"Cool." Ariel zooms off.

They still stare for a bit longer. The tyranny of choice that they never had to suffer through in this life because they had to face tyranny of, like, actual tyranny.

"Okay, I know you're going to say not to exaggerate-"

"Actually, we should try a bit of everything. Because, I have a spell to figure out if food is bad for us and it works by on anything in a given volume."

Pause.

"And yeah, I do want to enjoy something other than military gruel."

"That's my boy." Gav kisses Herod on the cheek before departing to the meat-eater line.

Herod follows him after a second.

There is an incredible variety of food! It’s kind of untenable for them to take some of everything, but the trays are large and no one seems to be judging.

This place is so... rich that Herod is vaguely wondering if he is going to find out that it runs on slave labor or something.

But since he can't run a slave rebellion on an empty stomach. He and Gabe can pick a wide variety of things. A fraction is what they could reasonable eat in one sitting and another is thing that they could take back to their room and eat later. So they don't waste anything-

"Pfft, they are probably to rich to care about wasted fooded." Gavriel says this while picking ten varieties of soda.

"Likely, but still... at least I have a preserving spell."

Herod eyes the dessert line and picks four kinds of pie.

They go to the first floor to find Ariel.

Ariel is sitting at a table on the first floor, as promised. She has a tray piled high with meats and, separately, an entire pecan pie. She is currently efficiently stripping the meat from the bone with her teeth and a creative application of her personal force field.

They take seats in front of her. "I was worried that we got too much food. Not anymore."

In contrast, their trays have been completely covered with food, but not piled high.

"I love the visual of the tiny piece of pie for dessert next to the carnivorous feast."

“Mutant powers have a tendency to make your metabolism go kind of crazy. Mine do so more than most." She cracks one of the bones lengthwise and licks out the marrow, leaving faint scratches in the bone itself with her tongue. "Which is to say: Meat. Good."

"Meat good," Gavriel agrees sagely, lifting a chicken wing.

Snort. "Meat good." Herod says, though he lifts a mozzarella stick.

Ariel returns to her feast.

Before either demon actually starts eating, Herod casts Lesser Detect Food and then he stares at their trays for a bit. He removes a few of items from the tray (some heavily processed snacks) and then they start digging in.

Well, it's a good thing that large appetites are commonplace in this cafeteria. They probably need better table manners. They eat with their hands and feed each other with their hands as well. "Why is your world so wonderful?"

Ariel notices this before long, and educates the demons in the use of silverware.

"There's a lot of complicated reasons. Food specifically? Because we've had a really long time without any major, life-shaking wars in which to specialize heavily in food production and preparation."

Okay, silverware isn't that hard to learn and they can definitely exercise self-control. Or at least, Herod can and then he can feed Gav while the later is sitting on his own hands.

"Huh, I guess I should've guessed that one, just by knowing how things are in Tartarus and then reversing." And that's too long without taking a bite. Nom. "How abnormal is this food selection compared to the rest of the world? I don't think our Emperors eat this well."

"Better than most places. Whateley has some actual gourmet chefs on staff. They don't do most of the cooking, but everybody in the kitchens is at least competent, and the ingredients are high quality. But it's not super out of the ordinary - a meal in a restaurant with reasonable portions of stuff like this would run a day laborer about two or three hours' wage."

Herod makes some mental calculations. "Okay, our emperors likely still eat better, but they still pay a lot more and need magic. Very impressive."

"And more importantly. It means that now we can eat tons. Too bad that Morty is straight, because I am sure feel like thanking him for contributing to me eating this pie." Nom.

"I honestly don't know if this is you being you or if this is the pie being that good."

"The pie's pretty fuckin' good," Ariel says around a mouthful of her own pie.

There is a couple of mouthfuls of agreement from the other side of the table.

After they are a bit fuller. "Can we take back the food to our door? I wasn't sure and I can keep it edible."