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Amuse-bouche

In the absence of a recipe, one must rely on his instincts. In the absence of instincts, one must be satisfied with the basics. In the absence of basics, one must seek a recipe.

To Hendery’s knowledge, there was no recipe for defeating a dragon. Admittedly, his knowledge was not very vast in this area. And if he held a vast knowledge in any area, it was not in one that could help him now. 

Gripping the neck of a wine bottle as if it were a club, Hendery stared into the cavernous maw of the dragon bearing down on him and waited for instincts to kick in. 

In their absence, he would have to be satisfied with the basics: basically dying. 

Entrée

Call for adventurers!

Party of three in need of three more, looking to brave the ancient stronghold of Immergrau! 

Carved into the Grau Mountain Range – that rocky spine that props up the vast ancestral Dwarven homeland — Immergrau Fortress is more than just an impressive ruin! Connecting to the sprawling inner tunnels within the mountain, Immergrau is your stepping stone to mysteries undiscovered, adventures unthinkable, and riches untold!

None have dared cross the threshold; neither the most erudite Elven Scholar-Princes nor the brave dragon riders of the Imperial Crown! Have you the EGGS to party up with us, and be the first to traverse these forgotten lands? Meet at the Haughty Harpy on the first Tinday of the Month of Sowing.

Seeking to fill the following roles:

-> Treasurer

-> Mage

-> Competent swordsman (recommended qualification: brave)

Ask to see ‘The Gourmands’. 

Vegetarians are not encouraged to apply. Sorry!

‘It’s written a bit like a tourist adventure, isn’t it?’ Dejun said warily. His bowl of savoury porridge had gone cold as the three of them considered the text — he’d made no secret of how bland the tavern’s food selection was. 

‘Of course it is,’ Yangyang replied. He picked off stray bits of straw from his fine jerkin, betraying his current predicament as a rich boy far from home. ‘These calls for adventurers are never honest. You can’t write “come to this musty dungeon and get stabbed by a reanimated skeleton” and expect people to show up.’

Hendery’s heartbeat quickened. ‘So that’s what you’re expecting? And you want us to go with you?’

‘I’m perfect for the job,’ Yangyang said easily. ‘They need a treasurer, and no-one knows money like I do. I’ll just sit back and count coins while you fight the skeletons.’

Dejun scowled at him. ‘I’m not sure I want to risk my life so you can do the books for a group of dungeon-crawling crazies.’ 

‘Then don’t,’ Yangyang said. ‘You can stay here and keep doing parlour tricks in the town square, if you want — but it’s never gonna earn you the money for your tuition.’ 

Dejun deflated, his face falling into his gloved hands. Hendery could almost see his friend's dream of wizard college slipping through his fingers like glittering sand. On a second look, he realised he was seeing sand — Dejun was using magic to conjure the illusory flowing grains.

Hendery pulled Dejun’s hands down. ‘Quit your theatrics!’

‘Theatrics, he says! Ah, woe, I’ll be a novice wizard forever …!’ 

Yangyang leaned forward seriously, pressing his fingers atop the parchment that called them to adventure. ‘Look, you two. I’ve done my research and kept my ear to the ground. This Immergrau is the place to go. Its upper levels are only just now starting to be explored, and the deeper ones are untouched — there are rumours of incredible treasures buried in those old caverns. And these guys, “The Gourmands”, they’re visionaries! If we get in on this before other adventurers catch wind of Immergrau’s potential, we’ll have picked off all the good stuff already. Come on — don't you want to be pioneers? Trailblazers? Rich? ’

‘Before any of those things, we’re more likely to become food for dungeon monsters,’ Dejun said sourly.

Yangyang sighed. ‘Hendery, please convince him. We can do this!’

‘“We”? Little brother, I'm a potion seller's son,’ Hendery said. ‘A pale little almost-alchemist. I don't have your education or Dejun's magic and I certainly can't swing a sword. If even a royal dragon rider hasn't touched those mountains, then how would I possibly cope? Yangyang, these Gourmands wouldn't take me. I'm not an adventurer!’

‘I'm sure we can spin it in your favour,’ Yangyang said. ‘Every good party needs to know their way around potions, right? You'll be the guy.’

Hendery tapped the notice on the table for emphasis. ‘They're not looking for a potions guy — they want a swordsman . A brave one, no less. You and Dejun go ahead, but I'm not cut out for this and you both know it.’

Dejun crossed his arms. ‘Nope. I'm not going without Hendery. It's all of us, or none of us.’

Yangyang huffed, then threw up his hands in defeat. ‘Fine. What a pity that Hendery doesn't have the eggs for it.’

Hendery bristled — in spite of his better judgement, he rose to the bait. ‘I most certainly do have the eggs. This is not about having or not having the eggs.’

Yangyang hummed skeptically. ‘It’s okay not to have the eggs. No shame in that.’

‘I said it’s not a question of eggs!’

‘Then let’s go to the Haughty Harpy and show them!’

Hendery looked to Dejun, who was now wide-eyed with nervous expectation. He wanted to go — he wanted Hendery to want to go. All three of them, off on a grand adventure.

Hendery shook his head. Few things were more stubborn than wizards, accountants, and Southerners, and his two companions were various configurations of the three.

‘Fine, we'll go meet the Gourmands,’ Hendery conceded. ‘But I’m telling you, they won’t take me in.’

‘They will,’ Yangyang insisted. ‘We’ll go make them six and find the greatest treasure this continent has ever seen. After that, we’re never sleeping on stable straw ever again, so help me Gods.’

True to expectation, Hendery now stood before a panel of three “Gourmands”, being assessed. They were all gathered in the Haughty Harpy’s kitchen, temporarily vacated at the request (or palm greasing) of the Gourmands until their interrogation of the hopeful adventurers was complete. The aroma of cooked pork and various spices still lingered, which caused Hendery’s stomach to gurgle more than once. 

 He was asked for his name, age, profession ( “ehm… firmly betwixt the last endeavour and the next…”) and, for some reason, his allergies. For that last question, just like his profession, there was nothing to speak of.

At that, the middle Gourmand’s eyes brightened. He had introduced himself as Kun, the group’s leader, and he struck Hendery as kind. He had dimples that made him look youthful, and thick wavy hair. 

Kun asked, ‘So, our final candidate — what would your field of expertise be?’

Hendery grimaced, choosing honesty. ‘Expertise…? I’m not sure I have any. I only know a thing or two. Not even three.’

Kun laughed at this. Then he asked, ‘Well then, would you say you’re open to eating a variety of foods?’

‘Yes…’ Hendery answered hesitantly. ‘Does that actually count for something?’

‘Yes!’ answered Kun.

‘No!’ cried another Gourmand to Kun’s left. This one wore deep black leathers that matched the bewitching darkness of his catlike eyes, and called himself Ten. He levelled an impatient look at Kun. 

‘Look, what we actually want to know is if you can use a sword,’ Ten said, and Hendery withered under his scrutiny. Even if he tried to lie, it wouldn’t have made a difference; this Ten could see right through him. He finished with an acerbic, ‘So, can you?’ 

Hendery straightened his posture, shoulders high and back. He answered, ‘Without a doubt, I know which end of it to hold.’ 

The one to the right of Kun, an elfin-looking man in all-white robes called Sicheng who had been stoically quiet until now, burst into laughter. He covered his mouth with elegant fingers to stifle his giggles.  

Hendery kept his expression neutral but inside he preened himself — something he certainly did better than fight was make people laugh, and the reminder was refreshing. Still, Ten did not look amused. 

Kun put a gentle hand on Ten’s shoulder. ‘He has wit! Something we sorely need, I think.’

‘What we sorely need is a balanced party,’ Ten argued. Hendery observed the two of them enter into a discussion and could not decide if he was watching arch nemeses or sworn brothers. Eventually, Ten seemed to concede something, to which Kun turned his attention back to Hendery. Now, he seemed more serious. Even with the dimpled smile, his eyes were sharp with intent. There, Hendery saw it — some covert current, pulling under the amiable surface with great force; the reason this man was the leader of the pack. 

Kun said, ‘Hendery, we just have one last thing to ask. What, in your opinion, is the best sauce?’

Hendery cocked his head, puzzled by the question. Was this a riddle? A veiled philosophical query? It hardly seemed relevant, but it had been asked without a shred of irony. Even Ten and Sicheng suddenly looked very interested in what his answer would be. His heart began to pound again as he understood that his answer would make or break him — if he lacked wit, wisdom or an adequate understanding of flavour profiles, apparently, he would be rejected.

But Hendery had always been honest about what he possessed and what he lacked, and he lacked all of the above. His stomach gurgled once more, impatient to conclude this interview. So he answered with honesty again, for better or for worse.

‘Hunger,’ he said decisively. 

There was a pause. Then Kun smiled, though it did nothing to soften his focused eyes. Then he looked to Dejun and Yangyang, who were stood waiting at the back of the room. 

Spreading his hands in a gesture of warmth, he announced, ‘Boys, welcome to the Gourmands.’

The Gourmand Rookies – as they had been dubbed by Ten, the party’s roguish picklock – had had one evening to settle in with their new adventuring companions. Come dawn, they all set out for the mountain road laden with as few belongings as they could carry, but enough to survive dungeoneering for three weeks.

Hendery crunched the numbers in his mind as they hiked — no matter how many times he went over it, there was simply no accounting for three full weeks of camping. The six of them were not carrying enough rations for that amount of time. According to Yangyang’s schedule, they would be deep inside the mountain by the end of their first week, with no opportunity to dip out for a bit of hunting and foraging — not that there would be much to hunt or forage in the snow up there. 

But the veteran members of their party strode forth confidently and so Hendery followed in kind. Their experience would need to guide him more than his own anxieties.

The first few hours of the hike followed a gentler incline accompanied by a breathtaking view. Evergreen hills rolled like a spilled stack of emerald scrolls, interrupted only by the deep sapphire of oxbow lakes. The mountain path itself grew wilder and colder as they climbed, until not even the heat of exertion could keep them warm. After a time, Hendery could not afford to admire their surroundings anymore and focused only on his breathing.

When the party began to pass shabby, abandoned buildings – hunting sheds, crumbling sentry towers, vacant outposts – they came to find a wasteland devastated by some icy onslaught. Large, uneven walls of ice; buildings encased in an unmelting frost; structures razed as if by crushing winds or gargantuan rockfalls. Not a living soul in sight, aside from the six of them hiking through.

There is a chill, Hendery soon learned, that is colder than cold; the one that crystallises from within and remains frosted across your insides even as you warm yourself, dead-eyed and unsettled, before a hearth. Dread, they called it.

Hendery felt it now. He passed a jagged column of ice which imprisoned a corpse in stasis — a man with his arms up in a futile defense, expression frozen in fear and pain. 

Each block of ice thereafter made up the tableau of an ambushed village: a group of women carrying baskets, running away, the vegetables they were carrying likely still fresh in the ice. A man shielding a small child, whose little fists were locked in an eternal grip on his coat. A fluffy dog, frozen mid-bark — one final act of territorial defiance before it, too, was caught in a white dragon's icy breath attack.

‘We will pass more of these,’ Kun said matter-of-factly up ahead. ‘And they will get older as we rise. The dragon began its work at the top and has hunted lower and lower down the mountain over the decades.’

Sicheng chipped in. ‘If you pay attention, the frozen people are like time capsules, with their clothes and equipment and everything. The fossilisation is close to perfect because of the temperatures. It's like a museum.’

Dejun whimpered. ‘A museum of corpses!’

‘All museums house death,’ Sicheng replied mildly. ‘Centuries of it.’

‘You're so morbid,’ Ten quipped, smiling at him. He turned to the shell-shocked youngest members and said, by way of explanation. ‘He was born under the sign of the Scorpion.’

‘I'm actually very sensitive,’ Sicheng said, nodding. 

‘Um, brothers…’ Yangyang interrupted. ‘We were talking about a dragon . Please tell me it hasn’t been seen in these hunting grounds for, oh, say, a very long time?’

‘It was spotted last winter, they say,’ Kun said. ‘It may have occupied a part of Grau Mountain as its lair.’

‘I see. Well, it's been fun. I'll be turning around now. Bye-bye.’

‘The treasure in Immergrau Fortress is estimated to be worth more than fifty thousand gold pieces,’ Ten reminded him. 

Yangyang grimaced, considered this for a moment, then continued trudging forward with the group. Hendery shook his head — if nothing else, Yangyang had the sheer greed necessary for adventuring.

Seeing Dejun and Hendery’s expressions, Kun assured them, ‘Nothing to fear, brothers. If we see a dragon, I’ll just—’ with one eye closed, he mimed shooting a bow and arrow. ‘—Shoot it right out the sky!’

Ten scoffed. ‘Even with a thousand arrows, you’ll miss.’

‘I’d better carry a thousand-and-one, then.’

Unexpectedly, Hendery barked a laugh, before covering his mouth in embarrassment. Kun looked back and smiled at him. 

Hendery spent the rest of the hike thinking about it.

Just as Hendery felt he’d reached his limit, they stopped to rest and eat and put on their heaviest coats.

Taking shelter in an enclosed ruin carved into the rocks (which Yangyang guessed to be a long-disused temple), Kun got to work unpacking his cooking supplies: a large metal pan that also doubled as a round shield; a well-cared for leather knife bag; and a medium-sized pouch made of an odd material. This unusual bag almost looked like it had white-grey scales — perhaps crafted from the skin of a slain reptile.

Hendery’s eyes almost popped out of his head when Kun reached into it and pulled out an impossibly large head of cabbage. Then he reached in again, procuring a whole frozen fish, the frost still white along its open eye and silver body. A few more times, Kun pulled ingredients from this bag that should not have had the space to hold it all.

‘It’s a Bag of Holding!’ Dejun said from beside Hendery, watching the same thing. ‘Those are so rare! And is this one… refrigerated?’

Kun looked pleased to have impressed them. ‘Yes, indeed. Very useful for keeping things fresh.’

Hendery’s mouth watered. ‘A fish and veggie soup would really hit the spot.’

‘I'm sure,’ Kun replied. ‘But that's not all we’re having. We're just on the edge of the Phantom Fields, after all — the hot springs are a short hike away.’

Yangyang’s head whipped around like a gale-accosted weathervane. ‘The Phantom Fields? The haunted Phantom Fields?’

In response, Ten smiled wryly at him. ‘Is the baby scared of ghosts?’

‘I’m not,’ Yangyang replied. ‘Dejun is already shaking, though.’

‘From the cold!’ Dejun said quickly. ‘But… Kun, are there really ghosts in this place?’

‘If there are, we’ll handle them,’ Kun said, now picking up his pack, a quiver and a finely-crafted shortbow. ‘So — who wants to join me and Sicheng for a hunt?’

‘Not it,’ Ten declared at once. ‘But you'd better be careful.’

‘I expected that, and duly noted,’ Kun said with a good-natured eye roll. ‘Anyone else?’

Yangyang was predictably unwilling, and Dejun was wide-eyed with uncertainty — a pity, since a sorcerer who could wield the power of flame would be awfully useful out in the snow.

It fell to Hendery, then, to fill the empty space. Something about the way Kun held himself – the easy confidence in his posture and expression – begat a similar feeling in Hendery. Perhaps he could brave the frozen mountainside with nothing but two of his seniors and a bit of gumption.

Hendery stood. ‘I’ll come.’ He wavered then added, ‘If you’ll have me.’

‘I certainly will,’ Kun said warmly. 

With stern instructions not to scare the remaining two rookies with ghost stories, Kun left them in the dubious care of Ten, who was already eyeing them with a dark gleam in his eye.

With a brand new, unblooded shortsword in hand, Hendery followed Kun and Sicheng out into the wilds.

They did not warn Hendery that the  “short” hike to the hot springs would take more than an hour, and by the time they spotted the first tendrils of steam beyond the pines, Hendery’s fingers were frozen stiff. Embarrassed about the volume of his chattering teeth, he tried to make conversation with the ever-pensive Sicheng, whose bone-white robes seemed far too thin for this climate.

‘Sicheng, you’re quite unbothered by this cold…’

The cleric gave him a small smile. ‘The wonders of magic.’

‘Ah…’ Hendery said, another shiver wracking through him. ‘You couldn’t spare a bit of that for old me, could you?’

‘You’re a hardy boy,’ Sicheng replied. ‘You’re doing fine.’

‘Am I? I’ve only ever known warm summer rain and moderation,’ Hendery smiled stiffly back at him, disappointed. It was hard to accept the compliment on his constitution if he could feel his own nipples starting to ice over. ‘If you weren’t so handsome, I’d think you were half ice giant.’

Sicheng grinned. ‘Not quite. I’m a half-elf, though.’ 

‘Ah, which half?’

‘The right half.’

Hendery blinked. ‘I meant, your mother or your father…?’

‘The right half,’ Sicheng repeated. Hendery thought he might be making fun of him, but looking at the cleric's right ear – the pointed one – he wondered if he was actually telling the truth.

‘Here we are,’ came Kun’s voice from up ahead. ‘Let’s be cautious from here on.’ 

The three of them carefully crept to the treeline, beyond which an expanse of coppery soil and rock lay steaming. Shallow craters filled with unnaturally blue waters were dotted about, and some had centres that would suddenly erupt with hot jets of white water. Hendery jolted when one erupted fairly close to their position, and was steadied by Kun’s hand on his shoulder. 

He looked at him, and Kun was pressing a finger to his lips — quiet, now. Hendery obeyed, even holding his breath, marveling at how easy it was to do so when Kun, in particular, asked it of him.

From there, Kun carefully equipped his shortbow. Not notching an arrow yet, he simply held it low and watched the scenery before them. By the timing of his breaths puffing out in the air, Hendery could tell his breathing had slowed to a meditative rhythm.

Hendery still hadn’t been briefed on what exactly they were hunting and why they had to come to a hot spring for it. For all he could tell, the area was devoid of any life. The sulfuric stink of the place was also beginning to gall. Alas, he was enough of an impostor as it was — if he had to continue pretending to understand what adventuring was all about, then he would.

He narrowed his eyes in imitation of Kun and scanned the scenery. He hoped his act was convincing. 

Then: movement. The three of them saw it at once — a boulder rising up on ten legs and scuttling sideways. Kun aimed his bow, Hendery yelped in surprise, and Sicheng put a hand over his mouth to shush him. 

It was not a quick enough shushing. At the noise, the creature turned and reared up, its spiny front claws snapping. Hendery saw now that it was some sort of giant crab, but unlike any he’d ever seen.

Its underbelly was quite different from its stony carapace. Unlike the brownish, camouflaged shell, the underside of the crab was a vivid orange and black, and seemed to move — patterns shifting and glowing like… well, exactly like magma. 

In the centre of this lava-like mass opened up a frightful maw, ringed with hundreds of sharp teeth, and from the centre of that emerged some sort of – Hendery squinted for real now, trying to make it out – spike?

Oh. A spike. 

With considerable force, Hendery was shoved. The back of his head hit the ground just in time for him to see the spike – about the length of his forearm – shoot over his head. He heard the vibrating thunk-drrrng of it as it impaled a tree behind him.

Panicking, Hendery scrambled to get upright, finding himself unable to lift himself out of the snow and mud. In mere seconds, the lava crab had closed in on them, now a mere few feet away and preparing a second spike attack from its hideous, reeking mouth.

Kun loosed an arrow. With near-impossible accuracy, it stuck dead centre in the creature’s opening, disappearing almost completely inside of it. After a short, choked shriek, it toppled limply to the ground. 

Hendery heaved himself up out of the deep snow, breathing hard. He caught the eyes of Kun, looking down at him with concern, while himself sporting a long cut along his cheek; a thick line of blood made a river downwards until it dripped from his jaw onto his coat. He looked disheveled yet so grand, with his heroic wound and windswept curls — for a moment, Hendery was struck dumb.

He realised that Kun had repeated a question to him. ‘Hey… can you hear me? Are you hurt?’ 

Hendery gathered himself. ‘I’m fine. But your face…’

Kun touched a finger to his cheek and looked surprised to find blood there. ‘Oh? The spike must have clipped me.’

When I valiantly pushed you out of harm’s way, Hendery finished for him. He squeezed his eyes shut in shame — if Kun’s reflexes had been just a fraction too slow, one of them would have been speared to a tree by a crab’s upchuck-javelin. 

‘Sorry,’ Hendery said sheepishly. ‘I should’ve—’

‘It’s not a problem,’ Kun said, then offered a hand to help him up. Hendery took it; it was warm. If Kun said it was not a problem, then perhaps it was not. Disbelieving anything Kun said was very difficult to do, Hendery realised — his words felt true as his arrows, and offered the same protection.

Kun turned his attention back to Sicheng and gestured to his wound. ‘I don’t suppose I can ask you to do something about this?’ he asked. 

The cleric leaned in to inspect the cut, lifted his hand over it, then shook his head. ‘Let it heal on its own. It’s shallow.’

Kun huffed a short laugh. ‘I thought you might say that.’

Sicheng spared a long look at the slain lava crab lying motionless in the snow like a rust-coloured boulder. Its thick legs were spread out around it. He let out a soft sigh, and said to Kun, ‘Did you have to get such a big one?’

‘I have six mouths to feed now,’ Kun replied proudly. ‘Don’t fret — I wasn't planning on making you carry it.’ That’s when Kun turned a playful look to Hendery. ‘That’s what our rookie is for. Hendery, you’re up!’

Hendery was up, alright; up to his bloody knees in snow, and lugging an enormous crab behind him, tied up like a roast. His legs and lungs burned, but after his display of incompetence earlier, he dared not make a show of weakness. 

Kun was dragging the beast alongside Hendery, but seemed at ease, like he lugged giant crabs down mountains every day. Naturally, Sicheng was not helping with this burden, on account of his general air of untouchable delicacy. He offered moral support by turning his head and smiling encouragingly at them every so often. 

If Kun was the one tracking the prey, slaying it with his arrows, and even dragging it back to camp, then Hendery couldn't help but wonder what Sicheng had come along for. The cleric hadn't used magic to do anything but warm himself, apparently — and yet he didn't seem as fussed about his accessory status as Hendery was about his own. Perhaps Kun didn't need a hunting party after all, and merely enjoyed the company.

A gust of wind blew by fiercely, causing the three of them to pause to brace against it. It was the most frigid wind they'd felt so far; Hendery gasped aloud, feeling it hit his body like a wall of invisible, icy water. 

Then another, and another — now they were being battered, and it took all of Hendery’s strength not to be bowled over. He yearned, painfully, for the warmth of a campfire. Hell, even for that of a tiny match. 

He tried to keep walking before Kun grabbed his sleeve, halting him. He was squinting through frosted eyelashes, shaking his head — silently urging Hendery not to move.

That's when Hendery finally saw it: an unnatural, glowing mist forming humanoid shapes all around them, closing in with every forceful shift of the air. A reaching, swiping hand here; a mutely screaming face there. The howling and whistling of the wind took on a dreadful timbre, like hundreds of layered, moaning voices.

Ghosts. 

There was a terrible stillness for just a moment, stretching, stretching, silent — then, all at once, the ghosts rushed . 

Two distended, ethereal arms wrapped around Hendery before he could dodge to the side, and the feeling was like thousands of needles through his skin. Deepest, sharpest cold; the kind that ate your flesh and slowed your blood. Panic seized him, uncontrollable. He was in the grip of death incarnate and would follow in that fate within seconds.

Limbs stiffening, he was helpless. He watched the mists consume their party and glaze his vision with white.

Then — an explosion of warm light. The instant he saw it was the instant he was free, falling backwards into the snow and going slack.

When the blinding flash subsided, like a tide of sunlight impossibly flowing back into its burning source, Hendery could see Sicheng standing at the centre of it. His hands were clasped in something of a prayer gesture, his eyes closed in concentration.

The mists had been cleansed and the ghosts along with it; even the winds had ceased. All the malevolent spiritual energy that tried to overwhelm them, banished by Sicheng's holy magic.

Sicheng relaxed his posture and dusted some snow off of his nose. Then he smiled, now seeming quite tired, and said, ‘Now I feel the cold.’

Hendery laughed in a mix of relief and residual fear. So this is what Sicheng had come along for.

He thanked the gods for it, and then thanked them again a few times until he imagined they got sick of him, and then thanked once more when the campsite finally came into view.

Kun whistled – a short but expressive tune that Hendery guessed was a code – and lo, Ten emerged from the cave to greet them. He squinted at the giant crab and made a face.

‘Successful day!’ Kun announced proudly. 

‘It’s huge,’ Ten complained. ‘I’m not helping you with it.’

Kun and Hendery dragged the crab one last time into their sheltered camp, to the oohs and aahs of the other two rookies. Sicheng – walking somewhat unsteadily – went straight to his bedroll to unroll it by the fireside and promptly fell asleep. It was mere seconds between the lying down and the commencement of soft snoring.

Ten saw this and asked, ‘Something happen?’ before looking properly at Kun — and the long cut on his face. He tensed. ‘Are you alright?’

Kun placated the panic with a handwave and a smile. He answered, ‘Just a scratch. As for Sicheng, it turns out that there are ghosts in the Fields, after all.’

Ten took a moment to inspect Kun for any other injuries, then returned to his watch at the camp’s entrance without further comment. Hendery took note of the way Ten’s brow briefly creased; the tension he held the moment he saw Kun’s injury. 

Yangyang looked up from his journal, now concerned about the unconscious Sicheng. ‘Will he be alright?’

‘I’ll just wake him up when the food is ready,’ Kun reassured him. ‘Let him rest — he worked hard today. Now, who wants to help me with the cooking?’

Ten called out without turning around. ‘You're up, mage number two. We’ll need a big fire for that thing .’

Dejun rose up, offended, before Hendery had a chance to wonder who Ten was talking to. Of course — Dejun was indeed their only other mage. 

‘There is a tone in the title “mage number two” that I recognise and do not appreciate!’ Dejun said hotly. 

There was a cheeky smile in Ten’s voice when he answered, ‘I could bump you down to number three, if you want.’ 

‘There are only two mages in this party!’

‘Exactly.’

Yangyang sighed. ‘Dejun, just go help cook. We need to earn our keep.’

‘And how are you earning it?’ Dejun shot back indignantly. ‘By writing in your diary, young master?”

‘Why, yes,’ Yangyang replied drily.

Feeling sorry for Dejun (and still wanting to prove himself useful), Hendery offered to help cook, too. This delighted Kun, who rubbed his hands eagerly before starting to dole out instructions to his assistant chefs for the day.

Initially, Hendery tried not to watch Kun like a hawk while he went about his business — but it proved impossible not to. It was fascinating how he worked; how deliberate and meticulous he was. His hands deftly chopped and peeled and filleted. He taste-tested each and every step, making adjustments as he went. At one point, while mixing a thin sauce, he offered a taste to Hendery by holding a spoon right up to his lips. He flushed, taking only the barest sip, and his embarrassment was quickly forgotten — it was a very good sauce. 

‘Hendery, let’s hoist the crab up,’ Kun instructed, and tossed a length of rope over a hook he’d hammered into the stone wall. ‘Once it’s lifted, Ten will come tie a knot in that piton—’

‘No, I won’t,’ Ten said from across the room.

‘Yes, he will,’ Kun replied coolly. ‘And once it’s up, Hendery, you’ll slice around the hard bits.’ With that, Kun placed a large knife into Hendery’s hand.

Groaning, Ten dragged his feet across the room to tie whatever special knot Kun needed while Kun, Hendery and Dejun used their strength to keep the crab hoisted above the ground. Once that was done, its huge body hovered with limp limbs, and Kun began to point out where Hendery should start cutting. 

A familiar, unpleasant feeling began to simmer in Hendery. It always started slow, something he was only dimly aware of at first, but would build until his chest tightened with it and his head buzzed with it. Much like when the ghosts of the Phantom Fields seeped into his flesh and froze him, this feeling was too ethereal to see but too present to ignore.

It took hold of his knife hand and refused to let it move. Seconds dragged by and the crab before him remained intact. He could not do it — if he did, it would be wrong. If he didn’t, there would be no progress. But if he did, he would fail; but if he didn’t, he would also fail—

Kun’s gentle hand covered Hendery’s. He said, ‘Lost in thought?’

Hendery inhaled harder than he meant to before answering, ‘I just… don’t want to get it wrong, you see.’

‘Disassembling a dead crab?’ Kun asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘Is that something to get wrong?’

Hendery met him with silence, unsure how to explain it. Still, Kun met his anxiety with patience.

He said, ‘You’re from the potions business, you mentioned. A very exact art, isn’t it? One wrong ingredient, a slightly misshapen rune, the whole batch is ruined… that sort of thing?’

It was like Kun was quoting Hendery's parents. Indeed, potion alchemy was a frightfully fussy thing, and the consequences of bad mixing could range from mundane to deadly. His father still bore the burn scars from a potion that a young Hendery had mixed incorrectly — that is, explosively.

Even talking about this with Kun was causing Hendery to deflate; he’d hoped going on an adventure would take his mind off of alchemy and potions and ingredients and ratios — yet here he was, doing the common man’s daily alchemy of cooking.

‘Here, I’ll do it with you,’ Kun continued. ‘It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just stick the knife in here, where it’s like a seam… that’s right, keep going through and down… and there you go!’ Hendery tugged, and a large section of the crab’s hard tummy flap came off. Underneath with a swath of fresh, cream-coloured meat.

 With that, Kun gave Hendery an approving pat on the back, and went back to preparing the broth. Hendery swelled with strange confidence, like he simply could no wrong — if Kun didn’t care for perfect, then Hendery could give him imperfect. 

He got to work on the rest of the crab. 

The aroma of the stew filled their camp, and eventually even the slothful Yangyang had come over to watch the cooking, eyes bright with anticipation of their meal. Once the crab meat – slice off of the creature by the industrious Hendery – was dropped into the stew, the rich smell of the meat was mouth-watering. It even awoke Sicheng. 

At last, the food was ready. While everyone but Ten helped themselves,  Kun took a cup over to Ten who was still staying guard at the entrance.

Hendery felt a strange pang of emotion then, watching Kun brush Ten across the back for his attention and then hand him a cup of steaming broth with two clasped hands. There was care in it. An effortless familiarity there that Hendery envied; one cultivated only through time and shared experiences. He found himself craving that, as opposed to the awkward newness he was undergoing right now. Neither a stranger to the Gourmands nor a real part of them, either. At least, not yet.

He sought his emotional grounding in the fish-and-lava-crab stew he held in his hands, something he never thought he’d ever eat in his whole life. The steam warmed his face and the cup was close to burning his palms, but he liked it — he had helped hunt this dangerous creature, and now he could enjoy its delicious, hot, spicy spoils.   

‘I can’t believe we’re eating a beast like this,’ Dejun said, echoing Hendery’s thoughts. ‘I never would’ve dreamed monsters were edible.’

‘This is the most normal thing we’ll eat this whole trip,’ Ten said wearily. ‘You’d better appreciate it.’

And they did. A chorus of appreciative groans sounded through the camp as they had their first taste of the stew. It was rich and flavourful, and the crab meat in particular had a distinct smokiness. Hendery thought it may have been too bitter if not for the seasonings Kun had added; various spices and herbs that cut through the stronger, more foreign taste of the monster. 

‘Kun,’ Hendery said. ‘You are the only man in all the realms who could convince me to eat something like this. This is incredible.’

‘I’m glad you’re so easily convinced,’ Kun said happily. ‘It took me months to get Ten to try my cooking. I guess if I can feed him down here, I can feed anyone!’

Across the chamber, Ten lifted his head and eyed their group suspiciously. ‘I heard my name. What are you saying about me?’

Kun cupped his hands around his mouth and replied, ‘I said you’re pickier than a toddler!’

Ten made a vulgar gesture then went back to the cooking pot for seconds.

The crab was certainly their catch of the day. The catch being that the rookies had rookie stomachs, and were now laid low by the momentous task of digesting spicy monster stew. With all three of them suffering from sore, gurgling tummies, the Gourmands decided to delay their trip by a day and stay in camp for another night.

‘O, great Dong Sicheng…’ Hendery said feebly, lying as close to the fire as he could manage. ‘Your eminence couldn’t spare a healing spell for us? Just one each?’

Yangyang shivered in his bedroll, a sheen of sweat on his brow. ‘Give up, Hendery. He would let us die.’

A groan rose up from Dejun, who then tried to say something before suddenly leaping out of his bedroll and running off to a faraway, empty chamber clutching his stomach. 

‘Please,’ Hendery pleaded, knowing that he was a few cramps away from following in those footsteps. Perhaps it would be better to accept the inevitable and go now, or even sleep outside the makeshift latrine chamber overnight. 

Sicheng sipped tea from a shallow, misshapen bowl. ‘Some things the body must do on its own.’

Hendery’s stomach grumbled as if eager to join the discourse personally. Hendery tried to plead one more time. ‘I think you can see that our guts can’t take much more of this.’

‘You’ll grow accustomed,’ Sicheng assured him. ‘If I treat everything with magic, the body will become dependent on it. Just ride this one out, boys.’

Yangyang whined, sounding the youngest he has in years. ‘But you never treat anything with magic!’

Some hours later, Hendery had made it through the worst of it, and was now curled up in his bedroll waiting for sleep once again. Someone’s boots stepped over to where he lay in his state of weakness — Kun had come to crouch down beside him. He looked apologetic.

‘I should have gone easy on the spice,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry. It’s hard enough digesting a new kind of meat… I should’ve considered that for you especially.’

Hendery thought back on lava crab stew. An unpleasant pas de deux between hunger and disgust ensued in his stomach — the flavour had been immaculate, but his digestive system disagreed with the foreignness. He longed for something bland to fill his belly. 

While he lamented, Kun set a steaming bowl down before him: a yellow pudding, garnished with an aromatic dark oil, fresh scallion bits and two little pink shrimp. More shrimp were embedded in the pudding, boasting glossy, juicy meat. Hendery’s appetite awoke with a ferocious readiness, like a sleeping dragon being intruded upon in its lair. 

‘Steamed eggs,’ Kun said when Hendery looked up. At Hendery’s expression, he clarified, ‘ Chicken eggs and ordinary shrimp, made with the last of the surface supplies. You’re looking a bit skinny, and I need you strong.’

He said this with gentle playfulness. Heat rose to Hendery’s cheeks, feeling scrutinised — “strong” was the last thing he could be in this gangly body, and yet Kun was trying to nourish him into shape overnight. Hendery examined the simple, comforting elegance of the shrimp placement within the silky egg and let the steam warm his face, like nurturing hands cupping his cheeks. 

Kun did not simply throw things together, expecting hunger to act as sauce — he made meals from the heart. If Hendery took a bite, he was sure to taste this mundane magic; an enchantment without incantation, or a spell without a mote of mana spent. 

Before Hendery could lift his hand to take the bowl, Kun had already spooned up a bite. He held it up to Hendery’s mouth invitingly.

Thinking only of how hungry he was, Hendery closed his lips around it — Kun’s gaze dropped, just briefly, to Hendery’s mouth, before studying the rest of his face. He wanted to know if he liked it; if the dish – the effort – was good enough.

It was more than just good enough. The soft, savoury hit of flavour was exactly what Hendery needed and more — he shut his eyes and groaned, feeling like a man who hadn’t eaten in years. 

Kun placed the spoon back into the bowl and nudged it towards Hendery. ‘Try to finish it.’

Disappointment pinched at Hendery — being spoon fed felt nice. Then embarrassment pinched him harder, and he took the bowl in his hands to distract from it. 

‘I wouldn’t need to try, fearless chef,’ Hendery managed. ‘This is delicious. Really. Thank you.’

Then, in his sickly, stupid state, Hendery reached out to give two stilted pats to Kun’s shoulder. In the slow second it took him to realise he was being awkward, Kun had already covered Hendery’s hand with his own. A reciprocated gesture of familiarity.

‘You’re welcome,’ Kun replied warmly. ‘I’m glad you like it.’

All of a sudden, to Hendery, “like” seemed wholly inadequate. 

Main Course

Yangyang cried out excitedly when the gargantuan pillars of Immergrau Fortress’s outer entrance came into view. If the young, well-read treasurer hadn’t pointed out the distinctive, blocky style of ancient Dwarven architecture, Hendery might have dismissed the pillars as being part of the rockface. Only once the party had climbed up through the last thicket of trees could they see it plain: twin columns that extended so far down the mountainside that their bottoms disappeared into the mists below. 

There was that dread again — Hendery stepped back from the edge.

‘Don’t you think we should savour it?’ Kun said, stepping up next to him. He stared down into the abyssal drop, admiring it the same he would a view of the ocean, or flower-filled fields. 

Hendery was concentrating on steadying his wobbly knees, so he could not say. Kun’s use of the word “savour” caught his attention, however. So he asked, ‘Kun, why do you… why do we call ourselves the Gourmands?’

‘It’s partially a joke, courtesy of Ten,’ Kun answered. ‘But it’s also that… well, we all have an appetite for something.’

‘Like what?’

‘For me, something new. Something thrilling. I like the feeling of a racing heart.’

Then you'd like the feeling of mine at present , Hendery thought. He quickly tried to un-think it.

Kun asked after a pause, ‘What do you have an appetite for, Hendery?’

Hendery thought about it, and came up rather empty. Somberly he answered, ‘What does it mean that I don’t know?’

‘It means I can help you figure it out! How exciting!’ He gave Hendery an enthusiastic pat on the back, and Hendery almost jumped out of his skin — this close to the edge of the chasm, he felt like a light breeze would launch him into it.

Whatever he had an appetite for, it was not for heights. He mentally scratched it off the list of possibilities. 

The others in the party seemed far less concerned with their perilous perch. Dejun was transfixed on the entrance to the fortress, the look in his eyes a mix of awe and trepidation.

‘Remind me what it is we’re here to find, again?’ he asked.

‘Dragon’s Gold,’ Kun answered in a faraway voice, tinged with eager anticipation.

Yangyang elaborated for them. ‘Legend says Immergrau was founded by King Tormund the Avaricious, who usurped this mountain from the ancient dragon called Neindug the Incorrigible, and claimed Neindug’s hoard of treasure all for himself. From that victory grew an ancient Dwarven civilisation who hollowed out these mountains to house themselves . In the decades that followed, the King’s eldest son, Tiefenthal the Unworthy— ’ 

Ten the Visibly Bored interrupted, ‘Is any of that even true?’

Yangyang, unbothered by the interruption, just shrugged. ‘Who knows. It could all be tall tales. But it’s definitely true that this kingdom was insanely wealthy, and antique coin collectors go crazy for anything hailing from this area.’ He reached into his vest pocket and produced an unfamiliar coin. ‘My dad gave me this — it’s supposed to be an antique Grau dollar. He says I ought to sell it if this trip is a bust, assuming its authentic. Anyway, if the myths of Immergrau are true, and if we're gonna find Neindug’s hoard anywhere, it'll be in the vault of his usurpers. We’ll be rich. Forever. And in the next life too, probably.’

‘No doubt about it,’ Kun added. ‘I wouldn’t make us trek all the way up here for nothing.’ 

‘Yes, but what if you did?’ Ten teased.

‘Well, then… does no-one here appreciate a walk in nature?’

‘Definitely not,’ Yangyang said at once. 

Ten swung an arm around Yangyang’s shoulders. ‘So you’d prefer a walk in a dungeon?’ 

‘I don’t prefer it, but we came all this way for riches and I’d like to go get some of it, please.’ 

A gleeful, yet slightly frightening smile spread across Ten’s face. ‘I like you, Yangyang.’

Sicheng gave Yangyang a rueful look as he started to pass him, towards the ancient gate into the mountain. ‘Take that as a warning, my friend. Ten is a terror to those he likes.’ 

Laughter and chatter accompanied them into the dark, crumbling entry to the mountain; this time, Hendery did not feel dread. With Kun in front of them, and the rest of the Gourmands beside him, why — he felt rather untouchable. 

The famed dragon’s gold would be theirs!  

Screaming erupted. 

The Gourmands had been inside the dilapidated mountain fortress not one hour before Hendery stepped on a trapped pressure plate, sending a volley of arrows down from the vaulted ceiling above.

If not for the quick reflexes of Dejun and Sicheng, casting up their arcane shields before anyone could be skewered, the party’s quest for gold would have ended there and then. 

Once the arrows stopped raining down, Ten flicked the back of Hendery’s head with excessive force. 

‘Ouch—!’

‘Yeah, ouch!’ Ten scolded him. ‘I told you to watch where you’re walking! Just step where I step from now on, alright?’

Over the next few days, for all of Hendery’s efforts, he could not avoid earning Ten’s growing ire. Understandable — when he curiously pushed a door without asking anybody first, a foul gelatinous monster oozed out of the opening and lashed at him; he flailed and yelled until Dejun pointed his finger and incinerated the creature. 

Another incident saw Hendery trip over an unassuming vine, which curled itself around his leg and yanked him up like a roast duck in a tavern window; it was after much ado that his companions slew the head of the hidden carnivorous plant and cut Hendery down, red-faced and numb of leg. 

All the while, Kun carved up and cooked whatever edible – and questionably – edible foe they slew, and Hendery would have every meal with a twinge of embarrassment about his shoddy performance thus far.

Moods did not improve when the collapsed halls and vast chasms made it impossible to navigate the fortress by the blueprints they had. After doubling back, circling around, taking detours and scenic routes in equal measure, they ended up in a gigantic chamber with a ceiling so high they could hardly see it. Aside from being large, cold, dilapidated, and full of broken, useless furniture, the party could not guess what the place was. Water dripped from above, mud squelched underfoot, and loose stone tile was a tripping hazard. 

It was bad and everyone hated it very much. 

The cherry on top of their inauspicious journey happened in this very chamber — Hendery sneezed, loud as a cracking tree trunk, awakening a horde of dormant golems that burst forth from the ground and came at the party with swords and clubs. When one golem swiftly knocked Hendery’s sword out of his hand, and it slid gracelessly to Ten’s feet, Ten gave him a withering look.

Luckily, the group was able to dispatch the golems after a tiring skirmish. Once the last foe was felled, Hendery bowed and cried, ‘I am so sorry!’

He heard Ten suck his teeth in annoyance. He then levelled a petrifying gaze at Hendery that could have rivalled a basilisk’s. 

‘You don’t have the first clue about wielding a sword,’ Ten said coldly. ‘You don’t know about fighting at all. Are we babysitting you?’

‘Easy, now,’ Kun said.’We’re all fine—’

‘You recruited him, Kun!’ Ten said accusingly. ‘And he’ll be the death of you!’

A sort of stiffness befell Kun, then; Ten as well. A palpable, sombre tension that Hendery did not understand.

After a beat, Kun said evenly, ‘We’re due for a lunch break. Rookies, you remember the roots and vines I pointed out before?’

While Hendery, with pinched eyebrows, willed himself to become a speck of mold and become one with this awful dungeon, he diligently gathered the ingredients Kun wanted. Dejun and Yangyang tried to comfort him, though Hendery’s shame was a tough shield to pierce. 

He was letting the team down, badly and often, and Ten was right to call him out for it. 

Yangyang sighed at Hendery’s miserable expression. He nudged him, leaned in close, and whispered, ‘I think I know why Ten is acting crazy at you.’

‘Because I’m an incompetent?’ Hendery asked dourly. ‘A liability? His next shanking victim in the dead of night?’

Yangyang shook his head. ‘No, listen. He talked about it when you were out hunting lava crabs that day. He made me swear not to bring it up with anyone, on pain of death, but I'm choosing to risk it.’

He looked around fervently, checking that Ten wasn't eavesdropping from a nearby shadow. Hendery leaned in closer. 

‘Years ago, Kun… he…’ Yangyang stuttered, uncomfortable. ‘He died. He was killed by a trap that Ten failed to disarm, and… well, you can imagine…’

‘He died?’  

Yangyang clamped his hand over Hendery's mouth. ‘Shh! Yes, that happened. Sicheng pulled him back from the beyond, barely , and at great cost to himself. You can tell, right? His mana depletes so quickly, and then he can barely stay standing after that. So if Ten seems… weird and uppity about our mistakes down here, now you know why. The worst has already happened, and they're scared it'll happen again.’

Hendery looked back at where Kun was standing near the cooking pot. He was talking seriously to Ten and Sicheng, and Hendery felt a pit form in his stomach. 

There Kun was – alive, healthy, handsome – yet it unsettled Hendery to imagine those eyes once lifeless; that body once cold. Sicheng had sacrificed much to get him back, and Ten’s standoffish attitude belied an ardent protectiveness. 

Hendery turned over a bulbous “dungeon turnip” in his hand. The underside of the tuber had a dark spot of rot; he sighed, discarding it and digging around for another.

He had known from the start that he was not an adventurer – that Dejun and Yangyang were better off joining the Gourmands without him – and recently he had proven himself right despite all his efforts to the contrary. He did not want to be the one dark spot on this fine dungeon turnip of a party — he wanted to be a valuable turnip, delicious and full of nutrients, and palatable to all!

Kun could make any ingredient delicious… but was Hendery simply too rotted?

Hendery went down a rabbit hole of turnip metaphors until Kun announced that food was ready. The group ate in relative silence, peppered only with the occasional sigh or creak of cold, tired joints.

Dejun did his utmost to boost morale by conjuring little dancing illusions while they ate, but nothing could be done. Hendery couldn’t bring himself to laugh, even when the illusory monkey smacked the illusory bear with a pie; his thoughts weighed heavy on him. He kept glancing at Kun while they ate, wondering if he harboured similar frustrations to Ten…

Then he noticed Yangyang, who had stopped eating and was now staring up at the ceiling, mouth slightly agape.

‘Are you trying to catch water in your mouth?’ Hendery asked him. ‘What are you looking at?’

At this, the rest of the party stopped as well. They looked up but failed to see what Yangyang seemed to be transfixed by; they only saw the cracked and mossy stone ceilings, their carved designs degraded to the point of being barely there. 

Yangyang spoke softly, as if to himself. ‘Isn’t this…?’ Then he snapped his head down to look right at Sicheng. ‘Your darkvision is better than mine. Can you clearly see what that symbol is?’

Sicheng covered his left human eye and peered up with his right elf eye. 

After a moment he said, ‘It’s sort of a circle with two crossed tools inside it. I see a spiky sort of thing as well…  a crown, or a laurel? It’s very worn down, though. Why did it catch your eye?’

‘I’ve seen it before,’ Yangyang answered, still squinting up into the stony dark. He then Yangyang fished around in his inner waistcoat pocket and took out his antique Grau Dollar. He held it up for the others to lean in and take a closer look at the embossed design.

‘See this tiny symbol?’ he said, himself squinting to examine it. ‘Am I crazy, or does it look just like the one on the ceiling?’

He turned the coin over in his fingers as he craned his neck up to stare at the ceiling symbol. Then some thought struck him — he stood up suddenly, tense with excitement. 

‘That’s right!’ he cried. ‘Collectors! Dwarven coins! This symbol!’

Kun smiled knowingly at their giddy treasurer. ‘I think you’re trying to get at something. Why don’t you tell us what it is?’

In lieu of answering, he began to look around with alert eyes. He was muttering to himself, checking every last nook and cranny of this hallway. At Ten’s impatient prompting, Yangyang remembered he was in company. He turned around.

‘Look, why would this symbol appear here?’ he began urgently. ‘It seems random, right? Well, it’s not. Dwarves are proud of the things they make, especially their golden things, so they always leave a mark — a signature. This—’ he pointed to the coin, then to the design in the ceiling ‘—is this place’s signature.’

‘So a signature of what, then?’ Dejun asked. ‘What is “this place”?’ 

‘You guys,’ Yangyang said quite breathlessly, as if using all his stamina to tamp down a rising excitement. ‘This is a mint. ’

Hendery seemed to be the first to understand. His eyes widened with connected realisation. ‘Gold. An ancient mint full of lost gold.’ 

‘Yes! This is it! This has to be where all of Immergrau’s rumoured treasures are!’

Kun hummed. ‘Not quite dragon’s gold though, is it…?’

Ten rolled his eyes. ‘You and your dragon’s gold. What does it matter?’

‘It matters quite a lot, I argue.’

‘All right, well, don’t argue that with me. ’ Ten began to look around. ‘I don’t see any gold around, Yangyang. Maybe… ah, maybe the entrance to the mint is blocked or hidden. Let’s look around. And don’t actually touch anything without asking me first.’

Thirty minutes of searching later and the party came up short. No levers, pressure plates, buttons or trap doors could be found anywhere in the chamber, and any hope of finding a hidden entrance to a mint was all but faded.

Yangyang sighed, and Hendery gave him a comforting pat on the back. ‘Sorry, young master. If nothing else, you can sell that old coin after all.’

‘It wouldn’t be worth even a fraction of what lies in this missing mint,’ Yangyang grumbled. ‘I’d sell it for a way inside, maybe.’ 

Then something flickered over Yangyang’s expression. He cocked his head, thinking, then turned around to look at their campfire.

‘What is it?’ Hendery asked. ‘Should we call Ten?’

Ignoring him, Yangyang went to their lunch spot. He lifted Kun’s cookpot which stood at the centre, and lo — beneath it was a perfectly circular groove in the floor, little more than an inch in diameter. 

Defying Ten’s order to not touch anything, Yangyang took his collector’s coin and carefully placed it into the groove. There could not have been a more perfect fit. 

There was a pause where nothing happened; then — a rumbling. To their right, movement. 

A vast stone door – just now an unassuming wall – slid to the side with a coarse grinding sound. The movement unsettled dust in the hall and sent it falling gently down on all their heads. 

The first thing that struck them was the temperature — the secret room beyond sighed out a cold, cold breath; far colder than the rest of the dungeon so far. The second thing that struck them was the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, gold and gleaming treasure.

Yangyang all but dove into the piles of coins and gems, his delighted laugh teetering on the maniacal. ‘I can’t believe it!’ he cried, then turned to Hendery with riches pouring through his fingers. ‘Hendery, you’re a genius!

‘Am I?’ Hendery said, confused. He’d only told Yangyang to sell his coin after all.

This confusion quickly faded to amazement as he eyed the treasure that had been uncovered. He was quite stunned — even while the rest of his party were stuffing their bags with as much as they could take, Hendery stood still as an oak, trying to process the scene before him.

He had never seen this much wealth in his entire life, and may never do so again. And yet — the satisfaction, the indulgence, the thrill that he’d expected to feel was not present. If anything, there was a gnawing emptiness in his gut.

Whatever he had an appetite for, it was not for this. 

The party spread out and picked through the hoard for the most valuable and most carry-able things. They would need to come back if they hope to take all of this treasure, and probably with a big cart. 

Hendery went to the very end of the vault, near some crates buried in piles of silver coins. There were no jewels or gems or enchanted rings here, and silver wasn’t worth its weight compared to the gold elsewhere in the vault. Still, perhaps something lay under it all, hidden from view. He listlessly dug through the piles.

Then he swallowed a shriek of alarm. Here, under the pile of silver coins he had pushed aside, lay the skeleton of someone long dead, slumped over and still wearing its rotted armour. A grey, desiccated skin – mummified, almost, by the cold – held the bones together and gave the face a hideous, uncanny expression. its skull lolled eerily to the side, barely attached to the spine. Strangely, its bony fingers were still wrapped around a dark glass bottle. 

Hendery squinted at the barely-visible label. It bore an illustration of some winged beast, though time had weathered it beyond recognition. Dwarven writing accompanied the beast and so Hendery leaned in to read it.

He dismayed — runes in the old Dwarvish language. He knew to read them for the most part, but not without getting a headache from concentrating.

‘Duh…rak…’ he read aloud, slowly interpreting each rune. ‘Duh-rakon… Oh! “Dragon.” Dragon’s what? Hmm… gulthan? Shiny? No…’

He stopped in stark realisation. The old word came to him in a flash as blinding as torchlight on the polished riches that surrounded them: Dragon’s Gold.

Of course! The real dragon’s gold Kun was looking for had to be this ancient wine — and Hendery had found it. He called out, ‘Kun!’

Kun separated from the rest of the party and made his way to Hendery. ‘Find something good?’ he asked.

From the vault entrance, Ten called out to them. ‘What are you two still doing over there? We don’t know long this vault will stay open. Let’s go already.’

Feeling rushed, Hendery hastily reached forward and grabbed the wine bottle, plucking it from the crumbling grip of the formerly living. The liquid sloshed inside, still full. Somehow, Hendery’s intuition did not like this.

The vault, too, did not like this. Another thunderous rumble and shake overtook the room — Kun and Hendery grabbed each other to keep from being knocked prone. Then, a grinding noise of stone against stone; now, they could see the remaining piles of coins, goblets, chests and other things not nailed down begin to move. They flowed like a slow-moving stream, downwards, downwards — until the two adventurers began to flow with it all.

A hole had opened up in the ground below them and all the treasure — and Kun and Hendery with it — were being sucked into the abyss. Hendery’s throat seized up, paralysed with fear; he heard the other Gourmands shouting, glimpsed them becoming small up on their safe perch at the vault’s entrance.

He took one last look at Kun’s face, and then they were gone.

Hendery only knew a thing or two, not even three: he was alive, and he was wet.

He looked up to learn a few more things. He lay in a pile of mostly snow and partially treasure — he sat up and a slurry of cold coins sloughed off him. He also learned that he was in an icy cave with walls of thick, near-opaque ice. Nearly the entirety of the vault above had emptied into this area, now out of the rest of the Gourmands’ reach — Hendery looked up, and the hole they’d fallen through was dizzingly far up. He could hardly believe his body wasn’t broken into pieces down here.

Someone’s voice carried down — Sicheng.

‘Hello! Kun, Hendery, say something if you can hear us!’

‘Here—’ Hendery croaked, throat cold. He tried again. ‘I’m here! I can’t see Kun…’

A pile of coins moved. ‘Also here,’ Kun managed earnestly, but weakly. His arm stuck out and he waved. Hendery’s relief was enough to warm him one degree.

He scrambled toward Kun’s position until he could help dig him out of his particularly deep pile — a few heavy rolls of once fine carpet had landed on Kun. Hendery thanked his lucky stars that nothing worse had landed on either of them. He eyed a pile of ceremonial spears and swords a few feet away.

Once Kun was standing up, he embraced Hendery. Caught off guard, Hendery went still and didn’t think to hug back.

Then  Kun lifted his head to call out to the rest of the party. ‘I’ll find us a way out — you all get out of the fortress! Wait for us at base camp!’

‘Ehm, Kun…’ Hendery murmured. ‘I’m sorry. I’m the reason we’re down here. 

‘How do you mean?’

Hendery sheepishly explained, unable to look directly at him. ‘I found a bottle of wine called Dragon’s Gold … I thought, perhaps… that’s the real thing you were looking for. Once I grabbed it, the floor opened up…’

‘Oh!’ Kun exclaimed. ‘A wine bottle, you said? Is it that one?’ He moved past Hendery to pull something out of the snow — indeed, the trapped bottle that had put them here due to Hendery’s haste. Even in this apologetic mood, he had to marvel at how keen Kun’s eyes were.

‘This is still a fantastic find!’ Kun said, examining the bottle. ‘Rare wines like this go for a fortune with the right buyers. Say, Hendery…’ Kun’s eyes now had a glint in them. ‘Once we’re out of here, would you like to share the first sip?’

‘Would I like to… what?!’

‘It would be a shame to let it go to waste! How many can say they’ve had centuries-old dungeon wine?’

‘I’m not sure I want to say I have…’ Hendery replied, grimacing. ‘Besides, how are we going to get out of here without the others’ help? We don’t even know where in the hells we are.’

‘Oh, I know where we are,’ Kun said. He looked around at the icy walls and mountains of snow. ‘A white dragon’s lair.’

Hendery waited patiently for Kun to say he was joking and was left wanting. He blinked. Then asked, ‘A what colour what’s what?’

Kun was smiling, almost nostalgically, as he answered. ‘How else would this much snow and ice get inside a mountain? Look—’ he took Hendery under the chin with thumb and index, turning his head in the direction of a long tunnel. ‘Walls and pillars of ice, nearly perfect in form, all the way down. A white dragon’s magic can turn any cave into a wintry maze; most adventurers die from the cold before they can even find the treasure hoard at the centre of it. And do you hear the wind in here, how it whistles a tune? It helps the dragon listen for intruders just from subtle changes in the melody. Really, it’s amazing.’ 

Kun pushed Hendery’s gawking jaw closed before turning to look for their displaced belongings in the snow and fancy mess. He found their backpacks, his cooking pan and picked through the mess for other useful supplies. Then he handed the bottle of Dragon's Gold out for Hendery to take — Hendery hesitated.

‘Isn’t this… bad luck?’ he asked Kun. 

Kun shrugged. ‘It’s already done its worst. I still intend to share it with you, if you’ll look after it for us.’

Kun's eyes, ever briefly, dipped down to Hendery's mouth again. 

The biting cold made Hendery all the more aware of the confusing heat that rushed through him. He hastily took the bottle, needing something to busy himself with as he secured it to the side of his backpack.

Straight-shouldered, Kun marched past him and into the tunnel — the one leading into the alleged dragon’s lair. 

‘Kun, wait!’ Hendery cried. ‘We can’t seriously…! Won’t there be a dragon in there?’

‘There might be,’ Kun answered. ‘But where there are dragons, there is dragon’s gold. The kind that I’m looking for. Come on, and don’t look so pale — I’ve got you.’ 

‘But we already found your “Dragon's Gold” !’ Hendedy turned to show off the liquor bottle. ‘Isn’t this it?’

There was a pause before Kun answered. ‘Not quite, no. Now, let’s slow our steps and stick close to the wall… and be quiet.’

Henderys forehead creased. So the vault full of dragons gold was not it, the bottle full of Dragon's Gold was not it… So what could be it! Riddles within riddles and Kun was not being forthcoming!

And yet, Kun’s power to make Hendery obey was in full effect, despite every one of Hendery’s instincts screaming at him to turn tail and run. Part of him thought he might already be dead – his body a crumpled heap at the bottom of the trap, rich in coins but robbed of life – and that he and Kun’s spirits were now floating through the cold of the beyond. Ghosts, after all.

Like a ghost, Hendery ached for the heat of the living. He watched Kun’s back, following his steps automatically as his mind wandered. Kun’s head of curls and narrow shoulders were a beacon in the icy dark, staving off the dread — and taking his mind off of his numbed fingertips and flagging energy. 

After more than two hours, Hendery wearily estimated, an eerie wind began to pick up in the tunnels, ruffling Kun’s coat just so. Soon after, Kun disappeared into the wall.

Hendery blinked and readied himself to wail in dismay.

He thought better of it, and looked to where Kun had last been — Kun had in fact made a sudden left turn into a cave, just barely spacious enough for two of them to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. It was sheltered from the wind, though less so from the cold. 

‘We’ll rest here,’ Kun said, starting to unroll a bedroll and blankets. He gestured for Hendery to hand over his blankets as well. ‘It won’t be comfortable, but we need a bit of sleep. The wind is beginning to keen.’

‘Is that a sign of something?’ asked Hendery.

‘It means I’ll need to concentrate. Here — I can’t cook here, I’m afraid, so we’ll share these crackers. Oh! And cheese!’

Hendery watched Kun excitedly unwrap the wax paper with their emergency rations. He watched it with fondness. With longing. Had Hendery fallen down here on his own, or even with anyone else, he was not sure he would have kept hold of his senses. 

They finished their cheese and crackers, and then Kun climbed into the bedroll. He waved for Hendery to enter with him, to which Hendery froze. 

Kun gave him an apologetic smile. ‘Such is survivalism. No room for personal space in the depths of a dungeon.’

Unable to conjure up a counterpoint while sleepy, frozen, and afraid, Hendery had to gather his courage and climbed in next to him.

When they were both snug inside the bedroll, Hendery could no longer avoid thinking about it: he was this close to Kun. So close. As close as can be with clothes still on. 

His belly flipped at that sudden thought. Now his imagination had crossed the threshold and Kun’s pleasant scent was inescapable — lingering herbal soap, clean sweat and just a bit of earthy dungeon dust. His curly hair tickled Hendery’s cheek and nose. 

He had learned many dangerous facts about Kun since meeting him and spending almost every waking moment with him. He learned that Kun is lethal with a shortbow. That Kun can make a skewer out of half of the world’s dungeon monsters and a soufflé out of the other half. That he had been resurrected. He knows that Kun is wise, decisive, and courageous; that he’s excitable, cute, and prone to roughly clanging pots and pans when he’s annoyed. 

Kun shivered and went “brr!” before tipping his head up to look Hendery in the face. He was grinning, which made it hard to hide his chattering teeth. Then, he wrapped his arms around Hendery’s middle. 

‘Sorry that it’s come to this,’ Kun said brightly. ‘But we must. We’ll get warmer as the night goes on.’ 

Hendery knew what he meant but between the proximity, the scent, the pounding heart, his mind settled on an implication. One that Kun didn’t make, but that Hendery shamefully wished he did.

He wanted to press his cold nose and lips against Kun’s neck. He wanted to feel Kun’s breath fall against him in hot gusts, first slow and languid, then sharp and quick. He wanted to hook his leg over him, build a rhythm as they kissed, rut against him; heat their bodies up in ways that only sleeping beside each other wouldn’t do.

He wanted, frankly, to eat Kun up. 

He flushed, his embarrassment fighting to smother his arousal. Still, there was nowhere to escape to. No second bedroll to lie in with your salacious thoughts about your handsome leader-cook. 

So he turned his thoughts to the warmth of a campfire, the aroma of a cookpot, and the chatter of those without worries. Such things that Kun had given him, and that would protect his heart in times of fear.

They managed a few hours of fitful sleep – more fitful for one than the other – and awoke to a high, keening wail from outside. It took Hendery a good moment to understand that it was the sound of the wind, mournfully trawling the tunnels. 

Kun was quiet as they packed their things. Focused, listening. Hendery so badly wanted to ask what the plan was, but thought better of interrupting whatever wordless work Kun was doing.

Just before they made to squeeze out of the cave, Kun gripped his arm and leaned in, lips almost right at Hendery's ear, so that his whisper could be heard.

‘We must be quiet from here onwards. Or rather, you must. I'll be whistling us through the tunnels.’ Seeing Hendery's confusion, he elaborated. ‘A white dragon knows its own lair intimately, having carved out the ice tunnels itself. With its keen senses, it uses the pitch of the wind moving through its lair to pinpoint even the smallest changes — objects and creatures creeping through, for example. If we don't want to be found, I'll need to match the melody.’

Hendery marvelled. He scanned that face, so close and so lovely, and tried to imagine how Kun might know such things. Hunting, cooking, outfoxing dragons… Just how many lives had Kun lived?

He remembered the secret Yangyang had told him, and the metaphor was sobering. Kun had died once… So he'd lived at least two, he supposed. Hendery looked away, ashamed of having the tragic knowledge.

They set off, and Hendery quickly saw for himself what “whistling through the tunnels” meant. With an uncanny precision, Kun whistled long and airy notes, sliding the pitch upwards and downwards as they walked through a winding maze of ice. As the wind shifted in its inscrutable ways, Kun shifted with it, as natural as birdsong to a bird. 

The whistling kept them undetectable, as if the air passed through them and not around their shapes — the treacherous tone of the wind could not find them here.

As they crept under the shroud of wordless song, the tunnels widened steadily, until the ceiling and walls stretched high and away. Hendery could not help but feel like it was a maw opening to receive them — especially as he looked up and saw great icicles growing down from the cavern ceiling, like dreadful teeth. 

There was a strange, sourceless pseudo-light in this place. It was just bright to see without effort, even for their human eyes, but it seemed to glow a pale blue from within the walls of ice, reflected infinitely from some other source elsewhere. If not for the lack of open sky to look at, Hendery might have mistaken this place for the outdoors, like the endless white plains of the Phantom Fields. Snow was underfoot, unsullied and soft and hugging their every step.

Hendery eyed this glimmering snow, piled so high in places that they dwarfed him, like pillars of diamond dust. White, shimmering, smooth, perfect. A childish notion came to him — of reaching into that flawless surface and scooping out a snowball to suck on. 

He had done so as a child, during his first snowfall. Captured by the purity of frozen water that fell from the heavens, he shovelled it into his little mouth, then burst into tears a moment later when the ice cold hurt his head. It was the pain of discovery — of learning, of playing, of innocence as pure as the snow he ate. 

He wondered, to his surprise, how snow from a dragon’s lair would taste. Then he asked himself if Kun’s curious way of thinking was rubbing off on him at last. 

So distracted was he by his reminiscing, he belatedly noticed Kun had stopped whistling. The cavern was windless; uncannily quiet. They found themselves standing on a precipice and before them opened a pit, large enough to house a curled up dragon.

Hendery gulped down his terror. A very large dragon, by the looks of it. One could let a herd of cows graze in the area below for days before they ran out of space to roam. In the centre of this area was a small, dark mound of sorts that Hendery could not quite identify.

‘I think…’ Kun said very quietly, looking right at the mound. ‘The dragon is not currently here — not in the caverns, I mean. If my reckoning is correct, it should be out hunting on the mountainside. We may only have a few minutes.’

‘A few minutes to do what?’ Hendery asked, fearing the answer.

‘To get what we came here for. You stay up here while I climb down. I’m sure those big eyes of yours will spot anything unusual, such as, say, a big white dragon coming home.’ Kun produced a piton and a long coil of rope and in no time had set himself up to rappel down into the pit. 

Heart pounding, Hendery watched and waited. His solitude seemed to grow and become heavy with every foot that Kun descended, until the latter was just the size of a little figurine in Hendery’s vision. Kun carefully made his way across the empty expanse of the pit until he reached the mound – bigger than Hendery thought, for Kun had to clamber up onto it – and he effortfully removed something from it. It looked like a large bag or a ball or…

Hendery leaned forward sharply. An egg?

Just then, the wind began to rise. First, Hendery felt its chill flutter through his coat and hair. Then, it pressed stinging kisses across his face before breaking out into song — that inquiring hum, touching him all over and reading his shape like sheet music. 

He waved his hands wildly down at Kun, fearing to call out too loudly. He could not tell if Kun could see him. 

Then, a beating whoosh, whoosh, whoosh , followed by a dull thud somewhere out of sight. The wind launched into a new song, high and howling, and even the pale blue light seemed to startle.

Hendery clamped a hand over his own mouth and ducked behind an ice-enrusted stone pillar, and dared to peer with one eye from out behind it.

There, like an iceberg drifting in, came a great white dragon. 

The crown of its spiny head stood over ten, twelve feet tall, and its entire body was covered in white-blue scales. They glimmered so much like the snow all about, though there was no innocent delight in the sight; the frost of dread encased Hendery’s heart. The creature could bite him in half, freeze him in ice with its breath, or crush him under its black claws, each one as long as Hendery stood tall. 

The dragon sucked in a breath, nostrils like great round doors, and cast its azure eye around. It knew. It sensed the presence of intruders, and though Hendery was hidden and near a point of escape, Kun was trapped in a pit at the mercy of draconic ire. 

But Kun was a smart man… perhaps he had hidden himself, or fled! Hendery shuffled, ever so slowly, until he could peer down from the other side of the pillar. His throat tightened — Kun was still there, crouched behind the mound, still as death. He could not move from his position lest the dragon spot him, but Hendery had no doubt the dragon would find him there. Near its nest , Hendery realised. 

As if on cue, the dragon began to prowl the pit, bending its head this way and that to examine the area. Despite its formidable size, it did not have heavy footfalls; it moved nimbly on snow and stone, catlike in its silence. Only the snort and growl of its frantic inhalations gave it away, especially as it grew closer to Kun’s scent. 

Suddenly, Kun bolted. Hendery watched him sprint from behind the mound, still burdened by the dragon’s egg he stole, and the dragon reared up in angry surprise. It landed its front legs on the cave floor again, hard and deliberate, scarcely missing Kun who dodged with a roll forward. 

He now lay crouched at the foot of the rope he climbed down, watching the dragon. There was nowhere to run nor hide, and the dragon would not miss again.

Hendery cried out, loud as his voice box allowed, and jumped into view. At once, the dragon’s terrible attention was fixed on him.

Despite his fear – or, perhaps, because of it – Hendery noticed something: the dragon had one clear blue eye, but the other was milky. The dragon tilted its head just so, favouring its blue eye to catch Hendery in its vision, and so his suspicion was confirmed. Blind in its left eye.

Hendery sprinted to the dragon’s left – its hopefully weaker side – following the curve of the pit’s rim, and keeping a good distance. He reached to draw his sword as he went, to give the impression he would attack, but found his sheath empty.

Dammit, Hendery thought! His sword must have been misplaced when they fell through the trap. His hand only found purchase on the bottle of Dragon’s Gold strapped to his pack, so with no other plan, he drew that instead. 

The dragon roared. It swung its head to track Hendery before lunging toward his position, snapping its jaws but falling short of snatching him up. Its massive head landed on the snow behind Hendery, sending a flurry flying up. He felt the snowfall of it on his head and shoulders, and would have shrieked even not for his need to focus.

He glanced to Kun, hoping to find him climbing out of the pit — instead, he had remained where he was and drawn his bow! He aimed it now, right at the dragon, but hesitated to loose — the creature was large, but armoured with scales, and moving too much. Kun would need to find a weak spot, the way he had with the lava crab days ago.

Hendery was hot with exertion and adrenaline, but he could not falter now. He could only run for so long, and the dragon was beginning to unfurl its gigantic wings — once it took flight, there would be nowhere to hide.

So Hendery stopped. He turned. He looked the white dragon in the eye; the first and perhaps only dragon he would ever see in his life, and very possibly the last thing he’d ever see in his life. 

The dragon opened its jaws, innumerable rows of teeth encroaching upon Hendery like a deadly cage. Within its mouth, far inside the throat, a strange glow — white and glittery and swirling. Like a blizzard condensed.

The dragon was preparing its breath attack, which would freeze Hendery to death, holding him in grim stasis like those villages further down the mountain.

But what could he do? Kun was not beside him to tell him! No instructions, no hand-holding while carving up the dragon in the right places, no recipe — Hendery was on his own. 

In the absence of a recipe, one must rely on his instincts. In the absence of instincts, one must be satisfied with the basics. In the absence of basics, one must seek a recipe.

To Hendery’s knowledge, there was no recipe for defeating a dragon. Admittedly, his knowledge was not very vast in this area. And if he held a vast knowledge in any area, it was not in one that could help him now. 

Gripping the neck of a wine bottle as if it were a club, Hendery stared into the cavernous maw of the dragon bearing down on him and waited for instincts to kick in. 

In their absence, he would have to be satisfied with the basics: basically dying. 

But Hendery knew a thing or two, and possibly three: one dragon’s eye was good, the other was bad, and he had one chance to change that. 

So, with all his might and then some, he hurled the bottle of Dragon’s Gold at dragon’s seeing eye. Time seemed to slow; he watched the bottle turn and turn and turn in the air, rising and falling in a fate-deciding arc—

—and it smashed to pieces against the hard ridge above the dragon’s eye, exploding ancient wine and glass shards right into the eyeball. 

The dragon shrieked, reared its long neck up in pain, and thwoosh—! 

One single arrow pierced the soft flesh at the juncture of jaw, neck, and the bottom of the ear. After a tense second, and a surprised gurgle, blood fountained out of the wound. The dragon continued to scream, thrashing this way and that, slamming its huge body into the ice walls and stone pillars. 

Hendery ran, circling back to the rope as fast as he could. Icicles from the ceiling began to crack and crash into the ground below.

When he got to the rope, Kun was already climbing — so Hendery tugged. He heaved , using strength he never knew he had, hurriedly pulling Kun to safety as the cave crumbled from the dragon’s destructive motions. 

When Kun was close enough, Hendery clasped his hand arm and dragged him over the edge in one swift movement. Kun looked just as surprised by this as Hendery was.

They helped each other up and fled — but not through the tunnel they came in. Kun pulled Hendery toward a shattered wall of ice, destroyed by the wildly thrashing tail of the dragon. Beyond it was a narrower tunnel, evidently blocked off by the dragon on purpose to avoid smaller, sneakier intruders.

But it was dark, and Hendery blindly trusted that Kun was leading them out into safety. Their hands remained clasped together, tight, as if one moment of separation would part them forever. 

They left the sound of roaring and shrieking behind them after several minutes of running. Even the wind sung no songs in here, and strangely, it was very warm. Hendery ran his free hand along the stone walls, and true enough, they were hot to the touch — like caressing a mug of tea. 

Now, Kun halted. They were in a slightly wider tunnel, though it still barely fit them, and the top of Hendery’s head brushed the ceiling. They had stopped in a circle of orange light, shining down hotly from a perfectly circular opening in the stone above; Hendery did not know what it was. Both of them were sweating from the running and the sauna-like heat in here. 

‘Here, here,’ Kun said breathlessly. Then he turned, eyes wide and glimmering, a smile playing about his lips; he had the expression of a man barely tamping down a overwhelming rush of excitement, and this bubbling energy was levelled right at Hendery as he met his eyes. 

‘Hendery, gods — we did— you did it!’ Kun cried. ‘My heart is pounding, I thought—! Just—amazing, that was amazing, I can’t believe–!’

Thoughtless, senseless, irrational — Hendery grabbed Kun’s coat lapels with both hands and kissed him. Shallowly, but unequivocally wanting. Kun’s lips were warm, lush, and intoxicating. Perhaps willing.

But what if they were not?

Hendery pulled away, all of a sudden woefully lucid, and cried, ‘I’m sorry!’

‘Don’t be,’ Kun replied at once. ‘Don’t. Not for anything.’ He grinned and craned his neck up toward the hole. ‘Before either of us get carried away, let’s climb up to safety. If my memory of Yangyang’s historical monologues are correct, this should be a disused forge shaft. The Dwarves would have pulled magma up through here for their smithing… or something!’

Hendery praised the Gods that, not only was Kun not laughing in his face for pulling the stunt of kissing him , but that he was able to ensure their escape despite it all. It was also greatly appreciated that the orange light coming from above was hiding the redness in Hendery’s cheeks.

Slowly but surely they used the ridges in the rock to squeeze their way up the forge shaft. Hendery’s arms ached and shook by the time they got to the top, but after a few minutes they were emerging from an empty stone forge. The orange light turned out to be from several lamps set up about the dusty chamber, and even a campfire in the middle of it.

‘Oh,’ said Hendery, Kun, Ten, Sicheng, Dejun and Yangyang at the exact same time.

Ten stood up, scowling. ‘You disappear for hours and hours, and then you try to sneak up on us?! I was convinced you two idiots died!’

The rest of the Gourmands also kicked up a fuss – though a joyful, relieved fuss – running to the two of them in reunion. Ten was the first to pull the group into a hug. 

‘Thank you for waiting for two dead idiots,’ Kun said warmly. ‘You all must be hungry by now.’

With that, Kun set his pack down and removed the curious scaled sack he used to keep ingredients. From it, he pulled their prize: the dragon’s egg.

The others marvelled, insisting that Kun share how he got it. As he diligently began setting up his cooking equipment at the campfire, he relayed it all in full detail. Hendery, feeling shy and still a bit stunned, only interjected a few times. He was more interested in the familiar comfort of watching Kun cook, and speak, and laugh with the others.

When the story came to the point of finding the egg in the nest, the food was ready. All Kun had done this time was prepare some preserved vegetables and bread, which he toasted in the fire until perfectly crisp and light brown. The final touch was the egg (about the size of a backpack, and covered in thin scales), which Kun cracked open with the butt of a shortsword.

He poured the egg into a pan, and suddenly, it all made perfect sense: the creamy, generous egg white around a perfect yolk, yellow as a freshly-minted coin and shining like a gem. Golden. “Dragon’s gold.”

Dejun looked at Kun, incredulous. ‘You were hoping to find a dragon’s egg in there all along?’

‘Hoping, yes… expecting it, no,’ Kun said. The steam from the cookpot had made his face a little bit pink and dewy. ‘But thanks to Hendery, I was able to finally get one.’

‘I really thought the “dragon’s gold” was the wine I found…’ Hendery said, amazed. 

‘Ah, a good find, but that would have been too easy,’ Kun said. ‘And isn’t this more satisfying? A hot meal we can all share.’

And so here it was, the thing Kun had an appetite for — not coins nor jewels nor acclaim, but the thrill of seeking, hunting, foraging, finding. And then, in the warm aura of a campfire, sharing the spoils of said thrill. 

Kun asked after a pause, ‘What do you have an appetite for, Hendery?’

Hendery smiled at the memory. He would have an answer for Kun, next time he asked.

Dessert

It took only two days to navigate out of Immergrau fortress. It turned out that, on a stomach full of “dragon’s gold”, the party were far better at solving puzzles and fending off carnivorous plants than they’d ever been — and Yangyang, now knowing a little more about secret doors and coin-keys, located valuable shortcuts out of the cold dungeon gloom.

Thereafter, it was only a matter of careful descent down a sunny mountainside, the thick snow having miraculously melted. Hendery wondered privately to himself if this had anything to do with a certain injured – or dead – white dragon. 

It was an exercise of patience to descend the mountain, journey back to the nearest town, find buyers and dealers for their treasures, then finally hole up in a tavern for celebratory drinks — for all the while, Hendery wanted to catch Kun alone. To give him an answer to his question; to get an answer in return.

And so it was close to midnight, when most had gone away to bed in various states of inebriation, when Hendery found Kun a ways down the path outside the tavern. He sat on a log, staring up at the darkened silhouette of Grau Mountain, from whence they’d come, its snow capped peak like the white crown of a silent god. 

Kun noticed him, and patted the space next to him on the log for Hendery to sit. They reflected for a while in comfortable silence until Kun finally spoke.

‘It’s not only that I would never have found my dragon’s gold without you, you know?’ he said. ‘I very well might have died. I was foolish, chasing a dragon to its lair… but you didn’t mind.’

‘Oh, I did mind very much,’ Hendery said, and they laughed. Then he inhaled, ready to say what he’d been waiting to say.

‘But…’ he began. ‘I know now what I have an appetite for. I know why I want to be—no, why I am a Gourmand. I understand now, that feeling of a racing heart… of dread, of excitement, of losing and winning and getting a meal out of it either way. I know I want to be here with you all. Or rather… with you, Kun. If it’s all the same.’

Kun turned to look at him. Again, a glance down to the lips, then back up again. 

That, he knew, was Kun’s answer.

So Hendery met the answer with relish; with the clarity of a consommé and the welcome heat of lava crab stew. He surged forward unselfconsciously and indulged his appetite — hand curled in the cook’s hair, he kissed him.

In the absence of a recipe, one must rely on his instincts. In the absence of instincts, one must be satisfied with the basics. In the absence of basics, one must seek a recipe.

To Hendery’s knowledge, there was no recipe for kissing Kun. Admittedly, his knowledge was not very vast in this area. And if he held a vast knowledge in any area, it was not in one that could help him now. 

Cupping his cheek as if letting go would cause him to float away, Hendery broke away to look into Kun’s soft brown eyes and waited for instincts to kick in. 

In their absence, he would have to be satisfied with the basics: a dash of Kun’s warmth; a pinch of his soft cheeks; a generous helping of his lips, his breath, his tongue, and his beating heart against Hendery’s chest.