“Fried chicken,” she answered, taking her backpack off. “If it came out and began circling just because we’re here, then it’s clearly hungry. Why not cook something up to lure it down? If your chef skills are good enough, you’ll have that thing swooping down in no time.”

“That might be hard since none of us have food on us though,” Lucas said. “Or at least I don’t think we do. Much less the stuff to cook with it.”

“Umm . . .” Katie began, shyly breaking into the conversation.

Nick opened his mouth to interrupt her, but Bonnie was ready. She smacked him with a healing scepter she had seemingly pulled out of thin air while shouting, “HEAL!” as she did it.

“You know, I can handle heals in the future,” Viola said, interrupting Katie anyway despite Bonnie’s attempt to let the Naga speak.

“For Nick?” Bonnie asked.

Nick got up and dusted himself off, scowling at Bonnie the whole time.

“Yes. I wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable because you had to operate in a manner outside of your preferred class,” Viola explained.

“And, Katie, what were you going to add?” Lucas asked, not wanting the quietest member of his group to get overshadowed.

“Food. I have a lot in my backpack. I . . . uhh . . . I didn’t know. Umm . . . I thought you’d be a bad cook. My sister always said men constantly ask women to cook.”

“That’s . . .” Lucas wanted to argue, but then he thought about the number of times a girl would show up in older games and immediately be asked by the male players to make a sandwich or something. It had happened a lot. “Yeah,” he conceded.

“I can make some now. I planned to . . . umm . . . make some grilled salmon.” She produced two large fish and a giant knife before Lucas even agreed with her plan. After that, she started to pull out a grill, charcoal, a pan, a cutting board, and a few plates, really demonstrating exactly how much Bonnie had in her backpack and how well the backpack worked at shrinking objects. In moments, she had set up an entire picnic kitchen while everyone else just watched on in curiosity.

Years of watching BluTube videos had taught Lucas one thing: that he was easily mesmerized by someone cooking. The hours he had wasted watching what his mother had dubbed “food porn” were many, and he had genuinely been sad when he reached the end of high school and actually had to stop binging on cooking segments so that he could study. Even today, he couldn’t help but think about how many languages he could have learned if not for watching all those videos.

“Wow,” Nick said as he watched Katie work the miniature portable camping kitchenette.