The "kitchen" was a hut, a singular, large undivided space. On its center there was a massive cauldron, large enough that it might as well have been a repurposed jacuzzi. A jacuzzi that frothed and boiled with vegetables moving to the surface and spreading across the foamy surface like colorful archipelagos.
The scent coming from the pot was something that seemed edible if you squinted at it really hard.
The scent from the rest of the room made that certainty falter.
It was as if someone had taken week-old trash and dumped it on the floor. The stench of rotten fruit and vegetables lingered in the air, thick with the humidity brought about from the monumental boiling cauldron at the center of the room. Certainly, Rick was a slave here, but would it be too much to ask for at least basic hygiene standards with the stuff you shoved into your face? The world might have been one of fantasy with its signs of technology where there was gold to pay for it, but this was just absurd.
He'd been inside termite-riddled taverns that hadn't caused as much of a desire for him to get drenched in rubbing alcohol.
Rick calculated his chances of catching a disease just from breathing in the air and did not like his odds.
“Ah, we have a new helping hand! Welcome! Welcome!”
Standing within the mountains of half-rotten spoils and fresh vegetables was a man of dark olive complexion that had clearly seen better days. He was tall, with a coarse unshaven black beard around his round chin and a friendly smile that skewed with exhaustion at the edges. Despite being dressed like a beggar in rags, with his hair and beard damp with humidity, there was a friendly edge about the guy. An openness to the body language that almost felt disarming. It was in that casual charm that Rick could spot the frayed edges, the bags under the eyes, the light tremble of fingers, the tension in his shoulders.
It clicked when he saw the scars on the man’s arm, wounds that had badly healed over, ones that were too uniform for them to have been anything other than by design. This was a man who'd not been treated kindly by his captors.
“Hello…” Rick hesitated, only now realizing he'd yet to see anyone with such a dark complexion in this world. Was the man not of this kingdom? Or from a different part of it? There were still so many things he didn't know... particularly about the various cultures of the world. This kingdom was not exactly a well connected one.
“You’re the runner.” The man declared, nodding empathically.
The Orc that had brought Rick shrugged him off of her shoulder, leaving him to play the role of undignified sack of flour. “He works food.” For someone so brutish and thick, the maiden was deft when she wanted to be. Her fingers brought a chain from the wall and clamped it to Rick's metal collar.
“Just so we are clear.” The stranger declared, wielding a half-chopped… carrot? “I was not born into this world to find trouble I wasn’t already looking for.” His hands patted his scarred arms. “I can find it on my own.”
"If I could avoid trouble, I wouldn't be here." He replied wryly. "I guess the same could be said about you."
The tall man gave him a humorous grin, more earnest now. "True enough. But men need to stick together and this tribe has too many with scornful gazes to foreigners." He set the carrot on the table, chopping it up and tossing it into the broth. By the looks of it, the area the man was working on was one he'd fought to ensure was not a health hazard. “Such are the whims of Fortune.” An honest smile peeked through the beard. “I am called Yasir Lodi. May the sun be kind.”
“Rick Cross.” He replied in kind, nodding. “What’s the job here? We just try to survive against whatever emerges from the muck or the pot?”
Yasir laughed. “We try to put things into the pot.” He pointed at the gigantic cauldron. “And the others eat from the pot.”
"Do they expect us to survive the meal?"
"Rarely do the sun and blood eaters see the meals of men and homes to be anything more than bare survival." He combed his fingers through his hair, letting out a heavy sigh as his gaze lingered on the scars of his arms. "Which makes the displeasure of the night maidens all the more whimsical."
"I've never heard those terms used before."
Sun and blood eaters, fitting terms considering the maidens of the Orc genus could survive with very little food so long as there was plenty of sunlight to go around. The other one clearly referred to the Ghoul, though by the looks of it, there were more maidens of her ilk than he'd initially thought.
"I have spent much time at sea, and on the dusty roads." Yasir replied cryptically, a coy smile on his lips as he thrust the next vegetable on a protrusion on the table. "You strike me as a well-travelled man as well."
"Something like that," Rick said. "Anyone else to look out for?"
“Depends.” Yasir replied. “The sun eaters will respect the fragility of men, but the same cannot be said for the others. Most of rabble are maidens that have found the kingdom rather disagreeable as of late. Those will be the likeliest to have a short temper. Especially with someone who’s not sworn enmity to the King.”
Considering maidens were considered property in the kingdom, that wasn't much of a surprise. Rick was more interested in the Orcs and their ilk, however. The Ghoul was clearly in control, but the green maidens appeared to be a step immediately underneath that. "And how would one go about gaining the favor of the tribe?"
“Willing humans are well appreciated.” Yasir spoke darkly.
Not wanting to pay much thought to the undertone of that statement, he focused on the task at hand. “Might as well get to work. Do we get knives?”
“We get the table.”
The table was almost twice its own height in food, all of it vegetables and fruits. The pile was half-way to rotten, with just about every article being nearly unrecognizable. Moving the pile was a mistake, as it only helped release the stench. "This should be compost, not food."
"Such is Fortune's whimsy." Yasir spoke with a wry smile, making a gesture at the table. "Careful, it comes with the tools."
Rick saw what he meant as he continued to clear out the pile. The table surface was covered in sharp grooves, spikes, and odd indentations. Many of them had holes underneath them, making their utility that much more of a mystery.
As if to answer his unspoken question, Yasir used one of the sharp grooves to cut a potato, peeling off the skin with graceful ease before thrusting it into one spike and using it to cut out the bad parts. It was as if someone had merged every imaginable kitchen tool into the table itself. Rick took a vegetable to test it out, and found the wood to be as sharp as a knife, making the table into one gigantic health hazard for the cook's fingers.
“Orc-wood. Hard as steel and just as capable of cutting if sharpened.” Yasir declared, going back to his work with sureness that made it look easy. “Makes us fortunate, does it not? The tables are sturdy. Good to hide under if the roof ever falls on our heads.”
"Why not just give us knives made of this stuff?"
"Orcs craft it by infusing their power into wood. If there is not much wood, then a mistake would make for something to be tossed into the fire. Few Orcs have the temperance or patience to make anything smaller than a spear." Yasir sighed slightly, shaking his head. "Even less for slaves. I recommend caution first. The healers here are not well practised."
Rick picked his first victim: a turnip. "I have a healer. She’s great at it.” He declared idly.
“Have… or had?” Yasir asked in a careful tone.
The only sound within the room was that of the slow bubbling cauldron. The air was hot and humid, clogging the air and exerting a suffocating pressure. Something about the way Yasir had asked it, the way he looked at Rick, there was an edge to it. Rick quietly chopped up the vegetables, trying to figure out what the man's angle was.
“Both you could say.” He answered slowly. “How long have you been… a guest here?”
“No shame in calling things by their name. We are prisoners.” Yasir spat at the side, the happy mask falling to reveal the anger. “They killed my Hamia and doomed my wife. They are raiders."
Ah, that had been the source of the edge. "What happened?"
“Sinco is a small city, easily shook. A good merchant is the one who reads the tremors. Fortune turned her smile from me, however.” Yasir's hands stopped moving for a moment. “It has been over a month, but at least I was not given the black tooth, or I might have been sent away with the human women.” And in an instant it was gone, hidden under the friendly smile. “You come from afar, perhaps from the Northern Empire?”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Not really.” He grimaced as his body ached. Just being in that stifling room was reminding him of the battering he'd gone through. “Do we have to peel and chop it all, or can we just toss the whole thing in?”
“I thought that, at first.” The man stroked his beard, staining it with vegetable juices. “But everyone eats from the pot, and many came to visit that day to complain. There were few words and heavy fists.”
Yasir shuddered, returning to his task. Rick frowned as he did the same. “English isn’t your first language, is it?”
“Is that what it is called? I know it as the language of the Northerners. Yes, I grew up in the Sea of Pearls. My father’s tongue of the tribes from the Deep Sands.”
“Sounds like you come from an exotic place."
Yasir chuckled. "Anything is exotic if it comes from a far enough place. But such is the life of a merchant, no? To bring exotic things and seek handsome payment for their efforts."
Rick wasn’t too sure how to answer that, nodding along and trying to focus on not losing a finger. The juices wouldn't take long to pool, turning everything he touched into a sticky mess. Still, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, beets… the variety was astounding. How had they gained such a wide selection? Though the production process had been no less impressive than its variety. With the heat and humidity, he couldn’t help himself, mind wandering. Would the bandits move locations once the soil was entirely depleted? Or had they merely developed this farming technique because of their need to be on the move... Maybe that was the point. To only be on the move when certain the danger had passed.
It spoke to experienced nomads.
"Is this enough for the entire camp?" He asked, rubbing his chin in thought and trying to do the maths.
"The sun eaters bother little with meals when there's not a cloud in the sky," Yasir said. "Most of it will go to the captive ferals, so that they can feed the blood eaters." His face turned into a pained grimace.
The man shrunk back into his work, and Rick was left to do the same, wondering, thinking. They were prisoners. They needed a way out. Monica and Dia hadn't shown up, and Kiara was clearly looking for an opportunity. Was he meant to just sit tight and do nothing, wait to be rescued? He did not like the prospect any, but he was missing too much information.
He'd focus on the work for now, lie low, and watch carefully. The strain from filling up the boiling pot in the dizzyingly hot room was not helping his focus any, but at least breaks were frequent, if unpleasant. Sitting down on the floor that was chock-full of discarded pieces of the ingredients wasn't exactly luxurious. Fortunately, the waste products would get swept up and taken away by some maiden or another from time to time.
Photosynthesis. Was that how the Orcs were getting around some of the dietary needs? His mind turned towards chemistry. No, there was no way that the process would provide the maidens with enough energy. Not under any sense of the chemical reactions from his world. If photosynthesis could provide that much power, trees would be far more mobile. Photovoltaic reactions then? Heat? How much electricity could a theoretically perfect solar panel produce with the surface area of one beefed up green lady?
The solution could only be the magic-elemental bullshit.
But his answers might lie elsewhere.
He glanced at the vegetables. They'd grown them practically in days, elemental bullshit or not. If they could grow them out of nothing, they wouldn't need to farm them. So was the bullshit merely speeding up the process? Then the soil would be depleted, eventually. There had to something he could use that made sense to the base rules of physics.
Inertia existed. Eva could lift several times what he was capable of, but she was still half his weight and just as easy to push out of the way.
And if that was the case, the chemistry of the farm… He'd grown up in one, he knew the chemistry just fine. Nitrogen, Potassium, and Magnesium? Rick knew the first was the key ingredient for fertilizers. But also for many types of explosives. Nitrogen’s triple bond was violently strong, after all.
It had been too long since he'd just stopped to think. There had always been something to focus on, survival, running away, making sure Monica didn't murder anyone... but now, relatively alone, suffocating in the steamy room? There was nothing to do but think. It was with glassy eyes that he watched a group of red-haired maidens pick the pot as if it weren't steaming hot and carry it off, bringing it back mostly empty.
The only break had been to sit down and eat some of their own stew.
It was thick, leaving him parched. “Could I have something to drink?” Rick asked, glancing at the man with the bucket.
“Sure, here.” The blue-skinned maiden shot him a toothy smirk.
And just like that, he was drenched from head to toe. Without missing a beat, the maiden then filled out the pot with water.
Yasir chuckled, watching the maiden laughing her way out of the hut. “You have much to learn.”
Rick glared at the empty door, feeling like the refreshment had been more of a blessing in disguise. “We need to get out of here.” His gaze fell on the now murky water. Matter out of thin air. It couldn't have been from the ambient, it was still as cloyingly annoying humid.
“May Fortune smile her crooked teeth at you.” The man chuckled. “Though I doubt you will find your answers in the cooking pot. I have tried. There is nothing but soot and grease there.”
Rick's eyes remained glued on that murky greenish water as they worked to make dinner. It appeared like this would be their routine, and there was a simplicity to routine. "Everyone eats from this soup?"
"Just about. Not that there's anything strong enough it could incapacitate a maiden."
Silence followed, back to work. The red-headed Hobgoblins showed up soon after, and threw glowing pieces of wood under the pot. The fire roared under the giant cauldron, smoke billowed with the steam and escaped through the hole at the top of the hut. And Rick kept his eyes on that fire.
A domino had been set off inside his head. He remembered that first day of teaching chemistry, the eager edge to show off and inspire. Using dusts to change the color of the bunsen-burner's flame in a pyrotechnic display. Chemical reactions, that was what it all boiled down to. Chemicals. From food to air to the very fire. He'd worked with far more dangerous things than simple flames. Compounds that required checking how many layers of physical protection there were between you and the substance that would painfully end you.
The smell of rubber, latex, ammonia, and almonds.
His foot tapped to a song that existed only inside his head.
An old song blasted him down memory lane.
> Baby, can’t you see I’m calling?
It was a question that brought a quirk of the lips. Curiosity in his simplest form. How would these maidens contend against the substances that made chemists shudder? Would an Orc’s durable skin and regenerative powers make them less susceptible to fluorine? Or would it just make it worse because of their demise would take longer? Would they be able to outright negate its effects?
Rick couldn’t help himself. He hummed.
> I need a hit, baby, give me it
His hands moved with ease. The work was automatic now, mind trapped in formulas, benzene rings, beakers. He greeted them like old friends… well, except the benzene rings. Still, he was remembering it now, all those years ago, when he’d been the student, when he’d seen his teacher make water boil and freeze at the same time by messing around with temperature and pressure.
Rick chuckled when he thought back to the first acid burn. And what about the first accidental run-in with ammonium sulfide? And all the subsequent intentional ones afterwards! How many stink bombs had that been? Dozens?
> I took a sip from my devil’s cup
And now he looked at the table again, at the vegetables and the oils and the smoke. Perhaps it was the heat or the humidity or the exhaustion. Probably both. Rick looked at them and imagined the long lists of chemicals each of them contained. The image flashed, of the Sorceress taking aim at him, and the gesture alone keeping Monica in check, frozen in the space between them.
Monica, who would've won ten out of ten. Pinned in place, hesitant.
Because the threat had been aimed at him.
At the human.
It was so simple. The maidens didn't matter. None of them. No matter how tough, strong, agile, fast. Not even if they had special brands of elemental bullshit that would ignore physics. Not even if they were bulletproof. Their presence or lack thereof changed nothing. They could be immune to the worst and most dangerous chemicals on the planet.
It still didn’t matter.
> Don’t you know that you’re toxic?
Because the humans weren't immune to acid burns, or smoke, or fire, or anything else. And maidens without humans were nothing more than a handful of days away from becoming ferals. Wasn’t that exactly how the bandits had been operating? Just ruthlessly aim at the weak-point. Remove the biggest gun from the field, take control.
“How many of the humans in the camp would you say are willing participants in this… little tribal banditry?”
Rick slowed down, his hands were shaking. Was he really considering this? Was he really looking for an excuse? Why?
“Most, I would claim.” Yasir eyed him skeptically. “The unwilling that had not caught the eye of someone in the tribe were sold as slaves, sent off to the lands of the night maidens.”
“But you are here.” Rick pointed at the chain. “And so am I.”
“Fickle Fortune. I am here because the Ghoul finds my complexion... as you'd said, exotic. I can guess at what will occur once she finds something else that catches her eye.” He answered with a bitter laugh. “What of you? Why are you here in chains and not somewhere less troublesome to our captors?”
It felt like cocking a revolver, a metallic click that made his adrenaline shoot up. “There’s a new dangerous maiden about these parts that wants me around.”
“You have the look of a man about to do terrible things.” Yasir’s gaze had shifted, a scowl on his thick brows.
Rick hadn’t looked up from the latest victim of his peeling and cutting efforts: the humble chopped potato. He looked at its starchy yellow surface, taking a long moment to bounce it in his palm. How much would he need to kill the humans? The maths weren't in his favor. Even less if he considered most every human in this world had some maiden in them. When you had five maidens in your direct ancestry, you shared in a bit of the bullshit.
It would take more than they had available. But did he really need to kill them? Or just hold the metaphorical knife to their collective throat? How much of a false threat could he make to create an opening for escape... or rescue?
“You’re smiling, though.” It was with a simple toss that he sent the tuber into the pot, splashing as it sank under its frothing surface.
“One of the first things a merchant must learn is to identify fools thinking their visions in the smoke are prophecies.” He stated. “You do not strike me as a fool.”
"I've got plenty of people who'd disagree."
Yasir nodded. “Then I only need to know how I can help."
Because no one could ever be sure there wasn't a maiden with good hearing walking about. Rick nodded. The bubbling cauldron frothed and bubbled, the scent of every ingredient they’d put into it mixing and dancing together into an unholy concoction.
"Even if we do everything perfectly, there is one more ingredient we have need of." Rick smiled in amusement. "A very big cat."