“Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element.”

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

The undulating monstrosity flashed a toothy grin as it regarded Bee, watching her like a frog might a particularly tasty-looking fly.

“Well,” he said in his thick, phlegmy voice. “It’s time to get you ready for your new life. It’s just a bit of paperwork, nothing too important.”

He strained against his own bulk to reach down with a floppy little arm. With some effort, he managed to dislodge a large clipboard from under one of his countless rolls and tossed it with a nonchalant flick over to Bee.

She caught it, but regretted it immediately. The clipboard was covered in streaks of some thick, foul-smelling slime that stung her nostrils and clung to her fingers.

“Are you the devil?” Bee asked, holding back the sudden urge to vomit.

“No, dear me, no,” the creature said with a delighted chuckle. “But I do get that a lot. I am a demon, in fact. My name is Unger. You might say I’m in a different… organizational branch to your Lucifer. An overseas market. I’m part of the welcome committee.”

“Welcome committee to where?”

Unger gestured around him. “Take a look.”

Bee carefully approached the end of the stone platform she was standing on, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the demon. Briefly looking over the edge, she was dizzied by an impossibly high vantage.

She looked out over a great swathe of cloud-misted green land surrounded by blue sea, strongly distorted by the curvature of the planet. The platform she stood on was in fact a tower reaching all the way up into the atmosphere, one she couldn’t make out the bottom of. Whatever it was, the contours of the land she was looking at did not match up with Earth in any way.

“This will be your new home,” Unger explained. “Nifala.”

“You’re bringing me back to life?” Bee asked, quickly backing away from the edge.

“That’s right.”

“Why? What’s the catch?”

The demon laughed, spitting brown phlegm. “No catch at all! Just enjoy.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Then don’t. It makes no difference to me.”

Bee looked down at the clipboard she was holding, and found that the wet paper attached to it had a list of jobs.

 

Please choose one of the following Professions.

 

Alchemist.

Artificer.

Artisan.

Builder.

Cook.

Entertainer.

Explorer.

Farmer.

Jeweler.

Laborer.

Scribe.

Tailor.

 

“You want me to pick a job?” Bee asked.

“Yes, sweetheart. A Profession, capital P. It’ll determine your role here on Nifala. They’re all equally wonderful, more or less, so just pick the one your heart gravitates towards. Circle the one you want, and we’ll move on.”

“I don’t know what any of this means, though. Could you please explain it?”

Unger shrugged, the movement making his whole body quiver like jelly and sending his pendulous breasts heaving. “I could.”

“Okay… Will you?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

The demon grinned. “On you. What will you do for me in return?” He smacked his mountain of a belly to punctuate his statement. “It gets awfully lonely up here, you know. Hardly anyone stays for a proper chat.”

Bee blinked at him. “To be clear, you’re asking for…”

“Just a little suck would do.”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Pretty pretty please with sugar on top?”

Bee sighed, returning her attention to the clipboard and taking the pen attached to it. “You know, I think I’ll be fine by myself. Thanks for the help, though.”

“Whatever. Suit yourself, prude,” the demon grumbled.

Bee looked over the list again. None of the ‘Professions’ looked terribly appealing. Most of them were depressingly mundane. The only one that stood out to her was Explorer. That at least sounded like it would offer some excitement.

“So, what happens when I pick one of these?” Bee asked. “Does it… do something to me? Or is it just a title?”

“Oh, yes. It’ll do something, all right. But I’m not telling you what, since you insist on being such a tease!”

“Whatever. I’ll just pick one then.” She made to circle Explorer.

The demon suddenly thrust a finger into the air. “Ooh! For record-keeping purposes, I have to ask. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Bee cocked an eyebrow at him. “Record-keeping purposes, is it?”

Unger nodded with a clapping of chins. “Uh-huh.”

“My name’s Bee.”

“Your full legal name, please.”

“I don’t think I want you to have my full legal name, actually.”

“That’s tough, because you’re not getting out of here without giving it to me.” Unger chomped his jaws shut, knife-like teeth scraping against each other. He leaned high over her, his shadow swallowing her up. “I may look sweet, but I’m far from harmless.”

Bee had no doubt that the demon, regardless of his limited mobility, could at the very least crush her flat by falling onto her. “Whatever. It’s Beatrice Worthy.”

Unger fished out a thick ledger from between two fatty folds with a wet pop, and began leafing through it. “Beatrice, Beatrice… That sounds vaguely familiar.” His finger ran down a page and settled on the entry he was looking for. “Ah! Dear Mother, I almost messed up there. As it happens, you’re a priority customer, Miss Worthy. A bit of a special case.”

Bee frowned. “And what does that mean?”

“It means you get a cheat sheet.” He snapped the ledger shut, stuffed it back into his belly, and leaned down with a strained grunt to pull open a drawer on his desk. Digging around for a while, he eventually retrieved a battered letter and held it out to her.

Bee took it and backed away from the demon while turning it over in her hands. The envelope didn’t have any writing on it, so she fished it open with her thumb and threw it away, unfolding the piece of paper inside.

Bee,

Pick Laborer. Make sure that your five attributes are Strength, Toughness, Dexterity, Senses, and Awareness. Put 7 points in Toughness and 1 point in Strength. Spend your upgrade points on Healing Factor, Stoneskin, and Low Maintenance.

Do NOT deviate from these instructions.

-A friend.

“Who sent this?” Bee asked, holding up the letter.

“If it doesn’t say, I can’t tell you. Patron-supplicant privilege, sweetheart.”

“Fine. Since I’m a priority customer or whatever, does that mean you’ll explain things to me?”

Unger nodded towards the letter. “That’s all the help you’re going to get. Is it not enough?”

“Well, it’s… very specific, but I still don’t know what any of it means.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to decide if you want to follow the letter—to the letter—or not.” He winked. Even his eyelid had fat rolls.

“You’re very funny,” Bee said sardonically.

“Oh, I know. I’ve had a long time to polish my material.”

Bee gave the letter some thought.

Laborer. That sounds genuinely awful. Why would I want to be a Laborer? Like, working in a factory or a mine or something?

Could this be some kind of trick, too? Did the demon write this to mess with me, get me to pick something shitty so he can laugh at me?

“To clarify, I can’t change my mind later?” Bee asked.

“Correct. It’s for life. All of these allocations are.”

“Great. It’s a really fun system you’re running here. Very user friendly.”

“Thank you, Beatrice. It warms my heart to hear that.”

“I think you’re just overheating because of that three-ton fat suit you’re wearing.”

“You’re right, that does sound more likely.”

The letter did call me Bee. Only people I know call me that. Even he didn’t, back then. So maybe it is a friend, after all.

There was nothing for it. Since she had no idea herself, she figured it was best to go with the assumption that the letter was genuinely meant to be helpful.

She circled Laborer, and the text quickly warped, changing into another list.

 

Vigor

Strength

Toughness

Finesse

Dexterity

Senses

Appeal

Charisma

Looks

Mind

Focus

Processing

Intuition

Awareness

Vision

 

As a Laborer, you gain access to both attributes of your main attribute wedge, Vigor.

Please choose one attribute from your secondary attribute wedge, Finesse.

Then choose any two additional attributes.

 

I guess these attributes are meant to improve me as a person? I’ve played enough games to know that much, at least.

Bee followed the letter. She got Strength and Toughness for free, so from there she picked Dexterity, Senses, and Awareness.

She went through the rest of the process in similar fashion. When it asked her to allocate points into her attributes, she put 7 in Toughness and 1 in Strength. It gave her 2 extra points in Strength for ‘experience in previous life’, bringing her up to 3. Then, finally, it gave her a huge list of ‘skills’ and ‘passives’ to choose from. She was given 3 upgrade points to allocate into these, with each skill or passive costing 1 point to buy.

As instructed, she went through the tiny print until she found Healing Factor, Low Maintenance, and Stoneskin. All of them listed various requirements for taking them. The ones she picked all needed a certain number of points in Toughness, with 7 needed for Stoneskin, which explained why the letter had told her to allocate her points that way.

The text faded away, and the paper was left blank.

“I guess I’m done?” Bee asked, returning the clipboard and pen.

“Yes, you certainly are,” Unger said with a smug little smirk. “You’re all ready to go. Make sure to have fun out there, all right?”

“Sure?”

With a great, laborious effort, Unger tipped forward onto his desk, causing the clipboard to go flying in the process, and used his little arms to push himself onto his feet, the minuscule chair he had been sitting in falling away from his grotesquely distended rump.

Huffing and panting, he shuffled to the side on thick, stumpy legs. He revealed a small stone ramp behind him that led over the edge of the tower, like a ship’s plank. The demon beckoned towards it.

“Am I supposed to jump?” Bee asked.

“I can push you, if you’d like. Some people can’t quite work up the nerve.”

“And that’s the only way to get off this tower?”

“Yes. I could toss you, too. That’s a rather fun one.”

“Got it. I’m good.”

Bee felt a lump in her throat, but swallowed it away. Before her body had time to protest, she walked forward, rounded the desk, squeezed past the demon, and went out onto the hanging slab. Closing her eyes, she took one last step over the edge.

She fell.

Her stomach flipped, and she let out a mute scream as the wind roared in her ears. When she opened her eyes, there was only gray all around her.

She fell and fell and fell for what had to be minutes. Then everything went blurry, about to pass out from the strain on her body, and she barely felt the impact when she struck something hard like concrete.

 

*****

 

It was cold water that woke her up. Washing in around her, soaking through her clothes, splashing her face and going into her nostrils. She spluttered and coughed to get out the salty brine, dragging herself across wet sand.

Flipping onto her back with a groan, she looked up at a dull sky with seagulls wheeling against it. The waves still tickled her feet, but she was too tired to do anything about it.

A face came into view, looking down at her.

“Hello, Bee,” the man said with a little smirk. “Did you miss me?”

Everything about him was different. He had gotten more handsome. His hair was shorter. He looked less sickly.

But the scar across his crooked nose was the same. And even over the fishiness of the ocean, she could make out the sharp smell of cigarettes.

“William,” she breathed.

He held up his hands and shook them around. “Ta-daaa.”