He ran to the kitchens, tossed a month-old orc-foot into the pot, and stirred. Nothing happened. The foot remained leathery. Urluk, who had been hiding behind a stalagmite, coughed awkwardly and vanished in a puff of cheap sulfur.

When she finished, Grom looked in a mirror. The tattoo now depicted a fat, cheerful kitchen-god—Melkor, the Dark Cook of Legend.

Desperate, Grom visited an old goblin shaman. The shaman peered at his back and laughed. “You don’t need to remove a Melkor tattoo. You need to change the subject matter .”

“Ink my visage upon your back,” the being had growled, his crown of iron thorns scraping the cavern ceiling. “And I shall grant your cauldron the power to boil any meat, even troll kidney, to tenderness in seconds.”