“-Sorr-!”

I put up my hands to stop her, “No, no worries, you saved our asses. Thank you.”

I nodded as calmly as I could and tried to hide the horrified ‘what-the-fuck’ roiling around inside me. Was it Dark Affinity? It lacked a certain pervasive greasiness to it though. It did have a bit of greasiness. So maybe like Ice, a combination between Dark and something else. Even though I’d win in a straight up fight, I had no doubt about that, the perverse nature of it had raised my survival hackles raised and left me extremely unenthusiastic about poking whatever had just happened.

“Let’s head back.”

She nodded and I noticed that she was staring at the surrounding rat horde with an entirely too positive look. No horror in her gaze, just seep satisfaction.

We exited back through the hedge we had originally gone through. There were some people scattered around, though no one I recognized. Our appearance didn’t draw any stares, after all, why would it? Everyone was covered in some sort of blood or dealing with a wound by pouring wine over it.

“What are they doing with the wine?”

Vivi had that predatory glint back in her eyes but calmed it quicker than the first time.

“It can heal wounds, at least somewhat.”

“All of the wine?”

“No, it takes him a while to make a barrel so it’s just used for after patrols.”

“Takes who ‘a while’?”

She cocked her eyebrow, “Jon.”

“How does it do that?”

She shrugged, but I wanted to know.

“Like alchemy?”

She twisted her head in thought, “Sure, I mean probably,” she shrugged, “I don’t know exactly how he does it.”

Were heal skills that common? That’s crap I had to make a deal for one and not two weeks into the apocalypse and I was finding them all over the place. I mean, I guess there were some pretty big limiters on them. Joe had to cauterize the wound fairly soon after it was inflicted and I had to absorb damage from someone else before healing myself. Jon had to prepare some sort of special wine ahead of time. There were probably some pretty heavy requirements to make the brew and, to be fair, three people having a healing skill out of the 50 or so I’d seen so far did seem pretty rare.

I tried not to make it obvious and proceeded to fail to completely hide the fact that I didn’t want to touch Vivi as I wandered and opened doors, somewhat to her consternation.

“What are you looking for?”

“Just checking what’s around. That a problem?”

“No, of course not, Master Morrigan said to give you a run of the place.”

I shot her an eyebrow at the way she said Master Morrigan but instead of saying anything, I opened a door. This time it was the kitchen. Long rows of shining stainless steel countertops, full cooking ranges, pots and pans hanging up everywhere. Big bloody chunks of meat spread out and in the process of being chopped up on a shiny countertop.

Thwack.

I met the eyes holding the blade before they traveled past me.

“Vivi? I thought we discussed this?”

“Yeah, sorry Mark, Tom just wanted to see what was around the place.”

I pushed through fully into the door. I remembered seeing this guy when I first arrived, cleaver guy with the serial killer hairstyle. The hair style of internet predators the world over, the mangy friar tuck.

“So this is where the magic happens, eh?”

He eyed me, “If you mean where I butcher stuff for us to eat, then yeah.”

I watched him pick up the cleaver and continue chopping. Was he always holding the cleaver when he chopped? My first instinct was that he had not been when we first entered, though that didn’t make a ton of sense now that I was asking the question in my head.

“What meat is that?”

“Human.”

I started and he laughed and didn’t bother clarifying.

“You’re joking, right?”

He shrugged, “Mostly. Do you need something or are you just here to bother me?”

Ugh, this type of person. “What did you do before the apocalypse?”

Thwack.

“I was a chef.”

I nodded, “Yeah, the food’s good, thanks for that.”

Thwack. He grunted but I could tell he was somewhat pleased by it.

“You like it here?”

“It’s the apocalypse, what do you think?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“You had a good life before the apocalypse?”

Thwack.

“Ever heard of ‘Tres Bonjour’?”

I nodded, “Yeah, that really douchey spot. Downtown.” Downtown Los Angeles.

He glanced up at that, “If you meant high-caliber french boucherie-dining-experience, then yeah, that douchey spot.”

“Never been.”

He laughed, harsh and bitter, “Real surprise there. Couldn’t afford it?”

“Pricey enough that I wasn’t going to wait in a line for the privilege.”

He grunted again.

“Owner or cook?”

“Head Chef. Owner.”

I nodded, ‘part-owner’, I was almost sure about that, never count on a chef ever saying they were ‘part owner’ or ‘co-owner’. I highly doubted that balding buffalo bill here was exactly the investable type.

“Nice. Well anyways, good to meet you?”

He seemed friendly enough, and to be fair, I wasn’t exactly being super friendly on my part. Something beyond the terrible hair-style set me off about him.

I turned and walked away and, even though I had been somewhat ignoring it, the flicker of his icon on my Minimap turning from gray to red stuck out. It was only for a split-second then, at a look from Vivi, it went back to the typical neutral neon-gray. Definitely would be watching out for that guy.

I was very okay with the threat warning. The Minimap wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but it had proven to be more useful than I had originally assumed, though its functionality was still fairly limited. The color coding worked with intent to attack… very good to know. Why had he wanted to attack me?

There was some connection with Vivi and Mark, where he would have attacked me and a look from her stopped him. Interesting I guess, but it didn’t really help me otherwise, I was still kind of lost about where to proceed. I was getting generally annoyed with all of this, fortunately that was able to settle in comfortably right alongside ‘horrified’, ‘covered in rat flesh and blood’ and ‘victim of an assassination attempt on my first night’.

----------------------------------------

I watched the sun set alongside Vivi… and I felt like shit doing so. With Duck, I loved watching it set. With Vivi? It just seemed wrong. I missed Duck. Vivi even had her arm snaked through the crook of my arm the same way Duck had liked to do.

When had she done that? You’d think it’d be comforting but it just made it all the worse. Still, taking in the last gasp of the sun felt… right. Good, but that was a poor descriptor for it, it was better than good. Every last ounce of energy it was putting off sank deep inside me and healed some of the weariness away.

I detached my arm, “Alright, I’m beat. My room’s… that way?”

She looked annoyed, then injured, then conciliatory. All in an instant.

“What about dinner?”

That was a good point, “That’s a good point.”

She led me down twisting hallways again, something… weird was happening here. I mean, beyond the normal level of weird. Beyond even ‘apocalypse weird’, not that I was some grizzled survivor or anything. There were pieces missing.

She opened a door and held it open for me. I went inside to an old style dining room. By old style, I mean the turn of the century, and not that last two of those. Plush, ancient, high-backed leather chairs sat around a well-carved, and even more ancient, table. Real, king arthur, medieval relic, except rectangular instead of round with a wide and flat crystal monstrosity of a chandelier hanging heavy above the center of it. The only light came from a few lit candles on the chandelier, a fireplace and mantle made of large, unadorned blocks of marble and a few dim sconces that adorned the walls, spaced just a bit too far apart to round out the count drac’s castle ambiance.

At the head of the table was Morrigan, of course. To his right was Jon, then to his left, was Tracey. Fork sat next to Tracey and Vivi sat next to Jon. There were two free seats to either side of them. I chose the seat at the other head of the table and slid over a table setting to sit in front of me. Power play? I can power play. I kind of wished I had a chance to wash off the rat blood and guts. Vivi, somehow, had none on her.

I settled in my seat but didn’t manage it before Morrigan raised a hand with a grin and a nod to indicate that I ‘could’ sit. Damn, like someone saying ‘you can sit’ right as your butt is approaching the seat. Annoyed me in grade school, annoys me now. Some things don’t change, even in the end of the world.

A knife appeared in the side of my vision and I half-flinched as Mark set down a roast… something that he started carving and serving on everyone’s plates, mine last.

He was giving me a shit-eating grin because of my flinch but I kept my face neutral and took out my salt-shaker and I twisted it generously atop the dish.

His grin strained, “What. Are you doing?”

I put on my most disaffected look, “Me? Nothing, just seasoning the food.”

“It doesn’t need seasoning. I already seasoned it when I cooked it.”

“Agree to disagree.” I cranked the salt shaker again, not yet having taken a single bite.

I saw the tendons in his hands strain around the knife. He knocked the salt shaker out of my hand with a small swat that barely restrained itself to that. I paused for a second and debated violence, then settled on bringing out another shaker I had picked up somewhere to resume the Great Saltening.

I had added enough salt by now that it was visible on top of the whatever-meat, but I kept cranking it around the dish as I locked eyes with him. This chump was gonna outprick me? Not a fucking chance buddy.

“Mark… Mark!”

He snapped toward the head of the table towards Morrigan’s voice and moved from his glaring looming position over my seat to put himself into the chair next to Ron. I placed my salt shaker next to my plate and started to tuck in. Morrigan nodded and everyone else started to eat. I wasn’t waiting for permission to eat, no matter how rude it was. I was clearly in some sort of game and I didn’t like any of it. Pissing off Mark was just a bonus.

Idle chatter filled the room while I observed the table. Morrigan seemed to be studying me, while I studied him, and the rest of the table in turn. Mark sent intermittent death-glares my way. My cheeks pinched from the entirely too much spite-salt. I was approaching Duck levels of salt and it left me in a weird, pensive mood. Probably just a continuation of the moody-wine drunk mood I’d been feeding all day.

I pinched more salt into my wine, I probably should have been listening to the conversation but before I could break myself out of my weird mood dinner was wrapped up and people were leaving.

Damn. Probably a missed opportunity there. Whatever, you can’t be on all the time. I hadn’t felt on any of the time I’d been here. Had I ever since this all went down? Well yeah, cat farm was peak form as well as ‘helping the villagers defend their hamlet’ during the whole Mortician thing.

Vivi motioned to me and I followed her, still chiding myself for missing the opportunity.

“It’s that way, let me show you.”

Back at my room, I bid Vivi goodbye and watched her leave, but before I entered my room and locked the door, I checked up and down the hallway. One direction led around to the outside while the other led down the hallway to the rest of the compound. No one was around.

I followed the wall until I found myself outside of the oversized window that spread around the outside of my bathroom and took out a length of fishing wire to lay a trap. I did the same outside the bedroom window as well. I ran the wire between bushes and hid the cans inside the bushes themselves. I needed to pick up some more cans. That’d be a huge PITA to ask Mark for them since he seemed to be in charge of the kitchen. I slugged some water from my pack considering I felt like I was mummifying myself from my salt intake, I was a bit surprised that I felt alright from my excess salt consumption besides a bit of dry mouth.

Then I took a few minutes to just stand there and think. I wanted that armor and I needed things to start moving forward. I had no idea how to break this thing open. It could probably wait. After all, I had a luxurious bath waiting for me. That’d definitely help.