The benefits of youth. Betty’s breakfast break. Quick tour. No scar. Unchained.

No wonder the square was deserted. That scream would’ve woken up everyone and everything within a half mile.

A funny thing happened as Sal fell eye first toward the spike.

Sal had always thought his Grandfather Mood was timeless, and in fact, he was, since he was probably ten thousand years old, give or take.

The thing they don’t tell you about magically extending your life was that your joints didn’t much like playing along, especially when soldiering was involved in extending that life. Grandfather Mood must’ve had painful joints, stiff muscles, and unexpected aches and pains, but he’d never complained. Again, vulnerability was a weakness.

Like his grandfather, Sal never complained, and he’d gotten used to his magically aged body. However, no matter how much training he did, his reflexes had slowed because his body had slowed. Two thousand years is a long time;.

Now, as he tumbled toward the spike hammered into the floor, he found his new body was fast, his old reflexes restored, and years of dodging swords really came in handy. He jerked his head to the side, slammed down on his arm, and rolled away. Just as a wooden beam from above came unhinged and swung toward his head.

That he ducked as well.

Sweating, breathing hard, trying to calm his rabbiting heart, he stood in the cursed café, gulping in air.

Another message flashed in his eyes. Finally, it brought him some good news.

<<<>>>

BodyWork Proficiency Detected! Youngin Reflexes! Your proficiencies are mostly locked, especially the magical ones, but this is an unexpected surprise! Give an old guy a young guy’s body and there’s bound to be some unforeseen consequences!

<<<>>>

Sal couldn’t believe how relieved he felt. He’d been worried that all of his skills would be locked forever, and yet, whoever or whatever was writing his Diagraff hadn’t understood that a preternaturally aged man in a youthful frame had certain benefits. Normally, a Diagraff was a very formal document that tracked one’s abilities, be they commoner or divine warrior or dark-souled wizard. There wasn’t any kind of slang or folksiness about it. Sal had never heard of anyone having a Diagraff like his.

He could only assume his mysterious benefactor was making this stuff up on the fly. It was rather concerning, given that it was his life on the line.

At least he had one skill, though it was on the defensive side of things.

Betty sat up in the linens of her bed, yawned, and stretched. It would’ve been adorable if he hadn’t just cheated death. Oh, and he couldn’t forget about the world-shattering scream that had scared him awake.

“Morning, buddy,” the mouse said. “While I didn’t get as much sleep as I would’ve liked, I did sleep deep. Dreamed a happy little dream about the world just after the Purchase. Saw Grandmother Maker making my husband Bill. Being around Grandma was also so comforting.”

The Purchase.

According to myth, there was nothing in the universe, not one single thing. Then, Grandfather Breath either woke up, hungover, or got lost after drinking too much. There were various stories, but all agreed that he had come from nothing, and he wanted to create something. Normally, people called him Grandfather Breath, but some referred to him was the Creator. He wanted to create. Everyone agreed to that.

The Creator talked to the Void, and the Void didn’t want to do anything because it was literally nothing and wanted to continue to be nothing and so it had to do nothing. It was, however, a bit greedy, because if there is one thing a void does well is that it devours. So the Void said it would let Grandfather Breath create a world, but for a price. Seven coins.

Grandfather Breath, though, was broke. He needed some cash, and so he asked the Void about where he could find some money. As luck would have it, the Void knew of an old woman, Grandmother Maker, sometimes called the Creditor, who was living in a little shack outside of the Void.

Sal always found the idea of a shack outside of reality was strange, but then all of this was just a story and probably wasn’t true.

Anyway, Grandfather Breath went to the shack and found the Grandmother Maker. He asked her for the money, but no one had ever made money before. Luckily, Grandmother Maker was a crafty sort. She created the first coinage, the seven Deux Coins. She lent Grandfather the money, so he could pay the Void to create the world. Creating reality was tough, and so the old guy slept a bunch, on a mountain, or in a desert, or under the ocean. That was about all there was—rock, sand, and water. It was Grandmother Maker who decided to spruce up the place.

And she’d been rather lonely, and so she decided to marry Grandfather Breath, who was thrilled that everything in the world was just so interesting and beautiful. He loved creation as much as he loved his remarkable wife.

They would’ve probably been happy if they’d just stopped there, but no, the Divine Grandparents had kids and grandkids and there was a great deal of drama. The original Deux Coins were found and lost dozens of times. Family and money just didn’t mix.

Sal blinked, and realized, he’d had his own dream, about the lakes of bones in the Abyssmuck. He was glad it was hazy. The mouse’s dream sounded far more pleasant.

For the time being, nothing moved in the rooms above.

The board that had come loose swung back and forth in the cool morning air. Wouldn’t be cool for long. The sun was already beating down on the empty square outside.

Sal was speechless. He took a moment to revel in his eyesight and lack of wounds, though he knew he would have any number bruises from his fall out the window the night before and a big nasty bruise where he’d rammed a table with his thigh. His arm was also bruised.

He closed his eyes, which was probably a bad idea in the cursed café. “Verily, I would suspect we are dealing with a banshee. Such an entity was what woke us up this morning, was it not?”

“Verily?” Betty shook her head. “You’re gonna have to dumb down your speech, bro, or people are going to make fun of you. Yeah, I guess it was a banshee. No wonder the square is empty. We’re like standing in ghost central. Like I said—”

“Super cursed,” the former dark lord said bitterly. “I am going to respect the wisdom of your words.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said yet, pal.” Betty climbed out of her broken bowl. “Now, breakfast. Then we get started cleaning up. What ya think?”

“I do not have any coinage, magical or no,” Sal said. But he thought he knew where to get some. And if he were correct, he wouldn’t have to waste his time trying to run a tavern. No, she’d call it a café. Or had she used another word? A diner perhaps?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Betty sighed. “Don’t mean to abandon you, guy, but I gots to eat. So, I’ll be back. Me being vermin makes finding food easy. I’m gonna run over to Destiny Square, grab some crumbs from the market, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

The mouse then scurried away, deftly leapt off the table, caught a beam edged with white plaster, and then was up and out of the window in seconds.

For the first time since his resurrection, Sal was alone. Normally, he didn’t mind being alone. Dark Lording was a very solitary occupation, and for a good reason. No friends, no betrayal, no swords through the chest.

Sal, though, found he didn’t want to be alone in this strange place which shouldn’t be that strange since he’d basically spent his entire life on Torment Island, in Grief City, or that was the old name. Tower City was the new name. He didn’t like it.

The God Spear would always be a reminder of his tragic end.

Sal felt his stomach grumble, and he knew food was going to be of real concern. He knew where to find water even though Champion Plaza’s fountain was no longer working. Shutting it off had probably been a very keen bureaucratic choice. No one was there to appreciate it.

Sal figured he might as well take a look at his inheritance. Despite the non-murder clause in his contract, he wasn’t going to go exploring without being armed. He grabbed the short sword off the floor. From there, he moved into the old dining hall to his left. Nothing jumped out at him, but there were more bodies on the floor, some wearing robes gray with dust, others in rusted chainmail. Leering skeletons grinned at him.

Not removing the corpses was a lapse in governance, and yet, it also pointed to the cursed nature of the establishment. Had it been so vile and dangerous that the bodies were left to rot? It seemed so.

Several of the tables in the room were smashed, and several of the benches showed signs of burning. Actually, it looked like someone had thrown either a lantern or a fireball against the far wall, which wasn’t wood and plaster but stone. It was why it hadn’t caught flame. Also, kinda dumb to start there. If one were to burn down a building, starting with stone wasn’t optimal.

At the same time, Sal knew the madness of battle, the song of adrenaline, when higher reasoning was often not utilized to its fullest. Still, he had more bodies to deal with.

But first, he’d check out the kitchen and the back alley. If there was a back alley, given the nature of the God Spear.

He moved past the counter and into the kitchen where an open slot would allow the cook to pass dishes to the frontline staff. Would he have staff?

The thought shouldn’t depress him, but it did. He’d commanded hundreds of thousands at the peak of his power. He held the power of life and death over countless. Why did the thought of a cook, a dishwasher, and a waitress make him shudder?

Oh, right—the responsibility, the headaches, and the complaining…so much complaining.

Why do I have to take that castle? Why do I have to collect taxes from them? I can’t pillage today because my brother-in-law’s best friend needs my help with his barn.

Staff meant endless excuses and last-minute scheduling.

He went to the stove, felt the burners, and they were cool. Of course, there wasn’t a fire underneath. There was an oven for bread, but the whole kitchen would be an oven in the summer. So much sweating. In Caya Idle, when he and his father had been brought low, and Mickey decided to cook his iffy eggs, Sal hadn’t spent that much time in the kitchen. No, he’d slaved away in other ways, doing light prep, acting as the maître-d, and generally doing all the things his father didn’t want to do. Which wasn’t much.

His father, Mickey, loved every part of the café, so there was little work for Sal. He’d handled the books, which had been easy because even at his most successful, there hadn’t been much money coming in, just enough for them to break even.

Sal went back into the storage room and found broken shelves. The only thing there was a large ceramic bowl up high.

When he walked underneath it, the shelf collapsed, the bowl tumbled toward his head. Again, Sal’s young reflexes surprised him. He caught it without a second thought. The bowl was empty, but he had the idea if it had hit him, it might have accidentally-on-purpose bashed his brains in.

A door in the back of the storage room led to an alleyway. Sal touched the solid stone of the Godspear Tower, no windows, no doors, just solid smooth stone. Then alley cut left and right and narrowed as it went. It might be impassable. He’d have to check.

There was nothing to do but trek up the steps to the upper rooms. It was a three-story structure, with a basement, and he wasn’t about to go into the basement of a haunted tavern. Not without at least one spell.

Would he get spells? Nothing deadly, that was the game, according to Betty. The idea he had Youngin Reflexes did buoy his confidence. If he could get that, he could get others…if he managed to unlock his Diagraff.

The wooden steps to the basement were to his right, near the back door. The steps leading upstairs were in the main room across from the double-doors. Those upper rooms were for the owners of the restaurant, as was the attic above. Attics were a bit less creepy than basements, but not by much.

The irony that there were places in the café he was afraid to go wasn’t lost on Sal. He’d walked forbidden places before, lots of times, and he’d just spent the last thousand years in the Abyssmuck. Compared to the Abyssmuck, this place was as dangerous as Caya Idle on a warm spring day.

Sal trekked up the stairs, ready for them to collapse. He paused, hand on the rail, and called out. “Hail, cursed tavern! If you are to be my home, perhaps we can come to an understanding.”

Nothing answered him.

“I shall not burn you down, if you stop your attempts to murder me. How is that for a bargain?”

Boards in the upper room squeaked, there was some shuffling, but nothing else.

Sal continued his climb. There was the main room with two doors and probably two rooms. The main room itself was empty, except for the dusty boards, including the one that had swung loose. He took a moment to wedge the wood into place. He’d have to nail it down once he had a minute. And some money. He walked to the window, opened the shutter, and looked down at the fountain’s statue. He wasn’t amused that he’d be looking at Kenny’s dang sword for most of his time there.

To the right, he pushed open the door and saw a bed, probably crawling with vermin, a small desk and chair and a wardrobe. He could well imagine finding a skeleton in the wardrobe. He wasn’t in the mood.

He surveyed room to the left. A ladder, with several broken rungs, led up to an attack through a hole like a screaming mouth. That was probably where the banshee lived.

The left room was bigger than the one on the right. Two stacked bunk beds stood on either side of the ladder. Locked trunks sat in front of the beds against the walls.

A barracks? Maybe the remains of the soldiers below had gotten tired of sleeping in piles and had murdered each other. Sal had slept in a bunk bed before, after Grandfather Mood died, and he hadn’t found the experience very pleasant. When your bedmate shifted, you shifted, and it made sleeping an endless task. And he wasn’t a very good sleep to begin with. It was a skill he lacked. He always thought of that as his secret weapon. Others slept, while he schemed, or plotted, or trained, or studied.

Should he open the trunks? They could have money or supplies, and he was in need of both for the time being. That would change, however. He had a plan. He’d tell Betty only a little, lest she try and stop him.

He went to one trunk, thinking of throwing it open, but then he remembered the traps he’d had installed in his own treasure chests. He used the sword to undo the latch and lift the lid. A poison needle shot out of the latch. It would’ve stung him for certain. Dead so soon? That was an irony he didn’t enjoy.

The trunk was empty.

The second trunk was not trapped, and wonder of wonders, it wasn’t empty. There were carpentry tools, hammers and saws and such. Sal had a plan for a big chisel and an even bigger hammer. There were also some heavy nails there. He could fix the board.

There was a mirror hanging on the wall in that room. He took a second to stare into his face. The magic of Deux Coin had kept him young, but he’d still had some weathering. Those wrinkles were gone, as was the scar. He touched his face, truly felt grateful. That scar had been a weight on him. It had symbolized so much of a life he hadn’t wanted. He truly had a new road to walk. The idea was intoxicating.

Again, there was shuffling, but this time it was coming from below in the main room. Then the chains on the double doors rattled. The ghost had switched up its haunting.

Sighing, Sal grabbed the chisel and hammer, and a few other items, and went down the steps, but by the time he reached the bottom, all the noise had stopped. Of course. The ghost was just trying to scare him. At least none of the corpses were coming to life.

Sal climbed out the window, again, and was out before he could be pushed. He had felt something behind him, hands out, to give him another shove. Ha, he’d outsmarted the ghost again. That felt good.

He went around and found a good spot to chisel through the chain. It took a dozen strikes, but the link finally gave away and the lock crashed to the ground followed by the chains.

The double doors opened on their own as an eerie laughter rang out.

Sal surprised himself by laughing along with the specter. It truly was a new day. Now, if he could only find something to eat. For that, he needed money, and he thought he had an idea on how to find enough coinage to buy not only a cookie for Betty but an entire feast for the both of them. Maybe, just maybe, there would be enough treasure that he wouldn’t have to worry about the super-cursed café. No, he’d buy a palace and then consider his plans from there.

First treasure, then palace, then he could decide what he wanted to do for the rest of his second life.