“You grab him, right? Then I crab him,” Toog said, dragging Dia’s box along.
“Let’s make it the other way around; you grab, I crab,” Arne said, holding the unwieldy box with the lid pressed to his chest so the rattling locking mechanism wasn’t the only thing keeping it closed. “No disrespect intended, but I'm guessing I'm stronger than you and the little fucker isn’t happy being locked up.” As if on cue, the death crab scuttled violently around in the box. “I guess Dia could–“ Arne stopped himself. A stealthy approach where they had to communicate by screaming would be absurd and they were already walking towards the archbishop’s rooms. Better to just get it over with.
He knew the layout of the temple from his snooping the day before and knew that the His Hedonisticness, the Archbishop of Debauchery, had his quarters in the temple.
Over his career, Arne had learned that while patience was a useful trait to have, once you attacked, you had to attack thoroughly and make it as devastating as possible …and make sure all loose ends were dead in a ditch by morning, so they didn’t come back to haunt you later on.
This was both an attack and a blackmail situation, and not even blackmail from afar. Actually, it was an attack and a blackmail-hostage situation, which was by far the most desperate he had been in about seventeen years. But then again, worst come to worst, he would die.
He cursed The Vampire in his thoughts and nodded at the large double doors at the end of the hallway. There were two guards posted. It had to be because it was night, he thought, because there hadn’t been any guards yesterday. Well, the guards had seen them, but apparently a man in a mask with a rattling box approaching wasn’t threatening in the temple of Debauchery because they weren’t closing in. He considered just terming it ‘special delivery for His Hedonisticness’, but he didn’t get any further before Dia shouldered her way past him while tearing the blindfold from her face and reached out a hand.
He wanted to shout, to stop her, to reach out and grab her purely by force of habit, but he saw the effect of her actions before he could do anything. The guards gave heaving, breathy half-screams and collapsed, Dia’s dark skin glowed subtly as the vitality travelled through her and then she threw the blindfold on the ground and blasted it, creating a small, smoking crater in the polished marble.
She marched up to the door, snarling, “Don’t you dare say a word!” and opened the doors wide. The spacious office, distastefully lit with garish lightstones in bright colours, held two men. One sitting by the fireplace in his underwear on a stool, the other standing with a large sheep between his legs, holding its horns. Everyone, sheep included, turned to look at them as they entered.
“You’re not the guards. Who the Hells are you!” the seated man demanded, as Dia stomped into the room, held out a hand towards him to steal his vitality and slammed the energy drained from him into the sheep, which gave its last bleat, blood pouring forth from every orifice, and keeled over, taking the screaming man holding its horns with it in the fall. The man who had been sitting on the stool keeled over on the floor as well, clearly weakened but, surprisingly, still alive.
“…Oh no.” Arne had been about to scream, to stop her, but after assessing the situation, it seemed… not quite as bad as he had expected. “Oh…” he added and walked over to the fallen group. “Pardon, which one of you is the archbishop?” he asked.
“He is!” the man with the dead sheep between his legs said. “I’m just a neophyte.”
“Thank you,” Arne said as Toog shut the doors behind them and flipped the archbishop over on his belly, easily overpowering his weak attempts to protest.
Arne quickly went over to the fallen man and opened the crate over his head, ready to run if things went wrong. The man screamed. A scuttle of pale, awful finger-legs were seen. Then the weakened Archbishop began kicking his legs and flailing his arms, which just hit the box ineffectually. The whole thing lasted a few seconds, then he lay still.
Dia laughed. “It worked. I can't believe it! That’s incredible!” she exclaimed and pointed. “Death crabs are idiots!”
Arne carefully flipped the crate over on the floor and hurried away at the sight. It was gruesome, and he realised he hadn’t really had time at the Crackerville orgy to appreciate exactly how gruesome. The crab was attached like a giant tick to the back of the neck, suckling blood and fluids into its fleshy sack that wobbled, contracted, and inflated, while the finger-legs dug into the flesh forcefully.
“So… midway goal reached. What happens now?” Toog asked.
“Well…” Arne tore his gaze away from the awful sight. “Honestly, this was ridiculously much easier than I expected.”
Toog shrugged. Dia was staring transfixed at the death crab.
“You, sheep guy,” Arne said.
“My name is James!” sheep guy protested.
Arne paused. “Right… James, then. Ehm,” he stopped, looking the man over. He was youngish, and still lying with the dead sheep where he had fallen. “James, could you please disentangle yourself from the dead sheep?” he asked and watched as the man got to his feet with some difficulty, gaze flickering in horror to the fallen Archbishop and back to Arne. “Thank you very much. Now, you are going to take us to the next highest ranked person here, James, if you wouldn’t mind.”
James seemed to forget the death crab for a moment and his lips moved though no sounds came out. “I…” he finally managed.
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“Yes?” Arne asked.
“I can take you to the bishop, sure. But she will be at prayer at this time of the evening and…”
“And?”
James was smeared in sheep’s blood, agitated and pale but somehow still managed to blanch further. “I’m afraid of clowns.”
Arne looked at him. He still had his mask drawn over his face, so James couldn’t see his eyebrow climbing his forehead like its life depended on it. “You know, let’s just have that discussion when you’ve taken us to her, alright? I'm sure it will all work out just fine.”
“Please, don’t make me go in there.”
“Of course not, I wouldn’t dream of it. Now, if you would just be so kind as to grab the archbishop by the ankles and drag him along with us, we’d be very grateful…”
James shakily but promptly did as he was told, leading them through the priests’ quarters of the temple.
They met one other priest on the way and before either of them could do anything about it, Dia had killed her and blasted a dent in a wall with the vitality she had stolen. Arne kept his mouth shut. They could talk about what was quiet and what was smart on a job like this when they could hopefully have the conversation without him having to shout to be heard over the laughter.
James stopped at a door, shaking as he let go of the archbishop’s legs. The death crab was happily attached to the man and seemed perfectly gratified to just keep doing what death crabs apparently did best.
Toog put Dia’s box, containing the empty death crab box, down, while Arne punched James on the jaw and caught him before he crashed flabbily to the floor, so he could put him down gently.
“What? Him, we like?” Dia asked loudly.
“Him, we think deserves to be crowned Pope Handjob the First of Debauchery!” Arne confirmed. “Talk about calm under pressure…”
“Calm?” Toog commented. “Or crazy? Or just more scared of clowns than us?”
“Does the why really matter? The end result was impressive. I don’t know how often you have people at your mercy– actually, I think it happens to you a lot more often. Wasn’t that performance impressive to you?”
“Come on!” Dia shouted.
Toog shrugged. “So, we kick in the door and negotiate, Charm?”
Unless whoever was inside was unusually busy, they would have heard them already. He placed himself next to the door and tried the handle. It swung up.
The large coach, like a noble might ride for privacy and comfort, was a surprise, when he carefully peered inside. It was standing in the middle of the room, narrow windows covered by thin curtains and painted in garish, bright colours.
The coach was rocking back and forth and sounds of …horns were coming from its insides.
“Excuse me, we are here to engage your divine services for a somewhat adherent of Debauchery and also the archbishop,” Arne said loudly.
“What!” came a woman’s voice from inside the wagon. “I’m at prayer!” she snapped. “It can wait!”
“She sounds a little like Dia,” Toog said.
“It really cannot wait, no. The death crab will have eaten the archbishop’s head if you take the time to finish up first. Sorry.”
“Eat his head?” came the reply. It sounded… eager?
“Yep, I'm afraid so.” Arne moved so Toog could drag the archbishop inside. And then James as well, before letting Dia step inside and closing the door behind them.
The sounds from inside the coach stilled. “Frank, you’re going to have to move your foot…” the woman stated. After a bit of scrabbling about, the door opened and a middle-aged woman with mousy hair and bland features climbed out. She was dressed in an oversized very pink onesie with yellow buttons down the front. She closed the door of the coach before Arne could get a look inside.
She looked at them sternly. “You better have a damned good reason for disturbing me!” she exclaimed. And then her eyes fell on the archbishop on the floor. “Oh,” she added. And then a smile lit up her face. “I take it he is dead?” she asked.
“Not yet, but that is easily fixed,” Arne commented. He wanted to ask if the priestess was aware how deviant her reaction was, but since it worked in their favour…
“So, what do you want in exchange?” the priestess asked briskly. She sauntered over to a table and poured herself a drink from a golden decanter.
“This woman,” Arne gestured at Dia, “had an unfortunate encounter with one of those things currently attached to the archbishop and it left a voice in her head she cannot seem to get rid of. We really need to get rid of it, however. If you can help, I’m happy to facilitate your promotion to Archbishop.”
“Hmm, let’s see what we are dealing with.” The bishop gestured for Dia to come closer, while she took some generous gulps from her drink. She walked closer, put an arm around the life-mage and grabbed her butt, still sipping her drink.
She said a prayer, Arne was quite sure, but it drowned in Dia’s shouted protests.
Then the bishop stepped aside, shaking her head in disgust. “What the Hells did you mess with, child!” she exclaimed. “That is abhorrent to the goddess!”
Dia took a few steps back, hands clenching and unclenching. Arne quickly walked over and put a hand on her shoulder to calm her, but she just snarled and moved off.
“But can you help?” Arne asked.
“I can't remove it, but I can silence it. With one of the goddess’ blessings,” she stated.
“And that will be a permanent solution?” Arne asked.
“Of course. As long as she commits to a strict daily routine of engaging in sensuous pleasure,” the bishop said.
“I'm not sure she even knows what that means,” Toog said sincerely.
“What!” Dia snapped. “What’s the problem!”
“You will have to do something pleasurable to yourself every evening!” the bishop shouted back. “It will please the goddess and she will extend the duration of her blessing.”
“So, I could kill a hobo or something?” Dia shouted.
“Murder is generally discouraged unless the victim gets pleasure from it, but if that’s all you got, kid, I guess it will have to do. You will know if the goddess isn’t pleased with your efforts if the blessing stops working,” the priestess yelled.
“Fine! Go ahead. He’s killing me!” Dia shouted.
The casting of the blessing was short and to the point, and when the bishop let go of Dia’s bum and downed the rest of her drink, Dia staggered a few steps backwards and stood still, staring blankly into the void.
“Did it work?” Toog asked her.
Dia just held up a hand. “Shh, silence!” she said and then walked slowly into the hallway outside and sat down on a bench.
“So…” the bishop refilled her glass and looked expectantly at the archbishop on the ground.
Arne drew his sword and ran it through the death crab and the archbishop with no hesitation. The creature deflated and the corrosive agent welled forth, but he just stepped aside and let it die. They watched for a moment as the vital fluids of both human and death crab mingled on the floor and muscles twitched for the last time. Then both were silent. Arne decided to let his sword sit, though. Just as a precaution.
He dragged the box that had held Dia for more than a week over, laid it on the side and began flopping the dead man and his crab into it. Toog came over and assisted, using the handspike to flip the corpse.
“Why are we doing this? She can clean up,” Toog whispered.
“I want it,” Arne muttered. “I have a plan.” Then he closed the lid of the box and turned to the archbishop. “Congratulations on your promotion. I’m very happy on your behalf.”
“Pleasure working with you,” the archbishop said. “Now run along, before I decide to call the guards on you.”