The next day no one bothered her. It was wonderful. She had a class of course and hauled herself out of bed for that, but when she was finished she skipped her exercise routine and went straight back to bed. She imagined herself, after she woke later, snoring happily and contentedly. The only downside was when she first woke up her breath reeked from the wine. She considered just going back to sleep as the day rolled on but pictured the statuesque Forsythe looming over her later, a condemning silence descending around her as he got ready to filet her and cook her for missing his event. It was either that or he would just stand there sad and quiet and sort of hunched over, giving her side-long glances that communicated sorrow.
Reluctantly she logged on and made her way through the empty floors of the Tomb of the Royal Apothecary. It was different, seeing it deserted. She supposed she could have reset the floor but she had no desire to fight skeletons, vermin, or spiders. Then there were the smelly fish people. She shuddered.
She was exceptionally grateful when she found her way up through the castle and out into the sunshine. It felt like she hadn't seen it in days, which wasn't entirely true. While she hadn't seen it in the game she had seen it every day in the real world. Amelia also noticed that the Residents were viewing her differently. Where before her fame and reputation had garnered her distance and respect, now they moved up to her as she passed and shook her hand, or gave her small candies or treats. It was nice but was getting old really fast. Instead of grouching at them though she accepted their greetings and well wishes with a smile that was only mildly forced.
When she finally made her way to the Chef shop where she had found Forsythe throwing down his cooking challenge weeks ago, she was a little surprised. The small kiosks and other tables that had lined the lake on the opposite side of the road had all been removed. In their place were cooking pits stretching meters. Overtop them were finely wrought wires that would be used to keep pots, pans, and of course food from being burned directly by fire.
There was a carnival atmosphere. People were everywhere. Dwarves, Silf, Humans, Residents, Transients, and even a large gathering of curious birds that lined the roofs of the shops on the opposite side of the road. Most amazingly, as she got closer, she saw King Elairdrin, Queen Catherine, and Prince Orekin sitting at a table on an elevated stage. Nice tablecloths had been supplied and a hastily sketched 'judges' sign hung from the edge.
"Forsythe is kind of fearsome," Aidan mentioned.
She jumped, as he had approached her from behind. "Yeah. I don't know many people who can use one-word sentences to pressure city leaders to be judges for cooking contests."
"Not only that, but you weren't here a while ago when there was a city-wide announcement." Aidan smiled and grinned wider at Amelia's look of shock. "Oh yes, the game announced that a festival had been called for, and, the name… Oh god." He closed his eyes and started laughing, his whole body shaking.
"What?" Amelia poked him, demanding immediate answers.
"Burning Culinary Showdown." Aidan laughed harder, and Amelia could do nothing but look stupefied.
"But that's so dumb." She protested looking shocked. She stared at Aidan confident that he was joking until she saw his facade not changing. She turned her head and started looking around, focusing on one particular Silf that was slowly waving to get her attention. Hunter was here. Elisha too, Amelia noted, finding her moments later in the throng.
Forsythe, she saw, was wearing a tall white chef's hat, conversing with his 'bitter' culinary rival. They seemed to be discussing the coming festivities, and Forsythe was handing the man bag after bag of food. One ridiculous ingredient after another. She guessed he wanted to be fair. It wasn't the Resident's fault that Forsythe was crazy enough to butcher high-class meat ingredients from legendary creatures.
"I'm here! Did I miss it?" Amelia jumped for the second time as Raven appeared.
"A wild Raven appears," Aidan noted.
"Yes!" Raven leaned over and gave him a small peck on the cheek, hopping slightly to do so. "Did we win?"
Amelia looked over Raven's head, wondering what the hell she had been doing where she was actually higher level than her. Raven was an incredible 245. "You actually haven't missed anything. How did you get here?"
"Boat." She explained abruptly. "Things. Directions. Etc."
"Ship?" Amelia corrected.
"Boat," Raven said again giving her a lip-pressed look of disapproval. "Smaller oar boat for the river. Had to leave my guys a ways back. Guards are persnickety in these parts. Couldn't let'em kill the guards. You can't just take a ship everywhere you want Amelia."
"Your attention!" A short Silf in the front was waving on stage, sparing Amelia, and slowly and obediently the crowd quieted and turned. "Thank you! I'm Idolia, your lovely female cooking battle color commentator!" Hoots started as well as several whistles, and she curtsied pretending she had a skirt on for a moment. "Thank you! First the good news and then those really boring rules type thing."
"Wow, she really is a 'color' commentator," Amelia said.
"Ah. I was going to do that." Raven fussed.
"You wouldn't get to look around while you waited for the actual cooking to be done. He was thinking of you, I'm sure. I imagine Raven, watching meat slowly cook…" Aidan's eyes were glazed over from the image. Her face became grim as she imagined it herself and she immediately seemed to let go of the idea of becoming a commentator.
"Good point! Think I can sneak bites?" Raven asked, standing on her tiptoes unnecessarily to look around.
"Yes, I am sure he already set up a plate," Aidan said, wincing. "I watched him. He even put up one of those little name placers behind it."
"Raven's plate?" Raven demanded expectantly.
Amelia turned her face away and hid her grin and laughter behind her hand. It was too soon for Raven to have said that after a night of making jokes about how Raven named everything after Raven.
"So that's the good news. After the judge's panel eats the food and declares a winner, they're going to cook all of Forsythe's ingredients and everybody eats!" Idolia finished. "Yay! I had the snake in the Dwarf Kingdom. It was amazing...and kinda scary looking actually."
"The rules?" King Elairdrin was in the middle of the table, and he spoke reminding her, sounding more amused than impatient.
"Right so we're going to do 2 courses with a special main ingredient for each course! The first course will be… dun dun dun…" She made a drumroll by running in place incredibly fast and tapping her feet on the stage. "Appetizers!"
Forsythe had his arms crossed and he was nodding, his big white hat bobbing along with his head. The Chef near him looked over and was nodding as well. It was weird because after a moment as if on cue they both began nodding and squinting at each other as if they didn't want to be the one to stop nodding first.
"This is what a stroke feels like," Aidan said after a moment, running a hand over his face slowly as if trying to feel for numbness.
"For the main ingredient we will be using, wait, I can remember this. It's like… the cucumber right?" Forsythe was nodding at her and pointed to his hand. "Oh, I have a list." Idolia was seeming more and more like a flake, but the crowd was getting really excited. "Green Tube Plant. Found in a more exotic part of the Southern Continent, they look like, well, cucumbers. They have…" She was reading now. "...a very watery flesh and a thick waxy skin. They are commonly eaten by those Quick Dogs outside the starter town Midus. This ingredient was requested by Queen Catherine!" Idolia stepped back and swept a hand grandly toward the Queen of the Silf. "Ready to go!? You have 10 minutes!" Both Forsythe and the Resident Chef startled, apparently not realizing that she was going to start the timer immediately.
Still, The Chef had already begun heating a pot of oil after hearing the go signal. He was immediately slicing a fresh Green Tube Plant along a cutting board. He looked like he had already prepared some sort of brown sauce and was heating that up as well. Maybe it was because he was a Resident but some of the actions were very fast and some of the pans and pots looked like they just appeared for him rather than being prepared.
Forsythe didn't bother to start moving pans over the fires laid out. When the order to go came he simply pulled a few Green Tube Plants out of his bag and began slicing rounds off of them, methodically. It wasn't long before he was painstakingly pulling seeds from these rounds and setting the seedless rounds aside. He was being so slow that Amelia started to sweat. The Chef on the other side of him, Chef Euclaire, looked like he was fighting Hell's furnace, frying long strips, and there was Forsythe, calmly chopping and scooping.
"Well, he's going to win," Aidan predicted flatly. "You see that? No worry at all. Zero."
"You sure that's not something else?" Amelia asked nervously. "Stage fright?"
"Amelia, he's the protagonist." Aidan looked disgusted that she doubted his prediction.
"Wow look at the Brack Chef go. He's got flames that are like a mile high!" Idolia gushed, and then, "wait we have some action at the Forsythe table… someone appears to be… eating." Shock rode through her voice, and heads turned.
Sure enough Raven was there, pointing at the plate with her name on it. Forsythe paused in his chopping momentarily and pulled out a jar with small round pink objects and doled her a portion.
"Brack's Chef Euclaire lost interest since she only seems to be eating the food and not helping to prepare it, and Forsythe has waved off people trying to pull that woman away!" Idolia reported diligently.
"Forsythe seems to be plating the Green Tube Plants, and he has produced some kind of white cream which he is lathering them with. What is that Forsythe?" Idolia wanted to know.
"Crème fraîche." He reported.
"Ah yeah, wait what?" Idolia asked, looking flustered.
"It's a thick cream I made from a Wildebeast's milk that was intended for it's first calf of the season." He explained.
"That's… really gross, but I said that about the snake too and I loved it!" Idolia finished excitedly.
Forsythe topped the cream with the small pink orbs he had recently thrown at Raven's plate.
"Caviar?" Idolia guessed, almost shocking Amelia because she had guessed before Amelia had.
"Yes. From the deadly Eel Alpha on the Western Coast of the Southern Continent. It actually speeds up your heartbeat in small amounts." Forsythe said. It didn't take him long to finish plating, and not long after that, the other Chef had started plates with his own fried Tube strips topped with light brown sauce. He garnished it with something orange.
"Time's up!" Idolia cried.