18.0

Eve watched her opponent Malthazar, Head Chef of Dagon’s Palace, as he created the first dish in the competition. She had absolutely no current skills at manipulating Soul Mana. The head chef was her ticket to creating fabulous cuisine. After all, the shortest route to a person’s heart was through the stomach, or so it was said.

Malthazar moved like an artist who had copied the same picture a hundred thousand times. Mechanical precision trained by countless times turned the most elegant movements into slag. Eve watched as the head chef added small portions of an elven soul to the dough they had crafted.

Witch’s Dust showed her the tiny runes binding mana to dough. Her eyes narrowed as she realized that every dish cooked in the kitchen used the same basics. Soul mana, runes, and ingredients are the trifecta of cuisine for Dremora and, by extension, the Daedric Prince. Malthazar went through the motions, eventually finishing with three dumplings.

“Go on then, eat and realize your inferiority,” Malthazar said to Eve. He considered her below the level required to use his complete skills. The dumplings she had witnessed were nothing more than dregs given shape.

“Why would I put such garbage into my mouth?” Eve said, clearing a space on the preparation table.

Malthazar’s eye twitched as the scent of bloodlust thickened. With a mighty effort of will, the leader of all the cooks around her said, “If you can’t produce something of at least that quality, don’t be sad when you turn it into an ingredient.”

Evil eyes glinted from the cooking stations around the preparation table. Eve did not doubt if she didn’t produce a result, her corpse would be added to the soup pot at the very least.

“Watch, this is Art,” Eve said, letting her ruby eyes drift half closed. Telekinesis made light work of preparing the dough. It was amusing to watch the hooded eyes of the surrounding cooks.

Dough spun into form, fluffy and delicious. She copied the head chef’s runes, improving them on the fly. Instead of gold, silver flowed in tiny words across the dough, enchanting the food. Eve’s hands flowed as if carving clay, not dough, seamlessly integrating the soul mana into her dish.

The shocked expressions of everyone watching told the tale far better than mere words. Learn, Eternal Memory, Witch’s Dust, and Eve’s skill at cooking combined into Art.

Dough, meat, vegetables, and soul mana created a kaleidoscope that any pizza lover would recognize.

If I’m going to cheat, I might as well do it in style. Eve said as she layered multiple ingredients into the pie. Heat flowed from her cooking the entire array, from the outer crust to the inner gooey cheese interior.

It didn’t take a genius to realize the first round had gone to her. The glistening fangs and glinting eyes of the kitchen staff made it clear enough. Malthazar swept the preparation table clear with a grunt. Eve didn’t pursue the matter as her pizza vanished mid-flight, separating into the exact number of onlookers, a slice for each.

“Attempting to bribe the staff is pointless,” Malthazar said with a severe expression. “The Palace decides the winner, not some pathetic servants.”

Eve shrugged with an easy smile. She didn’t need to posture or regain imagined authority. The first round had been the exchange of opening shots. Now the real effort would start. The presence that had searched for her earlier when the army was devoured returned.

Eve waited with bated breath as a powerful force examined her entire being. After the scan, she relaxed in the safety of her mind. If there had been anything wrong with her disguise, that would have been the end of it right then and there. The self-destruction runes would have triggered without delay.

“Dough is no way to compete. We’ll do three rounds, starting with soup!” Malthazar said firmly.

Eve felt a particular wave of mana respond to the head chef’s words. In the distance, a gong sounded with the authority of a sovereign. The kitchen shifted in space, emptying everyone except Eve and her opponent.

Two boiling pots filled with crystal-clear water appeared behind each of the chefs. Eve eyed the opponent over the preparation table as Malthazar did the same to her. There was a sense of anticipation as the tension ratcheted like a clockwork cuckoo nest.

A sharp crack split the air, and Malthazar burst into motion. Ingredients were pulled from thin air as the Dremora shifted their form to have multiple arms. Vegetables were chopped in a whirl of action on the left, while the meat was cubed with precision on the right.

On her side, Eve handled everything with assembly line artificing. Instead of creating one dish, she was cooking multiple versions of the same thing simultaneously. Crystal Core and Combat Bot made the process effortless, as duplication was merely a matter of scaling ingredients, not techniques. Telekinesis and Witch’s Dust strands whipped in a barely-seen blur of motion. A glance at Malthazar’s ingredients was enough to decode the beef stew being created by the Dremora chef. Instead of copying, she took a page from her life on Earth.

Onions, beef, croutons, and melted cheese blurred into a form that any French master would recognize. Dating back to Rome, this traditional peasant dish graced the emperors' table. The soup’s unique flavor came from the caramelization of the onion and the crisp sherry she used. The white melted cheese and circular cut of toasted garlic bread atop held one’s sight and concealed the savory brown depths that drowned reason.

While preparing the ingredients was easy, combining them with soul mana was not. Witch’s Dust ate every failure recycling the components into a perfect new version each time. Learn came to the fore, teaching Eve at the same time Eternal Memory provided data on Malthazar’s techniques. It took over three hundred failures, but finally, Eve had a success that outpaced her opponent’s dish.

Two frantic hours turned into two bowls sitting on plates. Both opponents stared with narrow eyes at the other before begrudgingly switching bowls. Taking a spoon, Eve shoveled a single taste of the beef stew into her mouth. She discreetly dumped the liquid into her Storage where no one could see.

Like hell, I’m going to eat anything cooked by a literal demon. Eve thought with an internal eye roll. If I were Malthazar, I’d toss the first game to drug my opponent!

“No!” Malthazar shouted as his shaking hand took another scoop of soup from the bowl. Eve thought it meant that she’d beaten the head chef and won the first round. Reality proved different, though. A single glowing mark appeared on Malthazar’s side of the table. The moment the head chef saw the impact, his previous arrogance ballooned to epic levels.

“It’s already over, worm. Soon, you’ll be gracing the butcher’s block!” Malthazar taunted.

Eve’s eyes narrowed to slits. This wasn’t a battle that hamburgers, pizza, or fried chicken would win. She needed to dip into the recipes that sold more in a year than others could in a decade. “Stir-fry, meat, and vegetable dish.” Eve spat with venom.

It burned her sensibilities, but being down by one was no time to let pride get in the way of gutting the opponent. Chicken, peanuts, assorted vegetables, and her secret red weapon were combined with ruthless efficiency. Using the same methods as before, Eve cycled through until she had a superior quality dish.

Then taking her loss to heart, Eve cooked the specialty a thousand times more, turning a mere dish into Fantasy Art.

Malthazar’s eyes glazed in shock as the mark appeared above Eve’s side of the preparation table. The head chef screamed gibberish, cursing Eve’s entire lineage from one end to the other. Her eyes glowed with a more profound, darker, most sinister ruby light with each insult.

“Dessert!” Malthazar said finally with a poisoned glare.

Eve gave a bright, winsome smile even as she created a layered pastry filled with nuts. Syrup and ground pistachios covered the entire affair elevating it from benign to sublime.

Both chefs looked tense, and Eve despaired as she saw the mark above Malthazar’s head. She glanced at his chocolate-covered monstrosity before she prepared to detonate the self-destruction runes. However, the absence of gloating caused her to look at Malthazar’s face. It was an ashen grey pallor chilling to observe, denoting despair steeped in madness.

“Impossible. There’s no way this little slip of garbage did better than me.” Malthazar said, enraged. His tirade lasted until he saw the mark above his side. At that point, Eve witnessed the blood drain from her opponent's face.

“…no, not this…” Malthazar said with a bare whisper.

Suddenly the presence that had examined her before was back. Eve felt that if the attention before was a soft gaze, this was a heavy weight upon them both. There was an almost physical presence, and she knew it was the prince looking at them.

“A mere child has bested you. For shame, your skills have atrophied for too long, Malthazar.”A voice said one that was both near and far.

Malthazar knelt in a posture of supplication and said, “I can get better, Master! I can rip the secrets from her flesh and provide even better cuisine! A chance is all I need to reach greater heights.”

Eve raised one eyebrow at the casual disregard of her power. Still, that was nothing compared to the prince’s reaction. As a child, she’d once witnessed a documentary on army ants. The way they stripped the land bare was very vivid imagery.

Malthazar’s punishment was much worse.

Flesh flayed from bone, and Eve’s eyes allowed her to see the same runes that were used in cooking applied. What was being filleted into pieces wasn’t just Malthazar’s flesh.

It was his soul, too.

Eve didn’t look away; the prince had gone through the effort of creating this demonstration. They wanted to make sure she witnessed it. Turning her eyes would only arouse suspicion. Instead, she pasted a thrilled expression on her face allowing Savage Survival Mind to rise to the fore. Her body moved appropriately, with Combat Bot providing the sweat, pheromones, and other details.

Eve watched herself act like nothing more than a fanatically devoted follower. It was rather relaxing to leave the heavy lifting to others!

“You understand your position,” Dagon said, reverberating through the entire kitchen.

“Yes, master!” Eve said in a peppy cheerleading tone.

“See that I do not need to respond again,” Dagon said before his attention receded.

Eve tilted heavily, catching herself on the preparation table’s edge. The full attention of a being a Tier above was a terrifying sensation. Indeed, she could escape, but that didn’t make it less horrifying.

She straightened and took on a commanding mein. Seconds after putting herself together, the rest of the cooks appeared. The kitchen reversed its appearance moving from a duel-type setting into the more normal one for daily operations. Eve gave a sinister grin at all the returning chefs. Several of them looked at her and realized instantly what had happened.

“Greetings, fellow chefs,” Eve said. One of the cooks moved to interrupt her, and she strung him up in a Telekinesis hold faster than it could speak. “I’m not nice, as the late Malthazar will attest. Do not get in my way, do not cause trouble in my kitchen, and do not whine as the cheese stock is empty now.”

She continued to the choking noise of the Dremora chef she’d hung in the air. “We are here for one purpose and one purpose only! To create the best food for the best of our kind!”

A disgruntled murmur went through the cooks as they kept one eye on her and one eye on their dishes.

“I didn’t hear you very well. Try again!” Eve said with a brilliant smile, using the universally recognized hand motion from a galaxy far away.

With incredible haste, every single Dremora started dancing to the tune of the new head chef.