My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!

The cupcake in Halloway's hand should have looked ridiculous. A weathered man with blood—or worse—still fresh on his conscience, eating chocolate and lavender like it was teatime.

But he chewed slowly, deliberately, like he was buying time to choose his words.

The Lieutenant finished his cupcake in silence. The faint color that had bloomed in his cheeks remained, making him look almost alive instead of carved from pale stone.

Marron busied herself wrapping the remaining cupcakes, giving them space. Whatever was coming, she could feel it building like pressure before a storm.

Halloway set down his wrapper. When he spoke, his voice was controlled, but Marron heard the ice underneath. "Your kind infiltrated my Guild."

The Lieutenant didn't flinch. "Yes, we did."

"Impersonated my people. Lived among us. Stole their faces, their lives." Halloway's hands curled into fists at his sides. "Juno. Do you remember that name?"

A pause. "It was hard to forget. The young pastry chef who lived in the west wing. She was particularly popular."

"Mm. One of our most promising guild members. Whetvale absolutely loved her baked goods." Halloway's voice cracked on the word, just barely. "Talented. Kind. She'd bring me honey rolls when I worked late." He took a step closer. "One of yours wore her face for three months. Smiled with her smile. Spoke with her voice. And we never knew."

Marron's stomach twisted. Elena made a small, hurt sound.

"It was only obvious when Juno never made anything new." The Guildmaster said flatly, like he was reciting a historical account from memory. "She loved experimenting with ingredients and making new things."

Guildmaster Halloway's eyes flitted to the ground for a moment, before he ate another bite of his cupcake. "But by the time it was obvious that she wasn't...herself...the mimic had completely absorbed her knowledge, and her entire life."

The Lieutenant nodded. "Yes. We can't create, only repeat patterns. She was exceptionally talented, and the Captain thought she might have possessed a Legendary Tool."

Marron trembled as the Guildmaster said sharply, "You could have asked instead of completely replacing her."

The Lieutenant met Halloway's gaze without wavering. "We were searching for the Legendary Tools." he repeated, slower this time.

"So you tormented us over artifacts?" The ice in Halloway's voice shattered into rage. "You destroyed lives, broke trust, made us doubt everyone around us—for things?"

"Not things." The Lieutenant's voice stayed flat, factual. "Tallmen and beast alike stole seven tools from their resting places. The dungeons are born from the desire to return them to their altars, or for the furnaces in them to be fed and cooled."

Marron stopped wrapping cupcakes. "Wait. The dungeons exist because of stolen tools?"

The Lieutenant nodded once. "The tools were meant to rest in their altars, guarded and fed. When they were taken, the dungeons… woke. Hungry. Searching."

"And you thought we had them," Halloway said slowly.

"The Guild collects magical items. Stores them. Studies them." The Lieutenant's pale eyes swept the marble chamber. "It made sense that you would have taken them."

"We're chefs, not thieves—"

"You are also adventurers. Explorers. You enter dungeons and take what you find." The Lieutenant's voice held no accusation, just cold fact. "From our perspective, there was no difference."

Mokko rumbled from his spot by the wall. "So you hurt people. Scared them. Because you assumed?"

"The Captain gave orders. We followed them." The Lieutenant paused. Something flickered across his face—regret? Shame? "We should have questioned. We didn't."

Lucy hissed from her perch. "Convenient excuse."

"It's not an excuse." The Lieutenant looked at each of them in turn. "It's a failure. The Captain twisted our purpose. We were supposed to be guardians, protecting the altars and feeding the furnaces. Instead, we became invaders. Hunters." His jaw tightened. "I didn't understand that until I met you."

The furnace crackled behind them, patient and hungry.

Marron found her voice. "So what happens now? The Captain's gone. The furnace is about to be fed. What does that mean for the dungeons? For your people?"

The Lieutenant's expression was blank. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Elena's voice pitched high with stress. "You're telling us dungeons exist because of stolen tools and you don't know what happens when they're fed?"

"This has never happened before." The Lieutenant gestured to the furnace. "Dungeons are always killed, destroyed, sealed away. Never fed. Never... satisfied." He looked at the wrapped package on the counter—the Captain's remains. "We've never had a reason to try."

Halloway was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, the rage had cooled back to ice. "The mimics in Brookvale. Were they yours?"

Another pause. The Lieutenant's shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly. "Yes."

"What were their orders?"

"To establish a settlement above ground." The Lieutenant's voice went carefully neutral. "The Captain said we deserved to live in the light. Brookvale was small, full of discarded magical items. Easy to claim."

"It was a town," Halloway said quietly. "With people. Families."

"I know." The Lieutenant looked away for the first time. "I argued against it. So did others. The Captain said it was necessary. That tallmen would never accept us otherwise, that we needed leverage, bargaining power." His hands curled at his sides. "He lied about that too."

The silence stretched like taffy.

Marron remembered the Captain's voice, cold and certain: The dungeon doesn't care how the sausage gets made.

But it mattered to the Lieutenant. It mattered that he'd argued. That he'd questioned. That he'd switched sides when it counted.

That gave her hope.

She unwrapped the package on the counter. The meat inside was pale, neatly trimmed. Clean. It could have been poultry, could have been anything.

Mild as chicken, the Lieutenant had said.

Her mind turned over the recipe: steak with pastel peppercorns, blood sausage, cave mushrooms. She had the peppercorns, had the mushrooms. The blood sausage would need to be made fresh, but she had the casings, the spices.

No one else would want a portion of this particular meal. She'd use all of it for the furnace. Every last piece.

The white fire crackled and burned a bit higher, like it could hear her thoughts. Like it approved.

Marron took a breath and met the Lieutenant's pale gaze. "What about the others? The mimics in Brookvale, the ones still in the dungeon. If we feed the furnace, if we seal it—what happens to them?"

The Lieutenant's uncertainty was written in the tight line of his shoulders. "I don't know. But I think... I think we're about to find out."

The furnace flared, bright and insistent.

Time to cook.