NPF Avatars IV, Chapter V: Beyond the Wall of Teeth

[Arhra]

Evidentally Arhra was a starving hobo.

The Capitalist tipped his hat to Rei as she introduced herself, "How pleasant to meet you miss. Now if you'll all come along, the manor is this way."

Leading them through the plantation's grounds, The Capitalist seemed happy to give them something of a small tour, "We've found there's a high degree of unusual properties cropping up in the vegetation around here. We've been trying to selectively introduce desirable qualities into our plants. With such things as that 'bacon-fruit' we're hoping to pull in the reluctant vegetarian crowd."

He pointed out the workers in the fields. "I've actually ended up using trolls as workers. These ones are partially fungoid so its easy to grow more if we need to and since they eat almost anything, we use them as waste disposal too. They're practically slaves too - virtually no rights and they work for a pittiance." The Capitalist beamed at this then looked slightly more sombre, "Only problem is they're not too bright and we get the occaisional mutant. We had one recently that wouldn't stop regenerating. Kept growing all these extra limbs that would fall off. Very messy. Ended up freezing it since we thought it might be something marketable."

The manor was getting quite close. It looked exactly like someone had transplanted an old fashioned English manor-house into this huge underground cave. In an open area along the path, they walked near a tree with oddly bulging fruit. Tethered to it was a massive troll, as wide as it was tall, that was practically a walking slab of muscle. It sat happily under the tree, munching on the fallen fruit.

"We've been researching the so called 'stat enhancing' food that adventurers seem to like so much. A bit of a niche market, but adventurers are willing to shell out a lot of money for this kind of thing. Some could have more mainstream applications too. We found this fruit appears to encourage muscle development, but regrettably diminishes mental ability. Thod here is one of our guinea pigs - we want to see if there's a saturation limit or potential problems with overdosing. Say hello Thod."

The troll grunted happily, juice-stained mouth twisting into a vague grin, and half lifted a hand as if to wave. Its ugly mottled green face went blank, seeming to forget what it was doing and dropped the hand again. Instead it popped another fruit into its mouth.

"We're beginning to think he's already at the saturation limit. Still, we're letting the test go on a little longer, then we can find out with an autopsy."

It was a little like being in a tour of a chocolate factory run by a bug-eyed madman. Of course, instead of chocolate, there was a variety of bizarre fruits and vegetables, the factory-slaves were green instead of orange and the only madness The Capitalist showed was worshipping the Almighty Dollar.

At the manor itself, The Capitalist certainly hadn't been lying about the buffet. Outside, spread on a large trestle table lay a startlingly variety of foods with artfully arranged centerpieces. Some trolls - smaller than the ones in the fields - had evidentally been carefully trained as waiters; they were still putting food on the table. The hardest part of their training had been stopping them from eating the food they were meant to bring out or the guests.

"Lucky you came along really." The Capitalist said, "Most of it would have gone to waste otherwise. We're prototyping our processing and presentation too you see. This is a test meal." He gestured at a plate piled with what looked like bacon. "We've been quite successful I feel. Much more appealing with a bit of spit and polish eh?"

He grabbed a plate, "Forgive me for going on so much, but nice to have company. Don't see many people down here and trolls are hardly the world's greatest conversationalists. Please, enjoy yourselves and then I'll go and get those NDA's for you to sign." Piling up his plate with a generous sampling of the table's delights, it was obvious The Capitalist loved his food. As if his girth hadn't been enough of a clue.

Now, Arhra was hardly one to object to a free buffet. She happily took a plate herself and started prodding things with interest and adding them to her plate. With her current metabolism, Arhra was quite scary when near any sort of 'All you can eat' deal. It was one of the perks of her energy draining incarnation - she digested food extremely quickly. You might as well try to fill a bottomless pit. Starting with some pasta, Arhra was making a spirited attempt at it though.