My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!

Marron pressed deeper into the corridor, each step feeling like betrayal. The bone shard at her hip pulsed erratically—warm approval one moment, cold reproach the next, as if it couldn't decide whether her choice was wisdom or cowardice. She couldn't decide either.

The stealth broth still cloaked her movements, but guilt moved heavier than any armor. Elena's face burned in her memory: recognition, hope, then the terrible understanding that Marron was walking away.

I have to get the cart, she told herself. That's the mission. Get the cart, get out, get help. But the justifications felt thin as paper, and she knew it. The truth was simpler and uglier: she was choosing her own freedom over Elena's life, and no amount of tactical reasoning could wash that clean.

The corridor sloped downward, following the dungeon's hungry pull toward its heart. Marron moved like a ghost through the shadows, tracking the sound of wheels on stone that grew fainter with each step. The Captain was taking his time—too much time. What was he doing down there?

She found out twenty minutes later when she reached a wider chamber and pressed herself behind a pillar of black stone.

The food cart sat in the center of the space, its familiar bulk both comforting and strange. Elena knelt beside it, tears streaming down her face as she struggled with something at the cart's base. The Captain stood over her, arms crossed, expression carved from ice.

"Again," he said. "The cart doesn't respond because you're afraid of it. Fear makes the magic weak."

Elena's voice cracked. "What difference does this day make? I've been struggling because this isn't my cart. It doesn't know me. It doesn't want to work with me."

Marron felt the bone shard go cold against her hip. She knew that frustration—the cart was bonded to her magic, her intentions, her years of use. Of course it would resist Elena. It had been waiting for Marron to come back.

The Captain's voice dropped to a whisper that carried perfectly in the stone chamber. "Then cook like your life depends on it. Because it does. I need you to cook the dish that will feed this dungeon and make it evolve. I gave you the recipe."

Elena wiped her face with the back of her hand, leaving streaks of flour and grime. "This is not my cart. It does not respond to my magic like the original owner's. Why didn't you find her instead of me?"

The Captain's smile was sharp as a blade. "Because if I keep you down here long enough, I will either find her, or you will be sacrificed to keep this dungeon fed. Either way works. The place doesn't care how the sausage is made."

Marron's blood turned to ice water.

Bait. Elena wasn't just a replacement—she was bait. The Captain knew Marron was still in the dungeon somewhere, knew she'd bonded with the cart, knew she might try to reclaim it. So he'd grabbed someone from the Guild, someone Marron might know, someone who would make her hesitate.

The bone shard pulsed frantically now, hot and cold and hot again. It was trying to tell her something, but the message was chaos: Run. Stay. Fight. Hide. Save her. Save yourself.

Elena struggled with the cart's mechanisms, her movements clumsy and desperate. The cart's drawers stuck under her touch, the heating elements flickered weakly, the storage compartments sealed themselves against her magic. It was painful to watch—like seeing someone try to play a song on an instrument that refused to hold tune.

"Please," Elena whispered to the cart. "Please work with me. I know you miss her, but she's not coming back."

But I am, Marron thought, and felt the bone shard pulse warm approval. I'm right here.

The Captain circled Elena like a predator. "The dungeon is hungry, girl. It's been days since it had a proper meal. If you can't feed it what it wants, it will feed on what it can get. Starting with you."

Elena's hands shook as she pulled ingredients from the cart's stores—ingredients Marron recognized, arranged in combinations that made her stomach clench. The recipe the Captain had given Elena wasn't just food for the dungeon. It was transformation food. Evolution food. The kind of cooking that would make the dungeon stronger, hungrier, more dangerous.

And Elena was going to cook it with Marron's own cart.

I have to stop this. The thought came clear and cold. If Elena makes that dish, if the dungeon evolves, if it gets stronger...

How many more people would disappear into its depths? How many more Guild chefs would be chained to carts and forced to feed the thing that devoured them?

The stealth broth was wearing thin—she could feel her outline solidifying, the cloak of invisibility fraying at the edges. Soon the Captain would see her, and then what? Fight him here, in the dungeon's heart, with Elena caught between them?

The bone shard pulsed once more, and this time the message was clear: Choose.

Save Elena and doom everyone else, or let Elena die to save everyone else.

Or find a third option that she couldn't see yet.

Marron closed her eyes, thinking of her mother's hands on warm dough, of Elena's voice singing while she worked, of the Lieutenant's measured trust, of all the people above who had no idea what fed in the darkness below.

When she opened them again, her knives were already in her hands.

The bone shard pulsed warm against her hip, and suddenly she understood. The Lieutenant had given her this token as protection, as proof of his authority. But more than that—it was proof of connection. She could use it to open a conversation, pretend the Lieutenant had told her about the Captain, about the dungeon's true purpose.

And if she gave herself up, she'd get her cart back. She'd have a chance to cook with it again, to feel that familiar magical bond. More importantly, she could tamper with the recipe—the Captain clearly didn't know the first thing about cooking, wouldn't recognize subtle sabotage until it was too late.

She'd finally see his face, too. Or at least, whatever face he chose to show her.

Give myself up. Save Elena. Get close enough to ruin whatever they're really planning.

It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was better than watching Elena die while the dungeon grew stronger.

The stealth broth was fading anyway—she could feel it dissolving in her bloodstream, her outline growing more solid by the minute. Soon she'd be visible whether she wanted to be or not.

Marron took a breath, preparing to step out from behind the pillar—

The chamber filled with the sound of running footsteps.

The Lieutenant burst through the far entrance, sweat streaming down his pale face, his usually perfect posture bent with exhaustion. The Captain turned toward him with sharp attention.

"I hired..." the Lieutenant gasped, pressing one hand against the stone wall to steady himself. "A new... chef... Captain." He gulped air between words. "She put my entire platoon to sleep and slipped away. I thought she'd be here by now."

The Captain's head tilted with predatory interest. "Sleep?"

"Drugged dessert. Flower tea. She's good—better than I expected." The Lieutenant straightened, his breathing evening out. "I underestimated her tactical thinking."

Elena looked up from the cart with desperate hope. "There's another chef? Someone who knows this cart?"

The Captain's smile was all teeth. "Oh, she knows this cart very well. It belongs to her." He turned back to the Lieutenant. "You're certain she's coming this way?"

"The cart calls to her. She'll be here." The Lieutenant's eyes swept the chamber, passing right over Marron's hiding spot without seeing her. "But Captain... perhaps we should reconsider. She's more dangerous than anticipated. If she could outmaneuver my entire—"

"She's exactly what we need." The Captain's voice carried absolute certainty. "Dangerous means powerful. Powerful means the dungeon will feed well."

Marron felt the last of the stealth broth fade from her system. Her outline solidified completely, the magical cloak dissolving like mist.

She was visible now.

And the Lieutenant was looking directly at her.

His eyes widened for just a fraction of a second before his mask of composure slammed back into place. Before he could speak, though, another voice cut through the chamber.

"It took you long enough to get here, Chef."

The Captain had turned toward her hiding spot, as if he'd known exactly where she was all along. Marron stepped out from behind the pillar, her heart hammering but her voice steady.

"It took awhile for me to get here." She reached for the Mimicry skill she'd been holding in reserve and let it drop. The magical disguise dissolved like removing heavy makeup, freeing her face to show her true features. The relief was immediate and startling. "You look quite plain for a great chef."

The Captain's face was disappointingly ordinary—middle-aged, unremarkable, the kind of face that would disappear in a crowd. But his eyes were ancient and hungry.

"We come in all shapes, I think," Marron said with a courage she didn't have. Her gaze flicked to Elena, still kneeling beside the cart with tears and hope warring on her face. "Since I'm here now, can Elena leave?"

The Captain raised an eyebrow. "No. You need meat."

The words dropped into the chamber like stones into still water. Elena's face went white. The Lieutenant's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

And the bone shard at Marron's hip went cold as winter stone.

Elena looked between Marron and the Captain with dawning horror. "T-that wasn't part of the deal."

The Captain's smile was patient and terrible. "The deal was you cook the recipe and then you leave. You've been struggling with the recipe, and the original cart owner is here."

"So I can go?" Elena's voice cracked with desperate hope.

The Captain tilted his head. "Oh, you're leaving. You're going into the pot."

Elena's scream echoed off the stone walls. She scrambled backward from the cart, but the Lieutenant was already moving. His pale hands caught her shoulders with practiced efficiency, not rough but absolutely unyielding.

"Easy," he murmured, his voice carrying that same careful control Marron had heard before. "Fighting will only make it harder."

"Lieutenant," Marron started, but he cut her off with a sharp look.

"The kitchen is this way," he said, addressing the Captain but keeping his grip firm on Elena's shoulders. "The marble chamber with the ceremonial oven?"

The Captain nodded approvingly. "Exactly. Much better facilities than this cramped space." He gestured toward a passage Marron hadn't noticed before, carved into the far wall. "Bring them both. And the cart, of course."

The Lieutenant guided Elena forward with mechanical precision, ignoring her sobs and pleas. Marron found herself walking alongside them, the Captain behind, as they moved deeper into the dungeon's heart.

The passage opened into a chamber that took Marron's breath away. White marble stretched in all directions, veined with gold that seemed to pulse with its own light. Kitchen implements hung from silver hooks along the walls—knives that gleamed like mirrors, pots that looked like they'd never known tarnish, cutting boards carved from single pieces of jade.

At the chamber's center sat an oven built into the wall itself, its mouth large enough to roast an entire steer. The opening was framed with intricate carvings of vines and flowers, beautiful and somehow hungry-looking.

The Lieutenant positioned Elena near a marble prep table, his hands still firm on her shoulders. She'd stopped struggling, but tears streamed down her face in steady tracks.

The Captain moved to another table where a leather-bound recipe book lay open. "Tofu steaks," he said with satisfaction, running his finger down the page. "Perfectly seasoned, with ethereal root fries and dungeon herb garnish. The kind of meal that will make this place evolve into something... magnificent."

Marron stared at the recipe over his shoulder. It looked deceptively simple—until she noticed the marginal notes written in different handwriting. Instructions about "primary protein sources" and "flavor enhancement through fear."

Her stomach twisted as the pieces clicked together. "What does tofu mean?" she asked, though part of her already dreaded the answer.