background

pre-dungeon

Tab was an average human being in her early life. Her relationship with her parents was unremarkable and she had few friends. She got a business degree in college and took a year abroad while working on it. She developed a love of cooking after college and eventually saved up enough to open her own restaurant with herself as the head chef. She has worked hard throughout her life to get where she is now, and she claims to have been born with no natural talent. As such, she despises when she isn't given proper compensation for her work. She also feels that way about other people, believing that everyone should get precisely what they deserve whether good or bad. In the world Tab lives in tipping culture has been eradicated in favor of a living wage, but if it hadn't been she would have paid her workers properly anyway.

post dungeon

When Tab purchased her restaurant she had no clue there was a massive extradimensional rearranging basement with a bunch of skeletons inside. When she walked down there for the first time she was certain she was going to die. The skeletons, however, respected her authority as she had purchased the space. She doesn't have them help in the restaurant due to the possibility of bad publicity, but she maintains a good relationship with them. She tried to use the Cellar to store ingredients, but with how often it rearranged itself and how dangerous it was she quickly gave up on this. One time, however, a customer pissed her off pretty badly and then refused to pay for her meal. She ended up locking them in the Cellar, originally intending to only do so for an hour or two to teach them a lesson. When she went back to retrieve them, however, they had foolishly tried to press onward to escape and got murdered by the skeletons who thought they were doing their new master's bidding. The slimes cleaned up the corpse, leaving the bones behind for Tab to do whatever she wanted with. Since she wasn't a necromancer like the Dungeon's previous owner she couldn't raise them into a new minion, and disposing of them would possibly alert the authorities to the fact she had accidentally killed this guy. She turned the bones into furniture to decorate the Dungeon with instead. Ever since then she's been using the Dungeon to deal with her worst patrons, and the city she lives in has been a nicer place because of it. A little bit of ambient magic from the Dungeon has seeped into her, amplifying her basic strength and resilience. However, since she isn't explicitly studying how to use magic she cannot otherwise harness it.

personality

Tab is generally a kind and gentle person. She derives joy from cooking for other people and seeing their smiles. She's also heavily routine oriented. She likes to have her day go exactly as planned, and can suffer immensely when something goes helter-skelter. Although Tab is generally nice, she has anger issues and can be incredibly petty. Her hatred of things going wrong extends to all facets of her life, including her perception of other people and responding to how they treat her. She takes an all-or-nothing approach to relationships where she either likes or dislikes a person. Tab is also an incredibly hard worker, willing to fight for what she wants and what she believes she or others she cares about deserve. She tends to take this into her own hands a bit too often. She's known to not be very artsy, but she's still good with her hands and enjoys making furniture out of the bones of her enemies.

relationships

gabriel "riel" ❤❤❤❤❤

Tab admires Riel a lot for her angelic abilities and is immensely grateful that she keeps the Dungeon she inherited clean. She also likes that Riel pays her tab! She claims to be Riel's favorite person, but whether this is accurate is unknown.

pawn ❤❤❤❤❤

She and Pawn become close friends throughout the story, to the point where Pawn treats her as his closest confidant. Supposedly Pawn is her only 'normal' friend. She loves how often Pawn compliments her cooking as well. Their friendship is so strong that Tab prints a copy of her restaurant's key for him.

keepsake ♡♡♡♡♡

Tab and Keepsake don't get along on account of the fact Tab is an average mortal with no magic capabilities. He tolerates her presence for Riel's sake, and Tab stays out of his way.

seaquester ❤❤❤♡♡

Tab is a little scared of the sea outside of SeaQuester, but she thinks SeaQuester itself is pretty cool and pities its loneliness. Supposedly she commandeered its kitchens to cater for Pawn and Riel.

beelzebub "bubbly" ♡♡♡♡♡

While Bubbly thinks Tab is adorable, Tab is terrified of Bubbly and avoids her whenever possible.

relevant world lore

the cellar

Dungeons are extradimensional spaces made by humans using magic, which are self-sustaining and tend to harbor creatures that feed on the ambient magic. Tab is the Dungeon Master of the Cellar, a 10 floor dungeon with a basic layout and no special gimmicks. It is staffed by skeletal minions raised by the Necromancer that previously ran the Dungeon. Due to the fact it has gone unnoticed by authorities for years, Tab believes it may have an enchantment that keeps the Dungeon away from prying eyes.

necromancy

Necromancy is the colloquial term for magic used to raise the dead. Tab has noticed through observation of her minions that this does not return the person who died back to life so much as reanimates their body for a new person to inhabit. The Necromancer that once ruled her Dungeon died and was buried along with his bone serpent familiar. Skeletons that are newly raised are reportedly as naive as young children and are 'reared' by the other skeletons. Since Tab has no necromantic ability the skeletons that are currently in the Dungeon are all 'adults.' Even when they lose several limbs they remain their consciousness, but if their skull is thoroughly destroyed then they die again. Though magic can be used to create new things, it cannot bring back what once was.

links

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trivia

• Tab's name refers to the unpaid bill at restaurants. This is probably pretty obvious.
• Additionally, her name was chosen because I have a friend with a very similar name. There is otherwise no similarity between the two.
• Tab plays Poker with her skeletal minions on Sundays.
• Tab was a terrible and absentminded chef in college. Nowadays she could easily hold her own on a famous cooking show.
• Tab is reportedly immune to onion juice and oil splatters, and has resistance to the long-term effects of caustic chemicals.
• Tab has a phobia of corpse flies. This contributes to her fear of Bubbly.
• Tab doesn't like eating food with faces, with the exception of fish.
• Tab is bad at latte art, but she can make a bunny.
• Tab wears a clear coat of nail polish because she had to as a child to stop herself from biting her nails.

gallery images

by me

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by others

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