"Pee-za?” Mayor Tram asked, her nose hunched into her piercings.

Luka removed his bakery order from the sack one by one. “Pizza, yeah.”

The group sat at the same picnic table as yesterday and watched the children endlessly slide into the lake. Sunning themselves nearby, Sebby and Leo laid across a section of warmed black stone, their tails wagging. Olive the emu was digging for grubs to eat.

Eve cleared her throat and said, “I think it’s like magnarfalt.” Then, for Luka, she added, “Flatbread with a thick stew on top.”

“What kind of stew goes on peeza?” Tram asked.

He answered, “Tomato and cheese.”

“Sounds… interesting.”

“The kids will get a kick out of it.”

“A kick?”

Luka blinked a few times. “They’ll find it interesting.”

“Ah.”

“I better get to work before the kids start complaining they’re hungry.”

“What’s your plan?” Franky asked, Leo’s saddle in his hands. He adjusted the straps and belts, resetting them.

“Pizza needs a stone oven to be cooked right. And since we don’t have any bricks, I figured I’d just make it out of raw stone.”

Everyone looked at him.

“What?”

Eve spoke for the orcs, “Can you do that? The slides are impressive, but an oven?”

Luka hesitated at the question before bending over and picking up a piece of chalky limestone that was mixed in with the black basalt. Holding the rock like a pen, he began to draw.

College—aerospace structural design. Countless hours of hand-designing machinery and devices came back to him. Mr. Rossi was a traditionalist when it came to computer-aid design software. In the man’s own words, “Who’s going to sue a computer when a plane falls from the sky because of some integrated bug? No one, because they’ll all be dead!”

Luka paused his sketching to glance at the sky. Airplanes, huh? I designed airplanes?

“Everything okay?” Tram asked, studying his face more than the chalk outline.

Ignoring her, he went back to work. A pizza oven needed only a few things: a baking stone, a heat source, and an insulating dome. But a good pizza oven needed something a bit more involved—convenience. Luka drew another line, giving his sketch depth.

He leaned back, finishing the design.

“Huh,” was all Eve said.

“You didn’t tell us you were an artist!” Franky laughed.

Luka noticed a mistake and corrected it. “I’m not. This is just a design sketch. I'd fail if you told me to draw that tree over there. Miserably.”

“What if I told you to design that tree?”

He hesitated, causing the orc to adopt a wide grin.

“Anyway,” Luka said, looking around. A small boulder rested nearby. “I just need the stone. That’d be perfect for the base, but I don’t want the oven too far from the table.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Oh, that’s easy.” Franky hopped up from his seat, rounding the table. He trotted over to the boulder, setting both hands on either side. Breathing out harshly a few times, he bent his knees and lifted. Veins bulged across his arm and up his neck, his previously large muscles inflated, tightening against his green skin. He roared, his tusks looking more like fangs. Dead grass and countless bugs were unearthed, and soon, the rock was two steps from the table.

Luka snapped his jaw closed when Franky preened like a proud parrot on top of the boulder.

“Best not encourage him,” Eve muttered quietly. “He’s a showoff.”

“I don’t care if he’s a showoff or not. That was amazing. Franky, can you do that three more times?”

Franky’s face fell. “Uh, no.”

Eve burst out laughing.

A wet, massive nose pressed into Luka from behind. He turned, finding the two dire-wolves and his shirt soaked. Leo bowed into his front paws, sticking his butt and tail high into the sky. Conversely, Sebby waited like a gargoyle statue, sitting low on all four paws.

“They wanna help,” Tram said.

Luka pointed at another boulder. “Fetch?”

Both wolves darted away, crashing into the boulder at full speed. They snarled and bit at each other, their teeth soft and their voices playful. In the end, Sebby’s extra size proved vital, and another boulder was added to Luka’s collection, dropping it off like an arcade claw machine.

He pointed to two more rocks, Sebby “winning” each game of fetch.

“Sebby carried three, why couldn’t you?” Eve asked her brother, who muttered obscenities at her.

Ignoring them, Tram asked, “Are you sure this is going to work? When you made the slides, you removed material.”

Luka went over his designs one last time. He glanced at her. “This morning I fixed Iop’s door and bell. Should be the same principle, just larger.”

Chiming into the conversation, Eve said, “Transmutative fabrication.”

“Yeah, that.”

The magical strands in his vision reacted to his will, snaking through the air before latching onto the first boulder. Luka closed his eyes, finding their presence like distant stars shimmering in the night sky. Gradually, the strands aligned themselves, bending and twisting together, mimicking the chalk design on the table.

He envisioned the structure: a flat base anchored to the ground. The sides curved, spiraling upward in a dome pattern. Thick walls would keep the heat in while keeping the outside cool. And lastly, something to make the design pop. As a final touch, a carved series of simple geometric shapes cut into the edges, adding a bit of life to the otherwise bland oven.

He opened his eyes, and the magic surged.

The base took form first, the strands easily moving the boulder Franky strained to carry. The rock softened, becoming pliable, like clay. The strands kneaded the basalt, stretching and shaping it until it rose from the ground, solid and stout.

Next was the baking stone. A boulder rose into the air, Luka’s magic lifting it without worry. The rock flattened wide, and the top smoothed until it reflected the blue sky. The strands carved into it, etching a checkerboard pattern into it to combat potential sticking. More stones floated up and over, melding together and forming one continuous mass. It bent around an invisible mold, a dome shape with a door cut out to cap the oven off.

Luka’s magic ended abruptly, the leftover stone all falling to the ground. He wobbled slightly, the picnic table suddenly becoming a soft sofa. He sprawled on it, sweat dripping from his face and ruining the chalk design.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he uttered to himself.

The orcs openly gawked at both the World Walker and the oven, everyone forgetting how to speak—at least, until the caw of a raven echoed through the forest.

The bird swooped down from a nearby branch, landing atop the oven. It cawed again before exploding into a cloud of purple smoke and gangly feathers. The crunch of bone sounded from within the mass as a dark aura filled the space. A giggle escaped the terrible noise, then a silky smooth green hand draped in silver and green bracelets.

The smoke blew away, revealing Aunt Sol standing tall, her raven headdress missing the raven.

“Very impressive, World Walker, very impressive.” She locked eyes with him. “However! Very inefficient.”

Now, it was Luka’s turn to gape. “Did you just kill that bird?”

“What?” the woman growled. “Did you not recognize a shapeshifting spell?”

“Where’s the raven on your head then?”

Sol looked up, finding her headdress empty. She cursed to herself, sticking her fingers in her mouth and whistling. The sound shook the trees, summoning the stuffed bird from a nearby branch. It landed on her head, stiffening into taxidermy.

“Familiars. Love ‘em or hate ‘em.” She jumped from the top of the oven, falling with the grace of a feather.

Eve sighed and said, “At least we know your oven is sturdy enough to handle someone’s weight.”

“Would that be a normal issue?” asked her brother.

Ignoring them, Sol pushed herself into the crowded picnic table seat. “As I was saying, World Walker. Your magic is very inefficient. It’s time for your lesson in magic!”

Mayor Tram’s nose wrinkled. “Could it kill you to put on some perfume? You smell like a bird.”