The next flag wasn't as hard to find as we expected, but it did still take a few hours. We beat everyone else this time though, so we were the ones lying in wait. The flag was in a small cave behind a waterfall, and without the light it was pretty tough to spot. To make sure we had an advantage this time, Callie decided to bust out her trap Skill, constructing a series of dangerous defenses out of sight from materials she had in her ring.

"So, what are the chances we can keep this place clear enough for one of us to grab the flag when things kick off?" I asked Abel as we watched Bethy chase Biscuit around a large tree nearby. The squirrel seemed to be having a blast. Callen was lying by the pond napping again , so it was just my mentor and I.

He shrugged. "Maybe good. Or maybe bad and we're about to be ass deep in attackers. With all the traps chances aren't bad that we can hold them off. Nobody expects traps." He paused. "Well, not on such short notice. We'll see how it goes."

Before I could respond, Callen sat bolt upright. About ten seconds later my Danger Sense started screaming at me. I whipped around, Eye of Revelation at the ready, searching for the threat, but all I saw coming through the trees was a single person.

He wasn't anyone I'd seen before, a small guy, pale, covered from the neck down in bloody bandages and wearing a pair of baggy black pants. He had on a long coat with no arms, like a vest that hung to his ankles, and his wild red eyes were darting back and forth over a bandana with a skeleton grin that was wrapped around the bottom of his face. Bethy stopped, turning to stare at him sharply, with probably the most unfriendly expression I'd ever seen on her.

"Huh. Guess I found it." He chuckled giddily. Eyes still darting around. Callie hadn't set up the traps on that side of the clearing yet, so he strolled in unimpeded, but Callen got to his feet. "You aren't welcome here Billy. This is our flag. Get lost." His voice was tenser than I'd expected, and I shifted my grip on my staff, preparing for any sudden attacks as I activated my Overlay.

Billy's eyebrows drooped as if he was pouting. "Awww. That's mean. I was just here looking around for someone to hang out with. Is this not a public forest? I can't go here just because you say so?"

Abel was staring at Billy. Hard. "Don't underestimate him." My mentor murmured to me. "He reeks of blood. Oceans of it. And not the blood of combat. Blood of pain and helplessness and savage eagerness." My mentor sounded angry. "His path is disgusting. It delights in suffering and prolonged death."

While many people might assume Abel being on a Path of Blood made him a gleeful killer, that wasn't the case. My mentor liked to shed blood in worthy combat. Not just his enemy either, his own worked just as well. But while Abel was a gladiator, it sounded like this guy was just a serial killer. We all went on high alert.

Billy's eyes flicked lazily to to Abel. "Oh, someone noticed. I didn't expect another Bloodwalker here. Your aura is a little clean for me, but you've clearly done some damage. How fun. Do you want to compare notes? I could teach you a few things about the Path of Blood."

Paths were innumerable. Every one was unique and applied to each person differently. My DS Path pretty well demonstrated that, but I hadn't known (even if in retrospect it was obvious) that two people walking the same Path could walk it so differently. Unless you skipped steps like me, then you had to kind of align yourself with your path so it would harmonize.

"You need to go." Said Callen grimly. "I won't start a fight if you don't, but if you do, you stand no chance. I could kill you myself, nevermind with all this backup." It was a solid threat, but it also worried me. If it was really that easy Callen wouldn't have offered to let him leave. With the big man, Abel, me, Callie, and Bethy all together, the thought that he was still wary of this guy worried me.

Billy giggled madly. "Are you sure?" He reached into a pocket and drew out a warped looking bottle full of a dark red sludge that seemed to writhe and boil. In the liquid, screaming faces appeared, and as I saw it my Danger Sense went off so hard I nearly blacked out.

To my shock, Callen stepped back, hand going to his sword. His REAL sword. The one on his back that he wasn't ever supposed to draw. "Where did you get that? That stuff isn't supposed to exist anymore."

"What is it?" I asked cautiously as we all got a lot more tense. Billy seemed thrilled by the reaction, practically dancing as he casually tossed and caught the bottle, staring right at Callen. The big man looked genuinely afraid, which was weird because we weren't even really here.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He swallowed hard. "Lamentation Liquid. It was a product created by the Blood Murder Palace. I've seen samples before, but it was mostly destroyed. It's a consumable made from the souls of sacrificed Ascendants. Using the soul isn't taboo or anything, but Lamentation Liquid isn't like most methods of soul capture. Souls are sacrosanct, and barely understood. People who catch them use them for energy, but when they're done they get released and go on to their afterlife."

"And that stuff...doesn't?" I Asked grimly. Zeke made masks out of souls, but from the sound of it this stuff was worse.

A look of revulsion crossed his face. "That stuff is made from spirits tormented after death to the point of of sublimation. It can erode and corrupt a soul if it touches you. I don't know why one of Hatescream's lackeys would bring it in here in the first place, but it WOULD work on these soul avatars, and we might never recover."

"Oh please." Cackled Billy. "You think I brought this here for you? This is to open the stove..." He stopped, eyes flicking around. "Oops! Spoilers! Think fast." He hurled an orb of red blood at Callen, then turned and, without saying another word, bolted into the forest, laughing maniacally all the way.

Callen cursed, releasing the big sword and drawing the one on his hip, slashing the orb in half and deflecting the two halves off to the sides. Each half splashed against the dirt nearby and began to erode the ground, hissing and bubbling. Callen dropped his sword with a curse as it began to corrode and rust, melting the ground where it had landed.

Kneeling down, he stared at the thing for a bit, before cursing and taking out a new one to strap to his hip. "Lucky for me I buy these by the dozen because they break so often. That blood attack seems to be some sort of hyper corrosive. We got lucky, Blood Murder Palace's most well known ability was substantially stronger."

I swallowed as I stared at the hissing substance. "Ok, what the actual fuck just happened? That guy found us pretty easy. I get that was Bloody Billy or whatever, but what did you mean about the Lamentation Liquid being a product from Blood Murder Palace? Also what the hell is 'the stove' and why does he want to open it?"

Callen glared at me. "How the hell should I know? How old do I look to you? I was born well after Blood Murder Palace fell. I only know about the Lamentation Liquid at all because I've seen people who were damaged by it. In the physical world, it's considered dangerous but not the end of the world, but here...I don't know what it would do, but it wouldn't be nice."

"Why did he even show it to us?" Cut in Callie as she materialized from the darkness beneath a tree. "I mean, he could have just run. Was that some kind of secret plan to leak us information?"

The big man shook his head. "Doubtful. He probably just decided that we were going to kill him and pulled it out to deter us."

"Why would he assume that?" She asked.

"Probably because I was going to kill him." Replied Callen slowly. "The liquid was the only thing that deterred me. He's a maniac, and while I wasn't going to start anything in the fortress because of Adrian's teamwork nonsense, this would have been an excellent choice to get him out of the way. Whatever he's doing here, it must be important if he's desperate enough to stay alive that he would leak being a member of the BMP. They STILL have a kill on sight order. From EVERYONE."

I sighed, pinching my nose. "Great. That means whatever he's doing is probably really bad. We need to find someone who had done research on this place and figure out what the stove is. Because whatever it is, I somehow doubt he's going to throw that bottle into it or onto it or whatever because it needs a new coat of paint."

My Danger Sense had gone haywire looking at that stuff. I didn't know all the details but it was clearly extremely dangerous to me. Since I was made of soul fragments and so was most of the rest of this place, I somehow doubted it would be less damaging to anything else. Even if it was, there was no way it was a coincidence that this guy had come HERE with it.

"This isn't going to be another vanished god situation is it?" Complained Callie. "Because we barely survived the last one. I know I got a lot of perks, but you almost got murdered by an evil goddess. I don't feel like it was worth the stress. Is that Hatescream guy coming back?"

"No." Said Callen firmly. "Definitely not. I heard a bit about the Suvaya incident. She was destroyed, and her return was complex and incredibly involved. The Moonsong Glade was an out of the way Dungeon that opened irregularly. It wasn't too important. Anything related to Hatescream would be relevant. He was the oldest of the six when he was alive, and killing him was a nightmare from what I heard. Black Sorrow and the lord Revenant actually COOPERATED for that."

I wondered exactly why the six seemed so focused on keeping other gods from rising up? Was it just to maintain their positions? Or was there something else going on. "Well, it doesn't matter. If this is a god thing we'll figure it out eventually, for now it's just one lunatic with toxic soul acid that we need to track down. First thing after this wave we should head back to the fortress and alert the others. It'll be harder for him to move around if everyone is hunting him."

Everyone nodded. Even Bethy seemed serious about this. "Daddy was around when those Blood Murder guys were alive. He killed a whole bunch of them, and they came after him a few times. If this guy is one of them I want to kill him too." She wrinkled her nose. "I'll pass on eating him though. His blood is all gross and burny."

"Alright. Callie try to get as many traps setup as you can." I said to my girlfriend as I stared worriedly out into the forest. "I need another one of these flags at least, but once we get it done we can head back. I don't want to leave it too long, but we have plenty of rounds until this ends and if he could reach the 'stove' from here, he wouldn't have been screwing around looking for flags." I really hoped this wasn't another terrible calamity. I was getting sick of those.