A Wok of Infinite Light
Add Heroes, Villains, Ancient Godly Ceremony, and Let Simmer
Regal ignored the constant drone of Zelos' complaints as they left the Altamira Port. The Chosen's mutterings had a great deal in common with the EC's purring engine, and he could block both out at the same time. Bryant's thoughts were entirely on the faint shadow of the stolen transport out on the water. Between searching for the Wonder Chef and the chase to Altamira, he hadn't slept in more than a full day. That, along with fighting a dragon underwater and being hurled about more than he liked, meant that Regal was having enough trouble just keeping his eyes focused.
Some new idea from a lower layer of consciousness fought its way to the surface and poked Regal's brain until he took notice. "...I realise we're moving at high speed, but should we be able to hear this EC humming like that?"
"No," Zelos replied darkly. "You're going to wear her out at this rate. And that ship's got a full load of fuel."
"Do you have a recommendation?" Regal asked, sounding a little annoyed.
"A few. Unfortunately, Sheena's not here to call in Undine, so we're limited to trying to catch up with them and getting stranded in the middle of the ocean when my little EC here dies, or..."
"Or what?"
"Not doing that. I recommend the second one."
Regal thought carefully– he wasn't awake enough to go for speed, and had to make do with thoroughness. But after years in prison, and long battles in the coliseum where hundreds of people cheered for his death, Regal was a good thinker even when on the verge of collapse. Ideas that were so creative they bordered on sadistic formed in his head.
"Can you cast magic at this range?" he asked the Chosen.
"What? ...Yeah," Zelos decided, confused by the question. "But it's not like I can just Air Thrust them to bits, even at full strength, and I'll lose some power just sending it so far."
"And where are the fuel charges?" Regal continued, apparently uninterested in anything but the initial 'yeah'.
"On a big thing like that? In the middle at the bottom, if the engineers had any sense–"
"Good to know, but I meant on this ship," Bryant said flatly.
"Regal," Zelos said as he touched the control panel, "you're starting to freak me out." A portion of the EC's back hull slid open, and an array of six mana cells rose into the open air, each connected to an Exsphere power converter. Only two of the cylinders were glowing, and one grew dimmer by the moment. "Don't touch, you won't like what happens."
"These are nonelemental mana?"
"Just like mom used to make," Zelos quipped. He was losing faith in Regal's mental stability.
"Thunder Blade on that transport, then," Regal commanded him, and a president-duke has a very good commanding voice. "As close to the middle as you can get it."
"Whatever you say, your grace," Zelos agreed, watching carefully. Regal's face didn't so much as twitch at 'your grace', final proof that he was exhausted out of his mind. The Chosen tried to sense the distant ship in mana, and began the spellcasting when he was certain that he wasn't targeting a whale or some kind of reef. Regal watched him intently, unnerving enough that Zelos had to close his eyes, until the Chosen shouted his customary (and now somewhat ironic) battle cry: "Don't run!"
Bryant moved like a twin-headed snake, one hand pressing firmly against Zelos' Exsphere, his other grabbing hold of the mostly-discharged power cell. Regal glowed with silver light that soon turned purple as the unknowing Chosen shouted "Thunder Blade!"
The depths of newly formed clouds blazed violet-white and a sixty-foot sword of focused lightning fell from within, lancing through the Dark-Chef-controlled carrier's centre before exploding in a fog of sparks. Every light on the distant ship went dark –not that there had been many on to begin with– and by the time the steam cloud had cleared, it was dead in the water.
"Good," Regal growled.
"That was some of my finest work," Zelos said, grinning like an idiot. He turned around to accept congratulations from the duke and noticed what had happened to the fifth mana cylinder. Now only the sixth was powering the EC's propulsion, but Regal had a slightly overdone look about him...
Slowly, like an oak trying to support a herd of elephants among one half of its branches, he toppled to the deck for the second time in one day. Once again, the remaining conscious passenger thought to himself, the great Zelos Wilder is in charge of deciding what happens next. ...Shame I have morals and stuff.
When Regal's eyes opened, he had the strange sensation that he was lying against a wall, looking at the night sky straight ahead, and someone had lined his mouth with carpenter's glue. These first two righted themselves, and he realised he was looking up at the side hull of the stolen transport. The third feeling, unfortunately, failed to fade with its friends.
"Feeling any better?" asked Zelos, apparently relaxing against the other side of the has been worse in my life," Regal decided.
"You're welcome," Zelos replied tersely.
"We've caught up to them?" he asked, slowly pulling himself up, and getting it right on the third attempt.
"Just took some creative use of Eruption," said Zelos. "I'll send the bill for damages to your office when we're done here. My dear little EC got toasted in the stern."
"The Dark Chefs didn't notice?"
"They're busy trying to find the spare fuel charges without tripping over each other with those giant steak knives, I expect."
"And who force-fed me plastic sealant?" asked Regal.
"It's cream stew," Zelos snapped. "Sheesh, did you take classes in being ungrateful, or does it just come naturally to dukes? Anyway, I found that little crate of food you brought along, and I remembered that night in Torent–"
"Yes, I remember," Bryant said. When they got separated from the others in the twisty forest and Lloyd suffered terrible wounds against a gold dragon, Colette had kept him alive overnight with cream stew. Whenever the boy had dropped out of consciousness, the aroma of the stew brought him back for one more taste, which in turn gave him the strength to hold on a bit longer.
Regal looked up at the stricken transport beside the EC, at the new bandages where his hand had been burnt by the mana cell, at the shipboard cooker (still with the last of the stew at the bottom), and the sullen Chosen vaguely, more or less, sort of by his side. "If I took the time to thank you that you deserve, Zelos," the duke decided, "we wouldn't have any left over to give those Dark Chefs in there the kicking they so thoroughly deserve."
Wilder grinned. "That's good enough for me. How do we get up there?"
"Give the magic a rest," Regal said, before Zelos could even pick a spell. "I'll handle this one." The duke looked up the smooth, sheer metal surface, took a deep breath– and turned back for one last ladleful of cream stew. "...It's actually quite good. Try adding carrots next time."
"...Right," Zelos agreed, partly amused and partly weirded out.
Regal faced the towering ship again, tapped his old Diamond Shell greaves together, and pounced like a Lobo from Celsius' lands. The supremely hard leg guards, driven by Regal's extrahuman strength, nearly punctured the side of the ship, creating sharply defined dents like a baseball hitting a soufflé. That would have been impressive enough, but Regal kept going, using the first indentations as stepping stones.
It's a little like when Sheena or Orochi drops in a forest and does that elbow-crawl to sneak up on someone, Zelos decided. He tilted his head back to keep track of the ascending duke. ...Only vertical. Once Regal had a good head start, Zelos leapt over the EC's side and landed on the makeshift steps. He had climbed a mountain or two in his life, and they weren't nearly so organised as a determined Duke Bryant.
"I don't understand," the Sous-chef growled as the auxiliary generator hummed to life. All the corridor lamps returned to full strength, bathing the lower decks of the ship in bright artificial light. "If the main engines back there had all been done á flambé, why wasn't there even a hole in the ship?"
Dior, first-ranked after the lieutenant, tried to sigh without letting anyone notice. "Lightning doesn't cut, sir. But when as much mana as they must have thrown at us gets behind a bunch of electrons and pushes, there's not much that can really stop it. That Thunder Blade would have had us trapped if we hadn't got this backup system working.
The Sous-chef gave Dior a grudgingly approving look. "You know your way around a ship."
"I was a travelling cook before I found the Dark Chefs," said Dior, saluting. "You pick these things up on occasion."
"I wish the others did so as well. Achtung, you lot!" The Sous-chef didn't speak that dialect that was uncommon even among dwarves, but it had a certain power to grab attention. "With this ship's trove, we'll get rewards like most of you can't believe. Maybe even seats at the First Table for the Grand Feasts."
"The rumours are true, then?" asked one of the younger Dark Chefs. Dior scoffed.
"Of course," said the Sous-chef.
"Do you think we'd need this huge hold of meat if they weren't?" Dior added. The other six Dark Chefs, initiates under the Sous-chef's command, perfectly demonstrated the Glare of Despising the Know-It-All. "Sir, I recommend we return to the bridge and get back on course for Palmacosta." The Sous-chef nodded, and started them marching (not that chefs march very well, or for that matter, at all).
"I still don't see why we didn't just let them deliver the meat to Palmacosta to start with and save us the trip," one of the apprentices grumbled.
"Because that would break our previous pattern, which would in turn make it all too clear to the One–" Dior began
"Speak not of that," the Sous-chef said sharply.
His second-in-command nodded. "...Doing so would make it very clear to our enemies that we are operating out of Palmacosta, and we have had too many close calls already."
Another initiate, rather older and nearing the end of his apprenticeship, groaned. "I remember that. That blasted Chosen girl came in and asked to be a waitress, for Martel's sake. I thought I was going to have to kill myself with a cleaver."
"Just get to the engine room and get us on course again," said the Sous-chef, who had no concept of the dangers of irony. "There will be no one to stop us this time–"
The door directly ahead of them slammed open so hard that it dented the bulkhead, revealing Regal Bryant in a combat stance that screamed 'None shall pass'. Some distance behind him, volcano-red hair indicated that Tethe'alla's Chosen, Zelos, was coming to back him up. The Sous-chef, who was quite a good leader, evil cook or not, came to an immediate decision.
"Dior, lead the others to the longboat and return to the base. I will return after dealing with these two, but do not wait for me." His second nodded in confirmation and silently indicated that this would be an excellent time for the apprentices to turn around and run very fast.
"Shall we take him?" said Zelos, stopping beside Regal and taking hold of his sword.
Regal paused to watch his foe before answering. The Sous-chef had produced his weapon, which he held at arm's length, straight out from his chest, in the manner of a formal swordsman. With the other hand, he slid off its scabbard reverently.
"No," Regal decided.
"...A spoon?" said the Chosen, blinking in his usual 'am I hallucinating' manner. "You're going to take Regal on with a giant sp–"
The Sous-chef swung his weapon, and Zelos knew lethal force when he saw it. He ducked under the wide metal disk, on the basis that even a spoon could cause trouble when it was five feet long –CRrrrnNK!– and was immensely glad that he had done so when its razor edge tore several inches into the steel doorframe.
"Go on and stop the others," Regal continued calmly. "My opponent may wield whatever he wishes, but victory is my specialty, and I will serve it to perfection."
"Only vengeance will be served today, Bryant," the Sous-chef countered.
Zelos stared at the Dark Chef, then his companion, neither of whom appeared to be anywhere near collapsing in fits of laughter. "You're all insane!" he roared.
"Go!" Regal insisted. Both he and Zelos moved simultaneously, and as Regal was the one attempting to plant his boot on the Sous-chef's face, Zelos was allowed to slip by.
The corridor was a cramped place to battle, but one of the lesser-known advantages of leg-based combat is that it can adjust very easily to a narrow field. In contrast, the Dark Chef's blade couldn't be swung through a large arc without first having to tear through the walls, or possibly the ceiling. Regal was able to keep his opponent of the defensive with direct thrusting kicks, keeping the weapon too busy in front to strike properly.
Zelos reached the engine room, which was properly lit again but still almost silent. Two levels above, beyond a twisted path of catwalks, he caught the last glimpse of blue cape vanishing through a door. The Dark Chefs, thankfully, didn't have Exspheres, and that gave him a tremendous advantage, one that he immediately put towards leaping up two decks and resuming the chase.
The Sous-chef backed off several steps further than necessary as Regal performed the mighty axe-thrust kick of the Traubel style. It was a risky move, putting him off-balance if it missed, and now he had done just that, with a razor spoon incoming at head height. Rolling onto his back, Regal deflected the blade upwards with his Diamond Shell, and then used the other leg to transfer the Dark Chef's momentum from a charge to uncontrolled flight. He landed in a crumpled heap, and Regal followed. A final blast –"Heaven's Charge!"– put the Sous-chef out of the realm of the conscious for several hours.
Dior hadn't led the others far beyond the engine room when Zelos caught up. Magic was little use against most fleeing enemies, and so he had drawn the Last Fencer again. 'Drawn' was perhaps too strong a term; it stuck in the hull beside Dior's head and quivered as a thrown sword should. The lieutenant-chef froze, not even turning around, but keeping a careful ear on the sound of her subordinates charging ahead.
"Ah, you know the universal sign for 'stop'," Zelos said approvingly.
"You're the Chosen of Mana, Zelos Wilder," said Dior.
"That's right. I'm planning to bring out the Special Edition Me sometime in the spring, but for now this one'll have to do."
"Oh, no, I'm quite pleased." Zelos frowned. Something had changed in the Dark Chef's voice. She turned around and smiled, trying to hide her contempt. "Your reputation precedes you," Dior added sweetly.
Zelos' demeanour changed instantly. "Wow, I didn't know the Dark Chefs were the type to take hostages. Especially not ones as gorgeous as you."
Dior's smile intensified, until it forcibly brought to mind images of sunlight on fields of pink roses. "We aren't."
Her first punch was the effective sort, rather than the traditional, and went straight to the throat. While Zelos choked, she brought her giant knife around and smacked him across the face with its oaken handle, then dealt a pair of sound thumps to his stomach and back. Confident that he would be a while in getting back up, Dior ran ahead, sheared the handle off the inside of the next door, and slammed it shut.
Just past dawn, battered and exhausted, Zelos brought the Lezareno cargo ship Combatir into Izoold's heavily built-up port without breaking too much of the docks or the hull. It hadn't been intended to go that way, but there were worse places than the closest city to New Palmacosta to bring a giant shipment of food, and few at all that could be reached with only thirty percent fuel.
He and Regal staggered down the gangplank and onto dry land with endless thanks to Martel, and immediately made their way to the inn. No one questioned the two well-known heroes, nor the giant ship they had left at the new dock, although it became the subject of gossip for the rest of the week. (By the time the story reached Hima, the ship had wings, the head of a dragon, and flew through the air by the power of a mysterious black orb given to Regal by a race of immortals that lived on a hidden island on the ocean.)
After handing the senseless Dark Chef over to the people of the village for safekeeping, the two made their way silently to the outskirts and the haven of the inn. The innkeeper knew they would pay in the morning, whether he accepted money or not, and so simply allowed the two to stagger into one of the larger rooms and collapse, surrendering to exhaustion.
Regal awoke in the afternoon to the scent of the most heavenly risotto, and knew that it could not realistically have been Zelos who made it. He rose from his bed and found the door on his second try. In the inn's main room, the Chosen was devouring the excellent rice dish with untold gusto, and sitting by the fire was the one Regal knew they had to have found.
"Morning, Regal!" Genis chirped. "You want some ri–"
"Please. Immediately," Regal said. "What are you doing here?"
"And it's afternoon, not morning," Zelos interjected, his voice muffled by the risotto.
"I'm sure dukes can fix that sort of thing when they need to," said Regal, taking a seat. The innkeeper hovered nearby, feeling that heroes shouldn't have to feed themselves, but eventually he realised that he was going to remain ignored, and wandered off to buy more rice and cheese.
"I'm meeting Raine near here soon," said Genis, handing Regal his dish. "We're still helping villages rebuild and dispelling anti-half-elf feelings wherever we can, but you know what Raine gets like when she hears about an undiscovered ruin. Honestly, all I've heard about for the last three weeks is that darn wok."
Regal's blood went cold. Zelos nearly bit through his spoon. They both coughed nonchalantly and tried to wear expressions of polite curiosity. Doing this in unison tipped Genis off, as well as their simultaneous question: "What wok?"
The little Sage decided he wasn't going to get anywhere with his own questions until he answered at least a few of theirs. "The Wok of Infinite Light... or something like that. Raine says an ancient empire used to exist on the islands between Izoold and Palmacosta, but they tried to take control of Efreet and Undine without vows or pacts. They ended up getting most of their empire blown up and submerged under the Palmacosta Sea."
"And they had a special wok?" Regal prompted.
"Yup. A sort of altar you could cook with, I think. They believed in their own gods, and used special feasts to pray to them," said Genis, watching their reactions closely.
"Ahhhh, I thought we had finished with all these gods," Zelos moaned.
"You're looking for the Wok too?" Genis asked, somewhat hopefully. He didn't think the answer would be anything so harmless as that.
"If we're lucky," said Regal, "we may be searching for those who are searching for it."
"And what if you're not lucky?" the warlock pressed on.
"Then we're after the guys who've already got it, and they're not the friendly sort," Zelos finished. Regal explained everything, starting with the original piracy and leading through to their arrival in Izoold. By the time he was finished, the remaining food was gone, and the innkeeper had returned with sacks of supplies and a long speech prepared to ask Genis to make anything and everything he could.
"Oh, man! If I had known that was a Dark Chef boat I saw on the water last night, I could have blasted them," Genis groaned. "But I did see that they were heading towards New Palmacosta."
"That's enough help to keep up going," said Regal gratefully. He began to stand, but Genis leapt up first.
"No, wait. You said they kept stealing lots of meat?" He ran his hand through his hair several times, apparently murmuring fragments of thoughts to himself. "Meat... Palmacosta gets plenty of fish, so why would they need to steal... it's just like...!" Genis darted off to his own room and returned with the sort of massive ancient tome he and Raine tended to think of as a textbook. "There was a big ritual with the Wok that used lots of meat, some kind of supreme stew that they used to..." He placed the book on the floor – the only flat surface in the inn big enough to hold it, aside from a bed– and flipped pages frantically.
"The one thing that I really can't stand is when people know more than I do and don't tell me," said Zelos, glaring at the half-elf boy.
"You can't stand anyone?" Regal said, apparently thinking this was the same thing.
"Right, right," Genis murmured. "And the stew was said to give life to the dead, but in doing so they made themselves terribly vulnerable to the One..."
"The One?" Regal repeated. He had long realised that the best way to get information out of either Sage when they were in research mode was to occasionally repeat an ominous phrase and let them explain all they wanted.
"The Silver-Crowned One, whose arrival at the height of ceremony could break their power and sever the link to the gods," Genis said. It wasn't a quick, why-can't-you-just-pay-attention response, either; he was as intrigued as Regal. "A sort of anti-chef. And if you're playing the role it sounds like you are..."
"Should we be shopping for a new Mythril Circlet, Regal?" asked Zelos, smirking.
"Man, you get everything wrong, don't you?" Genis scoffed.
"Hey! Who thought up the scheme to steal Aionis from Cruxis, then?"
"I think I understand," said Regal, slowly. He couldn't keep from smiling, which showed Genis that the duke had guessed right. "You should probably stay here, Genis. I think the Dark Chefs would be all too happy to capture one of your skills."
"I take it that means we're not staying here," said Zelos. "Well, I might as well see this through to the end. We're going to Palmacosta, right? There aren't any good places for ruins around here or the other continent until Asgard."
"You get yourselves over there," said Genis. "I'll handle the message."
The caves here were too hot for comfort, but Vahgner forced himself to imagine it as a permanent sauna, and knowing the source of so much heat and moisture made anything bearable. This was the Hall of Nourishing, where row upon row of firepits and ovens had lain cold for millennia, centuries before the Ancient War. Now more than half of the altars were manned by Dark Chefs working in continuing shifts, preparing endless dishes for their cause, ever searching for the Recipes of Power.
All glory for the Dark Chef Alliance.
Vahgner stopped beside a bubbling pot of miso stew. The aroma was divine, and he had no doubt that it would taste the same, but still it lacked the restorative powers of the Wonder Chef's recipe, and so could not be altered, as Dior had done most famously with her Berserker's Curry. The chef assigned to this station returned to his work with renewed fervour upon receiving Vahgner's nod of approval.
This deep underground, echoes could travel a long way, and now he heard the soft crash of the ancient door unsealing itself, to allow more members of the Alliance entry to the stronghold. There seemed to be a slight scuffling sound, but having slipped on the slick, damp stones himself this morning, Vahgner ignored it.
Then came something he couldn't possibly force out of his mind– the foul acridity of burning. He charged across the vast chamber, seeking the offending pot by his nose alone, and was stunned to see who was working there.
"Marcus? But you're one of the best! How could you let this happen?!"
The chef was understandably shocked, and stared at the blackened tenderloin dully. "It couldn't have," he gabbled. "I was watching, I was being careful, the temperature just... just..."
"Don't be ridiculous," said Vahgner. "You're probably overworked. Just call in Simone–"
With a horrendously squelchy blast, a pressure cooker three columns over exploded, sending chili in a giant spray that nearly reached the high ceiling. Everyone turned to Vahgner, waiting to see his reaction, but the apoplectic fury shaping his face also made some of them think of finding shelter. Around the cavern, a cascade of cooking dishes began to go terribly awry, sending thick smoke into the air.
In the silence, three sets of boots could he heard coming out of the entrance tunnel and into the steam-fogged cavern. They belonged to a trio of intruders who stopped just beyond the door, apparently waiting to be acknowledged. Two were the type who never got lost in the crowd, and while he recognised the Chosen, Wilder, he cursed Dior for not giving a description of the Potential to check against this unknown blue-haired man. The last was cloaked in rough brown material, and Vahgner was well-read enough to be worried by that most of all.
"Who..." Vahgner seethed, "...are you?"
The cloaked one, standing between and slightly ahead of the other two, stuck an arm out from under unornamented mantle, clutching the mythical Phoenix Rod. Rather arbitrarily, it pointed at a nearby frying steak, which burst dramatically into flames.
Now she let the rest of the cloak fall away, revealing locks of moon-bright silver hair that could never have been found on an ordinary human. "I am Raine Sage," she announced, bringing the Phoenix Rod about to point at Vahgner. "I am the One, and I have come for you all."