Bringing the piece of fish to her mouth, Lirael bit down on it. She didn’t expect much from the dish. As long as the fish wasn’t raw or charred, she would be content. After all, her aunt owned a prestigious restaurant chain in the Capital and dedicated chefs served her family. Her palate was a pampered thing. It would take much more than the culinary prowess of a human slave-boy to impress her. Or so she thought.

Lirael’s eyes widened as the fish-steak melted in her mouth in an explosion of flavour and texture. Cutting past the crisp, spicy skin, her teeth reached the soft, savoury flesh within. The flesh of the Blood Carp tasted like pricked thumbs and papercuts, the coppery tang merging with the heat of the spice, massaging her taste buds and numbing her tongue. She chewed. She swallowed. She bit down again. And again, till her teeth clicked shut on empty air. A slight blush coloured her cheeks as she became aware of her impropriety.

“Ahem.” Clearing her throat to regain her composure, she laid the fork down on her plate and turned to Sand with her eyes glittering with curiosity. “It’s delicious! Extraordinarily so. Especially the spice. I’ve never tasted anything like it before. Where did you get it? And how did you learn to cook?”

Before Sand could answer the enthusiastic barrage of questions, she patted her forehead. “Oh, look at me being rude.” She gestured to the empty seat across the table from her. “Go ahead, have a seat. Igor, Vlad, you too.”

Sand was slightly startled at her willingness to share a table with her Thralls. He had noticed the three extra chairs, but he had expected for her to finish her meal first before allowing them to partake of the food. Slaves always ate after their masters. That was the way of the world.

Casting a glance at the two Thralls and seeing them take their seats, he too seated himself gingerly, keeping his eyes on the table. Lirael speared another piece of fish with her fork and placed it on his plate, grinning when he looked up in surprise.

“You three are my retinue not my slaves. Either Vlad or Igor would unflinchingly offer their lives up in my service. It is but fitting that I treat them with the requisite respect that deserves. As the newest member of my retinue, that courtesy extends to you too. Much better than a pit slave in the Arena, hmm?”

Bowing deeply to hide his expression, “Thank you,” he said softly.

‘Grateful? For what? Nearly having my consciousness erased? I doubt either Vlad or Igor were particularly grateful when you bit them.’ he sneered inwardly. But when he raised his head, there was no trace of discontent on his face, only the awkwardness of a boy unused to kindness.

“Go ahead,” encouraged Lirael, “you’re the one who slogged away to put this together. You deserve a taste while it’s still warm.”

Forgoing the cutlery, Sand picked up the piece with his bare fingers and took a bite. ‘Not bad,’ he appraised mentally as he made short work of it. ‘Could do with some salt.’ He'd done his best with the limited resources he had on hand. He was satisfied with the results.

Only when he was done did Lirael broach the subject of his cooking again.

“So,” she began as she put another well-done piece onto her plate and a rare one in front of Leo, “where did you learn how to cook?”

Gathering his thoughts, Sand replied to Lirael’s question. “Actually, I wasn’t meant to be a Gladiator. I was scheduled to be sold off to a restaurant as a kitchen help. But I displeased my supervisor in the caravan, and he sold me to Master Kreg instead. It was an accident..." Wetting his lips, he continued, "I learnt how to cook at the oasis settlement where I was born. It was my job to help prepare food for all the slaves there. When I turned ten, I was brought by the caravan to the city to be sold.”

As Sand spoke, Leo tore a chunk out of the fish-steak and gulped it down. Suddenly, his expression grew strange. His nose twitched a few times before he sneezed, twin streams of cold air jetting out freezing the plate. He shook his head to try and dismiss the irritating feeling, only to sneeze again. This time with enough force to make him draw back a few steps, sending his hind legs off the edge of the table. His fore-claws drew scratches on the wood before with a startled yelp, the tiny blue lion dropped off the table. Sand couldn't help but smile at the indignant snarls of the spirit interrupted by sneezes coming from beneath the table. It seemed that Leo didn’t deal well with spicy foods.

With a sigh, Lirael reached beneath the table and picked the distressed lion up. With a wave of her glowing red hand over Leo’s nose, she healed his ailment and he settled down in her lap shooting mistrustful glares at the fish and at Sand.

Having comforted the lion, Lirael turned to him. “You mentioned the oasis before when you told me that you learnt how to play the panpipes from a busking musician who passed it by… How was it like living there?” she asked curiously.

“Well, it wasn’t bad. All the children were raised together in one big group. We didn’t know who our parents were, but all the new mothers nursed us until we could be weaned. The women worked together to take care of us till we old enough to work. Then we were fostered off to one of the Orc households in the oasis at random. That household would teach us a craft like tailoring, cooking, or housework until we turned ten. After that the caravan would take us to the various cities to try and sell us off.”

"They would sell all the children above ten? That doesn't seem sustainable."

Sand shook his head. "They seemed to have some rules using which they selected those who would join the caravans. I don't know exactly what they might have been but I noticed that no male slave in our oasis was over twenty and female slaves would only be sold after they had borne two children."

Lirael took a bite of her food, chewed, swallowed and nodded pensively, “That’s an interesting way of going about it. They teach you a craft and that raises your selling price. In return, the household probably gets a cut of the profits. And by following those 'rules' of theirs, they have a constant source of income.”

For a moment, they both watched in silence as the transparent hummingbird pecked at the frozen steak to crack the ice before swallowing down a morsel. When nothing untoward happened to it, turning to Leo, the avian spirit chirped merrily, taunting him. Snorting disgruntledly, the lion turned away, ignoring the boisterous bird. Vlad and Igor were stuffing their faces, emptying the tray at an alarming rate.

Although Sand should have been used to it by now, he was once again struck by the casualness with which an entire race was treated like livestock. 'Constant source of income indeed...' he self-ridiculed. 'That's all we are to them.'

Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, Sand refilled his plate and went about filling his stomach. The Blood Carp, a magnificent specimen, had a lot of mana infused in its flesh and every bite pushed him further down the path of magic. For now, all he could do was grow stronger on Lirael's coin. Even if he wanted to change the world, he didn't have the ability to do so.

Lirael too focused on her dinner and other than the clatter of cutlery and the sounds of mastication, only the bickering of the two Core Spirits interrupted the silence at the table.

"Oh right!" she exclaimed suddenly. "You didn't tell me about the spice."

Leaning back in his chair, Sand replied, "I found a use for the toxic bones that you have been feeding into the Dungeon these days. When I tried to absorb the poison out of them using my Undead Marrow shard, they turned into bone dust. Some dust got into my mouth and I found that it had a really strong flavour... Since they had already undergone the processing of my shard, I wasn't worried about poison so I tinkered around with it. In the end, stirring the bone dust into water, straining it through a piece of cloth and then boiling the remaining solution to dryness gave me powders that had the same taste as the bone dust residues. Different bones with different toxins in them - I found - resulted in different kinds of spice powder. Mixing the powders into Weeping Willow marrow gave me the paste I used to marinade the fish."

Lirael's eyes widened and she stared at him open-mouthed for a moment before devolving into a fit of manic laughter. She shot to her feet, knocking over her chair and displacing the lion on her lap, much to its chagrin. Ignoring Leo's roared protests, the Vampire Princess rushed around the table. Throwing decorum out of the window, she grabbed Sand by the waist and spun him around in the air, laughing happily all the while. Setting him down, she kissed him - a big smack on the cheek.

"You... you beautiful thing. Do you know how much money you just earned me? You don't, do you? Ahahaha." Spreading her arms wide, she twirled on her feet, her resonant laughter spreading out into the Dungeon. The entire world seemed to brighten as if responding to her happiness. Coming to a halt, clasping her hands in front of her chest, she turned to Sand with her bright crimson eyes and a wide grin plastered on her face. "A new source of spice. An entirely new industry! If I turn the method in to the clan, I'll be swimming in contribution points. If I patent it, I'll be drowning in gold and every eatery and restaurant will be eating out of my hands. If I hand it to my aunt, her restaurant chain can become the largest one in the entire Capital. Maybe she'll even be able to open branches in the other four Vampire nations... maybe even beyond..."

Her eyes lost focus as she fell into endless daydreams of wealth and success, muttering under her breath all the while.

Sand finally managed to regain his composure and pick his jaw off the floor. It seemed that he had once again inadvertently set events he had no control over into motion. Events that - it seemed - would have a considerably large impact on the world.

'Well... damn.'