I feel like if I had a button in front of me to bring the old world back, I wouldn’t press it. - Dennis E. Taylor

She was right, of course, but what was the point of being a curmudgeon if you couldn’t curmudge?

What deities give you aren’t rules of morality,” Theresa responded. “They’re just rules. Do this and you’ll be rewarded. Do that and you’ll be punished. That’s how we teach our pets not to relieve themselves in the house. One would hope that true morality involved more than learning not to poop on the rug by being rapped on the nose.

With that thought, I ran up behind the dragon — as a first-level grunt, I was barely worth paying attention to — jammed the staff of fireballs right where a rectal thermometer would go, and pulled the trigger.