125 (II)
Commis [II]
Shiv and his orcs broke to perform their designated tasks.
Immediately, Shiv locked eyes with Whisper, and an instant rivalry was born. Shiv pulled out Halspur’s Perfect-Edged Chef’s Knife and a bone dagger. Meanwhile, Whisper gestured with one of his glowing blades and summoned a swarm more from the depths of his billowing midnight robes. The summoned blades danced around him, flowing to the movements of the blades like an orchestra would obey a conductor.
Shiv and Whisper briefly circled each other before breaking and moving to the opposite ends of the basilisk.
“Is walking around each other like two stray cats truly necessary?” Uva deadpanned.
“Yes,” Shiv said, finally ending his turn and backing away from Whisper.
“Not doing this affects the cooking,” Whisper replied, never taking his eyes off Shiv.
"What is even happening anymore?" Adam muttered off to the side.
"What is happening," Uva began, "is that you might be getting replaced as Shiv's favorite companion."
"What?" Adam asked, frowning at Uva. "By these orcs? Impossible. And also, I'm not his favorite companion. That's not where we are." The Gate Lord fell silent as he went back to staring at Shiv and Whisper. Then, his frown deepened. "Do you actually mean that, or were you just making fun of me, Uva?”
She eyed him with a flat stare that turned into a look of pity. “Oh, Adam.”
“What? What?”
"You better watch yourself, little bird," Mortar growled out as he looked at Adam from the corner of his eye. The large orc released bursts of flame from the mortar on his back, slamming them upon the flat side of the Skysplitter. The prismatic blade came alight and conducted the magic, and the pan above it grew dull red with heat. “Think you’re not that interesting compared to us. Can’t even cook, can you?”
The orc's declaration made Adam scowl. "I can learn, you bastard.”
Uva covered her face, trying not to cringe. "Adam, they're provoking you.”
“And they succeeded. I don't care if I'm a favorite companion or whatever," Adam snapped, showing exactly how much he didn’t care with his frustrated outburst. "I don't even care if Shiv likes me, but I'm not being replaced by bloody orcs."
Mortar then threw his head back and barked a loud laugh. "Ha! Goaded!" The other orcs wheezed. Tequila slapped his knee, and that just made Adam sneer at them. He instantly accelerated next to Shiv, who was standing beside the head of the dead basilisk.
"Alright, what are we doing?" Adam asked.
"What do you mean, what are we doing
?" Shiv asked, barely noticing Adam's presence. Right now, there was only he and Whisper in the world, and he wasn't going to let the orc clean, peel, and slice this basilisk better than him.“The orcs are attacking me socially,” Adam hissed. “And you said you'd teach me how to cook, didn't you?”
“I need to teach them first,” Shiv whispered as The Chef Unwavering activated. The world glistened with a soft, white glow. Focus consumed him. “I am the chef. I am the kitchen. I am my knife.”
“Shiv… Are you entering a bloody fugue state while we're talking?” Adam gawked.
“I am the chef,” Shiv muttered, holding up his knife.
Whisper was reflected along the blade’s edge, and the orc sneered at Adam.
“You don’t belong here, Gate Lord. Here in the kitchen. You’re not a chef. You should go back to where you're most useful." And Whisper grinned. "Maybe your mother needs another hug. But… maybe we might be better at holding her than you are? We do have longer arms. And more body heat.”
"You piece of shit," Adam snarled.
Shiv held Adam back and simply shook his head. "Don't," Shiv said.
"Don't what? He’s trying to—”
"He's trying to use you to throw me off," Shiv breathed. Shiv felt his Deepest Edge trembling within its blades, and it yearned to be unleashed. It yearned to glide across the entirety of the basilisk. When he cut, he wouldn't chip any of the shiny scales. He wouldn't hew too deeply or cleave off an improper amount of flesh. No. The scale would be degloved perfectly from the prime meat. “Adam. Stand back. This orc thinks he’s gonna shake me—that this is going to split my focus. It won’t. No more tricks, Whisper. I come for you.”
The robed orc held out his arms. “I await your skills, Deathless. Show me!”
“Witness the end of your culinary ambitions, Whisper. In this kitchen, there is no god, no System, only me. We start when you slice.”
Uva sighed. “Of all things that induce megalomania in a man.”
Whisper scowled. “This is hubris, Deathless. But so be it.” And as soon as the orc finished speaking, a swarm of blades exploded out from his body and began gliding along the basilisk's glistening scales.
Shiv's eyes widened as he glimpsed the path of Whisper’s cuts. A swarm of blades was splitting between the crevices of every scale, loosening every single piece of the basilisk’s body. Immediately, one hundred meters of the basilisk were flensed through. The cut was almost perfect, with only the thinnest slice of meat still attached to the scales.
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Awareness 14 > 15
Precise. Controlled. Slight meat loss… His focus must be incredible to control this many blades. He must have Parallel Thinking. Too bad for him.
Whisper intended to chip away at every part of the basilisk piece by piece. Shiv was going to flay the skin clean off with a single blow.
He took a step forward and gathered his concentration. The Chef Unwavering lit the path of his cut. Instinct took hold thereafter. Shiv knew the path for his slash. He let his blades fly. All he needed to do was—
His chef’s knife twisted unnaturally out of his grasp, twisting at an angle.
Shiv caught sight of a sudden shine lighting his blade—the same gleam that lit every single one of Whisper's blades.
It's part of his skill, Shiv realized. He has control over knives in general, not just his own.
Whisper grinned. Shiv’s cut went off course while more of the orc’s flying daggers zipped toward him.
Then, everything halted in a flash of gold. Before Shiv’s blade could commit a mistake he couldn’t recover from, he cast himself back in time and jolted back to where he was a second ago. Rage flared in the Deathless as he looked upon the offending orc. He was well within his rights to throw Whisper out of the kitchen. Competition was one thing, but risking the food over ego? That was unacceptable.
But before that, he needed to finish showing this orc how things were properly cut.
Yet, even as with time frozen, his daggers glowed with the same hue as Whisper’s flying knives.
Shiv just scoffed. “Like that’s going to stop me. Fine. Take my knives. I’ll do this the painful way.”
He summoned the power of his Biomancy and immediately flayed his skin clean off his entire body. Pain consumed Shiv, but after all he'd endured the past few days, he barely grunted. He poured that injury into a Woundeater and then unleashed it into the basilisk as a spell. At once, its scales detached with a rippling shudder.
The faintest cracks formed on his shell.
He conjured lacerations thereafter. The Chef Unwavering allowed him to tune the scope and severity of the cuts while his Biomancy showed him where to unleash the slices. Not having Deepest Edge made this harder, but still, he relished the challenge as he unleashed spell after spell into the massive serpent. A neat grid formed across its body as Shiv cleaved it apart with magic rather than steel. He glided through the air, spiking his gravitic field faster and faster to buy himself more time, surging his Reflexes. Inertial Overdrive thundered around him, and Shiv felt himself grow faster. With Plaguefueled boosting his physical attributes to an absurd degree, he shot past fifty spikes before his marrow began combusting within his bones. Even then, his flesh was slow to tear.
I love basilisk venom. Have to learn how to make my own.
Woundeater > 90
The drunkenness threatened to overtake him at several points without Uva keeping it at bay, but The Chef Unwavering kept him from the edge, and his Psychomancy did just a bit more to center his focus.
Soon, he was gliding beside the orc, finishing the slices on Whisper’s end as well. As he concluded his cuts, Shiv glared down at the orc and let time flow—just as his temporal shell nearly shattered.
Whisper’s blades stabbed down, but they were dragged out of position as Shiv plucked the basilisk’s scales clean from its body and extracted its organs from its open mouth thereafter. The scales were flung into Whisper—but phased through him as he activated his Dimensionality Skill. Even so, as the massive swath of gleaming outer skin finished passing through the orc, his eyes widened, and he stared in awe as Shiv extracted the basilisk’s skeleton with a gesture. The Deathless pulled every bone in the basilisk’s body between its split flesh without displacing any of the meat.
The Chef Unwavering 57 > 59
The cuts Shiv made were delicate. Perfect. Unwavering. The bones hovered in the air for a moment, and then they were dropped beside Whisper as a statement. When the skeleton impacted the ground, Shiv slammed down as well.
“Clean this,” Shiv said, pointing at the skeleton. “Move it somewhere else and come back. You’re done with the cutting. You support everyone else, you understand? You’re not commis anymore. You’re just a helper. You’re lucky I let you stay here at all.”
Whisper’s eyes widened in surprise as he sensed Shiv’s genuine anger. “I… Yes, chef. Of course. But—”
“Facing off against each other is one thing. But risking the dish is shit I will not abide. You have the skill, but you’re not the chef. You disrespected me and yourself when you pulled the trick with my blade. If the cut went wrong, the basilisk would be split, and the cuts wouldn’t be right. In my kitchen, we do things right. No fuck-ups. And that includes you. Cleaning duty. Apron off.”
Dread Aura 93 > 94
Whisper’s mouth fell open, but Mortar interrupted him with a loud laugh. The pan before the large orc was white-hot now. “You always did like that underhanded shit too much. Told you. Told you he wouldn’t appreciate it always. But you don’t listen. Always think you’re smarter than the humans. Or me.”
The midnight-robed orc let out a slight grunt of discomfort and bowed. “I… Apologize, Chef.” He handed over his blades in response. “Here. Take these—”
Shiv shook his head. “I don’t want that. Those are your knives. I want you to clean the kitchen and do what the other orcs tell you to.”
Whisper looked uncomfortable. “Everything they tell me?”
“Oh, shit,” Tequila said, rubbing his hands. “Someone’s been demoted to assistant.”
“Within reason,” Shiv said. “Now. Bones. And then support. Mortar!” he called out, turning away from Whisper. The stealthy orc almost looked ashamed. “Pan’s ready?”
“Aye, Chef. Come here and see for yourself.”
“Good. Band—” And to Shiv’s surprise, he saw a small army of air dimensionals circling the air, bearing the ingredients for the side dish in their grasp. Cauliflower, mushrooms, and glass peppers formed a whirlwind in the sky. There, at the eye of the food storm, was Band, hovering and playing his music. From his bow then came flashes of flame as fire dimensionals combusted into existence beneath the air. They unleashed their flames upward in bursts that splashed through the vegetables, and slowly, every single ingredient was being seared and prepared at once.
Shiv’s The Chef Unwavering Skill showed him just how well they were being cooked. The heat of the flames kissing the mushrooms wasn’t the same as that which coalesced over the cauliflower. Somehow, Band was adjusting and focusing the temperature and reactions of his dimensionals—and he fixed Shiv with a proud stare as he did.
“Alright,” Shiv said, slightly impressed. “Good leadership. Good eye. But I’ll see you on the skillet soon.”
“Skillet.” Band growled. “Make. Food. Good. Or. You. Are. Shit.”
The Deathless bared his teeth and removed the bone armor around his torso. He wanted to feel the heat more; he wasn’t going to half ass anything with Band.
“Mortar! Keep the grill going.”
“Aye, Chef.” Mortar chuckled. He offered Band a quick glance. “Looks like we got ourselves a showdown, Tequila.”
“My mithril’s on Band,” Tequila said. Somehow, and from somewhere, the orc managed to find a large lump of gelatinous rice. He was now mixing it in a water-filled barrel for some reason. “He’s got a spell for everything.”
“Heh.” Mortar grinned at Shiv. “I don’t know. I think our new Insul’s going to take more than a spell to put away.”