I've been all kinds of broken since autumn. Seasonal-onset broodiness eventually became scatterbrained and strangely-blissful disinterest. There were a lot of obligations that got in the way, too, but I gotta admit, there was PLENTY of time I could have been writing (or learning to code).
Oi. I'm hopeless! I'll try harder to try harder. In the meantime, try to forgive me for being me! Unlike my wintertime self, I'm having an incredibly easy time doing exactly that! So I imagine it'll be easy for you, too.
This episode starts here, and the latest chapter is below. If you bother reading this chapter, help me look for gender pronouns that don't apply to the Chef (she doesn't know or care about anyone else's genders, so all the other monsters should be 'it' or 'they!). Also, she's blind (in the present day), so please let me know if I accidentally wrote her seeing something. Bon appetit!
Chapter 4: Ingredients
Eight remained, if her count was right. Should she assume there were more? Of course I should! That was both the safer and more tantalizing option. Today had been so generous, why should she hope that would cease?
The rabble had only annoyed her, at first; that lesser fare had never factored into her count. Even now they continued their petty squabbling, punishing some starving specimen when it got too impatient or being slaughtered by their mature cousins when they ventured too close.
She’d lost herself to fury when one of the vermin dared nibble on her most recent prize. Eventually that rage gave way to gratitude when it lead her to this melee. The old corpse, which she still dragged by the leg, was a pittance compared to these riches.
Such splendor had to be treated with suspicion. Is the Curator trying to lure me into enslavement again? She would rather die than let that happen, yet this was the exact way she’d do that, were she him. Grand as she may be, she was only one among countless resources available to him. Was she worth such an elaborate ploy? Could she risk this?
As if I could resist.
If the Curator could conceive of such a trap, she would fall for it. This bait was too good. Luckily, this wasn’t a trick; too many mongrels were dying, the Curator would have assumed control before losing so many thralls.
So she scanned the crop to catalogue its cream. It would be easy to grab one of the countless weaklings, but she wasn’t here to just fill her stomach. As the Chef, she lived to collect the primest ingredients and combine them into something even greater. This could be her greatest entrée yet!
Her targets all hid their specialties; they didn’t need them to snuff the occasional invalid challenger. She'd need to bait them into revealing those traits - those who might spoil other ingredients would need to die before they could.
She counted eight, and that number wasn’t changing anymore. If there were any others, they were probably waiting for some of the eight to be vulnerable. The battle was stagnating, which meant it was time to intervene.
Give the fruit a squeeze.
She bounded toward the middlemost specimen. The dumbest of her targets were experienced enough to recognize this cue, and the smartest weren’t good enough to see through the feint. She was certain, because none of them were her.
The others didn’t make her wait. They leapt to intercept the Chef or flank her target. Two of them collided when she came to an abrupt stop, and her first victim succumbed to the others. The interceptor on her right was so focused on the Chef that it tried to disentangle itself to come after her, but its collider preempted this by breaking its spine.
The Chef watched her handiwork with satisfaction. Bruised, but ripe. Two were down, and they were killed by unspoiling means. A good start.
Five of them were now committed to a free-for-all, but the spinebreaker turned its attention to her. She didn’t consider it much of a threat, but it would complicate her observation. It was quite a Brute, and therefore difficult to subdue without her ability. It was far too early to be cooking anyone, after all. She’d have to focus on this and hope the others didn’t use any tactics that would spoil their competitors.
This one shook the ground when it moved, and she felt vibrations on the air when it grabbed for her. She could even hear its blood rushing through that magnificent form. The Brute couldn’t hurt her this way; she let the blows flow all around her like a reed in a river. It might as well be trying to smash water.
This type had a natural disadvantage against hers, but its sturdiness was an obstacle in this situation. She didn’t want to kill by cooking, and that was the only way she could penetrate so many layers of armor and muscle. It wasn’t a threat, but as she dodged and probed for weakpoints, the Brute was becoming quite the chore.
As she pondered the nuisance, something acrid drifted her way. Panic rose as she ducked under her attacker’s swiping and ran towards the larger group. Someone was playing with chemicals, and that was the one way they could ruin her meal!
Which was the source? The chaos didn’t lend itself to that discovery. Fighters danced in and out of the fray, and blood was interfering with the scent. The Chef didn’t know how she might locate her target as she dove into the brawl, but she was determined to do something.
Bladed limbs sliced the air all around her, and not even her exceptional grace was enough to avoid all the damage. Occasional points would gash her armor, and while the underlying flesh was barely scraped, she soon discovered the center of this maelstrom was a poor place to find the information she needed.
The Brute bowled through a grappling pair as he chased her, trampling one as it did. Another specimen greeted it with a slash, but only managed to knock itself off-balance against its girth. She was still its focus, but at least it had the courtesy to make itself the others’ problem while it chased her.
The stench became stronger as the chaos intensified. The Chef’s agitation rose as her investigation wore on. Each combatant, one-by-one, demonstrated how they couldn’t be the source of the smell, which meant that entangling herself in the melee was a mistake. Someone escaped her count, and that someone now had the advantage.
She needed to disengage and find them, but her opponents kept her trapped in combat. At this rate, the acrid Stranger might kill and consume them all, and she panicked at the prospect. The only fate more humiliating than becoming one of the Curator’s thralls would be as an appetizer for some pedestrian.
She put her hands on the Brute’s shoulders to vault over it. Her hand slipped mid-maneuver, which allowed her attacker to knock her down. Rolling away from a couple of improvised stomps and stabs actually allowed her to escaped the battle.
It wasn’t planned, but the Chef was relieved by this clumsy outcome. She climbed to her feet and clacked her hands together to shake the dust off. The fine, acrid dust from the brute’s shoulder, the dust that caused her hand to slip…
In this moment of clarity, it seemed obvious the source would be hiding above them. The branches were exceptionally high here, and that would help this creature spread its powder over a larger area.
She rolled the powder between two fingers as she considered; she had no idea what it was doing to her. It hadn’t affected her yet, as far as she could tell. Nor were any of her targets reacting. The Stranger hadn’t won yet, and if they were still hiding, that victory wasn’t certain.
A crack and a cry brought her attention back to the fray. The brute tossed half of someone to either side as it broke free of the crowd. I’d resent that tenacity if it weren’t so appetizing.
The smell was still growing stronger, despite her distance from the crowd. Was the Stranger as obsessed as her bullish stalker? If so, perhaps the brute wasn’t the obstacle she’d thought he was.
The best chefs know: to get food, you give food.
Unfortunately, the familiar flurry of attacks was accompanied by labored breathing and pained grunts. The Brute was fast and strong, so much that its stamina was bound to suffer. She’d planned to fake distress, but was that still an option? If her ploy wasn’t convincing, then the target would know what she was trying to do. That might make them flee, and she might never have another chance to try that ingredient.
The Brute lost its balance trying to grab her and fell on its face. She had an epiphany as it struggled to rise. I could always fake the other kind of weakness.
She turned her head as though scanning the surroundings - an act, she had no eyes - then slammed her heel into the back of the Brute’s head. Pinning it in its prostration, she leaned over and jabbed a claw into a gap in its armor. The beast snarled and bucked as well as it could, and the Chef pretended like she enjoyed its pain. She’d seen others do this; never understood it herself, but she only needed her target to believe she did.
A scraping sound came from high above her, and her mood soared. With this, her best dish ever would become even better.
She waited a full second before sliding out from under the Stranger’s pounce. It landed so lightly that the Brute didn’t even seem to notice a newcomer on its back. With a grunt of frustration, the Stranger leaped after her, but the Brute surprised them both by grabbing the Stranger mid-flight. It gripped its entire bottom half in one fist and tried to push itself up with the other arm.
The Stranger screeched its fury and dragged on hand across the top of the Brute’s skull. A flinty scrape prompted a sparking sound which culminated in a chronic hiss; the powder on the Brute’s head ignited and burned through armor and bone in seconds.
The Chef breathed a sigh of relief, then licked some of the dust off her hand. She’d feared this was a contaminant, but now she thought it might be a good spice. The Stranger deserved her gratitude for this introduction, and she intended to show it.
The Stranger squeezed out of the dead Brute’s fist and sprang after her, but she no longer had any reason to run. She met its charge by grabbing its neck and ducked under its arm when it reached to ignite the dust still clinging to her armor. Once behind her prey, she wrapped her arm across its chest to lock its movements.
It thrashed with all its might, but the Stranger was too small to compete with her strength. The Chef ignored the sparks it made when its flinty fingers rubbed each other and released her tendril from its aperture under her back shoulderplate.
The prehensile appendage snaked up and around to point at the Stranger’s nape. Just a spritz to the spine. It musn’t suffer; must know of the care with which I’ll prepare. It must understand my gratitude.
The squirt was inaudible under the Stranger’s struggling. Steam wisped then billowed from the point of impact as her sauce ate through the armor. If the Stranger ever realized it was dying, the Chef couldn’t tell from any change in its flailing. It came to the same abrupt stop as its breath when the marinade seeped into the spine, and the Stranger finally slumped into her embrace.
You’ll be savored, friend, you and your unique spice. I’ll cook you up right, serve you with dignity. They’ll praise us, acknowledge you as the best flavor they’ve ever had.
She paused at the thought. They? When had she planned on sharing? There was a time when she cooked for others, cooked for them more than herself. Before this moment, she couldn’t remember the last time she entertained these memories. What sparked them now?
Images of tables and patrons filled her head along with thoughts of schedules and menus. It had been a routine existence, scurrying about the kitchen collecting the same ingredients into the same cookware to hope the alchemy of fire would yield some new taste. The images conjured forgotten emotions of safety and belonging.
Things are so much better now. She wouldn’t have to share the Stranger with anyone. These memories were as vivid as if she’d just experienced them, but she couldn’t comprehend going back to that life. She could treat her palate to an endless variety out here, and that was worth far more than her sense of sight or safety or whatever other comfort she’d forgotten along the way.
Focused on her thoughts, the Chef was slow to heed the rush of feet behind her. She dropped the Stranger and wheeled around, but her attacker was already cleaving at her midsection. At least she was experienced enough to not fight against the force of the blow; she let the arm-mounted sickle lift her off the ground instead of forcing it to plunge deeper into her abdomen.
She landed on her feet several steps away and audited the damage. She was bleeding, but the cut was shallow. Her instincts and armor had saved her from evisceration. Between her ecstasy over the Stranger and the confusion from those ancient memories, she’d forgotten all about the other ingredients.
She might have been grateful to the victor of that brawl if she weren’t so furious. She leveled her fist at the weary champion and squeezed the appropriate bladder. A blob of sauce blasted out of the hose running along her underarm and splashed into her attacker’s chest. It looked down in confusion, then panicked as the fluid ate through its armor and into the nerved tissue underneath. It fell on its back and tried to wipe the gravy off, but this only allowed the melting to spread to its hands.
The Chef cursed herself and strode back to the Stranger as its death wail diminished into silence. She tossed the Stranger onto the smoking corpse and moved to collect the Brute’s body. There was still time to cook everything properly, but she would have preferred to be more methodical about it.
Whosoever brings me the most from this collection of heads will become my newest Curator. She’d been so focused on her task that she didn’t notice the rodent skitter up her back and onto her shoulder. This one is worth three of the others.
The human faces meant little when she didn’t have eyes, but luckily the memories included enough sounds and smells for her to identify them. Processing this mission wasn’t her first priority, but she took enough interest to ponder it as she piled the rest of her ingredients together. So this fight was engineered? It wasn’t a trap, it was a test!
It meant the old Curator was dead. This was excellent news! The Chef pointed her fists at the food pile and briefly considered the various sauces stored in her body. So the Miracle wants a replacement. It would bless me as it blessed the old one, wouldn’t it?
The Chef remembered what it was like to be under the Curator’s control, to hear his thoughts in her head and live with the constant threat of having her consciousness switched off. She knew she didn’t have the affinity for that specific ability, but she also knew there would be an equivalent that suited her. How frequent would meals be with such power?
She mused over the possibilities as she meticulously basted her prize.
Eat your heart out, Emeril. BAM!
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