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(Fourteen) ◀◀◀◀◀ Chapter Fifteen ▶▶▶▶▶ (Sixteen)
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Now, unlike all that ultimately (however regrettably) pointless rot that cropped up earlier in the narrative about parlors and sitting rooms and the subtle distinctions characterizing them, the Moonshadian Adept's dining room was purpose-built for entertaining en masse, though the precise parameters of en masse vary from mage to mage. For example, should a heavy roller like Magelord Filbercio decide to throw a dinner party, politics would compel him to accommodate nearly every adept in town, save for whomever he happened to be squabbling with that day. Obviously he required a table of impressive length and breadth, to ensure adequate seating for all of his guests while leaving enough space between them to ensure a relatively peaceful and clean dining experience regardless of whomever else happened to be squabbing with whomever else that day. The Magelord's banquet hall was therefore the largest in the city and occupied a place of prominence in his palace.
Meanwhile, his paramour Frigidazzi preferred to keep her own gatherings intimate and reasonable, much in line with her surprisingly discreet personality. As one of the Avatar's companions [IDENTITY REDACTED] once attested to friend and fellow companion [IDENTITY REDACTED]: "A table for two, a silk rose in a vase, a little candelabra throwing out just enough light for you to see the end of your nose and no further. That is what you can expect when dining at Frigidazzi's. And before you ask, no, we absolutely did not!"
Such precious details probably went a long way to offset the cuisine on offer. Frigidazzi's goblin servant did all of the cooking and her menus du jour were, to put it politely, unconventional.
The silk rose was usually the most edible thing on the table.
But Filbercio and Frigidazzi and Frigidazzi's goblin servant, for all their idiosyncrasies, have since departed this realm of mortal turmoil. Lady Columna and her flat tire of a husband Melino, similarly expired. Rotoluncia the Red, the daemon charmer with a fiery temper, now safely extinguished. Celennia the Night Witch met her ignoble demise far from home. And Magister Fedabiblio was, for all intents and purposes, done for—a stony simulacrum of himself, preserved forever in urgent academic discourse with adept Gustacio who'd been similarly fossilized, his mouth agape as if to say "Rel An-Quas Ailem In Lap…? What in the world are you doing, boy?"
Adept Mortegro yet lived, but Mortegro rarely had dinner guests. This was not to say he never entertained. On the contrary, his seances drew crowds but as they had to be conducted after midnight, the price of admission did not normally include a meal (though to his credit, he always provided a small bowl of complimentary candied "motto skulls").
Adept Torrissio remained as well. Hopefully by now one can extrapolate his opinions on hospitality.
For better or for worse, Anarchy left Stefano as one of the city's few remaining custodians of its upper crust culture and he wasn't even a mage. The manor's original owner was however, and he designed his dining room to flaunt his wealth and influence to his wealthy and influential friends, of which he had none.
The furnishings and draperies and even the automaton valet remained in pristine condition—like new, even by the time Stefano assumed ownership of the lot. Everything in that dining room exhibited top quality and craftsmanship. The carved ebony table, its surface trimmed with gold inlay and polished to a mirror finish. The ten dining chairs, upholstered in regal puce chintz and accented with gilt embroidery to match the flatware—electroplated by Master Ducio himself. Curiously, the original owner's vanity took him a step beyond that normally demonstrated by his fellow adepts, going so far as to commission a hand-painted set of dishes and bowls that eschewed the typical cornucopias and country geese for his own visage. Each piece, a miniature tableau of the mage's many heroic exploits, all of which happened exclusively within the confines of his own imagination.
None of this appealed to Stefano's personal taste, but a thief's trained eye could tell that the entire collection was, at the very least, worth a fence's fortune in raw materials. And should his guests find the trappings as gauche as he did, hopefully the spectacular oceanfront view would provide enough of a distraction to prevent an all-out riot. At this hour, the horizon over the ocean glowed a dull mauve, darkening into a clear and star-studded night. The dining room's plate glass windows afforded a full view, spanning the eastern wall from floor to ceiling.
Always a spectacular sight, but as any dinner host worth his salt shaker would concede: It was the guests who truly made the place to be The Place To Be. From his catbird's seat at the head of the table, Stefano took a moment to survey the motley crew he'd assembled over the course of the day:
The Avatar—and tonight's cook—took her rightful place at the table's other end, naturally. At her right hand sat her boon companion, the goodwoman Gwenno, scholar of ancient history and no small cause of consternation for the man sitting across from her. All throughout the dinner, poor Mortegro repeatedly attempted to bring up the prurient subject of Unauthorized Cousins and got spoken over every time, usually by Miss Bucia whose capacity for nattering went unmatched.
Beside Mortegro sat Sethys, or at least for the aperitivo. Stefano assumed the lad had finally remembered how to relax, but when Marvello VIII wheeled out the main course, Sethys quietly excused himself to the kitchen, suddenly recalling that he had some of his own boiling to do.
Across from his empty chair squirmed the likes of Freli plus Andrio beside him, the two castaway schoolboys whose manners left something to be desired. Nevertheless they seemed grateful enough to be supping indoors, at a proper table with proper utensils. Stefano already agreed to "rent" them one of his guest rooms for as long as they might require it, for the relatively low payment of promising to keep up with their studies (and also maybe the return of his pilfered 40 Guilders, whenever convenient).
Meanwhile Ernesto occupied the seat to the left of Sethys, and like Mortegro he was experiencing considerable difficulty trying to get a word in edgewise against the woman sitting to his left. He was more used to young ladies hanging onto his every word, even when the conversation turned to such suggestively niche interests such as the mating habits of the black-tipped grackle. If he had to guess, Bucia cared naught for grackles, though mating habits were probably up in the air given the usual content of her gossip.
Tonight Miss Petra would be getting most of the gen, as she sat at Stefano's left hand and thus directly across from the motormouth at his right. A bit of a flawed masterstroke in dinner party planning as he had hoped to bring up the subject of "Saying Thank You With Apple Pie" with the automaton, but he had yet to encounter an appropriate break in the conversation.
Ah well. Maybe tomorrow…
"Well well, Giselle!" Gwenno laughed over the gentle tink of gold-plated steel against porcelain as she settled her spoon into her emptied bowl. "Who knew you were such a chef?"
"Darlin', we've known each other for years. Decades, even." And a lot longer than that, but Giselle did not want to start bringing up heady topics like the Age of Darkness over the dinner table. "We eat together all the time."
"Not like this, though! Not at a fancy table with fancy chairs and…" Gwenno brought her spoon closer to her eyes for better inspection. "Is this a real gold spoon?"
Stefano chuckled. "Gold plated, my dear. Nothing to get too excited about."
"Now that I think about it, this may be one of the few sit-down meals we've shared that wasn't sat down in one of our many wonderful public houses," said Gwenno, sighing. "Ah. No matter where I sup, it's never the same without him."
Giselle nodded, her expression unreadable. "Tell me about it."
"To think there would come a day where I'd actually miss hearing those stupid drinking songs! It was always him and Sir Dupre and that godawful one about Maids in Trades," Gwenno laughed. "That one always used to make Katrina so mad, remember? But there's nothing in there about shepherds! She was always such a stickler for that New Magincia representation."
Even the Avatar had to crack a smile at the memory. "Well, let's face it, it ain't the most exciting place in Britannia."
"Britannia?" Bucia gasped, clasping her hands over her heart. "You're from Britannia! Oh no, you never told me you're from Britannia!"
"You didn't know that?" Stefano quirked his brow. "The greatest gossip-hound ever to grace the city of Moonshade doesn't know that Avatars come from Britannia?" He scoffed and took another sip of wine. "Even I knew that."
"You know that because I told you that," said Giselle. "I was trying to keep it on the down-low. Folks around these parts don't cotton too well to the whole Beast British thing. At least they didn't in Monitor. And they really didn't in Fawn."
A protracted sniffle came from Mortegro's direction, where he appeared quite content sloshing the remainder of his wine around in his glass. "Oh no. I would say. Here in Moonshade, Giselle, that's really only just the older generation, the old old guard who would be offended by that, here in Moonshade. More important things to worry about, here in Moonshade. I mean I certainly don't care about Beast British," he slurred. "More important things to worry about!"
Stefano raised his eyebrows. "Indeed, though given the extent of tonight's merriment, you'd never guess the world was about to end. Hm?"
An uneasy quiet settled over the table like a newly-fallen layer of post-apocalyptic snow.
This would not do. Gwenno briskly clapped her hands and turned her favorite auntie smile towards the youth sitting beside her.
"Well lads, it looks like you enjoyed your Minoxian-style Stewed Snail Pottage after all!" she said.
"Aye, well…"
"I told you, Andrio!" Freli voraciously scraped at the bottom of his bowl with his spoon—no doubt he would go for fourths if he could. "Snails taste pretty good if you just give them a chance!"
Obviously there was something to it; even Andrio had finished enough of his soup to reveal the scene painted on the bottom of his bowl, and what a curiously specific scene, too! A pulpy depiction of a mage—young and improbably handsome, with tawny blond hair and a sneer that, for some unaccountable reason, brought to mind a rooster lording over an empty yard—in single combat versus the dreaded Metamorphosing Motorway Services Mimic of Skullcrusher Valley, its maw gaping and spewing rolls of toilet paper and boiling coffee.
Andrio dared not study the image too long, lest he ruin his already tenuous appetite.
"It wasn't bad," he conceded. "But why's it got to be so purple?"
"Cousin Seth told you why! It's because the snails make purple stuff in their mucus when you boil them," said Freli. "Then the Ophidians made dye out of it. Weren't you paying attention?"
"No, but I'm not a little swot like you."
"I'm not a swot!" Freli fired back.
"Swotty swotty swot swot!" Andrio returned fire.
"Miss Gwenno, Andrio called me a swot!"
"I heard him, dear." Gwenno massaged her temples; for one horrible moment she caught a psychic glimpse into the daily life of Magister Fedabiblio.
"Maybe you are a swot," said Mortegro, now peering through the bottom of his glass, perhaps wondering how it got so empty and what he could do to remedy that. "Nothing wrong with being a swot. I was a swot when I was your age. Much worse things to be."
"Yeah, nah. I can't blame Andrio for being put off by the subject. It's a bizarre recipe no matter how you, er, stew it," said Ernesto. "Though I reckon one of our Isle's many black-tipped grackles would yum it right up. Smart birds, you know? Did you know that male grackles will catch snails as gifts for their potential mates? Then the females eat the shells—"
Nobody cared.
"Mm, no, my friend Julia gave the recipe to me," Giselle resumed. "Guess they gotta eat snails where she comes from 'cause maybe there ain't much else to cook with up there."
Ernesto perked up. "Julia?"
"Julia! Julia, really? Our Julia? I remember Julia! She was such a handsome lady but so stern!" Bucia started. "And she took her job so seriously, I simply couldn't believe my ears when people started saying she was actually having it off with the Magelord! Can you? What a scandal that would've been! Julia would've never allowed it! She was such an honest lady, at least until Anarchy came to town and she started handing out those awful Crime Certificates! Do you know I had adepts—mages with more money than Trulacci Pavone!—coming into the Canton to steal things because of those certificates? Lady Columna herself nicked my entire selection of bodice rippers, right off the shelf! Just started shoving them into her purse! Those books only cost two Guilders a piece so you know she could afford them! And I told the rangers about it and Julia said there was nothing she could do because Anarchy got rid of all the laws! I was so shocked! And then Ernesto said—" Bucia suddenly switched tack. "Ernesto darling, didn't you have a fling with her too…?"
"Now don't start spewin' rubbish like that!" Ernesto cried, turning as purple as tonight's main course. "Good grief, woman! It wasn't like that Giselle, it really wasn't. We were professional partners, professional, that's all."
Giselle shrugged. "I wasn't even talking about her. Not Captain Julia, I meant a different Julia, an old pal of mine who lives back in Britannia," she said. "A place called Minoc."
"Hence the name! Minoxian-style Stewed Snail Pottage," said Gwenno.
"What's it like? Minoc," Freli carefully repeated the name. "We don't know much about Britannia at all. Only about how Erstam came from there and whatnot."
"Minoc is a seaport, but it's all surrounded by mountains too. It's up north so it gets awful rough in winter," Giselle told him.
"Sounds a lot like our fair Moonshade," said Ernesto. "At least up 'til that last bit."
"Well, it's a far more rugged place than Moonshade as well, I'd say," Gwenno laughed kindly. "Not much there for your fancy, frilly mages; it's a town of Sacrifice, rough around the edges but friendly folk just the same. Plenty of tinkers and craftsmen ply their trade there too! Silverware, clocks, jewelry, furniture, even ships—big shipwrights' town, or at least it was when I last left it. Our friend Julia is one of their—actually, you know, I had no idea Julia could cook either!"
Giselle had to crack a laugh too. "Julia can't hardly boil a pot of beans! Never stopped her from volunteering though. But when she cooks supper you know you're in for a rough night," she said. "And she's got a real pretty face but you won't believe the filth that comes out of her mouth. Cussing the whole darn time, start to finish! F this! F that! F this pot! F the salt! F these flies! F you, Dupre!"
"F…?" Freli craned his head curiously.
Petra's eyes blinked in alarm. "Uh oh! Little pitchers…" she warned.
"…have big ears, yes," finished Stefano. "But it's their big mouths you have to worry about."
"Too right, too right," said Mortegro, distractedly drawing sips off his empty glass. "Eh? Do you hear that?"
"Hear what, Uncle Morty?" Freli asked.
Uncle Morty…? Before Mortegro could ask the dreaded What, his ears pinpointed the location of the attention thief. With tremendous strain for a man at his age and state of light inebriation, he contorted his upper body to have a look beneath the table. "Uh. Bucia?"
"Arf! Arrrr…"
Bucia also recognized the growling and quickly followed Mortegro's example, peeking beneath her seat only to see: "Grosvenor! Oh no! Naughty! Naughty girl!"
The beribboned Bichon paid her no heed and continued whatever pressing business she had that evening involving a pilfered slipper of indeterminate origin. Her precise agenda would only ever be understood by another canine, but to the human eye it seemed to involve a lot of gnawing.
"Where did you get that slipper?" Bucia demanded. "Is that Stefano's?"
"Arrrr! Arf arf!"
"I say, that's one of Torrissio's!" Stefano exclaimed delightedly. "Hot damn!"
"Now how could she have gotten one of Torrissio's slippers?" wondered Petra, her metal mouth bending into a shallow frown. "He's not letting anything out of that house without his knowledge or permission."
"As our most recent ordeal has so comprehensively demonstrated," added Mortegro.
"Oh, who cares? Let's just enjoy the carnage! Good boy!"
"Arrrr—!"
"No! Not good boy, Stefano!" Bucia hid most of her red face behind her hands. "Naughty girl! Oh Grosvenor, you know that old blister shall have you turned into glue if ever he finds out about this!"
But the pup clearly had other things on her mind, like getting her teeth around a thin leather sole and slobbering all over it. "Arf!"
"Well, so long as he doesn't come around here looking for it…" Petra began.
Giselle sensed an undercurrent of unease in that metallic monotone. "No worries," she said. "You're safe now, Petra. Besides, first thing in the morning we set sail for the Sleeping Bull. I ain't waiting around here any longer than I need to, so you all better be ready to get a wiggle on if you're coming with."
"I'm definitely coming with," Mortegro somehow got that one out immediately. "If you need me to wiggle, I'll wiggle until I've wiggled myself right off this accursed isle."
Petra nodded. "Absolutely, me too."
"And me three," said Stefano. "Well, I can't hardly chicken out of our grand adventure now, can I?"
"But so soon? Oh, but you just got here! At least let me show you my peonies!" Bucia insisted. "And you've got to see my new gopher scare too! It's such a darb, really it is! Well, except for when it broke Gwenno's toes off, but everything turned out alright in the end, didn't it? And I really do feel so horrible about that, Gwenno. Especially because you were so kind to help me move it in the first place! Do you know when I asked that Ducio if he would deliver it to my house, he told me it would cost an extra 150 Guilders and a kiss! On the mouth! Can you believe the nerve of that man? Who ever heard of such a thing! Asking a nice girl like me for something like that! Really! So I'm really glad you came along when you did, though, also I really really would've liked to've seen Boydon again too. You'll give him my fondest sweetest kindest most loving regards when you see him again, won't you? Giselle?"
Giselle blinked a few times. "Oh! Sure."
"You're off tomorrow then? I was hoping you'd stay a little longer," said Andrio.
Freli bumped his eyebrows and elbowed the older lad. "Heh heh. See, because Andrio's always hoping you'll stay a little longer, right?"
"I just like hearing her stories!" he groaned. "So do you! Besides, I'm not the one who's got that big picture of her glued to the inside of my grimoire!"
"I… I do not!"
"Do too! You told me you think she's the snake's patellas! Whatever that means!"
"Oh yeah, well you're the one who kisses a picture of her every night before you go to bed!" Freli puckered his lips and made a revolting noise.
"I do not! I-I don't!" Andrio turned his flushed face towards the snake's patellas herself. "It's not like that, Giselle, really it's not."
She frowned, feigning dejection. "It isn't? Aww, shucks. Guess I'm gettin' on in years. Past my prime, huh."
"Ahem. Now that you mention it," (in fact nobody mentioned it, but by now Mortegro was too zotzed to notice or care), "on the subject of Petra's most recent predicament, I should like to forward a serious suggestion—"
"Yes, yes, save it for the boat, Morty! For Void's sake," Stefano intervened. "Tonight we shall keep things strictly not serious as we eat and drink and generally make merry until the break of dawn and so forth."
"Hear hear, Mister Pavone of the Serpent Isle Irregulars." Giselle raised her eyes—and the decanter—towards Mortegro. "More?"
Without another word, the Necromage of Moonshade anted up his empty glass.
"I say it'd be loads easier to make merry without all these pitting snails stinking up the place," Ernesto said through a grimace. "I don't know how the grackles can stand it."
"I'm with you there, dear Ernie," Bucia chimed in. "Isn't it high time for dessert? We'll have to be getting going home soon, Grosvenor is scared of the dark!"
"Arrrr…" The pup may or may not have agreed; her mouthful of slipper made it impossible to tell.
Stefano launched himself upwards from his seat and snapped his fingers. "Ah, yes! The syllabub!"
"Syllabub!" Freli whooped. "Hot damn!"
Gwenno's jaw fell open. "Language!"
"I told you!" Petra shook her most judgmental finger in Stefano's direction.
"What did I do?" Stefano bemoaned the accusation. Rather than defend a futile case, he bustled towards the swinging door that was the only thing protecting his guests from the oft-tempestuous (and always fragrant) activity of his kitchen. "Actually, where is that damned—er—dashed Marvello, anyway? Knowing our luck, he probably also needs a rewinding of his cerebral emu-whotsits. Do wait right there, dessert shall be served presently," he hoped. "One way or another…"
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