As it turned out, the Mage Killer was terribly ineffective at killing anyone that was not a mage.
Or potentially, anyone at all.
After about two seconds of attempted strangling, Agnor’s arm went limp.
“Agh,” he complained, shaking it. “Stupid thing fell asleep. I hate when it gets all tingly.”
“You call that a murder attempt?” Akemi laughed hoarsely, catching her breath. “The only deadly thing in this room is the incense.”
Two putrid sticks of black incense sat on the center table. Agnor bent down and pinched the top of the incense sticks, quelling the smoke.
“It’s rather expensive incense, you know,” he said judgmentally. “It cost me quite a few sticks of it to conjure that illusion of your darling mother. You should have warned me ahead of time that you have such deep set motherly issues. I could have saved myself the money.”
“I’m sure you can afford it,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re this town’s resident tax collector.”
Agnor huffed, raising his slender chin upwards in protest. His skin was so pallid and lifeless, even his cheeks lacked color. He looked startlingly similar to a clothes mannequin at a retail store—his clothes seemed to just hang off of him; his nostrils were always closed and flat, his lips moved like a ventriloquist’s, which was to say, not at all.
“Tax collector? That is a terrible misrepresentation,” he said. “I am this town’s protector.”
“Right,” she drawled, unimpressed. “Just like you so valiantly protected their inn.”
He huffed, studying his nails. “I was simply out of town. It couldn’t be helped.”
“[Knife Fingers]”
In one smooth step, her sharp metallic fingers were pressed to Agnor’s throat. Her other hand held his back to hers, so their bodies were pressed flush together. A lover’s embrace.
“You’re starting to bore me, Agnor.”
All of a sudden, his disposition changed. There was a glint in his eye like he had noticed something—as if there was dirt on Akemi’s face, or food between her teeth.
“And you’re starting to intrigue me, Freja.”
Akemi’s grip faltered. Her entire body tensed. It felt as if he had reached inside her chest cavity and grabbed her by the very beating organ.
“What did you just say?” she grunted, trying to get a grip on her lungs. They felt suddenly constricted.
He offered her a dead-eyed grin.
“Ah, finally. An emotion. I obviously had been barking up the wrong tree. Most people would find issue with killing their mother, but not you, it seems. Your weakness is a little more... shallow.”
Her insides twisted. She felt a sudden stabbing pain in her chest. He wasn't so much as touching her, but somehow he was radiating pain throughout her whole body.
His smile continued widening. “Freja. That’s your real name, isn’t it? And yet you go by … Akemi? The two don’t even sound similar. What’s that about? I’d love to know. Why don’t you sit down and tell me?” He gestured towards the throne.
"It's not my real name, you idiot."
She used every ounce of willpower to ignore the pain and drive her sharpened fingers through his throat. She expected to feel the satisfaction of blade through skin, but it... didn’t make a dent. He smiled wildly as the metal bent around his skin, cradling his neck like a light caress. What were once sharp knives looked now like metal slinkies.
What’s happening? Akemi winced, feeling the pain in her chest only worsen as dissatisfaction fell over her. He seemed so powerless just a second ago.
“You must be so confused, Freja,” he said, then swiftly knocked her hand away from his jugular. "This is a brand new world for you, after all."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
With a newfound strength, he grabbed her by the arms and thrusted her into his throne. Rope bands rose abruptly out of the armrests, binding her wrists.
“You really don’t like that name. I can feel it, like having your pulse on my tongue."
She wrestled with the armbands, but they only bound tighter the more she struggled.
“It's none of your business,” she spat.
His hunch was, of course, true, but she wasn't going to give him that satisfaction.
To put it lightly, the Swedish side of her family had disapproved of 'Akemi', both the name, and then, as she grew up, very much the person. Freja had been her grandmother's attempt at covering up—as she viewed it—a mistake. A child who didn't quite fit the family branding.
Agnor straddled her in the seat, and to Akemi’s mild horror, his head abruptly ripped open down the middle, his flesh unzipping like a hoodie. All that was left was bloodless bone. A shining skull. Akemi’s lips parted in utter surprise.
That, at the very least, explained why he looked like a walking corpse. He was a walking corpse. An undead.
A screen blinked in front of her, re-introducing the subject of her attention.
Agnor The Undead Seer | Level 20 Mindshaper
“The undead seer," she repeated aloud, stunned. “How jolly. I suppose heroes come in all shapes and sizes.”
He threw his head back in laughter. His jaw clicked uncannily.
“You think I’m a hero? Oh, honey.”
He raised his hands—now revealed to be bone as well, with flesh draped around his wrists like shaggy sleeves—and clenched them around her throat once more. This time the grip was tight, terribly so. It felt like she had swallowed a boulder, and it was growing by the millisecond.
“I’ll tell you a little about myself, since you won’t live to remember it. I’m a Mindshaper. Not that these hero-worshiping idiots know that. The real Agnor is a rotting corpse in my basement,”—he flexed his fingers on her neck, and Akemi gasped for air—“I prey on the meat of the mind. I prey on love, adoration, fear. My power reflects the emotions I bring out in you. Freja.”
"I told you already," she spat, voice hoarse. "Not. My. Name."
Just as he was about to press his bony, lipless mouth to hers, in what she could only imagine would be an unpleasantly cold and likely fatal kiss, she managed cut through the rope holds on her wrists, leveraging her now-curved Knife Fingers. She thrust herself forward, and in that same motion, she shoved Agnor’s back toward her, ramming his exposed head into the throne.
Crack.
His head didn't completely splinter, but there was now a long, angry crack running down his temple. He groaned in complaint, holding his skull limply.
Standing behind him now, she threw up her hands, and attempted to cast [Orb of Pestilent Bloodlust].
[Orb of Pestilent Bloodlust] is on cooldown.
Damn it.
She had summoned it too recently to whack her fake mother.
What can I do?
Gazing up at the ceiling, she remembered how unassuming the building had looked from the outside. No windows, straw roof.
Straw roof. That’s it.
“Rat-thing, come here!” Akemi shouted as she scrambled forward.
Her head was pulsating, but she knew there was no time to rest—Agnor was already recovering, his cracked skull turning 180 degrees like a possessed owl to face her.
“There’s nowhere to run, Freja," he said, wobbling unsteadily towards her. "Once I’ve latched onto you, there’s no getting out.”
The pika was eating a wedge of cheese in the corner of the room, its flame-lit tail swooping back and forth. Akemi grabbed the creature, fisting it like a bag of chips. She shoved it upwards, waving its tail wildly around the—flammable, she hoped—tarps on the ceiling.
Woosh. Within seconds, the tarp was aflame. The fire spread like a plague, climbing across the ceiling. The straw began to smolder soon after.
“What are you doing?” Agnor said with an annoyed laugh, clambering forward towards her. “I’m a skeleton. Are you really trying to burn me alive?”
Watching as he encroached, Akemi stepped backwards slowly, until her back was at the front door. Her mother’s stupid tea kettle was still sitting on the ground.
“No. I just thought I’d let a little light in.”
A substantial bundle of straw broke loose from the roof, crashing down into the foyer. Sunlight flooded the room, eliciting a hiss from Agnor. Just as Akemi had suspected—telling by his curious lack of windows—the skeleton detested sunlight.
He lunged forward, careening through his bookcases and ornaments, and seized Akemi, gripping her throat once more against the front door. In response to the sunlight, a portion of his skull seemed to liquefy, the bone searing off, creating a grotesque indentation in his temple. Combined with the growing crack, his face was now a complete massacre.
“You—you,” he hissed, his knuckles burying into her airway. “After I'm done with you, I will command the townspeople to eat you alive for this slight. They will tear you limb from limb. You will be the laughing stock of every villain from here to Grimguard.”
His fake skin attempted to re-attach at the melted point, but the burned section remained stubbornly unresponsive, refusing to adhere. The skin then sagged to his cheek.
“I’ll be the laughing stock?” She grinned. “Oh, Agnor, just look at yourself.”
He screamed, pushing his fingers in, but the strength of his grip had noticeably lessened. In his own mental distraction, his mindshaping power had waned. This was her opportunity.
She schooled her mind to feel no emotion. Not glee, not terror, not even the pleasure before the kill. She surrendered herself to complete numbness, until his fragile hands on her throat were applying no pressure at all.
“Sorry, but.” She steadied the curled knives' tips against his chest. “You're really not that scary.”
Plunge. She drove her fingers through the fabric of his cloak until she felt something fleshy. Something that wasn’t just cold bone. Something beating that then, met with Akemi’s knife, burst.
Agnor crumpled to the floor.
*You have defeated a level 20 Mindshaper - 750xp gained*