Hawk’s Dark Flames roasted an entire smoker full of meat, and the aroma instantly began to spread through the kitchen.

The barbarians cautiously came over to inspect, while Hawk preened his feathers proudly. They would find no issues with his barbecue technique. He could roast any meat perfectly. He knew. He had tested that theory.

It was all in the seasoning, and in the setup. These meats were intended to be slow roasted, so he had to moderate the fires not to get the internal temperature too hot, and to allow everything to cook as intended, even if the process was accelerated.

They couldn’t have tough meat. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The first of them took a brisket off the rack, harvested from one of the domestic earth element cattle that were raised near the city.

They were cheaper than the boars from the dungeon, if they had to pay someone for the meat. But that was why they had chosen to let Hawk start on this grill. Even if he ruined it, the loss wasn’t as great.

The brisket slapped down onto the cutting board, oozing meaty juices, then smoothly fell into slices under the first touch of the knife.

Not crumbly, but buttery soft.

"Alright, I admit it. The mythic cooking of the Dark Flame Phoenix is on a whole other level. This is amazing, and it only took a few seconds.

I have the same skill, and we’re the same level, but the difference in flame turns the whole cooking process into an entirely different cooking technique. This is perfectly done, and now we’ve got enough to feed the party for another hour or two." The head chef admitted.

The meat was sent out as quickly as it was sliced, and the kitchen staff ran out the back to receive an order of liquor.

It was late, but it had finally arrived, and now they were ready for the evening.

While the majority of the group partied, Rae had nearly finished taking Lucille through a marathon shopping trip. The young Lycan Golem Mage had an inexhaustible supply of energy, and Rae was determined to find the outfit that perfectly fit her personality before she went off for training.

Her Pack didn’t have many mages, so if she was going to get practice with her skills, they would have to send her to a larger school.

She could go with her peers, like the warriors did. But Elder Blackwoods knew that a proper school could teach her more things that weren’t in her Skill Tree. Things that the Pack would have to buy skill books for, as they didn’t have any of their own.

However, her fashion choices didn’t look like anything that he would have expected an aspiring mage to pick.

The Elder had assumed his daughter, who had a great love for all things magic, would have gone for mage robes of some sort. But that wasn’t at all what she was picking when Rae gave her options.

Right now, she had on a black silk blouse that had flowers embroidered growing up the sides of the torso, paired with black slacks made of some sort of soft fabric.

She looked more like an office executive now, despite her youth.

But five minutes ago, she had picked leather pants and coat with fur trim and a chain mail vest that was woven with golden wire to contrast with the black.

There really wasn’t any pattern to it that he could see, other than all the things she picked went with her fur.

However, to Rae, it all made sense.

The girl wanted to look cute, but she came from a warrior culture.

Cute and warrior fashion simply didn’t mix in a traditional way. Warriors wanted to look as strong as possible, so they stayed away from cute. To the warriors, cute often meant weak.

Rae didn’t believe that. Her sisters were cute, and they were incredibly dangerous. Even Leo could be dangerous.

Tian was... too fluffy to be threatening.

From a table in the restaurant, where he was playing a jaunty tune on his zither, accompanied by a pair of bards on the drums and lute, Tian laughed. Indeed, he was too cute to be threatening.

But he also didn’t like physical confrontation. It tended to get him dirty, and he hated dirt on his fur.

Cara was the polar opposite. Dirt was fun. Especially pocket sand, second only to pocket cupcakes as a pocket filler.

She was across the room from the rest of the team, as she had joined a game of dice. The other players all thought that they were smart, putting subtle enchantments for luck or roll patterns on the dice.

But Cara had hit the dice with [Randomize] on her first roll, and now the outcomes were absolute chaos, as the spells fought for dominance.

One very frustrated Card Shark class Rogue had just rolled, only to have both dice settle into cracks in the table and end their roll edge up.

"Closest to the roll wins. That’s me again." Cara laughed.

"What the fuck? NO. How can you win with a wager of snake eyes when there is no face showing?"

"No pips, no count. Two is the lowest bet, right?" Cara countered.

The others frowned. Then a barbarian shrugged and thumped the table.

The dice fell over, rolled once and showed snake eyes.

"Well, that settles it. I win." Cara laughed.

"Dammit. The badger’s luck is unholy."

A cleric at the next table turned to face them and shook her head.

"No, she decursed the dice and made them truly random. It’s not that she’s lucky, it’s that none of you are, and she’s betting for maximum chaos."

The gamblers sighed. "Bullshit. Luck doesn’t end like that. Ante up, and let’s get the dice rolling."

The Cleric sighed as she turned away. Gambling against an agent of chaos was a fool’s errand. Even if she lost, she won. Because she wasn’t in it for money, she was there for the entertainment.