The argument began over the proper deployment of wild cave leeks.
“You can’t boil them in salt water without a vinegar rinse,” Vane Vale declared, his voice cutting through the amethyst cave with the imperious rhythm of a merchant prince inspecting a cargo manifest. His dark shape stood prominent within the silvered frame of the Speculum, arms crossed over his midnight-blue velvet coat. His gold-trimmed counting frame was tucked under one elbow. “The stone deposits on underground allium contain eighteen percent sulfur pyrites! If you ingest unrinsed wild leeks, you’ll spend tomorrow morning curled in agony upon the slate, which will reduce our careful productivity by forty-two percent!”
“In the trenches of Fort Karst,” Lord Ren rumbled from the darker depths of the mirror, his scarred jaw set like cast iron beneath his wolf-skin mantle, “we boiled marsh grass in stale ditch-water and thanked God for the starch. A soldier who complains about sulfur in his greens is a soldier who deserves forty lashes and a night in the stockade.”
“This isn’t Fort Karst, you illiterate brute,” Vane sneered. “This is an enclosed deep-rock pocket with zero air-flow and six copper florins of working capital. If we poison our digestion, we can’t afford an apothecary. Scribe, tell this warmonger to step back into the third void before his armored boots scratch the glass.”
