It was a rare thing. A beautiful thing. A thing more elusive than peace treaties or honest tax collectors.
I had… nothing to do.
No demons. No curses. No haunted buildings. No talking furniture trying to unionize. Just a sunny day, an aggressively fluffy bed, and a "Do Not Disturb" sign enchanted with actual death magic.
I lay flat on my back, arms out like a starfish freshly mugged by heaven.
"This," I whispered, "is luxury."
Lilith poked her head in through the balcony window, upside down.
"You're not dead, right?"
"Only on the inside."
"Great! Then I'm making pancakes."
"Don't you usually just burn everything into blackened triangles of sadness?"
"I've been practicing."
I didn't trust that for a second, but I was too relaxed to move.
Galrik stomped by in the hallway, yelling something about someone stealing his socks and replacing them with motivational quotes. I ignored it. Let the war crimes handle themselves. For now, I was at peace.
Until Mister Fog showed up.
He phased through my door like a damn ghost. No knock. No sound. Just vwoomp, and there he was at the foot of my bed, holding a bowl of soup and a stack of freshly written disaster.
"Hello, Emissary."
"No," I said immediately.
He blinked. "But I haven't even asked anything yet."
"I don't care if the sky's bleeding, if squirrels are summoning Satan, or if Galrik somehow became Pope. I. Am. On. Break."
He slowly slid the bowl of soup toward me. "It's tomato bisque."
I eyed it. "There's definitely blood in that."
"There's absolutely blood in that."
I kicked the sheets over my head.
Mister Fog sat down in a chair that hadn't been there before.
"You have three hours before the Queen holds court," he said cheerfully. "Best enjoy it."
Three hours became four.
Four became six.
I did not move.
Lilith came in and gave me a pancake that was more carbon than carbohydrate. I ate it anyway. It tasted like betrayal and baking soda. I wept.
Then Galrik barged in with two halberds duct-taped together.
"Cecil," he bellowed, "how do I file a divine complaint?"
"Get possessed and yell at the sky like everyone else."
He nodded like that was reasonable.
By hour ten, I had entered a trance-like state known only to overworked bureaucrats and dads who pretend to sleep to avoid family events.
I was resting.
I was healing.
I was not to be disturbed—
Until the window shattered.
A pigeon—no, a dire pigeon, the size of a barrel and with a top hat made of postage stamps—slammed into the room carrying a scroll bound in barbed wire and desperation.
I sat up slowly.
"No," I said.
But the scroll unrolled itself, slapped me in the face, and read aloud in a booming demonic voice:
"URGENT QUEST: YOUR PRESENCE IS DEMANDED IN THE VILLAGE OF SQUELCH. REASON: UNKNOWN BUT PROBABLY STUPID."
I flopped back onto the bed.
"I hate this kingdom."
"You called this a village?" I asked, ankle-deep in mud and slowly being devoured by something that might've once been a road.
"Yes," Mister Fog said, as the carriage wheels spun helplessly behind us. "Technically."
"It's a haunted swamp with shingles."
Lilith stepped out behind me, holding a parasol made from two dead frogs and a coat hanger. "It smells like someone tried to bottle fear and forgot the cork."
Galrik leapt off the carriage roof, landed in the mud, and vanished up to his waist. "I LIVE HERE NOW," his voice bubbled.
The "village" of Squelch consisted of three buildings, a half-flooded tavern, and one suspiciously sentient-looking outhouse. In the distance, a chicken screamed and then exploded. No one commented on it.
A toothless man in a wizard hat greeted us from the porch of what might have once been City Hall.
"You the emissary?"
"Unfortunately."
He took off his hat and out crawled a family of spiders. He didn't seem to notice. "Y'all here for the ghost? Or the screaming wall? Or the marriage thing?"
"…What marriage thing?"
He pointed a gnarled finger at me.
"You're betrothed."
I turned to Mister Fog.
He shrugged.
I turned to Lilith.
She was already lighting a torch.
Galrik was sinking again.
"Betrothed to what, exactly?" I asked, already regretting everything.
"The mayor's daughter," the old man said cheerfully.
"There's a mayor?"
"There was."
"Was?"
"Wall got him. You'll see."
I did not want to see.
Inside what was technically a tavern but more accurately described as "a damp panic room with chairs," we met the mayor's daughter.
She was seven feet tall. Glowing. Had eyes made of blue fire and a voice like a thunderstorm reciting slam poetry.
"Greetings, suitor," she boomed.
"I want to go home," I whispered.
Her name was Yvra the Ever-Burning. She had two hobbies: arm-wrestling volcanoes and decapitating suitors who said no.
"You will attend the bonding ceremony," she declared.
"Actually—"
"You will wear the ceremonial loincloth."
"I beg your godless pardon—"
"And you will defeat the Wall of Screaming Lies."
"…is that a metaphor?"
"It's literally a wall that screams lies. Last week it told me I was adopted."
Lilith was writing furiously. "This is peak drama."
Galrik finally freed himself from the mud and collapsed inside. "Can I be the flower girl?"
Yvra nodded solemnly. "Only if you bring your own flowers. And kill them yourself."
I pulled Mister Fog aside. "Please. Please. You're my handler. Get me out of this."
He sipped his tea.
"Cecil, I've worked for assassins, demons, and one time a warlock who thought he was a cabbage. But you? You are the first person I've ever seen who can offend a building."
And as if on cue, the Wall of Screaming Lies burst into the tavern.
It was literally a wall—brick, mortar, and eyes—that screamed: "YOU NEVER REALLY LOVED YOUR PET FISH!"
"Okay," I said. "This is officially the dumbest shit I've ever been a part of."
And I was being fitted for a loincloth by a woman made of fire.
Pray for me.