“Weren’t you planning a banquet to celebrate your return? I thought you’re waiting for the third king and then there will be a large feast.” Nick looked confused.
“Hahaha!” King laughed again while holding his stomach with both hands, “I keep forgetting that you’re a royal chef, hahaha! Alright, let’s call it a banquet. Our two thousand pirates will eat and drink at their first royal event! Hahaha! Of course, we are kings after all!”
Looked like he had the time of his life. King laughed till tears streamed down his face.
“Oh, since there will be two thousand guests, do you want me to prepare ‘Omlette Du Fromage’?” Nick seriously asked.
“What’s that?” King asked when he finally calmed down after a while.
“That is a special feast his majesty Alexander Maxwell asked me to make for the last New Year’s celebration. Although I doubt we can get any rank four beast around here, I can substitute those and maybe make few other changes. After all I’ve been thinking of improving the recipe for a while.” Nick pretended to be in deep thought.
“Sounds tasty! I’ll assign a couple of men to assist you, just ask anything you need.” King White nodded, “Now make me that roasted pig! Then you can take care of captives and later think of that ‘omlette’ thing.”
“Why would I do that?” Nick stopped and asked with a surprise on his face.
“What?”
“Why would I take care of the captives? The voyage is done and my promise is complete. Don’t you have subordinates who take care of those people?” Nick still looked surprised, “If you want ‘Omlette Du Fromage’ done in three days, I can’t waste any time!”
“Fine then! Let’s go, enough time wasted!” King didn’t care. He waved and they continued towards the white building.
When they entered the natural cover of the huge grotto, Nick enjoyed another side of this ‘paradise’. Here was pleasantly cool compared to the moist heat outside, the only downside was the duskiness, but he quickly got used to it.
The houses of regular pirates were not much different from those he saw in Ravi except here were no families and these worked more like dorms.
‘Interesting, how did they construct the sewage and canalization system? It doesn’t smell inside here at all.’ Nick pondered while observing his surroundings.
He tried to map out the grotto in case he needed to sneak around at night to steal or investigate something. He had three days time and that meant he had two nights to use as well. And, since the ‘Omlette Du Fromage’ plan was already in motion, he will do his best to cook an amazing last meal for two thousand mass murderers.
King White’s residence turned out to be spacious but simple. There was some expensive furniture, but the big man seemed to dislike unnecessary things. Nick looked around and then went straight to the kitchen. In there he was greeted by White’s servant whom Nick shooed off while quickly starting to familiarize himself with the available equipment and ingredients.
An hour and a half later king White was already feasting on his long awaited pig. Nick, while watching from the side, tried to understand how it was possible for a man to consume an animal that was of the same size as him. King even drank few liters of alcohol to wash the whole thing down as well.
“So, what do you need?” King White burped and asked Nick while cutting off another piece of roast.
“Here’s the list.” Nick casually passed a list he prepared while the pig was roasting.
He thought about it thoroughly and created several steps for this stage of the plan. List of common ingredients was first.
“In addition, I will need more spices. Do you have a warehouse or something where I can take a look?” He continued.
“Sure, Billy will bring you there. Take anything you need.” King nodded.
“And the last thing – I need few alchemy ingredients which I use as spices. You ate all of those while we were sailing and the taste won’t be as good without them. I think few have good Qi properties as well, but I’m not sure about that … well, honestly I don’t care about that. Anyway, do you have some kind of a doctor or an alchemist around here who could share their supplies?”
This was the most important step. Nick, of course, knew there was an alchemist Qi master, therefore he needed to get rid of the guy before his grand plan could be executed. A really good alchemist would easily tell that something was wrong with the food he was about to prepare.
“Hmm, yes we have master Sten. But that old bastard is as arrogant as you and really hard to talk to, although few ingredients shouldn’t be a problem. Do you have a list for him? Let me see.” King White took the second list from Nick and looked over it. Most of the plants named there were quite common and he was surprised they could be used in cooking.
“They each have specific flavor that can synergize if properly used.” Nick replied to king’s questioning gaze.
Actually during the last month it became his only entertainment to use difficult and strange terms to confuse the big man who started getting migraines when he had to think too much.
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“I doubt there should be any problems with these. Just tell master Sten that I sent you, we have a good relationship.” King White returned the list and proceeded on with the task of destroying the roast.
“Let’s go, Billy! There is a lot of work to do!” Nick commanded the king’s servant as he left the room.
Billy seemed to be a nice guy for a pirate. He was bored out of his mind guarding the king’s house alone and immediately bombarded Nick with questions as soon as they left. Nick patiently answered and occasionally asked his own seemingly unimportant ones.
First he learned about the local rules, places that were off limits and people he shouldn’t offend. Then he got to know that the captives were kept outside the grotto a little to the south and were guarded by around two dozen guards. To Nick’s great shock, it turned out that including the latest batch there should be over thousand two hundred prisoners!
Usually the king Black was the one who organized the slave transfer to the continent, but he has been away for almost two months, so the ‘goods’ have ‘piled up’. And these times have been ‘slow’, because king White was gone for too long and usually he was the one who brought the most ‘wares’.
The slave trade on the Nestri continent seemed to be blooming and the amount of people suffering left Nick speechless. And these were only the northern pirates – there were also others as well as the Sand and Lori kingdom forces and the Nestri empire itself!
Soon they entered the warehouse ‘district’. Almost every building around here had a guard or even two and from what Nick could tell, it was the most guarded place in the ‘city’.
“Our arsenal.” Billy pointed at a larger warehouse to his right, “Kings love to stack the weapons there and reward us for appropriate merits. Oh, this is the place we were looking for.”
He greeted the guard who quickly opened the door to the warehouse in front of them and a pleasant aroma of mixed spices assaulted all three. Nick casually walked in and looked around. From time to time he checked something then picked up more and gave Billy to carry. The latter didn’t mind and continued with his endless stream of questions.
When they gathered all the necessary things, it was time to visit master Sten. They now had to walk almost all the way back to the king White’s place since the alchemist lived close by his residence, but even if it was almost at the opposite side of the Paradise city, the distance wasn’t further than ten minutes of leisure walk. After dropping the things off at the king’s kitchen, they proceeded to finally meet master Sten.
This was the only place Nick saw so far that had a real fence. The two meter high wooden fence completely forbade to have peek inside and soon he found out why.
When the guard let them in through the gate, it turned out that the living quarters formed the smallest part of master Sten’s house. The largest section was the alchemy workshop that lacked a wall on one side. Obviously it was for a better ventilation, because with the present heat and humid air it might be unbearable to perform refinement processes or do other specific experiments inside closed premises.
Master Sten turned out to be an old and short man, currently half naked, barefooted and dressed only in something that looked like a kilt. He wasn’t as dark skinned as the other pirates, but was still quite tanned. There were many old and not that old scars on his naked torso, mostly burn marks.
Currently he was energetically pacing around the workshop mumbling something under his nose and from time to time jumping over to the table and making some notes.
Billy intended to greet the alchemist, but Nick quickly stopped him. If the old man was really in the middle of something important and they approached uninvited, it would unnecessarily complicate things. Thus they sat down and waited.
After an hour master Sten finally finished and was about to start something at the alchemy table, when an old lady of a brittle stature and in clean, white clothes suddenly showed up from nowhere and threw few ingredients on the table.
‘Another Qi master!’ Nick quickly evaluated.
The impatient Billy was already at the workshop’s entrance, “Good afternoon, master Sten and madam Sigrid! King White sends his regards and asks for a small favor.”
It looked like Billy had prepared this sentence for a long time. During the last month Nick had never heard any pirate to make such a polite expression. It was obvious these two elders were held in high regard around here.
“Eh? What does he want now? We are busy! The princesses need to be fixed as soon as possible!” Master Sten was immediately annoyed.
“Excuse me!” Nick jumped in, “King White asked me to provide him with these ingredients and your alchemy laboratory is the only place in the Paradise city that could have them.”
Nick politely smiled and passed the list to master Sten who quickly grabbed it and inspected even quicker.
“Why does he need wormwood?” The alchemist asked while still looking at the list.
“If I add it to the stew, the bitter taste will have a cooling effect which will make food feel more fresh and delicious in these weather conditions.” Nick continued to smile as he answered. There was a trick in dealing with old experts – in general they loved when others knew their craft as well, especially young and talented people.
“Uh?” Master Sten finally looked at Nick, “And what’s up with the lemon myrtle?”
“It’s sour taste enriches food greatly and removes many unpleasant flavors, for example the fishy flavor from the turtle meat.” Nick competently replied.
“But what about the medicinal effects?” Master Sten continued to question.
“What about them? I’m sorry, I’m just a cook.” Nick shrugged. Even if he knew about healing and cleansing properties of both ingredients, he had to keep acting as a cook, albeit a ‘great cook’, “But I can guarantee you that I’m the best you have ever met.”
“You have no idea how many people I have met in my life!” The old alchemist barked back.
“Sten, give him a chance.” Madam Sigrid approached Nick and touched his cheek, “You, boy, you’ll prepare something for us tonight. Now we are in a bit of a rush to meet the royalties, hahaha!”
She started to laugh while pulling master Sten towards the exit, “Come back in two hours, kid!”
The madam Sigrid’s clothes fluttered in the wind and they almost instantly disappeared.
‘Both of them are definitely Qi masters.’ Nick smiled a sad smile, ‘This won’t be easy’.
Then he looked at the stupefied Billy, “Let’s go back, I need to prepare a good meal for the elders.”
For the first time in the whole afternoon Billy didn’t know what to say and for a couple of minutes they walked in silence. Then, as if he had woken up, the unending stream of words flowed once again.