237

  Cover-Up (II)

  "I still remember where the oven is," Velly declared. Nornsong didn't say anything. She rushed over to the back of the kitchen immediately and promptly crawled inside the dormant oven.

  “Please, turn my crust golden, Deepest Midnight,” Nornsong cried aloud.

  “Oh, gods,” Adam said. “What demented skill did the damned fae give you?”

  “The kind that makes food march and prepare themselves,” Shiv said, seeing some potential here.

  And soon Shiv quickly discovered that heat and deformation inflicted no true harm on those awakened by the magic of the fae. Nornsong’s and Vellys' bodies both swelled, the dough bending and developing a brilliant texture. The Chef Unwavering triggered, but it was only useful in a secondhand way. It allowed him to tell which parts of the bread-made chefs still needed more work. Using that, Shiv shouted out orders to his two pieces of bread, telling them to mould themselves in certain ways to let the heat seep through and affect their very core.

  Leadership 6 > 7

  The Chef Unwavering 75 > 77

  Several times, both Velly and Nornsong shifted their entire being, cycling their insides to the outsides. This made them particularly well-fried pieces of dough, better than anyone could do without the application of a bit of personal Pyromancy.

  And through it all, they remained undamaged. Undiminished. Functional. And as they were cooked well, the orange glow of the fae mana grew brighter. Bits of their vitality slipped away, but they were still glowing bright at their cores. Shiv guessed they would be able to endure it for another few hours before they finally ran dry of the life essence that sustained them.

  "Alright," Shiv breathed, watching as the two chefs baked themselves. "That's kind of creepy, but also really, really useful."

  "I expected more joy from you," the Fae-Knight said from his cage, where he'd sat down on the cooking station, letting his legs dangle over the ledge.

  Shiv thought about it and then shrugged. "Yeah, I guess it's a nice workaround, but..." He clenched his fists. "I still need to get rid of this Curse. It's not me. I'm not doing it. I'm just telling the food to shape itself into certain ways. It also needs me to kill people to feed them to the damn heart. So, uh, yeah, not really feeling all that much joy."

  "You're a strange one, Deathless," the fae declared. "I would have expected you to be pleased.”

  "Well, let's just say you still have a lot to learn about humans." Shiv rubbed his face. He noted he was in need of a shave soon. He hadn't really had any time for that recently. "Alright. So. Coming up with a story here for this entire mess: the chefs at Monster Mystery Meat took some Faebread. They got Cursed by the bread. They got turned into bread—"

  "And what about the survivors?" Adam asked, nodding in the direction of the traumatized chefs.

  "Well, uh…" Shiv paused. "Well…"

  "Perhaps I could be of assistance there," Cullywier said. His eyes flashed bright blue, but then there came a glow of translucence. A translucence that ebbed out in the world like a gelatinous membrane. The air around the fae was shrouded, and Shiv’s Shapeless Tides began to rattle. "I've been known to be persuasive when talking to certain people. I cannot rewrite or destroy memories outright, but I can make them misremember certain things. Make the scene more of a tragedy than a butchery."

  "Cullywier," Shiv said, "are you asking me if you can use your mind magic on the remaining chefs?"

  "It is simply the most applicable option we have, and it will not do any harm. They will just remember things slightly differently."

  Shiv sighed. “I don't like it, but I don't like most of this. Alright, updated plan. Here's what we're gonna do: We'll make the survivors think that their coworkers were contaminated by Faebread magic, serve Nornsong and Velly to the customers as some kind of fucked-up final flourish—a final goodbye thing on their part and a symbolic artistic thing—and then we burn the restaurant down.”

  “Gods,” Adam groaned. “That’s your plan?”

  “Best I got right now. But before that, I’m gonna need you to open up a dimensional pathway. We'll get the orcs to come over. There are some things we need to move.”

  Shiv started staring at the cooking stations and various appliances with naked greed.

  Adam did a double-take. “Really, Shiv? It’s not enough that we're making copies of people bake themselves, rewriting memories, and committing arson, we’re adding theft to our misdeeds as well?”

  Shiv placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. “Adam. As much of the kitchen as possible deserves to be saved. It’s the best thing I can do.”

  “For yourself, you mean,” the Gate Lord said dryly.

  “For the art of cooking. The dead chefs would have wanted this.”

  “And because you’re going to be testing this horrible ‘infusing ghosts into ingredients’ skill to counter the Curse, won’t you?”

  “We’re gonna be murdering a lot of Inquisitors soon, Adam. Them, and who knows what kinds of other bastards. I just want their deaths to mean something aside from giving us levels. It’s the most ethical thing we can do.”

  Rhetoric 1 > 3

  “Shiv,” Adam said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It would help if you actually sounded like you believe your own words.”

  “I do believe my words. I believe that I can’t take losing all these beautiful cooking appliances, and I want Can Hu to downsize them and put them in my cape. Or move them over to Courtney. It’ll destroy me to see all this lost.”

  “And the horrid truth reveals itself: The urge to loot undoes another Pathbearer.” Adam shook his head. He brushed Shiv's hand off and prepared a Veilpiercer.

  “You’re the best, Adam,” Shiv said with a hint of cheerfulness.

  “It really doesn’t feel that way,” Adam muttered.

  “Well, you should trust my feelings more than you trust yours. I have a higher feeling-related skill than you.”

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Technically accurate, but mostly bullshit.

  Adam narrowed his eyes at him.

  “Can I come out now, O Deepest Midnight?” Velly asked from inside the oven. The elf’s and lizard man’s bodies were twisted and bent in odd ways, both of their heads were pressed against the glass, and they grinned at him, happy as could be. “I am beginning to feel my arms peel apart from the heat. I believe I am crust enough now.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Huh?” Shiv said. “Oh, shit! Yeah! Come out! Come out, quick!”

  Both Velly and Nornsong were bright-white and aglow with a pristine aura. As the oven’s flames were silenced, Shiv pulled the door open, and the now-baked bread-people rose to their feet before Shiv. Chunks of textured breadstuff fell from them, but aside from that, they seemed altogether fine—even jubilant.

  “Does our current state please, O Midnight?” both of them spoke at once.

  “Gods, that’s unnerving,” Adam nearly whispered.

  Shiv, meanwhile, saw more than a little potential. If he could infuse just enough of vitality and Psychomancy with that heart in all his food, maybe he could have a kitchen handle itself. A self-cooking kitchen…

  “There’s potential here,” Shiv said, nodding. “Lots and lots of potential.”

  ***

  “...And so, dear customers, I must tragically offer myself to you as food, for it is the only way to make meaning of my life now that the terminal condition of the fae Curse has taken hold,” Velly concluded mournfully as another customer carved a small piece of him away. The room was solemn, more akin to a funeral than a feast, and a few people were openly weeping. Bread-Velly was mostly missing his arms and legs by now, and as the large, hammer-bearing automaton from earlier stomped over and took a chunk out of Velly’s chest, it made a sobbing noise.

  “I will miss you, Chef,” the automaton groaned. There came a slight quaver in its robotic voice. “You and your wonderful meals. No one prepared dishes like you. No one pursued the excellence of food and the wonders of delectable delights like Monster Mystery Meat.”

  Another sob escaped a nearby elf as she shoved a piece of Velly into her mouth.

  “Do not weep for me,” Velly said. “I go to the Ascendants with pride. I have followed my Path to its end. Though I progress no further, I know that no one else has walked the Path of the Chef as true and devotedly as I. My only regret is that I have but one bread-body to offer all of you—beloved customers of my adopted home.”

  More tears followed. More customers arrived to take chunks out of Velly. Nornsong had been eaten a while ago. In the corner of the room, Shiv watched on in the guise of Marcus Unblood. The entire affair was absurd, yet Monster Mystery Meat operated on extremes when it came to the food offered. No one questioned this to be Velly’s desired final end. It was regarded as a somber, but also honorable, conclusion to the life of a trailblazing master chef.

  As more people partook in the breaking of Velly’s bread body, the lizard chef looked up and sighed in content. “Weep no more, customers. Know that this is how I want my tale to end. Weep no more, and feed. For the flesh that I will give is the finest bread of your lives! Your lives, and the lives of this world. And give thanks to our newest Commis, Marcus Unblood, for aiding and ensuring that this final, dignified moment of ours might still come to pass.”

  Heads turned in Shiv’s direction, and he bowed in a display of respect. The act was genuine on his part, but this was also a means for him to argue for credit from Matlock later, after the “tragedy” at Monster Mystery Meat fully concluded.

  All in all, Shiv was a mess of feelings. He had evolved two different skills and gained an odd Fae Skill to make up for his temporarily disabled Cooking. On top of that, he'd looted a great many wonderful ingredients and kitchen appliances, and yearned to have them installed in his cape—or perhaps aboard Courtney once they regained access to Gate Piety.

  In the meantime, he continued playing the role of saddened newcomer as cries sounded from beyond the front doors as well. It sounded like quite a mob was gathering outside, shouting their best regards for Monster Mystery Meat. A few people had to be restrained and kept out when they desperately tried to partake in the so-called “last meal and flesh of Head Chef Velly,” but beyond that, there were no other disturbances.

  And so, as he watched another group come and carve away what remained of the head chef’s neck, Shiv sighed and wondered if this was going to be the case for every restaurant he entered. He came to Monster Mystery Meat for a novel experience, to do a bit of cooking, and to get extra credit.

  He left with more skills, a fae prisoner, most of the cooking facilities looted, and a deep hatred for Maiden. Outside, the sky was getting darker, and he would be reporting in for his first shift as a medic for the 301 class soon.

  “Can’t believe this felling day isn’t even over yet.” He was still pissed deep inside, but with Sage of the Enkindled Heart, it was more boon than burden.

  “Well,” Adam said telepathically from inside Shiv’s cape. “All’s horrible that ends horribly.”

  “I mean… There are some bright sides?”

  “For the chefs?” Adam nearly hissed.

  “Ah, no. They’re dead as shit or getting mind-wiped. And my Cooking is still jacked up from the Curse. So. Gonna need to look into fixing that eventually. Felling… Might have to talk with the Educator later tonight. Speaking of, you should probably head back to the coliseum after we finish the arson cover-up.”

  “Please don’t call it that. I feel terrible enough as it is. But… No. I think I’ll stay with you a while longer.”

  “Really?” Shiv was surprised. Adam sounded pretty mentally exhausted about this whole affair.

  “Yes. Mainly out of fear that something even worse might happen after this—No, I’m sure something bad will happen after this, and I might as well be there and close by when you need my help.”

  And despite all the horrible shit that had happened, Shiv managed a slight smile. “Well. I don’t know, Adam. Maybe things won't be that bad later. This whole thing has been pretty felling weird and really bleak. And stupid. All this because someone stole some bread from the wrong world… Shit. I just can’t see how my first shift as a medic will top this.”

  No response came from Adam. The silence was withering.

  Shiv grew uneasy. “What?”

  “Shiv. What possessed you to say that?”

  “I’m just saying, based on my experiences, it’s one crisis, and then we get a bit of time to—”

  ***

  “Marcus! Thank the Ascendants you’re here! We need everyone we can right now!”

  Shiv didn't even have a chance to voice a greeting when Maxime Van Stormhalt laid eyes on him. There, outside the front steps of Last Chance Sanitarium—Phoenix Academy’s grandest on-campus hospital—a small army of Biomancers and healers was congregated. The Young Lady of House Stormhalt all but slammed a white beret on Shiv’s head and chucked a set of healer’s robes against him as she pulled him deeper into the mob.

  Last Chance Sanitarium was built like two massive crystalline hands clasped around a rising tower. A beam of pure Biomantic mana speared up into the clouds from the apex of the tower. There were teams of magi in the surrounding airspace, and they had the tower layered in a hive of circulating spell patterns. The mana coated the central tower, while the doorways leading to the twin hands remained open but guarded by a small army of armed militia.

  “What—what’s happening?” Shiv gasped. He had returned to campus immediately after setting Monster Mystery Meat on fire and had no idea what was going on. There were people all around them, and they had the look of Pathbearers about to enter a battle, rather than healers ready to treat patients. “Why’s everyone outside?”

  “Two rogue Morbomancers are fighting each other inside the hospital,” Maxime growled.

  “Morbomancers?” Shiv asked, completely lost.

  “Biomancers specializing in magical diseases,” she explained. “Former faculty. They were married to each other, but then their child got sick, and—well—he died earlier, and now they’re blaming each other for his death. They’re jumping across the bodies of our patients as shifting strains of diseases.”

  “They’re… they’re turning themselves into diseases,” Shiv said, trying to conceptualize the situation. “And attacking each other? In the hospital.”

  Maxime nodded grimly. “We already lost the Oncology Ward to the Cancer Dimensionals they’ve unleashed. We need to take that section back before they breach Pediatric and Emergency.”

  A notification suddenly loaded before Shiv’s eyes.

  Hero-Biomancer Huell! Hero-Biomancer Morgana! We understand you are in pain, but this cannot continue! You are endangering the other patients at Last Chance—as well as your fellow Biomancers. Please submit to militia custody immediately!

  Shiv's mind struggled to process everything that was happening. “What the hells…”

  “I won’t blame you if you want to sit tonight out, Marcus, because this is about to be one hell of a shift. We’re preparing to go in with the rest of the militia. Hero-Biomancer Van Erren’s still missing, so I’m picking you as my apprentice if you’re willing to stay. I won’t lie to you, though—this might get bad. Real bad. If things go wrong, and I tell you to run, you need to listen.”

  Shiv’s right eye twitched. I just… got done burning down a felling restaurant, System. What is this shit! What the fuck is wrong with you!

  “I told you,” Adam said. “I told you not to provoke it so many times before. I felling told you!”

  Book 5 of Path of the Deathless is fully written and available on ! Book 6 is ongoing. (Over 400,000 Words Advanced). Current release schedule is 1-2 full chapters/5,000-10,000 words daily.

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