The former Dark Lord awakes. The Mysterious Benefactor. No skills to speak of. Super cursed. Candlelight.

Salvanguish Abner Ordinal opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure how he had eyes, since he had vague recollections of some laughing demon pulling them out. Then he felt his mind shatter. After a moment, he took a breath. He didn’t need a mind to breathe, just lungs, and he was doing all right. He knew he had his eyes open, but he couldn’t see a thing. It was complete darkness.

His was on his belly—his cheek rested on a cold, wooden floor.

“Is this a trick? A deception? A ruse?”

A tiny, breathy, high-pitched voice answered him— a rather feminine voice, if he had to guess. “None of those things, Sal. This is your new life.”

The words “new” and “life” were elongated into a happy lilt.

“New life? I failed to cast Midnight’s Last Chance.” He sniffed. It was a dusty, musty odor except for the slight tang of the rat urine, though it wasn’t fresh. During his exile with his father, he’d come to know the difference. He did catch the faint fragrance of very old, rancid grease. “Is it my shame I smell?”

“No, buddy, pretty sure those are rat droppings. Besides, that Midnight spell was always kinda iffy if you ask me. Baelor came up with it, and he wasn’t too bright. He was cute though. Or that’s what the painters painted. But can you really trust painters? Artists, boyo, are a strange lot.”

Sal pressed himself off the floor, then sat, coughing a little. “If my memory serves me, Baelor possessed huge ears and a very small nose. It is a humorous irony that I can remember my life, and my death, but I do not have a good grasp on my afterlife. I recall the flicker of flames, cruel iron pincers glowing red hot fire, and lakes of literal bones. Wait. I think that might have been a Vincio Goff painting of the Abyssmuck?”

“That amnesia is for the best, captain, a little gift from your Mysterious Benefactor. Like I said, this is your new life. I would imagine it’s gonna take a little getting used to.” She spoke in a slangy voice, very informal, and not at all the way he’d been accustomed to being addressed back when he’d been alive. It was always a great deal of milord, my lord, my dark lord, and sometimes, your eminence. He’d enjoyed that last bit. For most of his life, he’d been imminent, or as the word suggested, about to occur.

“I do not hold the rank of captain.” Sal stood, thinking he’d feel the wear and tear on his joints. His joints were fine, and his muscles weren’t stiff. How could that be? He’d kept himself looking young, but his ancient body had known the truth. “I am a Deux Coin Dark Lord, bent on conquest and mastery over the unruly peoples of the world.”

“Uh, not anymore, chief. Now you’re just a guy.”

His hand went to his throat. No necklace. No Deux Coin. Nothing.

He pulled up his Diagraff Vitalis and was surprised at the results.

<<< ۝ >>>

Salvanguish Abner Ordinal

Diagraff Vitalis (Locked)

Karmic Gauge: 2% Dark Red and Flashing! Be careful!

Race: Resurrected Human, which is kind of strange

Vitalis Type: Hard to say, probably Commoner, but that’s a common answer, isn’t it?

Vitalis Path: Got a lot of options, but let’s go with Porridge Peasant for now, which may change, based on this whole new Karmic Gauge thing. Karmic Gauge? Karma points? What’s all that? So many questions!

Initial Mana Potential: Pending, but at this point, it’s not gonna be much.

Maximum Modified Mana: If one value of an equation is pending it’s all gonna pending, unless you have some clue about the variables, and believe me, we don’t.

Current Level/DevStep: Level 1, Developmental Step 1

Experience Point Monitoring: Not Applicable

BodyWork Modifier: 10%

SoulWork Modifier: 10%

Proficiencies (All Locked)

* It’s all pending or in the active state of being actively locked, which is like pending only different.

<<< ۝ >>>

His heart fell. All of his powers were gone. And why was his Diagraff so strange? He didn’t want to ask the voice in the darkness. That would reveal weakness, and as a Dark Lord, you couldn’t be vulnerable. Ever.

But how he could gain levels if he couldn’t earn Experience Points?

He blinked in the darkness. “You proclaimed I possess a new life. Am I cursed to experience this new life blind? I cannot pierce this ever-present darkness.”

“Ain’t you just so poetic?” The tiny little voice giggled. “You always did like books.”

“How do you know that?” Salvanguish found himself angry, a bit of afraid, if he were to be honest with himself. Normally, looking at his Diagraff calmed him. That wasn’t the case anymore.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He couldn’t help but murmur, “I don’t think I’m a Deux Coin Dark Lord anymore.”

The tiny voice chuckled. “No, ace. You’re not. Lost the Deux Coin, which shouldn’t surprise you. Can you still even pull up your Diagraff Vitalis?”

“No,” Salvanguish said quickly.

A red light filled his vision, and he felt a spike of ice pierce his heart. He’d not felt that kind of pain in a long, long time.

A message flashed before his eyes:

<<<>>>

Warning! Liar, liar, pants on fire. Karmic Gauge reduced by 1%. Notice the dark red flashing light? Hit 0% and you are done! Gone! Back to the Abyssmuck you go!

Current Karmic Gauge: 1% (Dark red and flashing)

<<<>>>

“Actually, I can,” Salvanguish coughed. “But my Diagraff is so strange, now. So very strange. I do not understand what is happening to me.”

That wasn’t exactly the truth. The warning message was relatively clear on one point. Lying would be painful if not lethal.

“I’ll bet.” She snorted. And it did sound like a “she,” however tiny. “It’s not like your Benefactor wanted you to keep on Dark Lording in your new life. Not a chance, buddy.”

Sal had made a list. “So you’ve called me boyo, captain, chief, ace, and buddy. Who are you?”

“You don’t remember me?” She sounded a bit hurt.

Sal took a small step and felt his shin bump against a bench. It was rough wood, lots of splinters. He blinked. He was near some shutters. He saw the glow of starlight.

He moved forward, excepting to feel the pain in his knee, but nope, it felt more solid than ever. He accidentally kicked something hard, and the pain in his stubbed toe made him curse. He took a minute. The pain in his toe was bright and shining, and oddly enough it hurt more than getting stabbed in the chest. Or getting his head cut off. For his actual decapitation, he’d not felt a thing. That was probably thanks to the quality of the Stoneskin craftsmanship.

He'd also been spared feeling of the palace-sized spear crushing him and Kenny. That Kenny, dead along with him, though Sal didn’t remember meeting his Dark General when he’d spent time in the Abyssmuck.

“Ouch, friendo,” the voice said. “Be careful. You can’t magically heal a broken toe. Remember, you’re just a regular guy now.”

Sal went to the shutters, found the latch, and pulled them open. He smelled a sea, but which sea was it? “Who’s my benefactor?”

“I believe I referred to them as your Mysterious Benefactor. Probably gonna be light on the benefacting but heavy on the Mysterious.”

Sal looked out at a night sky, with familiar constellations. He saw Venita of the Wind, hunting the Boon Stag, in the southern sky. It was a view of the sky he knew from the Grand Midnight Terrace off his throne room. “I’m still in Grief,” he said unironically.

The little voice laughed at that. “You’ll probably be grieving for a long time, though I can’t say I’m too broken up about it. You did some terrible things, pal o’ mine. Near the end, nobody much liked you. Not even your best friend.”

“Minion,” Sal whispered. “He was not my friend. Treachery has darkened his visage to me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Vocabulary.”

Sal’s eyes went from the night sky to a dry fountain outside. There was the Church of the Sacred Family in the distance. He was in a building on Dark Lord Square.

He spun and rammed his thigh into a table. That table hadn’t been there before, he was sure of it. The furniture had moved.

He searched the room for the voice, but all he could see were the outlines of the tables, the benches, and the counter. “Where are you? What are you? And why am I in this wretched place?”

“Wretched place? This joint did some good business in its day, though not for a long, long time. Between you and me, I’m pretty sure it’s super cursed.”

Sal paused, reached out, and rubbed at the pain his thigh. There was going to be some bruising, and his toe ached. So far, his resurrection wasn’t going very well. He tried to recall any power he had that might explain this. Or could this strange fate from being the Coin Keeper for so many years?

Sal calmed himself. “Let us return to my original question. How do you know anything about me. Where are you and what are you?”

“Seeing might be believing at this point. There’s a candle and sparkstick in a drawer on the counter. Or there was like a thousand years ago. Oh, yeah, it’s a thousand years later. Welcome back to Allbreath. There’s been a whole lot of changes since you’ve been gone. I know some of them, duh, because I make every attempt to stay up on current events. But gotta say, eating is more fun than politics. If you’d have embraced your true destiny, you would’ve known that, but no, it was Dark Lord this and Dark Lord that with you.”

Sal remembered Kenny’s sword. “Please. Refrain from using the ‘D’ word around me. It pains me more than you can imagine.”

That made the merry little voice chuckle again. “Would you call it a pain in the neck? Or, wait, yeah, I think Keyneth stabbed you in the heart first. The ‘D’ word must be heartbreaking.” She laughed at her own joke.

“You are not providing me the aid I seek,” he said quietly.

“First things first, ace. Get the candle and the sparkstick.”

Sal slowly, very slowly, made his way across the room. His hurt foot found cold metal, and he bent, touching a breastplate. His fingers made their way up the steel until he felt the bone of a skull. And some vertebrae, stripped of flesh.

He imagined where he might find a sword, and yes, there was a short, broad blade in the grip of the skeleton. He searched for the grip but then the sword shifted, and he cut himself. Well, he was bleeding now. Why was he not surprised?

He picked up the sword. It felt good to be armed again. “In the illumination of the candlelight, you and I will engage in a very long conversation about these so-called current events. If you lie, if you dissemble, I will not stay my hand.”

He felt that horrible icy pain his chest again, and he thought he might see the warning message again, but no

“You talk so pretty, Sal. To be honest, it was cute when you were a kid. Got less cute when you turned all evil and stuff.”

Sal had been called evil before, and it always hurt his feelings. He tried not to do bad things, and yet, sometimes, eggs had to be broken to make omelets. It was a horrid justification, and yet, it fit. He managed to get behind the counter without suffering any more injuries. From a drawer, he found the stub of a candle and a few sparksticks. A scratch across the counter later brought forth flame. With the candle stub flickering, he surveyed the room. There was no sign of anyone.

A tickle of fear on the back of his neck made Sal shiver. It had been a long time, since he’d felt that that kind of cold shiver. “I have light, my friend. But I do not see you.”

No one answered him. His eyes went to the shutters, to the double-doors, across the tables and benches, to the archway that led to the main room of the tavern.

What was Sal doing there?

The voice, from his left, called out to him. “Gotta warn you, friendo, that in your new life, you can’t kill anyone or anything. And before you get all clever, you can’t inadvertently cause any kind of murder. Nope. In this new life, you are a pacifist, as kind and as passive as Mendica the Penniless. May she find a coin soon!”

People always said that same phrase when they referenced Mendica, the forgotten middle daughter of the Sacred Family. She was the most pathetic of all the gods. And yes, she didn’t partake in wars or conquering, not in any of the stories. She was too busy looking for a Deux Coin of her own. Or in the process of losing the coin she had.

Sal thought about his new Diagraff and the warning messages concerning his Karmic Gauge. What the voice said made more sense to him. His actions were being tracked.

Despite all that, he had to grin. “I find that absurd. To live is to murder. Surely, the death of a fly or a spider cannot count.”

“They do.” And then, from behind a broken bowl, appeared a very small, very cute little gray mouse.

Oddly enough, it was a mouse that Sal was well acquainted with.