Jackal, Bastion and I sorted ingredients in the bakery kitchen while Brick sorted through his recipes and Bruiser rigged up a ramp to keep the gingerbread men from piling up. Several tables were already piled high with excess cookies, but there seemed to be no relief to the new spawns.

  I figured that Jenny hadn’t counted on us closing the bakery and had calculated the number of cookies needed to match the number of combined civilians and new NPCs this event had generated.

  It had given me an idea though, and a way to meet the requirements of the season while not participating in the chaos outside.

  When I’d first come to Newtopia, I’d been given a refresher on the relationship of supply and demand from the only other resident succubus, Lily. She’d advised me that as the only source of the heal-all potion ingredient ‘succubus slime’, I could effectively control the market and charge top-coin so long as I didn’t flood the market.

  Unfortunately, in my infinite wisdom one of the first things I’d done after we’d acquired the bakery was get Jenny to patch in an equivalent – Newtopians could now access succubus slime by milking the horned sucker thistle, which grew plentifully in all climates. The result was, I’d tanked the market and would no longer be able to gift bottles of the stuff as a high-value commodity.

  A similar concept could be applied to the cookies.

  A plentiful gingerbread cookie that spawned in twice every hour was virtually worthless. A limited-edition product from our bakery could be worth whatever we set the price point at. Being store owners gave us a certain level of power unavailable to the other citizens of Newtopia.

  All we had to do was create some unique dishes that we could each give each other – five gift givers and five gift receivers each meant a total of twenty-five gifts and three days to make them. And unfortunately, with no access to new ingredients and no current ability to spawn in new objects, we’d have to use whatever was on hand.

  As Brick handed us finished recipes, we arranged the ingredients to make sure we’d have enough for at least a batch of each and sorted them by oven temperature.

  “We might have to actually open our doors and sell a few,” Brick said hesitantly. “I’m not sure if the system will recognize the value of a new item unless there’s some actually sold.”

  “We can handle them,” Bruiser said giving the brawl of shoppers outside a dark look. “We’ll just make sure we’ve got twenty-five in reserve out the back.”

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  “At least in this world you can punch customers back if they get too out of control,” I said, my lips quirking at the thought. I’d worked several retail holiday seasons when I was putting myself through my accounting qualification, and I’d wished I could have gotten away with the same then.

  I turned my attention to the recipes Brick had laid out, my mouth watering as I read them.

  Croissmas Tree – Cinnamon and vanilla icing on star shaped croissant stars, stacked largest to smallest in a tree shape.

  Danish Snowflake – Star shaped Danish with berry compote and a dusting of icing sugar through a snowflake shaped stencil – Bastion to design and cut.

  Pecan Puff Roll – A combination of a cinnamon roll and pecan pie, using croissant dough spirals and a pecan pie filling dusted with cinnamon.

  Orc éclairs – Croissant dough, mixed with matcha powder and topped with green mint and white chocolate.

  Spicy Succu-buns – Cinnamon and chilli rolls, with a red tinted glaze and chocolate horns.

  Shifter Shortbread – made with three batches of shortbread dough with different flavour essences, rolled together in a tri-colour log: orange and cardamom, honey and lemon, vanilla and chocolate.

  “These look amazing, Brick! I don’t know how you come up with them,” I said, grouping the ones made with similar doughs.

  “I just think of different ways I can make you smile,” he said, nudging me with his hip as he took a spot next to me at the bench. “And I’ve been watching MasterChef. They just started the Christmas season last week.”

  “I can get started on the snowflake design,” Bastion offered, picking up the recipe with his name on it. “You want them with about a handspan diameter?”

  “If it’s your handspan, sure,” Brick grinned, flexing his own large hands. “While we’re doing this, perhaps Jackal and Bruiser could get our weapons oiled and sharpened. I want to be ready to smash any customers who try pulling that nonsense in here.”

  I glanced up and saw a wood elf’s face getting smooshed up against the glass doors, leaving a trail of blood and saliva behind before he popped out of existence.

  “On it!” Jackal jumped to his feet, always ready to get involved, and Bruiser followed him through the back door to the living quarters. They returned after a minute with enough weaponry to fill an armoury, Brick’s large battle axe, Ravager, dwarfing the array of swords and daggers.

  “Some high-end shops on Earth use a crowd control system where they only allow a few customers in at a time,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s usually like, jewellery stores, but we could do something similar here.”

  “Mmm, we did a similar thing when we were doing those bouncing jobs on Earth. Bruiser and Jackal could handle limited entry at the front door, if we could actually get an area clear.”

  “I could be a bouncer too, you know,” Bastion said sullenly. He was still a little sore that when the others had gone job hunting on Earth the club had only wanted the muscular guys and hadn’t been interested in his slim frame.

  “I know you could, but I need you on the till. You know Jackal can’t count change for troll teeth.”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Bastion sighed. “How’s this for your snowflake?”

  He held up his perfectly geometrical sketch, and I was again impressed with the results his high dexterity stat could produce.

  Brick scrutinized it carefully, before giving him the thumbs up and Bastion started cutting.

  “I think we’re ready,” Brick gave me a toothy grin. “Let’s get baking!”