YOU: At least, they didn’t steal your wok. You gently hold the master-crafted implement in your hands. The smooth ebony handle grips nicely to your calloused hands. Whorls of runes are etched on glossy steel. You flip it around to examine the bottom. The sigil of a pot filigreed in gold with two cherubic angels on either side of it. The mark of Kauldron Emporium. 

CONNOISSEUR [EASY: SUCCESS]: Kauldron Emporium is the foremost smithery of dwarven forged cookware in the Western Occident, their specialty residing in heat sensitive equipment. Its creator, Roil Belloweather, became frustrated after being forced one too many times to repair their family’s communal pot from his wife’s horrible concoctions. Thus, a profitable venture was born. 

YOU:  You trace the bottom. The lack of charring from extended use is a testament to the craftsmanship of the western dwarves. 

TEXTURE [EASY:SUCCESS]: Your body heat leeches away from your skin like a sponge. You can almost feel the currents of cold and hot pumping within the wok, an intricate web of heat dissipating through it like a tidal wave. 

TECHNICAL RUDIMENTS [EASY:SUCCESS]:  Light, accurate and deadly for frying. Just the way you like it. 

YOU: You take care to tie the wok carefully around your bindle and take stock of your other belongings. All your bare necessities are still there: spare clothing, a waterskin made from goat vellum and your trusty grease-splattered apron. 

Staring wistfully back at the door, you think for a moment that maybe, there’s a chance you could go back in and ask them for your belongings back.

ENTERPRISE [FAILURE]:  Who do you think you are? Every tavern cook here has more reputation in their left pinky than you have here. After that miserable performance, you’re lucky that they still left you alive as it was. 

RAISON D’ETRE:  Didn’t you listen to what we said before? We. Don’t. Need. The. Guild. D’Cuisine. 

YOU: But - 

RAISON D’ETRE: No but’s. The mark of a true chef is to persevere through pain. This is just one of the many trials you’ll have to go through in order to reach your precipice. 

YOU: I don’t get much of a say in this, do I? 

RAISON D’ETRE: You were insane enough to become a chef. Why stop now? 

YOU: Signing longingly, you trudge off the steps of the entrance and into the bustling city of Benin around you. 

CONNOSEUIR [SUCCESS]: Benin is a humble trade port on the outreaches of the Bruised Steppes, the Azure Mare scything through and dividing it into three halves. It is perhaps the greatest hidden confluence of cuisines from all across the Occident where a burgeoning gastronomic revolution bubbles underneath the cobbled streets…….

Abruptly, a wagon rolls past by you, filled with its quarry of pungent seafood from the riverside harbor. The driver gives you an apologetic wave. The streets are modestly bare around you. A guardsman in the streets takes out his lantern, reminding you that noon is on its way soon. Your stomach then growls to grab your attention. 

Palette: It’s in the air around you. A cornucopia of delights. Gnomish pastries, elvish sommeliers, dwarven fare, smoked hydra……

YOU: Letting your palette guide you as you walk around on the streets, you decide to sate your appetite at….

[X] - An inn. Smoke billows out of its chimney in thick fumes and the rowdy noise of brawling customers can be heard from far away. 

[X] - A street side stall. A queue of hungry customers stretches outs like a snake. 

[X] - A eatery. The tables are bare like a desert oasis and you can spot  a white drabbed figure milling about aimlessly, sweeping the litter of autumn away with a broom.