The blade came down towards him, far bigger than he was, and Gelt jumped to the side. Despite the sword being rusted, it still cracked the ground underneath. The apparition was towering, her hands able to crush two men in a single, soul-breaking grip.

Kelst shot off a thin shard of ice towards the apparition, but it passed harmlessly.

"It's a damn Rustwraith!" shouted Marad, then he turned to Haneteku. "We have to leave."

Another swing from a sword that had more in common with a thin tree than a blade, and this time it scythed along the ground.

"What about Gelt?" I shouted back.

"Either he'll live, or he won't. I'm not staying here to find out." said Marad, then took off running with his enhanced speed.

Haneteku emerged from the darkness, knocking an arrow and firing it off. Unlike the ice, it stabbed into the Rustwraith. She cried out, but then turned her attention to Haneteku. He ran along a stone landing, firing arrow after arrow to draw her attention.

It worked, as the Rustwraith screamed, then rushed towards him, scraping her hand across the ground to grab him.

Gelt reached into the satchel besides him, and brought out a round orb, fully made of glass. He tossed it as close as he could to the wraith, and it shattered, releasing a visible teal gas that floated up to the wraith.

The wraith cried out in pain, then threw itself into one of the rusted plates.

"Get together!" Gelt shouted, and they converged onto the centre of the room. Gelt, Kelst and Haneteku stood with their backs to each other, flicking their gazes around the room, looking for the wraith.

Problem was, the wraith was next to me.

"Why you not aid them?" she asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "You do not even give scent of fear. Who you?"

"I go by Asmodeus. I don't aid them because I see no value in it. In fact, I'm hoping you kill them so I can take their souls. Since that's apparently something I can do."

"I do not know this name. Yet give off no presence other than smell. Who you truly?"

"I'm nobody, right now. But I plan to be incredibly strong. Perhaps we could come to an arrangement. I require an investment…"

She floated slightly closer.

"You wish to make deals now, so close to death?"

"I don't think you'll kill me. I can tell, you're curious as all hell."

She brought her sword up, now a much smaller size, and pointed it at my neck.

"It is true. I am curious. Speak. Souls are mine, but other deal possible."

"That fog stuff hurts you in some way, doesn't it? That, and it makes you smaller."

She didn't slice my throat, so I assumed I was alright to speak again.

"I think you're quite powerful, and quite old. Because of that, you're probably smart too. I think you'll see the benefits of a deal where I take the orbs from them so they can't harm you. In return, I want a boon from you. They can't really hurt you if they don't have the orbs."

I was going by some strands of logic there. The arrows didn't really hurt the wraith so much as piss it off, but when that mist came out of the flask, she hightailed it out of there.

She was silent for a second.

"What is this boon?"

"I want an adornment from you."

She tilted her head slightly, and I spoke again.

"I assume it is possible to take an adornment without your death?"

She nodded, slowly.

"I grant you something no longer need. Soon, I am become many in rebirth. This is fair deal. Go, take flask."

She began to float back into the wall.

"Hold on. It'd be better if you chase me down to them, then disappear again."

She floated behind me and let off a scream, which I took as my cue to run. I ran like I was actually afraid, jumping from the top of the stone down onto the main floor below. It was a longer drop than I'd thought, but still not enough to actually hurt. Maybe a meter or so, if that.

I ran towards the group, who braced, ready to throw a flask. I scrambled towards them and 'accidentally' knocked a flask out of Gelt's hand. The other two threw them in my direction, and the Rustwraith floated backwards. Haneteku shot an arrow, but it missed as she entered the ceiling.

"God damn it Asmodeus, we need those." he shouted, then shoved me into the centre.

"Sorry, thing chasing me. Terrifying."

"Yeah, it's a Rustwraith. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, we might have taken some damage to our armour or so, but nothing massive. But this is a Matriarch, and one that looks to be ready to splinter. We must have caught her just before."

I spotted the bag on Gelt's shoulder, and looked around for any others. Kelst nor Haneteku had their own bag.

Well, time is money, they say. I pulled out my sword, and cut the strap of the bag before Gelt could even think about reacting. I grabbed the bag, dashing away from them. I got to a wall before they fully realised. In front of me was a rusted plate...

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"WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU FUCKING IDIOT?" shouted Gelt, who ran over. Before he could reach me, a gnarled hand reached up from the ground and grabbed him, then threw him to the side. The wraith was large again. The rest of her body came up next, and without any flasks to throw, Kelst and Haneteku were defenceless.

The Matriarch ripped the sword out of the ground, with noticeably more effort than the rest of her body. Once it was out, she scythed it along the ground, taking out Kelst and Haneteku legs. Blood spouted out, covering the blue-tinged stone in a deep red.

"NO!" shouted Gelt, charging at her. As his sword moved through her, Gelt realised the futility of his action, and instead looked at me. His eyes asked me why.

I didn't bother to respond. Now I had only hope that the Matriarch was a creature of honour, or at least valued deals.

She brought her hand down onto Kelst and Haneteku, and in an instant, they were drained of all life.

"You're no better than a soul-drinker." said Gelt quietly. I don't know if he meant me, or the wraith.

The wraith turned to me.

"This one I will keep alive. I soon to be splintered, children shall require nourishment." she said, then picked Gelt up, pinning him against the wall, shrinking her sword and impaling him on the wall with it. He screamed in angony as it broke bone and muscle alike.

"There is another, Matriarch. He ran back through the corridor." I said pointing up at the dark stone hallway.

She snapped to me.

"Oh?" she said, then flew off through corridor we had entered.

"Why?" asked Gelt, in a defeated voice. I would not have been able to hear him were it not for the absolute silence that now covered the room. "Why would you do this?"

"I made a deal with her. There isn't much more to say."

"You trust her to uphold it?" he said, then coughed out blood. "How could you trust a monster?"

"You probably don't get this yet, but most things that get to her age in fantasy aren't the type that do stupid shit. They have intelligence, and with intelligence comes to ability to think beyond just a single interaction."

"She's about the splinter. Do you even know what that means?"

"I imagine she is about to procreate."

He laughed, and blood drained down his mouth.

"Her spawn won't remember you. They'll kill you. She's just keeping you around for food."

"If so, then I die, and I can finally go to oblivion. But I know somebody won't allow that." I said, then looked at the ceiling. "Though I doubt she would have made the deal if her children do not inherit her memory, or at least, parts of her memory."

Gelt didn't speak again. The matriarch returned a few minutes later.

"It fortunate that night fallen. Or he would escape."

Marad hung limply from her grip. He wasn't desiccated yet.

"Another for your children?"

She nodded her huge head, but then shrank to a more reasonable size.

"If you wouldn't mind my asking, when you splinter, will you still live?"

"No. I splinter, children flourish. But they remember you."

"We could have killed this thing, Asmodeus. They didn't have to die."

"I did it for personal gain and nothing else. You won't make me feel remorse because of what could have been. The terms of your deal would have meant I got nothing. Maybe some cast-off adornment. The Matriarch accepted a deal for an adornment from her."

"That's what this is about? Some small amount of power?"

"Yes." I said.

His eyes were full of disbelief, anger, and sorrow. He shrunched his eyes shut tight, and did not reopen them.

"Our deal complete. Touch soul, and I will give what want."

I walked up to her, then touched her. I could feel all of her power, and the parts that made it up. Multiple spheres, for lack of a better description, touched smaller orbs inside. I could feel her strength as one of these spheres, and connect to it was something long, somewhat heavy, and sharp, like a heavy blade.

Esoteric, but I could feel it, the ability was some kind of affinity with a large sword. I dug in deeper to look at it.

If I had to put it in a gamey sort of way, it was a perk that would allow me to use a two-handed blade like a one-handed, only at reduced power.

What it actually felt like was my hand holding the sword, feeling the power of it, feeling the true weight, but having it be reduced by this… adornment.

I took a quick look through a few others, but none felt… right. Not like the sword adornment. So I took hold of it, and felt my soul pull at it. The Matriarch released it.

The fragment of her soul, minuscule in comparison to the rest of her, travelled through my arm, and into my chest, where I could feel it fuse with my body.

"That what you have chosen. Now, begone." she said, with a slight tint of restlessness on her voice.

I don't think so.

I brought my foot up, then stamped down onto the entire bag of flasks. I had carried them over, and she hadn't noticed a thing, too focussed on her prey, or her soon-to-be children. The mist rose up in a great plume of smoke, and covered her entirely.

She looked down for a brief instant, seeing what had transpired, and fixing eyes with me, full of hatred and despair. The mist was inside her and all around her, unlike before. She couldn't move, trapped in a great barrier of the stuff. She screamed unlike anything I had ever heard, so loud and piercing that the ruins rocked and the stones around began to crack.

For my part, I kept stomping on the bag. The glass tore through my shoddy boots and sliced my feet, but more and more mist rose up, covering the entire room in a dense fog.

The cry of anguish stopped, and the Wraith became to disintegrate. I plunged my hand back into her, and this time I was not slow and methodical, but fast and deliberate. I took hold of a small piece of her soul, gouging it out of the whole like an ice cream scoop does to a tub.

I wasn't even sure what it was, in all honesty. Something I would have to figure out later.

"Y-You killed her? Even after all this?" Gelt said, his eyes wide open in shock or horror.

"Yes. She was, despite her years, a little naïve."

"Then why make the deal in the first place!?"

"Because it benefitted me. Just like killing her now benefitted me."

"You are beyond a monster!"

I laughed.

"Yes. It's quite enjoyable, being free of all restraint. Something I never did in my old life." I looked at him. "Anyway, is that how you want to speak to the person who just saved you from being devoured alive?"

He hung his head.

"What's the point now?"

"Alright then, I'll finish you off."

His head snapped back in my direction. "Woah, hold on."

I walked below him, for he was impaled high up on the wall.

"I'm honestly not even sure how I'm supposed to get you down."

"I can pull the sword out, I think, if you throw me the green potion from Haneteku's satchel."

After a few minutes of rummaging around in an extremely dry bag, I found a glass flask with green, slimy liquid in it. I held it up for him to see, and he shouted in affirmation.

I tossed it up to him, and he caught it with his good arm, then drank deeply. The flask clattered to the ground, bouncing off the wall and exploding into shards at the bottom.

He put an arm on the sword, then pulled it with all his might. I didn't think he could do it, but then he seemed to get a strange surge of strength, and the blade came out about half-way. He grabbed the sword, then pulled more. After five minutes of grunting, cries of pain, and stubborn refusal to give up, the blade and himself fell the short drop to the ground.

He landed back-first, but his leather and metal helmet saved his skull from cracking.

Gelt sat there and wheezed. Meanwhile, I picked up his sword, taking it over to him. He reached for it, and I plunged it into his unprotected throat.

"You are far, far too trusting. Did you really expect me to take you out of here? You'd oust me instantly. This way I can explain about the Rustwraith, say you all died, and take adornments from both you and Marad."

His eyes radiated fear, betrayal, and sorrow. I pulled the blade out of his throat and instead touched my hand to his arm, feeling at his soul.

They had explained that taking too much would make it disintegrate. That was why soul-drinkers were monsters.

Well, guess I'm a monster too. I pulled his soul from his body, like pulling tender meat from a baby back rib. I managed to get a decent portion of it. Not the entire thing by a long-shot. I then did something similar to Marad, who was still out cold. I felt both of their souls disintegrate afterwards.

I could feel a bit of their strength coming through to me, as well as the Matriarchs.

Wasn't much, but I was a little more powerful than before this whole ordeal. I checked the paladins and the two huddled people, finding nothing on them that wasn't rusted to all shit. Not even any valuables.

I did notice the symbols. A symbol of a line, with multiple points marked on it. On the paladins, it was overlaid on a shield, and on the other two, a pair of hands.

Wonder what they were doing here?

I left the temple, using another torch to find my way back. When I got outside, the smell of grass and trees reminded me that the entire world did not smell of rotting metal, and that made me very happy.

However, the three figures standing outside did not.