Ch 2
The building seemed fully powered as Caleb and Pepper traveled through the halls and rooms, searching for anything that would take the crystal and read it properly. A humming sounded along the walls and the doll paused often to wonder over it. The security devices in each of the major halls had reactivated, the damaging lamps sweeping up and down the corridors to deter intruders. Caleb stuck one hand into the red light to test its potency and pulled back to study it. It felt numb, as if the motions of working his fingers were slowed to a crawl.
"This might not be good on a living being." the doll muttered and turned to Pepper. "Send a message to Wren. Show him one of these lamps and make up something that says it's dangerous. That should be incentive enough to have them shut off." Pepper blinked and went into her trance. After a few minutes, the security devices began to slow and flicker haltingly, finally dying out. "Good girl! Okay, let's keep going."
The two of them managed to come across a storeroom of supplies, which Pepper immediately began to raid for fruits and vegetables. The communications system crackled to life and Wren's voice called out over it.
"This a good enough signal for ya?" the chef laughed, "I've got the reactor cycling power through the ranch, minus all the annoying security systems. Do you have any idea how fast I had to work just to keep the reactivated Cybits off of your tail?"
"They came alive?" Caleb questioned in surprise.
"Yeah, up until I found their self-destruct code. Goddess, that was fun. Do you know how many words half-elves have that mean 'destroy'?" Wren griped, "Insane; I almost punched in the code to blow up this complex. Send me an image of where you are and I'll meet you there."
"Is that what the buzzing in the walls was?" the doll mused aloud.
"Oh, you heard that? Sorry. Whoever wrote this was messy; 'Destroy security' 'Destroy for security', how the heck am I to know the difference?"
Another conversation with Pepper later, the Wonder Chef puffed into the storeroom, waving aside smoke with a grin.
"I am the mysterious gourmet, the Wonder Chef! Today's recipe is for Desian Disaster! Or, at least, it almost was for us!" he laughed and looked around, "Well, this is a nice little cache of ingredients. They seem to be in good order, too. I'll just collect some for later."
"So far I haven't found anything that will read the crystal." Caleb reported glumly, "Maybe the half-elves of the Iselia Ranch didn't have that technology. Should we keep searching?"
"Let's give ourselves at least until sundown to see if something here will work." Wren told him, "I don't want to have put my brain through a sieve for nothing."
With all three friends using the maps built into the walls of the ranch, they were able to split up and search the buildings that much more efficiently. Pepper remained with Caleb, the two dependent on one another, while Wren chose to travel on his own, a path he was used to for obvious reasons. Every machine they could work with proved ineffective at reading the crystal. The most Caleb found was a decrepit computer system that contained a setting where the data crystal could fit. When testing it, the computer spat out a garbled mess of data on the screen beside the data crystal's setting.
"Wren! I've got something!" Caleb cried over the communication system, "It's a strange computer, but it worked!"
"Use the projector to send me an image of where you are!" the chef ordered and within a few minutes arrived beside Caleb in a blast of smoke, "So what'd you find?"
"It's garbled data, but it's something." the doll answered and showed him the machine. "There's a few things I can make out, but not anything historically important." Wren looked at the screen with him, squinting at the fuzzy images and writing.
"I can't make heads or tails of this. This language... it's not quite normal. Is this angelic language?" he complained.
"No... this looks like dwarven lettering." Caleb answered and took another look at the screen, "I'll read what I can from this.
"' ...data crystal reader/writer... shine from the side...' Um. 'Attendant of the... Gallery... palm scanner to connect... core AI... information...'" the doll managed to translate, "I see some keys on the screen, like the ones you were working with on the reactor, Wren. I'll try hitting one of those." Caleb touched a faded outline and studied the new mess of data on the screen. "'Enter search for...' It's a search engine?"
"Oh, goody." Wren muttered in disappointment, then blinked in realization, "Oh, wait! Can you do a search on the Wonder Fork? Maybe this crystal does have those notes on its creation!"
"I'll give it a try." Caleb answered and tapped at the screen, inputting the letters carefully. After a moment, the garbled data cleared and a scratchy image of the fork appeared. "Strange. '...-ology in... the crystal... within... recharged by drawing... Plans to build...' Ah, the rest is just too badly translated to read. Sorry."
"That's okay. This is good enough for now." Wren said with a grin, "At least I know that the Moria Gallery holds information about the Wonder Fork. I just wish this machine functioned better."
"Let's take it to someone who can repair it. The Renegades, perhaps?" Caleb suggested. Wren nodded. "Can you teleport us to their bases, or will we have to travel there normally?"
"There are two Renegade bases that I know of in Symphonia. One in the Triet Desert and the other in Flanoir." the Wonder Chef told him, "I can't teleport us to either one directly, and the one in Flanoir is a bit close to the Famine Temple. I'd like to avoid that area for now. The best place to go would be in Triet; I have a teleportation link to the Mirage hotel in the city of Triet."
"What were you doing in a hotel there?" Caleb asked suspiciously as Wren blinked at him.
"What else? Teaching cabbage roll recipes!" he replied. The doll gave him a droll expression.
"You virgin."
Triet Desert was still in recovery from the shock of losing its ancient ruins. Tourism suffered only slightly, however, as people still wanted to visit the site and learn how the Heroes of Union made history by making a pact with the Summon Spirit, Efreet.
Caleb was tempted to try to make a trip there himself and study the ruins, but decided that it would be best to focus on the problem with the Moria Gallery first. His systems were filled to capacity with Sybak's collected information and he needed a way to store it elsewhere. The ancient reader was safely stowed in a pack that was attached to a makeshift harness on Pepper's back. The mana beast was not happy with her new 'present' but tolerated it as she knew she was helping Caleb and Wren with her strength and size.
The top floor of the Mirage where Wren teleported them also couldn't take their combined weight, and it was a miracle that the rooms and lower floor were all vacant when the wood collapsed under them.
"This isn't going to keep happening the whole trip, is it?" Caleb asked irritably as he sat up in the wreckage. Wren groaned as he squirmed around beside Pepper.
"I wish. Most of my links are in high places as a way of trying to look unassuming." he replied and was pulled free with the doll's help. They left a note of apology and some gald to pay for damages, then quickly snuck out of the empty hotel.
Triet as a whole was definitely startled by the sight of a mana beast walking the streets with a green-clad young man and a chef, but figured that if they could live with a klutzy Chosen, a group of angels that could swoop in for a visit at any time, and half-elves trying not to bite someone's head off, then they could deal with this new weirdness too. The children worked up the courage to approach the mana beast and were captivated once Caleb told them that Pepper loved fruits, demonstrating how loving she could be once she had an apple in her belly. But the sun was setting and the town was beginning to wind down for the night. Soon, the three friends were the only ones left out and about.
"It's late and you look tired. We should check in at a hotel and let you have some rest." Caleb pointed out to Wren as they walked down the sandy streets from the marketplace. The blonde sighed and nodded.
"Yeah, I feel like I'm going to fall apart if I don't get into a decent bed soon." he agreed tiredly and looked ahead, "I think there should be a..." Wren stopped abruptly, eyes wide with shock. "Ah!"
"What is it?" Caleb asked and followed his gaze, then jumped back with a startled expression, "No way!"
Walking towards them was a dark-haired young woman, a metal and blue stone fork strapped to her back. She was dressed in deep blue chef's clothes, a buttoned blouse with a pressed skirt as opposed to the more masculine uniforms the other Dark Chefs all wore. The woman's attention seemed to be on something else, as her face gave only a pensive expression despite facing their general direction.
"You!" Wren yelled suddenly and raced forward to confront the woman. Caleb gave a start and hurried after him, followed by Pepper as she gave him a questioning image. "What are you doing here?"
"Huh?" the woman echoed, snapping back to attention and spotting Wren head her way. She looked surprised for a moment, then jumped to one side, her fork almost leaping into her hand. "Hah! We meet again, Wonder Chef! Do you remember who I am, or are you still stumbling about the world as brainless as before?" the woman declared with a grim smile, free hand reaching into her hip pouch.
"Wren! Don't start anything stupid!" Caleb yelled as the other chef matched the woman stance for stance.
"Ginger Spicewood, you've stolen secrets that belong to the Wonder Organization! As Wonder Chef, I'll bring you in for the crime of abusing your culinary skills!" Wren declared. The woman, Ginger, laughed shortly.
"You? As if! You're still a baby to the Wonder Organization, and you're not anywhere near my level of cooking!" she taunted, "You're too scatterbrained, little Wonder Chef; those pitiful recipes for lunches and dinners are no match for my devious delights!"
"I see." Wren murmured and smiled almost disdainfully, "You're a confectioner... a candy-maker..." Ginger shook her fork at him angrily.
"I saw that! Don't make fun of my specialty! I'm not like those half-baked buffoons in the Soufflé Brigade!" she yelled.
"Oh, Goddess Martel, shut up with the puns!" Caleb shouted.
"Let's have a cooking battle then! My desserts against your candies!" Wren challenged. Ginger blinked in surprise, almost as if she'd been shocked by the Wonder Chef's words.
"Uh... Not yet, not here." she stammered and looked distracted, "There are things I must do to, uh... mess up your stupid little gang of sub-par cooks!" She glared at Wren again. "But rest assured that we will meet again and then this world will know that the skills of their baby Wonder Chef are nothing compared to mine!"
"Stop calling me a baby! You're not much older than me yourself! And you can't run away from a challenge!" Wren shouted. Ginger only laughed and threw down a handful of something from her pouch. There was an explosion of light that blinded Wren and Caleb, Pepper only absorbed the light, and then there was only a light white cloud of dust floating on the wind. Wren ran up to where Ginger had stood and held his hand out to catch the dust. Caleb joined him, watching sternly while the chef flicked the tip of his tongue against the dust coating his hand.
"It's... confectioner's sugar? And what she used to disappear is..." he murmured and picked up pieces of nuts from the sand. He tasted one. "Honey candied almonds and sugar dusted hazelnuts." Wren closed his fist around the sweets, a faint look of surprise on his face. "She's good..." he added under his breath.
"Wren, let's get you to bed soon. You were in no condition for a battle of chefs and you're lucky she turned tail and ran." Caleb lectured him. The chef looked back at him. "This is more proof that the Dark Chef Alliance is up to something really heinous with those recipes of yours. We have to get the reader repaired fast!"
"Yeah. But at least we're at the hotel. I won't be able to make the reservation under my name. Can you go ahead and do it, Caleb?" Wren asked, "I... need a little time alone to think about things."
"You're not gonna run off on me to find that Dark Chef and have at with a cooking battle, are you?" Caleb questioned suspiciously, "I'll have Pepper chase you down if you try!"
"No. I'll be fine. I'll just be a minute." Wren assured him and watched as the doll entered the building to make the reservation. Pepper walked up from behind and gently nudged him with her snout in concern. He smiled at her. "I'll be okay, Pepper. Really." The mana beast seemed to consider probing him, then decided not to, giving him one last nudge before trotting off towards the stalls. Wren sighed and looked skyward, gazing at the vast field of stars overhead, the handful of nuts still in his fist. "A candy-maker... Hmm..."