Betty Don’t-Bite. Pulling legs off spiders. Again, super cursed. The unexpected tower.

Salvanguish Abner Ordinal used one hand to lean heavily on the counter in front of the flickering candle. In his other hand he gripped the sword. He stared at the tiny gray creature on the table on the other side of the armored skeleton on the floor.

He found himself stuttering. “You cannot be the same mouse. Verily, that would strain credulity. It is impossible!”

The gray mouse stood up on her hind legs and leaned against the bowl, acting rather casual all things considered. “If you think I’m a mouse, sure, chief, I don’t imagine it would make sense. But come on, guy, you knew there was something special about me.”

Sal had to take a second to try and remember. It had been a summer day, he was less than ten years old, and his grandfather was everything to him. Why wouldn’t he be? The Dark Lord Mood ruled an empire from his palace at the heart of the Middle Sea. Grandfather Mood didn’t much care his wife had left him. He was confident she’d be back. The gods and goddesses of the Sacred Family were always cheating on each other, swearing divorce, getting coins, losing coins, in a constant state of chaos. Why wouldn’t humans be the same?

However, as Sal would later understand, being a Dark Lord took a toll on marriages like nothing else. All of the men of his family had their own personal sorrow when it came to the ladies in their lives.

Sal had dim memories of his grandmother. She was always in her room, so sad, despite the trappings of wealth and power. She’d then left to take a trip to the beaches of the Happy Isles, near the Sunrise Straits which led to the Atlas Ocean. She’d never returned.

Rumors had it she’d been murdered by Mood’s agents, but those were only rumors. Every year, during the eight nights of the Purchase Festival—when everyone on Allbreath celebrated the fact that the gods purchased the world using the Deux Coins—Sal would get a gift from her with a little note encouraging him to listen to his father and not his grandfather.

Sal had a great deal of freedom, and he roamed far and wide, especially during the hot summer months. He’d been walking in the olive orchards when he’d found the little mouse in a rock wall. She’d been a brave a little thing, and she hadn’t scurried away. Being a boy, he thought a mouse in his pocket was a grand idea. He scooped her up, and she became his best friend until one day, she simply vanished.

Now, millennia later, she was back, or so it seemed.

The mouse waggled a finger at him. “We had some good times, Sal, I know we did. But did you ever wonder why I didn’t run away from you?”

“I needed a friend,” Sal said simply. Back then, he’d thought normal relationships were something to treasure. It was homespun wisdom that in the end, he found lacking. It seemed his doubts had been confirmed when he wound up with his best friend’s sword in his chest. But even before Kenny’s betrayal, Sal had found dealing with people exhausting. They had so many emotions and so many needs. He’d taken his grandfather’s teachings to heart. Trust no one.

The mouse shook her little head. “But why the name? Betty Don’t-Bite? It’s just embarrassing. I wasn’t ever going to bite you. You gave me those chocolate-chip cookies your dad baked. He wasn’t much of a cook, granted, but he was a genius of a baker.”

Sal felt strangely emotional, seeing his childhood friend. He went to say something.

Betty snapped her fingers. “Oh, that’s right. You must’ve inherited your grandfather’s inability to name things. Come on, calling the cove Caya Pretty? Way too on the nose.”

“Why did you leave me?” Sal asked. He thought he sounded rather pathetic, but there was no help for it.

“Uh, guy, you entered your pulling-the-legs-off-spiders phase. Hard to trust a guy who pulls the legs off things.”

Sal had to defend himself. “I was a child. And they were just spiders.”

“Says you! How did you know the spiders weren’t Gwynar? Like myself.”

She had him there. “I imagined if they were Gwynar, they would have pleaded for their lives.”

Back at the beginning of the world, Grandmother Maker created the Primogeny because why make sunsets pretty if no one was alive to appreciate them? The beautiful people turned out so well that Grandmother Maker then tried her hand at animals, and created a variety of creatures and tossed them into the oceans and flung them across the land. Some didn’t fancy water or dirt, and those took to the air. Grandmother Maker hadn’t invented death yet, and so those first animals were destined to live forever.

The immortal creatures were known as the Gwynar, which meant that Betty Don’t-Bite was in fact, not only ageless, but the first mouse ever to take breath into her lungs. If she were telling the truth.

“If you are a Gwynar, Betty, where is your husband? Grandmother Maker created two of everything, if the stories are to be believed.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Betty squinted one tiny eye closed. “Bill? Oh, we meet up every now again. Come on, we’ve spent most of time together, and so we decided we needed a break. I don’t believe that’s all that uncommon.”

Sal scratched his head. “If you could have spoken to me, why didn’t you?”

The mouse snatched up her long tail and swung it playfully. “I liked what we had, ace. You kept me fed and warm. Loved the little bed you made me, by the way. If we started chatting, you’d have eventually shown me to your grandfather, and there would’ve been spells and study and research. The Gwynar have done so well because we remained hidden. You humans are always killing things. Like, all the time. No way. Didn’t like the name. Liked the situation. Then, you know, I left and went on all sorts of adventures. I’ll have to tell you about them sometime. But let’s focus on current events, shall we?”

“What is your real name, then?” Sal put up a hand. “No, I understand how things work. If you told me, I would know your true name, and there would be spells and study and research and what have you.”

She pointed her tail at him. “Give the guy a Deux Coin. No, wait, don’t. Hey, buddy, Betty Don’t-Bite is fine. Or just Betty. Funny thing, pal, you don’t have the wherewithal for spells or study or research in your present state. Now, let’s talk logistics.”

“You do understand I can never fully trust you,” Sal said.

A breeze blew through the open shutters, putting out the candle. Above him, there was the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, followed by the clank of chains, and a low moaning sound.

Sal broke into a sweat, heart pounding. “What in the name of the Abyssmuck is up there?”

The mouse waved away his fears. “Ghosts. Like I said, the café is super cursed.”

“What’s a café?” Sal asked.

Betty laughed. “Oh, man, you are new. While taverns and inns have their place, cafes, diners, quick little restaurants are the latest rage. As you’ll soon find out. The deal is this, boyo, your Benefactor gave you a second chance for mysterious reasons, of course. Remember, no murder, and oh yeah, don’t even think about playing the Deux Coin game ever again. You even touch a coin, back to the Abyssmuck you go. Bam. As quick as you can say quiche Lorraine.”

Sal hated that he was in this position. However, it beat torture. Or was this new life a unique form of torture. “Can you give me some kind of subtle hint about the nature of my Benefactor?”

“Not one hint, buster.” The mouse quickly moved on. “Now, you got yourself a new body. It’s about twenty summers old, and by the Creator’s empty purse, I’m hoping you have matured past the whole spider mutilation phase of your development. What the muck, Sal? I’ll never understand that whole thing.”

Sal found it rather mysterious himself. It wasn’t like he progressed from spiders to any other kind of animal. And he rarely tortured anyone when he was a Dark Lord. He found it unpleasant and dubious, though he never revealed that to anyone. People had to fear him. He was the fricking Dark Lord after all. “I believe I shall have other activities to focus on.”

He didn’t like standing there in the darkness, so he found another sparkstick and relit the candle. The moaning and scraping and clanking from above had ceased, at least for now. At the same time, he felt the air close in around him, and he felt himself a tad stifled in the closed in room. “Why is this place cursed?”

Betty shrugged. “Who knows? There weren’t any cookies here, so I didn’t worry about it, until your Benefactor decided to have you wake up here.”

Sal found the air stale. “How about a walk outside, Betty? Currently, I am not enjoying this place. I would like to look at that statue.”

Betty did some limbering up exercises. “A little walk outside? Sure! Sounds like fun. Let’s assume the position.”

Sal picked up the candle and went around the counter.

The beams above him groaned, creaked, like something huge was walking around upstairs. He’d eventually go exploring the upper rooms, though the body of the warrior on the floor did give him some pause. He slipped the short, broad blade through his belt. “So what if I kill monsters? Or what if I kill the ghost in this place?”

“Good luck with killing ghosts, captain.” Betty crept to the edge of the table.

Sal opened his palm, and she jumped onto it.

A million memories of his childhood threatened to send him into a nostalgia fugue, and he fought the impulse.

He carried the mouse to the big double doors, but when he tried to open them, he both heard and felt the chains sealing him inside. His first instinct was to cast a Midnight Unseal spell, but he had no magic at all. And no money. He’d eventually get hungry.

“Out the window then, boss man?” Betty asked.

“Verily, that does seem the best way.”

There was a table under the shutter, and he got on top of it, feeling spry. He had one leg out the shudder when he felt something shove him. With an embarrassing cry, he tumbled out onto the very unforgiving cobblestones. He fell on his arm, and thank the Sacred Family, his bones held. He didn’t squeeze his hand shut, though, because he didn’t want to hurt Betty.

As he laid in pain on the stones, a message flashed in his eyes:

<<<>>>

Good job! Karmic Gauge increased by 1%. You didn’t crush the little darling mouse in your hand!

Current Karmic Gauge: 2% (Still Dark red and flashing)

<<<>>>

Sal groaned. “Ugh. By the Abyssmuck, that hurt!”

The mouse wiggled a little in his hand. “Like I keep saying. Super cursed. You’re going to have to deal with that, right away, before you open for business.”

Sal got to his feet. “I’m a fricking Dark Lord. I’m not opening a tavern.”

“No, you won’t be opening a tavern. All those tower climbers coming in, getting drunk, and getting in a fight. You’d murder someone at some point, and that wouldn’t be good for me. Because, hey, we’re in this together, buddy. And you need some major coinage for chocolate-chip cookies. My appetite has only grown over the millennia.”

Away from the cursed place, Sal felt better. Glancing up, he noticed two things. There was the silhouette of someone in the window upstairs. It was probably the source of clanking and scraping and moaning. There was no telling the gender of the apparition, and second later, it was gone.

Super cursed. Verily.

The second thing he saw?

There was a tower rising up from the center of the city, where the Palace of Despair had been. The tower disappeared into the sky, impossibly tall, impossibly round, with glass windows at intervals as far as the eye could see.

Many of the windows were lit up with a buttery light, but the portal nearest to him were dark as the grave.

“What is that?” he murmured to himself.

Betty laughed. “Such a noob! Getting you up to speed isn’t going to be easy.”

Despite his status as a former frickin’ Dark Lord, the words hurt Sal’s feelings. He did have a lot to learn, and he hated knowing so little after knowing so much.