"The cataclysm." Keeper's voice was heavy. "When the world broke and reformed, when the dungeons appeared and monsters rose from the depths—chaos consumed everything. Communities scattered. Cities fell. The masterworks were lost, scattered, buried."

He walked to the curtain and looked out at the settlement beyond, though Marron wasn't sure he could actually see through the mask.

"And then the adventurers came. The guild system formed. Dungeons became... resources. Places to farm for treasure and experience. And when adventurers found these tools in ancient ruins or buried chambers—these masterworks that had once been used to feed families and build communities—they didn't understand what they'd found."

Keeper turned back, and there was something almost like anger in his posture now.

"They called them 'legendary loot.' Trophies. Dungeon rewards. They locked them away in treasure rooms, guarded by monsters, treating them as prizes for the strong to claim rather than tools for communities to use." His hand clenched slightly. "The tools that were meant to nourish became objects of conquest. The items crafted with love and understanding became currency in a game of power."

Marron felt cold. "The dungeons—the ones adventurers raid—those have Legendary Tools in them?"

"Some do. Not all. Many were lost completely, destroyed or hidden so well they'll never be found. But yes—scattered across Savoria, locked in dungeons, there are tools that once fed families. That once helped struggling cooks create meals that comforted and healed and brought communities together."

"That's—" Marron struggled for words. "That's wrong."

"Yes," Keeper said simply. "It is."

Silence fell in the small space.

Finally, Mokko spoke up. "You're a mimic. You were underground for a century. How do you know all this?"

Keeper's blue gaze shifted to him. "Because I survived. A small boon of living underground, you see. When the world crumbled apart, the first to be deeply affected was the surface."

The mimic's eyes clouded with sadness, then, as if he were reliving the very event he spoke of.

"I remained with the old craftspeople, and listened to their stories. And eventually, all of their knowledge was passed down to me."

He moved back to his stool and sat slowly, the movement somehow ancient.

"Mimics remember. That is our nature—we absorb, we retain, we preserve. The body I wear now—" He gestured to his robed form. "—is not stolen. It is grown. Shaped from my own understanding over decades of existence. I have no need to mimic humans because I have become... myself. And as because I have a stable form...I retain memories others lost."

Keeper tilted his head to one side. "This, of course, means there is scarely any room for new things. I'm forever writing down the precious old memories I have, for the newer generations."

Marron nodded, understanding dawning on her now. "You're telling us about the kitchen treasures you've seen with your own eyes?"

"Some I saw. Some I learned from others who saw. Some I pieced together from fragments and whispers and the testimony of tools themselves." Keeper's gaze moved to the ladle, still sitting on the table. "That ladle was made by a woman named Therra. A cook in a city whose name is lost now. She believed everyone deserved to eat well—not just the wealthy, not just the powerful. Everyone."

He stood again and picked up the ladle gently, reverently.

"Therra worked in a communal kitchen. Every day, hundreds of people came to eat—rich and poor, healthy and sick, young and old. And Therra noticed something: people didn't know how to portion properly. The hungry took too little because they felt undeserving. The wealthy took too much because they could. The sick took the wrong amounts for their needs."

Keeper held the ladle up to the candlelight, and the symbols along its interior seemed to glow faintly.

"So Therra made this. She spent three years perfecting it...learned to work with silver-white metal, studying nutrition and healing, understanding hunger on every level. Physical, emotional, spiritual. And when she finally finished, she had created a tool that understood need better than the people it served."

He handed the ladle to Marron.

"The Generous Ladle serves the perfect portion. Not what you want—what you need. Someone starving will receive more. Someone who has eaten enough will receive less, even if they ask for more. Someone who needs comfort will receive food that soothes. Someone who needs energy will receive food that strengthens."

Marron held the ladle, feeling its warmth, its weight, its potential.

"The symbols," she said, looking at the shifting script. "What do they say?"

"I don't know," Keeper admitted. "The tools speak to their wielders in ways I cannot access. But I believe—" His blue gaze fixed on her intently. "—they will reveal themselves to you when you are ready. When you understand what generosity truly means."

"How do I prove I'm ready?"

"By using it. By feeding those who need feeding. By demonstrating that you understand the difference between what people want and what they need." Keeper's voice softened slightly. "Tonight, you will cook for our community. Use the ladle. Serve our people. Let it judge whether you understand its purpose."

Marron looked down at the ladle in her hands, then at Keeper, then at her companions.

"What if I'm not ready? What if it's just... an old ladle with pretty symbols?"

"Then you will have fed a community that desperately needs feeding, and that alone will have been worthwhile." Keeper's posture suggested he was smiling behind that featureless mask. "But I do not think it is 'just' anything. And I do not think you are unprepared. You fed monsters with compassion. You earned certification by learning to show care through beauty. You found the copper pot by understanding patience."

He gestured to the settlement beyond the tent.

"Now you must learn generosity. True generosity—which means giving people what they need, not what they ask for. Even when it is difficult. Even when they don't understand. Even when you must deny someone who wants more because they need less."

Marron felt the weight of those words settle over her.

Generosity wasn't just about giving freely. It was about giving wisely. Understanding need. Meeting people where they actually were, not where they claimed to be.

"I'll try," she said.

"That is all the tools ever ask," Keeper replied. "Now go. Prepare. The community gathers for dinner in three hours, and they are eager to see the soup lady cook again."

As they left Keeper's space and returned to the main area of the tent, Marron felt like her understanding of the world had shifted slightly.

The Legendary Tools weren't just magical objects. They were history. Pieces of a lost world, scattered and misunderstood, waiting for people who could see them as they truly were.

And she was collecting them—not as trophies, not as power, but as... what? Restoration? Preservation? Understanding?

She didn't know yet.

But she knew this: tonight, she would cook for a community of mimics with a ladle that might understand hunger better than she did.

And she would find out if she was ready for what that meant.

"Three hours," Millie said, practical as ever. "What are you making?"

Marron looked at the ladle, then at the cooking area, then at Alexander.

"What ingredients do you have?" she asked.

Alexander smiled. "Come see. We might surprise you."

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