Regis floated within his kitchen, peppered by pure irritation. The clumsy fumbling of Strum playing with their bond an unwelcome constant. It was as if his manager mindlessly groped about in the dark, To Regis, each attempt felt as disruptive as a loud bang going off in a quiet room. Surely, it shouldn’t be so difficult to interact with a bond. Regis never had trouble managing it. Why should Strum?

In fact, Strum seemed hell-bent on wasting his new gifts. Not bothering to pursue the benefits to his changed form. Quite depressing, considering none of the goblins in this tribe held anywhere near the same potential that now sat in Strum's hands.

Strum needed to simply embrace his power.

With the gifted mana, Strum would display unparalleled proficiency with fire. He might force both the Chieftain and Shaman to bow before the raw strength of the magic.

Though, neither Regis nor Strum wished to abuse absolute power.

Violence was crass and in the end, utterly meaningless. Unlike other pursuits in this world; brute force produced nothing of substance and only took a toll on the perpetrator.

Still, making the tribe aware that Strum held the power for their decimation held an attractive result. An inevitable increased response to demands. More inclination for cooperation. Open threats weren't necessarily required to utilize the inherent respect goblins held for power. If it so happened that his manager abused their perception to push their agenda? Pleasant happenstance.

If only Strum could communicate. Given some annoying witch placed a spell on him, Regis reluctantly agreed that meeting was too dangerous.

A tricky spell, through their bond the dungeon analyzed it and deduced its nature as a Ward. Though he was new in the ways of magic, this particular spell held elements similar to the way he perceived his domain, making it simple to understand. It allowed the witch remote observation. Operating by leaching the mana of the creature the spell was cast on. Filthy spell. But the insight spelled doom for Strum's plans to wait it out.

Which left it to Regis to determine their course of action. If Strum entered his kitchen shattering the ward was a simple matter, he could channel mana into the goblin with their shared bond. The over-infusion would wreck the ward. Injecting pure mana held no threat since Regis could withdraw it before it became dangerous.

Yet to do so, Regis required Strum to stand within his domain. Such an act informed their enemies of both his existence and location. A grievous misstep, or so Strum believed. Privately, Regis disagreed with such assessments. No creature threatened him.

As if this Lord Cygan's awareness ensured that he'd send his army upon the dungeon in a bid to secure Regis. Like the dragon had any chance of forcing his submission. Sure, a dungeon proved a boon to any Dark Lord. But that required their will to be stronger than their target. Regis welcomed such a test for his willpower, despite the concerns of his collective employees.

Regis distracted himself by puzzling over new recipes with Wort. He felt determined to create a variety of food to broaden the potential sales to the dwarves, and thus strengthen their relationship. Then there was the matter of the new ingredients—some unknown. He obsessed over their potential use.

New goods, that contained mana. Like the sun-fish he'd worked with before and their fire mana, or the mud caps and their earth mana. However, these particular ingredients had a higher purity and capacity.

Regis theorized that the quantity of mana directly correlated to the quality of the ingredient.

Empirical evidence pointed in that direction. The most expensive item, the frost mint, had a particularly high infusion of mana.

Upon the first examination of the leafy bushel, he’d mistaken its ice mana for water mana. Yet, the reaction of prodding it with his fire mana produced odd results, keying him into his mistake. The ice mana only temporarily converted to water mana, returning to the rigid metaphysical structure of ice mana minutes afterward.

It captivated him.

But the sun-kissed held just as much interest. Beautiful yellow orbs running rampant with fire mana. While not as expensive as the frost mint, they were a far cry from the scrawny lemons his employees had previously managed to harvest. Far more dense with fire mana than the sun-fish.

Despite the addition of expensive mystery ingredients, the vast majority of his shipment remained uninteresting. It simply wasn't economical to waste all of their resources for experimentation.

Though, he'd allowed himself the purchase of a couple. All good chefs relentlessly pursued more. Frost mint and sun-kissed lemons. Regis felt close to something new. Something exciting.

Wort sang a bawdy tune, rolling out shortbread dough. He cut out custom shapes, laying them carefully onto a greased sheet. They were a malformed collection of trees, animals, and a single odd blob that was entirely too phallic to meet the dungeon's approval. Like the batch before, they were simple test cookies. Meant to train the hobgoblin. While able to follow a recipe, their appearance lacked much. The dungeon had hoped that Wort might be able to expand his skill set to understand the importance of visual appeal, but that was a pipe-dream.

Simple solutions for simple hobgoblins. Regis learned his lesson and already drafted ideas for cookie cutters. Surely even Wort couldn't fuck that up?

Wait.

Mana exists in a variety of shapes. From fire mana burning inside the physical form of the lemon to the rigid ice mana within the mint. The physical divorced itself from the metaphysical, with its metaphysical form only yielding to pressure from other mana.

Still. Meta-physical states of ingredients interacted with reality. For example, the sun-fish had a short shelf-life due to the fire mana. Earth mana within the mud cap neutralized its natural toxins during growth—letting it become edible, all while ruining its flavor.

Surely, if Regis were able to guide and blend the metaphysical forces of his creations it would alter the properties of his dish?

Cooking with both the metaphysical and physical. Regis shivered and burst into movement. How have I neglected this potential?!

Regis' focus narrowed on the lemon and mint on his table. Ice mana enjoyed structure and solidarity—clashing with his own fire mana which embraced freedom and change. Like him, the lemon possessed that same inherent mana.

Testing of the mint with his mana revealed that their interaction consumed his own, but converted the ice mana into water mana. Yet it reverted back afterward. Its essence converted and generated more mana at a constant rate, making him unable to permanently transform its state. What occurred if he shoved two mana generators into a state of constant interaction? A war of ice and fire?

He pictured the mana erupting in every direction. Chaos. A blend of ice, fire, and water. Bursting inside of the food as the properties clashed and mingled with another.

Such a thing promised a thrilling taste, but the core of his interest resided in the resulting jolt of mana it brought to the consumer. The ideas clicked together. Obvious. To know so much of my fabulous ingredient, yet such painfully elemental metaphysical relationships still evade me? Why?

He tucked away the frustration, realizing this was the solution he required.

To break the ward clinging to Strum, he needed a burst of mana that overwhelmed the spell. Strum lacked the ability to do it himself.

But accomplishing it through an outside force remained a trivial act. If they applied such a force.

Regis let out a chime of thrill; all he required was a recipe that delivered enough of a jolt of mana to destroy the carefully weaved ward. This. This would be his crowning achievement that made his suffering on behalf of this dismal tribe worth it.

Soon he'd free Strum.

“Wort. Finish your current tasks. We have a new priority.”

Strum stroked his chin, Jilde leaned against him. She yawned with exhaustion from hauling the supplies back to the hideout, even with Strum’s help. They'd returned to the hideout with a chaotic Gikx running around, shoving away things into his pack; Vraz debriefed Strum about what the prisoners revealed.

It turned out they had an insane plot to kill the Honorstone clan. Whom they should have no knowledge of. More troubling was the mention of some cavern and a location allegedly used to communicate information to an unknown party.

He didn’t believe for a second it was the Ground-Father.

Shamans played many tricks with their magics. Was it simple trickery to control those two, or far more insidious? They knew the shaman tucked the mirror away in his chambers. They had to retrieve it.

Strum glanced at Yrx and Pox, struggling and bound together in the cave corner. Vraz made the mistake of assuming they’d extracted all the possible information; that they were now useless and bound for execution. To an extent, such cold logic wasn’t wrong. Zealots like them usually opted to go to the grave than handing out what they perceived to be divine secrets.

But they didn’t know they were being used.

Strum felt disgusted at ending goblins in such a state. Misled creatures. Manipulated by an enemy. He didn’t blame them for seeing him as a monster—in their eyes, he threatened their very way of life.

They did not deserve death. It wasn’t in him to end their tales in a dark cave, little more than puppets for a shaman that wouldn’t shed a tear for their passing. Who was he, if not a hobgoblin offered a second chance through Regis? Once he'd been barely aware of his own thoughts. Not knowing where he belonged in the world. How could he not extend the same second chance to others?

In those two, struggling in their bonds, he saw himself.

Strum walked over, yanking the gag from Yrx’s mouth. “Really uh, have his claws in you, doesn’t he?”

“Sinner… ignore… what… that trash not Shadow-Axe goblin… said…” Yrx turned his eyes away from Strum. “He lies.”

“Vraz isn’t the type to lie for the sake of it. Fess up about the mirror, okay? I want to help you two.” Yrx stiffened. Pox kicked his two feet at random, muffled shouts not making it free from the gag.

“I-I know… nothing.”

“Mallik is devious. He’s been uh—well, taking advantage of you two. Don’t you see? He doesn’t care about you. That mirror? He’s using some form of magic to manipulate you. And I need information about that cavern he’s shown you. How about we make a deal? I prove the mirror is a fake, show you how it works, then you two hear me out?”

“S-sinner. Heathen… Blasphemer,” Yrx twisted to look away, accidentally receiving a kick in the shin from his brother. Strum sighed. Despite the reluctance, he saw a seed of doubt.

Strum walked away, only hoping he might make that doubt blossom. Gikx finished gathering his things and sat with his sword on his shoulder.

“Gikx stab be-tray-ors now?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll sort them out, the three of you bring that shipment to Regis. I need to think about our next step. Someone has to go into Mallik’s chambers and take that mirror. Though, I’d rather it be me taking that risk.”

His employees filtered out, grabbing the supplies and making their way to the kitchen. At some point, he removed the twin’s gags.

Strum watched them struggle. They actually functioned quite well when it came to teamwork. In another situation, such communication would be a massive boon. No doubt that was why Mallik saw them as useful tools.

According to Jilde, Regis intended to press forward on opening the restaurant as soon as possible. Strum didn’t have a single clue what that might look like. He scarcely imagined these two doing well under the dungeon. They might have good team ethics, but their stubborn streak clashed far too heavily with the kitchen tyrant.

Still, from his limited understanding, he understood that the restaurant required staff other than just bakers and cooks. Regis briefly mentioned waiters, busboys, and hosts.

Strum lacked exact knowledge of each role’s specific duties, but their shared bond imparted a sense of understanding for their purpose. In a perfect world, he might make something out of these two. Find a place for them in a restaurant.

Strum stroked his chin.