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The left path revealed itself to lead to the Palace Kitchens. This room was surprisingly busy. Much different from the abandoned halls and the warehouse. The room was lined with food preparation tables, flame-scripted mana ovens, sinks with plumbing, and most exceptionally, a multitude of clay golems. They were all busy prepping and cooking food.
The kitchen golems were not like the Gate Guardian at all. They were smaller than Mira and had spindly arms and legs. They were all in constant motion, moving food, washing, chopping, stirring, mixing, sautéing, baking, plating, and moving plates to a dumbwaiters system. The food elevator would then levitate the plates upward into small ducts. Mira suspected the ducts must go directly to a higher-level dining hall.
The pair trod carefully into the room. Mira had a large area of effect spell ready to blast free. The scullery golems ignored them completely, shifting around them in their non-stop bustle of activity. Mira was astounded by the abilities of the magical robots. The food they were producing looked and smelled delectable. While Tiamat preferred to fly higher above the chaos, Mira waded through it, amazed at the skill of the automatons.
Mira circulated through the madness and soon managed to slide toward the finished meal plates on the expediting tables. Taking advantage of the golems' unwillingness to interact, she grabbed a plate with a filet of chicken stuffed with breading and dripping in sauces with a side of roasted potatoes. She summoned a fork from her Talisman and dug in.
The food was extraordinary. Mira knew this was only a virtual game, but the taste and textures of the food were heavenly. Mira grabbed another plate with sautéed shrimp with rice and veggies and tasted it. Divine! She grabbed plate after plate and disappeared them into her storage. The dimensional space acted like a stasis chamber and the food would not rot, heck it wouldn't even get cold.
“Missus T, come over here and have some. This food is amazing.” Mira said. Her wizard’s tower was great with all its security and resources, but after years of improvements, it was still missing the homey touch. She had been a little embarrassed when she had served stored dinners from a nearby restaurant to Pip on his visit.
If she had a proper staff and cooks, it would be so much better. Reggie was cool and all, but he was lacking in both service skills and etiquette. Mira’s eyes lit up with a new form of avarice. She needed some of these golems!
Mira paid close attention to the work, learning each golem’s work and function. She found that she couldn't just toss her first scullery golem target into her inventory when it was active. She touched its power sigil and pulled mana. The golem’s power source stalled, and its glowing eyes dimmed. Mira had effectively switched it off. After that, she was able to pull the inert golem into her storage space.
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Mira went on a spree, picking out select golems that performed the skilled cooking work. As she disappeared more, she noticed the prep golems stepped into the missing golems’ cooking roles. She smiled as she realized they could all perform the various kitchen roles from start to finish. They were multi-use and not specialists. Before Tiamat could object, she swiped another ten golems quickly. The activity was greatly diminished but still quite busy in the Cloud Palace kitchens before Mira was finally satisfied.
“Ahem. You’re not planning on using these in your tower, are you? I thought this was our last mission.” Tiamat reminded her.
“Ah, heh. Yeah. I’m totally not going to do that. Still, I’m sure they are worth quite a bit. More money is good, right?” Mira said.
Her greed momentarily abated, Mira relaxed and sunk into a standing meditation checking her mage sight. The questing threads of luck and fate were still thick in the air but didn't point in any specific direction. Mira wandered to the other side of the kitchen.
She nearly jumped out of her shoes as she came close to stepping on a Voracious Ooze. She got ready to blast it with her multi-missile spell but hesitated. It was sliding along and slurping at a trail of dropped food, leaving a clean and polished floor behind. Mira stepped back and watched it as it followed a trail of gravy. It led to a small hatch in the far wall. The Ooze followed the trail and entered the hatch.
Mira quickly strode to the wall, flipped the hatch, and looked inside. The space beyond the hatch door smelled like the ooze, acrid with a hint of ozone. She cast a [Glow] cantrip and fell back on her butt, slamming the hatch closed. She had seen a deep garbage pit, half-filled with a huge ooze creature. The little one that had just dropped in was being eaten or perhaps merging with the much larger one. She wasn't sure which. Oozes were weird and deadly.
Mira looked around and soon she eyed another ooze circling the perimeter of the kitchen leaving polished stone floors behind. One of the clay golems took a ladle and poured out some soup stock intersecting the ooze's path and guiding it to the hatch. Another golem was tossing refuse down the hatch. Mira realized finally what the deal was.
The wizard was using one of the more insidious dungeon predators to clean his floors and dispose of trash. Unbelievable! Mira thought about grabbing an ooze for her tower but realized that the ooze wouldn't be allowed in the storage. Spacial storage devices didn’t work on living beings; that would make combat far too easy in the game. With a sigh, she turned to Tiamat, who was still face down in a plate of food.
“Almost done, greedy? I think this is a dead end. Food goes up the dumb waiter and trash goes into the ooze bin. Looks like we need to take that other path.” Mira said.
“Oh, you're calling me greedy. That’s rich. I'm surprised you didn't take the silver forks.” Tiamat joked.
“You saw silver forks? Where?” Mira asked, innocently looking around.
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