Lights, smoke, some sort of nauseating aroma. That’s what hit me first when the doors slid open. The crash and clatter of an active, large scale kitchen settled around me. I heard a man shouting from somewhere on the other side of the rows of appliances. Each had shelving holding pots, pans, tools, spices, all manner of kitchen… kitsch. People were rushing around. Steam came pouring from one pot, while one blue-skinned androgynous humanoid skillfully flipped something that caught on fire mid-flip. It was impressive, all the more for his lack of reaction.
“Hurry up, the customer is waiting! Where is that prime rib? Table 32 is getting impatient.” The man’s voice carried through the cacophony of the kitchen like a knife, calm yet in charge. I had heard drill sergeants with less presence than this man. I was curious what he would look like. I continued walking past row after row of busy kitchen bays. With that much control and patience, I wondered if he would be more like the golem I had seen on the first floor. Or, perhaps, he would be a willowy alien with hair stalks like ferns. That image stuck in my head as I made it to the front of the kitchen. It was beyond massive, like something that would be used, along with a few others, for a stadium.
“That roux is not ready, put a bit more of the juices in,” the man said.
I couldn’t see him, not yet, but I saw the chef nod quickly and immediately ladle liquid from one pot into another.
“Yes, chef!”
I walked around the last bay to find… a normal man. He was slight, with jet-black hair in a horseshoe around his tanned head. Sharp brown eyes, clean shaven… he was an old Chinese man if I had ever seen one. But that made no sense, since all humans, at least, not including me, were in the tutorial. That thought made me stop short. I wasn’t human anymore. I knew this, but it was so easy to forget. Especially since my heart beat most of the time. I could feel it, thumping away at thirty or forty beats per minute.
“You! What are you doing in my kitchen?”
I was snapped out of my reverie by the old man. He was staring at me with one eye squinted nearly shut.
“Are you dumb?”
I shook my head.
“Then say something!”
“Uh, how are you here?”
“That is my question to you!” He shook his head while muttering to himself in a language I did not know. It could have been Mandarin, but I hadn’t ever heard enough to be certain.
“I’m lost… I think. I mean, I know I’m in the Silver Spire, but I have no idea where, or what floor.”
He stood, which did not make him taller. That actually brought him to eye level with my collarbone. Not the shortest man I’d ever dealt with, but it was better than the short person I had tangled with a year or so back. That guy had the meanest temper ever, and at three feet tall, he had one option when he felt like being a bully. He had punched me in the dick. Not once, not twice, but three times. But when I fight back and kick him, I’m somehow the asshole. So ridiculous.
“You are in my kitchen, that is where you are.”
“That tells me nothing.” I took a step back, phantom pain making my balls ache.
“Boss, I need to go,” a young man said as he rounded the corner. That broke the tension, at least, for the moment. “B’tessu is giving birth!”
The old man turned, with hands behind his back and nodded. “Of course, young Argryll. We are family here. I will have your shift covered,” he said as he shot me a glance. “Give my best to B’tessu. Have you chosen a name?”
The young man, whom I could see was actually a grayish-mustard color, hurriedly stripped his apron off and grabbed a coat. The apron was flung toward a hook some six feet away, yet it landed so neatly it looked like he had walked over and placed it.
“Not yet, boss.”
“Please, I’ve told you time and again to call me Don when you are not on the clock.”
“Yes, Don.”
Another employee rushed in, even as Argryll left. “Chef, the Mayor is here, and he’s requesting your special!”
Don muttered under his breath again, nodding as he moved. He gave me a gentle shove, though I stumbled a step when he succeeded in moving me. I was not expecting that level of strength from the little man. “Did he say what protein?”
“No, Chef. He said ‘bring me the Chef special, same as last time,’ just like that.”
“Ai-yah. You, new kid. Go get the noodles, chicken, eggs, green onion, mushroom, and jalapeno.”
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I spun in place, but the server had already left, and Don was hurrying toward a nearby range with a massive steaming pot on it. The pot had to be almost two-hundred quarts. It was easily two feet tall and two across. He walked up a small set of stairs positioned there, seemingly explicitly for him. He began stirring, smelling the steam as it started to bubble.
“What are you waiting for? An invitation? Fine, you are invited to get the ingredients I already told you to get!” He pulled the ladle out and took a sip of the surely scalding liquid. He grimaced and shook his head, then looked at me again. “Go!”
He brandished the ladle like a weapon, pointing at me like he was going to jump off and start swinging it like a fencing foil. While the mental image was humorous, the murderous glare coming from the old man was not. I started to ask him where to go when he beat me to it.
“Go that way. It’s about fifty yards. Chicken, eggs, noodles, green onion, mushroom, pepper. Hurry up.”
I jumped a bit and ran in the direction he had pointed with the ladle. Sure enough, I found a large stainless steel door about fifty yards away, and inside was a large refrigerator. It was one of the largest I had ever seen, being roughly a hundred feet deep and thirty wide. Shelves went clear to the ten-foot ceiling, and the aisles were just wide enough for two people to pass shoulder-to-shoulder. The veggies were easy to find, right at the front. However, the proteins looked to be deeper inside.
“Why am I doing this?”
I shook my head and kept searching for the eggs. I found them about halfway down the hundred-foot aisle. My arms were nearly full, though it was easy enough to carry the noodles. He hadn’t mentioned how much he needed of anything, so I was grabbing by the case. A dozen eggs, three bunches of green onions, a plastic one-pound bowl of brown mushrooms, three large jalapenos, and I was going to take… well, however much chicken he needed. It occurred to me that he hadn’t mentioned what kind of chicken I needed to grab. It seemed like he was making some sort of noodle soup dish. A ramen or something. I guessed the massive stock pot was the bone broth.
At the end of the fridge, I saw what had to be the most impressive collection of meats outside of an exotic butcher shop. Each bin was labeled. I could see chicken, beef, alligator, kangaroo, snake, a dozen different kinds of fish. That was what I could recognize. There were another two or three dozen bins labeled in some symbolic system I couldn’t even begin to decipher. I took a long moment to appreciate the well-laid-out fridge, then grabbed a parchment paper and filled it with two chicken breasts, four thighs, and even a few wings. Didn’t know what he needed or wanted, but that was on him.
I returned quickly, arms full of goods.
“Where are the noodles?”
I shrugged, nearly losing everything. I put it down on the stainless steel table next to his range before doing anything else.
“You never told me. You’re lucky I found all this.”
“Not lucky. I told you where to find. Noodles you make. Did you get the dough?”
I shook my head. “You have ready-made dough?”
“Yes, in fridge. Near entry. Go, get. Use noodle machine over there. Return when they are ready.”
“Uh, okay.”
This whole thing was striking me like a fetch quest in a terrible MMO. Still, it was better than fighting a hundred guys with knives. Especially without any weapons of my own. I jogged to the fridge, grabbed a five pound container of dough, and returned ot the noodle machine he pointed me to. I put about half the dough through the machine, dropping it into a handy pot of boiling water. Once they looked done, I pulled them with one of those fancy pasta ladles with the teeth. It only took about five minutes from start to finish. Once it was complete, I took a bowl of noodles to the old man.
“Acceptable, barely.”
He took the noodles, portioned out two bowls, paused, then made a third. He sliced the chicken breast so thin I could just about see through it, quartered the mushrooms, cut the jalapenos into medallions, and layered the bowl so nicely it looked straight out of a photo shoot. Then he ladled steaming broth over the bowls. It smelled absolutely divine.
“You, come here.”
I nodded and walked over, wondering just what he had in mind.
“This my signature Dan Dan noodle dish. You have this one. I take these out to customer. We talk when I back.”
With that, the old man took the other two bowls and walked out of the kitchen. I went to pick up the bowl and it scalded the shit out of my hands!
“Yow! What the hell are his hands made of? Asbestos?”
I left the bowl there and went to find something to eat with. All I could find was a pair of admittedly very nice chopsticks. I shrugged, hoping I could remember how to use them, and returned to the bowl. I tried the noodles first. They were… noodles. I didn’t know what I expected. But just the bit of broth I slurped up with them was incredible. It seemed the Silver Spire really was working to be the best entertainment and eating in town. They were succeeding as far as I could tell. Even if it had only been a minute or two, the flavors were superb.
I savored the meal while I waited for the old man. He returned after five minutes shaking his head.
“That man always want something. Now, you, what you think?”
I finished my bite and nodded. “This is the best noodle dish I’ve ever had.”
“This my famous Dan Dan dish.”
That’s when it finally clicked.
“That’s what it’s called? Dan dan?”
The old man nodded.
“And your name is Don?”
He looked at me, then nodded hesitantly.
“And you own this restaurant?”
Again, a nod.
“And your employees are like family?”
“Go on.”
“And people come to you for favors.”
The old man smiled wide, with his arms out like a shrug.
“This is how it is.”
“Then could it be argued that you are the leader of a family, perhaps one with not-so-legal sources of funding?”
Don shook his hand. “Eh, perhaps.”
“Which would make you the Don.”
He nodded again, grin growing a little wider. He did a little wave with his hands to encourage me to continue.
“Could it be said, then, that your noodles, the Dan Dan, are a signal as much as anything?”
“It could be.”
I clapped my hands together. “Then I know who and what you are.”
“Please, enlighten me.”
“You are Don Don, the Dan Dan Don.”
Hidden Quest achieved:
Discover the old man’s true identity!
Rewards: 10 renown, 100xp, unknown.
“Well, young man,” he said as he stood upright for the first time. There was a dangerous aura around him now, and a more dangerous gleam in his eye. “What will you do now?”
As if to punctuate his statement, words burst into my view.
DON DON, THE DAN DAN DON
HP: ???/???
Level: 20