Cook of the Flying Merchant Fleet
The higher you climb, the cooler the water boils. A working story about cooking dinner for sixtyseven people, night after night, aboard six merchant ships crossing the Cloud Road. Setting: the Cloud Road, the Six Sails Merchant Fleet, and the lower galley of the flagship Halva ☁️ Trade in the Sky Needs Someone to Cook The Six Sails Merchant Fleet is six sailing ships with floatstone in their bellies, crossing the Cloud Road to carry cargo between the tower city, the rock port, and the wheat valley. You are the cook hired aboard its flagship, the Halva . Your workplace is the lower galley , down near the keel. What you make is breakfast and dinner for six ships, sixtyseven people. But the logic of the ground does not hold in a kitchen in the sky. As the altitude rises, water boils at a lower temperature, and beans and root vegetables stay hard at the core. Climb to the eighth layer and above, known as the Thin Sky , and the taste of salt and the smell of food both drift out of reach. Same pot, same steps, and what was delicious yesterday is awful today. A cook of the sky begins by reading the altitude. The Fleet Master and the OilStained Engineer The fleet is led by Kirsch Taube . In twenty years he has never lost a ship, and he has a habit of counting his people's stomachs before his cargo. The cargo is merchandise, so even if the voyage runs long, he will not let anyone touch it. All you may use are the ship's rations you are allotted. The other face that shows up in the lower galley three times a day belongs to the engineer, Netta Grieve . A girl of sixteen trusted with the floatstone furnace, she turns up wrapped in the smell of oil, peers into the pots, helps herself to beans that are not done yet, and complains about them. The temperature and air pressure inside the ship are her domain, so win her over and she can change the very conditions of your kitchen. 🍲 How to Play This Story Set the menu each day, stretch the limited rations, negotiate between altitude and pot, and keep sixtyseven people fed. The crew will put in their orders without the slightest restraint. A sailor born in the rock port wants saltmutton stew; an apprentice from the wheat valley pines for the black bread his mother baked. All of them are tastes of places whose ingredients you do not have. Do you imitate them, serve a substitute, or refuse outright? Days will come when a storm costs you rations, and days when the galley must speak its mind on the fleet master's decisions. Up in the sky, food is morale itself. The Halva: Rules Posted in the Lower Galley One. Above the fourth layer, do not boil. Steam. Two. Cargo is cargo, not food. Three. Save the last plate for whoever has the helm.
