Morthisal had grown frustrated with Thalindra's meddling. They appeared to be in a stalemate, as the saying went. He could not make her disappear and she seemed to be able to come and go from his life at will.

  Thalindra had been an excellent second-in-command, but that had been in another life. Here, on this new world, there was little they could offer each other. Both of them had the barest trickle of their previous power, and they did not even look the same. Morthisal was himself stuck in this smaller body without his glorious flowing hair, ashen skin, and elongated ears.

  He ran a hand down his neck, chest, and stomach as he considered this body, not for the first time, and shook his head, but not before taking notice of something peculiar.

  "What in the hells?"

  Morthisal quickly moved to the bathroom, stood before the mirror, and lifted his dark gray sweatshirt. His eyes narrowed at what he found. His stomach had grown outward. He flung the shirt off and spun to find much of his lower half had expanded. It was not an enormous amount, but it was noticeable. No wonder his pants had grown tighter. It wasn't his washing skills; it was this body's betrayal.

  He shuddered as he considered what he might have to do next. Go on a diet? Curse this awful body!

  The next morning, he arose groggily, grabbed his phone, and checked the status of his package. The screen displayed the dreaded information—his new camera and lock wouldn't arrive until Monday. He grunted and tossed the phone onto the couch as he paced the little living room, rubbing his developing belly.

  "Unacceptable," he muttered about both his weight change and the equipment delay.

  The situation left him with limited options. He couldn't leave unless someone watched the place while he went to the early morning movie shoot. Thalindra remained untrustworthy. She had probably made multiple keys.

  Morthisal scrolled through his contacts and found Jackson Creed. He pressed the call button.

  "Yo," Jackson's sleepy voice answered.

  "I require your services," Morthisal said.

  "What's up, Vince?"

  "How much would it cost for you to watch my apartment?"

  Jackson laughed. "Dude, I don't do pet sitting."

  "I have no pets to sit upon," Morthisal replied. "The woman I mentioned before broke into my apartment last night."

  "She what?" Jackson asked.

  Morthisal explained the situation. He described Thalindra's unexpected appearance and her possession of a key.

  "You already knew your ex was a stalker," Jackson said. "Why didn't you change your lock?"

  "I ask myself that very question daily. I have a new lock coming. Perhaps I need it much faster. I shall seek one out at the store."

  "Your landlord okay with that? They typically don't take too kindly to tenants randomly changing their locks. Why don’t you ask him to replace it?"

  Morthisal frowned. He had barely spoken to the rude man named Frank Buckley since his first days in this world. He would need to find Frank and explain the situation.

  "I see. And he will replace the lock?"

  "Yeah, man. If you got some rando breaking into your place, you need him to know pronto, boss. I'd call him right after you get off the phone with me. Oh, and go to the cops. Get a restraining order."

  Morthisal knew this term from watching procedurals.

  "Yes. I shall consider taking this action."

  "You should, man. She ain't gonna leave you alone. If she breaks in again, you gotta call the cops. With the restraining order, they can toss her in jail."

  Morthisal considered this, but quickly dismissed the idea. Thalindra was cold and calculating. She would not sit lightly on being placed in a prison cell. Her revenge would be, as they said here, epic.

  He uttered a few choice curse words.

  "Get it out, pal. Look. I have to work another job for a few hours this morning. I can stop by a few times during the day, make sure your door isn't open," Jackson offered. "But it'll cost you a hundred."

  "Acceptable," Morthisal replied.

  "Cool. I'll send you my Venmo."

  Morthisal frowned. "Your what?"

  "It's an app. For payment," Jackson explained with strained patience. "Dude. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were an alien visiting this world for the first time."

  Morthisal laughed and glanced around nervously. "I assure you, I am not an alien from another world."

  "Yeah, man. Of course."

  "Were I an alien from another world, my appearance would be much different, yes?"

  "Yeah. Right. Whatever. Just get the app. I'm sending you a link to my name on Venmo. As soon as you pay me, I'm on the job. Talk to you later."

  "Very well. I shall…" Morthisal stopped talking as he realized Jackson Creed had disconnected the call.

  Morthisal searched the App Store for Venmo and located it. Then he noticed that the program was already installed. His finger moved through screens of apps, most of which he hadn't bothered to test, and found the icon he was looking for. Morthisal started Venmo and found he already had an account, under Vince's name, so he sent the payment to Jackson Creed. A few minutes later, a text message from the bodyguard arrived in the form of a thumbs-up icon.

  "I sent you money and this is the reply I get?" Morthisal muttered at the impersonal response.

  Morthisal had to be on set shortly, but when would Creed be here? He snapped his fingers when he remembered a simple trick.

  A few nights ago, Morthisal had watched a television procedural where a man placed hair across the door frame. If someone opened the door, the hair would break. Such simple but effective tactics impressed him.

  Once Morthisal had drunk another cup of coffee and shoved a microwavable breakfast burrito down his throat, he dressed for the day and headed for the door, but not before returning to the kitchen.

  He dug the burrito box out of the trash and studied the back where the nutrition facts were listed. Morthisal pulled out his phone and set about googling how much one should eat in a day. He blanched at the details. In one small meal, he had consumed nearly half of the recommended calories, and all of the fat and cholesterol. He spent a few more minutes looking up these words. When he was done he had to force his jaw to close.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  "This is why the food here tastes as it does."

  Shaking his head, Morthisal tossed the box back in the trash. This required further study, but he needed to get to the movie studio.

  He picked up a roll of transparent tape from a kitchen drawer. As he stepped outside, Morthisal plucked a hair from his head and secured it with tape across the top of his door frame and rubbed until the tape was practically invisible. He stepped back to admire his work, but quickly picked it out.

  The studio buzzed with activity as Morthisal arrived. The director waved him over to the set, which had again been upgraded. Where once had stood merely adequate backdrops and tarnished equipment now gleamed an entirely transformed production space that left Morthisal momentarily stunned. Sterling's financial infusion had appeared in spectacular fashion. Shiny new cameras on hydraulic booms swept gracefully overhead. At the same time, a couple of technicians calibrated overhead lighting rigs.

  The set itself was no longer the cramped interior he'd grown accustomed to. Digital screens larger than Morthisal's entire body had been constructed across the back. The floor that had been a cheap gray piece of carpet over wood was now what appeared to be stone tile. A prop master knelt and applied lines of charcoal with pencils, giving the top the impression of age.

  "What are those things?"

  "Vince, buddy. This is the future. I got a pal works over at Marvel. They had a few of these in a back room collecting dust, so I rented them for a few weeks. Now, I know it will require extra work and a few reshoots, but these things are top of the line. They'll be more than sufficient for our purposes."

  As Marty spoke, one of the huge screens came to life. A tower window looking out at a moonlit sky appeared. A light mist blew past the window, and Morthisal was impressed with the attention to detail.

  "These babies are capable of rendering any environment with photorealistic precision. See that? That's the view from your new tower. Don't worry, we're going to work it into the story. Trust me. This is going to be huge. I'm already talking to Netflix, buddy. Netflix!

  "Anyway. We need to fix a monologue scene. So in this scene…" Marty continued to go over his daily plan for Morthisal.

  The reshoots passed quickly. Morthisal delivered his lines with perfect menace, and the director seemed pleased, nay, ecstatic. He couldn't stop going on about the screens and how much realism this would add. Three hours later, Morthisal headed home and checked his rudimentary alarm system. The hair remained intact. Of Jackson Creed, there was no sight.

  A moment later, his phone buzzed with a message from the man: "Looks like you're home. Do you need me anymore today?"

  Morthisal considered the text and decided he needed the rest of the day to 'chill'. He had a date on Monday, and he needed to study the rituals of this world so he could make a good impression on Yvette Sterling.

  "You are released. Thank you for your prompt help."

  Morthisal received a simple thumbs-up emoji instead of a real answer.

  "Rude."

  Before he put the phone down, Morthisal looked at his messages from Yvette, but she had not sent anything new.

  The next day, Morthisal was dressed in the same sweat pants as yesterday and his Dark Lord Energy shirt, which was stained with the dusting of Cheeto's powder. No appointments. No shoots. No distractions. He immersed himself in so-called 'rom coms'. For hours, he subjected himself to titles like "When Harry Met Sally," "The Proposal," and "Crazy Rich Asians," watching with increasing bewilderment as humans stumbled through complicated courtship rituals. Some seemed more complex than the fourteen-step blood sacrifice he had once used to summon a pair of shadow demons.

  In "You've Got Mail," he found himself smiling at the bookstore owner whose livelihood was crushed by a corporate rival—he'd done similar things to countless villages, though typically with more fire and screaming.

  By the third movie, Morthisal caught himself caring whether the protagonist would overcome their contrived misunderstanding with their love interest. This realization disturbed him deeply. He, who had once ordered the destruction of an entire kingdom for failing to deliver tribute on time, was somehow emotionally invested in whether some fictional barista would confess her feelings before the object of her affection moved to another city. The Harbinger of Despair was reduced to muttering, "Just tell him how you feel," at a television screen.

  How the mighty had fallen.

  Morthisal suddenly realized he had forgotten to make an important call. When he reached out to the landlord, he was met with a generic voicemail message. He left a detailed message about the break-in and requested a new lock be installed.

  Later, after a meal of air-fried chicken nuggets and tater tots, Morthisal settled on the couch and flipped through Netflix, but not before he sat forward and realized he'd just eaten another crap meal that would only add to his waistline. He needed to get online and read up on how to have what was referred to as a 'balanced diet'. Something that sounded as appealing as kissing an elf maiden under a rainbow. Morthisal shuddered.

  A few nights ago, Morthisal had finished Love is Blind. The streaming service suggested a show called Below Deck next. He read the description, and one eyebrow went up.

  "Interesting."

  The show immediately grabbed his attention. A luxury yacht crew catered to wealthy guests while navigating their own drama below deck. One Captain Lee commanded respect with authority. The stewardesses scrambled to satisfy ridiculous guest demands while deckhands battled the elements and their own egos, both with equal fervor.

  Morthisal appreciated the power dynamics. The captain ruled his domain just as Morthisal had once commanded his fortress. The crew functioned like his minions, each with assigned duties and hierarchies. The wealthy guests reminded him of dark aristocrats in his realm. They constantly demanded service while flaunting their status. If he’d had his way with the show’s script, the entire lot would have been dropped into a pit and left to fight each other with wine glasses until only one bloody victor emerged.

  "That deckhand would last three minutes in my dungeons," Morthisal muttered as one crew member complained about scrubbing the boat.

  Morthisal checked his phone repeatedly. No messages from Yvette. He wondered if they were still going to have dinner the next night. His eyes were drawn back to the show, but his mind raced around the topic of their dinner. This could be a precarious situation. Yvette was rich and used to the fine trappings of the wealthy. Would she be insulted at his choice?

  It was once again time to turn to the one voice who would know the perfect answer. Morthisal picked up his phone and messaged Travious about his dilemma with Yvette.

  I have need of your advice.

  Morthisal stared at his phone screen, waiting for Travious to respond. A few moments later, the device pinged with a notification.

  Working. Can't chat long. What's up? Travious texted back.

  Morthisal typed quickly, his thumbs pressing harder than necessary on the glass surface.

  I require your assistance with a matter of great importance. Yvette Sterling has agreed to dine with me tomorrow evening. Where should I take her?

  The response came after a full minute.

  You're asking ME where to take a billionaire CEO? Lol

  Morthisal frowned at the screen.

  Your mockery is unwelcome. I need a location befitting someone of her status. My knowledge of Seattle's dining establishments remains limited.

  Dude, she probably eats at places that charge $200 for a piece of fish the size of my thumb

  That is unhelpful, Travious. Provide actual guidance, or I shall reconsider our arrangement.

  Three dots appeared, disappeared, then reappeared.

  Fine. There's one place - The Pink Door in Pike Place. It's fancy enough to impress but not stuffy. They got good food, and sometimes it has performances. She'll love it.

  Morthisal considered this information.

  What manner of establishment is this Pink Door? What cuisine do they serve?

  Italian. Unique atmosphere. Hidden entrance.

  Hidden entrance? This appeals to me. How does one make a reservation?

  Google it, bruh. Gotta bounce. Drunk lady in wheelchair just puked all over the ER entrance. FML.

  A moment later, an image appeared depicting the situation Travious was dealing with in gruesome detail. Morthisal frowned and shook his head at his minions' impertinence.

  He placed the phone on the coffee table and leaned back against the couch cushions. The Pink Door. A hidden entrance. This sounded promising indeed.

  As the afternoon faded into evening, Morthisal dozed off during the fourth episode. The sounds of the ocean waves from the television carried him into dreams.

  He stood behind a polished wooden bar. The room around him looked nothing like his fortress. A tavern. Simple but clean. Patrons laughed and drank at scattered tables. He felt oddly at peace. A customer joked about a local merchant, and Morthisal uttered a genuine laugh that felt unfamiliar but pleasant.

  A goblin, his former poison taster and personal aid, hustled past him. Churl… Churl?! She moved into a kitchen and soon her knife went to work on a pile of vegetables.

  A beautiful elven woman with violet eyes appeared near his side. "Are you feeling alright, Varix?"

  "I am feeling great, Seraphina. Look at this. I feel like I've finally found my way in this…"

  Morthisal jerked awake. A dull pain pounded behind his forehead. He groaned and rubbed his temples.

  The television asked if he was still watching. He fumbled for the remote and turned it off.