“We killed you, we killed you, and now you're going to kill us back.”

I didn’t know what to say to that because what the hell did you say to that? What did you say to someone you were trying to help when they suddenly admitted to torturing you?

Maybe you flew into a rage and took vengeance or turned your back on them, leaving them to their fate.

But I honestly didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing and just took her in.

I had never gotten a good look at all the different members of the party that found me that day at Anna’s house. Mostly, I got acquainted with two of them, the big guy and the other one with the sword.

But right in front of me was one of the people who made me afraid to go into town. One of the people that made me watch my back.

One of the fearsome people that took me down in a place that I thought was safe.

She didn’t look fearsome right now.

She was a frightened, utterly skittish, nearly psychotically paranoid, naked woman. Gone were the weapons and armour, with only grime left where it should have been.

In the back of my head, I had been afraid of them, and here they were, or at least the three of them, and they were more helpless than I was. If I wanted to, I could end them mostly on a whim. The last time our paths crossed, I had never killed another living being, but that had changed.

Last time, I had stopped myself from killing the bigger of them because I wasn’t a murderer. I didn’t know if I would call myself a murderer, but I had killed more things today than I had across the entirety of my life combined, and I had felt almost nothing while I culled the living.

If I left them here, if I turned my back on them and left them down here, they would likely die. They would never come back to kill me.

But looking at her. I couldn’t see her as a threat; I was not afraid of her anymore, and I couldn’t abstract myself from this.

Anna had talked about the valley's cynical, abstracted, near-immoral lords. The type of person who would look at where I was and see only an easy loose end to tie up. The type of person who could see a person like they were money, a product that generated wealth, a coin that spun either weal or woe, one side they kept and the other was tossed away for gain and they felt nothing at it.

I was not that person. She was not a woe I could just bury. Not a nightmare that would haunt me, not right now.

She was just a scared woman. And despite my killing spree, I still didn’t think I was a murderer, and leaving them to die would be as good as killing them myself. Killing them quickly might just be a mercy compared to leaving them.

I stopped and looked at her. Not in a weird leering way, but right in her fearful eyes, and I told her the only thing I could think of. I made a joke.

“You tied me up, showed me off as a trophy, and didn’t even give me your name or buy me a drink before killing me. Come on now, I can’t go killing you if I don’t even know your name. That would make me a hypocrite.”

I didn’t even mean to make a joke. It was a borderline creepy and entirely inappropriate line. It was the kind of thing that made me feel gross. The only saving grace was that I doubted she knew I was into women, which at least saved me the embarrassment of her thinking it was a genuine pickup line.

We just stared at one another for a few moments. A silent, not quite awkward pause where she just blinked, too stunned to even be afraid. It was so out of tune with the situation it literally stopped both of us in our tracks.

“I’ll just… see myself out,” I told her, gesturing before I turned to leave.

“Clara,” she mumbled.

I stopped, turning back to face her.

“Pardon? I didn’t quite hear that.”

“My name, its Clara”

“Well, Clara, I’m not here to seek vengeance. I didn’t know you were down here. Finding you three was a total accident. I won’t lie. I haven’t forgotten what you did, but just because I came to help a Sprite out doesn’t mean I will leave people down here if I can help it. I didn’t kill your friend then, and I’m not going to kill you now.”

She looked at me, fear in her eyes and some confusion on her face. She didn’t look like she trusted that, and I could understand that.

“Listen, I don’t expect you to trust me here, not as far as to leave yourself open to me. But I need to know if you can walk Clara. I need to find the Sprite queen because I doubt she’s here with you, but once I find her, I have a way to get you three out of here and back to new moarn, assuming you don’t want to stay here.”

“Why would we want to stay here? In this hole?” She asked, confused.

“Well, the place has some amenities,” I told her sardonically, “great security, no getting ogled, and you’re always the smartest person in the room.”

She looked at me, and there was a small, minuscule twitch of bemusement at the joke, bone not from it being funny but from gallows humour. The craziest part was that it worked to open her up a little.

“Security seems a little lax. I don’t suppose you know where our clothes are? Or our weapons? It would do a lot for my confidence… and for my chastity.” She told me, looking down at herself.

“No clue, but I could keep my eyes open for them. Can I just guess that you can move properly? I don’t know if you were paying attention to me when I told you what was happening, but you are being affected by dark magic. If you can, I need you to get yourself in order. I’m going to need a friendly face with your two friends because we don’t have unlimited time here, and they will listen to you before they listen to me.”

She took a moment to breathe, then nodded to psyche herself up. She stood, taking a bold, defiant stance. Then, as if coming down from a moment of determination, Clara remembered she had very little in the way of clothes and made to cover herself.

“I’ll check around for something,” I told her and left before the blush on my face made the situation awkward.

***

As it turned out, their clothes had been mostly recycled into Gremlin clothes. Their padded armour pulled out into sheets of new cloth. Their swords were taken away for who knows what, and their crossbows were gone.

The best I could get her was the cultist's robe, which was a bit skimpy but good enough to cover her up. Then she got to freeing the other one, still locked up. We were walking back, Selly resting on the dying man, their former leader and the only other one of the group left to keep him stable with her skill. With that, he could walk with only significant help from the big guy. The spears were poor quality as far as weapons went, but they were better than nothing.

They were far from well. Each of them had it bad with dark magic, and everyone was slow and on edge, not just the Humans but me too.

Every time I looked at the large one, a flare of the urge returned for a moment. The urge to beat him over the head still lurked, but it was just the memory of hatred. It wasn’t the fresh hatred I had felt back in the square. At least he was also carrying the skeletons; leaving them, there was no use, and between that and the wounded one, I wasn’t quite afraid to show them my back.

I had looked for the two souls, but they were gone. Just gone.

I had no idea where they went, but I could only hope they had naturally passed on, though I doubted it. Some souls had spent far too long in the lands of the living. Death suddenly doing her job didn’t seem likely.

Now that I think about it, the whole valley is a bit bare of souls. They should be around somewhere. Where were they all? Where had they gone?

The thought made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

I led them back towards the entrance, showed them, and then took a turn and found a place where they could hide to wait for me before I talked with Selly.

“Ok, Selliban, you didn’t find your queen, right? I didn’t see or smell anything else but the humans.”

She sighed and shook her head, her little head bits wiggling back and forth.

“No, not a scent nor sign of my queen, just human, human and a third human. Not even a sign that she was there,” she pouted, drooping.

“I don’t think they know either. I mentioned looking for a sprite, but they only knew about themselves.”

“Aye. She’s nowhere, neither up there nor down here,” she said, following it softly with a quiet, “Where has my queen gone?”

I felt for her; I did. I had lost others before and knew what it was like. If my mom had gone missing, I would have done a whole lot to find her again. If Anna got grabbed, I would be beside myself. I didn’t want her to get hurt.

I could have packed it up, but I knew it was just a passing thought. So I bit the bolt and told her my last idea.

“There is one more place we haven’t checked. I was just weary of checking it out.”

That got her to perk up. Her little wiggly antennas shot up straight.

“Well. What are you waiting for? Let's head over. The humans are safe enough. They can sit here for a while, lead the way, long legs.”

“I need you to stay with them, Selly. I swear I will get your queen back if she’s down here. But right now, the other three are too slow to make an exit if I get caught. I need you to bring them up closer to the exit.”

She looked crestfallen. She looked like I had just kicked her favourite dog. Or, I supposed, because they didn’t keep dogs, her favourite bee or whatever.

“They can make it on their own. Don’t kick me off now, not when we might be this close to finding her. Bring me. Please bring me! I can help any way you need it.”

“That’s why I’m asking you to bring them up Selly. I need to bring them out, but they are too slow. I can run far faster than they can and make it if I get caught. I also don’t have to worry about getting killed. If I get hit with something, and you die now, you’ll have died for no reason. I’ll get your queen back, and you can return with her in victory. It’s got nothing to do with your usefulness. I’m just oddly disposable, is all.”

I didn’t want her to feel useless. But based on her expression and everything I had learned about her over our time together, I doubted she felt good about it. She styled herself an honourable [Warrior], someone always up to the task at hand. There was no way she would not want to fight to the end.

But I didn’t want her to get caught up in something and die, and I needed to be in two places at once if I wanted to get the Humans out. She had done more than enough to help me with her skill, slapping some sense into me when I needed it.

Hells, I honestly wouldn’t mind fighting with her.

But I wouldn’t risk her if I could shoulder all the risk.

She started deflating, so I tried to annoy her by ruffling her antenna. She swiped at my finger.

“Don’t think I don’t see what you're doing. Fine, fine. I’ll accompany the Humans out. I just need you to acquaint them with me. I can’t communicate with them after all.”

“Thank you, Selly, I apreci-”

She cut me off in a huff. A bit of the pain from turning her away slipped into it as terse anger.

“Unless you're going to let me see combat with you, you don’t get to use a nickname. Consider that right revoked. It’s Selliban to you until you let me fight by your side.”

I nodded and took that one on the chin.

“Thank you, Selliban, I appreciate it. And don’t worry, you know where I live, stop by sometime. I’ve elected myself as the saviour of the valley. There will be plenty more where this came from. With my luck, I can nearly guarantee it. Now, let's get them ready to work with you.”

I introduced Clara to Selly and explained what was about to happen, and while they still seemed rather fearful, I could tell that the idea of getting them out instead of bringing them along reassured them.

Holding on to one another like children at the market, they wandered up through the dark. I turned to the second trail once their steps faded to background noise.

They better have kept her alive, or I am going to be so screwed. I swear that if she got eaten, I’m going to… I don’t know what I would do, but it would be drastic. You hear that fate, don’t make me do something I’ll regret!

Fate was not picking up on my messages, though, assuming it even existed as a tangible force.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Land, can I ask if the Sprite queen is alive? I don’t know if you know, but I feel I should check.”

It took the land a moment to get back to me, distant, uncharacteristically so for the strange force I had known for almost all my life. It was like the opposite of the grove with the Nameless. I would have thought it might have been because of my distance underground, but the land was the land. I was in the land, inside a corridor.

Strange enough, its voice back to me felt off, just like the change between before I slept and after, where the land had felt bloated, overfull of water. Only it was scratchy, like an old smoker. Scratchy and wheezy and a tad of something I couldn’t immediately place.

“No, know, where sprites go,” It whispered into my mind, “dark… too dark…”

As ominous as that was, it wasn’t going to distract me from my task. I followed the trail down the old stone corridors, old mines no doubt out of use for longer than I could imagine. How they still stood, I had no idea.

I wondered if this was one of old Mynes’s mines. It was outdated as far as I could tell, but back before my time, that’s how they got their name, at least according to Skips lessons. They got their last name from their mines.

Whatever they had mined, I had no idea. The land was incredibly rich in plenty of stuff, but most of the mining in the region dried up when they found out agriculture was more profitable, and they needed to shift priorities.

My mind was spinning as I moved through the dark, not in one direction, but spinning in far too many to be useful. I was thinking about the mines, I was thinking about the land and the feeling I couldn’t name, I was thinking about Selly.

My mind even spun around to my [Guide] and what name I would give her. It would have to be excellent, and I didn’t have practice giving people names.

My mind spun in the dark, and for a moment, it occurred to me that I might be suffering from exposure again.

I checked myself, but that wasn’t it.

It wasn’t external. It was internal. My mind was just spinning.

I took a turn and decided to speed up.

I thought about magic, about what Anna was teaching. It was slow going, or at least it felt slow going, but I had a feeling there was a point to it.

“I’m going to try and help. Make it less dark if I can.”I sent to the Land.

The land didn’t respond. I didn’t know if it could hear me.

I decided to try and clear my head, and I realized I had a tool for it or a skill.

[Wisdom Proficiency]. It was passive, always going in the background, just like my [Tool Proficiency], but I decided to focus on it and clear my mind. Deep breath, in… then out. In and out.

Focusing on it, I could feel my mind slow, the spinning not halting but my mind letting go of them.

This is nice… I should have this on all the time.

The feeling of a clear mind was intoxicating.

Now that I can focus… let's get all of my senses up and ready. I should poke around with [Magi] for anything out of place… Not much out of place, earth and darkness… And something that looks like light but isn’t light… Dark? Normal darkness? I didn’t even know that was a thing.

I got myself ready and focused on myself as I moved through the dark shafts, the scent growing ever closer.

It took ten minutes of scuttling around in the dark, and as I did, I got acquainted with the skill.

I had a thought pop into my head as I did run through the dark, though. I had a feeling I didn’t know enough about my skills. I relied on them, like everyone else, but I had a feeling that I didn’t know enough.

Gods, exceptfordeath, I really am an idiot. I should read a book about it. It’s so basic, but at the same time, so is all my knowledge. How much do I know, and what's the difference between that, and how much do I think I know?

Anna might be forgetful, but I’m the same. I keep looking for answers in people instead of in books. They literally exist to give people information. Skipseo's bloody library is ripe for the plundering even if I don’t bring it all back, and Anna's personal collection is right at my fingertips whenever I want to read. If I want to live up to my words, I need to stop being passive. I need to actively do things other than sit on my hands and wait. Training is all good, but I also need to make sure I’m not just going through the movements.

I thought through what I was going to do later all the way until I saw a room through the wall, and I started sneaking.

The room was a significant size and had plenty of noise coming from it once I circled around and approached the entrance.

I peeked in through the stone passage and found a sight that gave me chills. The room, or more accurately, the building, was very large indeed. Stone walls formed a giant semi-circular room with three levels. I could spot on the wall engravings that made little sense to me. Pictures on pictures of a strange style lined the room.

The layers were staggered, like giant circular steps. Two ramps led down the sides in place of steps, meeting at the top layer and moving around a third of the circle to reach the bottom.

The time needed to carve the room alone couldn’t have been sidestepped with magic.

There were stone altars on each tier, and the engravings around them were kept separate from the walls. They were similar to those in the old church, to my eye, which made each an altar to a god. The room was a holy place.

A holy place with strange-looking gods.

At the bottom in the center was an obelisk covered in strange pictures with an altar at the base, facing towards me.

The room must have been ancient. Whoever had carved it was far older than I.

The room was also packed, chittering voices calling out to one another as they worked. Thirty forms were around the room, some undead, some [Cultists], and all around the center. They were drawing circles and symbols similar to those on the walls but thick and harsh.

They set my teeth on edge just looking at them. They reminded me of a spell, the whorls and shapes flat but detailed. But it wasn’t smooth like a spell, with places that would catch mana if it was flowing through it.

It looked like a [Ritual] and gave me bad vibes.

At the back of the room on the lower floor, there was a doorway out of the large open room, and through it, the low light of something that was not flame but an odd light I could only think of as magic.

No sprite in sight, I took careful note of the Gremlins and then walked down with my undead in impression. They ignored me as I walked down and past the carvings and images of things I did not understand.

I did not want to fight this many angry gremlins with the undead as backup, but I did want to check for the queen.

Bypassing them, I made my way into the back. When it was built, it must have likely been a place for [Priests] a place for them to live and work. A big central room, itself too, was circular, with what must have been a pool in the center and arched doors leading off into other rooms, the doorways. doorless

It was a warren, lit by wibbly unnerving light that did not register as proper light to my magical senses. It was similar, but not. Light on the surface permeated everything coming from the sun in zipping lines of mana, this light was more like a ripple on a pond. Dark waves bounced around slowly before changing, sucking energy away from the walls and gaining colour, the walls in turn rippled that out farther, displacing the dark out and into the world.

The light came from lamps. Each a ghastly thing.

The lamps had souls in them: tiny souls mostly, a few bigger. Some bright souls, some dimmed souls. Each cried out to me, trapped in a construct of once living material, bone struts and a thin membrane like sausage casings instead of glass. To cover the inner workings.

The greatest horror? The pool was full of disembodied souls. The fabric was slanted in so minorly it had gone unnoticed. The only obvious point was the lowest part; it was like they had dropped a stone on a firmly held bed sheet. The pool had a ring of the same scrawl around it that the Gremlins were drawing out in the main room. Each line hummed with stuffy, dark power. It slowed the mana in the room, intentionally generating the dark pools of magic that travelled in lines to the lamps.

How many are there? How was this even done? They’ve distorted the veil between life and death. What even is this? What kind of terrible power could even distort that? A Demon? A God?

I would get them out, but I needed to play it smart first. I could practically hear my [Guide] talking about me blowing up my soul again

“I am sorry,” I whispered, “Wait just a little longer, I will be back. I’ll save you.”

I walked deeper into the warrens, peaking into rooms. They had lights near the doors feeding off lines that ran into each room.

One had what looked like a workshop for bone shaping; strange sigils leading back to the pool sat next to more unfinished lamps.

One room was what looked like a room or perhaps a study. One room was a large open room with an additional ritual in it. The line between it and the pool was broken. On and on they went. One room had tools, and I noted something that would help me later. A pickaxe.

Each room was surprisingly organized for the Gremlins, most of whom seemed very haphazard.

But one room was not like the others; one room alone had an occupant.

I had to use my ears to listen instead of my senses because the figure, whoever they were, emitted a cloud of dark power around them.

Whatever it was, it muttered to itself, and for the first time in a long time, it did it in a language I could understand.

I stopped, immediately thinking of a plan to attack it, and decided to listen in on it as it muttered.

“LiEnes all wrong. Not right, no for plan. It must be perfect. Must be, Must be. Line wrong, must redo. Complex, necessary complex…”

It had a hoarse, warbly voice, far too light for the way it spoke. Like it was speaking through a perforated tube into a wind chime, it made a snapping noise at the end of its thought that gave me the jitters before letting out a noise that was not human, not Kobold either. It sounded more like a demented bird, a warbling shrieking, “Ee’Yyah” noise before the rasping voice drifted to a new thought.

“Ee’Yes… Need more bone… Need more, much more. More… Must send weak ones… Weakest ones? Weakest ones where? South… South for Weakones… Ee’Yyahs... EEe’Yah.”

Its bones broke once again, and again it shrieked, its rambles shifting before its tone changed to a less chime-like tone.

“Must spread the gift… E’yes. Just like she asked. Spread… Spread and Spread with Sprite… Good Sprite? Yes, you are… Will do as asked… Soon… Almost ready. Will join us…”

There was a tapping noise, a rattle of bone as it did something.

Jackpot… Now, all I need to do is wack it dead and run. If I can do it quick enough, I can even break the stuff in here quietly after, waltz out, no one the wiser, and get home before dinner.

I readied myself, judging the voice and what I knew of the other rooms to get a picture of this one.

This she it speaks of seems important, Skipseo and Kindly mentioned a woman too… It must be connected somehow. Maybe she's the one who did this, a proper scary [Necromancer]. If so, this one must be a pushover, a minion left in charge of some mooks. At least that’s reassuring.

I took a breath, turned the corner and was met face-to-face with something that made my heart skip a beat.

When Anna had called the Goblins Monsters, it had scared me. At least in my time, the term was not casual.

A Monster was not a savage beast or evil person. A Monster was a thing of nightmares. They were stories you told kids to get them to go to bed at night. They were things that took many forms, sometimes like a beast or sometimes upright. That was not what mattered.

According to Kindly, a Monster was like concentrated pure evil manifested in physical form.

When the Kirin died, they split into twelve creatures. Their deaths created new life to take the place of those that came before. But when the Darkness died or was defeated, the stories were never specific; it gave birth to Monsters by taking the things around it and warping them into horrors to continue its work.

Just like the thing in front of me.

It peeled the lips back from its maws, horrid, fanglike teeth showing the facsimile of a grin. Its eyes burned into me.

It was a horrendous, misshapen thing. Thin, withered skin was stretched around its body, which looked like several Gremlins fused together. It was more like the giant skeleton I had found in the tomb than a Gremlin in its shape.

It stood almost nine feet tall, hunched in the room, its back bent at a right angle, thrusting its top half towards me.

“Tricked you, not dead thing… Tricked you.”

I didn’t give it a second thought. I blurred towards it and swung out for the most prominent head. I reached for every skill that was applicable. I checked the Mana with [Magi] for any movement of the dark around me while I pumped Mana into [Wellspring of Renewal], immediately beginning to burn through my reserves and flooding the room with life mana that would rapidly begin converting to death mana.

It was pathetic compared to just the aura of Vile darkness that swirled around the thing, let alone the amount inside of it.

I slammed my shovel into its head, and [Rapid Action] slammed it a second time just for good measure. The bone snapped under my heavy blows, but it didn’t fall. Instead of gurgling, its arms and body jerked sporadically, flailing out at me.

I backed up, dodging out of the way of its arms, its body shifting unnaturally, forcing me to block one arm quickly with no time to brace.

The force of the tap forced me to slide, nearly toppling me before I managed to get another foot under me. Instead of falling, I slid 5 feet to the side; one of the loops of cording that held my sandals together snapped from the tension, but I still stood. The hit knocked an oof of air from me, but the moment it stopped hitting me, the second my shovel was free, I replied to it by slamming into its head again, just further back, trying to find wherever its neck was.

It shook and shuttered as I tried to force my shovel deeper into its head.

The death mana from my Wellspring started winding through the ground, the life mana extinguished almost immediately as it gave its energy to the rock, and I pulled it up into the air, letting some remain in the air, simply acting against the dark aura while some I pulled into me.

I drew it in, my [Death Magic Affinity] letting me draw it in like it was an extension of myself.

I wasn’t expecting it, but as it began to circulate in the air, one of the skills I had very little experience with gave me feedback. It was as if the part of me Willed itself to be used, and I let it.

“[Tenebral Bane].”

The effect was explosive.

Literally and metaphorically.

I let my mana fill the skill, giving it as much as it could take. The mana in my body swelled slightly from the death mana I pulled in, that was expected, but what I hadn’t expected was for the skill to affect it as it left me to empower the skill. The skill cut through the dense, dimmed magic that was present in my reserves. It was like filling a bucket and pouring out a keg of mana. Far too much for me to control, it slipped my metaphorical grip, and the skill exploded to life.

Then, the death mana in the air ripped through the Tenebra, releasing the condensed energy in nearly an instant.

The force of the mana expanding slammed me out of the open door, tumbling as I caught the arched doorway. I rolled ass over kettle into the pool of souls and fell right to the bottom, the souls not tangible enough to stop my fall.

The next moment was agony, the souls screaming alongside me, not audibly, but in the same way, the skeletons had, a prickle of understanding that crept from [Wisdom Proficiency]. What I felt was my soul. It had to be. I was screaming through my soul. I was probably screaming audibly, but I couldn’t hear anything as a trickle of blood left my inner ear, getting caught in the hair and fluff in and around them.

I could feel the spell around me as I became an unwitting pump for mana, my everything trying to suck it into myself, just as I passively did, but blocked by the circle, I instead drew it into the circle where it formed the dark taint.

I opened myself up for the souls to flood in, the chittering of Gremlins and two larger humans crying as they were shepherded into the beyond, where they could not be tortured by the array. I could feel the swell return, the sensation that I would level bloating like last time, though not as strongly as before.

Each soul was, on average, far smaller and gave less experience to [Saint of Death]. The feeling made me tear up, but my mind cleared as they departed. The circle started to gurgle, and once I was free of them and clear-headed enough to move, I got up and out of the pit, and it stopped sucking.

I wheezed and coughed blood, pulling the life mana that I still generated into me, desperately willing it to come and heal me. It struggled, only steering along from the sheer force of will I imparted as a need to live flooded my head.

My mind warred against itself, cool and rational, mixed with the heated need to survive and formed a whirlwind in my head.

I got up off the ground, one of the only things they both agreed on and in a moment of stupendous luck, stumbled to get my shovel.

The room was carnage, the mangled remains of the creature, Annas shovel in deep enough to reach its lungs, poked out through the caved-in head.

The cage that had been next to it, on a desk that had once held something, was shattered, reduced to splinters of bone that I couldn’t even see.

It cut through my head then that I had killed her, if she was even here to begin with.

I killed her, oh gods, I killed her and I didn’t even mean to.

I started to look around blindly, looking for a sign, any sign that I hadn’t fucked up.

I whirled when a sharp pinprick of pain bit into my neck, and I slapped at it reflexively.

My hand hit empty air.

What was…

A Sprite buzzed inaudibly up to my face and started gesturing at stuff, emphatic about something.

I blinked and shook my head, pointing to my ears as I let out a sigh.

This wasn’t Selly, which meant that it was the queen.

I looked at the shovel as the tension lifted, my solemn tool.

I had seen another along with the pick. I was going to go, about to leave, when I spotted the soul of the Monster.

Black, dark enough that I didn’t believe it was a soul for a moment, images played inside it, nonsense to my eyes, but to my senses a sign of its monstrous nature.

It was big, the biggest soul I had ever seen.

I started to move for it when I noticed a deformation in the fabric, the veil. It was deformed, and the soul was pulled back to its body.

A bit formed in my stomach, my ears popping painfully as the life mana finally got to fixing them.

All I could do was blink in horror as I stared at the corpse of the creature, its body beginning to writhe and crackle, flesh mending before it started to stand back up.

“That’s just not fair,” I griped.

“EYYY-es. You will do nicely as a gift to the mistresses,” it rasped, drawing out mistress into a hiss, “You and the Sprite queen, good.”