We stared at each other over the counter, each waiting for the other to speak.

“How long ago did this confrontation happen?” Fascina finally asked. “And why you? What sets you apart from the other souls in here?”

I tried to remember. “Several hundred years, maybe? A thousand? Two? It’s hard to know when there aren’t any clocks. No sun, either, though even if there was, there’s no reason it would follow the living’s schedule. I can’t even go by passage of time on Soddit, since no one arrives in a logical order.”

“Sounds relaxing, to be honest.”

“Oh, how I wish you could take over.”

“Sorry, but I have a dark lord to kill. Er, actually – how does doom happen in the afterlife? Is it a case of wandering lost in the maze forever?”

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “Doom is much more certain. The labyrinth is infinite, though, yes. Take a look at your arms.”

She stared at me a moment before doing so.

“See those cracks?”

“The glowing lines? I thought those were part of the ghost aesthetic.”

“Well, right now you’re coherent,” I said. “That won’t last. Over time, those cracks will widen and you’ll start to shatter. Maybe in a day or two. At first it’ll just be gaps. You might lose a finger or two. Then the voids will get bigger. You might lose a leg, or your head if you’re unlucky.”

“Ah, then that explains Mothrow.”

“Oh, no, I decapitated him,” I said. “I put the head in a safe place for later, but then I forgot where.”

She eyed me suspiciously. “Shouldn’t you get it back?”

“Eh.”

“Wait a minute – earlier you said there were ghosts who stayed here for a while.”

“Well, the afterlife likes to dangle hope,” I said. “If you couldn’t tell by the labyrinth.”

Both of us glanced towards the window, where the edifice in question was busy distractingly licking the glass. Sliding back through the counter, I walked across and pulled the shutters closed. “Personally, I’d argue it’s easier accepting inevitability with whatever mediocre shreds of dignity you’re conceivably clinging onto. But if you choose to prolong your suffering, you could go out and hunt for death extensions. Spoilers, though: they always end.”

“And what happens next? Is there another afterlife after this one? Maybe with more of a moral judgement factor attached?”

I shrugged.

“Unless this is the moral judgement, and I’m being tested.”

“You really, really aren’t.”

“Well, the curse is obviously keeping you intact,” she noted correctly. “Have you tried cutting the thing out?”

“Extensively. Assume it wasn’t pretty.”

Fascina’s lips formed a slight ‘ah’. “Tried making a meaningful sacrifice?”

“You mean like trying to shatter my being?”

“Good point. Also, not a cause I endorse. Facing your greatest fear?”

“This is it.”

“Saving a li – forgiving your greatest enemy?”

“Would you do that?” I asked pointedly.

“So you haven’t tried it, then.”

“No, I have, and it was appropriately cathartic. It’s just been long enough I looped back round to hatred again.”

“Hmm,” she said, frowning. “This one is tricky. What about invoking divine powers?”

I latched my fingers together over the countertop. “Key misconception. The living think Soddit has a bunch of incompetent deities who need heroes to fix their problems for them. None of that’s true. They don’t exist. All of it’s Kaedhrakthys.”

“I’ll have to strongly disagree on that one. But I’ll accept he’s a deity I haven’t heard of. Aggranda was also attempting to raise himself to the position. If we hadn’t disrupted the ritual, he would have succeeded.”

Finally, we were back on the interesting topic. “What kind of ritual?” I asked.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Well, he hunted and sacrificed the six holy beasts, one from each continent, and consumed their flesh. Then he raised six towering pillars of blackest obsidian from their corpses. At the point their leylines intersected in the ocean, he raised a dire mountain of terror. That’s when the issue was brought to my attention.”

“Are you sure ‘disrupted’ was the correct word you chose, there?”

“Oh, yes – we caught it early. We made it to some of the six forbidden tomes before Aggranda, which proved critical in delaying his ascension. Fortunately, he inscribed the six dread sigils on their respective obelisks out in the open, so discovering them was just a matter of journeying to each one in the prophesied order and absorbing their dark forces.” She shuddered. “I hope I never have to do that again.”

“What are the chances?” I agreed.

“Anyway, while we were battling the darkest versions of ourselves, Aggranda proceeded to destroy all remaining evidence of his mortal identity, which he did by conquering all the continents and razing their cities.”

“I assume this is where the undead came in.”

“No, this was just his regular army. The undead plague happened after he sacrificed his six loyal generals for the blood of the willing, which he couldn’t do until after he’d poisoned the six sacred wells to contaminate the world’s mana.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Right? It makes sense when you think about it.”

“Are you sure you actually saved the world?” I asked.

“Absolutely. You see, Aggranda managed to collect five of the six vile artifacts, but our party member Acuitas procured the sixth by succumbing to the darkness and becoming a lich. We thought he’d betrayed us, but it turned out to actually be a double bluff that was only convincing because we believed it.”

“Why was that the only reason?”

“Because this all only came out in a confrontation in front of the dark lord at the apex of his eternal coronation.”

“Ah, right at the dramatic end.”

“Well, no. You see, Aggranda had split his consciousness by that point into the obelisks, tomes, sigils and most of the undead. The whole time we’d believed ourselves operating in secret, he’d had eyes on us, steering us into doing his dirty work. Every minion we killed grew the festering corruption in our souls until our minds and moralities were all but consumed, leaving behind nothing but hollow shells primed to become his new generals. But there was one thing we had that he didn’t.”

“The power of friendship?”

“Exactly! You’re a natural at heroing! With the last of our combined willpower, we were able to resist his control just long enough to activate the ultimate weapon.”

“Wait, which weapon? You skipped that bit.”

“That’s because it was within us all along. Literally comprised from the combined fragments of our corrupted souls. With the power of the activated obelisk nexus – and friendship – we were able to travel back in time to before all the razing and reassess our strategy.”

“Heading straight to the dark lord to immediately use the ultimate weapon on him again?”

She sighed. “Alas, it only had enough power for a single use.”

“Doesn’t sound very ‘ultimate’,” I observed.

“Fortunately, all was not lost,” Fascina continued. “Because Aggranda had split his own soul into phylacteries and hidden one on each of the continents, guarded by baleful dungeons. We decided to split up –”

“Friendship no longer useful?”

“Listen, friendship is a tool in the toolbox. Sometimes you have to prioritise it below efficiency. Anyway, we each took on a dungeon with our Dark General powers - which was quite enjoyable, if I’m honest - retrieved the phylacteries, and stabbed them.”

She steadied herself, tension gathering in her frame.

I waited.

“…which released his final form.”

And there it was.

“As he rose into the sky, spreading chittering darkness across the lands, hundred arms sweeping great swathes of destruction and terror across the battlefield, the two great armies clashed.”

I wasn’t sure how we’d gone from dungeons to armies or a single battle when the participants had been split across continents, but at this point I didn’t mind. It was a brilliant, if very silly, story. I sipped on my glass and barely noticed its bell was empty. Even the labyrinth seemed to have quietened behind the shutters.

“My companions and I fought our way through the dire isle, laying waste to the evil who opposed us,” Fascina continued. “And in the heart of its bleak citadel, drawn from the locus of the obelisks, we forged six mighty seals to banish Aggranda from the world. Activating them required only our lives.”

The bar fell silent.

“And it worked?” I asked, beckoning frantically for the payoff.

“Well, I didn’t actually see it,” she admitted. “I died. But I’m extremely confident.”

Close enough. All the effort it had taken to get to this point had been worth it. Just for a moment, the suffocating emptiness in my head had started to fill. Countless dragging years in the same self-restoring bar I’d memorised to within a millimetre – momentarily, blissfully pushed to the rear. Even if only briefly, it was nice not to feel as dead as I looked.

I put down the empty glass I’d been clutching and reached for the wine for a refill. My fingers brushed air. The bottle was already back on the shelf, unopened and full. I felt sober as a cold stone, or cold ghosts in general.

“That,” I responded in genuine reverence while I still had time, hand suspended over my cursed thrumming orb, “was extraordinary.”

“Well.” Fascina looked down at her knuckles while a smile curled around her lips. “It did feel good to tell it. Thank you for teasing it out of me. You’re right; I’m proud of my accomplishments, and should be. So I’d be happy to share any of the details in depth as you desire.”

“Hmm?” I asked distractedly, looking away from the counter. I could feel it all rushing back out already, carving back room for everything I hated. The loss and inevitability. The tedium. The – I forgot what. The reality. “No need to bother. I got the gist the first time. Yesterday’s news, as you were saying. And it’s not like it's relevant to us here.”

She gave me a startled glance in response.

I positioned my stool under the bar shelf and swept down the next bottle in line. It didn’t really matter which; I’d been through them all several thousand times. I held it up label forward. “Phantom palinka, fresh from the archives of Last Call. Want some?”

The spectre’s chin tilted for a second. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Suit yourself.” Pushing my finger into the neck of the bottle, I made the tip solid and popped the cork from underneath. I couldn’t remember the fruit it smelt like. Pouring myself a tall glass, I took a sizeable swig. “Ahhh.”

Fascina had climbed off her seat again. “So, about your cursed chest thingy,” she remarked in a suspiciously too-casual voice. “Mind if I take a look at it?”

“Mm-hm,” I mumbled, mouth full of liquid.

“Great!” she replied, and swung the barstool at my head.