“You’re supposed to haggle!” Cassie blurted out almost immediately after we left the shop. “Never pay full price unless you need to, do humans not do that?”

“What can I say, he smiled, and I… caved.”

I held up my new pouches of ‘alchemical’ reagents—cinnamon, clove, peppercorns, and thought of my Mom. She refused to pay full price for anything and I could hear her parroting my Aapo, Grandmother, in my head.

“If the person selling to you is smiling, they’ll take less,” she would say. My Aapo, from Southern China, would always say it in Cantonese.

“Now I’m going to have to babysit you when you go shopping. Do you even know how to use those powders? They smell like shit, by the way,” She asked as she led me through the streets towards back towards the harbor. The city had shifted into the afternoon and the air was hot and muggy.

“You know, Diana wasn’t wrong that Gaians can’t smell for shit,” I replied.

“I can smell your sweaty ass from here,” She chided—I wasn’t that sweaty.

“Uh huh, you just don’t appreciate complex aromas.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Kitchen Manager,”

Letting out a happy sigh I shrugged. “I’m honestly surprised that you have the same spices as Earth. I wasn’t expecting cinnamon.”

We walked for a while in silence, Cassie was clearly not sure what to say after Malcolm apologized to her.

“Thanks,” she said simply. “I get too angry at them. Dorian’s been trying to goad me into a fight for a long time now.”

“Well at least you know Malcolm sucks less than Dorian. Besides, now I owe him a favor. I’m curious what he might ask for.”

“Probably some shady shit,” Cassie said.

“Nah, then I wouldn’t do it. He knows it was offered in good-faith.” I replied.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” She said, and I realized maybe I shouldn’t be. I had no idea how this world worked and just expected that Malcolm understood the social contract I had just offered him. A small favor. Maybe apologizing wasn’t a small thing for him.

Almost as if to add to the feeling, we turned a corner and I was presented with the wide ocean harbor. It sparkled in the clear day as gentle waves rolled into the break walls. Two huge sailboats sat moored at a massive concrete dock. These ships were unlike anything I had seen before. They had six masts and hundreds of ropes and pulleys hanging everywhere. Their hulls were a dull and dark bronze color rigged with dozens of pipes that seemed to snake in and out of the boat randomly. They were as big as super yachts but seemed to almost hover on the water and ignored the waves and swells of the ocean.

“Those are some big ass boats,” I said, wonder definitely bleeding into my voice.

“Commander Kane’s ‘big ass boats’,” Cassie said. “He’ll probably be heading back to the Greatwood soon.”

“Alexander? What’s the Greatwood?” I asked squinting out at the sparkling ocean.

Cassie pointed in the opposite direction deeper into the city, or the island.

“Two days by boat that way. Big ass jungle, all monsters. A paradise for people like him.”

“Wow that sounds awful!” I laughed as the street in front of us turned into chaos.

Right on the harbor in front of us was a huge gaggle of people, Gaians, Florans, Vildar and even some Sentarian crowded around what looked like a patisserie. Large broken bay windows revealed a quaint bakery with broken display cases of all sorts of mostly intact baked goods. Several people were chomping down greedily on loaves of bread. That's right, Katie said she was handing out bread for people who needed it.

Many seemed to recognize Cassie, offering her bread and friendly nods, while they generally left me alone. Given my bloody clothes, bare feet, and—I took a quick sniff—yeah, I guess I did stink, I couldn’t really blame them.

Oh wait.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the wash-kit. I could now see faint blue runes on the top that made me think of a glass mostly full of water. How were these runes even imprinted there? I wasn’t able to see these before, right?

Sliding the kit open, I pulled the renewed pink disk out and expected it to zap me. Instead, it was as if it was asking politely. Moving some mana to my hand resulted in the familiar static shock and dust flying from my body. An old Aldertree man ducked out of the way of the dust before it disappeared.

“Hey!” He said.

“Oh shit! Sorry.” My Canadian side replied. “I wasn’t thinking.”

The man eyed me suspiciously and his eyes fell on the orange pin on my vest as I returned the kit to my inner pocket.

“Ain’t you the Breaker kid?” He said. The whole crowd went dead-silent all eyes turning to me.

Uh-oh.

“Damn right!” Said Cassie with a laugh. And then I was mobbed. It was as if the group condensed around me, all speaking at once.

Requests to tell the story of the Brine Tyrant, invitations for dinner, invitations for drinks, and invitations for all three were basically yelled at me from all angles.

“Hey!” Cassie yelled over the din. “He can tell the story later, Breaker’s got a date with Katie!”

Noise turned to confusion as many looked over to the bakery where Katie stood. She wore a flour-dusted heavy apron and her bright red hair was up in a tight bun. Her face was a burning shade of red, her green eyes wide. She had dropped a basket of small bread loaves onto the ground.

Pushing through the crowd, I helped her pick them up.

“Well that’s one way to get your attention. Sorry about that.” I said picking the loaves up. They were more like buns. I held one up to my nose and unashamedly smelled it deeply. It was beautiful and fragrant like a sourdough, and little flowers cut into the crust before baking. “Wow these are great!” I asked.

I could tell that Katie wasn’t comfortable with the attention from everyone on the street and picked up the basket. “Oh! It’s my… uh… My Grandmother’s recipe,” She said meekly.

“Amazing. No wonder it smells so good. Oven in the back?” I asked, nodding towards a set of doors behind the counter.

“Yeah…” She confirmed.

“Great. Hey Cassie?” I realized that most of the crowd was still quiet but there were some whispers. I shoved the basket of bread at her. “Can you hand these out? I’m going to go give Katie a hand.”

“Wait, those are…” Katie started but Cassie jumped in.

“Fuck yes you are,” She replied taking the basket and several people chuckled. I wasn’t sure Katie could go any more red.

“That’s not a saying here is it? I’m going to go help her bake.” I shook my head and helped Katie to her feet leading her into the back of the bakery.

“Uh-huh, have fun handing her!” Cassie called to a roar of laughter as we entered the kitchen.

It was like walking into a wall of comfort. Like being in a cold winter’s night and then warming up indoors next to a fire. Like the sound of a cool summer breeze through a forest, leaves rustling gently.

I shuddered as the concepts hit me and took a deep breath taking in what I was seeing. The runes everywhere radiated comfort, and I realized that this wasn’t just a kitchen, it was Katie’s magic.

A large lantern orb hung from the ceiling shedding a soft yellow firelight. Shelves lined with jars and containers stretched along the walls, each clearly marked. In the center of the room was a grand oven its opening wide and circular. It looked like it could be used for blacksmithing more than baking. I could make out faint runes traced around the opening that seemed intended to prevent too much heat from escaping into the room. Several racks stood next to it filled with steaming bread, giving the air a haze. On a small island to the side, a pot of water sat boiling on what looked like a cloth trivet. It was mesmerizing, but it was a kitchen.

“What can I do to help?” I asked.

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“Um…” Katie seemed a lot more comfortable now that she didn’t have all the attention. “I was planning on selling… those loaves you gave away.” She said.

“Oh… shit,” I replied.

“Do you know how to knead dough?”

Her innocent smile wasn’t fooling me one bit. I put my pouches on a counter and Katie seemed to be drawn to them, sniffing the air. She scrunched her face up.

“Oh, some spices I picked up today. I wouldn’t…” I trailed off looking at the pouches, and then over to the bags of flour and raw sugars. “Do you have milk and butter?” I asked.

It was like I had lit a fire under Katie, she was the opposite of the meek girl I had just met this morning. When I walked her through how to make cinnamon buns she seemed skeptical. Mixing up some of the filling and glaze to go on the bun caused her to explode into action upon tasting both.

As if I was working with a trained pâtissier, Katie had made the dough and rolled it perfectly out for rolling. After spreading the mixture over it, we both worked to roll it up, cut it, and chuck trays full of cinnamon buns into the forge-like oven.

Sure I was missing a few things for the glaze, but after we dressed them up, we cut one in half and tasted the prize. It was perfect. Probably the best cinnamon bun I had ever eaten, mostly because it reminded me of home after a really weird couple of days.

Katie was smiling widely, chewing on her food slowly. She seemed to be enjoying it immensely. It took a minute for me to clue in that she had never had one before. Had anyone here?

“It’s so warm, and sweet.” She said suddenly. “That powder you added, the cinnamon? It wraps around the whole bite like a gentle hug. Where did you learn how to make it?”

I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to her. “I uh… I studied cooking where I’m from,” I said.

“I heard people say you were an Outworlder. Do you… know many recipes?” She asked, some of her timidness returning.

Thinking for a moment, I went through as many simple recipes as I could think of in short order.

“Yes?” I said hesitantly.

“You’ll come back and teach me them, right?” She asked with a smile and I nodded.

“Yeah, I’d like that,”

Seemingly content, she picked up the several still-steaming trays in her hands using some thin cloth as oven mitts—they had to still be crazy hot—and kicked the door to the bakery open. Storming through she dropped the trays onto a mostly intact counter and spoke a lot louder than I’d heard so far.

“The Breaker made some Earth food! One red each.” She called. I could tell that the smell from the kitchen already had people’s attention but that seemed to cause a riot.

People swarmed her as she served them hot cinnamon buns on whatever they could find to hold them. Shirts, broken boards, even a piece of glass were used as plates as people chomped down on messy cinnamon buns. It was almost completely silent as people paid and ate save for the occasional “Graceful Gods that’s good” and “Is that cinnamon?” from some Florans.

I noticed most of the attention was on Katie, like people were happy to pay her for something so good. Some glanced at me but their glances were hard to read. Concern? Pity?

Once every bun had been sold—even one to Cassie who looked at me like I had four heads, Katie shoved me back into the kitchen. She dumped a bag full of red coins on a counter and stared at me.

“Milk and butter are, um… expensive.” She said suddenly and glanced at the coins again. I moved two red coins towards myself and picked them up.

“I just brought the cinnamon. Your bakery did the rest.” I smiled. “Can I come back tomorrow?”

She nodded emphatically as I pocketed the two coins. “Thank you, Ben. I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Confident. I forgot how fun it was making new things.” She smiled and I could see some sadness in her eyes. Oh. Something happened and now was not the right time to ask.

She grabbed a tray of cinnamon buns and handed it to me. “For Doreen,” she said.

“Happy to help, keep the rest of the cinnamon and make some more. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I said and moved past her into the bakery, stretching my arms after all the work.

Cassie rushed up to me with a grin. "Are you sure you want to be a hunter? You could just sell those buns and live a comfortable life."

"Cassie, I cooked for a living for the last eight years. Now I'm across the universe in a world full of magic. I think I'd like to see a bit more of it before going back to my old job."

She chuckled, and we continued out of the bakery after saying our farewells.

"Eight years is a long time. Just how old are you?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm twenty-eight. At least on Earth," I said.

"That’s ancient!" she said, eyebrows raised. "I'm only twenty-two."

"I prefer well aged. Besides The days here are longer... On Earth, you'd be..." I calculated roughly in my head. "Pushing thirty?"

Cassie spun around and pointed at me. "Take that back. I can get you into the ocean from here if I threw you.”

"But you'd ruin the buns, Cassie!" I teased, and she scowled, giving me a punch to the arm. "Okay, okay, I'm an old man," I laughed both for the situation and that my arm seemed healed.

"Damn right. And call me Cass. We're friends," she said matter-of-factually. "You think anyone at Doreen's would notice if one of these disappeared?"

As we walked, eating messy cinnamon buns that definitely wouldn’t be missed, I had to ask, "You don't stay at Doreen's. Do you live somewhere else in town?"

"Oh, no, I can't afford that. I go home at night," she said, gesturing in the direction of the mountain I had seen.

"Outside of town... Oh! Your family's farm?" I asked, and she nodded.

"It used to take a few hours to get home, but I'm much faster now," she said.

"That's so far away. You walk that every night?" I asked.

"I run," Cass said with a wink. "I told you I'm a bit of a speed demon."

"I'd love to see you go all out. How fast can you run, flat-out?" I asked.

Cass seemed to think about it, but I could tell she was just eying the tray of buns. "Well, I haven't used much mana today, so I think I can get home in about an hour."

I whistled. "Wow, no wonder I couldn't keep up. Can I learn to run that fast?"

"No idea," Cass said, shrugging. "We can train. You'll need some shoes first, though."

I looked down at my bare feet. "Ugh, yeah, I should really get back to Doreen's. My feet are filth—" I paused, looking at the mostly clean sole of my foot. "Oh yeah, that wash kit gets all the way to the feet, huh? Magic is awesome."

Cass just shook her head as we neared Doreen's. "Well, I'm going to head home then. I'll come pick you up tomorrow morning, and we can run for a bit."

"What about drinks?" I asked. "You wanted to know about Ferris."

Cass's grin widened. "I think I figured it out," she said. "I’ll be here at Dawn, Ben."

"Sure, see you tomorrow, Cass," I said, watching her practically fly down the street, wasting no time.

Doreen's was packed when I arrived. All eyes turned to me as I entered, and a few Florans and Vildar sniffed the air. Doreen walked up and jabbed a finger at me.

"Buns. Table. Now," she said, leaving no room for debate. I smiled—I thought I had seen some hunters around Katie's when she was selling them, but it was a madhouse.

Placing the tray down on a table, I backed up and watched as Doreen climbed up to inspect the cinnamon buns with a discerning eye. She reached out, smeared some icing onto her finger, and tasted it. Her eyes betrayed her reaction ever so slightly.

Picking up a bun, she took a bite, chewing thoughtfully before swallowing and clearing her throat.

"Breaker Ben. I believe I know where you can contribute to my house. If you don't mind, go into the kitchen and ask Hildy if she needs any help. It's just back that way." She motioned to a door across from the one leading to the cellar. Doreen was being incredibly cordial and didn't curse even once. Which, even though I didn't know her very well, seemed like a reason to be alarmed.

You could hear a pin drop in the room as I made my way to the door, passing several hunters and even a few people not wearing the vests. No one even looked at me as I walked past and arrived at the saloon-style doors to the kitchen. This kitchen seemed much more traditional compared to Katie's—a large cast iron wood stove with several fireboxes, a huge chimney, and something resembling a refrigerator stood in the room, being tended to by a frantic Russet Vildar wearing an apron, jumping from surface to surface, chopping and mixing a wild assortment of ingredients.

"Hildy?" I asked, and the mouse stopped to stare at me.

"Yes? Are you here to help?" she asked, and I nodded.

From behind me, I heard Doreen yelling.

"Alright, you fuckin' barbarians, here's how it's gonna go. You want one of these buns, you're gonna have to go through me to get ‘em. And trust me when I say—I want. You. To try." At least I think those were the last few words—her mouth was full.

I leaned out to see what was going on and several people were standing, thinking about approaching the table.

The first one to rush her was an eager kid, his eyes on the tray of cinnamon buns. His feet pounded the ground as he charged her, anxiety clear in how he moved.

With a flick of her tail, Doreen leapt up, sticking to a wooden beam beside her like it was the easiest thing in the world. The kid didn't know where to look. His head swiveled to follow her, confusion painted on his face. The cinnamon buns were right there, within arm's reach—he must have thought she was just going to let him walk up and take one.

He was wrong.

She pushed off the column and glided through the air, slipping past his outstretched hand. Her feet connected with his chest, and she sent him sprawling backward, his mouth opening in shock as he crashed into some initiates behind him.

"Next," she called out, stuffing another bun in her mouth.

Two more came at her, one aiming low and the other high. I couldn't help but smile, seeing her adorable whiskers twitch. The high one tried to grab her, but she twisted, using his own weight against him, her hands barely brushing his forearm before she sent him skidding across the ground. The low one thought he could catch her off guard but vaulted over him, landing in a crouch on the other side, holding the tray of buns with one hand. Holy shit—she could move. I thought of the Vildar I saw sparring in the tower. Master Splinter shit…

"Are ya even fuckin’ trying? Ya gotta earn the buns, kids," she laughed, licking some cinnamon off her paw.

Suddenly, a dozen of them charged at once, hoping their numbers would make up for their lack of finesse. Doreen darted sideways, sticking to the ground, then to the wall, then launched into the air, her trajectory unpredictable. Their eyes widened as she glided above them doing a graceful spin, her tail trailing around her like a ribbon.

One by one, she picked them off. A kick here, a shove there. They couldn't seem to pin her down. Her feet barely touched the ground before she was soaring again, weaving between them like water around stones—playing with then like toys.

Landing on the table again, she dropped the tray and turned to see a big man approach—Erik. His shoulders and jaw set, his bandages hidden by his shirt. He locked eyes on her with an intensity that said he wasn't like the others. He was Ironheart.

"Doreen," he said, his voice a low rumble. "Step aside."

She grinned, baring her teeth. "Make me."

He charged and I felt a surge of energy ripple through the air. Doreen’s demeanor changed from fun to serious as a deep green aura flared into existence, heat waves rippling outward from her. Erik swung a massive hand towards her incredibly fast, and she ducked, planting her feet firmly on the ground. For a split second, their eyes met—and then she let the energy flow, shoving her palms outward.

A flash of green sent Erik sailing backward with an “Oof!”. His massive frame crashed through the front doors with a thunderous crack, debris raining down around him. The other initiates gaped, their eyes darting between the hole in the wall and her, standing there, two feet tall, fur bristling and aura still sizzling in the air.

She dusted her paws off and stuffed another bun into her mouth.

"Anyone else want one?"

As if on cue more people charged at her and she grinned.

I can’t say I had ever seen people literally fighting over my baking before but it was kind of flattering, if not a sort of crazy. Maybe they were good enough to abduct me from Earth?

I should try for a bun.

I sighed, realizing I had activated Bravery again. Watching a fight with it was fascinating. No wonder I could feel everything happening.

Something tugged at my leg and I looked down. It was Hildy.

“Will you cook the ham?” She asked. “I shall fetch Jeremy.”

“No problem. Is it always like this?”

“It will be if you continue to bring home sweets.” She replied.