Freya had battled cabbage overlords, bureaucratic nightmares, and a talking goose that claimed to be a reincarnated war general. But none of that prepared her for the sheer panic of losing her lunchbox.
It all started innocently enough. She packed her bento-style lunchbox with love—meticulously layering leftover kobold curry, a hard-boiled wyvern egg, and a questionable slice of mimic meatloaf. She even included a note to herself that read, "You are a culinary goddess. Don't let the gods tell you otherwise."
But the moment she placed it down on the guild's communal table, blinked, and turned around to grab her flask of enchanted cucumber water—it was gone.
"Alright," she muttered to herself, narrowing her eyes like a detective in a noir film. "Someone just declared war."
The first suspect was, naturally, Sir Bloopington the Slime Knight. It wasn't that he was suspicious—it was that he was shaped suspiciously like a lunchbox. Freya poked him gently with the hilt of her dagger.
"Sir Bloop, have you seen my lunchbox?"
Bloopington responded with a sad gurgle and a single tear sliding down his jiggly exterior.
"Okay, that's either guilt or you're molting again. Sorry. Carry on."
Her second stop was the Rogue's Den. A dimly-lit underground lounge where thieves, spies, and overly dramatic theater majors hung out. She kicked the door open dramatically, cape fluttering in the nonexistent wind.
"Alright, who here's got curry breath?"
They all froze.
Tiny Tina, a 4'10 rogue with a flair for pyrotechnics, raised a hand slowly. "Technically... my halfling metabolism is still digesting breakfast, so—"
Freya cut her off. "Don't test me, Tina. My curry had basil. I'll smell it like a bloodhound on a ramen bender."
The bard in the corner strummed a dramatic chord.
Freya turned. "No music cue! This is a food crime!"
Defeated but undeterred, she next interrogated the Guild Chef, who was simultaneously baking a cake, juggling knives, and conducting a kitchen staff of goblins in perfect culinary harmony.
"Look, Freya," the chef sighed, "you can't keep accusing my soufflés of 'suspicious puffiness.'"
"But that one twitched."
"It's alive with flavor, not sentience. Get out."
She left—but not before confiscating a suspiciously lunchbox-shaped cake mold. Just in case.
Her stomach was beginning to plot a coup when she encountered the worst possible development: a guild notice pinned to the board.
LOST AND FOUND: ONE MYSTERIOUS LUNCHBOX LEFT IN THE ARENA PIT.
"The Arena Pit?!" she shrieked. "That's where we send cursed objects and interns who lie on their resumes!"
Desperate, Freya bolted through the guild, dashing past a group of confused healers mid-yoga.
"Namast—HEY!"
She made it to the pit's edge. There, sitting on a jagged stone pedestal like a sacrificial offering, was her lunchbox.
Unfortunately, surrounding it was a crowd of arena monsters—including Gregor, the aggressively friendly minotaur, and Blarg, the ogre who'd recently taken a vow of silence but still communicated aggressively through interpretive dance.
Freya knew what had to be done.
She stepped into the pit, her boots echoing ominously.
"Blarg. Gregor. Gentlemen. That lunchbox is mine. I made that meatloaf myself, and I know I overcooked it because my toaster timer is cursed. Now hand it over, and no one has to get turned into a stew ingredient."
Gregor mooed softly. Blarg responded with jazz hands. It was go time.
What followed was less of a battle and more of a three-way slapstick chase. Freya dodged a flying wheel of cheese launched by Blarg (??), parried a surprise bouquet of flowers from Gregor (???), and shimmied under a magically animated baguette acting as a tripwire (??????).
Eventually, winded but victorious, she lunged for the lunchbox and hugged it like a long-lost puppy.
"My precious," she muttered, stroking it lovingly.
Just as she opened it to reclaim her now mildly irradiated kobold curry, a portal swirled open above her. Out stepped a man in full bureaucratic regalia—quill holster, monocle, badge that read "Department of Temporal Lunchbox Security."
"Excuse me, miss. That item has been flagged as a temporal hazard. I'm going to have to confiscate it."
Freya blinked. "What."
"The mimic meatloaf interacted with a Class B Time-Snack. It's now slightly sentient and believes it's Julius Caesar."
She looked inside. The meatloaf winked at her and declared, "Veni, vidi, vici, baby!"
Freya screamed into the void.
The agent handed her a voucher.
"This entitles you to one (1) replacement lunch item of equal or lesser historical significance. Have a good day."
And just like that, the man and her Caesar meatloaf vanished.
She trudged back to the guild table and collapsed into a chair.
Sir Bloopington rolled up next to her and offered her a soggy cracker.
"Thanks, buddy," she said, nibbling. "It's not kobold curry, but it'll do."
Just then, the portal reopened. The agent stepped out again, looking frazzled.
"Correction—Caesar Meatloaf has staged a coup in the year 42 BC and invented democracy via interpretive dance. We're going to need you to come with us."
Freya groaned, grabbing her dagger and her emergency snack pouch.
"Fine. But I'm not going anywhere without lunch."
And thus began the wildest side quest yet: Time-Traveling Tupperware Tyranny.
She would reclaim her lunch.
Even if she had to fight Julius Caesar in a meatloaf body.
---
Back at the guild, Freya's sudden portal-suckage wasn't even the weirdest event of the day. Someone else had turned the water cooler into a gelatinous cube again.
Sir Bloopington blinked (somehow), rolled toward the cube, and whispered, "I have a plan."