“Finished taking in your situation?”

“Morrigan. What the hell. This is fucked man. I found your Usurper.”

He nodded, overly so as to exaggerate it. This isn’t a movie asshole, stop hamming it up.

“That is true, and I appreciate it. I reeeally do. There’s just one problem-”

“I agree, that problem is that I’m tied up here. We can just call it even, give me my stuff and my payment and I’ll go on my way.” I might also free Meredith. Depends on if I had enough time to reload once I got my stuff.

Well, I also had to kill Morrigan for being a rat and Mark because I was almost positive that he had minors buried under his home’s foundations, and Vivi for being an absolute psycho and mindfucking Ron. And Tracey too because I didn’t like her. Okay, I was maybe a little mad about the whole situation.

He tsked and shook his head back and forth. Do I have to be sacrificed and watch this guy’s shit acting? Isn’t one torment enough?

“You have a very special Affinity.”

“I don’t have an Affinity.”

“That’s not true. And the only way you would be able to heal with that golden light is… something like a Light Affinity? Tell me I’m wrong.”

Oh shit. I should have just let Ron bleed out, that motherfucker sold me out. Though, if Vivi was mindrapin- er, mindthralling him right now then he probably hadn’t known about any of this. I doubted that he’d be cool with sacrificing Meredith like this.

“It’s not like that, it’s restricted, all Light Affinity is.”

“But you can use a Light Affinity skill…”

Well yeah, but… shit. Shit. I was totally gonna get sacrificed.

“It’s not like that.”

He patted me on the shoulder, “Come now Tom, I know it’s a frightening thing, but stiff upper lip and all that jazz.”

Oh, did I not mention his insufferable Bri’ish accent? I must have because it had been annoying me to no end. All that free game with the ladies just because you can’t speak English correctly. Absolute bullshit. To be fair, it had been a faint thing before, he was really leaning into it now.

“Why did you have Tracey try and kill me the first night?”

Her eyes flicked halfway to Morrigan before she settled them.

He laughed then laid it out, “I just had her test you. I wanted to know your capabilities.”

Press X to doubt. I pressed ‘X’.

“Did you send Ron as well?”

Vivi laughed from next to Ron, “No, this idiot is just obsessed with Meredith,” She turned back to Ron, “Oh no darling, I wasn’t talking about you at all… That’s not Meredith, we have to find out from Tom where she is… Be patient darling…”

Everything started piecing itself together and it did it in a hurry. When it clicked, it all clicked.

Mr. Sincerest Apologies, Jon, had tried to ‘take care of me’ early that first day. Presumably to take out the wild-card aspect my presence at the winery had introduced.

Tracey had attacked me on the first night, presumably on Morrigan’s orders. For what purpose? Since Morrigan told her to test me, he hadn’t expressed an intent to kill, presumably it was to speed along my investigation or to test my abilities. Though now, if my theory was correct, she was also working with Jon.

That and based on the fact that I got a Feat for beating off the ‘assassination attempt’ meant that she had actually been trying to kill me. She’d have probably given Morrigan some excuse about me being overrated if she had ‘accidentally’ killed me.

So then, she was playing both sides. Her and Jon had spent entirely too much time together to have not been working together. She was looking to win however this thing turned out and I was an idiot for not seeing it earlier. There was just so much shady shit going on here that I didn’t realize how many layers this shitty dark-onion had had.

Vivi had also been trying to ‘seduce’ me, on Morrigan’s orders most likely. I shivered, thank God for a Duck, otherwise I’d be mindslaved like Ron there. Pooks warning had been welcome as well.

I had seen Meredith’s Rain Affinity, which is primary Air and secondary Water.

I know that Tracey has Ice Affinity, which is presumably the Primary Affinity Water and Secondary Affinity Air, and she used the same attack on me as she had with… whatever that sucker’s name was that had possessed the second skeleton key, the murdered guy Morrigan had shown me.

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Her and Jon had used that key to access places in the winery, but for what purpos- and even though I was still straightening the entire situation out in my head in real-time, any more speculation was kind of pointless now because I was on the edge of being sacrificed alive. Satanically. I mean, it’s a fucking hexagram, it doesn’t take a huge leap of logic to guess where my Soul was directed.

I sighed, “So, what’s the deal.”

I was tempted to burst out some Will but I wasn’t sure what it would do. I was subtly rubbing my wrists in different directions to try and loosen the ropes. What fucking eaglescout tied these, absolutely no give at all.

I focused on pushing some healing more healing through my skull and a few of the still bleeding cuts from Mark closed up. Though not being able to snap my fingers meant that it lost some of its efficiency during the process.

He pulled out a cigar and snapped his fingers, a burst of black flame burst out and lit it. Oh fuck, what is the deal with this Dark Affinity bullshit. So he’s got black flames now instead of normal ones. I wondered what the combination magic between Dark and Fire was, but only momentarily.

He took a deep pull from it then opened his mouth to let it draw out into our surroundings, then pinched a bit of tobacco from his tongue and flicked it away. I don’t know why but impending demonic sacrifice really has you focus on the little things.

“Well, Sir Thomas, I’m going to sacrifice you all and ascend to the next tier as well as transform this winery into a fortress where I’ll rule this area as its king.”

I nodded, yeah that tracked. Absolutely batshit insane, but it did track.

“What’s the fucking llama doing here?”

I noticed it chained up in its own circle. There was a blood-red line, clearly blood, trailing from our evil magic pentagram to its own evil, but smaller, pentagram.

He looked over, almost surprised by my question. In what fucking world is asking about a llama chained in the middle of a pentagram a weird question? This one I guess.

“He can talk to you?”

“I can. I guess I spend enough time with this llama to be granted access to the skill. Mostly useless.”

“Soo…. Why the llama?”

“Oh right, I’m going to use your souls to power the creation of a dark fortress-”

“Yeah right, you covered that.”

He gave me an annoyed look, “But to assist in the process I’m going to use the first part of the sacrifice to raise a demon and channel it into this llama to be my bound slave and help guide the Greater Work.”

Riiiiight…

Just keep him talking, the longer you’re alive the more time you have to think of a way out of this mess.

“How do you know… this? All of this?”

“Some… family knowledge, but the most important aspects were given after taking Dark Affinity. Quite the opportunities that particular choice opens up. You know, our souls are quite valuable, you can trade them for whatever you want. That’s why I’m going to trade all of yours.”

That… didn’t sound ominous. He walked to the side and pulled out my magic-sword. He pulled out MY MAGIC SWORD. I strained against the bindings. Motherfucker was going to use my semi-holy-or-WHATEVER MAGIC FUCKING SWORD to SACRIFICE ME.

“You motherfucker!”

He laughed, and Mark joined in, but fuck that guy I wasn’t paying attention to him.

“It’s a holy blade, innit?”

Ugh, was he really going whole hog into the whole Bri’ish thing? Fucking snooty people trying to kill me just constantly.

“I mean, I guess. I think of it more as a ‘magic sword’, but you’re the guy with the holy blade. Call it whatever you want.”

I wasn’t quite sure what acting ‘cool’ was doing for me exactly, but if I was going out, it wasn’t going to be like some panicking punk. Shit shit shit, internally I was screaming. There had to be a way out of this.

He held my blade gingerly, like it would bite him if he wasn’t careful. He approached Meredith and I turned to lock eyes with her. Oh no… oh no, fuck man. I screwed this. My mind sent intent desperately searching for a possible way to stop it.

The Oath! His eyes met mine and went wide as I plucked at it and he stopped and snapped his fingers. Mark came up with the spaulders and threw them at me. They hit my chest in a thump that made me cough. He didn’t personally hand them to me so the Oath was still open, it was frayed but it wasn’t enough for me to grab onto, tying me up and saying his intent to sacrifice me wasn’t considered an attack, well, not enough to stop him, and stabbing her didn’t even pluck on the Oath in the slightest.

Shit I just needed a bit more, more Intent, try to sacrifice me first! Shit!

Time froze as our souls stared at each other in desperate connection. The room seemed to shrink, the heavy dim walls closing in, the intensity of the moment suffocated the very air. The moment of fleeting unity shattered under a violent intrusion, the room convulsed with malevolent energy as my sword plunged through her heart.

Time rejected control as it spiraled and spun, sped and twisted and slowed. Fear gave way to accusation. She accused me, blamed me, I could take this. I didn’t really feel like it was my fault objectively, logically even. At the moment I was feeling very different about it. It wasn’t my fault, but I had accepted responsibility and then failed in that responsibility. Still, even that I could take.

Then came peace and acceptance. Then forgiveness and thankfulness for my efforts. Gratitude, My face screwed. I didn’t want her acceptance or her forgiveness. I didn’t deserve Gratitude. I definitely did not want her to be thankful. I hadn’t done anything to thank me for.

I should have just taken her away from her the moment I found her, instead I thought of myself as some sort of stupid-fucking-detective. I felt her soul leave as her eyes emptied. I choked a sob out that escaped beyond my control.

Her lifeblood spilled into the cold stone of the floor. Her dead eyes twisted in pain as the blood flowed into the innermost circle of the satanic rings that surrounded us then flowed down the connecting line to the llama’s circle.

The ring lit in dull, painful burgundy as it flickered on the bare stone walls of the room. The llama grew incredibly still, its pupils turned pure black as they swallowed the rest of his eyes in a flickering rush as its body started to twitch and bulge at an steadily increasing pace. I didn’t see any of that.

I searched her eyes, hoping for… something, anything. Cold, lifeless, soulless eyes were all I found. A rock hit my stomach and settled in the pit of it. A hand sent a ringing slap across my cheek and brought me back to the present.

“Hellooooo to Mr. Doubting Thomas. I don’t want you to miss your own contribution to my grand work!”

He raised the sword and it sat on the edge of descending down and into me. The tip plunged and I shot a burst of Will to direct it away from my heart as I twitched to the side. The blade sat in the meat of my arm.

Between clenched teeth I managed to get out, “Fuck you crazy asshole. Are you really going to try and cheat me out of our Oath? I’m going to Hold you to your Word.”