Ellis wiped the blood off his forehead. “I leveled,” he called out over the fizzling music illusion.

  “Nice… yes! So did I, let’s go!” Michael called back.

  His truth sight didn’t need to be active for Ellis to know that Ameena had leveled as well. She was still stomping in the head of the last guard, who had tried to pin her to the floor at the beginning of the fight.

  The squelching noise made Ellis cringe with every repeated thud. He got up from where he was kneeling in the middle of the destroyed lounge, what was left of the furniture now broken and thrown about. He walked forward, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “That’s enough. He’s dead.”

  Ameena turned around and smacked Ellis across the cheek, her breathing ragged as she screamed in his face. “Do not touch me!”

  Ellis nodded, holding up both hands where she could see them while ignoring his stinging cheek. “You leveled. Let’s assign stats, heal up. And would you help me salt the bodies after we move them?”

  Ameena blinked, the anger in her dissipating at Ellis’s complete non reaction to it. She switched between scowling and nodding, her brain battling the blood pumping through her. “Yes… that’s… Right. That sounds good.”

  She turned on her heel, and stepped her way through the eight new bodies that littered the floor. Michael had not been kind, many missing limbs rather than heads, some still smoking from Michael’s ring. Ellis only had to glance down at the man whose skull was caved in to see Ameena’s handiwork. A few had bolts through their eyes, almost all had some sticking out their arms.

  He breathed the last mana he had into his necklace. Without a single change in his expression, he walked forward and ripped the braces off of the closest body, before throwing his old ones down and putting the new ones on. Once they were firmly in place, he whispered ‘status’ under his breath:

  A child of Anwir:

  *Ellis Marsh:

  Strength: 5 (braces of the strong: +4)

  Mana: 3

  Dexterity: 6 (Cloak of the tasteless: +5)

  Perception: 9

  Endurance: 6 (Runner's pants: +2)

  Constitution: 5 (Minor ring of protection: +1)

  Total: 34 (+12)

  Level: 4

  He hadn’t picked it up when he put on the cloak, but staring at his numbers made him frown. For the first time in his life, perception wasn’t his highest total stat. He had decided to throw a point into perception and mana, since having three mana meant he could use all three of his items in a fight without having to try pick and choose which one he was going to use. Perception was obvious, it had more than proven itself a fantastic tool for surviving the insanity he now found his life to be. It grated him not to put a point into dexterity, constitution or strength, since while all of them would help keep him alive, many of his items were doing the heavy lifting on that front.

  His eyes wondered over to Ameena stats:

  A child of Evosa:

  *Ameena Fray:

  Strength: 8 (Loggers pants: +3)

  Mana: 10 (Wand of deception (bonded to: Ameena Fray): +5)

  Dexterity: 6 (A fighters ring: +2)

  Perception: 6

  endurance: 5 (Messengers necklace: +2)

  Constitution: 7 (The boots of the hardy: +4)

  Total: 42 (+16)

  Level 5

  Skills: knit flesh(level 4), mend bone (level 2)

  She had thrown a stat point into strength and constitution. He had seen her picking through the loot, but clearly she hadn’t found anything. Despite being around her for a while, he still hadn’t figured out what the levels next to Knit Flesh and Mend Bone did. He assumed it was either speed, effectiveness or a combination of the two which improved with the ‘skills’ levels. Or perhaps distance? It didn’t matter. It benefitted him, and it wasn’t dangerous. No need to focus on that.

  Wincing, he looked toward Michael now:

  A child of Dumiso:

  *Michael:

  Strength: 17 (Sword of the dragon: +3)

  Mana: 8

  Dexterity: 10 (Greaves of the quick: +6)

  Perception: 6

  endurance: 11(Boots of a soldier: +4)

  Constitution: 12(A warrior's pants: +3)

  Total stat points: 64 (+17)

  Level 10

  He had thrown a point into mana and constitution. As long as he didn’t add to his already monstrous strength, Ellis wouldn’t complain. He turned away from the pretty numbers and distractions… and turned back to the blood surrounding him.

  Ameena had undertaken the painstaking chore of pulling the bolts and arrows out of Michael’s back. Ellis assisted, many times driving them in deeper before pulling them out, just because it made him feel better. When that was finished, he and Ameena righted the house to once again look spotless. Michael had not helped with that part, since he decided that cleaning the mess he made was ‘boring', and slumped into the corner, falling asleep with his leg propped up on the kitchen counter right next to a severed arm.

  When Michael’s chest stopped moving, Ellis stopped assisting with the cleanup and sprinted into the secret room. He wasn’t sure, but he was sure he had seen a black dot on one of the corpses when they had first reappeared in the room. Standing over the corpse whose skin was stretched taught from the process of rot, Ellis leaned over him and tried not to gag.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  When he didn’t find anything on the first, he rolled the body down and moved onto the next. Shifting through the corpses released a new, more profound stench that had Ellis wretch next to the pile, but despite the stickiness that had appeared over his hands, he did not stop searching each and every inch of the dead men. Michael’s laziness might have doomed the city, and Ellis would not have it.

  Ellis reached the bottom of the pile of a dozen dead men. Underneath all the rest was Leno Warde’s mangled corpse, still cut up beyond recognition. He was unable to check under the man’s clothes, since his body had stretched them out, but he still checked the nostrils and eyelids, the cracks in one foot without a shoe, and even more unsavory places for the tiniest hint of the monsters.

  But he couldn’t find any.

  Ellis let loose a sigh of relief and slumped down to the floor. He tried to whisper a prayer, but not even the usual comfort was able to stop his shaking hands from hugging his knees to his chest. He curled into a ball as the tears started to fall, whispering under his breath the entire time.

  “I’mSorryI’mSorryI’mSorryI’mSorry”

  He didn’t know how long he sat like that, but it wasn’t long enough. Ameena’s footsteps walked into the room and closed the door behind her over his whispered begging.

  “We have a problem,” she said, dumping another body on the pile Ellis sat in front of.

  Ellis couldn’t help it. He half giggled through his wracked sobs. “I think we only have problems. Which one’s on your mind?”

  Her voice sounded more measured than usual. “...Michael is too set on attacking those people. You will help me convince him otherwise.”

  “I did try to help you,” Ellis said, standing up. “I tried talking with them, remember? But you decided to attack them anyway. It’s why we’re in this mess in the first place.”

  Now her voice grew short. “Congratulations, you have summed up our situation perfectly. That doesn’t help me curb his obsession with them now, does it? We can’t keep banging our head against this wall. Our repeated failures are making his temper worse, or haven’t you noticed?”

  The image of Michael laughing as he ripped the bolts out of his own skin to plunge them through guards' bellies flashed through Ellis’s eyes. Just another new nightmare, added to the collection.

  “I noticed,” Ellis said, walking to the door.

  He left the room and washed his hands, before squatting down in front of the last corpse, who was a plain looking boy, brown hair and brown eyes accompanied by a small dimple on his cheek. Putting his hands under the dead guard's armpits, his blood flowed through Ellis’s fingers as he dragged him back toward the secret room.

  Ameena studied him as he worked, walking around after him with two brushes in her hands. “I’m glad your high perception stat is working. We need to make him stop attacking those peop— that place. We can find another route.”

  Ellis managed to haul the body through the doorway and into the room. “They’re making his temper worse, yes. Isn’t that what you want? A leashed dog you can sic on your enemies when you want someone dead?”

  She was silent for a moment. “...I need suggestions, not observations.”

  “And I need observations, not orders. You know I can’t convince Michael of anything. Just do what he says.”

  “If we both approach him with a plan—”

  Ellis flung the body out of his hands and started screaming. His eyes bulged as the suppressed rage tore itself through his throat, no longer satisfied with the home it made in his chest.

  “And then what!? We’ll have to kill more people somewhere else anyway! Want my suggestion? The suggestion that you would not have bat an eye at three days ago!? Tell the guards. You said yourself the guards would take every man they had to clear them out. All we’d have to do is wait for the fucking weekend and those tunnels would be clear! The guards won’t know the place like those underground people, so killing our way through after they’re done would be easy! And they’re just mana users! We would be doing the city a favour by getting rid of them!”

  Ameena jumped back from his sudden outburst. When he didn’t run after her, she narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders. “Don’t raise your voice at me, boy.”

  He took a step toward her. “Or what!? What could you do to me now that hasn’t been done a hundred times over since I fucking met you!?”

  She took a step toward him, throwing one of the brushes down and grasping the dagger on her hip. “You’ve taken a few nicks and think that gives you the right to throw a tantrum!? Stop being a child!”

  “Why don’t you stop being a hypocrite first!”

  They stopped walking towards each other when their faces were inches apart. Ameena raised a disgusted eyebrow at him.

  “We have killed dozens of guards, civilians and thugs. You didn’t even blink.” Ellis curled his bottom lip as he threw his arms in the air. “But now… now that you suspect they’re mana users, killing them is unacceptable!? And don’t tell me I’m wrong, I didn’t need my necklace to see your little illusion in that alley! Or the bolts hitting their legs!”

  Ameena curled her lip in turn now. “I saved him, yes! And the rest! So what!? They’re mana users! Kin! They’re not like this trash!” She pointed the tip of her dagger at the bodies lying next to them. “Do you know how much they hated us? For what!? A lie!? I saw them stick a knife into a baby, just because they had a single digit in the wrong stat. Can you even imagine someone coming to your home, spouting falsehoods about the gods and using it as justification to slaughter your family!? No! Becau—”

  Ameena stopped yelling and took a step back, her eyes growing wide. Her shoulders slumped as Ellis didn’t answer, the realization dawning on her face as she took in a sharp breath. He just stared at her, tears forming in the corner of his eyes.

  She reached forward, like she could stuff the words back into her mouth. “Ellis… I didn’t mean…”

  He stomped past her, grabbed the brush off the floor and kicked the door open. Wiping at the tears on his cheeks, he left long streaks of blood across his face as he threw himself onto his knees and attacked the floor, every scrub ingraining itself in the tiles like the mess was an affront to nature.

  Ellis could hear Ameena mutter a curse under her breath, her every step hesitant as she left the room and joined him.

  “Ellis…”

  He didn’t look up, or even acknowledge she existed. She looked away and scrunched her entire face in anger, before getting on her knees and joining him in cleaning up the blood.

  The sun had just finished setting by the time they were half way done. Ameena glanced at Ellis every so often, sometimes shaking her head, other times turning away like the sight of him was too much to bear. He ignored it all.

  And still, they scrubbed away. Ellis’s brush had long since absorbed all the red that it could, but Ellis had not gotten up to wash it off. He was now just smearing the blood on the floor, circling it over and over as every part of him screamed for more, to see their blood mix with these poor souls and to get it over with.

  But he didn’t. Because there was still a small voice in his head whispering patience. He hated that voice. He tried to strangle it with the image of carnage laid out before him but it didn't work, so he continued to clean, every part of him burning with hatred.

  He didn’t know if it was for her or for himself.

  Ameena got up off the floor and lit the candles around the house. When that was done, she walked up next to where he was kneeling and got down on her knees. Tucking her hair behind her ear with a shaky hand, she let out a small whisper.

  “I don’t want them to die. Please help me.”

  The brush cracked in his hand. The whispering voice was almost strangled by the monster growing in his chest. He twitched for the knife at his belt as he sat up, looking towards the door and wondering how quick he could get to his crossbow, hanging on the coat rack next to it.

  But that monster, and the whispering voice, and every other temptation was squashed back down as he turned to her…

  And nodded.