Dialysis Book: Chapter 28: Talimor’s Fine Eatery

We got to Talimor’s just before the contests started.  Talimor’s grand reopening was due to the previous restaurant being destroyed recently for an unknown reason.  Apparently it had spontaneously exploded.  No one would tell me why, but I wasn’t expecting a gas leak.

Talimor, the owner for the past 600 years, spared no expense in rebuilding the place.  He hired a group of druids to rapidly grow a grove of trees.  They had done a spectacular job, and the trees were already full size with the various canvases tied between the trunks to separate the building into rooms.

Dozens of elves were acting as waiters, and I noticed that they had ears that were about the same size as the girls.  Aria and Vicky stood as proudly as possible, and I realized that their highly fashionable clothing was as much to make them stand out among the other elves as it was to separate them from the servants.

Looking around, the elven social strata was becoming very obvious to me.  The shorter eared elves used to be the bottom rungs of society, but now those slots were filled by non-elves.  The problem was that the highborn elves still considered the short ears little more than servants, even if some of the short eared elves could have easily pinned their ears back, literally.

The highborn elves had really long ears, you could do it with a clothespin.

Meanwhile, I was still dressed like a bohemian cowboy, and Shade had reindeer horns made out of twigs.  Of the two of us, he looked cuter.

The restaurant was tucked into a slight depression in the gardens, giving it a poor view of the surrounding area due to the massive hedge.  In all, this was as private a location as one might hope to find in the massive plaza.

The small interior garden had likewise been expanded hastily, showing that elves could move quickly if necessary.  They had taken the existing garden and blown it up to a much larger size.  Several pitcher plants glowed faintly as strings of lightning bugs the size of my thumb flew around.

The front of the restaurant boasted a large sign that read Talimor’s Fine Eatery, demonstrating that the place was less than fifty years old because in my experience Talimor would never replace that sign.

Talimor himself stood, with his waiters behind him as three elves finished singing a ballad that they apparently started at dawn.  The sun was setting.

“Short and sweet,” said a nearby elf, boasting some impressively long ears.

“Wish I’d been here to hear it,” said Aria softly.  She’d meant that for me and Vicky, but the longer eared elf heard anyway and smirked as he purposefully made his way towards the entrance.

“Insufferable,” I hissed.  The long eared elf heard that too.  He missed a step.

Vicky gave me a terrible smile as she tried to quiet me down.  “Please?”

I conceded and the girls started pushing me towards the side with several other humans in attendance.  They were all dressed like morons, and all of them were men.  My suspicion was that the fairer sex would be wise enough to have avoided this situation.

“How many,” I asked as I got in line with the other men.

“Two,” said the first, dressed as ridiculously as I was.

“Two,” said another, dressed about the same.

“Three,” said the final man, who was dressed like a clown, pirate cowboy with heels, and spurs.  Clown Pirates apparently had terrible taste in clothing but a great choice in potential girlfriends.  Or at least playmates.

“Nice nose,” I said.

“Thanks,” honked the clown pirate cowboy in response.

“Three girls?” I said.

“Yup,” he replied, giving me a thousand yard stare.  He looked tired.  Drained even.

“There but for the grace of god,” I said as Talimor began to speak.

“Greetings everyone to my fine establishment,” said Talimor as he walked to a podium to address the crowd.  I was surprised to see that his ears were not much longer than the girls.  He was wearing a white jacket that looked close enough to a chef’s jacket from Earth that I instantly knew he was the main reason the restaurant was successful.

The great chef walked around, bowing his head to other elves.  Even the long eared elves nodded back, if only slightly.  When he got to us, the girls both bowed deeply as he nodded at them.  I nodded back at him, and he looked at me carefully.

“I recognize you from somewhere,” he said.

“I get that,” I replied, not wanting to gather unwanted attention.  Talidor seemed to accept that as he continued greeting guests.  I considered backing out again, but a quick glance back at my two elven dates decided the thing for me.  Like many men before me, I was willing to put up with a lot for a hot date with two women.

“As you know,” began Talidor, “It is considered good luck to have lucky people attend the grand opening of any business, and my restaurant’s grand reopening is no exception.  I have several contests prepared with prizes for the lucky winners who will be permitted immediate entry to sample the latest in elven cuisine.”

There was a cheer.  I was surprised, most elven things seemed to be rather slow paced.

“However, because the food is even now being prepared I will endeavor to conduct the contests quickly so that we might all enjoy the various foods.”

That was it, Talidor ultimately was a businessman.  He wanted people to get into his place of business quickly so he could make money, and therefore he was cheating slightly to speed up the process.

While I was sure the normal contests would have taken a considerable amount of time, because he had hot food being prepared that needed to be served he would have to run the contests quickly so as  to not ruin the food.

The nearby elves didn’t seem to mind, but some of the longer eared elves frowned slightly.  They preferred everything to take longer, but as they stood there two halflings stepped out with heywoods and their expressions quickly changed.  Elves seemed to love tubbies if they were properly prepared.

“And all you guys know about are home fries,” I muttered as a contest where five elven ladies and five elven men, all long eared, showed off their fancy formal wear.  Every garment they wore was either that stark white and black or the puffy silks that I’d seen commonly on the long eared elves.

Frankly, while the two styles of clothing were broadly different, once you started comparing similarly dressed individuals the difference between the various garments of the elven upper crust was minimal to my eyes.  It was like looking at two high end suits.  There were slight differences in the cut, the make, the lines and the like but nothing there seemed significant enough to pick one contestant over the other.

One of the elves won and walked in with their spouse.  I couldn’t tell which half of the couple won, and frankly didn’t care.

Almost immediately the next group of elves gathered up.  They were wearing the exact same outfits as the other elves who just won the fancy dress costumes and I looked through all of them trying to spot the difference.

I inhaled slightly as I recognized one of the elves.

“Is that Sylanada,” I hissed and Shade looked over.

“Yes, I recognize her smell but I’d have to check her butt to be absolutely sure,” said Shade.

“Just a little though,” I said carefully.

“Do not sniff the mystical elf’s butt,” groaned a magical squirbit. I ignored her, these were the things where it was better to be safe than sorry.

Shade considered his options for a moment then sat down, “I’m pretty sure it is her.”

“But we can’t know for certain,” I said as the next contest began.  Various elves pulled out bows from their storage and laughed as they were handed an assortment of truly terrible arrows.

“What’s up with that,” I asked, looking at one arrow which was curved nearly into a spiral.

“They believe that a true elf can make a straight shot with a curved arrow,” said Spivy.  “Which is absurd.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said as Aria stepped forward to the line of archers.  All of the archers there were long ears and they all snorted or rolled their eyes as she approached.  At the last moment, she stepped aside, not even competing.

“That was mean,” said Shade, growling slightly.  “They are not good dogs.”

“Tell me about it,” I said as the elves all shot in unison.  Many elves couldn’t make bullseye shots with such terrible arrows but a number did, including Sylanada.   She actually pulled a robin hood and split another arrow in the target.

The crowd cheered and she walked into the restaurant.

Suddenly someone shoved me from the back and I turned to see Aria pointing towards the front.  Vicky on the other hand was scarfing down some heywoods that they were handing out, to the elves.  Grumbling, I walked over to where the other non-elves had congregated.  Several elves looked at the group of us critically, one stopped at me.

“What is this one supposed to be,” she asked.

“A bohemian cowboy,” I replied, to her shocked expression.  Both girls facepalmed.  Talidor snorted.

“Disqualified,” said the elf and she continued to her next victim.

I blinked several times, they had warned me about this.  My shoulder slumped, I didn’t mind losing but I didn’t want to be fully disqualified either.  I walked over to the girls and they both looked heartbroken.

“We probably wouldn’t have won anyway,” said Vicky.

“I guess,” said Aria, eating a heywood.  “I just wanted to…”

She looked at the restaurant and seemed to deflate.  They were already letting in the long eared elves.  The second class elves were all left to watch as nothing more could be done.  There was only a slight chance they could have made it in and I ruined it.

I felt bad.

“Look, when we get back to the guild I’ll make you something better than heywoods,” I said.

Someone scoffed and I was about done with that.  I turned and spotted Talidor shaking his head.

“I understand that it is difficult to get in, really I do, and I might not even like the arrangements, but no one is going to be making better heywoods than I make here,” said Talidor.  “I made sure of that.”

“I didn’t say I was going to make better heywoods,” I replied, examining the elf.  “I said I was going to make something better than heywoods.  They are a breakfast food.”

By now a small crowd of elves were gathered as I challenged the chef directly in front of his establishment.  He laughed.

“You think you can make something better than heywoods?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “Easily.”

There were chuckles running through the elves and Talidor shook his head, “Sad, I’ll have you know I recruited the man who first made the heywoods from the adventurer’s guild for my grand opening.”

At his signal, a halfling chef walked out from the side door with another large plate of heywoods.  He was broadly smiling, a smile that shattered when he saw me.  “Heywood.”

“Hi Pentecost,” I replied.  “Still not using enough butter.”

Talidor looked at me, then looked at a large sign next to his door.  It was one of the stupid Heywood signs that they’d modeled after me.  I reluctantly did the pose.

The four of us were shoved into the restaurant moments later with Talidor apologizing profusely and Pentecost begging for forgiveness.

“I just thought they were called Heywoods,” said Talidor.

“I’m a fraud,” moaned Pentecost.

“They are actually home fries, but you can call them heywoods,” I said and patted Pentecost on the head.  “It's okay, I told you how to make them and you are doing a decent job.”

“You said you can make better heywoods?,” asked Talidor.

“I can, but I’d rather make something better,” I replied, gesturing towards the girls.  “Just make sure they are happy, and my dog.”

“Dog?” asked Talidor.

“Mutant Doat,” said Pentecost.

“Why didn’t he just say that,” muttered Talidor as I was flung into the kitchen where a dozen halflings and elves standing around a massive pile of tubies stared at me like I was the second coming.  Talidor pushed them back, “This is Heywood himself, he will be showing us how to make heywoods properly as well as other recipes that are better than heywoods.”

“That’s not possible,” said an elf.

“Steak heywoods,” I said looking around.  “They are designed to be eaten with dinner and can be used to sop up juices left over from a reindeer steak so that you can enjoy the flavor of both the heywood and the steak.”

The kitchen staff all stared.  All of the elves swallowed deeply.  So did some of the halflings.

“Namiestay, the goddess, bless this poor elf in his time of need,” said Talidor.  “Get cooking, do whatever this man tells you!”

“I’m not going to be ordered around by a human,” spat an elf with slightly longer ears.

“Scalloped Heywoods, a tasty dish of thinly sliced heywoods in a casserole dish baked to tender perfection,” I said.

The angry elf’s eyebrow twitched.

“Mashed heywoods,” I said looking around, “They are fluffy and buttery, complimenting many different kinds of meals.  They are so good you can eat them as a proper meal all by themselves.”

The angry elf looked at me for a long moment, then broke, “Yes chef, how can this lowly one help you.”

“What’s your name,” I asked.

“Danni,” stated the elf.

“Danni, lets see how many recipes I remember,” I said and started ordering everyone to prepare different dishes.  The process took over an hour to get everything squared away but in the end Talidor was staring wide eyed at the variety of dishes I’d shown them how to prepare.

“How,” asked Talimor.

“My mother is Irish,” I stated.  “They have a racial affinity towards this dish.”

“They are the most glorious people in the world,” whispered Talimor.

While I helped the kitchen prepare a truly massive number of dishes, this did significantly interrupt the service at the restaurant.  I stepped out of the kitchen into a room full of ravenous elves.  I swallowed slightly as each hungry eye traced my every movement.

“You don’t have any tubies on you,” whispered Spivy.  “Do you?”

I did not, thank the goddess, Namiestay.  Grumble.

The restaurant was laid out in a series of sunken tables that were in vee shapes across the floor.  Each server was responsible for their three tables, and the girls were in the middle one.  That was apparently the place of honor and we’d been surrounded by two tables of highborn elves.

I quickly sat down next to Aria and Vicky, who were surviving on small cakes.  Shade was surviving on small cakes, bits of meat, and whatever else anyone would throw his way.  He had convinced two small elven children, their older sister, their mother and a very dignified looking elf with a massive mohawk wearing the poofiest shirt I’d ever seen to toss the poor starving mutt every scrap of food they had.

“Please tell me he’s bringing out something,” said Aria.

Not a moment after she spoke, the kitchen door swung open and Talimor stepped out with four servers in tow.  They brought out four massive dishes of tubers.  Talimor smiled and looked around the room.

“I bring to you greatness, Heywood himself has blessed our establishment with a host of new tubie recipes.  I bring you scalloped heywoods,” said Talidor as the first large dish was opened up revealing the scalloped tubers.  Several of the nearby elves looked on ravenously.  “Using a cheese base, and a new slicing trick, these heywoods are a balanced part of every dinner.”

Several plates went out and a server set one of the plates at the table next to us.  I glanced over and realized the dish was for Sylanada.  She didn’t notice the food for a second, then the look on her face changed from serious to ecstatic as she looked down.  She reached for the hot scalloped tubers with her fingers, but Talidor shoved a fork into her hand.

While she began to scarf the food, I looked over towards where she had been looking, the other third of our table where the family that was feeding shade had been sitting.  Most of the elves there were rather common, but I could sense at least a heroic power level from the mohawked elf.

“Who’s that,” I asked.

“That’s Dedaren, the monk of splendors, he works for mom,” said Vicky as a plate of scalloped heywoods was dropped at our table.  I didn’t even try to get any, I didn’t have time.  Both girls ate them like they had never tasted food before.

“This is troubling,” said Shade.

“You get to lick the bowl,” I said grumpily.

Vicky grabbed the bowl and started licking, fending off Aria who tried to take it.  Shade sighed.

“We could have gotten meat on a stick,” said Shade.

“I’m sure there will be some for us,” I said.

Three courses later, the antlers had come off.  Shade whimpered, “So hungry.”

“I saw you eat when I came back in the room,” I grumbled as a picadillo heywood came out, that was a delightful dish with ground deer, cumin, cinnamon and garlic liberally filled with a few more tubers than I thought strictly necessary.

The girls were using chopsticks and began tearing the heywoods out of the dish.  I reached for the food, and they growled at me.  We’d had four dishes and they hadn’t shared at all, further I really was questioning where they put all that food.

Aria was 90 pounds soaking wet and Vicky was only slightly heavier because she had a c cup, a vast tract of land for an elf girl who were almost universally flat chested.  Still, I reached over with my hand and Aria grabbed my arm.  I pushed against her, and I was nearly double her size, which made the fact that my hand barely moved all the more impressive.

My stomach growled, which Vicky interpreted as an attack.  That gave me a moment to act as the girls tried to get the various tubers under their dominion.  Using some of the alchemical paste, I combined two chopsticks and a fork into an impromptu spear and jammed it into some of the deer that was approximately bite sized and yanked it out.  Shade snatched it off my fork spear, gobbling it up in one quick bite.

Undeterred, I jammed my fork in again and when I withdrew Shade again ate it before I could get it to my mouth.

“Dude,” I hissed.

“So hungry,” said Shade as he wagged his tail.  He moved his head towards the dish, but the girls growled at him and he pulled back.

I jammed the spear in again, easily bypassing the girls as I was just reaching for the meat.  Yanking it back, I grabbed shade by the neck and pushed him away, only for him to puff away as smoke with his mouth already around the bite.

The next time I jammed my spear in repeatedly, getting two bites on the end of the fork as Vicky and Aria were in the middle of a kung-fu style chopstick battle over several pieces of tuber.

Grabbing Shade by the chest, I burned essence and shoved him away as I brought the spear to my mouth.  He appeared on a chunk of meat just as I got my mouth around the other chunks.

Both girls were staring at me, apparently kissing my dog.

“Seriously, I didn’t know you swung that way,” said Aria.

Vicky looked at her plate, “You fool, Sylanada absconded with our tubers!”

Aria looked down and realized that Sylanada at the next table had seen the unprotected tubers and were plunking them into her mouth one by one and a dawning horror washed over me.  It was like a dead eyed shark enjoying a meal.

“I’ve seen that look before,” I said quietly to Shade.

“Like when they are driving,” replied my dog uncomfortably.  He was right, the absolutely horrific driving conditions weren't because of lax driving laws, or improper safety equipment.  It was because deep down, this was how elves were with scarce resources.

“How many more tubers do they have in the kitchen,” asked Shade looking at Talidor.  He looked worried, very worried.  I did the math, they were going through far more tubies than anyone could have anticipated.

“Not enough,” I replied, cold sweat pouring down my neck.  The long delay suddenly made sense.  Before they started eating there was room to maneuver, room to resolve things peacefully, but even the massive pile of tubies wasn’t enough for this crowd.

“I have a distraction, we will make a break for it,” I said.

“But the food,” hissed Shade.

“We have money, we’ll just go to a food cart,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” replied Shade.  “That makes much more sense, and we’ll probably get fed faster.”

Pentecost stepped out from the kitchen as the final dish emerged.  It was massive, enough to feed everyone here if they ate at all reasonably.  The dead eyed stares from all of the elves told me there was no chance of that.  The clown, pirate cowboy was edging towards the front door.

I slid back and prepared to exit as Talidor tried to put a bright face on the situation.

“I now bring you the ultimate tubie dish.  One that is so great, so fluffy, so perfect that it could be a meal all by itself.  Prepare for the greatest of meals, Mashed Heywoods.”

Shade glanced at me, “Mashed potatoes is your ultimate meal?”

“I love mashed potatoes,” I said.  “Maybe it will disappoint.”

Talidor had the dish brought to my table, and I sat back down.  I could see the genuine fear in his eyes.  He whispered so silently I wasn’t sure I heard him, “The pantry is bare.”

He handed me a spoon and promptly stepped back, then vanished into the kitchen.  I was pretty sure I heard the back door slam.  He was retreating and every eye was on me and the mashed heywoods.  I used the spoon to pull up a small bite, it smelled excellent.  I swallowed and glanced over at Sylanada and Dedaren, who were openly glaring at each other.

“Who would like to try the first bite,” I said, my voice cracking.

“As a member of the royal court,” said Sylanada who strode over with her place.

“As a member of the court of the System Lord,  I outrank you,” stated Dedaren, his mohawk bobbing in the wind.  I glanced at his table, everyone including the children were glaring dangerously at Sylanada.  Her table had several other elves who were all standing, preparing.

I checked my backup and Vicky and Aria were at the door.  Cowards.

Dipping the spoon into the mashed heywoods, I tried to come up with a solution that would save my life.

“Hey, is he bringing out more,” I asked before slapping the mashed heywoods onto Sylanada’s plate.  I tried to run but a hand locked around my arm.

“I believe that portion was meant for me,” said Dedaren, squeezing so painfully I could feel my wrist bones grinding together.  I wasn’t wearing armor, but I wasn't sure it would have helped.

“The king’s elves eat first,” replied Sylanada, taking her own spoon and bringing the portion to her lips. She shuddered, looking down in bliss at the mashed heywoods.

“Damn your king and damn you,” spat Dedaren who flung me across the room.  My light barriers shot up and sadly I had much more experience at smashing through a wall at this point.  The trick was to use the shields to break up the wall so that it didn’t tear you apart when you passed through.

I landed out in the garden in a mass of thin tree trunks, and woke up several seconds later as I was roughly jostled.

“I swear it was the magical squirbit,” said Aria.

“That isn’t real,” hissed Vicky, looking over her shoulder.

Suddenly I was airborne and then Aria landed hard and we were suddenly moving again.  She was carrying me, slung over her shoulder fireman style.  I wasn’t sure what hurt more, her boney shoulder or the pointy ear in my side.

“I can walk,” I groaned.

She threw me off her shoulder like a doll expecting me to land on my feet, which I actually did but it was still impolite.  I looked over to the restaurant where they had already blown out the wall and the fighting moved into the well manicured garden.

“They are still fighting,” I said.

“This is a high population area, most of them live around here,” said Aria, and as if on queue another two elves showed up to back up Sylanada while another showed up to help Dedaren.

“What is everyone going to do,” I asked.

“What we are doing,” said Vicky.  “Run away.”

Sylanada leapt into the air, flinging dozens of glowing daggers at Dedaren who used a single hand to block all of them before throwing a hadouken style fireball straight at the jumping elf.

The fireball exploded before it hit her, but Sylanada went flying and smashed into a meat stick cart.  What wasn’t destroyed instantly vanished in holy fire as Sylanada rolled and flipped away from the cart.

“NOOO,” screamed Shade, who was being carried by Vicky.

“He can walk,” I said.

Both girls looked at each other, “If you say so.”

Vicky carefully set Shade down, who looked disappointed.

“Why are you both so worried about Shade,” I asked, glancing down at my tough dog.  He was a good, strong boy when there was another explosion and an elf crashed into the ground nearby.

Everyone jumped clear from the impact but my dog, who was peppered with rocks and debris.  He was flung to the side, barely landing on his feet as he whimpered.  I glared down at his attacker and summoned up my spear.

The elf wasn’t paying attention to me, preparing to return to the fight but still somehow managed to dodge my first strike with the sharp point of my spear even when I used quicken thrust.  He had a pair of short swords ready and turned to face me but by that time I already had the haft of my spear around and I knocked his legs out from underneath him.

He hadn’t even fully landed before I spun around, slamming the flat of my spear against his face, knocking him unconscious.

Aria swallowed, “We are not worried about Shade.”

Vicky was checking him, and Shade was already back to his feet none worse for the wear.  She nodded, “We should go.”

“Yeah,” grinned Aria as the battle moved away from us.  “Besides, I think you deserve a reward.”

“Innocent elven maiden,” I said, stepping away from the unconscious elf.  He was no longer a threat to Shade so I was content to let him sleep off his injury.

“Sure, if you are into that,” said Aria.

“With both of you,” I said, triumphantly.

“Shade can’t come,” said Vicky, apparently that was her line.

“Gross,” stated Shade.