The Empire Club/Session 12

*Magda's picks:
**Recommendation of the Gallery Caterer (10)
**Materials Artist – Izrafil the Butcher (1)
*Gareth the Scale(d) Restauranteur (1)
*Walrass Walldwarf Restaurant Entrepeneur (12)
*Goriss the Cook (Orcish Directorate Chef)
Izrafil and Gallery Caterer's recommendation compete privately at Magda's foreboding studio apartment. Izrafil poisons the competition almost immediately, proceeds to take Magda on a fabulous journey of texture: an etheric eel (gossamer) sliced thinly and treated with a nerve agent so that it will try but fail to reassemble itself, performing a death dance in the mouth; followed by a surgically dressed but still living songbird which must be eaten by biting out the ribcage, ending with a bland custard that contains the antidote to the poison that will surely kill Magda.
Four person competition rounds, 10 minute grocery buy
Members invited for final four round
Round 1: Challenge – Minimum Spend 500 ducats budget 1000 ducats (any remainder under budget will be donated to a cause the chef despises)
*Bill the Pasta Guy – hates rice. Will donate to a Rice Donation charity. 
**His process is mysterious, but he comes back with noodles, cheeses, specialty graters and spends only 130 ducats
*Tal'rek Battlefield Nutritionist (Vince) – Hates Fialt Academy
**"Journey down the food chain"
***Live-constructs an understanding of the food chain by examining animal skulls, etc. during his shopping trip
**Insects, snake rats (shaped like snakes, with four vestigial feet near the tail, which are themselves embryonic snake rats), dueling scorpions, live crocodile, assorted animals he will have fight to the death
**No booze. Maybe coffee. 
**Brains the crocodile; shoots the fish in a barrel; butchers the snake rats attempting to preserve their venom; 
*Muldoon the Chef Actor (Daniel) – Hates Culinary Schools
**Serves up the drama by berating clerks, culminating in slicing open a fishmonger's face by slapping him with a low-quality shark
**Acquires canned salmon; olives; lots of exotic vinegars; booze
**Prepares his food in 7 minutes and spends the remaining 53 singing show tunes, agitating the dueling scorpions
*Experimental Chef Mousseline the Foam Gourmet (Dustin) – Hates Soup Kitchens
**Purchases expensive wines, emulsifiers, and, as an afterthought, several ducks
**Dishes are all foam shaped like the original duck (beak of foam like a cracker) 
**Arrays duck meat into a topographic map; the duck flows downward like water to the water, leaving meat trails upon the countryside.
Time: 30 minutes
(Post-session addendum)
*Mousseline's work is described as "old fashioned" and she storms out, never to return
*Muldoon's work is a crime against food, and not in a postmodern way
*Tal'rek makes a pretty good dish, but rather one-note (lots of meats)
*Snake rats escape into the vents, where they will infuriate the Vent Lizard (on account of the natural hatred of all reptiles for snake rats)
*Cassie falls into the guts-bucket (technical term) from the disemboweled crocodile, gutted fish and the snake rats that didn't get away. Multiple unsuccessful attempts by Cassie and others to free her leave her clothes saturated with offal – Dawes eventually intervenes (gets more swole) and removes her.
*Police arrive, looking for Muldoon on charges of Assault with an Abrasive Fish. They see the blood-soaked disaster and immediately conclude they have stumbled on an occult ritual
*Party manages to avoid a(nother) bloodbath, narrowly (though Buda and Jeremy are ready to throw down) – Cassie (after making sure to give Amani a big bloody hug) is taken outside to be hospitalized (constables insist)... Paparazzi watching the Empire Club see their chance and get sordid pictures
*Police declare Dawes under arrest for trying to bribe an officer, when he offers them drinks (and probably cash)
*Muldoon tries to blame Tal'rek for the fish, but Gauthier comes to the Fialta's defense with mixed effect (police think that her satirical descriptions of a Fialta ritual sound "about right")
*Bill the Pasta Guy is brought out to prove what a wholesome, Aeldman situation this all is. Police get 3(!) nat 1s on judgment, and start blasting at Bill. Bill gets hit twice, goes down; Dalton has a very near miss, so do the Sommelier and Jeremy (which might have activated his combat protocols).
*Smoke clears, Bill isn't moving – Muldoon panics, flails, says he's guilty of everything. Police again try to arrest everyone, but the Board isn't cooperating (and Amani has Diplomatic Immunity anyway). 
*Magda insists on having the swirl of pasta stuck to Bill's fork, which she dips in his blood like the psychotic occultist she is in a very convincing display of how totally normal the Club is.
*Dalton has Jeremy play a recording at 4x speed of the cooking competition, to show that nothing bad was actually happening.
*Constabular Officer sweats, tries to get statements from everyone that Bill attacked them. Nobody's going for it – Dalton tries to get the Officer to call his superiors (so that Dalton can leverage the Club's standing), but the Officer seems to realize it's his badge if this gets out.
*Magda convinces the police grunts and their commander that it's time to leave, that the Club doesn't want an incident to become public any more than they do, and that the situation was obviously confusing enough that the police weren't at fault. The stunned constables leave without any statements or arrests.
*Tal'rek and Muldoon are sent away, with Muldoon offered an exciting opportunity to attend a Dalthadi acting school on Fialt if he promises to keep his mouth shut. Tal'rek's warrior code of honor and a cash payout will suffice.
*Gauthier realizes that Bill is alive! Magda calls an occult back-alley surgeon of her acquaintance, who arrives within minutes, finds Bill moved to the (oh-so-sterile Kitchen), insists that everyone leave her "to my work" for an hour. The Board returns an hour later to find the surgeon gone and Bill just waking. A little note indicates the lot from Magda's upcoming auction that will suffice to pay the surgeon, and adds on the reverse "There is something deliciously malign living in your walls."
*Bill is convinced to stay at the Empire Club as a Pasta Master in Residence… and a convenient blackmail chip against the local constabulary.
Category:Session Summaries