Soul food.

Tricia realized that she hadn't met John's girlfriend yet or the fire-cursed elf she had been asked to help on her previous visit. The talking, walking, armor wearing rat was a mystery, and she liked few things more than to solve mysteries of this kind. Despite the strange way he talked, he was clearly intelligent, yet he wasn't a member of the various races of rat men she knew of; he was something new, something that she would be the first to study, analyze, classify... And he talked about the blood of his blood, so he wasn't a lone individual; there was maybe a whole new species here!

She could smell something now that she was going down, something strange. Her limiters didn't reduce her senses, but they blocked the emotional reaction to stimuli. Tricia usually only indulged in turning them off in very controlled conditions; she couldn't actually remember the last time she had eaten something for the taste it had and not to balance her nutrient intake.

She followed the young mage, talking rat, elven huntress and naked dryad downstairs. This boy had gathered a rather strange group of creatures in his kingdom. That he had a kingdom of his own at his age was already exceptional, just as were his powers; the little information she had been able to get from Moira talked about powers of a miraculous nature, circumventing any process to achieve a finished stage effortlessly.

Tricia hadn't got the chance to visit the whole castle yet, and it had changed since the last time she had been here anyway. The central part seemed to be a tower, the arrival room being a section of it, then in the underground part the same circular room was present, but where the ground level had two doors and the first floor none, this one had five doors.

In the center of the room a table had been set, surrounded by chairs. The furniture was simple, made of polished wood and without any ornamentations.

There were only empty plates and cutlery on the table, and Tricia could tell that the mix of delicious smells were coming from one of doors. She took a seat that John was pointing out for her, and suddenly, two people came out of the door she had identified as the kitchen door earlier.

"Welcome in Arcadia, I'm so glad you were able be there for lunch. I hope you're hungry. Algernon, I made some stew for the pack, so you can send someone to pick it up," said Anna. Tricia had done some research on John's girlfriend, purely for scientific purposes of course; she was, afterall, a known example of girl that John loved and studying her could offer great breakthroughs in getting to be more loveable. As tall as John and of a strong build, she was wearing a yellow summer dress with an apron over it and on her head a golden circlet with a blue gem on it. Curvaceous would fit her a lot more than fat, her ample bosom was something regarded as very attractive by most boys according to what she found during her research, and so were her round buttocks. If John was attracted to her despite her above average weight but also to the lithe fire elf and her muscular sister, then he had very eclectic tastes in women, which could easily encompass someone smaller and of a petite build like Tricia.

"Respectations, Brood Mother, your generousness will be sung of for eons by the blood of my blood and their blood after them. Self will let you be, feast of great food for the master and his obscure ally. Eat well, everyone, and may you have many younglings!"

"This is Anna Klein, my girlfriend and queen of Arcadia. Hmm, we haven't discussed how you would like to be introduced..." said John.

"I go to school under the name of Danielle Kislev, but when in private, you can call me Tricia, but I'd rather have as few people as possible knowing my real last name if it isn't too problematic."

"Of course, Tricia, don't worry about it. Let's eat and discuss a few things. I'm glad that our little kingdom has such wonderful allies. I know that John would have been devastated if Sylvia had died and that he probably wouldn't have survived his wounds, thank you so much!" Tricia was taken by surprise by the hug and kiss on her cheek; she was really not used to that much physical contact, or any to be honest.

"It was my duty... It's..." replied a blushing and flustered Tricia.

She had stopped receiving alarms about this, having increased the alarm threshold after the last slew of messages from her suit.

Tricia was seated between John and Anna, an honorific, if a bit awkward, position. John on her left, followed by the dryad, the fire elf, the huntress and finally Anna on her right. She was looking at the empty table, puzzled, was there another person here, a servant, who would serve the food?

Moving her hands above the table, Anna pulled from thin air a bunch of large plates and bowls filled with food, as well as pitchers full of water or some other drinks. She nodded to John, and suddenly, the food began lifting from the bowls, dividing itself and landing delicately in the plates in front of each person (to the exception of Sylvia, who only received a large glass of water).

Her plate was covered with a beautiful assortment of food, looking and smelling divine. There were two sorts of what looked like fried chicken tenders, some onion rings, a big slice of fresh cornbread, rice with beans and some sort of fish soup poured on it, small balls of fried dough of some sort. The whole plate looked heavily inspired by southern cooking. Tricia wasn't sure what to try first; for the first time in years, the smell was literally making her mouth salivate.

"I have looked into it, and it looks like it would be a good idea to make this research partnership more official. I won't lie to you: the kingdom has properties that allow for upgrades when some circumstances are met, and you could help us with some of them. The lab that you are installing is one of them, but there are many other things. I have drafted an agreement, if you want to read it," explained Anna.

"One of these upgrades was the ability to appoint a chancellor, assisting me with the administrative and diplomatic aspects of the kingdom; I, of course, gave this role to Anna; being queen strangely didn't give her such an authority to begin with," John pointed out.

Tricia munched on a small bit of cornbread while looking at the piece of paper, as it was the safest bet yet already potent. The inside was still warm, like it was just out of the oven. The lightness of the bread was making it melt in her mouth. What Anna had done looked like the description she had received of John's inventory, that there was a way to share this gift was an unforseen development. It also hinted at the fact that it acted as a stasis field, keeping things in the exact state they were put in.

The document had an official turn to its wording. In exchange for helping setting up a laboratory, of which she would keep joint ownership, Tricia would gain access to samples and specimens from the kingdom to study and get to participate in various projects aiming at improving the realm and its inhabitants. She would also gain the status of Resident and, if she wished for, her own room.

"What would this Resident status involve?" asked Tricia.

"Something I came up. You see, one of the factors to improve the kingdom is its population. The interface allowed people to register as one of the kingdom's subjects to be counted. I wrote a law creating two statuses, Subjects who have to obey the law but also the rulers of the kingdom and Residents who have the right to live here and must abide to the laws but don't have to obey commands from the rulers. It seemed to me that it would make it easier to have people accept to sign in and for us to unlock the upgrade if there was no aspect of hierarchy or ownership involved in the oath. I hope that it will work and that Residents will be counted towards the kingdom's population too. Do you have any other questions?" replied Anna.

"John, you talked about an Ascension lab last time; will this lab we have now fit the description?"

"Look at my phone: here's the list! We have some of it, but the rest will have to be custom built, I think."

"Some of this magical equipment can be bought as is, the vats too, but it won't be cheap, and our budget for things like that is not unlimited," she replied, taking note of the last missing elements.

"I think that what we have will work for one of the upgrades that only requires a lab; we'll see once it is fully set up."

Tricia ran the document through a software designed by a law firm to analyze legal documents in search of loopholes. There was of course the possibility that John and Anna would start to write absurd laws for their kingdom, but she also could always stop visiting, and if she talked about it to the Order, they would surely help her recover her equipment if this was the case.

"This document won't leave this place?" she asked.

"It will be filed in my desk at the Chancery. I doubt anyone not present in this room will ever see it again," said Anna to reassure her guest.

She took the pen offered to her by Anna and signed with her true name on the last line. John signed next to her, and Anna produced some sort of stamp from nowhere. It was made from some wood that Tricia could feel was magical from where she was; the lower part was made of gold, with silver inlays in the handle. Anna applied it at the bottom of the document, and it glowed brightly, leaving the red imprint of a coat of arms on the paper.

"It worked!" exclaimed John, looking in the air in front of him. "The kingdom interface counts her apart from the other, but the overall population is six now. Oh, the lab counts as active too, and we can assign someone to it."

"Could you explain what this is about?"

"The crowns of the kingdom and a set of rings, one for now, allow people to gain a limited set of perks similar to some of my powers. The way they get upgraded is by upgrading the kingdom, some reward for being an industrious king, I guess. Population, for instance, will unlock a new ring when it reaches ten. And special rooms or buildings give perks to everyone wearing one of these rings. The lab was one of these. I can then assign an inhabitant to said building for an extra perk. Cali is assigned to the hunter's lodge, and Anna to the chancery, but we haven't assigned anyone to the library and armory yet."

"So, as time passes you, will be able to distribute these rings to more people and each ring will become more powerful. Will I have to do anything special?" asked Tricia.

"Not that I know of; the title of chancellor in itself gave Anna some perks, but Cali got nothing special; you don't even need to actively work in the building for the bonus to work; you just need to be qualified for the job, and I think you would make a great Royal Scientist. You would be part of the kingdom for good. But, of course, it can be reversed any time you want, no strings attached. So, do we toast to that?" he proposed, raising a glass of juice.

"Why not? If it's nothing permanent."

After seeing a strange pop-up window open in front of her and clicking accept, she raised her glass and took a sip. She had no idea what the juice was made of, but it was tasting really good, it was refreshing with a hint of citrus. One of the other drinks looked like it was some sort of ice tea.

Tentatively taking a spoon, she tried the rice and beans with the strange fishy sauce. The spoonful exploded with savors in her mouth; she could feel the soft flesh of some fish, the fresh tomatoes and various peppers, the rich beans... She couldn't recognize the spices; it'd been too long since she let herself enjoy food truly, and there was a chance that some of these herbs existed only here. Eyes closed, probably blushing a lot, she lost herself in the taste and let escape a soft moan of contentment. The spoonful was quickly followed by a few other, and she was enjoying this too much to let the warnings of her suit bother her.

The role of the juice was clear now: the fresh and acidic juice was cleaning her mouth of the spicy taste of the fish sauce, getting her tongue ready for the next taste. The dough balls were made out of mashed potatoes with a core of melted, creamy cheese, and Tricia ate three of them in a row without pause.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing to the fried tenders in her plate.

"Those are fish and chips style carp filet and some winged serpent tenders made like fried chicken. Sylvia gave me some awesome new spices that I tried; I think they work fine," replied Anna. The way everyone else had been emptying their plates, this last point seemed to be making consensus.

Tricia gave away all pretense and took one of the fish sticks in her hand, biting into it. The fish was so soft, so light, so tasty; with only a small amount of an unknown seasoning to increase its taste, it paired perfectly with the golden crust around it. It was so unfair; why did she cut herself from things like that? Why couldn't she feel so alive all the time?

Her rather embarrassing moaning of pleasure and blushing had apparently alerted her hosts; John and Anna each had a hand on her shoulder and where looking at her worriedly.

"Tricia? Are you alright?" they asked her, but she wasn't listening; in her hand, she was holding one of the tenders; something, she realized now, which was the origin of the delightful scent that she had first smelled going down from the lab.

Ignoring all good judgment, she took a full bite out of it, eating half of it...

What Anna had forgotten to point out was that it was made like spicy fried chicken. The strange alien meat, like nothing she had ever tasted, unleashed a torrent of savors in her mouth. The crunchy crust was now letting the hot juice and spices escape, overloading Tricia's tongue, used to bland meals. Her brain tried to link what she was eating to anything that she knew, but the meat was so different from what she had tasted in her life, the spices impossible to identify (some maybe even magically grown), that her analytical mind was giving up and getting overflowed by the barrage of pure pleasure caused by the feast.

This time it wasn't a muffled moan, but a cry of pleasure that she let escape as she swallowed her bite. She was feeling very strange, and when she opened her eyes, her vision was disorienting, like she had trouble focusing on anything.

And everything was bathed in golden light!