Le Restaurant Tranquille

There's a restaurant in Wizard City that Archmages like to frequent. Not only is it the only four-star restaurant in the world, but it's the only place they can go without being constantly bombarded by loud distractions and fretting aides. It is a quiet place.

Because, in the ruthlessly exclusive Le Restaurant Tranquille, nobody is allowed to talk, and even the most dampened of noises will get you forcibly thrown out and blacklisted for life.

Noisy clothing will get you removed. Whispering will get you banned. Even scratching a message on paper carries noise too far. The employees come trained in sign language and calligraphy. Guests are given ink and parchment sets to transmute their requests. Everything is soft and muted - even in the kitchen section you could hear a pin fall from across the restaurant. Table etiquette is enforced and exquisite. Loud chewers are thrown right out.

You get exactly one silent warning, ever. After that you're gone.

(The Titanic, if you're curious)

The restaurant is the home and work place of the great wizard Geoffroy Laffaile, The Silent Chef, greatest patissier to ever exist. He and his restaurant team work in a deathly quiet to produce the most delicious and euphoric dishes in all the world. They source their ingredients from exotic travelers and monster hunters, planar adventurers and star farmers. They pay their sources well. Nobody in their right (or wrong) mind would even consider trying to prepare these most perilous of dishes. None except The Silent Chef.

Today’s Menu at Le Restaurant Tranquille (d10)

           1. Fleau escargot de Bourgogne
   (Flail Snail with garlic butter)
2. Omelette phenix
   (Phoenix omelette)
3. Quience Jelee
   (Quience fruit in gelatinous cube)
4. Flanc de licorne avec jus de pegase
   (Unicorn flank with pegasus juice)
5. Foi gras de cockatrice avec echalotes et figues
   (Fat liver from cockatrice with shallots and figs)
6. Tres grandes cuisses de grenouilles
   (Froghemoth legs)
7. Bisque de profondeur habitant
   (Deep One bisque)
8. Fromage au lait Catoblepas
   (Cheese from Catoblepas milk)
9. Soupe de poisson haine
   (Aboleth soup)
10. Truffe noire reduite au silence
   (Silenced black truffle)

The restaurant is also a prison for some of the most dangerous menaces alive or dead - things which could not be killed and so must be trapped. Geoffroy, wizard and culinary genius that he is, had them baked into delicate pastries and desserts of unfathomable abjuration. To disturb any of them would surely unleash a horrid plague upon the world. To taste them, though, is to experience elation known only to Heaven.

In the depths of the restaurant, past the kitchens and the pantries, among the silent-tiled halls is a monastery for two men - monks of unbreakable vows of silence.

They live their days fretting over every movement, every breath, so that the Dread Souffle won't crumble into a bitter heap. They have been here for years, nibbling away at the margins of the souffle, approaching it as one would approach a priceless painting with a fine brush. Every movement is thoroughly studied, every bite planned.

Should they disturb the architecture of the souffle, the Arch-Devil Archeon will be released into the world. He tempts them ceaselessly from within the souffle, knowing that the slightest mistake on their part will set him free. The monks are men of iron will, though. If they manage to eat the entire thing, Archeon will be destroyed forever.

This is what your client wants, and will pay out the ears to get: just one taste of Geoffroy's famous Dread Souffle. The Silent Chef is to be away for months, starting up a new restaurant. Now is the time.

Forty-thousand gold for just one bite. Five times that for the whole thing.
Ten-thousand gold for each and any of his other famous dishes.
Four-thousand gold apiece for any of the Silent Chef's cookbooks.

This could very well be the end of civilization.

This will not be easy. The restaurant has many guards and perils.

There are, of course, the restaurant staff. The waitstaff are but minor wizards, but the Hostess Anne-Sophie can expel anyone with a great silent force. Their training make them excellent at reading people, so you must be guarded in the dining area.

~~~~~

The Chefs are powerful wizards in their own right, each having personal possession of one of Geoffroy's cookbooks. They're capable of casting spells and cooking in utter silence - Geoffrey only took the most iron-disciplined for apprentices. They include:

Sous Chef (Jacqueline Beaux) - a famed necromancer, and excellent foil to Geoffroy's pastry and baking expertise with her knowledge of meats and flesh. The kitchen belongs to her and her Meat Men spies.

Her claim to fame was creating a dish so sinful that eating it sent one directly and immediately to Hell, unless you could hide the act from Heaven, of course.

Saucier (Adam Southern) - The most talented and reserved of the lesser chefs, surpassed only by Jacqueline and Geoffroy. His innovative and intuitive style helped create many of the dishes currently served in the restaurant, and his sauces are renowned for their potency and balance.

He has published three scientific papers on arcanogastronomy, and is considered a leading alchemist with regard to spell infusion.

Entremetier (Ottavio Di Gennaro) - The most good-looking and celebrity of the lesser chefs. Ottavio enjoys talking up a good storm and performing magic tricks with bourgeois admirers at fancy parties outside the restaurant. All the other chefs hate him.

He says he has enlightening conversations with the vegetables as they cook, but this is a lie... They do talk, but he can't understand them.

Rotisseur (Guy Philippon) - Known popularly as "The Grease Wizard". Nobody handles fat like Guy does. He tames the most exquisite and savage of exotic meats, making even the most legendarily gamey flesh delicious and tender.

Some has speculated that he got so big and tall by experimenting on his muscle and bones, but that's just a rumor.

Poissonier (Frieda Fischbacher) - There is a very fine line between aboleth meat that is edible and aboleth meat which will turn your flesh to salty goo. Frieda knows the difference. Every dish she makes is would make a Fugu chef sweat with anxiety.

It's said that if you meet her eyes your skin will start to peel off like old wallpaper.

Garde Manger (Sokkolf Kotkelsson) - The quietest of the Silent Chef apprentices, and that's saying quite a lot. Sokkolf's grandmother was the Queen of Ice, making him approximately one-eighth ice elemental.

It's said his heart was iced solid when his daughter died and his wife left him, and now his eyes are frozen and he floats an inch off the ground like a chillwight. Responsible for managing the pantry, the decapitated refrigerating head of the ice giant Hlodvir, and salads.

~~~~~

But down deathly quiet corridors, away from the restaurant, and into the warmed vaults where hearts beat loud like drums, there are true guards: things from The Far of incomparable grace and beauty. They hang from the ceiling draped like a summer breeze, or stand perfectly still, perched like statued ballerinas upon minute points. The staff call them Silk Golems, though that is certainly not their name. Even the faintest shuffle or whisper will draw their mute wrath. They will strangle you from the ceiling in a death-cocoon of silks, killing without a mere utterance or sound, ensuring that even your corpse lowered down will have a reverent silence.

(From Dark Souls 3)