When the mist cleared we were in a place called Tremble; some type of hoity-toity fine dining restaurant.

Well sort of.

As one would expect it was beyond goulish; wizened and decrypt things corrupted beyond recognition feasted on the innocence of others. Things of true evil that would murder the one sitting across with nary a thought had ersatz smiles. While slaves that worshipped these evil things, waiting on them hand and foot. Hoping to get some small sliver of sustenance from their cruel masters. Now enough me talking about normal fine dining restaurants and let me describe Tremble.

Tremble was surprisingly pleasant; It had necromantic flames that flickered and pulsed like a breathing creature. The wait staff was all corpses and skeletons in these elegant outfits that glimmered like diamonds, they had genuine smiles on their faces (unlike the normal fine dining wait staff) as they filled flute glasses made of spider eyes. The surfaces of walls, tables, ceilings and floors was all bones that were polished to the point of being pearls. The powerful undead were sipping memories of souls from their dainty teacups. I mentioned forever ago that if you killed someone you had to take the soul to the big city to pay tribute.

Well, that is all thanks to my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law was the one who figured out that souls of recently departed could be used for a multiple resources. Without a thought she made an entire industry of it. There were places where the souls were used as power sources. There is an entire city that runs all lights and everything solely on the poor buggers. Here in the Tremble they are drained of all their memories and stuff for rare resources and one of those resources is this stuff they are drinking.

Give the trapped soul a day and all their memories are back, and then guess who gets their memories drained again. I'll give you a guess and the first one doesn't count.

Gladys's heels clicked as she moved across the pearly floor. Her black dress of nightmares and regrets making a soft 'shush shush' sound as she moved towards a table with several women at it. Before she sat her bony butt down the women had all disappeared, the food and tea yanked away. Fresh tablecloth, new cups, new tower of dainty delicacies and those really neatly folded napkins were at our places. There was even a placard with each of our names.

Ursula's was 'Ursula: Plain One of the Bone Order, Eternal Corrupter of the Darkened Stars'

Buggy's was 'Buggy: Eater of Warrens.'

Mine was 'Elric: Ultimate Buffoon, runs into walls without looking, one that was misbegotten by all that exists, should be drowned in his own maggot sodden grave of treachery and corruption.' which tracks with my monster-in-law's opinion of me.

I know, nifty magic able to give us name tags...

Such a freaking waste. This magic could have been creating vegetables for the undead, it could have been tilling the land and helping sustain Ossis berry bushes. But no, it was being wasted on these fancy little pieces of wood. Again, trust Gladys the wasteful woman to pull this stunt. I chucked it away from me, knocking Bozo and Headless' little nameplates off the table and skittering away under another table's tablecloth.

"Hey!" Bozo complained as he sat down at his designated spot. With the help of the server he was able to disengage Headless from his backpack and set her on a prim little cushion facing the rest of the seated guests.

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I didn't sit. Instead I glowered at her, the bane of my existence.

Gladys took a sip, sniffed judgmentally at her tea, sighed as if the world was out to get her and took another sip like a martyr. She was looking down at her tea when she spoke "Elric, do sit down. I won't have you causing a scene." She took one of those tiny pointless spoons and stirred the liquid. It released a burst of things to elicit the senses; the smell fresh cut wheat, taste of strawberry wine, the tree above casting a shadow that let only a pleasant amount of light and heat of July sun on the skin.

I didn't bat an eye. "I'd rather be dismembered and fed to the worship pits of Abeth!"

"That can be arranged." The bony woman purred up at me. Now she looked, her long lashes fluttering evocatively. It probably would have been beautiful, except for the fact one of the lashes moved on its own as the spider that created the effect itched another leg. Gladys caught the look and blinked her eye again to get the arachnid back to the proper position. "I heard from a little bird that you used up all your stored energy to create a farm in the White City. No powers. I could have you dropped now, just say the word and it can happen."

Bozo leaned towards me. "What are you doing, Elric?"

"No, it can't." I said (ignoring Bozo) with a whisper of menace wrapping around my teeth. "I am back in the deadlands, Which means I am back to full energy as soon as I set foot in Warrens castle. And if you want to start something we are in your most sacred of places, high tea at the Tremble." I saw it dawn on her, I drove home the point. "Can you imagine the scandal if I caused a scene here? Why you would lose all your status, be a laughingstock."

"It would be most unfortunate." Ursula mused, she swirled her cup to catch the scents of the summer memory. Her smile was the one I was familiar with, it was mischievous. She was relaxed again, back to her old self.

My stomach dropped.

Oh, no.

My stomach did a little flip-flop again, much to the annoyance of the corpse beetles that were sent bouncing against the walls of my digestive system.

Why did Ursula have to decide to return to happy, bubbly, carefree at this crucial moment.

Freak!

I raised a hand to stop her, she brought her hand forward and high-fived me.

Ugh. Not the high-five.

She leaned back and threw her teacup in Gladys's face. She kicked the table up and did a cartwheel backwards out of her chair and sucker punched the waiter that was transforming into a gigantic brute. Wait staff here was both servers and security. Pleasant and punishing. Delicate and deadly. I could go on using alliteration to give the paradox of these fellas, ladies and others. But you get the picture. The waitstaff be deadly and Ursula had just gone full chaotic in their seat of power.

Most of the waitstaff and diners did not get up. A younger man went to stand and an older rotund corpse put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down. "Don't be a moron. That is the freaking Farmer. You want to end up feeding his crops?"

Another woman; she had hair coifed up in a beehive, well, it was actually a beehive, that had been formed around the bones of some unfortunate. The bees themselves were black and red striped. The red was from dripping blood. She shook her head at the young fella and added "You want to end up like the Garglers?"

Other rising guests also halted at these words.

The younger man paled shot back to his chair like a rubber band was attached to his bum cheeks.

Of course not everyone was as sensible. As others charged I had to back her up. This was also the norm with us, she would do something that was impulsive that would cause a chain of events that ultimately ended with the two of us standing on a mound of corpses. "Why couldn't you have been this way at any other time in this stupid epic quest!?" I snarled as I swung an exquisitely carved chair into a waitress that was charging at me with a dessert cart.

The Plain One threw her assailant into the water fountain that was bubbling with memories of some festival, she caught Gladys by the hair and sent the Wight sailing into another table of undead ladies fanning themselves. Ursula winked at me as the crash sounded throughout the room. "Because we are back in deadlands, you have your power back and we can raise some bedlam."

"I don't have my powers back." I snarled. "That was a lie!" It was unfortunately as I said these words that everything had gone absolutely silent.

My words carried across the room as if they had been shouted.

The fine dining crowd rose as one, their necromantic magic stirred around them as they looked at the powerless Farmer.

I gulped as I shot Ursula a glare and grumbled out "Traitor."