The morning mist hung heavy over the cobblestone streets of Mirveren, a city that pulsed like a frantic heart at the center of the Kingdom of Castellanza. Mirveren was where the silk of the southern counties met the cold iron of the northern peaks, a crossroads of culture, trade, and—most importantly—gastronomy. For decades, the crown jewel of this bustling intersection was Bruno's Tavern. It was a place where kings were said to have dined in disguise and where weary peasants saved their copper for a single bowl of stew that tasted like a warm embrace.
But today, the air inside the tavern did not smell of slow-roasted rosemary lamb or the sweet, yeasty promise of fresh sourdough. It smelled of scorched grease and despair.
Michelle, a waitress whose apron was cinched tight over a trembling frame, stood before a table in the corner. Seated there was Master Giraud, a merchant whose belly and purse had both grown fat on the legendary hospitality of this very room. He had been a patron for twenty years, but today, his face was the color of a bruised plum.
He slammed a heavy pewter spoon onto the wooden table with a crack that silenced the nearby diners.
This is not food, Michelle, Giraud roared, his voice vibrating with a theatrical, heartbroken fury. This is an insult to the very concept of sustenance! I have traveled three days through the mud of the Lowlands, dreaming of your father's Beef Bourguignon. I expected a symphony of flavors that would make the angels weep. Instead, what do you bring me?
He jabbed a finger at the plate. A gray, gelatinous mass sat in a pool of watery, unseasoned broth. The meat looked like boiled leather, and the vegetables were mushy corpses of what should have been vibrant produce.
It is a tragedy, Michelle! A culinary homicide! Giraud continued, his eyes bulging as he stood up, looming over the young girl. Bruno's Tavern was a sanctuary. It was a 100 on the scale of perfection. This? This is a zero. No, it is a negative! It is an affront to my palate and a robbery of my coin! How dare you serve this swill in a room that still echoes with the genius of a master?
I… I am so sorry, Master Giraud, Michelle stammered, her eyes welling with tears. The kitchen is… we are struggling since the passing of—
Do not use his name to excuse this filth! Giraud interrupted, throwing his napkin onto the plate as if covering a crime scene. If Bruno saw this, he would die a second time from pure shame!
Across the room, the atmosphere was even more volatile. Diane, another young waitress who had known only the golden age of the tavern, was currently pinned against the serving counter by the collective outrage of a party of adventurers. These were men who braved dragons and navigated cursed forests, yet they looked more terrified of their lunch than a horde of goblins.
Noah, the leader of the party, a man with a scarred face and a massive broadsword strapped to his back, pushed a bowl of soup toward Diane so hard it splashed over the rim.
Look at it, Diane, Noah growled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. Look at the grease floating on top like a stagnant pond. My scout, Landers, took one sip and I fear he'll be spending the next week in the infirmary rather than the dungeon we're supposed to raid.
Clint, the party's archer, leaned in, his face contorted in disgust. I've eaten dried jerky off the floor of a cave that had more soul than this, he snapped. This bread is a brick. I could kill a troll with this loaf easier than I could chew it. Is there even salt in this building? Or did the flavor die with the old man?
Rome, the massive warrior of the group, let out a scoff that sounded like a frustrated bull. We come here for the strength of a Bruno meal, he said, his voice dripping with dramatic disappointment. We pay premium gold for the legendary 'Vigor Stew.' But this? This is just hot water and sadness. You've lost the spark, girl. The tavern is a corpse, and we're just watching the rot set in.
Diane's lip quivered. She looked toward the kitchen door, hoping for a miracle, but all she heard was the frantic clattering of pans and a heavy, suffocating silence.
Please, I'll speak to the chef, I'll see if we can—
The chef? Landers laughed bitterly, wiping his mouth with the back of a gauntlet. You mean the boy? You have a child playing with fire while the reputation of the greatest tavern in Castellanza goes up in smoke. Tell August that if he can't cook, he should sell the sign and turn this place into a stable. At least the horses wouldn't complain about the hay!
The adventurers rose as one, leaving their plates untouched and their bill unpaid, stalking out into the Mirveren streets with loud, public proclamations of the tavern's downfall. The remaining patrons whispered, their judgments cutting through the air like daggers.
Inside the kitchen, shielded from the shouting but not the shame, August sat on a flour sack, his head buried in his hands. He was fourteen years old, small for his age, with fingers that were stained not with spices, but with the ink of his ledgers.
The heat of the stoves was oppressive, a physical weight on his shoulders. Every sob that escaped his throat felt like it was tearing a hole in his chest. He looked at the chaos around him—the spilled salt, the overcooked roasts, the frantic sous-chefs who looked to him for a leadership he didn't possess.
He wasn't his father.
Bruno had been a titan of the hearth. He didn't need recipes; he danced with the flames, sensing the exact moment a sauce reached its zenith by the way the steam curled in the air. He was an artist of the tongue.
August, however, was an artist of the mind. Since he was six, he had been obsessed with the harmony of numbers. He saw the world in ratios, in the perfect symmetry of equations, in the way the stars followed a predictable, mathematical path across the sky. To him, a kitchen was a place of terrifying variables and unpredictable whims.
He felt the weight of the deed in his pocket—the paper that legally bound him to this legacy. It felt like a lead shackle.
A memory surfaced through his tears, vivid and painful. It was only two weeks ago, in the dim light of his father's bedroom. The air had been thick with the scent of medicinal herbs and the rattling breath of a dying man. Bruno's hand, once so strong and calloused, had gripped August's wrist with surprising strength.
August, his father had whispered, the words catching in his throat. You must… you must continue. The tavern is our blood. It is the heart of Mirveren.
Father, I can't, August had cried, his voice breaking. I don't have your gift. I don't feel the food the way you do. I'm just… I'm just a boy who likes sums.
Bruno had smiled then, a faint, knowing glimmer in his fading eyes. You don't need my heart, my son. You have your own. I know you don't love the heat of the stove, but I know for a fact that your intelligence in numbers will find a way to figure things out. Logic has its own flavor. Geometry has its own heat. Trust the patterns, August. Trust the math.
Now, sitting on that flour sack, August looked at the kitchen ledger sitting on the prep table. He saw the plummeting revenue, the rising cost of wasted ingredients, the negative slope of their reputation.
The insults from the dining room still echoed in his ears. A culinary homicide. A child playing with fire.
He stood up, wiping his eyes with a soot-stained sleeve. His hands were shaking, but he walked over to the main prep table. He picked up a wooden spoon, staring at it as if it were a foreign weapon.
His father's words haunted him. Trust the patterns. Trust the math.
How could an equation fix a tasteless stew? How could a geometric proof bring back the customers who were currently cursing his name in the streets? He looked at a pile of raw potatoes and a crate of wilting leeks. To his father, they were ingredients for a masterpiece. To August, they were just units of matter that required a formula he didn't yet know.
He looked at the kitchen door, knowing Michelle and Diane were out there, facing the fire he was supposed to control. He looked at the legacy of the man who believed a mathematician could be a chef.
I have to do this, August whispered to the empty, hot air of the kitchen. But I can't do it your way, Father.
He opened his ledger to a blank page. He didn't write a recipe. He drew a graph. He plotted the boiling point of water against the density of the meat they were using. He began to calculate the exact surface area of a vegetable cube required for optimal heat distribution.
But as the screams for refunds grew louder from the front of the house, and the smell of something burning began to waft from the back oven, August realized he was out of time. He was a boy armed with a pen in a world that demanded a cleaver.
The tavern was dying, and he was the only one left to perform the surgery. But as he stared at the numbers, a terrifying, brilliant thought began to form—a way to translate flavor into a language he actually understood.
The question was: would the people of Mirveren eat an equation?