Ben

Ben is an inhabitant of the town of Zeiss.

He's the owner of the Forgel Bar in the southern section of the city. While things are usually quiet during most of the day, there's usually rush hour around noon and in the early evening, since many employees from the factory eat lunch and dinner at the bar.

Zeiss, being home to a lot of scientists, engineers and factory workers who are typically all very hard workers who don't like to take a lot of time cooking or even eating. Hence, traditional Zeissian cooking is often simple and efficient; easy to cook, easy to eat and very nutritious so the person eating can get back to work with renewed vigor. At least, that's how Ben describes it. His long-time friend and unofficial co-worker Randall thinks that Ben's cooking is a little too simple and efficient and he's simply making up excuses for not having more variety in his menu.

This bothers Ben, so he starts looking for new recipes to add to his menu that still fit into what he sees as traditional Zeissian food. In order to get some additional inspiration, he posts a request at the Bracer Guild asking for potent ingredients to include in his meals. Estelle, Joshua and Tita respond to the request and let him have a special acerbic tomato that the researcher Ray was growing in the Zeiss Central Factory lab. While the extremely bitter taste of the unusual tomato nearly makes him gag, he reasons that just a little piece of tomato inside a meal might actually improve the flavor. As a thanks for introducing him to the ingredient, Ben lets Estelle have the first sample of his new meal; a special tomato sandwich. He later starts placing orders with Ray for a steady supply of bitter tomatos, determined to make his new meal a success.

While Ben is the owner of the Forgel Bar, he usually runs it together with Ursus. Whenever Ursus isn't around, he often accepts his friend Randall's help, who's one of his regular customers and spends most of his days at the Forgel Bar.

Relations
Ben is the employer of Ursus.

He's also a friend of Randall, who usually hangs out at the bar and who helps out whenever things get too busy.

Quests
Potent Ingredient