Cookies & Curses – Chapter 2
Whisk Taker
Hazel reached the crest of Puddlewick Hill at sunrise, breath misting in the crisp air like a kettle’s sigh. Below, the town unfurled in neat rows of stone cottages and slate roofs, smoke curling from chimneys. In the central square, a clock tower punctually chimed. Hazel checked her pocket watch. Six on the dot—punctual, civil, agreeable. No self-respecting dungeon would run this precisely without significant threats involved.
Her biceps, Chaos and Control, flexed approvingly beneath her traveling cloak. Initiative set to cozy.
The cobbled lane sloped toward Market Row, where shopfronts wore painted shutters in butterscotch and robin’s-egg hues. Handbills for the upcoming Feast of Thanks fluttered on posts like festive moths:
“FLOAT SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS!” one proclaimed in elaborate calligraphy.
“PIE PARADE: TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES ONLY. SEE COUNCIL FOR APPEALS,” insisted another.
Hazel studied the handbill closest to her—cheerful lettering promised prizes for “Most Creative Crust.”
Hazel’s fingers drummed against her clipboard and Tome-Three’s spine. Twenty years of perfecting alchemical precision potions in lava-heated cauldrons, and now she’d compete with housewives wielding rolling pins. Ego braced to compete with family recipes that had likely survived generations of Puddlewick winters.
She straightened her shoulders and proceeded down the cobblestone street toward the town center, where the most prominent thoroughfare branched into what appeared to be Market Row. Shopkeepers were already sweeping their stoops, arranging displays, and exchanging the kind of cheerful morning banter that made Hazel’s dungeon-trained senses tingle with suspicion.
Everyone she passed offered a polite nod, eyes lingering on her traveling pack as though measuring what sort of newcomer she might be. No scream-and-flee response. Yet.
An elderly man walking a turkey on a leash (practice for the upcoming parade?) tipped his cap. The turkey wore a small hat too and (almost impossibly) tipped it as well.
Hazel blinked twice. The turkey maintained eye contact for an unsettling moment before continuing its dignified waddle.
“Excuse me,” she called after the man, deciding that anyone who had trained a turkey to heel might have useful local knowledge. She adjusted her grip on Tome-Three. The storm-leather binding felt warm against her palm, like a sleeping cat. “I’m looking for bakery opportunities. Any suggestions where I might inquire?”
The old man turned, his eyes crinkling with the wisdom of someone who had seen many turkeys come and go. “Bakery, you say? You’ll want Pencroft, down at the end where the row curves. Can’t miss it—only building that leans like it’s had too much hard cider.”
At the foot of the lane, a narrow storefront leaned against its neighbors at a courageous angle, as though a strong breeze had tried to tip it over and it had simply decided to stay that way. Above a crooked door hung a sign in faded gilt: FOR LEASE VIA PENCROFT PROPERTIES.
A smaller weathered placard leaned against the door frame, listing the terms in careful penmanship. Hazel crouched to examine it, Tome-Three sliding against her ribs as she bent.
The rent was suspiciously affordable. Hazel performed the mental arithmetic she’d once used to calculate goblin wages. With her savings, she had two to three months of runway if she ate mostly bread and didn’t indulge in luxuries like gold baking pans.
“No pressure, Ladies,” she murmured to Control and Chaos, who responded with synchronized twitches.
The door creaked open at her touch. Inside, dust motes danced in the sunbeams that slanted through grimy windows. The air smelled of stale yeast, forgotten spices, and—most importantly—potential.
“Hello?” she called, her voice echoing slightly in the empty space.
A shuffling sound emerged from the back, followed by a dwarf with a magnificent beard separated into three neat braids, each fastened with a copper clasp. He wore a waistcoat with too many pockets and carried a ledger bound in leather the color of well-baked bread.
He took in Hazel’s size. Not quite the usual oh-gods-a-potenial-boss-monster expression she’d grown accustomed to, but something more like a shopkeeper calculating whether she might accidentally break his merchandise just by existing.
“Good morrow, good morrow,” the dwarf said, voice pitched with the careful cheer of someone trying to make a sale. “My name is Pencroft. Are you perhaps interested in the property?”
Hazel nodded, sweeping her gaze across the interior. The space stretched back farther than she’d expected—enough room for proper workstations, maybe even a display case near the front window.
“Previous tenant was a pristine baker of breads,” the dwarf continued, following her line of sight. “Lovely woman who vacated rather—ah—suddenly.”
Hazel moved toward the back of the shop, where two brick ovens squatted like sleeping dragons. Their mouths gaped dark and cold.
As she touched them, something in Hazel’s chest thrummed, distant yet melodic. Not the Triune’s siren pull—she’d recognize that thunderous chord anywhere. This was gentler, like the clink of teaspoons against china: possibility.
“The ovens work?” she asked.
“Oh yes. Though I should mention there have been a few minor… incidents. Unpredictable cold spots, bunt pans with odd-looking scorch marks, that sort of thing,” he said, fingers fidgeting with his waistcoat buttons as his eyes darted toward the ceiling corners.
Hazel, who had once scheduled maintenance for lava pits while fending off paladin raids, found this adorably quaint. “Cold spots can be calibrated,” she said, running a hand over the nearest oven’s cool bricks. “And I’ve dealt with worse than a scorched pan.”
“Excellent attitude!” Pencroft beamed.
“Thank you. Um, when was this last inspected?” she asked.
“Four months ago. Certified safe but, er”—Pencroft gestured at the walls—“temperamental. I can fetch the paperwork if you like.”
“Please do.” Hazel crouched before the oven again. She traced the keystone rune—dormant, benign. A seasoning spell, old but serviceable.
She flexed both of her biceps, as if squeezing twin stress balls, then stood.
Pencroft handed her a parchment covered in neat script, which she scanned with the efficiency of someone who had once reviewed troll union contracts. Most terms were standard, even friendly. But her eyes caught on one modest clause near the bottom:
Submit product list to Puddlewick Small Business Council to ensure civic harmony.
Hazel arched an eyebrow—an expression that once made goblin squadrons rethink life choices. “Civic harmony?” she asked, tapping the clause.
Pencroft cleared his throat. “Merely a formality. We’re a traditional town with traditional tastes. The council likes to ensure new ventures complement rather than disrupt our… culinary ecosystem.”
Hazel considered this. “I was thinking of specializing in cookies.”
Pencroft’s brow furrowed. “Not pies?”
“Cookies,” she confirmed.
“And those would be?”
Hazel had tamed fire-breathing dragons and negotiated goblin labor disputes, but explaining cookies to someone who’d never heard of them felt oddly daunting. “They’re… small, round, celebratory joy. Portable happiness.”
Pencroft looked perplexed, as if she’d suggested selling dragon scales as pocket handkerchiefs. “I’m not too familiar with these… cookies. Are they like a small Thanksgiving pie, perhaps?”
“Sort of,” Hazel said. “But flatter.”
“Hmmm, well that’s something,” he said, clearly not impressed.
The conversation triggered a memory—one of the rare bright spots from her dungeon days. A bard had dropped his satchel while fleeing (after an ill-advised attempt to compose an ode about the Source’s tendrils). Inside his satchel were strange, flat, circular treats. She and her sisters had shared them, sitting on dungeon rubble, laughing like people who had futures ahead of them instead of endless cycles of adventurer repulsion.
The taste had been a revelation—sweet, buttery, crisp at the edges. She’d spent weeks afterward trying to recreate that perfect balance in her dungeon’s improvised kitchen, much to her sisters’ amusement. Now she could finally get close to that taste. Now, she could share that simple joy with others.
Pencroft stroked one of his braids thoughtfully. “Well, the clause doesn’t specify what you can’t sell, only that innovation should be… harmonious.” He brightened. “And you’re not directly competing with pies, which is wise now that I think of it. Puddlewick takes its pie heritage very seriously.”
“I promise I have no desire or designs on the pie market,” Hazel assured him solemnly.
“Then I see no issue,” Pencroft said. “If the townspeople approve your… cookies… we can discuss permanent arrangements?”
With that simple exchange, Hazel Serenella Burn—once third of the legendary Ember Triune—signed a lease for a crooked bakery in a town obsessed with pies and turkeys in hats. Her signature was as neat as her posture, each letter precisely formed.
Pencroft rolled up the duplicate. “Welcome to entrepreneurship, Miss Burn. Market Row will be thrilled.” He hesitated. “I feel obliged to mention—if you find whisks relocating, do leave a note with our Paranormal Registry.”
“I—what?”
“Just a precaution,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Hasn’t happened in years. Probably won’t affect you at all.”
Before she could press for details, he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him with a cheerful jingle from a bell she hadn’t noticed before.
Hazel thought of uncooperative imps she’d bribed in Hexenvale. She was sure she could manage anything here, right?
Hazel stood alone in her space, facing her new domain. The crooked façade looked less like a flaw and more like a grin—an invitation to reshape. The word felt foreign and thrilling.
Outside, through the dusty window, she could see Market Row continuing its morning routine—a steady stream of customers, neighbors greeting each other, the turkey and its companion making a return trip.
She locked the door, twisted the latch twice for good measure, and inhaled. Now came the fun part.
She rummaged through her pack until fingers brushed polished wood. Her clipboard, her only companion here would also be making a fresh new start now.
She clipped a fresh few pages to it and wrote in neat block letters: HAZEL BURN’S BAKERY CHECKLIST. Item one: Assess the shop. Item two: Buy supplies. Item three: Figure out what the hell a proper cookie recipe looks like.
Hazel got to work with a perimeter inspection. Draft from the north window. Squeak in the third floorboard from the counter. A rafter that looked suspiciously close to surrender. Soot clogging the flue. By midday, she had identified ninety-three distinct items requiring attention, each logged with meticulous care.
The list complete, she rolled up her sleeves—Control and Chaos ready for non-combat duty (Different battles, same muscles)—and began to scrub. Dust scattered before her like minions fleeing a failed raid. Cobwebs surrendered to her broom. She charmed cupboards against weevils with a whispered incantation her mother had taught her when she was small enough to sit on the kitchen counter of the family’s lair.
As she worked, she hummed her mother’s lullaby, the melody drifting through the empty space like a tentative ghost. For a moment—just a flicker—she felt the familiar itch of the Triune calling, a warmth spreading up her arms toward her chest, where the three sisters had once fused their power.
Hazel closed her fists, breathing deeply. “Not today,” she whispered to the empty bakery. “Not ever again, if I can help it.”
Her attention snagged on a floorboard near the back corner—a shade darker than its siblings, edges slightly proud. Hazel knelt, worked fingertips beneath. It lifted with a satisfying pop, revealing a shallow cavity the length of her forearm. A hiding place begging occupation.
She withdrew Tome-Three—storm-leather binding still smelling of wet stone and lightning—and laid it inside with reverence. “Stay,” she whispered.
The grimoire nestled into the space as if it had been waiting for her. She patted it once, firmly demoting it in her mind from “ancestral power” to “recipe book.”
By late afternoon, the front of the shop gleamed. The counter had been polished to reveal honey-colored wood beneath years of grime. She lined jars like soldiers at attention, and ate a few rations while she worked.
As dusk approached, Hazel knelt before the brick ovens. This would be her first true test—not just of the equipment, but of her resolve. In the dungeon, fire-calling had been a dramatic affair, often involving pyrotechnics and the occasional singed eyebrow. Here, she opted for something gentler.
With careful precision, she sparked a flame and coaxed it into the first oven, then the second. Heat bloomed, filling the room with the scent of cedar, forgotten raisins that had apparently been hiding somewhere in the brickwork, and—most potently—hope.
She waited, clipboard ready, as the temperature climbed. The ovens grumbled to life like old beasts waking from hibernation. When the heat settled at a precise three-fifty, she nodded with satisfaction and made a note.
“Ovens: responsive. Heating pattern: acceptable with minor calibration needed for left quadrant. Town: festival-forward with strong pie allegiance. Next steps: ingredients, permits, invention of a definitive cookie for a pie-loving town.”
Outside, lanterns flickered to life along Market Row. Townsfolk drifted past: two children twirling ribbon hoops, a cat paraded down the lane wearing a sequined collar, a pair of women debating cranberry glaze ratios. No swords. No siege ladders. The quiet felt as strange as it did lovely.
Fatigue crept up her calves—the pleasant ache of mundane labor. She stretched, biceps bulging.
A muffled clatter sounded behind her. She pivoted, defensive stance ready—then relaxed. A stray whisk lay on the floor, rolling in slow circles.
“Hello?” she called softly, wondering if it fell unaided or not.
Nothing answered.
Hazel retrieved the whisk, set it in a jar weighted with stones. “Proficiency gained: Whisk Handling.”
The jar rattled in playful defiance, then stilled.
Hazel spoke to the room, though it was empty save for one politely haunted whisk and a hidden tome. “This bakery will be normal. This bakery will follow standard operating procedures or else…”
Or else what? She’d summon the Triune and become a boss-monster again? No, she was here to build something better.
“Or else I’ll find a new whisk,” she finished, then immediately felt foolish for negotiating with kitchenware. Twenty years of commanding minions, and now she was making threats to utensils.
The whisk remained diplomatically silent.
Hazel gathered her things, shouldering the empty pack that had carried her life from Hexenvale. Tomorrow would bring ingredient shopping, permit applications, and the terrifying prospect of actually baking something for strangers who might—revolutionary concept—pay her for the privilege instead of trying to stab her afterward.
As she settled onto the narrow cot she’d positioned behind the counter—sleeping in the shop felt safer than hunting for lodgings her first night. The floorboards creaked a lullaby as she shifted, pulling her traveling cloak over her shoulders like a blanket.
Hazel gazed up at the ceiling of her crooked little bakery. The stakes seemed both simple and enormous: teach a town what a cookie was, keep the Triune asleep inside her, and bake a life where cinnamon replaced sulfur.
She’d managed a dungeon, corralled goblins, and survived two decades of adventurer incursions. Surely she could manage a bakery in a town where the most threatening encounter thus far had been with a judgmental turkey.
The whisk rattled once, softly, as if sighing.
“Goodnight, possibly-haunted bakery,” Hazel said with a yawn, already half-asleep.
You have been reading Cookies & Curses...
The most dangerous threat to a retired Dungeon Boss wasn’t a hero wielding a sword. It was the infuriatingly optimistic apothecary elf next door who believed her bakery needed a little more chaos.
Hazel Serenella Burn fled her past to open Burn & Batch in the cozy town of Puddlewick. No monster mobs. No adventurers. Just precisely measured magic.
Then she accidentally unleashed a batch of Truth Cookies that caused the Great Cookie-Quake, sending the town into emotional chaos.
Suddenly, her bakery is suspended by the rigid local constable. Her only hope is Oswin Reed—the warm, intuitive elf who sweeps the flour off her floor without asking and insists that letting go is good for the soul. To save her fresh start, Hazel has to team up with Oswin to heal the town’s baking divide.
Working side by side with him was supposed to be strictly business. She didn’t plan on his gentle support breaking down her carefully constructed walls. Or the way he looked at her like she wasn’t a monster at all.
If she can’t learn to let go of her need for absolute control, she’ll lose her desperately needed fresh start. But trusting Oswin might be the most dangerous—and delicious—risk she’s ever taken.
