The carpentry group was the first to arrive at the banquet hall, having been given instructions to arrive before anyone else. The plates, chopsticks, big serving spoons, and firewood they brought were quickly put to use. Plates came in a variety of shapes and sizes. They were square or rounded, and some were completely flat with no curved edges. They easily had a hundred plates, and all would be used.

"Line up at the windows here, we're going to start plating." Lucas explained.

The carpenters quickly lined up.

"I got four plates right here, coming out." He quickly plated his four fish filets from the first fish he had put into the oven. A quick glance into the oven told him that the next four needed more time. Each plate came with a baked fish filet, sliced carrots that had been boiled in water with a pinch of salt, then sliced mushrooms that had been sautéed in oil, and, of course, a set of chopsticks. He wished they could afford to sauté the carrots and mushrooms, but boiled carrots would taste fine and save on oil.

The plates were set onto the serving hatch shelf and quickly disappeared from sight. Lucas glanced down to the other chefs and saw them slowly plating, or struggling to get their fish out of the oven. "Aw, man." He sighed. This was harder than he thought it'd be, and this was only the warmup. The fish seemed to be the big hang up right now. On the bright side, they eventually got it fileted, even if the cuts weren't great, and no one had much trouble with the vegetables.

"Behind you." Grunk stepped beside Lucas to add four plates onto the serving shelf.

"At least you're doing well." Lucas whispered.

"It helps that I watched you cook for my group last night." Grunk followed Lucas's gaze, only a handful of plates being served by the ten other chefs. "You think we're going to be okay by the time we open?"

"No." Lucas said, still watching the others. "But I'm thinking."

"Huh, okay." Grunk gave him a curious look.

After a minute of thought, Lucas pulled out and opened his player journal. He was still a level five mage. Not surprising, but also not what he was looking for. Turning the pages, he went to his profession page. He had gained a few cooking levels, but no new skills had been unlocked that could help him. They had already been taught how to use Quick Hand, which was only useful for chopping the vegetables. "Wait, a second." He read over the description for Quick Hand once more.

"We're back!" Tony declared, bursting through the kitchen door. "And we have tons of fish!"

"You can't tell because of the cool dimensional backpacks, but these bad boys would burst at the seams with fish if they weren't!" Scope followed the kobold inside, along with a few other fishers.

"Oh, welcome back." Lucas turned to the new arrivals. "How did the fishing go?"

"Pretty great, if you ask me. We all averaged about two or three fish an hour." Tony smiled big, a row of pointed teeth on display.

"Great! If all eighty-seven of you got at least two fish an hour, then..." Lucas said, trying to figure out how many meals that would be.

"I forgot to tell you something when I saw you earlier!" Tony kept smiling. "More fishers came to the lake after we started. Most of them were looking for you. I told them to join us, and we got like, what. Forty more people, Scope?"

Scope nodded, face scrunching up. "Mmm... Yeah, that sounds about right."

Lucas's eyes widened. "You mean we had nearly 130 people catching fish?!"

Tony and Scope nodded, both sporting big grins.

"Nice job, guys! Get it unloaded onto that big table right there." Grunk said, motioning to the table against the wall opposite of the door Tony and Scope stood.

"Wow, that's more fishers than I had even planned for." Lucas said. He watched Tony and Scope unload their backpacks of fish onto the table. The others that had come in with them did the same. "Then again, it'll help make up for the hundred botanists we didn't get. I guess we're more or less matching the goal I had made."

Grunk gave another curious look to the Draconian, who seemed to talk to himself more than anyone else. "Anyway, get in line. All the volunteers need to eat and take a break before getting back to work. We're going to need a lot more fish!"

"Oh yeah, lunch time!" Tony scurried out of the kitchen and in front of the Draconian's serving window. "Hey, you made food for me, right? I don't want food from the newbie chefs." He glanced over to the other windows, noticing a few looks being shot his way. "Uh, no offense, guys! I'm just used to Art's cooking."

"Right, one sec, Tony." Lucas grabbed four plates from the cabinets below his counter, plating the fish filets that were now done. The new serving spoons were a great help in cooking and plating the vegetables, quickly able to fill up the plates. "Four plates, coming out." He announced, setting them up onto the serving window. Blue clawed hands could be seen as they reached up and grabbed a plate.

"Who's idea was the chopsticks again? Pretty good idea, easier to make than forks or spoons." Tony asked.

Lucas leaned forward over his counter so he could see the Kobold standing on the other side. "That was Raven's idea."

"Never mind. I said nothing." Tony walked off, taking a seat to eat. His place was quickly taken, a long line of fishers forming.

"I see a problem. We're barely keeping up right now feeding the volunteers." Grunk said.

"I think I have an idea." Lucas said. His attention had turned to the pile of fish. He cleared his counter space as best as he could, then retrieved ten fish and spread them out neatly onto his counter. "The major problem right now is the fish, and I've gotten pretty good at prepping them. So..."

"You're going to prepare all the fish on your own? That's way too many fish for one person. We have hundreds of fish!" Grunk watched the Draconian, the heads of the fish being cleaved off. "I'm doing okay with the fish, let me help too."

Lucas looked through his serving window, seeing the botanists heading inside. "I didn't say you couldn't, but I have to pick up the slack, and I know how." He steadied his hands as he looked down at the headless fish. "Quick Hand." With the skill uttered, his hands went into motion. His hands blurred, moving from one fish to another. The Draconian quickly descaled, gutted, and fileted all ten fish within the skill's thirty second duration.

"We're back, and we brought lots of food!" Cookie declared as she stepped into the kitchen, Raven and Izzy in tow.

Grunk stepped over, eyes wide open as he looked at the twenty filets that had been produced from the ten fish. "What the hell was that?"

Lucas gave a wave to the new arrivals. "Hey." He took a deep breath, turning to the Orc. "Uh, the Quick Hand skill I showed you all earlier."

Grunk gave the girls a quick glance, his attention remaining on the Draconian. "Yeah, and you said it was for chopping vegetables fast. That was fish!"

"I feel like we missed something." Izzy looked at the two chefs.

"That's what I thought it was for. Then I read over the description again. It allows you to move your hands really fast, not just in simple up and down motions for cutting or chopping." Lucas began cutting the filets in half. "I thought doing complex cuts, like fileting a fish, would be impossible, because your hands would move too fast to control them properly. Except, you can do what you would normally do, except faster. It's oddly intuitive."

"I think I understand." Grunk said. "I'm not sure I would trust myself cutting a fish up at super speed, though."

"Come on, ladies. Let's empty our finds on the table back there." Cookie led the two down the line of cooking stations, the other side of the room had a large table. It was a duplicate table, same as the one the fish had been piled onto.

"That's alright. I can cover most of the fish preparations. Everyone else just needs to butter and bake it. That way, the other chefs can focus on the side dishes that are easier." Lucas turned to face the rest of the room. "New plan, chefs. I'll be preparing the fish and supplying you all with filets. I need you all to take up the brunt of the side dish work." He paused for a moment. "Oh! Don't forget, once we open our doors, it's two filets, or half a fish for each plate. The volunteers get one filet, as they won't be as hungry, and everyone else gets half a fish to remove their hunger status."

Lucas's eyes turned to the ingredients being unloaded. "Grunk, help me with fish preparation. I'm going to see what we're working with." He stepped away from his station, making his way to the other side of the room. "There are twenty filets at my station. Grab a handful and get them started." The Draconian announced as he walked, seeing as most of the chefs had served up their first two fish by now.

"Art, look at what we brought!" Cookie clapped her hands together, a big smile on her face. She finished emptying her bag, then she, Raven, and Izzy stepped back to reveal the full table.

"Whoa. This was everything you were able to get?" Lucas asked. The table was absolutely full. One side was almost completely covered in blue and purple berries. The other side had piles of carrots, mushrooms, and- "No way!" He stepped up to the table, plucking up a garlic bulb and a sprig of thyme. "How did you find these?"

"Well, it wasn't myself or Raven that found those. We could only get the berries, carrots, and mushrooms, but the botanists found those in bigger amounts than us, and they found things we couldn't find ourselves!" Cookie explained.

"Cookie and I barely contributed compared to everyone else. The others have a skill to help them find stuff to forage." Raven said.

"Foraging as a botanist was really fun." Izzy smiled. "Oh, and that's not all of it. Three of the botanists are holding the rest of what we found. We figured it wouldn't all fit back here."

"Wow, this is great. We got more fishers than I planned for, and the botanists brought back way more food than I thought they could." Lucas set the garlic and thyme back on the table. "We can really do this. We should have enough, if not more than enough, ingredients now."

"Yes! That's what I was hoping you would say!" Cookie clapped her hands. "This is so exciting!"

"Um." Lucas looked over the table. "Let me grab my pot. Cookie, can you clean it out and fill it with all the berries? That way more ingredients can fit here." He looked out the window and saw the line of fishers and botanists waiting for their meal.

"Sure thing!" Cookie said, still smiling.

"We have to pick up the pace. It's going to be noon soon." Lucas glanced at his chefs. Most of them had fish filets in their ovens now and were chopping up vegetables. His gaze turned back to Cookie, Raven, and Izzy. "You three, I'm going to make sure you eat first before everyone else. I'm going to need your help." He looked out the nearest serving window, able to see Tony and Scope eating. "Make sure Scope gets the kids so they can eat."

The Draconian rushed back to his station and grabbed his empty pot. He turned to bring it back, but jumped as Cookie stood right beside him. "Oh!"

"Sorry!" Cookie apologized, taking the pot out of his hands. "You just get back to work, we'll handle the ingredients."

"Thanks." Lucas watched Cookie hurry back to the table of foraged goods to scoop berries into the pot. "Chefs, listen up." He called down, waiting for eyes to be on him. "More ingredients have arrived. Whenever you run out, go to the table over there and restock. Once I get enough filets ready to go, I'll show you how to incorporate the garlic and thyme into the mushrooms. Until then, keep on doing what you're doing."

"Grunk, are you doing alright?" Lucas asked, glancing behind himself.

"Yeah, I'm good. I think I'm getting the hang of this." Grunk said, his focus remaining on his fish.

"I appreciate your help." Lucas said. He retrieved ten more fish from the nearby table, getting them neatly lined up. "We need all the help we can get. We need to feed over a hundred people in less than an hour." His cleaver came down ten times, fish heads rolling about the table. "Time to kick it up into high gear." The Draconian chuckled. "It's like the Friday lunch rush, and I got stuck with Molasses Mark." He grinned. "Except now I have a skill to speed things up."

The skill was uttered, and his hands immediately became a blur. Just as before, ten fish were quickly prepped. He even had a spare second to jab a few piles of guts for them to disappear. The filets were then stacked up to one side of his counter, the heads and meatless bodies of the fish were pushed aside. Lucas realized he hadn't planned for the extensive amount of fish remains he'd have to deal with. The heads lasted a few hours, if not damaged, and the bodies would disappear after a few minutes.

As he continued working, the fish bodies would eventually disappear and free up more room, but not fast enough. The heads were slid off the counter and into his bag, a solution that wouldn't last for long. He didn't have the time or focus to figure out how long he could go on like this before the problem couldn't be ignored any further. The Draconian was easily fileting ten fish every few minutes. He hadn't seen a single trash can, compost bin, or anything he could think of where these could be disposed of.

"Oh no!" The canine woman cried out, grabbing Lucas's attention from the filets he was stacking. She looked down to a filet that had dropped on the floor, face frowning. "That's right, no germs! This should be fine then." Her frown faded as she bent down, filet disappearing before she could grab it. "Hey, what gives? It hasn't even been five seconds yet!"

"Five second rule." Lucas mumbled to himself. He turned back to his counter and the pile of fish heads and bodies that were piling up. After a moment of thought, he pushed a fish head onto the floor and watched it flop and roll around. He waited, the head wobbling. As he grew doubtful, it broke away into multiple polygons that drifted and fizzled away.

"Yes!" Lucas exclaimed, shoving all the heads and bodies onto the floor.

"What are you doing?!" Grunk's eyebrows rose, turning his head to see a mess of fish parts on the floor, several heads of fish bumping against his shoes. "We can't work with a big mess on the ground."

Lucas smirked, pointing to the mess he had made. "Watch."

Grunk lowered his gaze to the floor, his surprised expression remaining as the mess cleaned itself up. "What? Does dropping them do enough damage to get the durability to zero?"

"I don't think so. I think the game has a rule where you can't eat food that has been dropped on the ground." Lucas threw his arms up in the air. "Easy clean up!" He turned to his lines of chefs. "Just so you all know, any food dropped on the ground will vanish. So try not to drop anything, but, feel free to drop any food waste for easy disposal."

Grunk turned to his small pile of fish remains, looking at them for a moment before shoving the pile off of his work space. After a few seconds on the wooden floor, they, too, disappeared into the air. "Good to know."

"Yeah, it is!" Lucas exclaimed, grabbing ten more fish to bring to his counter. "We can do this, I can feel it."

Grunk glanced back at his friend, seeing his hands turning into a blur. "You seem riled up suddenly."

Lucas didn't respond until his skill had worn off. "I thought a new problem had appeared. What would we have done with hundreds of fish heads lying around? It would have slowed us down so much." He sliced the filets in half, adding them to the growing pile. "Hey, does anyone else need fish? Your ovens need to be full nonstop!"

"Huh, I didn't think about that." Grunk said. He gave another glance behind himself, seeing a line of chefs grabbing filets.

"Hey, uh, head chef. When do we get to eat?" One of the chefs in line asked.

Lucas aligned ten more fish on his counter, turning to the bunny man that had addressed him. "Once all the other volunteers are fed, you can cook up a dish for yourself. Same portions as everyone else." His attention went back to his fish, cleaving the heads off. "We'll have dinner at six o’clock, and maybe if we have enough at the end of the day, a small meal before we head out."

A quick glance out his serving window showed the line had gone down. If he had to guess, all the fishers had been served, given how full the tables were. "Come on, everyone. Keep up the good work. We have to finish feeding the volunteers so they can go back to work."