The talisman was sucked right off his back into the vault.
Daniel’s fingers opened.
“You know what your problem is?” he said, rolling to a crouch. “You keep counting me out. Geez. I don’t get tired. I just get out of the mud. Don’t trip, friend.”
Wendel turned around as the Tarnished Sword slid across his ankle tendons. The man in the gambeson dropped straight down like a tent with the poles pulled out.
“Wh— my legs. My legs! My talisman!”
Every eye in the camp snapped to him, faces turning ashen as the ravens swooped down in a frenzy. Feathers floated down, death veiling them.
“How!” Edmund cried, stumbling back. “You’re a monster!”
“Sorry, friend. What can I say?” Daniel put the sword through Wendel’s chest on the way down. Both hands pressed it straight through the pouch and the coins. It sank out the back of him into the mud. “Hear those chirps? The neighborhood loves me. It’s hard to get rid of me.”
“Oh, that was lovely,” Carl breathed. “That goes hard, friend. A fallen angel indeed.”
Asper came out of the tree line screaming. He was holding his side, tackling Edmund.
“I’ve got your back, Daniel!”
“What the Nine Voids, Asp!” Ralph screamed. “He’s a monster!”
“You’re the monsters!”
Edmund was sweating badly, face red, tears flowing from his eyes.
“This is a nightmare! A nightmare!”
“Asper!” Julia's voice, far off, as Maid dragged her off. “Asper, where—”
“Go north!” Asper roared it at the trees and leveled his blade at Edmund. “I’m not going to abandon a real friend.”
Edmund’s face cracked.
“You’re a monster. You’re wearing Asper’s skin! You fiend!”
“What the—”
Daniel lost track of the pair as chestnut hair hit him like a boulder at the waist. She came in low and silent, abandoning her weapon. They hit a patch of frozen mud, sliding with two hundred pounds of angry woman, with all her armor, pressing him down.
“His hands!” Marg screamed. “I’ll grapple him. Pin him to the ground! Spears!”
She smashed his wrist with her gauntlet, loosening his grip and slapping the sword away.
Daniel was just smiling.
“Always the wrong choice, Marg…”
[⬡ Vault #1: Treasure Chest &] Activated.
Marg went stiff as he pressed the slip of paper against her chest and shoved.
“No. No! No! Ralph! Ralph, I can’t move!”
Ralph managed to get a short sword under the main root of the ivy and sawed it off.
[⌖ Bind #2: Poison Ivy &] Destroyed.
Tears were coming to Marg’s eyes as Daniel puffed out a long sigh. He yanked the water skin off her belt, popped the cap, and drank.
Ralph scrambled up and held the short sword at him. He gulped, wild eyes darting to his fingernails sliding up and down the paralyzed woman’s throat. Daniel just cracked his neck, stretching out his naked frame.
“Man, it really didn’t have to be this way. Enjoying the talisman now, Marg?”
“Don’t kill her.”
Daniel lifted an eyebrow, leaning back to see Edmund’s dead eyes looking at the brightening sky. Asper was coughing, holding a sword plunged through his chest. Ravens circled overhead, and the remaining slavers were attempting to run. They were crying and babbling.
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“Haaaa. Last two who still want to fight? And I’m not going to kill you two.”
He pushed himself up, pouring the water over Marg’s face, making her choke and cough.
“Stop!”
“Carl, you could use two humans. Couldn’t you?”
“Who… Carl?” Marg was crying. “The undead. The ravens. You said…”
“The Dungeon Core,” Daniel confirmed.
Ralph dove at him, and Daniel laughed as he blocked the blade with his forearm. He grabbed his throat and threw him down beside his mistress, the sword still lodged in the arm holding the deck in a steel vice.
Ralph clawed at his chest, face, and hands, trying anything to find air. Gold liquid leaked out of the gashes he made in Daniel’s body. No matter where he struck, Daniel wouldn’t let go, pressing his full weight down on his thin neck.
“You know, I’m a lot taller and more muscular than he is. Pathetic, wouldn’t you say? But he is a scout. Isn’t he? You like the scrawny guys, huh?”
“Stop! Stop!” Marg shouted, forced to watch him turn purple. “You’re killing him!”
“Wow. Is this me being petty? Maybe judgy? Four years of marriage. What a waste. I guess I am mad it came to this. I gave you every opportunity. Every. Single. Chance. You just had to communicate. And no. I’m not going to kill him…”
Just as his eyes were rolling back, Daniel let go.
Ralph spun to his side, gagging and throwing up in front of Wendel’s dead eyes.
Daniel yanked the short sword from his arm with a sick squelching sound.
“Ralph. Ralph, he’s coming. Ralph!”
He couldn’t hear her through ringing ears, and Daniel pressed his knee on the man’s quaking legs for leverage and slit the back of his tendons.
Ralph screamed, flipping around and punching wildly.
Daniel found his hand, then his other, digging the tip into his wrist to sever tendons.
The cheating husband, now crippled and quaking, Daniel turned his sights to Marg again. He puffed out a long stream as her eyes met his, quaking in horror.
“Carl?”
The ravens fluttered down, watching the pair, their heads tilting left and right.
“You’re giving them to me?”
“That’s right, bud! They’re all yours.”
The ravens fluffed up.
“Your first gift! No. No. This is just payment. Yes. Yes. Just payment…”
“Nooo!”
Marg cried and begged as he slit her tendons so she couldn’t fight the weak skeletons. He stripped her of her armor, leaving her in her linen. The skeletons were too weak to carry her otherwise. Once done, he took the talisman off and summoned the Vault Card to store it. It was more than a little useful.
“No… No…”
Marg’s cracked voice kept mumbling the same words. The talisman seemed to lock her out of all her abilities. It didn’t work on him. Maybe because it was Clara’s Core, not fully his power? Whatever the reason, all that was left was cleanup.
Skeletons came walking up, bones rattling. They began dragging the screaming pair further into the undead woodlands. Daniel was already done with them.
He swiftly found a pair of clothes on a male elf who was roughly his size, if a little smaller. Then, with one swift slit of his neck, he tumbled to the grass and opened his eyes to his glorious angel. Her fingers caressed his face.
“Well done, My King… I love you.”
He blinked, and the forest was back.
Flexing his fingers, he forced himself up in the quiet field of slaughter. He pulled on the tunic and trousers, tying them off.
“Carl…” Daniel picked up a quiver and bow, testing the string. “You’re tracking those that got away.”
“Did you have to ask? And your buddy isn’t quite dead yet. Though he isn’t long for this world.”
Daniel hurried to Asper’s side. He was breathing, if shallowly.
“Hey, how are you feeling?”
Asper choked on a cough, blood coating his lips, face bruised and cut.
“Like I’ve got a sword in my chest… I can’t feel my toes.”
“Did they—” Little bubbles fizzed up from the blood pooling around the sword. “Girls.”
“Maid is with them. No one should be healthy enough to do them harm. We really made a mess, huh?”
“We? Brother…” Asper’s eyes came around and found him with a gurgled laugh. “Brother, you’re the epitome… You know I got a whole speech?”
Daniel looked around. Alys wasn’t nearby. There was no help.
“You’ve got about six words, Brother,” he said, adopting his word. “So pick good ones.”
“Ha. I’ve got more than six in me.”
“Alys…”
“Already spent her healing on me before… I took out four. Never thought It’d come to this, and over gold. Never know people… Daniel.”
“I’m here.”
The light was leaving his eyes, his breathing coming out more ragged.
“Get her out. Not protect… Out. I did what needed. Kept her fed… I should have done better. Julia needs better… Better… Julia is sweet. So kind… Shy…”
Daniel put his hand on his chest.
“I’ll see to it, Brother.”
“Good.”
His gurgles came out in lucid gibberish until he stopped breathing.
Daniel closed his eyes and sat there for a few minutes, catching his breath.
The dead ravens watched him.
Marg and Ralph’s screams had long faded to wherever Carl had dragged them.
A secret entrance to his labyrinth, he was sure.
The rustle of footsteps brought Daniel’s gaze to the side, seeing a tear-stricken face of a nineteen-year-old girl. Maid and Alys were behind her, not a mark on them due to an older brother’s ferocity.
“Asper?” Julia’s bottom lip started to quiver. “No. No. No…”
She stumbled forward and fell to her knees beside him, shoulders quaking.
There were no screams, only quiet sobs as she fell atop her brother’s stomach, fingers gripping his blood-soaked clothes.