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For my part, it was the matter of a day.

“Sign this contract scroll to enter the city.” one of the guards told me.

“I recognize the Achean words, what are these runes between them?”

“Duhrish, the language of the dwarves. Unless you’re going there, you don’t need to read it.”

A quick System purchase later, and “I think I’ll read this in its entirety.” I said.

“Suit yourself, but this isn’t an inn. No meals.”

“What if I can prove my skills to your Cook?” I asked.

Laughing, they led me to their Cook.

.....

“I wish to help prepare food in exchange for meals.” I said. “Not as a permanent job, but just for the time it takes to read the laws.”

He shrugged. “Not that much that isn’t common sense.”

“Dwarvish law isn’t the same as the rest of Othello.” I said.

“Yeah. Okay, so show me how you’d cut this head of lettuce for salad. WAIT. Why are you grabbing that knife?”

“This serrated one is used for fibrous vegetables.” I said.

“And if I told you that was a meat knife?”

I reached out and touched the meat knife. I then pointed at the various culinary tools, named their usages. Each was double and half again the size of tools I was used to working with, but I felt confident in handling them in spite of the penalty for using over-sized tools.

He hooked his thumbs into his belt, and laughed at the ceiling.

“My name is Artaxis, and you at least seem to know your way around a kitchen. Okay, let’s get to making broth for the soldiers to soak their bread in.”

Peas and beans and lamb and mushroom gravy with bits of nut already ground up and mixed in.

“Heh.” he said, the first time I imbued the ingredients while preparing them. “Now you’re just trying to be fancy and show off.”

And as though I had challenged him, he showed off what a third level Cook could imbue like. Laughing. Gods. It wasn’t just the speed at which he moved, but the volume and the precision. I had an ability I Love Food, but he just had... it HAD to be more, and special abilities, plus something that allowed him to convert and mix spices to make a mix larger than the sum of its pieces.

When he mixed the bread, he used EXACTLY the right amount of milk to turn the flour and eggs mixture into a malleable dough which he shaped before firing it into loaves with a flaky crust and yet chewy interior, which seemed designed to sponge up the broth that I was still working on. I couldn’t get meat off the bones fast enough, and yet no matter what cut I gave him, he swiftly converted them into cubes.

The meat seemed to WANT to be cubed, mixed with soup and stuffing and spices, and baked into deep pie crusts, almost exactly the size of a minotaur’s palm.

Violet said, sticking her small snout under the flap of my backpack.

“What manner of critter is that?” Artaxis asked, flipping it open. “Oh. I could make such wonderful soups out of them, if they taste even close to what they look like.”

“They are not for sale.” I said. “I plan to take them back to the Empire with me.”

“Oho. Are the cyclopses calling themselves an empire again?”

“I come from further in the east. The Red Tide Empire, sometimes called the Tidelands.”

“Really?”

“Among other things,” I said, “I am a Speaker of Truth. I literally cannot lie to you.”

“Well, mind your figurative lying as well, if you mean to visit the mines below the maze proper.” he warned. “But tell me, why are you here instead of there?”

“There is a female minotaur among the leadership. Her name is Uma, and she says that any males worthy of her should travel to her from here.”

He snorted. “Women. Well, I won’t tell you what you will or won’t find, but it sounds like she’s going to be getting a lot of younger men with more courage than brains.”

I shook my head in the way minotaurs do to indicate dismissal. “That may be exactly what she intends.” I agreed, and began describing her personality.

“Hoho, not to ME, lizard lad. These horns and the one below are claimed; I am part of Mineche’s harem, when she bothers to remember to call for me.”

“Why are you cooking for troops, here, rather than inside, for her?”

He shook his head the way an angry minotaur will. “Too much fine food makes for a large belly and a shameful death, she says.”

“That’s horrible.” I said. “Does she let you cook on the nights she calls for you?”

“Speak not of my marriage.” he said. “I’ll not ruin my mood until after the pudding is imbued for desert.”

Four dozen minotaurs can pack down a lot of food, and the kitchen leftovers were... generous. I let the children rummage through the spoils first, picking and choosing as their hungers directed them, eating the leftovers myself.

Artaxis shook his head, but said nothing for about two minutes.

“These beasts.” he finally said. “They are more than Aware pets.”

“They are family.” I agreed.

He sighed. “Watch them carefully in the Maze.” he said. “I am joking about eating them; there are others who will look upon them as a delicacy.”

Blue said, pulling a strip of fat and sheepskin from my hand.

One, two, three siblings. Would I be able to keep them all alive?

“Thank you for your warning.” I said. “I shall read that section of the law carefully.”

The law, both versions, was very clear on the matter. Slavery was legal in the Maze, but punishable by death in the Mine. Minotaurs could only be enslaved by other minotaurs, and attempting to enslave a minotaur female was punishable by death.

Basically, anyone in the Maze you could pummel into submission and drag before the council to declare them a slave was a slave. Someone about to be made a slave could challenge in a fight to the death.

Simple rules: all concerned parties entered, with any friends that would risk their lives to support them. No attacks from outside the ring; nobody left the ring while the fight was going. The fight continued until at least one of the two primaries was dead.

Damn you, Rakkal. THIS was insanity.

It was even worse if I declared myself a servant of Rakkal or Uma. There was no process to enslave slaves; it wasn’t even theft. Anyone, even another slave, who had the strength to seize a slave was their master until their real master came for them. If the slave was of value, there might be some coins that swapped hands, but borrowing slaves was completely legal once they were out of their master’s senses.

So, my route seemed laid out for me, even paved in stone.

I had to start in the Mine, gain some measure of respect there, and only then proceed (with due caution) into the Maze. I’d have to find someone to care for the children, or find some way of getting them to where they could care for themselves.

I had done everything I could think of. Repeatedly sending them the Insight icon. Feeding them brains. If I handed them a knot to untie, they would just dissolve it with their acid.

Nothing seemed to help; they seemed stuck in what they could feel. To be fair, they were still younger than many species.

To be unfair, I hadn’t had any such developmental problems.

Each of them had Might; Violet had a rating of 2. For something the size of my foot, that was near unheard of. Each of them had Resolve, though I couldn’t imagine why they’d developed it. Other statistics were generally at zero.

Pink had Agility and Lore, but I hadn’t seen him so much as tap, let alone use magic.

Blue had Psyche, but his communications were still limited to the venal, the corporeal.

And Violet had a point of Valor.

It wasn’t a bad start to a trio; Violet would be the armswoman, the line enemies had to cross. Pink would be the lancer, darting in to harry enemies and keep them off her flanks. Blue would be the sage, the magical support from behind.

Only, that wasn’t what I saw that day, watching them fight among the food scraps.

Violet would shove the others away from anything that interested her, Pink would dart around grabbing things and eating them quickly, and Blue... Blue just filled his stomach calmly, announcing the flavors and textures to anyone who could hear him.

There was no... teamwork. That was it. Even though they were grouped, they weren’t behaving as a team.

So... how did I even DO that, present them with obstacles that required teamwork to fix?

And, horrible parent that I was, I came upon several ideas while helping to cook lunch.

Pun intended.