294 (II)

  Path of the Chefless [I]

  In the end, Radio found itself assigned as an aide to one Sister Quartermaster Mira Kulvens, Siggy’s friend, who Shiv was honestly surprised had survived all the shit that had gone down in the gate since Shiv had waltzed into the Republic consulate a few weeks ago and taken her hostage. He, meanwhile, continued his campaign to help the Gate in whatever way he could. His legions of logistical golems swept through the refugee quarter near the surface gateway. Implanted with Aegis of Assimilation on top of his Physicality skill, Shiv and his golems provided healing and support wherever they went.

  Afterward, he helped deal with some of the overflowing waste as well. He picked up massive bags filled with refuse and briefly considered heading to the surface and launching them over the horizon into the Pacific Ocean. In the end, he decided to burn the waste instead. It seemed insulting and pointlessly cruel to pollute someone else's living area. The Pacific Ocean was filled with monsters, but even so, Shiv didn't have any intentions of starting a fight with them at present.

  Upon completing that chore, he descended from the refugee corner and moved to see how the mercenaries were doing. The Arachnae Order had proven kind and wise as they created a compound for the mercenaries, and they didn't spare that many expenses either. The buildings were of good quality, and their interiors spacious, giving the mercenaries room to wander and places to gather. Shiv found them entertaining themselves in a variety of ways, some playing board or card games, some simply sitting around and chatting, some sparring and wrestling.

  However, the moment Shiv approached, the mood within the small community changed. Immediately, heads snapped to attention, and cries rang out declaring the return of the Deathless One.

  Time and time again, the hidden World Quest notification made itself known to the people around him, promising invaluable rewards and provoking all other Pathbearers in the area to make an attempt on his life.

  No one moved. Shiv hovered in the air and loomed over the many mercenaries. Though they were devoid of weapons, there were still many mages amongst them, and they still had their armor. He knew some of them were considering their odds. But in the end, he was also certain it was just that—intrusive thoughts they would never act upon. What made him so confident were the fear chains extending from them. Near solid chains. Chains that Shiv could drag on at any moment, ripping them from the ground into his grasp, where their fates would be his to decide.

  But Shiv didn't come here to inflict any harm. He just watched, bobbing up and down as his Shapeless Tides kept him aloft. He'd been through too much to care about these mercenaries anymore. Whatever he felt toward them after the liberation of Gate Theborn had all but vanished now. He needed to talk with Adam and see to the release of some of them to whatever nations they hailed from. It wasn't wise to keep them inside the Gate indefinitely, and even if Shiv didn't have so many negative thoughts towards them anymore, that didn't mean he trusted them either.

  "Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" a feminine voice cried, piercing through the choked silence. The corner of Shiv's lip quirked as he realized who was coming. Siggy pushed her way out between two looming automaton mercenaries, both of them resembling iron bunkers held up by tiny legs. Siggy, meanwhile, had undergone a change of attire since Shiv had last seen her. She had foregone her armor in exchange for a waistcoat. It was a mix of burgundy and blue, and it gleamed bright beneath the azure light of the Gate’s core. Shiv noted that the light curved and poured in unnaturally, even with the refugee quarter built directly over the mercenary compound. Siggy's short legs moved in a blur, and she ran across the open-air gymnasium where most of the mercenaries spent their time. She arrived just under Shiv, and she waved up at him.

  "Deathless? Deathless? You don't need to worry! We behaved ourselves!" Her fear chain was a magnitude denser and thicker than all the others. Shiv had left an impression on her, a deep and traumatic one.

  Slowly, Shiv descended, and as he did, he collapsed his helmet, revealing his face. He could see her take a step back, see all the other mercenaries bunch up into groups, and slowly retreat. As soon as he landed, Shiv leaned down and smirked fully at the little goblin. "Yeah, I can see that. How you guys doing? Any problems around here? Anything you need done?"

  Several mercenaries gawked at him, taken aback by his friendly demeanor. Elves, humans, goblins, Umbrals, and even automata reacted the same way: their bodies tensed, wondering if this was a trick. And in part, it was. Shiv had shown them that he was capable of both generosity and extreme violence, and they had to consider both possibilities. It was his edge when dealing with them, but he didn't want to build a continued relationship on those terms. Eventually, exhaustion would overtake fear, or he would find himself in a situation where they would be granted an opportunity to strike back. Shiv didn't want to be running a prison camp, and he was pretty sure Adam felt the same way.

  "Haha, nope!" Siggy said after catching herself, speaking a little too enthusiastically and loudly. "We're perfectly fine here. Everything's been great. The Arachnae Order has been taking care of us. We've had no problems, none whatsoever. Right, guys?" She looked at the other mercenaries, and an agitated glare made them tense all over. "Right?"

  An uncoordinated series of confirmations and agreements flowed out from all sides. Some of the mercenaries were nodding so hard that Shiv was worried they might hurt their necks. He let out a breath as he took in the exaggerated display. "Alright, alright. I'm not here to kill or scare any of you. You can relax."

  They didn't relax. Shiv didn't blame them.

  However, his next words provoked a much more positive reaction. "I am here to bring some good news. You guys will be getting the chance to leave soon. The surfacers can leave through the surface gateway once we get you registered with the Gate Lord. Once he clears you, and if you're ready to go, we'll let you cross through the bunker. Understand that you'll be in Republic territory, and you'll probably have to deal with the Prismatic Guard, though. If you have a problem with them, then I suggest you wait or you leave through the Abyssal gateway, though that might take a while longer—unless you want to risk getting involved in a little war between the orcs and the vampires."

  And suddenly, a great many nodding heads turned to desperate shakes. Shiv scoffed. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, Siggy, if you could do me a favor, gather up all the mercenary leaders, have them write down where they're planning to go, what they need, and if there's anything else we need to know. You give that note to one of the Sisters, and they'll see that the Gate Lord receives it. Oh, and I want to talk with the mercs from Lone Star before they leave. I got a special request for them.”

  Shiv immediately spotted the mercenaries in question with how much more fear suddenly flowed across several chains.

  "Alright, got it, boss!" Siggy declared breathlessly. But Shiv also detected something else in her voice. A hint of hope that she might soon be free. And that reminded Shiv of why he disliked her so much before. These people were slavers, or a party to slavers. Shiv considered if it was justice simply releasing them, but decided that he didn't want to participate in the System's bloodletting. There was little justice in the world, but he could still do good.

  "There is a final thing I want to say to you," Shiv said. Once more, everyone around him tensed. Was now the moment he would unleash his wrath and leave them in ruins? Take one of their lives? Play with them?

  Shiv cleared this throat. "I understand what you guys were. I understand what you were doing. Understand that you could have justified it in any number of ways. Slavery is disgusting. That's what I think. And if I run into another slaver, I'll probably kill them all over again. Me letting you go is not forgiveness. Me letting you go is my exhaustion. It's us deciding that we don't want to host a prison camp, which means you get a second chance. Deserve it? Don't deserve it? Doesn't matter. You're getting it. But I'm going to ask you something, as a favor for us giving your lives back to you: Do the right thing next time. Find a better business. You want to make some money? Cool! Just don't make money using someone else's suffering. The world's got enough of that. I hope you understand and remember how easy it was and is for me to hurt and kill you. I didn't do it. Sometimes I thought about it, but I didn't. I don't want to be some monster. I don't want to be some animal. We can be people. All of us. We can make our skills matter. We can use them for something that's good. Compact’s Lords of Law wouldn't have given you this choice. Lord Scorn wouldn't have given you this choice. Most people wouldn't have given you this choice. Don’t make me regret this."

  His words rendered the mercenaries glass, just like they did Cripple. Using Rhetoric in tandem with Sticks and Stones felt right. It was more satisfying to make someone brittle with speech alone and leave them shaken. As much as he loathed Veronica, Rhetoric really was a wonderful skill.

  Rhetoric 10 > 17

  With that said, Shiv gave the wide-eyed Siggy a final nod and blasted up into the air. But the moment he left, he heard her call out to him, asking him to stay, saying that she wanted to tell him something. Shiv didn't. If she wanted to speak with him, she could find him later. He'd done enough service for a day. It was time to fulfill his own needs. It wasn't just the orcs that had an itch to scratch. Just because Shiv didn't want to kill and bleed for the System didn't mean he was beyond a little bloodletting if his allies were more than willing.

  He reached the bunker bottlenecking the Tutorial Gateway in little time. And the moment he touched down, he found the Culturist waiting for him, arms folded, a serene smile on his face, and eyes hidden beneath his cowl.

  "Culturist," Shiv grunted. “You wanna do some iron-on-iron? I got some time now.”

  "Deathless," the orc replied. "There is a new air about you. Gentler, yet also more purposeful. Have you understood something about yourself?"

  "It's more like I stopped giving a shit about a bunch of things, especially what the System wants. Listen, I'm planning to head over to the Tutorial. You want to scratch your itch? You wait a while, and I'll be there. But before we get down to the blood and the guts, I'm going to have to do something with my Court Leviathan."

  "Want some help?"

  Shiv nearly jumped at the new voice coming from behind him. Turning, he found Gone standing there, flanked by Five, Tulveg, and Candles, who was currently more ash than flame. The poor Pyromancer looked and sounded like someone going through withdrawals.

  Studying the former prisoners, Shiv raised an eyebrow. "With what? The orc killing or the Court Leviathan?"

  "Both, either," Gone said with a shrug. Her fingers twitched. "Tired of standing around, tired of having nothing to do."

  Shiv nodded. He could empathize. "Alright, well, I think I'm going to make a kitchen out of a Court Leviathan."

  "A kitchen?" Five said, tilting his lupine head like that would help him decipher Shiv's words. "Is this code for something?"

  "No, I'm literally going to start a restaurant inside a Court Leviathan. I'm going to fly it across the land. I'm going to cook people food, and they're going to eat inside my Court Leviathan. That's what I'm intending to do in the future."

  "And you… intend to do this while the Republic is still hunting you?" Five asked.

  "Yep. Doesn't matter, and I don't care."

  The Aviary agent blinked. "Well, that's respectable, if a little foolhardy. Are you sure you are alright? You’ve been through a lot.”

  "Getting real tired of people asking me that,” Shiv replied. “If that's the response you want to hear.”

  Five held up his hands, metallic claws glinting in the light. "I meant no offense, of course."

  "You never do, Five," Shiv said with a light sneer. "As far as I'm concerned, you're all free. You can do whatever you want to whomever you want, so long as you are ready to deal with the consequences. If you head over to the Tutorial with me, I won't make you fight the orcs. However, I would appreciate your help with setting up the kitchen."

  Rhetoric 17 > 19

  "Any of you ever work in a kitchen?" he added.

  Gone shook her head, the movement a blur. "Nope. But wouldn't mind trying." She stared at Shiv, and a strange expression played across her face. "Would I get paid?"

  That took Shiv off guard. "Yeah, sure, I can pay you. I'll need to figure out how much. I never handled that stuff, but I think Georges' old notes should give me an idea about fair wages and all that." That made Shiv wince. If there was a part of running a kitchen he didn't look forward to, it was wages and other accounting. Shiv wasn't that good at math. He wasn't that good at a lot of things. Still got a lot of skills I need to improve.

  Shiv considered the rest of them. "Tulveg, why are you here?"

  The Legendary vampire shifted awkwardly, running a hand through his curled, raven-black hair. "Ah, yes. Mettabon's daughter... She is avoiding me. That strange elven Headmaster claims she needs more rest and sends me away when I attempt to speak with her, but I have seen her receiving various other people…"

  Shiv pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you trying to get me to set up a meeting between you and my girlfriend to discuss your sort of romance with her dead mother?"

  Tulveg cringed slightly, but nodded.

  Shiv closed his eyes and just breathed. "Fuck’s sake… At least you're honest. I'll think about what I can do. We're gonna have to handle this shit sooner or later. Just like we're going to have to handle the things between Jessica and Roland, Jessica’s grandkid… Shit, relationships are a lot of godsdamned trouble."

  "That is all I can ask from you, Esteemed Deathless." Tulveg bowed. He placed a hand on his chest, left mostly bare by his silver vest. "Actually, I have another individual I would like your aid in making my acquaintance."

  "Just how many people do you want to talk to, Tulveg?" Shiv grumbled. “Please don’t tell me you have another mysterious dead lover.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  "What? No. It is the one you call Angelo. The other child of the Divine Ichor. Another Liberated who has unchained himself from the aberrant ways of the First Blood. He avoids me too—for reasons I can't fully understand."

  Shiv let out a very long breath. "Yeah, sure, I'll bring it up with Angelo the next time I run into him. But, uh, I don’t think he’s that excited about being around other vampires, even if they're also against the First Blood. It's a psychological thing. They destroyed his community. Did things to the people there.”

  “Wretched. But I think I can give him a measure of peace through power.” Tulveg attempted a smile of gratitude toward Shiv. His facial muscles didn't seem to be acquainted with the concept.

  "So, you still want to come into the Tutorial with me and do the kitchen stuff?" Shiv asked.

  Tulveg froze. "Ah, no, I'm not truly interested. I apologize. I mainly came to ask you for favors, and I decided to queue behind Gone, for she was the first to arrive."

  "And at least you're polite too," Shiv muttered. "Hey, Tulveg, if you want to make yourself really useful in the meantime, you can go outside and work with Helix to harass the First Blood. I'll be sending more orcs over too, and having someone without the itch around to make sure they don't butcher the slaves and refugees would be great.”

  The Legendary vampire's nostrils flared in outrage, but Shiv cut him off with a raised hand.

  "Look, I know you two don't like each other, but you can be useful. You don't need to like each other to work together. Besides, I need Helix a little bit unbalanced. I need him a little annoyed. That's when he's at his best."

  Tulveg narrowed his eyes at Shiv. "Do you simply wish to use me to bully this orc of yours?"

  Shiv paused. And then grinned. "Yeah, it's kind of fun. Consider it a favor for a favor.”

  A low, chortling series of laughs followed as Tulveg threw his head back in amusement. His throat sounded like it was confused about what noise to make as well.

  "Hey, Shiv, my guy, my man, listen," Candles said through a raspy throat, unable to stop himself from interrupting the conversation anymore. The Pyromancer scratched at his neck and looked from side to side, fidgeting. His body had deteriorated again, more of a charred husk than the male elf Shiv had seen a glimpse of in the Outside after Candles burned many of the Fingerlings.

  "You got something I can burn soon? ‘Cause it's been a while since I've seen the flames dance."

  "Shit," Shiv said. "I should have let you deal with the garbage earlier. But don't worry. You can burn some orcs. Oh, and we can have you handle the oven. If you're up for that."

  "SoundsgreatI'minlet’sgo!" Candles practically squealed, grabbing Shiv by the shoulders and shaking him.

  And with a new team formed with this group of tagalongs, Shiv turned to face the Culturist. He sized the Legendary orc up. "So, you still feeling like you want to be part of this brawl?"

  Somehow, the Culturist managed to look downright adorable when he grinned. Probably a deliberate attempt to mock Tulveg's inability to control his facial expressions. "I wouldn't miss it for the world, my dearest Deathless."

  "Great. Just so you know, if we win, I'm going to reach into your soul and destroy things. Things that won't ever heal right. You're gonna regret trying to do that metamorphosis shit with Adam."

  "Oh? And who is going to make me regret? You? This band of addicts and traumatized victims?"

  Shiv just sneered. "You didn't need to describe yourself twice, Culturist. Isn’t that what the Challenger made you? A violence-addicted, philosophically traumatized victim?”

  The Challenger is roaring with laughter.

  And a bit of the Culturist’s amusement vanished as a slight frown overcame his grin. "I must admit, Deathless, you are proving uncannily good at jabbing at someone's psychological weaknesses. I saw you inflict the despair upon poor Cripple earlier."

  "And you still decided to do this with me. Culturist, have you considered the fact that maybe you're not broken? That maybe, among all the orcs, you're just kinda stupid?"

  That set the Culturist off like a bomb. The orc threw his head back and laughed uproariously. "Oh, the temerity! I'm going to enjoy our time together, Deathless, and I'm going to reward you for granting me so much amusement by beating you unconscious as many times as it takes for you to become a perfect Pathbearer."

  "Yeah, well, let's hurry up and get to the fighting, because if we keep talking with each other, I'm afraid I might do to you what I did to Cripple."

  And instead of being offended, the Culturist seemed to take that seriously. "Perhaps you just might. Perhaps you just might…"

  ***

  Deafening cheers rumbled from outside the Court Leviathan. The air itself was an endless series of thunderclaps. Orcs were gathering on the battlefield, each one clamoring for a chance to fight the Deathless. A main event was taking shape in the Tutorial: Team Deathless vs. 500 orc Heroes. And should Shiv and the others survive that encounter, the Culturist would then enter the fray as a dessert after the main course.

  Despite Shiv's bravado, something told him he was likely not going to get the better of the Culturist today. But also that the Culturist was less of a risk to his life and the other prisoners than most of the orcs were. The orc Legend was likely going to scratch its itch good and deep using Shiv, but he didn't mind. It was just an improvement, and frankly, this reduced the risk of Adam suffering any unnecessary harm.

  But peace came before carnage, and Shiv spent some time within the inner confines of his Court Leviathan, laying out all the kitchen appliances he'd secured from Monster Mystery Meat before he and Adam had burned the place down to avoid the Inquisition taking note of what had transpired there.

  He had ordered the orc Biomancers aboard the massive beast to reshape a sizable portion of its interior into that of a kitchen. Rooms that were once separated by pulsating organs and dense layers of bone were consumed into sludge-like biomass and then remade until everything resembled a wide-open cavern. It was at the very back, next to the captain's quarters, where the kitchen was constructed. Courtney's shape-shifting capabilities always left Shiv in awe. But now, after his experiences examining spell patterns and shapes, he could better understand the exact magic that was unfolding before him, could glean certain details that might provide him further insight into his own Biomancy. His Aegis of Assimilation allowed him to shape spells and create organisms without directly risking his own biology. And so, Shiv played along, trying to emulate what the Court Leviathan did. Time and again, he formed dense clusters of tumors along his mana hydra. But that was fine; failing was part of the fun, and these cancers would be the material used for a new whip, one that he would apply towards his defense as well as offense.

  As the space for the kitchen reached the end of its bio-excavation, Shiv ended up achieving his first success as well. It wasn't a major leap for his Biomancy, but he did manage to alter bone into blood without causing any cancerous cascades. And that was quite a feat indeed. Being able to turn someone's blood into bone or a bone into blood was an easy way to kill them, especially if you applied it just right. A small fragment of bone at the center of someone's heart was a subtle and insidious assassin, after all.

  Aegis of Assimilation 132 > 134

  Atlas of the Flesh Scryer 115 > 117

  And that's another lesson for me, Shiv thought to himself as he created five logistical golems to speed up the process. I gotta keep thinking smaller. Everything I've done before was too big, too loud, too nasty. We gotta focus on the little things. Little things make up big things. That's how the world works.

  With Gone’s help—and almost exclusively Gone’s help, because Candles was busy undergoing brutal withdrawals and Five proved to be what Georges might call a “shitfucking slacker”—the facilities and stations salvaged from Monster Mystery Meat were set up within the kitchen space nested at the very core of the Court Leviathan. Thanks to Gone’s Legendary speed, they tested several different layouts in quick succession, each one appraised by Shiv's experienced eye. He knew Georges preferred a central island where several stations were pieced together, and where he could quickly assist anyone who was failing in their tasks or close to being overwhelmed.

  Shiv found himself more inclined to the inversion of that. The various stations were placed along the walls, and the center of the room was left entirely open, making it easier for one to launch themselves from place to place. There were a great many differences that separated Shiv and Georges. Among them was maneuverability. Georges had been an Initiate or Low Adept in Physicality, while Shiv could slow the pace of time and could move at an astonishing speed. Getting from one end of the kitchen to the other was no trouble at all, even with it orders of magnitude bigger than that of the Swan-Eating Toad.

  When everything was installed, Shiv stood at the center of the room and spent a few heartbeats taking in the scene. The walls were coated in smooth white bone, so fine in texture that it seemed like plastic or concrete, or a mix of the two, more than anything else. Four swaying nodules of bioluminescence lit the room in a comforting ambience. If there was something Shiv could say about the orcs, it was that they always surprised. They always revealed just how much taste in culture and how much experience they accumulated across their many resurrections at the strangest of times. The interior design was better than Shiv could have imagined. A few of the grayskins with High-Tier cleaning skills even entered without Shiv asking, and they scrubbed down his various appliances. The stations glittered, their chrome polished to a reflective sheen, their damaged and rusted inner mechanisms purified as well, returned to pristine condition.

  Outside the Court Leviathan, Shiv could hear countless orcs chanting his name, bellowing for him to come out and start the brawl.

  Shiv didn't feel rushed. He didn't need to be rushed. He simply wanted to enjoy this and to also commemorate Georges. He wished Georges could have seen this. He wished Georges could have been here. He wondered what Georges might say about his crazy plan to bring a mobile kitchen across the land even while he was being hunted, and that made Shiv laugh. He could imagine the many faces Georges might pull.

  "Are you absolutely bloody insane, boy?" Georges might say. Then the head chef might grab two pieces of bread and place them around both sides of Shiv's head and ask what kind of vegetable he was.

  Shiv's vivid imagination of something Georges hadn't actually done, but the Deathless could definitely imagine him doing was briefly burst as an orc dressed in a maid's outfit walked by him while mopping the ground, humming a tune and singing about how he wanted to break free from something under his breath.

  But soon Shiv's thoughts returned to thinking about his past and his future. Here, it felt like things could be different. Here, he was making a decision to go against everyone's will, especially the System's, now that he knew for sure that it actually had a will that he could actively spite, and that felt right to him. After so much pointless struggle and strife, this was what he wanted: adventuring, cooking, fighting giant monsters, and making a restaurant inside a giant monster. Everything else, all the schemes, they didn't matter. They weren't what Shiv wanted. And if the Deathless was going to be a true Pathbearer, he needed to place his will above all others, within reason, but still above all others.

  "So, you serious about this?" Gone said softly from the side. “The kitchen?”

  Shiv tilted his head and looked down, meeting the goblin's gaze. "Yeah, absolutely. This feels beyond right. This feels like where I want to be. This feels like it can be home, you know? Like it'd be something I can be proud of. I can make something of this. And I know what you're thinking. No, I'm not entirely stupid. It's going to be hard running a restaurant while most of the world's got a big incentive to kill me. But we already live in an insane world. Everything is going to end in strife. So why run from it? Why avoid it? The System's going to do whatever it can to push me deeper into conflicts, and I'm going to tell it to piss off every single time. Because I've got something to cook, people to feed, and a life to live. Strife, battles, levels, horrors, all that be damned."

  Gone looked away for a moment, and it struck Shiv then just how young the goblin seemed sometimes. He was used to Legends all being centuries or millennia older than him, but he also knew that that wasn't necessarily always the case. "Gone, how old are you?"

  "Don't know," she replied. "Doesn’t matter."

  Shiv wanted to dig deeper, but the way she'd responded to that question told him it was a bad idea. It told him there was a wound there, something that hadn't completely healed right.

  "Well, what about your family?"

  She shook her head a single time, slowly, and Shiv realized that was an even worse territory to venture into.

  "Alright, uh, you think about what part of the kitchen you want to work in?"

  "Don't know. Never worked in a kitchen before. But peeling potatoes sounds nice. I like peeling things."

  At that, Shiv grinned. Despite the two false starts, he realized Gone was a goblin at heart after all.

  "Gone, I'll let you peel all the potatoes you want. I'll show you everything you need to learn about working in a kitchen. And anything I can't teach, I'll learn, and then I'll show you anyway. And if you want to leave anytime, you can too. I just want people who want to be here to be here. You don't need to feel like you owe me anything for the escape from the Rubix Well. You've already done more than enough. That goes for all of you. All of you except for Five.” He turned to stare at the wolf-man, who was leaning against a countertop off to the side and fidgeting with some of the cybernetics in his left forearm before Shiv's mention of his name caused him to look up. “Five, I don't trust you. You're a weird Aviary spy, and you're lazy as all hells, but I prefer you being here rather than somewhere else planning whatever fuckery New Albion wants."

  Five nodded and smiled genially, his sharp, metallic teeth showing. "Yes, Chef. Actually, have I mentioned that I worked in a kitchen before? I wasn't a very good cook, but basic sauces and soups, I can do."

  That earned a chuckle from Shiv. "Heh. Prick. Right. Let's see if you can avoid poisoning any of our customers."

  "Oh, we have customers already?" Five asked, almost sarcastically. "Where?"

  "The Gate," Shiv said simply. "We have four thousand extra refugees that we're going to need to feed. We have all the existing refugees that we haven't dealt with yet. We have the mercenaries we haven't processed, the Arachnae Order, and we've got a bunch of orcs too."

  And then a dark but ultimately amusing idea took hold in Shiv's mind. "And we got just what we need to feed all of them."

  "And what would that be, Chef?" Five asked.

  "Well, the Abyss is nearby, and we can gather vegetables from the rivers there. Some of those weeds are real nice. I think I'm going to collect some new mushrooms as well. On top of that, though, we're technically surrounded by meat here."

  "Please don't tell me we're cooking our own kitchen, Chef. That sounds almost sacrilegious."

  "No, not Courtney. Though that will work in a pinch. I'm talking about the other meat." Shiv cast a brief and subtle look at the orc in the maid's outfit who was still mopping the floor.

  Five’s impressive composure cracked slightly. "You can't be suggesting—"

  Shiv gave him a vicious and confident smile. "I'm not suggesting. That's what we're going to do."

  Five started gagging. "Have you ever bitten one of them before? They taste positively wretched.”

  "No," Shiv admitted. "And I don't think most people have cooked one of them either, but I think I can make something of it. That I can make some really good orc meat stew."

  With that, the orc maid froze. A rope of fear snaked out from him into Shiv, and slowly he turned, holding his mop high and shivering before the Deathless. "Insul? What was that you just said?"

  Shiv offered the orc a placid smile. "Oh, you don't worry about it. You're one of the good ones. Actually, stay aboard the Court Leviathan for a while. You'll be my taste tester, even. I insist."

  It took a creative and twisted mind to make an orc feel fear and disgust, but Shiv managed. The orc maid looked like he really wanted to break free of this room and get away from his Insul, but it was too late. Far too late.

  Shiv snapped his fingers. "Alright, we got some of the setting up done, so let's go out there and get our main course ready. We got a few hundred orcs to carve up."

  He shaped his cancer whip and held up his Last Morsel, grinning at the wicked edges of orichalcum that jutted free from the sides of his pitch-black frying pan. Soon, the Deathless would release his stress in another way, and the grayskins would learn. They would learn they'd chosen right, and they would come to regret him as an Insul. He would teach them. He would show all of them.

  “I am the cook,” Shiv muttered to himself, remembering the ancient words Georges had him say when he felt overwhelmed. “I am the cook, and all the world is my kitchen. And all the things that live beneath the sky and beyond are my meat. They are my vegetables. They are mine to cook.”

  "Hells, yeah," Candles slurred cheerily from where he lay splayed out over a stove. "Burn 'em, burn 'em all…"

  Gone simply flicked her claws out and allowed lightning to course across the golden quills growing from her back and head.

  Slowly, the orc maid and Five shared a look. "For what it's worth, I too am realizing just how much of a mistake it was to involve myself with these maniacs," the wolf-man admitted softly.

  The maid just whimpered.

  "You ready to fight some orcs, Five?" Shiv asked.

  "Absolutely not."

  "Alright, well, you're gonna be in the vanguard."

  "I wish to leave."

  Shiv’s grin grew to shit-eating levels. “And I wish Georges would come back to life. But that’s not happening. Sometimes, you just gotta deal with things.”

  A whine befitting an abused dog escaped Five. "When I return to New Albion, the Queen better make me a true noble for this. The sacrifices I endure, they are beyond measure…"

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