For the first time in many moons, the kitchens of the Gorging Trough raged with activity. One command had cut through its idleness to its monstrous overseer, effective immediately: she and her staff were to empty the larders like there was no tomorrow, liquidating everything that remained of their foodstuff reserves to make a grand farewell feast of such extravagance that even the most gluttonous kind in the realm would blanch in astonishment. Dutifully the ladies of the Trough leaped from their long idleness, with the ghastly Canology Mae and her vast skills leading the charge. Soon the flames of the grills and ovens roared, and the air filled with the sounds of boiling water, frying oil, and chopping ingredients.

But as time went on, and the finished dishes piled up on the immaculate tables of the Gorging Trough dining hall, not a soul appeared. No Supreme Beings arrived to sample the arrayed delicacies, nor did any of the guild minions who required sustenance. Not even the vaunted Sugi the Hammer, creator of the restaurant and its loathsome master, made an appearance. Though he dropped by in the guild's final hours to say some farewells and use what remained to him, the great warrior did not stay for long. Yet the kitchen workers toiled on nonetheless, mindlessly obeying their commands. Their labor did not slacken even as tremors began to shake the immense restaurant, rattling the utensils and shattering dishes. Meals flew from their tables to splat and scatter across the floors and furniture, creating a horrific mess. Before long the quaking grew so severe that the Maneaters lost their footing and rolled around amongst the loose debris themselves. Flames spread from the smashed-in ovens, racing across wooden furnishings and flammable ingredients alike. In a matter of moments the once pristine kitchens and halls of the Gorging Trough descended into unmitigated disaster, a filthy, burning nightmare.

Only toward the end, however, did the last chef standing seem to find it in her to scream. Mae let loose a long, low yell of utter despair, fallen to her knees in the middle of the utter chaos, until the factory settled in a final crash and sent her sprawling. With great effort the headless cook hauled herself to her feet, turning this way and that as her blindsight swept across the unmitigated carnage. “How!?” she wailed, a guttural voice resounding from the blackness within her head-bundle. She rifled her fingers through the remains of a pot pie smashed together with a chocolate mousse, letting the muck dribble miserably through her sausage-like fingers. “How could this be!?”

All around her, the Maneaters were beginning to stir. With varying degrees of dignity they extracted themselves from the wreckage, some helping others who found themselves more entrapped. Putting aside the crushing feeling of defeat for a moment, Mae moved to help the duo, Shank and Flank, who seemed to be failing to extract the corpulent Round from where she'd been lodged beneath a debris-piled table. “Stop pullin'” the blonde wailed. “Y'all're gonna pull my hands clean off  'fore I slip outta here!”

“Well, what else are we going?” Shank questioned her, exasperated. “We're not exactly powerhouses here. You could always just go Jubilant and- oh, Mae! I mean, uh, chef. Give us a hand, will you?”

With a grunt Mae strined to lift the table, allowing Round to squeeze out with a yelp. She let it fall with a loud clatter, then reached down to help the Maneater to her feet. “You alright?”

The cook nodded, wiping at her forehead with the back of her hand. “Whoo-ie! Thought I was a goner for sure there, ma'am. Mighty thankful for ya.”

Without a head Mae couldn't nod, but she laid a companionable hand on her underling's shoulder in reply. Her senses lay on the crackling flame, steadily devouring the ruined feast so lovingly prepared for. The Maneaters had gathered close by, every one of them from the peppy Roast to the cruel Tongue watching their everything coming down around them with numbed horror. It was time to go. “Don't mention it! But we've gotta get out of here.”

Her right hand man appeared before her. With shaking hands Head removed the clumsily-lit cigar from his mouth to give his report. “Everyone is accounted for, ma'am. Things are bad in the dining hall, but it's not on fire yet, and we can climb out through the collapsed ceiling.” The air was filling with smoke, and not the kind he liked, either. “Best hurry, ma'am.”

Tender was already weeping. “But what about the Trough...?” she sniffed, her lip quivering.

“It's done for,” Mae declared, accepting the face herself. “But as long as I've got you all, we can rebuild. So let's get going.”

The whole group got moving, fleeing the devastated kitchens to the dining hall. Sure enough, the room had partially caved in, with a huge slab of ceiling laid out like a crude ramp. Shank and Roast took the first tentative steps onto it, then raced to the top one after another. Head followed, clambering stiffly up onto the roof. When Chuck stepped onto it, however, the weakened material gave way, dropping to the floor with a loud slam and plume of dust. Tongue sneered at her long-eared coworker. “And here I thought you took so much pride in being one of the thinner ones.”

Afflicted by the stress of the situation, Chuck snapped back. “Like it would have lasted one second under your blood-sucking ass!”

“ENOUGH!” Before the situation could spiral totally out of control, Mae put her foot down. She summoned her fleshhooks and clanged them together, seizing her assistants' attention. With all eyes on her she point down the main hallway. “Follow me! I'll bull though anything in our way, just wait and see.” She summoned her fleshhooks as she turned, and stomped down the hallway like a woman on a mission. Giving vent to her fury, she smashed through fallen beams and broken furniture, scattered burning debris, and finally burst through the door and into open space. Mae drank deeply of the clean mountain air as she looked around, finding nothing familiar in sight save the hideously damaged wrecks of her fellow overseers' factories. Whatever happened to the guild, it had resulting in complete and total annihilation. But for all her vigilance, she spotted no enemies. 

As she looked around, she felt the call of the Emergency Signal. It was time to gather with the other survivors. [i]Good. Time to figure out what happened to us.[/i] The fact that a meeting could be had at all proved that at least one Supreme Being remained. Within her swelled an overriding desire to see the face of Lord Sugi once more, and be reassured by the magnificence of his presence. If this calamity so much as scratched him, she would be surprised.

She turned to find the Maneaters congregating a safe distance from the destruction, and Head in his Jubiliant form getting himself, Roast, and Shank down from the roof. “Watch out for any enemies,” she told them. “I have a meeting to attend.” With that she lumbered off, fleshhooks still in hand, to answer the summons of Faetalis.