cooking Magic (Active) Level 9: Create food that enhances a single stat by 45% of maximum
  • Mana Cost = 5%
  • Hydration Cost = 5%
  • Metabolic Cost = 5%
• Open slot

“Nearly died just now. Whoops. Right… amount of Mana doesn’t matter for these abilities.” Nacho wanted to grumble about that, but at least it had remained consistent. He had more Mana, but five percent of max Mana per shot was five percent. He still could only process ingredients nineteen times. If he tried for twenty rounds, he’d go unconscious. He wasn’t sure if Active Cooking would end at that point, or if the Patrons would let him die because ‘cooking was in progress’, or if he’d be able to fall out of it and regenerate his Mana pool while knocked out.

Probably a coin toss, and it sounded like Kronos might not have the same power to intercede that he’d once had.

He also wasn’t sure he liked his new class name. Junior League Chef? Sure, it was better than something like ‘Kid Cook’, but it still wasn’t great. He had nearly forgotten how the Patrons liked to give different people different names as they increased their Class, both to insult as well as confuse people. He’d known one Assassin who’d earned ‘Meanie Face’ for their Tier one Class name because he took himself too seriously.

During his Probability Vision, Nacho had ‘Lookin’ Good Killer’ for his Tier one Class name, and his Tier two Class name had been ‘Shadow Killer’. Shaking off the memories, Nacho took a breath and returned to the task at hand.

He raised his cleaver from across the room, deciding to test out the distance prep. With a downward slash, five pounds of meat fell away, fully cleansed and ready for cooking. Reuben dove out of the way with a yelp. “Careful with that thing! Wait! You have a ranged attack now? That’s awesome!”

“Not quite. This is just processing the meat.” His recipe called for five pounds of steak, which was how he could get so much with each swing—because of his amazing knives, every time he hacked off a hunk, he got fifty percent more meat. Fifty pounds of animal muscle became seventy-five pounds of beef in no time. With each swing, he lost renewable personal resources, but it looked way more awesome to perfectly cleave meat from across the room and generate the equivalent of a glistening A5 marbled steak.

Nacho had purchased several five-gallon plastic bags from the Store, which were perfect for marinating meat at this quantity, no matter what his friends said about it. He had Reuben and Brie fill up the bags with the raining meat, expecting the Cow Poke to liquify at any second.

But Kronos must've given it a good dose of love. Nearly ten minutes later, Nacho was once more down to fifty percent of his Mana. He had processed another seventy-five pounds of meat he wanted to use for hamburgers. Luckily, his Jimmy Cholesterol recipe kept things simple. All he needed was a dash of salt and pepper per each pound of meat. Before starting back in, Nacho had set aside a small amount of the Tier one ingredients, since he didn’t need that much, and he had to find a way to eat without breaking the bank.

Once he’d cut off a sizable hunk of the beef, he threw the pieces into his industrial-sized meat grinder, and Reuben started cranking. Brie collected the ground beef in a big metal pot, and after the cook successfully tempted them with the promise of a Tier one burger, his friends agreed to help him pat the hamburgers into shape. After using nineteen rounds of Ingredient Processing, Nacho only had a meager handful of Mana remaining. He was light-headed and a little dizzy, but as long as he didn’t use any more Skills, he could keep right on cooking.

Kronos had been correct. He did need to celebrate hitting Tier one, and he wanted to try on the Saturday Knight Armor. Also, he wanted to talk with everyone about the Dragon Spear quest, once he figured out a logical reason for changing his stance.

Finally, even with Kronos restabilizing it, the Cow Poke haunch started to liquify. Nacho dropped the small remainder into his special drain with a satisfied noise; he’d cut most of the meat off. No longer was it a massive waste and disappointment. Unable to hide his excitement any longer, he turned to let his friends in on the fun. “Guess who I talked to after I leveled up? I'll give you a hint: he was glowing, and not in the ‘looked full of health’ way.”

“Let me guess. A certain fan of a New York sporting team?” Reuben inquired with sparkling eyes.

Nacho nodded as a cockeyed grin appeared on his face. “Yep. Jets fan. They would’ve had a great year if the Juxtaposition hadn’t hit.”

“Doubtful.” Reuben winced and shuddered at the thought. “They would have lost so hard to-”

“Literally doesn’t exist anymore! Why do you two only care about sports now that they’re gone?” Brie interrupted the inane conversation as she continued to help Nacho pat patties.

“Well…” Reuben thought hard for a moment, then brightened as he found his answer. “Now those sports are fantasy games, right? You know I enjoy that sort of thing. The idea of playing a video game now? That’d be like playing Sims, or a walking simulator on a treadmill. Just… normal life now. Boring. But baseball isn’t something that can be real here. Throw a ball? A Tier two pterodactyl gets upset that something is in its flight path, swoops down, and kills us all.”

“Right… how about I just tell you what went down?” Nacho outlined, in general terms, his conversation with Kronos. “We now know that Crave has help of the supernatural kind, which is far more direct intervention than I expected. But more importantly, we’re ahead of schedule—by about five years, according to my Patron. That’s rather surprising in and of itself.”

Brie smacked a patty down and laid it on one of Nacho’s grilling trays. “I don’t know if that’s good or not.”

Nacho acknowledged her point but went on. “We also have to… okay, this is gonna make you look at me funky—it seems that if we don’t win, a bunch of, um, other worlds will die? It’s not just the Earth we’re fighting for. It’s everyone. Apparently. Interesting note, we’re leading the world. Bleeding edge of improvement. I always knew Kansas City had a greatness that people would one day appreciate.”

“You’re not joking.” Brie added another slab of slapped-together meat onto the pile. “I thought you might be joking.”

“About the AKC?” Nacho questioned hopefully, knowing for a fact that he did not have any answers to any questions she might bring him.

“About all of it.” Brie blew hair out of her face in annoyance.

“Nope.” Nacho took a moment to let the pressure build to an uncomfortable level. “No joking at all, really. Kinda sucks how serious it all is.”

Reuben cackled as Nacho tossed the burgers on the hot grill. “At least we get monster hamburgers. I bet I can get five hundred more people to join the guild if I can use these in advertising. As we’ve seen, more people working with us means faster progression. Let’s just focus on doing what we can. By the way… is that burger showing as Rare?”

“Huh.” One of the burgers was visibly glistening, and Nacho had no idea why. “Guess I need to just keep making these until I figure out the trick. As always, practice makes better.”