It was getting close to sixteen. Sparks had unlocked three more cats, enough to unlock the Daemon 2 upgrade, but Flor had only found repeats. Anyway, Flor was starting to get hungry from all the walking around. She convinced Sparks to try the Crusty Cricket. “It’s not as good as what you’re getting over at the Widow’s Siege. That place is surprisingly luxurious. But this place is clean and quiet, or has been when I’ve visited it previously.”

  “Sure enough. Do you think they’ll mind if I pull out this daemon to talk with?”

  “I’ve had bad luck with it in the past. The barkeeps haven’t been too receptive to pets or animals, which is how they see the daemons.”

  “Such a Western take on animals is frustrating. We take our animals anywhere we choose in Vietnam and Laos.”

  “We’ll find you a place to test it out.” Flor opened the door for Sparks then walked to the Barkeep, level 2, “Lunch for two, please.” She looked to Sparks. “Beer?”

  “No thanks. Just water, please.”

  “Sure, four coins. I’ll bring it over. Take a seat as you like. As you can see, it’s not exactly busy.”

  “Before we go, can I bring out my pet?” Sparks asked the Barkeep.

  “Look, again it’s not busy. Just keep it in a corner and put it away if someone else comes in, okay?”

  Sparks nodded happily and moved with Flor to an empty corner table. Sparks said, “Don’t mind it I do.” A tiny, cute mouse came out of somewhere and stood calmly on the table, waiting for Sparks to say something while looking sheepish. Flor saw that it had a mushroom-shaped umbrella held gently in its hands before realizing that the mushroom was part of the tail. She involuntarily leaned back, hesitant to interfere.

  Flor noticed even more mushroom features of the mouse, who looked to Sparks and pointed at Flor, “That one isn’t very subtle, is she?”

  Sparks clapped, “Of goodness, you can talk finally. Yes, she’s not quite in control of her emotions yet. I think she has much rage built up in her, Sibylle Chantal.”

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  “Oh, yeah, about that. Just call me Elle. I’ve never been a fan of the full double name thing.”

  Flor leaned in, “You’re like the opposite of Kester. Unpretentious.”

  Elle looked to Flor, “Your daemon? Kester? Yeah, that guy’s a jerk.”

  “Hey! I didn’t say that! He’s my jerk, at least!”

  Looking back at Sparks, Elle said, “So, here’s the deal. At level 08 you get the advanced Daemon interface, technically called Daemon 2, which means I can talk in a manner you can understand. You also get ‘party chat.’ Which allows conversations over distance with those in your party.” Elle pointed at Flor, “Her daemon was too precious to tell her. You should be able to party up without her leaving her other party, but you might want to mute the third party otherwise it might get confusing since he isn’t here.”

  Sparks nodded, then said, “Oh, the barkeep is bringing our food. You might want to hide.”

  “No way. She said if other people come in. She’s not other people.”

  The barkeep had two bowls of beef and tomato stew that she put in front of them. Then she put down a mug of beer and a mug of water, before exclaiming. “Is that a mushroom mouse?! Oh, wow! I never thought I’d see one. You’re one lucky dude to have one of them. She looks so cute in that little dress.” Elle had gone from offended to pleased in a moment. “Did you sow that yourself? I love the flower pattern. It’s almost like you pressed real flowers into the fabric. It looks lovely!”

  Elle said “Thank you. I did press the flowers into the fabric.”

  “Oh, little one. I can’t understand you. But I’ll assume you said thank you and I’ll say you’re welcome. Now, you two, let me know if you need something else.”

  “I didn’t expect to be so well appreciated.”

  “You’ve had better fortunate than I’ve had with Kester, so far,” Flor said.

  Flor realized Elle was about to say something rude. Sparks interrupted. “So, this is great progress for a day. Although we could find more cats, I’d be happy doing something else.”

  “We can probably find you a few more cats, or we could go check out that procession cutscene that I don’t know will happen.”

  “Oh, yeah, let’s do that! Then, do you mind if I stop by the temple before finding a nice place to spend a quiet evening if you know what I mean?”

  Flor nodded, but Elle spoke up, “Wait. No. We need to talk about this. You shouldn’t keep killing yourself each night.”

  Sparks said, “Why is that? What does it help or hurt, other than I don’t have to contain additional fury each morning?”

  Elle raised a paw, “I…well, it’s one of my talking points, but I don’t have a good reason for it.”

  “If you do, let me know. Until then, I’ll continue with my current path. Video game death does not distract me from the threefold path.”

  Both Flor and Elle remained quiet. They looked at each other and then decided in silence that neither was prepared to discuss that with him. Yet.