Chef Archive

The life of a surveyor is not quite as easy as many think. They live by their wits and in some cases die by them too. The surveyor's code of ethics is based on honest and quick reporting of new resource finds, of course, there is a segment that hoards resources, selling to the highest bidder, but most are a decent lot. Surveyors rarely get time off to enjoy their success...they must continually survey new areas, run density checks, sample raw resources, and then report their findings. These actions can consume entire days. Some surveyors belong to trade associations, others survey to supply themselves with needed resources for their primary occupation, while even others survey simply for the money. A good living can be had if one is good enough and can stay ahead of the crowd.

On a recent surveying mission, Syk'e was taking a break from his duties as master chef for the Phoenix organization, and came across a vein of terribly rare polysteel copper. Perhaps the best quality ore that Corellia had ever seen. He immediately pulled a sample to confirm his initial findings and was highly excited when the quality ratings jumped through the roof. He fumbled for his data pad...he had to get the word out to his association before the valley filled up with harvesters.

After tapping in the message, he reached into his pack, pulled out his harvester deeds, and laid them down. The first harvesters in the area guaranteed him best pick and he made the most of it. The word got out quickly though and before his allies could get their harvesters in place; other surveyors were moving in and placing harvesters. Before long, the entire valley was a large cluster of machinery drawing ore from the ground. Knowing that he did everything he could, Syk'e moved on to his next surveying mission. Always on the go, never a moment to stop.

Fast forward, a few weeks, and once again, Syk'e was surveying, but this time it was fuel and flora. He set up several harvester farms with no competition around him. He was amazed by being the only one, but then he preferred his choice of locations; nice and remote. While checking on his oat harvesting, he decided it was time to harvest some meat to help his partner Bis'c. Being a medic, the fish made use of herbivore meat and sometimes other types, but Syk'e had a few chef recipes that needed some meat as well...so he decided to work the perimeter area around the Phoenix homestead. One day, he thought, this could be a grand city.

He put on his armor, checked his carbine and vibroknuckler, and ran down to an area by the river usually teeming with vrelt and durni packs. While exceptionally easy for him to kill, they provided decent quantities of meat. He found a small pack of vrelts there and destroyed them quite handily...even found a few eggs in the lair. He noticed movement up the hill a bit and ran up to check it out. As he crested the hill, he ran smack into a pack of mottled wrixes. Knowing he was dead if he did not think fast, he immediately began using a multi-target move that quickly dispatched the mottled and regular wrixes in the area. He harvested as much meat as he could and moved over to another pack just across a small ravine.

He worked his way around the Phoenix buildings in a counterclockwise direction picking up large quantities of carnivore, herbivore, and insect meat...sadly no domesticated meat was to be found. Given his easy success, even against the powerful wrixes, he started getting a little careless. He made his way back to his starting point and found some more wrixes to kill. Unfortunately there were far more wrixes in the area and while he was able to hold his own for a while, he eventually had to drink some Angerian Fishak Surprise to replenish his mind a bit...but even that was not enough against the dozens of wrixes he fought. He ingested some Muon Gold crafted by Guld Bowman, a fellow Phoenix member and master smuggler. Suddenly his limbs lightened and he was full of energy.

The wrixes began to fall quickly, even the mottled ones that began to show up. Unfortunately, the high could not last and he began to run low on mind again and fought hard to kill as many of the mottled wrixes as he could since they executed deathblow on fallen prey. He was able to turn one away and watched it walk into the distance with no life, while he engaged another and successfully killed it. Before he could seek out the nearly dead mottled, another wrix ran up to him and grabbed his attention. While fighting that wrix, he ran out of mind and watched his health drop like a stone. Within seconds, he was on his back incapacitated and watched in horror as the mottled wrix that he nearly killed walked back over to him and performed a deathblow.

Within moments, Syk'e appeared in the cloning station in Coronet and emitted a loud sigh. He looked at his haul for the night and thought to himself that it was good enough. He went to his current sampling location, set up his portable sampling kit, and began to harvest some wheat. All the while thinking, he would go back soon...and next time he would win.