I figured I was off to a good start, but it was no time to sit on my laurels. I waved to Chester and left him out by the well as he went upstairs to see if Lily would come down to dinner in the tavern. I doubted he’d be able to convince her. This world had done a number on her psyche. Until I could get Lift Spirits, Lily was likely going to stay in bed.

I sauntered in the back door of the kitchen to see Mabel scowling at Marlo’s back as she tried to scoop some of my stew out of the cauldron. It hadn’t taken me long to finish the chores for Chester, but it was probably late enough for Beryle to have shown up asking for dinner. I leaned against my counter, trying for yet another skill. Maybe I could get eavesdropping or move silently. As I didn’t have either, I was caught chuckling.

“Where’ve you been?” Mabel barked at me, and I could picture turning her into a dog in my next book. “We’ve got customers waiting. Get some plates served up or you won’t get another copper out of me or a bed upstairs.”

“Cool it.” I gave Mabel a lidded stare, sauntering to my pot and nudging Marlo out of the way. “Anger the cook at your own risk, woman.” There wasn’t much Mabel could do to me with my health up around eighty. I squinted my eyes at her trying to identify her at this level. I scowled at the failure. I didn’t have Identify yet. I’d fix that right quick.

“Watch it, girl,” Mabel snarled back at me. Could I just slit her throat and take over the inn? Probably not, but I’d rather sleep in the stable than kowtow to her bullying manner. I fluttered some final spices at the stew and pulled the pies out of the coals. Marlo’s eyes widened and then drifted shut in a sigh as she smelled my cooking.

“Shut up and eat.” I shoved a bowl of steaming stew under Mabel’s nose and then scooped out another bowl for Marlo. “Both of you, eat. Then if you think you want me to move on, I’ll be glad to go.”

Mabel growled but blew on a spoonful and took a bite as Marlo moved to take her bowl out to the main room of the tavern, probably taking it to Beryle.

“No you don’t,” I called out to stop Marlo, holding up another bowl. “Eat a bit first so you know what you’re serving. Then you can take this bowl to Beryle.”

“Thanks.” Marlo gave me big eyes, but Mabel nodded so Marlo took that first bite. Marlo’s voice could split mirrors, but I ignored it. There would be no singing lessons this time. She wouldn’t remember them, and it was insulting to her to keep trying. Marlo wasn’t a bad person. She was an NPC with the mental capacity of about three hundred lines of coding.

“Is that cherry pie?” Mabel asked, her mouth half-full, another thing I just ignored.

“Yep,” I said, raising my eyebrows at her. “And it’s not included in my salary, so you’ll owe me another copper per pie if you want any to serve out there.”

“You used my ingredients,” Mabel argued, her face darkening with more than just the sun going down behind us. “And you cooked it in my kitchen. I’ll be saying if it’s included.”

“Then I quit,” I shrugged, ruthlessly. I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the counter. “And if I leave, I’m taking my pies with me.”

“Oh, are ya?” Mabel gave a spiked-toothed grin.

“Yep.” I pulled my dagger out of my inventory and gave it a spin on the palm of my hand. “You sure you want to try to stop me?”

“Fine,” Mabel spat out and some of my stew came out too. She flicked me another copper, just as she had before, only this time I caught it easily and tossed it back at her. She missed.

“I’d like an ale with dinner,” I told her as she bent to fish her copper out from under the middle counter. “And you owe me two more copper for the other pies.”

“We’ll see if it sells,” Mabel groused, blowing dust off her precious copper. I knew it would sell, so I just let it go.

I got myself a bowl of stew and a piece of pie and headed out to the tavern like I owned the place. I wasn’t going to waste my night cowering in the kitchen this time. I ate in the main room while folks wandered in. I knew now that these were very basic NPCs. It was no use trying to make friends. They’d just reset the moment I defeated Beau.

My stew went down easy, but the pie was divine. Cherry had always been my favorite, even if the cherries looked more like huge peaches. One cherry was big enough to fill a whole pie. A lifetime of these resets ago I’d have lamented the lack of ice cream. This time, I didn’t care. I just wanted my daughter alive.

With new eyes, I studied the “adventurers” that settled in for a semi-rowdy night. If you rolled a dozen NPCs straight out of a DnD manual, you’d get this lot. There were four each of magic-users, damage-per-second classes, fighter-types, and healers. There might be mini-quests in these folks, but I didn’t see the use. Maybe one of the storylines is to hook up with a group and explore a nearby dungeon. I preferred Lily and Chester. These guys just didn’t interest me.

Marlo took away my dishes, and I scrunched up my nerve. I wasn’t sure about this next part, but I felt like I had to try. I scooted over to the place that Beau had sat at the fire. I drank the last of my ale and placed the cup in front of me. No one gave me any mind until I started pounding on the stool in front of me. I had just a few karaoke hits that I had memorized. This one was my favorite. It wasn’t like anyone was going to know if I messed up the words.

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Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap.

I let several extra bars of the infectious rhythm settle into the adventurers until they joined in. You couldn’t help it.

Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap.

It was a classic for a reason. I hummed the first verse, running over the words in my head before I let the words echo through the room. I knew acapella and I knew projection.

Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap. Thump-thump clap.

They let me sing it out. They might not have known what rocking someone meant, but they knew mud on the face and big disgrace, and they were singing along with the final chorus. Can anyone really resist Queen at its best?

The song bought me two ales at my elbow and thunderous applause. I was surprised. I hadn’t thought I sang it all that well and I was sure they’d all hear my voice crack in a few places. I give it up for the power of Queen. I couldn’t play most instruments, but I had my voice, and I could stomp-clap myself into their hearts. I gave a big grin as I heard the clink of a copper in the cup.

I took a long sip of my newest ale and waited for the din of the room to die down. Then I launched into a story. This was more my forte. If I was ever going to be a bard, which I was NOT, it would have been a storytelling one. I told the shaggy dog story with every ounce of charisma I had in me. I wanted those charm stats. The key to a shaggy dog story is a really long setup for a really bad moral pun at the end.

It started with, “Now you’ve all heard the caution that if you live in a glass house, don’t throw stones, right?” They hadn’t so I explained it and then went into my story.

“The moral of the story is,” I drew out the ending with a deadpan face. “If you live in grass shacks, don’t stow thrones.” If you didn’t get it, say it out loud a few times. There were some groans and someone even threw a crust of the flatbread, but it was good-natured ribbing instead of the nastiness that Beau had gotten during our duel.

There was a lot of table pounding, more coppers in my mug, and I launched into another song. I didn’t sing anything that Beau had sung during our duel. I knew better than to think I could sing any of it better than he had. Instead, I stuck with Queen. A few ales and I didn’t care if I got the words right. None of them knew any better. Arrows flew and another monster bit the dust.

I gave them an hour of stories and songs. I emptied my cup into my inventory and gave a jaunty bow as they begged me to tell them one more tale. I promised to return the next night. By the time Beau came, they’d be mine, but I didn’t care if I was wrong about that. What I’d gotten was another two professions, bringing my health and mana up over a hundred each and that was before I even got a spell.

“See you in the morning,” I told Mabel, more interested in the character sheet I was pulling up than the look of reluctant admiration on Mabel’s face. She handed me the key to my room, and I waltzed out as arrogantly as I’d walked in. That was the key to being a bard… and an ass. The only difference was that one of them had a talent for singing. I’m not sure it’s the bard.

This story was so much easier now that I didn’t care about anybody here. I knew what to expect from these “people,” and I knew that only Chester and Lily were real enough to bother with. I’d found their book in Fizzbarren’s den. It was short. They’d been engaged and had pre-wedding jitters. Fizzbarren’s Nemesis Engine had plucked them out of the world and pitted them against each other as foes. They’d gotten the warning and the tutorial, but the shock of being without each other had made each of them determined to defeat their nemesis to get the other one back.

I got mad all over again. They’d had a life planned out together. Lily had a good reason for her depression. I didn’t blame her. I’d gone through a bit of depression myself. They weren’t toys to be used. They were people with lives.

I pushed down my hatred, and concentrated on my character sheet as I headed up the stairs to my room. I couldn’t afford the Nemesis Engine locking onto my hatred of Fizzbarren yet. I wasn’t ready to fight him. I needed more levels, more professions, and spells. I needed Beau to walk through that door in three days. I knew how to defeat him.

Name: Karma

Class: Mage-ish

Level: 1 (0/300)

Profession: Cook (Level 2: 260/500), Carpenter (Level 1: 20/300), Seamstress (Level 1: 20/300), Singer (Level 1: 50/300), Storyteller (Level 1: 75/300)

Health: 182/182

Mana: 231/231

Intelligence: 18

Will: 15

Strength: 14

Constitution: 12

Charm: 16

Beauty: 10

Perception: 16

Dexterity: 17

Luck: 13

Skills: Cooking (10), Bartering (5), Dodge (5), Singing (5), Intimidation (4), Storytelling (4), Alcohol Tolerance (3), Sewing (3), Woodworking (3), Comedy (2), Knife Fighting (2)

Recipes: Pie (2), Stew (2)

That was more like it. My class experience was still at zero, but my health and mana were the equivalent of a level seven. I no longer felt weak, except in magic. The lack of spells on my character sheet made me nervous. This time, I knew I didn’t need spells, but they’d make things easier. I snapped my fingers, willing my mana to manifest, but it felt like I was slogging through glue.

I paused halfway up the stairs, rethinking. I couldn’t go up there mad. I knew that Fizzbarren watched Sammi’s encounters. I put my back against the wall and took some careful breaths, trying to remember how that first encounter had gone. I’d been crying that first night. I’d been so lost and afraid. I imagined that almost anyone who was sucked up by the Nemesis Engine felt some form of those things. Sammi had tried to be stoic about it, but I knew they felt bad about how people got sucked away from their lives and plopped into this world without a choice or even a warning. The fairy outfit hadn’t just been a protest over a name.

Again, I shoved memories that I wasn’t supposed to have back to the darkest corner of my mind. I had to pull myself together. How was I going to cry when what I really wanted to do was rage? Still, it wasn’t Sammi’s fault. I’d done enough raging at Sammi. I just didn’t know if I could back my temper up enough to be that pathetic version of myself. I’d gone from being a person with too much to lose to a person with almost nothing left to lose.

I had to stop thinking, I banged my head against the wall. Yeah, like that was going to happen. I thought of the fact that Kat was still alive, and my eyes misted over. That might do it. It would have to be good enough. Just the wisp of hope I had that Kat was alive was enough to shake me up. I just had to let myself stay shook up enough to get spells. It was hard to not let that anger surge back up over my grief. It was even harder to let hope in.