The Hegilton Chocolate Fountain

Beloved by guests with more money than sense, the H.C.F. is a ludicrously expensive, absurdly unwieldy monument to excess.

Item Details

Item type

Dessert

Description

A giant chocolate fountain served at The Hegilton Hotel.

Overview

The Hegilton Chocolate Fountain (aka H.C.F. aka Hot Cascading Failure aka Harrowing Cake Fear) is a predator.

Maybe not in the conventional, biological sense, but from a hierarchical standpoint the H.C.F. was designed as an inanimate beast of prey, its appetite for grandeur only being partially satiated by the failures of the unlucky souls tasked with delivering it to the Hegilton’s patrons.

A successful free-hand kitchen-to-table Chocolate Fountain delivery has odds of 1-in-a-hegillion. A specialized cart is to be used instead.

The restaurant’s regulars know this and they secretly enjoy watching the new hires fail at this task, with the caveat that the whole kitchen staff profusely apologize and the maître waive the table’s bill.

Trivia

The original H.C.F. was the product of a since disgraced manager’s hubris, whose actions have been condemned during the Hegeneva Conventions of Chefs in 1944 for reckless endangerment of patrons and unlawful weaponization of food.

H.C.F. mk1 and its reproduction have since been banned, but a “safe” mk2 version is now available for modern-day Hegilton’s guests.

Despite its heavily redacted file, you can still make out the nature of the threat.

Words like “pheromones”, “response”, “uneasiness”, “trigger”, “receptors”, and “taste” are the ones most frequently used, hinting at the fact that the cake behaves in the same a way a shark does, or a heat seeking missile: the H.C.F. innately detects and locks onto fear. It’s just what it does. What it was built for.

It is unclear whether the cake was itself causing the emotional response in its victims or merely tracking/reacting to it, but one thing has been ascertained: once contact with the target is established, the H.C.F. is able to make the worst case scenario the ONLY scenario, turning its victim’s fear of chocolate disaster into reality. It is bad luck manifest.

According to some, the original H.C.F.’s rapacious hunger still lingers around its barely tamed descendant.

Who’s the dessert now?

Appearances

The Hegilton Chocolate Fountain first appeared in Off on the Wrong Foot (L1.C2), when it was ordered by Hendrix on his date with Hegena. It was carried to their table by Hege, who then dropped it as he slipped on the wet floor.

Gallery

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