Stories from the Lodge

The Hidden Lodge had only three rules for placing a raid feast. Find a clear patch of floor, make sure it is not on fire, and put the food somewhere twenty people can reach without climbing or jumping. These were not difficult standards. Kivara treated them as attacks on artistic freedom.

The first incident involved a murloc toy. Someone had placed the little stone monument in the middle of the group while everyone waited for buffs. It was a squat gray pedestal crowned with a glowing white orb, the sort of toy that looked ancient, important, and completely incapable of defending itself. Kivara crossed the room, looked directly at it, and began lowering the feast onto the orb.

The banquet settled at an angle. Pale light leaked from beneath the platter, and the entire meal wobbled with quiet structural concern. When someone pointed out that she had put the feast on the stone murloc toy, Kivara did not even blink. "No, I didn't. I put the feast down first." Twenty people had watched the toy arrive before her, but Kivara dismissed their testimony with a single word: "Lag."

The next pull, the warlock passed out healthstones. A few extras sat in a neat green pile beside the group, safely away from boots, pets, and anything that could reasonably be described as a dining surface. This precaution lasted six seconds. Kivara stepped around three empty patches of floor and lowered the feast directly onto the stones. Green light spilled from beneath the tablecloth, and one healthstone shot out from under a pie before skittering across the room.

"Those were already there," the warlock said. Kivara looked genuinely puzzled. "Impossible. The feast was first." When reminded that everyone had already collected their healthstones, she gestured toward the glowing evidence beneath the food and asked, "Then why are they under my feast?" Nobody had an answer that did not require diagrams, sworn statements, and a basic course in cause and effect.

The mage food table came next. It shimmered into existence in a burst of blue arcane light, carrying bright bottles, conjured pastries, and enough magical bread to feed a small, deeply disappointed army. The mage had barely finished casting before Kivara began maneuvering the raid feast on top of it. For one miraculous moment, both tables tried to occupy the same space. Cups rattled, bread rolled, and a wheel of cheese achieved flight.

The mage stared at the wreckage. "You put a table on the table." Kivara corrected him at once. "Other way around." He insisted that everyone had watched him summon his table first, but she explained that it must have appeared around the feast. The mage opened his mouth, remembered who he was talking to, and quietly rescued a pastry.

That should have been the limit. Over the following weeks, Kivara placed feasts on a repair mount's saddle, on the back of her hunter pet Pancakes, and on a tank's shield while the tank was still wearing it. She lowered one onto a moving elevator, forcing the raid to eat in shifts whenever it passed their floor. Another appeared on the smoking head of a freshly defeated boss. When someone asked where the feast had been during the fight, Kivara replied, "Under him," as though this settled the matter.

Eventually, her placements stopped obeying ordinary geometry. One feast balanced on a floating raid marker. Another remained perfectly level on a loot chest whose lid was still opening and closing. The raid once looked up to find a complete banquet attached to the ceiling, with every plate and goblet sitting upright. Kivara stood below it with the patient expression of someone waiting for an apology. Mike advised everyone not to ask, but they asked anyway. "I put it down first," she said.

The raid decided to settle the matter scientifically. Before the next pull, they cleared a wide section of floor, collected every loose healthstone, dismissed the mage table, moved the pets, and parked the mounts. Three witnesses watched while Mike placed a single copper coin in the exact center of the empty space and recorded the time. At 8:41:03, the coin was down. At 8:41:17, Kivara arrived and placed the feast directly on top of it.

The room erupted. There were witnesses, screenshots, and a combat log note. Mike read both timestamps aloud with the solemnity of a judge delivering a verdict. Kivara listened patiently, lifted one corner of the tablecloth, and examined the coin beneath it. After a thoughtful pause, she nodded and said, "Server time is wrong." That was the end of the investigation.

The raid ate, the food buff worked, and the pull began. Somewhere under the feast, the copper coin remained as physical proof of what everyone already knew. The following week, Kivara put a feast on top of another feast. Someone made the mistake of asking which one had been there first, and Kivara pointed to the top feast. "Obviously that one."