The luncheon came faster than Soral expected, but he had spent the whole time baking, cooking, and even concocting some drinks. Some of them had slightly questionable flavor profiles towards the end, but he figured it would be fine. If there were any leftovers he could just store them in his pocket along with some handy preservation magic he had learned.

Every single person Soral had mentioned was in attendance, along with a couple other spies Oasis had caught on his own. It was a wide assortment of variety in both people and colors of bands, and most had given the assassin trio a wide berth. The exception was Howler, who seemed perfectly comfortable among all of the reds.

“What are we eating?” Lala demanded the moment Soral entered the room, “Why is everyone here? Is this your idea or the Chief’s?”

Soral froze for a second under her rapid fire questioning. “Both?” He answered the last question first, “And I just sort of invited everyone I know.” Well, mostly everyone, but Lala didn’t know that.

Rather than answering her first question with words, Soral began to fill the large table with all the things he prepared. Appetizers, desserts, a few main dishes to share, and various drinks made from the mixtures of various fruit juices. There were cupcakes, of course, and many of his other successes. There were also some first time experiments mixed in.

The smells mixed and filled the room with a sweet, tangy, and savory aroma. When the strong scent hit him, Soral had to admit that perhaps he had been experimenting a little too much with garlic. As everyone began to eat it was clear that there were only two real failures. His crackers were just a bit too spicy, and his lemonade was a bit too sour.

“You could weaponize these,” Scythe commented, desperately chugging water after taking a misplaced sip of the wrong drink.

After removing the offensive food and drink from the table, Oasis called the luncheon to order.

“You have all enjoyed the refreshments that Soral has prepared,” he began, “but I am sure most of you have realized by now that we haven’t called all of you together to simply test his cooking skills. Look at the people around you. Each one of you has been chosen for a special purpose, but it is up to you if you would like to proceed. I will only tell you all this. It will be dangerous.”

“If we stay and listen to the rest, do we lose our right to refuse?” one of the former spies asked.

“Yes,” Oasis confirmed, “I apologize, but I cannot risk the leak of information.”

Those words brought to light the seriousness of the situation. Oasis gave everyone a few minutes to make up their minds. Eventually, Sloth raised his hand. Soral was a bit surprised since the man spent most of his time sleeping, pretending to sleep, or at least resting in some way.

“Are you sure we should be allowed to hear this then?” he asked.

Oasis looked to Soral. “A certain someone has vouched for your trustworthiness.”

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The assassin trio all turned their eyes to Soral in response. Lala was ecstatic, but Scythe was just shocked. It seemed none of them expected Soral to trust them despite all the time they had spent together.

Unfortunately, with their confirmed attendance, several of the former spies backed out. Many of them still remained, plenty enough to fulfill Soral’s plan. Once the door was closed, Oasis gave everyone one last chance to leave, then asked a couple of them to guard the doors so no one could enter.

After that Soral was called up to explain his plan once again. Every time he did it, he got better at explaining, and luckily everyone seemed to agree with their roles. Ember and Flame did have some questions regarding theirs.

“You want one of us to stay behind?” Ember asked, a bit skeptical, “But what about the other one of us inside? Do we just sit there and wait to get picked off?”

“You could join one of the teams,” Soral suggested.

“Do I get to choose?” she asked, “I don’t want to be stuck with all the former spies in their little revenge game, and I don’t really want to see assassins at work.”

“So you are alright with joining my team?” Soral guessed.

Ember scowled. “I guess that is the only choice left. I am not letting Flame go in there.”

Flame didn’t argue with his sister’s decision, but he did seem a bit nervous to work with Oasis. “I can only communicate telepathically with Ember,” he pointed out, just to make sure.

“That won’t be a problem, especially if she is accompanying Soral,” Oasis assured.

“I have a question,” Lala butted in, “How will we find Doc? All the other teams know where their main objectives are, but ours is mobile. We don’t want to miss the target and jeopardize the operation.”

Over the course of the planning, everyone had begun to naturally refer to their enemy in Soral’s shortened terms. Doc.

“I don’t know,” Soral admitted.

“Perhaps you should shadow us,” Rosalie suggested, “Doc told me that he wants to meet Soral, so he will believe that I am there to guide Soral to him. He should recognize the path we are taking and might even meet us at the control switch.”

“Gotcha,” Lala said, satisfied with her part of the plan now, “When do we move? Now? Tonight? Tomorrow morning?”

“We do need to move quickly,” Oasis confirmed, “but moving at night will be far too dangerous and we have too much to prepare to move right away. Will everyone be ready to move early morning tomorrow?”

There was a general noise of acceptance throughout the room, quickly falling into a din of varied conversations as teams began to discuss their roles with each other. The munching that had stalled during the important parts of the meeting picked up pace, and soon most of the food vanished.

Soral picked up the leftovers, which were mostly just his more questionable dishes, and headed out to make his own preparations. With free reign to take any supplies he wanted from the main building, he stocked his pocket full of various medicines, spare tools and weapons. He had the odd feeling he was missing something, and decided to ask Ruena. He needed to tell her about the raid anyway.

As always, Ruena answered immediately, as if she had been eagerly waiting. “Soral? How did it go? Did you figure out how to deal with the nightmare king?”

“I made another deal with him,” Soral admitted, “He told me his name, and showed me what he looked like. Then the dream king showed up and told me that was a really big deal.”

“That sounds like it might be,” Ruena agreed, “I wouldn’t trust him. It sounds like he wants something bigger from you later, just like everyone else seems to.”

“Yeah,” Soral agreed, “But he gave me important information, and we are going through with the raid tomorrow.”

“Do you have everything ready?”

“That is what I was going to ask you. What all do you bring with you for a raid?”

Ruena hesitated as she wasn’t entirely sure either. “Prepare for the worst,” she suggested.

Soral scanned the various shelves and spotted something that might be helpful. Poison. He also remembered what Scythe had said about weaponizing food and checked his pocket to see if he had stored some muffins. There were a few, so maybe he should make some more. After that he just gathered this and that he figured might be useful.

Ruena wished him good luck once more and made him promise to contact her as soon as the raid was successful.

“There is nothing to worry about,” Soral assured her, “It might take a little bit, though, so don’t worry too much. This isn’t like the mine snakes.”

“It better not be,” she warned, though he could still hear the concern in her tone, “And once this is over, you can finally come back.”

“Yeah,” Soral agreed, and smiled, “This place is cool, but I have been looking forward to coming back too.”

After he finished talking to Ruena, Soral went back to Kristy’s kitchen to make more muffins. Just in case.