"For the adventurous, there is no better place to delve into unknown cuisine like a merfolk city. Do keep in mind that this only applies for those of truly strong stomach and mind, however." -Eàgun Godfridsdotter, (self-proclaimed) world-famous Half-Orc bard and lover of fine foods.

As she came up to the upper deck of the “Kraken’s Bounty”, Cal once again marveled at the splendor of the massive ship. A good one-hundred forty meters long and fifty-five across, the four-tiered rectangular Junk ship with its seven masts simply looked majestic - at least compared to the much smaller ships that serve the waterways between the islands of the archipelago.

Then again, this ship was meant for the week-long trail between the Al-Shan Archipelago and the Alcidean Continent, through much deeper waters full of creatures the likes of which she had only heard of in stories or read in books.

“Lady Ambervale! The Ocean’s blessing that you joined us on this fine day!”

When she glanced towards the sound, Cal spotted the ship’s captain - not that anyone would have been able to have identified the man from how he dressed. With how he sported ragged shorts and only wore an open vest over his chest, Bresilas Gtou’rergh would have easily passed himself off as some random sailor, something made easier by his atypically bulky, muscular build, and how his powerful muscles rippled under his smooth deep blue skin.

He was also someone Cal made fast friends with over the past three days, partly because they were the only two people on the ship that spoke elvish, as well as their shared half-elven heritage.

Although Silas - as he insisted everyone called him - had the other half of his parentage from the merfolk instead, whose features he strongly inherited. He stood even taller than her one meter ninety, his bald head easily topped two meters, and that was without counting the tall, ridged fin-like crest that ran along his spine and ended near his forehead, which gave the man what looked like a giant mohawk. The gills on the sides of his neck and abdomen as well as his webbed fingers and toes further made him look much more a merfolk than anything elven-blooded. Other than the small, pointy ears - full-blooded merfolk have no outer ear structure at all.

His bulky build on the other hand was atypical to both his parent races, both of which leaned towards slenderness or even lankiness in build.

He had busied himself near a bench with a raised metal container filled with hot coals on it, his deft fingers wielded a long kitchen knife that looked far too slim and delicate to be used by someone of his size and build.

With the knife in hand, he expertly stabbed and sliced through the carapace of what looked like a black, human head-sized ball of spikes, and clearly enjoyed the look of abject horror from a human couple nearby - both looked like merchants on their way back to the continent, and the man had already turned a shade of green by now.

While Cal wasn’t familiar with the creature - it was called an urchin or something? She hadn’t known why someone would call such a creature with a name that evoked homeless children - she knew it was considered something of a delicacy among the merfolk, and many of the fishermen she knew of as well. She chuckled as the man turned greener when he saw how Silas pulled out the creature’s guts with a deft hand.

“Captain Silas.” She replied.

Now that she was close enough she could see that he had a couple breadfruits toasted on the other end of the coal brazier. An unusual fruit with flesh that tasted of freshly baked bread when toasted, and easily kept for a few months when stored in a dry place. Definitely preferable food to hardtack to say the least.

“Care to partake on a little afternoon snack, milady?” Silas asked.

Cal didn’t even bother to tell him not to call her with any title. She knew a lost cause when she saw one, and an attempt made on most anyone who lived in the archipelago to not call her by any sort of weird title was by now a cause as lost as it can be.

“Definitely won’t mind some. I got some good wine to share in return.” She said, as she casually pulled out a sealed clay urn from her pendant. It was small enough it would have fit in her old storage artifact anyway, so nobody would have any idea she had a new, bigger one.

Silas gave out a harsh gurgle of a sound that was the merfolk equivalent of a booming laughter. “Well, well, ain’t never saying no to good wine to go with some snack, guess I better make this neat in a jiffy~”

The Mer-Elf deftly plucked five orange, tongue-like organs out of the creature as it still twitched, and gently laid them side by side on a fine wire mesh. He then placed the mesh on top of the coal brazier and watched the organs as they seared for a little while on one side while he lightly sprinkled the other side with a pinch of salt and what looked like red flakes Cal was unfamiliar with.

Less than a minute later he pulled the mesh out of the brazier, and picked up the breadfruits, sliced them open with a cleaver to expose their white, fragrant, steaming, fluffy interior.

After he removed the seed at its core, a couple quick moves sliced the fruit into five crescent-shaped pieces. Skin peeled, the fleshy fruit looked much like white bread fresh out of a steamer. Silas then laid one of the seared and spiced orange organ on each slice before he offered one to Cal.

On her side, Cal pulled a pair of wooden mugs out of her pendant and unsealed the urn, as she allowed the strong, fragrant alcoholic aroma to spread out, before she filled both mugs by four-fifths each.

A dose of alcohol that would likely send most anything not a dwarf straight to the sickhouse with alcohol poisoning, but then again, both Cal and Silas were Water-Major Blood affinity mages.

Their livers could take the abuse, even if it took a complete regeneration of the organ to do the trick.

“You spoil me milady! Aged spiced blackrice wine from In-Sel if my nose failed me not?”

“One delicacy begets another, as they say” Cal said, as she accepted the proffered food and raised it as if to toast him, before she bit down a good half of it in one bite.

She had to close her eyes and resisted the urge to moan as the creamy sweetness with a distinct briny flavor of seafood from whatever it was Silas cooked flooded her taste buds. The fluffy, soft, pillowy breadfruit was slightly sweet and fragrant, and it mellowed the strong flavor of the sea. Then she took a tentative sip of the wine and it felt like her mouth exploded from the kaleidoscope of flavors that emerged from the combination.

It was nearly a minute later before she opened her eyes and let out a satisfied sigh, looking at Silas who had a wide grin plastered on his face, and a still-squeamish human spectator behind him.

“Gods above, that was one of the fucking best things I have ever eaten. What is that thing?” She asked, now full of eager curiosity. “I totally see why your folk called it a delicacy.”

“Balls.” Silas answered in a deadpan tone before he started to giggle like a prepubescent girl, a completely paradoxical image on a man that size and shape.

“Balls?”

“I mean that literally.” He finally said after he managed to stop his mirth. “Those are to these things as balls are to human males.”

He still had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face as he said that.

“Eh.” Cal just shrugged before she popped the other half of the food to her mouth. “Then balls taste great I guess. Lemme have another.” She said, as she reached for another of the delicacies.

Behind Silas the human passenger turned completely green and ran towards the railings, then hurled the contents of his stomach over the side.