Grill Smith son of Krewton Crunchmaster descendant and paladin of the warrior God Slag, was over the wonder of his new powers as he looked around the odd place. It was some kind of high tech hospital, maybe. He did not suddenly have metal arms and legs, so he had not been taken by the Steel Talons. It was most likely, the bunker Hank and his family had been trying to get into for decades. He needed to figure out where he was exactly, what he was doing here, and why he had been strapped into that chair? These questions all seemed more important than why he could summon blades of energy, he hoped that the powers were because of his god and not someone tinkering with his brain or something.

As he looked around he saw the light fixture transform into a different one, the new fixture looked like a glowing curved surface with a simple protective and transparent box over it. Then another fixture changed a few feet down the hall. He decided on a whim to wander the opposite direction of the changes.

The last thing he remembered was the battle with the zombies and him losing his will to keep going when the little troll girl got hit by the angel's pitch-black feather. Then his God had possessed him to cook the wings of the angel and fuse the dark and light energies into some godly secret sauce. He had eaten one and fed one to the glorious warrior woman before he passed out.

His new powers and upgraded class must be a result of either the possession, the food, or both. His new class abilities were not what you would normally expect from a paladin, everything could be used in a fight but they were all better used for a chef. Like the psionic-ish knives, that he had used to cut himself free. Sure being able to summon a bunch of knives and toss them into someone's chest, hands-free, was a very powerful attack for him. it would not have helped him kill that horde of zombies though. If he summoned 3 knives and 3 oven gloves made from the same energy he could potentially quadruple the volume of food he made or prepped in the same time frame as before, allowing him to feed a small army. He viewed this as a much more potent use of his new abilities.

Some of his new skills would help him find and harvest magical ingredients to make enchanted food like his God had used him to do, although nowhere near as good as his God Slag, these skills were his first steps beyond the bounds of mortal cooking limits.

He decided to stop patting himself on the back and check his system log for any reason why he was here, or where here was. The first alert to pop up was an invite to join a new faction that must have been minimized while he was out cold.

Congratulations! You have been invited to join the Nightmare Swarm faction, as you were in the Nightmare Hive Hex and listed as a friendly system entity by the leaders of the faction.

Do you Accept, Decline, or Faction Help

He had not heard of this faction, this made sense, as he was unconscious while it was founded. He would not normally consider joining a new faction, but it would be rude to not at least look at the help menu and see what they had to offer.

He was surprised that they had over 50 people already, the most common race in the faction was a Transformed Race called Atherials, that he had never heard of. like a Vampire or Were-Rabbit, it was a race someone could get on top of what they were born with. Some others called these template races.

Next, he checked a menu tab on the leaders, there were 3 official leaders, they were all of equal political power in the faction, each with their own specialties. The first had a picture of a black labrador in a labcoat with little doggy safety goggles on his head, the name read ‘Sydney’ and this image was labelled as his holographic avatar. He was in charge of the home dungeon, as well as logistics and staffing. The next was Holly, she had another holographic avatar, which looked like a normal-looking human woman to him. Dressed in a tight green dress with bright red hair, she also wore some light gold jewelry and a big smile in the picture. She looked friendly and open. She was in charge of finances and trade.

Then last, he finally found an image of the warrior goddess who had saved him. Her name was Omega, and she was in charge of the military arm as well as “experimental system additions”, these Experimental systems were things only faction members would have access to for now. For example; Targeting data based on not only his own view but the views of other people who have opted into this system. But the part that caught his eye was the looting system and his recommended place in it. Hunters could “Loot” a monster corpse, this would teleport the corpse to a butchery yard in the complex and then teleport some items back to the hunters that they could use in the field.

He had 2 job offers available concerning this system, one was to drain, dress, skin and butcher animals or monsters that were edible and estimate the value of the parts to the faction, this would help the hunters and faction get the most mutual value out of each kill. His other job was to make food out of the monsters and research the creation of enchanted food like what he had done while possessed. he could even take both jobs if he wanted, it was even the recommended option in the menu.

His pay would be based on the local economy, this was a very detailed recruitment packet, that had been customized for him, he stopped to lean against the wall as he read a notice in the economy/pay tab of the packet that explained the chair. He had received 1000 Xp and 1000 DD, Dust Dollars, the currency that the Scavenger Collective faction used, and since most other large factions within 500 hexes traded with the Collective he could spend DD almost anywhere. The notice also said that he had received this bonus for giving the Nightmare Swarm faction valuable information on the local geography, politics, and economic system, and since they had taken this information without his consent they paid him double the normal Xp bonus for new information, plus his DD gains were a cut of the currency from Dust capsules looted from zombies, as they would not have even known that they were local currency without the knowledge taken from him.

He knew he should feel like his mind had been violated, just like he had feared, but the fact that they took ownership of the fact that they did him wrong and literally paid for their mistakes. He might have accepted just for the fact that; THEY CAN GRANT XP. This was something normally only the system could do, with all that XP in his pool he might be able to get his new power to level 2 in a day, even if his XP pool was emptied in his upgrade, it was too bad people could not check their unspent XP.

Then he checked the XP tab of the recruitment menu and his legs turned to jelly, letting him slide to the floor in his shock. Apparently, one of the perks of joining the team was the ability to not only view ones unspent XP. He would also be able to control whether he bought powers or skills he was eligible for from this upgraded system or pumped his unspent XP into powers, stats or skills he already had. He could also sell skills to the system for more XP to spend on other skills, he could get rid of useless skills so they did not slow his growth. He even got an XP tax when someone bought a skill he had sold to the system.

He accepted the invite to the team, and opened the unlocked skill trading menu, he sold and got rid of skills too low to even show up on his character sheet, like 2 points in D-ranked farming, or 1 point in Axe throwing. After he trimmed the useless skills, and sold copies of his best cooking skills he had dropped from C(10) to C(8.5) but he had just over 3000 XP to spend, he bought a few ranks of a Psionic Control skill the system said would synergize with his new powers, but whoever sold the skill only had 3 ranks in it, so he could not upgrade it past that point, he also bought 5 ranks of a broad general skill called Swarm Education that flooded his mind with all kinds of seemingly random facts and information until he had the equivalent of a high school education in the pre-apocalypse earth.

He poured the rest of his XP into his new skills and powers from his Paladin class and got his Psionic Tool power to rank 2 and the Magical Ingredient Harvesting skill to rank 6. After all the spending was done he had jumped to level C(11) and was halfway to 12.

He pushed away all the menus, he was now feeling stronger than ever before. He created a Psionic Oven mitt to give himself a hand up with. As he stood he could feel a source of Psionic energy in the area he had been going to. The combination of improving his power and getting a skill related to the power seemed to have other benefits besides making his energy blades do more damage, or move more precisely.

He headed towards the source of energy and Quickly found The Warrior Woman known as Omega. She was in an empty hospital room with the same new light fixture in the center of the room.

Her attention was on the 2 little girls in front of her, she was giving them a speech about safety that was cut off as one of them screamed in delight and charged him.

He was nearly knocked over as a little grey missile of joy hit his chest, it was Tiffany, not a zombie, but also not unchanged. Her skin was smoother than her varied Greenskin heritage would normally allow, It had a greyish patterned colour to it, like swirling smoke frozen in time on her flesh. Her hair was black as night, and her eyes almost glowed as he gazed into their swirling grey depths.

The troll girl’s squealing excitement died down as the other little girl that Grill had not seen before walked over and asked “Big sister, who is this?”.

“This is Mr. Smith, he was the cook at our orphanage, and he saved us from the zombies, and even played a big hand in helping mother cure me.” Tiffany answered in a shockingly eloquent explanation for a toddler, or any troll regardless of age.

Grill had a lot to process there, but he kept catching on the big sister/mother talk and decided to start there. He Stared at the Omega Woman and asked confusedly “Mother?”

The Omega Woman looked amused at my confusion, but took mercy on me and explained “I Adopted both of the children you brought after we cured Billy. The Young woman Sarah is Setting up a kitchen for when you woke up, and Billy is Picking out mounts for the kids to go on an adventure to cure the other zombie children scattered around the rubble of your previous place of employment.”

Grill looked Confused again “wait, so you saved these kids, and now you're risking their lives?”

She flipped her hand over back and forth in a universal gesture for ‘kind of’ as she said “ehhh, not really, I was just explaining how their ‘Summoning Signal Spheres’ work” She turned so that she was talking to me and the kids as she pulled out a black metal ball the size of an apple with a big red button on the top of it. “Push the button and drop or throw the ball where you want help to arrive, if you keep hold of the ball, your help will arrive next to you. Pushing the button will cause the ball to scan the area and pick the ideal helper for the situation. So if a city official questions you about digging through the ruins, it might summon Mr. Smith here as he is likely the only surviving employee who was there during the attack. But if you run into a horde of Giant fire-breathing Squirrels the ball will likely summon Me, or a squad of the best Aetherial Warriors equipped with the best gear Sydney and I could make for them. The Orb is for emergencies only, as any adults nearby will take most of the experience you kids would earn for solving the problem yourself, so don't use it unless you are unsure of solving a problem on your own.”

Her explanation finished, she looked up at me “Does that also answer your questions about risks?”

He could only nod dumbly, he could not fathom how she could do all this, he guessed the Dungeon Sydney had to do with a lot of it, dungeons were known to do normally impossible things. It had to be the dungeon, because that Summoning Signal Sphere would be an artifact rarity teleportation device on the open market if it worked as advertised. Teleportation was just as difficult as extra-dimensional travel, Or pocket dimension creation. So the examples of such technology or magic items were jealously guarded, not exactly something normal people would use to keep kids wandering the wastes safer. To be fair, normal people don't let children wander the wastes period.

However, the Omega Woman's point was undeniable as well, if they could go play in the wastes and only summon as much help as they needed to survive any encounter, they would grow fast. Secretly stalking Orc children to keep them safe while they think they are alone is a big part of how Orc tribes let their children level much faster and higher than most other races. This means that an Orc who just hit adulthood is often level D(8-10) whereas most other races would only be D(3-4) when they grow up.

The real reason he felt no reason to argue was that the Other Girl had a pet dog-thing that had a more intense aura of fear and death then the strongest Orc Chieftain or wasteland adventurer Grill had ever met. If Grill stumbled across these 2 alone in the wastes and felt that Dogs aura he would avoid a fight at all costs. So while the teleportation ball was a comfort, he felt that its main purpose was to prevent the girls from letting the dog-thing solve all their problems with bloodshed. He shuddered as he tried not to look at it too closely.

By the time he regained his wits, the girls had left and he was alone with the Omega Woman. “Would you like me to show you to your kitchen?” She asked him.

He nodded dumbly again, Pondering the odd turn his life seems to have made.

---------------------------

Sarah Arch-Biscuit, halfling sous chef, 19-year-old ADULT, was nearly done cleaning the old stainless steel kitchen. Sure All the tools were long gone, even the oven was missing, but it was still a good workspace. Plenty of clean counter space for prep work at least, which was often all Grill would let her do, he regularly underestimated her cooking skills, and still treated her like a 10-year-old taking their first cooking class.

Then the bloody corpse of a 7-foot long Waste Warg dropped onto a Butchers table surrounded by blood drains in the floor. Sarah jumped in surprise, then read the system text window that popped up next to the corpse.

Waste Warg C(3)

Slain By party “Babysitters Club”

Designated Butchers: Grill, Sarah

Well shit, looks like she had work to do, as she got closer, the ceiling above the corpse rippled, and suddenly there was a couple of pulleys with long chains wrapped around them, and dangling from each chain was a meat hook, highlighted on the corpse were recommended locations to affix the hooks to hoist and drain the wasteland creature of blood, and most likely to assist her in skinning the beast. For her, lifting monster parts to prepare them was one of her biggest weaknesses as a cook. But a kitchen that created devices she needed as she needed them was more than she ever dared dream. She Hooked the chains to the corpse where the system was telling her to, then she got a warning to step back.

After she took a few steps back, the pulleys turned, lifting the creature, lines showing her where to cut to drain the blood and remove the skin appeared on the giant wolf-like creature's corpse.

She took a few steps back and watched the corpse rise into the air.

She only had her Chef’s knife that grill had giver her for her 15th birthday, it was the only tool she had on her, when they had to run, she pulled the knife out to get to work even if it was not the ideal tool for the job, but the lines in the skin where the new system wanted to cut turned a dark red when she pulled out her chefs knife, an arrow pointed to a bunch of brand new skinning knives, so she put the chefs knives and picked up the highlighted knife, then the lines on the wolf hanging upside down’s neck turned a bright green, most likely indicating that she had the right tool, when she slashed the jugular veins on the wolf a torrent of blood poured down into the drains below, she had to take a hop backwards to stop the blood from staining her pants and shoes.

Next, some kind of probe dropped on a line from the ceiling, the system wanted her to stab it into the creature's heart, it even lowered the warg so that its head was touching the ground so she could reach the armpit and avoid hitting bones. When she had the odd probe stabbed into it’s heart the torrent of blood that had been slowing down, redoubled its efforts to drain the creature of blood.

The probe must be forcing the heart to keep pumping to help drain the meat properly, this mimicked the preferred method of drawing as much blood as you can while a creature is dying to stop the meat from becoming too gamey.

She was blown away by the impressive tools, no one she had ever heard of could teleport a fresh kill to a skilled butcher with any tool the butcher could ever desire and get the most out of a kill like this.

She was so caught up with all the new techniques she was learning, she did not even hear Grill and Doctor Omega enter the kitchen/butcher yard. She proudly watched a huge cut of meat vanish into whatever storage system this kitchen has. Then she finally noticed the two watching her work. She jumped in surprise and blushed at being seen in her blood-soaked state, as she approached the two she passed an invisible line that removed all the blood from her clothes, another magical effect of her magical workstation she thought, at least until she heard Omegas comment.

“Oh thank you for cleaning her up, Sydney”

Before Sarah could ask who Sydney was, a pitch-black dog in a white lab coat appeared in a flash of light next to her. “Your welcome” the dog said “I quite enjoyed helping to disassemble the creature, we can easily maximize yields from hunting using the loot system you suggested. We still need more data on local economies to figure out how much to pay our hunters, but they can get back pay for this creature when we do. Don't worry Sarah, we will make sure you get paid for your work butchering the Warg as well.”

Sarah wanted to ask questions about the dogs “help” but before she could join the conversation Grills praise stunned her into staying silent.

“You butchered a Waste Warg? And with only a strange dog to help as well. That is very impressive Sarah, especially for one so young and small.” Grill walked over to a table and asked: “can I see the cut she just finished?”

No one spoke a reply, but the cut of meat appeared for his inspection, he bent down and poked the meat, sniffed it. Whatever he smelled startled him. He summoned a knife made of energy out of thin air and cut a steak 4 or 5 centimeters thick, he dropped the steak into a pan that appeared out of the same energy as the now-vanished Knife, he grabbed a pinch of spice from a pouch on his belt and set the pan on a small energy stove that appeared on the stainless steel counter. He cooked the steak well done, but still juicy and cut it into 4 pieces for everyone to try. Each steak was served on a plate of the same energy along with a knife and fork also made of it, with the exemption of the plate he put on the floor in front of the Hologram dog. The dog looked sad that he could not sample the food in front of him until omega sprinkled some dust on him that seemed to make him more real, his form stopped flickering and he dug into the meat.

Grill didn't speak again until he had finished his small portion of warg steak. “Great job Sarah, did you drain the corpse while it still lived? It's very hard to stop the dark blood of a waste warg from ruining the meat, or at least making it not very palatable. This is almost as good as well prepared dog meat, what did you do?”

She excitedly explained about the heart probe and all the other tools appearing as she needed them, and asked him about his new cooking powers, she had seen the Possessed orc use a similar technique, so she knew it had to be related to his God. She was shocked to find out that he was a Paladin now, it was a very rare title, especially for an orc religion. She had heard him praise the mighty Chef God Slag for at least 10 years since she was 9 when she started working in the kitchen with him.

Her years of experience are what eventually got her a job as Grills Sous chef at the orphanage, not that he ever seemed to realize she was working there and had, in fact, grown-up.

Now her place of employment had been destroyed by exploding children, she watched the only 2 other orphans who escaped with her get infected by a zombie virus from some higher order being that Omega somehow drained like a blood bag to “cure” tiffany. thus, somehow, granting the girl the miraculous power to turn zombies back into sapient people, who also seemed to be unwaveringly loyal to her in a way that Sarah could not explain. Then there was Omega making the ex-angel into an imp or cherub-like creature bound to the service of Tiffany like she was punishing a naughty child. Omega was the single most scary person Sarah had ever heard of, she had been too terrified to turn down the invite to the faction in case the woman just killed her out of hand.

But minutes later, something happened to erase her fear of the woman, it helped her realize that it seemed unlikely she would have been killed. Sarah had seen Omea come to tears looking at the piles of dead zombies, Sarah had been curious what could make such a powerful person cry, so she asked.

Omega had told her that she was sad that she killed so many now that she knew they could have been saved. She cried that she could only cure less than 50 zombies out of a horde of hundreds. An evil person would not cry for zombies, nor would they have thrown themselves between a horde of zombies and 4 strangers, let alone be worried about the zombie horde too.

this was somehow the best and worst day of her life. She found a new home at the cost of the only one she had ever known. a Dungeon/Dog had helped her take apart a wasteland monster and impress her teacher. But she doubted her life would ever resemble anything close to normal ever again. She only hoped that the kids managed to cure the boomers as they planned. The final nail in the coffin of normalcy was her realization that she hoped a toddler could fix children that had, literally exploded.