Nay had accepted two more quests from her magical quest giver who was somewhere in the sky or was invisible, guiding Nay through this alternate reality like it was her own personal videogame she was playing.

---

[Quests Accepted]

[Entice Lost Customers Back]

[Destroy the Two-Headed Trout]

---

She wondered if the magic quest-giver was a person, an AI or some kind of system guiding her. Something was writing the text in her prompts and menu system. But who? Or what? She wondered if there was anyone on this world who could answer such questions. She had asked Quincy but she just stared at her like she was crazy. He didn’t interface with the magic like her and from his reaction it didn’t sound like anyone else did either.

As she and Nom drank pepper tea in the kitchen, slowly waking up, Nay wondered if there was a Marrow Ability that could help her clean quickly. Her least favorite part of being a chef was cleaning the kitchen after service. Her and Nom had spent almost two hours scrubbing the ovens and tables and sweeping the floors. She would have to find more Marrows. She wondered how to go about doing that, other than just wandering around aimlessly. Her thoughts went to what a fully powered Epicurist looked like. What Delicacies and Marrows were used? What was their full array of abilities? Maybe there was someone else in Stitchdale who was like Quincy and had personal knowledge of Marrow Eaters and the operations on the Peninsula. But someone who had more knowledge in different areas than him.

Nom slurped on his pepper tea. “This stuff is alright, but I’d do anything for a good xloodhawpoer.”

“What the hell is that?” Nay said.

“So, it’s like pepper tea. In that you take it in the morning to help wake up. But you don’t drink it.”

“It’s not a drink?”

“No.”

“So it’s a food?”

“You can eat it, but it’s not recommended. Some like to rub it all over their gums inside their mouth suckers.”

Nay looked at him. “You rub it on your gums? So it’s like a cream?”

“No, it’s more of a powder. I think the most common way is snorting it.”

“Are you talking about cocaine?”

“What’s cocaine?”

Nay shook her head. They never had a chance to have a full on discussion about his world, but she suspected they would be covering that ground soon.

“Do you snort cocaine?” Nom said. “And when you do it do you suddenly feel great, like you can do a million things at once and succeed at every single one of them? I guess if we drank ten entire kettles of pepper tea it might have the same effect, but you would have to pee like crazy.”

“I would be fine settling for some hot coffee.”

Gracie wandered in and sat at the table with them. It looked like she just woke up. She poured herself some pepper tea and held the cup between her hands, sipping on it while closing her eyes. “That’s the deepest sleep I’ve had in a long time.”

“Nothing like hard work to make you sleep like a baby,” Nay said.

They all grew quiet for a moment as they drank their tea and slowly awakened, letting the caffeine filter through their bloodstreams. That’s when Nay thought she heard something coming from the dish room. They all heard the rhythmic noise and looked at each other.

It was someone snoring.

Nay got up and walked to the dish room. There was a sink in here magically connected to the lake. It was fashioned by the same Marrow Eater gnome that Quincy had design and outfit the Lodge. There was a stitchman shaped figure passed out on the floor underneath the sink. It was Pwent, the teenage stitchguy dishwasher. He was snoring away, his head rested on some straw and he had a hide pulled over him.

“Is this normal?” Nay said.

Gracie shook her head. “Nope. Guess he was worn out.”

Nay had made sure to feed Pwent during the middle of his shift last night, so he wouldn’t starve and be able to keep up with the dishes. She had made him wolf down the food because she knew sometimes dishwashers got so busy they forgot to eat until it was too late. In Nay’s experience, she liked to keep the dishwasher’s well-fed and taken care of because not only was it the right thing to do, it made them feel appreciated. Which was important because being a dishwasher was usually the lowest rung on the ladder of kitchen jobs. Take care of them and they’d do the work, and sometimes today’s dishwasher was tomorrow’s sous chef. Everyone usually started as a dishwasher in the kitchens back home and if you worked hard one could actually ascend the ladder.

“We might have to find another dishwasher to help him then,” Nay said. “We’re only going to get busier.”

“Want me to put the word out?” Gracie said.

“Yes, let people know we’re hiring.”

/////////

Nay brought Gracie to the Wharf District with her on the morning trip to the market. They needed more product for dinner again and she wanted the Lodge to be prepared when the place filled all its seats. Plus, the more she purchased, the more she proved to the vendors that they could push their wares and turn it into profit. So the more willing they would be to partner up with her and cut her deals. The more business they did, then she’d establish more of a foothold over the vendors compared to the Two-Headed Trout. And then when it came time, they could truly put the squeeze to their competition.

In Lucerna’s End, aside from the street hawkers selling quick bites to eat and snacks, usually consisting of skewers or kabobs, although there were a few that sold bowls of stew and bread, the only dining establishments that were housed in buildings were Quincy’s, the House of Sacharrine Delights and the Two-Headed Trout.

Quincy didn’t really view the bordello as competition since the main thing they sold was carnal pleasure of flesh. That was their main draw and there really was no way to compete with that unless one opened up another pleasure house. Which would be a form of chaotic suicide in Lucerna’s End. If someone built another bordello in direct competition to Madame Snowstroke and the House of Sacharrine Delights there would be an all-out turf war and its violence would spill out onto the streets. At least that’s how Quincy explained it to Nay.

Which left Wint the Fishmonger and the Two-Headed Trout. Wint mainly worked as a fisherman and fishmonger, and he was smart in that he used his money to purchase a fishing boat he named The Silvertail. As captain of the Silvertail, Wint was ruthless in his control of good fishing spots in Lac Coineascar, often bullying and threatening the other boats, at times even sabotaging if need be. Wint had two children, a brute of a son named Krill and a right bitch of a daughter named Mishell. They weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and there was a rumor going around they had something to do with the disappearance of Captain Skorr, one of Wint’s competitors on the Lac.

A year ago, Wint had used some of the fortune he had been acquiring through his control of the fish market to build and open The Two-Headed Trout, a rival lodge on the opposite end of town. While Quincy’s Lodge was on the edge of the Lac, the Two-Headed Trout was on the edge of the Frostfroth River that flowed from the lake into the rich forest where the lumberjacks worked. The mines were also located nearby. Its location gave Wint access to a lot of the town’s workforce that travelled to these locations each day for work.

The Two-Headed Trout essentially ripped away half of Quincy’s customers. It might have been more honorable if the food and drink was good, but in Quincy’s mind it wasn’t a suitable alternative for the townsfolk. The fish and fowl was overcooked, the ale was diluted with water and whatever swill they were using for alcohol left its drinkers with incredible and mind-ripping hangovers. Quincy suspected that Wint was using embalming fluid he was getting from either the taxidermist or the undertaker, he wasn’t sure which but he sure one of them had worked out a deal with the bastard. And to further heap insult upon injury was that it was grossly overpriced. Its patrons were sacrificing quality for convenience, and in Quincy’s mind that was a damn shame.

All of these offenses were enough for Quincy to take action, but they paled in comparison to the true reason the retired adventurer and Marrow Eater wanted to put Wint out of business.

Quincy simply didn’t like the man and thought his presence in Lucerna’s End was an infection upon the community. The man was a criminal and had left a trail of violence and graft in his wake all in the name of greed. The man’s nature was an offense to Quincy for simply existing. He didn’t like bullies, especially ones that profited off their victims.

All this he had expressed to Nay so she could understand why he was willing to take the risk of using her as an Epicurist. She was willing to take on the Two-Headed Trout because her chef’s sense of ego liked the competition, but the more she learned about Wint and his family and his business the more she thought she might like to be a thorn in his side. Plus, her new spin on cooking was exhilarating and she was just getting started with exploring the possibilities. The threat of discovery by the Culinary Guild wasn’t something that scared her at the moment, because the idea seemed so foreign to her and she was, geographically, far away from the influence of their reach.

Gracie had them take Quincy’s fauglir, an old and silver-haired boy named Al. The fauglir had yawned and stretched languidly upon fetching him, but once he was up and moving his tongue lolled out of his mouth that seemed to be pulled back in a goofy grin. The creature was happy for the excursion. They hooked Al to a cart that he pulled behind him now. They had already half-filled it with more beef, as Nay suspected they would need more for the rest of the week.

She wanted Gracie to see how business was done and what to look for when it came to product. Also, she wanted the vendors themselves to associate Gracie with Nay and Quincy’s Lodge. The stitchgal was a hard worker and took to knowledge quickly, which made her a good protégé to have for the operations and business of the kitchen. Part of being a chef was teaching and passing onto one’s staff knowledge and methodologies, because someone like Gracie could help make Nay’s life easier in the kitchen.

But Nay also found that Gracie had some things to teach her.

“These are called moon melons,” Gracie said, holding up a blue-tinged melon the size of a cantaloupe. But instead of a brown rind, the rind was different shades of blue in a tie-dye pattern. It looked like someone had spilled all sorts of different blue paints on the rind.

“What does it taste like?” Nay asked.

“It’s a bit sour. But some kids love them and eat them like candy.”

“And what’s this called?” Nay said, pointing at a cluster of berries that looked like they were sculpted from ice.

“Crystal berries. They burst in your mouth with a pop.”

“Sounds like Pop Rocks.”

“What’s that?”

“These candies that crackle and pop on your tongue.”

“Oh, sounds similar. Those are common in Reith?”

“Yep.” Nay didn’t like lying to her, but there were things she had to keep secret.

An obnoxious voice rose in volume over the crowd in front of them.

“How dare you try to pawn off wilted crystal berries to me!” it said. “Perhaps I should go see if the proprietor of Icerend Orchards has superior product. I hear he’s meticulous in his pruning and light management when it comes to his berries. Which you clearly have been neglecting!”

Nay pushed her way through the crowd to see a round stitchguy dressed in the clothing of a dandy. The clothes were ostentatious, new and expensive. He had a ridiculous mustache that dropped below his chin on each side and the hair on his head was pulled back in a shiny ponytail. In one hand he had a cane, which he used to whack the vendor on the knee.

“I know who that is, don’t I?” Nay said.

Gracie nodded. “Wint the Fishmonger, before your very eyes.”