There was a knock on her door, and then it creaked open. She turned her head to see Elaine walking in.

“Wake up. We’re going to be leaving soon,” she said.

“What?” Anna asked.

“Bralla offered to take us with her when she goes out for more food today. Want to come?” Elaine asked. Anna slid off her bed and went to get her dress.

“Did I sleep in?” she asked.

“Yeah, everyone else is up,” Elaine replied.

I never sleep longer than the others. I wonder what’s going on?

She pulled her dress over her head and then wrapped her belt around her waist, fastening it tightly around her. She picked up the token and put it over her head, fluffing her hair out to allow the strap to rest against her neck.

She followed Elaine out of her room, closing the door behind her. When they walked into the living room, everyone was sitting in chairs with children running around, squealing as they played. She noticed two new faces, both dwarf men.

They must be Lobar and Eriben. I wonder which one is which? I hope I don’t have to ask. That’s always weird.

There was a tray on the large table that had piles of flatbread along with a dish that had a greenish white substance in it. There was also a pot, but it had a lid on it, so she didn’t know what it contained.

She walked over to the table and picked up a plate, figuring she had enough time to eat.

“Spread the cream on the bread and pour the syrup over it,” Thokri said.

“Thanks,” Anna replied.

This is like the cheese bread I ate at the capital, except that cheese was from a goat, and they poured honey not syrup on it.

She spread the cream on the flatbread with a wooden spatula. The cream didn’t smell at all like anything made from any kind of milk she’d ever had before.

It smells like some kind of mushroom…

She paused at the thought of milking a mushroom but then shrugged it off. She took the lid off the jar and using a spoon, dipped it in the thick black substance and drizzled a generous amount over the cream. She placed the spoon next to the jar and put the lid back on when finished.

I guess I’ll just treat it like the cheese bread at the capital and fold it in half. I can carry it around like that too!

She folded the bread and then took a bite. It was sweet and creamy just like the cheese bread had been at the capital, though the taste was different. She ate it in a few bites and then went to sit with the others. She never really got hungry and didn’t want to eat all their food.

“This is Lobar, and this is Eriben. That’s Anna, lads,” Thokri said.

Lobar was a black-haired dwarf, and Eriben had the same brown hair as Thokri.

“Good to meet you, lass,” Lobar said.

“Aye, good to meet you,” Eriben added.

“It’s good to meet you, too,” Anna replied with a smile.

“Did you get enough to eat?” Bralla asked.

“Yes,” Anna replied.

“Are you sure? You only had one piece of bread,” Bralla said.

“Yep, I’m fine,” Anna replied.

“Well, we better get to the market. Got to get there early to get the best meat,” Bralla replied.

She got up and grabbed a shoulder bag that was hanging next to the door. The party got up as well.

“See you lads later,” Thokri said.

“Aye,” Lobar said

Eriben just grunted.

They followed Bralla out of the house. Thokri grabbed the cart and started to pull it behind him.

“How far is the market?” Anna asked.

“Oh, not far, just a few blocks,” Bralla replied.

I wonder if it’s like the markets we passed. I mean, they were just really big buildings with pictures of food ingredients on the side.

The streets were fairly empty as they walked with most dwarves at their work for the shift. The few out on the streets were either working or drunk or both. They were dwarves after all.

Anna watched one such dwarf staggering around with a bottle in his hand. He looked at the party for a moment before getting a mean look on his face and throwing his bottle right at Voekeer. Anna took a step forward and snatched the bottle out of the air before it hit her friend. The drunk dwarf looked at her stupidly for a moment as if he couldn’t comprehend that someone had moved that fast. She shook the bottle and found it to be mostly full. She took a drink and discovered and strange new taste.

Hmm, that’s at least half booze, but why does it taste like, I don’t know, rocks or something?

“Hey, what is this stuff?” Anna asked, handing the bottle over to him. He took a sniff and then spat.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Bah! Stone cutter nasty shit, lass. Just dump it out,” he said.

“Why’d you toss that at me?” Voekeer asked.

“He’s so fucked up he don’t know, lad,” Thokri said.

“DON’T KNOW MY HAIRY ASS!!! HE’S A FUCKING POINT EAR, AND HE DON’T BELONG DOWN HERE!!!” the drunk shouted.

Anna threw the bottle and bounced it off the dwarf’s head, knocking him over. The bottle smashed against the street nearby while the dwarf rolled around on the ground, holding the side of his head.

“Good throw, lass,” Bralla said, grinning at her.

“Thanks,” Anna replied.

“Come on, we’d better get going before he gets back up,” Voekeer said.

“Aye,” Thokri replied.

They reached the market twenty or so minutes later. The building was just as big and just as covered in food paintings as the ones they’d passed on the way to Thokri’s house. There was a younger dwarf standing next to a bunch of carts. Thokri pulled their cart over to the dwarf and set it down. He tossed him a coin, and the dwarf nodded at him.

They went into the market with Bralla in the lead. Anna looked around as soon as she walked through the oversized door. The inside was a massive open space filled with row after row of open stone boxes that contained all manner of foods and other things.

“We’re going to need a lot, so you lads grab those hand carts and follow me,” Bralla said.

Thokri and Voekeer walked over to hand carts. They were really just smaller versions of the cart they had brought with them. Each of the men took one.

I wonder why people always ask men when they need to carry things or drag a cart around? I mean, I know everyone says that women are weaker or something, but all of them are pretty weak honestly.

Bralla walked off, and the party followed her. She headed straight to the far end of the market where she stopped in front of a long counter that was covered in dried blood. Behind the counter, dwarves were cutting up huge chunks of meat with long sharp knives.

Wow! Look at that! There must be at least twenty different kinds of animals all cut up back there!

“I need fifty pounds of cavern rat meat!” Bralla said in dwarven.

“Aye!” one of the dwarven butchers replied.

“Do what now?” Anna asked.

“It’s fine, lass. We raise them for meat,” Thokri replied.

“Oh, okay,” Anna replied.

“Don’t tell the others, lass,” Thokri added.

“Why not?” Anna asked.

“I want to see the look on their faces when I tell them they ate a rat!” he replied grinning.

“I don’t get it. What’s wrong with eating rat?” Anna asked. Thokri laughed.

“Nothing at all,” he replied.

I don’t get it. I mean, rat tastes pretty good as long as you cook it, but people normally cook food, so it shouldn’t make a difference. Wait, rats aren’t people, are they? ‘Cause I know I’m not supposed to eat people! No, they can’t be. They just run around, get into food, and squeak, and besides, dwarves wouldn’t keep people for food… Now I want roasted rat, dammit!

She’d eaten most of the animals that had the misfortune of meeting her during their travels, unbeknownst to her friends of course. During her nightly buffets, she’d discovered that she liked to eat most of them.

She heard a loud thud and snapped out of her musings to see that the butcher had tossed what looked like half a cow on the butcher’s block next to him. He picked up a huge knife, and with one big chop, cut it in half. Another chop and the half was halved. The butcher set down the knife and picked up a thinner one that he used to break down the section of meat even further. He asked Bralla questions as he did so, cutting the meat exactly how she wanted it cut. Once he finished, he took the meat and placed it, cut by cut, on a large set of scales next to the block.

“Got twenty-three pounds here, lass. That still good, or you want me to take some of the stew meat off?” the butcher asked.

“Leave it, lad. Got lots of mouths to feed,” Bralla replied.

“Aye,” the butcher replied.

He tore a long sheet of what looked like paper from a roll next to the butcher’s block and then started to wrap the meat up in it before tying it up with some cord. Each cut of meat went into a different package, and he wrote a few letters and numbers on each one before placing them on the counter. Bralla took them and put them in the hand cart Thokri was pulling, and they walked away from the counter.

They followed Bralla, and as they walked, she started to notice a sour smell. It reminded her of the pickled cabbage that people in the human realms loved so much. She liked it too, but she liked just about anything pickled, so she wasn’t sure if she counted or not.

The closer they got, the stronger the smell got until they reached a row of stone boxes that was filled with huge stone basins. Bralla went to one of the boxes, picked up a small crock stacked next to the stone box, and then started to dip out some of the contents of one of the basins into it. She put a lid on the crock and then placed it into the handcart before moving on to another one of the basins where she started to fill another crock.

Anna walked over to the first basin. It was filled with mushrooms that were floating in a green-orange brine.

Oh, I’ve had those before. They’re all squishy and sour.

She walked over to where Bralla was filling another crock and looked into the basin. This one contained long spikey things that she’d never seen before, and the brine was a dark blue.

It kind of smells sweet? Sour too, but sweet somehow.

She wanted to reach in and take one of the weird things, but everyone had yelled at her when she ate food right from a merchant’s stall before, so she just had to wait. She took the crock and put it in the cart for Bralla who smiled and thanked her.

Bralla went from basin to basin, filling more than a dozen crocks with pickled mushrooms, fruits, vegetables, and what was probably peppers. Barika seemed interested in those for some reason and even asked a few questions about them as Bralla scooped them into the crock. Anna didn’t particularly care one way or the other about peppers, so she just wandered around looking into the other basins.

“Do you lot like cheese?” Bralla asked.

“YES!” they all chimed seemingly at once. Bralla laughed.

“Well, come on then!” she said.

Wait, how can there this much cheese in once place? No one told me there were this many different kinds either! What is going on here?!

Every stone box in this row was overflowing with wheels of cheese, and each box had a different variety in it. She spotted a basin in one of the boxes and zipped over to investigate.

Hold on, they have cheese in water here! Why is it in water? Wait, that doesn’t smell like water. It smells kind of sour. Hold on, does that mean there’s pickled cheese?!

She let out an excited squeal at the thought and started to bounce back and forth on the balls of her feet. Bralla walked up next to her and chuckled.

“Want to try some?” she asked.

Anna simply couldn’t speak from excitement at the moment so just nodded her head vigorously. Bralla scooped some of the cheese out of the basin. It was round like a ball and pale white. She filled a large jar with it and then put it in the cart.

“Why don’t you go and get some of the ones you want to try?” Bralla said.

“Really?” Anna asked, having calmed down enough to speak once more.

“Of course, now off with you,” Bralla said, making a shooing motion with her hand.

Anna zipped off and started to grab wheel after wheel of cheese, wanting to try all of it. The once empty cart that Voekeer was pulling soon filled with cheese. Bralla and the others watched as she put the last wheel of cheese on the cart.

“You’re never going to shit again if you eat all of that!” Elaine said.

“That can happen?” Anna asked.

“To us, yes. To you? I doubt it,” Barika replied.

“Oh, okay,” Anna said.

Bralla looked at the mountain of cheese for a moment and then frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Anna asked.

“Well, lass, cheese is expensive, and I don’t have much coin with me,” Bralla replied.

“I’ll pay for the cheese, and the rest of it, so don’t worry. Get whatever you want. I don’t mind,” Anna said.

“Oh, lass, I couldn’t do that,” Bralla replied.

“Don’t worry about it. I brought even more coin with me than the others, and I have way more than any of them back in Oldforge, so it’s fine,” Anna said.

Bralla looked at her for a moment and then sighed.

“Aye, just don’t think I’ll let you keep buying everything for us. You hear me, lass?!” she said.

“Aye,” Anna replied.

“Good, now let’s finish up ‘cause we need to bake a whole lot of bread to go along with this cheese,” Bralla said.

They left the cheese section and headed off into the market.