The van accidentally tumbled into the bottom of the ravine.

“Get me out of here, lad,” said Hardhat. “Let me move, she’s coming to get me!”

“My second prey!” declared Derek-Derek, scooping up his poleaxe. “I killed a level two demon once. And then I spent two months in Barden hospital with broken arms!”

“Is that how you got your playbook?” Eve began to strangle Hardhat. “Perhaps I misjudged.”

“Kssssxxshxhsx,” said Hardhat, because he was being strangled.

“Behold the tenets of a Barden Knight, defenders of humanity!” Derek-Derek ignited his PDA; its screen shot out a beam of light so blinding that it even illuminated the bottom of the pit, and down there was the patchwork of rolling fields that stitched together the first circle of hell.

“Hm?” Eve looked over in interest, but not enough to let go of Hardhat, whose head was going purple.

Derek-Derek puffed his chest out and declared: “Evil is born of one thing: a lack of EMPATHY!”

And then Eve’s head was going purple as well. She brought her hands to her neck, clawing at it, grasping at empty air; froth spewed from her mouth, the whites of her eyes engulfed her pupils, and finally, after coughing up a gallon of blood, she fell to the floor. And lay dead still.

Hardhat took a long, deep breath of dry desert air.

“Is it over?” he asked. “What the fuck did you do?”

Derek-Derek tucked his PDA back into his pocket. “Without air, she couldn’t play a counter-word. Demons never think out their actions, because evil is fogging up their heads. When they realise the harm their actions have caused, they die, Mr. Construction Worker. Demons, demons don’t have a right to live in this world!”

“Blimey.” Hardhat nudged the body with his steel-toe capped boot. “A level-9 demon and all… did you really pop its clogs?”

“Derek-Derek held the construction worker in his heavy gaze,” said Derek-Derek, avoiding all eye contact. “There’s a damsel that needs de-stressing over at Canyon-B. Do what you came here to do. Banish her.”

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Hardhat nodded and poised his pen against his clipboard. “Don’t happen to have the time to the nearest second, do you?”

“Sorry.” The knight’s armour chinked as he stepped away. “The internal battery in my PDA died a long time ago. See you around, companion.”

“Never mind,” said Hardhat. “I better hurry then—always hard to get a stool to yourself on playoffs night.”

He stooped over to pick up the dead woman, hoisted her onto his shoulder, and then read the message she’d been writing in her own blood.

“GOTCHA.”

The two men suddenly became aware they were plummeting into the abyss. The last thing they heard before piercing the hell-barrier was Eve’s laughter, and her saying again: “This world is mine.”

A burst of wind peeled back Hardhat’s eyelids all while twisting his stomach into a knot. The ground was rushing up to meet them.

“Cast that spell again, lad!” he shouted. “The empathy one!”

“EMPATHY”, said Derek-Derek. His PDA shattered into fragments of circuitry and plastic before dispersing into the void. The ground got closer. “Wha… my playbook!”

“That’s alright, then.” Hardhat kissed his clipboard goodbye. “Oh clippy… ticking your boxes off brought a wee bit of joy to my otherwise working class life.”

“That checklist!” said the knight, whose helmet was so heavy that he fell head first. “Mr. Handyman, I didn’t know you were a Barden Knight too! Hurry, play a word!”

“This isn’t the time for a game of scrabble, lad. I’m trying to think of a way out of this.”

“Aaargh!” shouted Derek. “Exposition is one of my weaknesses! Call it a spell if you want! As a secret Barden Knight, disciple of the God King, you can cast them too, so hurry up and save us!”

“Are you trying to say I can do magic?” said the handyman.

“Yes…”

“Really?” He grinned.

“Yes!”

“Not just saying that ‘cause I’m about to pop me clogs and you wanted to warm the heart of an old labourer?” Hardhat’s smile passed the bridge of his nose.

Derek-Derek’s eyes rolled back into his head, not out of sarcasm, but out of too much blood being there for too long. He passed out.

Hardhat looked at the ground which, like everyone at his favourite pub, threatened to hit him in the near future. He twirled a pencil around his fingers as he thought. The surface got closer, and blurrier. He inhaled.

“ON,” said Hardhat, ticking off a box.

And then they were on the ground.