A short while later, Signe presented her idea for a simple oven. It was basically a piece of pipe with a fitted tray in the middle. The ends were closed off with bricks. All in all, a very crude, but yet very effective oven. Working together they quickly build 5 of these amongst the embers of the fire burning deep in the cave, and Jeanette got to work on making the honey muffins. As she was working on mixing the flour and milk, Las'tai made her way over. Pointing at the glass of honey she asked "What is that?"

"That is honey. A sweet, sticky fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers. Want to taste??" Without waiting for an answer, Jeanette dipped a spoon in the honey and held it out to Las'Tai. Carefully flicking her tongue at the spoon and the yellowish-brown liquid on it, the taste of almost pure sugar overwhelmed her sentient mind and her instincts took over. Moments later Jeanette was in a desperate struggle to try and recapture the spoon from the young Kloxna doing her very best to stuff the entire thing down her throat.

As the spoon was, somehow, eventually cleaned of honey, Las'Tai came back to her senses and immediately coughed out the spoon. Burning with embarrassment she mumbled an inaudible apology to Jeanette.

Taking a moment to gather herself, Jeanette dryly commented "I take it sugar is another rarity amongst your people?"

"Very much so" Las'Tai's voice was tiny and shameful. She was too old to lose her self-control like that.

"How about you help by keeping an eye on them when they are baking instead?? For some reason, I do not trust you to leave me with all my limbs if I touch the honey near you." Jeanette laughed at her own joke and some of the tense atmosphere evaporated.

No more incidents took place before they were finished. A lot of crew had swung by while the baking was taking place, the smell attracting them for obvious reasons, and all had left with the same defeated look after getting the same message. "Not until tonight" Jeanette had told them.

Las'Tai was determined to get one before it was time, but Jeanette saw everything. After countless attempts, none of them successful, She walked away grumbling a little over her failures. Sitting down on a chair some 10 meters away, she contemplated how she could obtain one of those *honey muffins*. The smell alone had made her salivate so much she was dripping on the floor near the fire.

That's when Eirik walked up to her "Stand up from that chair and be ready to run" he mumbled as he passed her.

Confused, she did just that, but could not understand why. Eirik, in the meantime, walked up to Jeanette and started speaking, gesturing to the prized muffins and smelling them deeply. Then suddenly, As Jeanette blinked, he grabbed a muffin and threw it through the air, towards Las'Tai.

"NOOOOOOOOOO" Jeanette's scream made everyone stop and follow the muffin as it sailed through the air. Las'Tai barely caught it and just stood there holding it, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. "GODS FUCKING DAMNIT, LAS'TAI, RUN!!!" Erik's voice cut through the silence and as Jeanette lurched forward, Las'tai took off running. What ensued was a roughly 2-minute chase around the cavern, the various crew members hooting and cheering for both of them for the duration. Finally, Jeanette cornered Las'Tai in the back.

Seeing no escape, Las'Tai played her last card and opened her mouth wide to plop in the muffin but Jeanette's voice stopped her.

"Don't. You. Dare!!!"

They stood there. Locked in place. Las'Tai clamped her mouth shut around the muffin and dropped down to all four limbs, escaping through the legs of an angry and confused Jeanette. Running like a lizard provided Las'Tai with a significant speed advantage over Terran's along with the added benefit of a low profile that helped conceal her and she was gone in the crowd in a matter of seconds.

Having lost the target of her anger, Jeanette whirled around and pointed a finger straight at Eirik. A finger she kept pointed at him as she walked up to him and demanded "WHY??!?"

Eirik gave her an maliciousa smile and replied "I'm an agent of chaos"

The various snorts, grunts, and huffs that escaped Jeanette as she tried formulating an answer got him to laugh maniacally as he walked away.

Finally regaining the use of her voice she yelled at his back "SEE IF I MAKE ANY MORE MUFFINS FOR YOU IN THE FUTURE!!!"

This get the entire cave to burst out with laughter which stopped as quickly as it had started as Jeanette whirled around again.

The rest of the day was spent in a state of relaxation and laziness, everyone charging up for the evening. Las'Tai spent most of the time crawling around on the ceiling, the sugar from the muffin overcharging her with energy.

As night fell, everyone started gathering near the large fire. Endless cases of beer were brought out from storage, music started playing and everyone generally enjoyed themselves. A few people, however, had other things on their minds. Eirik was waiting for the opportune moment to slink away into the night, his command staff was watching him, wondering when he would make his move, and Las'Tai had found herself a rock shelf she was laying on, observing everything happening below.

As time passed and people got more drunk, Eirik took his chance and hurried over to his backpack and barrel and set out into the night, The moment had been well picked. Only David and Las'Tai had noticed. David shook his head and sighed heavily. Las'Tai shuddered for a moment, torn between 2 choices. after a moment, she crawled across the cave ceiling and followed Eirik outside. She had to know what this was about.