18.1

Gog stared at the new Head Chef as she handed him a plate of thin plant worms. The smell was divine and caused him to move his right hand toward them unconsciously. As his fingers approached the delicious dish of worms, Eve, the new Head Chef’s words froze him in place.

“There are exactly twenty-seven French fries for the prince’s palate. If any of them go missing, what do you think our great leader will do to you?” Eve said, looking down at him with glowing ruby eyes.

Gog gulped and pulled his hand out of danger. It wasn’t his fault the new Head Chef made such delicious tempting things!

The drudge Gobbo left the kitchen in haste to deliver the plate of French fries to Dagon. Eve rolled her eyes as she watched him depart through the delivery window. This was one of the first places she’d ever worked where the staff was willing to rob royalty! After winning, albeit with assistance from the prince in the eleventh hour, she consolidated the kitchen. Her fiefdom was divided by those they served. Ordinary cooks to common Dremora, such as the palace staff. Uncommon cooks to the lesser nobles. Rare specialist chefs were provided for only the higher nobles.

Finally, for the dukes, only my three lieutenants match them. Eve thought as she turned back to her private workstation. The entire room was an offshoot of the kitchen proper. It was dedicated to serving only one person, the Prince of Destruction. Dagon is my customer. On the one hand, it is trying. On the other, it is the ultimate freedom. I snap my fingers, and things get done as if they were the prince’s words.

Eve had vastly underrated the power given to someone who could satisfy an immortal’s palate. She had sent Nota to the palace library with a finger snap. Even then, her Tome was only one percent done with the cookbook section. It was mind-boggling how much dedication there was in Dagon’s realm to food.

How many books were there devoted to frog legs again? Eve queried Nota.

Over ten million. They organized them by realm and level of taste. Nota sent a picture of countless towering bookcases filled with recipe books on a single subject.

Tiny tendrils moved around Eve’s body as she cooked three main things in tandem. Pizza on the left, steak in the center, and spaghetti on the right. Malthazar had created multiple arms to cook with during the battle, and Eve understood why. When she attempted to cook everything with Telekinesis, the result was a severed arm. The message had been clear that hand-cooked foods were the only option allowed. Without her Crystal Core and Combat Bot routines, it would have been a nightmare to try and keep up. Dagon had demanded a new dish every hour for the last week. As one of the easiest things to change, pizza had taken the brunt. Once she was more familiar with the meats available, the steak started arriving too. Finally, the spaghetti appeared as each sauce could turn the old favorite into a new dish.

French fries were the fourth dish she’d started, but the work wasn’t even close to over. From what she understood, her food was vital to the prince’s recovery. Every new dish provided more motivation, allowing Dagon to recuperate with incredible speed.

The Princes are powerful based on how interested they are at the time. Eve thought as her hands and tendrils blurred in motion. The less interested, the more complex their Plane is to breach, and the more dormant they are. The Proud Prince was banking on Dagon being very bored to start recovery, but that isn’t going to happen now.

Eve’s eyes glinted a devilish red. She might not be able to intervene directly, but it only took a pebble to create an avalanche. Once recovered from his current state, Dagon would look to return the generosity of his peer.

The Prince of Destruction might have been caught unawares due to his focus on Wilson’s realm, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. Eve had discovered that the multi-million army she’d destroyed earlier at the portal was a drop in the ocean of Dagon’s forces. The sheer endless quantity was why no one had bothered doing anything but sending more. It was why her firetrap could harvest and purify many resources.

This is why openings to these Prince Planes are so dangerous. Eve thought with narrowed eyes. The modern tactical theory holds up against barbarianism until the numbers shift too far. Any fortified position can be overrun given enough time. It doesn’t matter how much your field advantage is if you’re constantly fighting one thousand to one.

Even worse, Dagon’s forces were backed by competent mages. They might be filthy sacrificial murderers, but that didn’t make the power used any less potent. Wards, walls, wills, it didn’t matter what was in the way. With enough blood magic, anything would break. Eve had decided the most valuable resource she could acquire was still knowledge. She flavored every dish with Witch’s Dust disguising it as silver salt. The purpose wasn’t to poison the prince, far from it.

This was a rare opportunity to see Tier Seven's physical and mana makeup. It had been a gamble but worked, therefore, utterly worth it. She had no doubt the prince knew they were being observed, but apparently, it was expected. Every prince had physical and magical spies to keep tabs on the others. Dagon had attributed the current eyes to one of his countless enemies.

Eve’s eyes were half-closed and relaxed while she cooked to better focus on the information streams. It had caused a few incidents when she first took over. Upstart little Dremora chefs had thought she was asleep and promptly proceeded to attempt to murder her.  She’d gone through eight cleavers before the message got around.

Don’t disturb the Silver Chef when she’s sleep-cooking.

Her kitchen staff had thought it was hilarious and promptly proceeded to bill her as such. Eve’s eyes twitched in remembrance at some of the developed memes. It appeared clear that the human race wasn’t alone in such depravity.

Eve finished plating the dishes with Telekinesis while cooking with it was taboo; plating wasn’t. For the next forty-five minutes, she didn’t have to cook anything. A glance at the dishes covered them and moved them to the delivery window. As they started to vanish, a knock sounded at the steel-plated stone slab that doubled as a doorway. After the first few interruptions, Eve enforced a strict no-interruption policy. It only took three mysterious disappearances of a few nobles to make the point.

Eve opened the thin door slit at eye level and glared out. Few would disturb her during downtime. Unfortunately, the bastard with the vertical slit pupils staring back at her was one of them. She started with a direct attack, “Get lost, Duke.”

“That would be Duke Gladius to you, worm,” Gladius said with a sneer.

Eve’s entire demeanor shifted as she said, “I guess I’ll inform the prince that this worm will be delayed in serving him then.” The door’s eye slit closed with a snick. She waited. Barely a second passed before a frantic pounding resounded on the door.

Opening the eye slit Eve was treated to a shapeshifting doppelganger bleeding out from a cut-throat. Duke Gladius was standing with a beaming smile right next to the corpse.

“Oh, dear me. Unfortunately, the previous person you spoke with wasn’t me. I apologize for whatever was said when I wasn’t present.” Duke Gladius said with a smile that would be dripping slime if the world had any justice.

“That so?” Eve said. She’d pursued the matter on her first day and realized she might be right here. The duke would die if she came to blows, putting a significant crimp in her plans. Since might made right, killing someone meant you replaced them in the hierarchy. It would be like shooting herself in the foot, chopping off an arm, and gouging out her eyes simultaneously.

In other words, currently murdering Duke Gladius wasn’t viable.

No matter how I fantasize that he’d look good stuffed and baked. Eve thought.

“Now that that is out of the way, I would like to commission your services for my son’s coming-of-age party.” Duke Gladius said with a respectful tone.

“Your son is over eight thousand years old,” Eve said with a monotone. It was depressing how this wasn’t a sexual invitation. No, they wanted her to cook for them exclusively.

“Indeed, how time flies.” Duke Gladius said without letting his toothy smile diminish in the least. There were politicians back on Earth that would envy the pure political wattage produced by the Dremora.

“Not interested,” Eve said, closing the eye slit. She did not need to climb the social ladder around here. Cooking for anyone other than Dagon was a demotion, no matter how it was presented.

There was a roar of rage outside her door and fists slamming on the metal. Eve’s eye twitched in annoyance, and she lost her patience. Killing the duke might be out of the realm of possibility, but she wasn’t just a murdering psychopath.

She was a vindictive bitch, too.

Witch’s Dust spun out from the runes engraved for defense on the door. There was a sharp gasp as the duke recognized the threat. Within moments the sound of pounding had ceased. No one reached a high level of power without the ability to retreat from combat. Eve’s eyes flashed as she moved back to a couch crafted with a thought. Laying down, her eyes glazed as she grinned maniacally.

She hadn’t killed the pest as much as she’d wanted to.

It wouldn’t save Duke Gladius’s sanity, though. Eve had been working on her itching powder for quite some time. The duke was the perfect test subject. Within the next decade, he was fated to lose his sanity from the annoying itch gradually. By that time, Eve wouldn’t need to worry. There would be so many suspects taking over the position of Duchess would be off the table.

There was the chance the duke would break the problem with enough sacrifices, but that was slim. Dremora genetics were very mutable because of their ability to absorb mana but resist change simultaneously.

She already confirmed that the Prince of Destruction was no Dremora. Princes were another species, much like how Vampire Progenitors were practically a different race from their progeny. It wasn’t just a basic increase either. The fundamental way Dagon consumed and cycled mana was other.

It's almost like I’m missing part of the picture. Eve thought, looking over the data from her silver salt spy mechanism. These readings don’t make sense.

Eve let her mind drift through Eternal Memory. As she moved through the sea of information, a niggling thought pushed through. The reason the data didn’t make sense would make sense if the prince weren’t there. If what she was seeing wasn’t the complete picture.

A shell. Eve snapped up, her eyes wide. Dagon is a shell. The physical form is merely an anchor!

Her mind flashed as Crystal Core built on the connection pulling data, facts, and fiction into a coherent picture. The niggling thought she’d had bore to the front of her mind. At the time, Eve had wondered why the data she was looking at bore a striking resemblance to a hermit crab. Now though, it all made sense.

Dremora saw a shell animated like a puppet in a show. The actual Prince of Destruction was hidden in a layer behind the physical surface. Eve wasn’t sure how it was accomplished. She was confident that the mana cycled was being devoured in massive quantities. A quantity that far exceeded what a physical form could handle unless it weren’t a form at all.

It was a decoy. A door to hide the gaping maw behind it.

Eve’s mind took the next logical step and stuttered to a halt.

It isn’t a Plane. It’s a feeding ground. This isn’t a city. It’s a stomach. Eve thought, stunned.