Marron chuckled as she realized how mundane this desire was. Topside, she'd never been interested in flowers, unless they were used as a centerpiece, or were the edible kind.
But trapped in darkness for so long, anything that reminded her of the surface was welcome. She got close to one of the flowers and inhaled its scent.
Instead of perfume, she found fresh mountain air.
Now she understood why the mimics had swallowed her food so quickly. Breathing fresh air after being underground for at least two weeks was intoxicating.
"I wonder who planted these...have they always been here?" she whispered, voice small aginst the cavern's silence.
And there, at the altar's base, grew her prize.
Phantasm Moss.
Its tendrils glowed faintly green, each frond shimmering like ghostly fire. The moss clung to the damp cracks in the stone, drinking in the cavern's darkness. When she knelt beside it, the scent hit her—like a bouquet of every savory herb she'd ever used tied together. Rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage. All bound into one complex aroma that made her mouth water despite the danger.
She checked her mental clock.
Quickly, before the patrol has a chance to circle back. I need to cut some of this moss.
Mimics had never been efficient, but...she had only experienced customers from the lower levels. On the fourth floor, they were...much more convincing. With the Lieutenant, they might be even more organized.
Let's be generous and say...maybe I have twelve minutes? I don't really know the full schedule...so I need to get this done as quick as I can.
She thought that, but Marron's hands were already slick with nervous sweat. She wiped them on her clothes as she tugged a small knife from her pack. "II need just a bit of moss. I don't need to kill the whole patch growing here."
She pressed the blade to the base of a tendril. The moss gave way with a sound like celery being diced at high speed—that sharp, satisfying crunch good chefs knew by heart. Each cut released more of that herbal bouquet, so concentrated it made her eyes water.
Her blade slipped once, nearly nicking her finger. She cursed softly, gripping tighter, forcing herself to work steadily despite the ticking-clock pressure building in her chest.
Then her eyes landed on something half-buried beneath the moss patch.
A book.
She brushed dust away and uncovered a slim, leather-bound journal. The cover was cracked with age, dwarven sigils pressed faintly into the hide. Marron hesitated—nine minutes, maybe eight—but the impulse to keep it was too strong.
She shoved the journal into her pack, moss samples secured in their jars.
Snap.
The sound froze her in place.
Not the pop of stone. Not the crumble of loose rubble.
Jaws.
Her pulse hammered as she looked up. Crawling from the shadows was a massive ant-like creature, carapace gleaming black, too large to be natural. Its mandibles opened and closed with a sickening, bone-cutting sound.
"Oh. Yeah...it did mention an ant creature...but I never knew it could get that big."
And the smell—Marron's stomach betrayed her by growling. It rolled off the monster in waves: rich, fermented garlic sweetened with honey, like the most complex marinade she'd ever encountered.
She had never been curious about eating ant meat, until today.
Marron didn't know whether to retch or just roll with it, honestly.
But before she could decide how to feel, the ant's mandibles closed around a cluster of loose rocks and crushed them with grotesque ease. Shards rained across the floor, the sound making her teeth ache.
"Oh no," she whispered.
Then—voices echoed from the passage behind her.
"There! The scent trail leads—"
"Sweet garlic, fermented. The process in its body—"
"If we could kill it, give it to the Lieutenant's new chef—"
"She could make it delicious, yes, make us stronger—"
Torchlight flickered across the murals, shadows lengthening as a mimic patrol entered the shrine. Their stretched faces glistened, their voices overlapping in unsettling harmony.
There were mimic hunters, and they wanted to kill the ant monster. That was fine.
But they were already thinking about her cooking.
Marron's hand darted to the bone shard at her hip, heat flaring against her sweaty palm. She crouched lower behind the altar, torn between panic and the awful realization that she had maybe five minutes before the mimic guards wandered in here, and decided to send more of them in the area.
Hopefully I get out of here in one piece. I already have the moss, and the journal. Now I gotta run.
Escaping without drawing the ant's attention or the mimic hunting party was one problem.
I should've made an extra dose of Stealth Brew. I knew it only lasted fifteen minutes, and the moss was supposed to make it forty.
Marron wanted to bang her head against the cave walls. How was she supposed to leave without anyone realizing the Lieutenant's prized chef was sneaking around in the middle of the night?
Her grip slipped on the bone shard as more sweat beaded on her palms.
The white flowers seemed to pulse faintly in the dark, mocking her with their impossible freshness in this underground nightmare.
+
The mimic patrol fanned into the shrine, shadows stretching long across the cracked altar. The ant-creature clicked its mandibles, snapping another stone to powder, while the mimics whispered hungrily to one another.
Marron crouched lower, her breathing shallow. The broth's cloak still held, but her timer was running dangerously thin.
Just a little longer. Let them fight it. Then I can slip away.
The bone shard pulsed at her hip, hot against her side as if it too warned her to hurry. She gritted her teeth, edging backward into the deeper shadows of a broken pillar.
The patrol advanced. One mimic drew a jagged spear. Another's body rippled, reshaping into a hulking brute with grasping hands. The ant reared back, antennae twitching, and the air grew thick with the sour-sweet stench of its fermenting body.
Marron took another step back.
Her foot nudged loose gravel.
Clink.
The sound was barely louder than a coin dropped into a jar, but in the terrible silence before combat, it rang like a bell.
You have got to be kidding me.
Her system chimed mercilessly.
Ding!
[Stealth Broth Effect Expired.]
Her outline snapped into full clarity. Every mimic head turned at once.
"There!" one shrieked, voice echoing in the shrine.
"Our chef! Chef--hunt? For us?" another moaned, reverent and greedy all at once.
Marron's heart lurched into her throat. She had no plan for this. No time. The ant-creature hissed, clicking in agitation at the sudden uproar.
Her hand fumbled into her apron. Not spices. Not tools. Only the two borrowed knives she'd taken from the diner.
Pitiful things, dull and utilitarian. They felt wrong in her grip, too light, too clumsy. Nothing like the weight and balance of her true set—the beautiful knives given to her by Lord Jackal. Blades that had easily cut through whatever was placed in front of them.
A sharp ache pulsed in her chest at the memory. She missed them so fiercely she almost couldn't breathe.
If I ever get out of here, I'll never let them go again.
For right now, she had no choice but to use the terrible tools.
She wasn't even a fighting class, and yet here she was.
Marron sighed as she drew both borrowed knives, her knuckles turning white. She raised them as the mimics advanced toward the ant monster. Some of them snarled and others grinned with lips that weren't theirs.
"She fights with us!"
"Victory! Victory! Then we FEAST!"
The ant hissed again, scent rolling through the cavern like a poisonous cloud.
Marron felt her veins fill with ice as she now jumped forward to attack a massive ant monster alongside the mimics.
A hunting party, the prey, and a small chef...with nothing but dull steel and trembling hands.