"Perhaps I may have overreacted a little." Azrail commented as he swirled the brown liquor around in his cup.

Azrail lifted his hand up and knocked away a wooden mug that left a trail of alcohol through the air.

"A little? Hah! You were cowering like a child forced to confront the dark for the first time. And of course, you were also blathering about some civilization ending entity. A 'curse that haunts any civilization that advances too far,' weren't those your words?" Abraham mocked as he grabbed a fresh mug from the ground. He didn't even bother to clean it out before he set it under a barrel's spigot.

Azrail smirked as he glanced back to the threshold that seemed to separate the outer basement from the cask storage they were in right now.

"I stand by those claims. I've seen similar warnings forerunning the collapse of many civilizations." Azrail savored a small sip that interrupted his speech. He let out a satisfied sigh as he lowered the mug and closed his eyes.

"I can still see them now. The desperation. The fear. The utter oblivion. Those who find a way to touch the stars in a meaningful way are always, inevitably smacked back down to earth." he continued.

Azrail listed his hand again as he blocked another wooden mug.

Abraham let out a loud laugh as he slapped the keg and held his nearly full mug firm in his hand. "Seems he's had enough of your rants as well."

The hollow king was sitting against a wall of kegs. The end of his mouth curled up slightly in an almost imperceptible smirk.

Abraham walked over to the man who was almost indistinguishable from a corpse. He thrust a mug into an open hand, and the fingers cracked as they curled around the wood.

As Abraham stepped back, the hollow king's arm jerked up in an unnatural motion. The mug almost slammed into his jaw but stopped just in time in front of his open mouth. The precious liquid gracefully flowed out of the mug and into his awaiting mouth. Not a single drop was able to escape as it went straight down his throat.

"You know," Azrail said as he eyed the monster of a man as he drank, "many civilizations have stories about wild men. About monsters crafted directly by the gods to torment humans or enforce their will in various ways. A common theme is taking that wild man and making them human."

Abraham rolled his eyes as he turned his back to Azrail and poured another drink.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"It's really quite interesting. You see, in all of them, an important step is alcohol."

Abraham let out a derisive snort.

"The sharing of, usually beer, is seen as an abundantly human thing." Azrail continued as he ignored Abraham. "Something that stands at our core being. Like telling stories around a fire to comfort ourselves against the encroaching and unknowable darkness. Alcohol brings humans together and serves to guard them against the unknowable. Giving them strength, courage, and above all, spirit."

"You're awfully skilled at fighting for someone so superstitious," Abraham said before he tipped his entire cup up and drained it in one swift action.

"And you drink a lot for someone so religious," Azrail countered.

Abraham smirked as he refilled his mug. Without a word, he chugged down the entire thing again. "There's no tenets against drinking. Wouldn't that be inhuman according to you?"

"Perhaps it would, but I wouldn't give any group the benefit of the doubt when it came to inhuman actions. Get large enough, and small things like morals and standards tend to fall by the wayside."

Abraham kept smiling as he swallowed two more full mugs. His eyes fell on the hollow king as he was about to down his third. It gave him pause, and instead of drinking it, he replaced the empty mug in the emaciated man's hand with the full one.

"You can drink, but you can't let it control you. You can't let anything control you but divine will." Abraham explained with an almost unexpected sense of pride.

"But you're drinking quite a bit of an unknown alcohol. Aren't you worried you'll get drunk before you know it?" Azrail asked.

Abraham shook his head. "Thanks to the rituals I underwent to better serve, my body purifies the alcohol in my system before it has any chance to get me drunk. Even pure ethanol can't last more than maybe half a minute inside my guts."

"But nothing else controls you. Not anything like say, anger, fury, or revenge?" Azrail asked as he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

Abraham set the empty mug on top of the keg instead of refilling it. "Hmm? Oh, my desire to purge your blight is nothing more than my solemn duty. No emotions involved really."

It was obvious that Azrail didn't believe him. "You don't say..."

Azrail looked down into the brown liquid in his cup. His eyes almost seemed drawn as they shifted out of the room they were in and to the seemingly endless area beyond.

"You realize why we're here, don't you?" Azrail asked in almost a whisper.

"Huh? That's a dumb question." Abraham scoffed.

"Then tell me...Why are you here Father Abraham? What is your purpose in this lawless place?" Azrail's eyes remained transfixed on the darkness. Almost as if they were focused on someone just out of sight.

"Wherever I end up my goal doesn't change. I'm the holy spear. The weapon forged to cleanse the world of all iniquity...through the shedding of blood." Abraham's eyes looked up to the ceiling as he puffed out his chest. "The house of a woodsman, a city of millions, even an alien planet. No matter where I am, I will cleanse the wicked by shedding their blood."

Azrail couldn't help but smile. "So they have a chance at redemption in the next life?"

Abraham nodded. "Of course. It is not mindless. It is born out of my boundless love for others of course!"

He sounded more like he was just reciting something that had been drilled into his head. There was no real belief behind those words. They were flat like cardboard, but they were also obviously something he would never admit to not fully believing.

Azrail let out a small laugh. "You know, that reminds me of an old friend I helped exterminate a small count..."

Azrail bent forward completely as Abraham's fist flew just over him. It crashed into a support beam, and made it splinter into thousands of pieces. The ceiling made a slight groaning sound, but it managed to hold with the other supports.

"Maybe you can learn to take a hint sometime?" Abraham snarled. "No one likes your pointless and rambling stories old man."

Azrail just smiled. "Sorry. At my age you do tend to go on a little long...though, I have to ask. What finally got you to stop your futile attempts at fighting me?"

Abraham pulled his fist back and began to pluck out splinters from his knuckles. "That's a pretty dumb question, isn't it?"

Azrail sat up, but he didn't say anything else. He just looked up at Abraham's bloody knuckle.

Abraham scoffed. "I figured it was obvious. No reason you can't have a drink or two before I finally rip you from this world."