Collected
Chapter 9
----------------------------------------
There was this ominous silence that roared within the Collector’s prison. The mist and seas were set aflame by that silence, the gaze of many soullessly watching the Beastmaster as he presented his kidnapped girl like an exotic bird at a traveling zoo. The Collector, most soulless of all.
“Don’t mind my guest, she’s a little broken inside after I did some unpleasant things to her family.” Beastmaster gave a sorrowful smile, the kind that pretended to care but really, really couldn’t be bothered to. “Too self-sacrificial, those lot, hard to keep them alive when they’re trying their hardest to kill themselves for each other, you know? Though on the bright side, she’ll make for a far better experiment by the end of this all!”
The Collector was frothing on the inside. Kamali could almost imagine him trembling, a quiet hate building in his chest. Hate for the Beastmaster himself, or the decision he was thrusting upon him, by showing his face? Behind his stone face, stonier eyes shifted ever so slowly toward the child Beastmaster held. A joyless husk of whatever she’d been, perfect for being stuffed with new, hideous purpose.
“I do have a finite supply of underlings, you know, so I have to stock up wherever possible. Got minions saving a few folks here and there for that purpose, but I think I can do something really special with this little one. Ah, but pardon my rudeness!” Beastmaster lounged a little in Dupemaw’s saddle, the spitting image of a contented sinner. “Have you been enjoying the sights, dearest Collector? Having fun with your latest additions to your group? You are such a quiet one, you know—”
“You have my Myra.”
Spirits didn’t breathe, but a collective intake of breath overtook the Collector’s prison, Kamali amongst the loudest of them. “Pardon?”
“That girl.” The Collector folded his arms. “Her name’s Myra. I had her marked to claim later.”
Myra grew astonished, gaping at the Collector. “Really now?” said Beastmaster with a tilt of his head. “My dearest apologies. I cannot really give her up, you know. She’s too good a vessel to pass up.”
“She’s too good a soul to pass up.”
“You do not need her in specific, surely? There are countless others—”
“Would the same not be said for you? I marked Myra, Beastmaster, well before you made your move. Specifically her.”
Dupemaw took offense at the aggressive stance the Collector had taken, fangs bared. It took a bit of cajoling from Beastmaster to settle them down. “An impasse then,” he said, his smile cold. “Your indulgence seems to conflict with my own. Please, Collector, I do insist that you reconsider. This is not a fight we need to pick—”
“Yet you do not back down?” questioned the Collector. “I have few joys, Beastmaster, and you are denying me one of them.”
“What could be so special about a broken child to you? The novelty? Some Role or Rule she possesses?”
“In truth? She badly yearns for life.” The Collector faced Myra, the young girl quivering at the attention he gave her, and yet the tiniest of nods came from her. “Your act only intensified that. You want a broken soul? You can make them anywhere, anytime. But a gem like her represents everything I stand for.”
Kamali couldn’t stop herself from gaping, too engrossed in the war between the two monsters. The Collector made no attempt at comforting Myra, but Kamali thought the girl was ever so slightly inclined toward him, seeing him as a lesser evil.
Beastmaster shook his head. “Passionate of you. But I still struggle to understand why you must double down on this.”
“Ditto.”
Something nudged Kamali’s back, and she turned to find a yellow spirit, a cloak around her form and her face set with conviction. Freya, she assumed. Earl stood a distance too, the scarred warrior’s eyes filled with steel. Neither spoke, but their minds were bare, open for Kamali to read their intents. And she understood at once.
The Collector took a step forward. Beastmaster’s firearm raised in the same instant, his arm clutching Myra tighter. “I really do not want to fight a fellow brother,” he said, holding Dupemaw back as their two heads began barking at the Collector. The soul eater tilted his head again, neck twisted so much it looked like it could snap.
“Brothers?” he said. “An interesting allegory, if it is meant to explain your selfishness. Do not test me, Beastmaster, I’ve already had a poor day and that girl—”
“She is my treat! I’ve earned her!” Beastmaster blurted, like the whiny little ‘brother’ he was, his finger tapping the trigger of his firearm. “I can’t let you touch her, Collector.”
“Why would I touch her?” the Collector calmly replied. “I have friends.” And he pulled into himself to grab a soul.
Beastmaster fired. The explosive shot demolished the paved road behind the Collector, a clear warning shot. “Your spirits can’t take me so easily!” he yelled. “Don’t try it!”
There was an undercurrent of anxiety within the Collector. But the cold rage burned through it. “Drop the girl, Beastmaster. You know this isn’t worth it.”
“I know it isn’t! I apologize, I truly do—”
“I apologize too.” The Collector let his soul drop back into his body. “But apologies mean nothing.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
That was when Freya and Earl struck. One with daggers, the other with his two swords. Summoned quietly behind by Kamali’s Spirit Call, their weapons pierced, Beastmaster letting out a pained howl. His hold on Myra loosened just a tiny bit, but enough for Freya to yank her away, the little girl yelping on instinct. She glowed with Haste’s power, as did Earl and the Collector.
Earl swung again, only to be caught off-guard as Beastmaster grabbed his arm and kicked the tangible spirit away. One of Dupemaw’s mouths turned upon him, and Kamali felt a chill as unnaturally white electricity fizzled inside its maw.
The resulting beam of lightning cut through brick and stone, Earl screaming as it clipped his arm. The other mouth had aimed at Freya, but she had disengaged already, as had the Collector, horror in his concealed eyes as he immediately recalled Earl back into his prison. “My treat!” snapped Beastmaster as the pair bolted, electricity blasting a spot a few paces behind them. “Return her!”
The situation was bad, Kamali quickly realized. Though the Collector and Freya moved quickly, so did Dupemaw. They bounded onto rooftops and snaked through streets, trying to lose their pursuer, but Dupemaw managed a breakneck pace roughly on par with theirs, following close behind. One always had a snout sniffing about for the Collector’s scent, foiling their attempts to slip away under Beastmaster’s eyes. They once barreled past a group of soldiers fighting against Fervent Indulgent recruits, with both pausing to gawk at the sight of the Collector himself, seemingly rampaging through town — a sight made all the more unsettling, if not a little confusing as well, when a fuming Beastmaster rode past on Dupemaw.
The purple hounds with big mouths kept popping up wherever they moved, as if they’d been summoned there to intercept them. The Collector swatted them away, and Freya slashed, but more kept coming to block them off. The Collector released a scarlet soul from his form, condensing into a robed spirit that raised a burning staff, firing out bouts of flame that made the yipping beasts scatter to either end. Freya cast her Haste on him too.
Still not enough. An explosive shot turned a narrow street ahead into rubble, and the Collector’s moment of hesitation was rewarded as he spasmed, electricity washing over him. Dupemaw slammed into him, Kamali feeling the vertigo as the Collector tumbled and smashed through a brick wall.
In the distance, Freya cried out in agony, and then so did the little girl, Myra. Kamali couldn’t take it then. Calling on her Spirit Call, she hurtled herself out of the Collector—
—and right behind the crumbled wall, yet another minor sign of the town’s fallen state. Her mind instantly froze over, peeking over to find Dupemaw savagely biting down on Freya and appearing to actually harm her, despite her spirit nature. “I warned you, Collector!” Beastmaster said, his whip uncoiled and snapping toward the scarlet mage spirit. It too sparked with unnatural white electricity, the mage crying out as it struck true. Myra, for her part, looked like a traumatized mess as Dupemaw’s paws shoved down on her chest, squeezing the breath out of her.
She wanted to fight that? What was wrong with her? She wasn’t a fighter, and Beastmaster and his mount could kill her! She couldn’t die, wouldn’t die, she had to get to safety—
But then nobody would stop Myra from suffering a fate worse than death.
Dupemaw’s free mouth carefully gripped Myra at Beastmaster’s command, tossing her into his waiting grasp. “We’re done,” he yelled at the prone Collector, failing to notice Kamali hiding not too far from him. A group of the bigmouthed hounds joined Dupepaw, growling as they made a protective circle. “You’ve plenty of other tragic humans to find around town. Bother them instead and let me have my fun, will you?”
She wasn’t a fighter, true. But Kamali didn’t have to be one. Lingering spirit remnants were choking out the town at this point, the cries of the recently deceased a maelstrom of hate — her Shaman Role told her this. And with a touch of her Spirit Empathy, it told her they were itching to unleash that hate on someone who deserved it.
So Kamali gave them that. She cast Spirit Call. And with the natural powers of her Role, she directed them to a target.
They responded all too eagerly. A purple haze misted into being overhead, and the shades of fallen townsfolk broke out from their spiritual plane of existence. “What?” said Beastmaster, before flailing as the spectral, demon-like creatures swarmed him, screeching and raking away with clawed hands. “Gah! No, stop!”
Dupemaw’s heads cried out in unison as the shades struck them too. They tossed Freya’s spirit body away, firing out small sparks of electricity that drove back some shades, but not for long enough. The other hounds whimpered and ran tail as well, repelled by the wrathful spirits. Myra was yelling out as well, even as the shades ignored her, their loathing all centered on the chief architect of the Fervent Indulgent’s raid. The Collector had pulled himself to his feet, giving Kamali the slightest of nods, before charging in himself to take the girl.
Beastmaster fought to stop him. His soul-shocking whip flew about, warding off shades, and the Collector leapt to the side as his weapon struck the air beside him with a snap. “Quit this game already!” yelled Beastmaster. “You won’t deny me my indulgence!”
The Collector came at him. Beastmaster urged his steed, but they were too busy thrashing their eight legs about. The Collector vaulted over, shoving him off, the two grappling for the girl.
Shades clawing at Beastmaster didn’t stop him from wrestling with the Collector, nor did his tight grip on Myra. “Mine!” he yelled, striking with his free hand and legs. “Mine!”
Dupemaw had finally vaporized a good number of the shades with their electric breath, and was moving to assist their master. The scarlet mage spirit stopped him though — having recovered, his flames kept the wolf monster and the other hounds at bay. Freya was still prone, however, much to Kamali’s worry. More horrifying still was the savagery of the Collector’s tug-of-war with Beastmaster, with a yelling Myra in the middle.
“Give her,” rumbled the Collector.
“No!” protested Beastmaster. “You cannot!”
The young girl’s duress overcame her, her eyes squeezed tight and her breath coming in stuttered gasps. The Collector noticed, and Kamali thought she felt his emotions go hollow. Cold as death, and just as calculating.
Apologies mean nothing, a lone thought rumbled throughout the network of spirits. And Kamali gasped.
“Don’t!” she said.
A sword manifested in his hand. The Collector beheaded the girl.
Even Beastmaster was stricken into silence by the deed, briefly forgetting the shades tearing at him. Plucking Myra’s soul, the Collector gave one last kick that shoved the Fervent Indulgent’s leader back, before swallowing whole. The splatter of Myra’s blood was what made Kamali finally notice, in extremely late fashion, the complete lack of bleeding from Dupemaw’s many cuts inflicted by the shades. Beastmaster too. Only the hounds bled, if only a little.
“My pet!” Beastmaster spun his whip in a frenzy, scattering the shades. “You took her! YOU TOOK HER!”
A tug yanked Kamali, and she found herself being whisked away into the Collector’s prison. She felt the Collector run like the wind, just as she felt herself fall away into his spiritual world of sea and mist. Just as another spirit, new to the realm, was falling in too for the first time ever. It made her sick to her core, an illness that her Disease Cleanse Rule couldn’t hope to cure. What had the Collector done?
Her head throbbed, the sudden uproar of spirit voices making her mind crack. The Collector groaned, but his pace never faltered, leaving a livid Beastmaster behind in Gordius Town. His vessel denied, for there was no reclaiming the soul needed to power it.
“But I apologize,” the Collector finished.