Sneak peek of the next chapter (A Hero's Burden 10)

A puff of white smoke rose into the air. It drifted idly upwards for several seconds before forming into a semi-solid sphere, no bigger than a child’s fist. A pair of bright blue dots peeked out of it, as the disconnected spirit gazed down at its own body and the monstrous creature that had ended its life. It felt puzzled at first, but became outraged as it realized it had been killed. This was a completely natural reaction considering how violently its mortal body was dispatched. And judging from how its killer was slinking off into the shadows, it would probably go unavenged, which made its rage quickly give way to despair.

Just as it was in the middle of coping with its former mortality, the spirit saw a bright crack spread through the air in front of it. It burst open like a doorway to reveal a figure draped in a black, sable robe that looked both luxurious and tattered at the same time. His head was a bleached skull with a slightly pointed chin, and a pair of bright red dots flickered in its eye sockets in lieu of eyes. In his bony hands was a large scythe with mysterious runes engraved along the handle, while the blade itself seemed to have been forged out of pure darkness.

However, rather than be frightened by this entity’s appearance, the spirit felt strangely relieved by it.

“Yo! How’s it hanging?” it spoke in a frighteningly casual tone. “Congratulations on your death! I’m Mortimer, and I’m here to pick you up.”

The white puff of smoke that no mortal could see seemed strangely excited by this prospect, and it showed this feeling by bouncing around like an excitable puppy.

“Hmm? Oh no, not you,” said the God of Death, as if just noticing the poor soul. “I’m here for that one.”

The suddenly depressed puff of smoke curiously turned around towards the direction Mortimer’s bony hand was pointing. It saw a swirling black ball with crimson red eyes and pearly white teeth open its mouth as it flew towards it. It was then gobbled up by the larger spirit before it could do anything about it.

“No! Bad!”

Mortimer suddenly slapped the black ghost from behind, prompting it to spit out the smaller white one.

“None of that! What sort of Hero are you, anyway?!” he spoke as if chastising an unruly pet.

“Jukilimo! Yeharan dalaigoh!”

The black spirit responded by uttering what sounded like gibberish to the poor white soul. The utterly confused immaterial being tried to raise its voice in protest, but instantly found out it could not speak.

“How does that make any sense?! You can’t even taste things anymore!”

“Rastorpicolos!”

“Quiet you! Hey, listen bud, sorry about that. This guy is unrulier than I thought. Now then, off you go! Let’s hope your loved ones pray for you, yeah?”

Mortimer shooed the white spirit away, which sort of continued drifting upwards in something of a huff. Getting the cold shoulder like that was quite irksome, but the spirit quickly accepted it as the way things were. There’s no way a city guard would be important enough for the God of Death to personally come visit, right? Hmm? Then who was that black thing? What was black anymore? Oh look, butterflies! Or were they flamingoes? Come to think of it, thinking was a bother, so it stopped.

Mortimer watched the former elf drift off towards the Well of Souls for a few more seconds. He felt a bit bad for brushing it off like that, but he simply didn’t have the time to personally deal with every single dead soul. That was why the Well of Souls existed in the first place. True, some individuals with lingering attachments fell through the gaps and became vengeful undead instead of being reincarnated, but he’d never keep up with his duties otherwise. And one of those duties involved personally attending to a Hero’s soul. As spirits touched by the divines, it was important to properly tend to them and make sure the borrowed divine power was returned to its source.

“Well then,” he said while turning his attention back to the black smog that was once Boxxy. “Shall we go?”

“Vivamus sollicitudin arcu tempus, sagittis velit ac?”

“No, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Efficitur sollicitudin tellus!”

“How much gold?! You’re shitting me, right? There’s no way you have that much!”

“Sit amet! Finibus lacinia!”

“Oh, I gotta see this!”

Mortimer grabbed Boxxy’s soul in one hand and walked back into the glowing doorway he stepped out of. The two of them emerged inside Ambrosia’s trunk, right next to the swimming pool-sized pit of gold that the Mimic was using as external shiny storage. It had been playing with it for a solid three hours last night and had forgotten to close it up, so the huge pile of treasure was allowed to glisten brilliantly in the artificial spotlights.

The God of Death and Commerce let out an appreciative whistle despite having no lips.

“Nice! Quite the cozy little nest egg you got here. For an individual, this is a truly impressive collection.”

“Nahabil roken,” uttered Boxxy.

“Still not enough, though. Even if I was in the habit of taking bribes - which I’m not - you’d still need 300 times this amount before I even consider letting you off.”

“Hak!”

“Yeah, well, can’t be helped. Them’s the rules. Come on then, let’s get you… to… Oh for fuck sake!”

The space next to Mortimer ripped open, and a green brick flew out of thin air.

“Hey, Mort,” said Joyce, “how’s it hanging?”

“Damnit, Tom! I’m not letting you revive this guy!”

“Woah! Easy there!” said the fishbowl-shaped God of Chaos. “I’m not here to revive anybody! I’m just here to collect on that guy’s contract.”

“… Oh right, this guy was a Warlock that made a covenant with a demon.”

“Yup. Three of them, actually,” stated the ham sandwich. “And according to the terms of the contract, this soul belongs to the Beyond.”

“Lorgoh!” exclaimed Boxxy.

The Mimic was pretty sure there was nothing like that in the fine print.

“There’s nothing like that in the demonic contract’s terms, Rupert. It’s still bound for reincarnation once I strip the divine power from it.”

“Not unless the contractee is a Hero of Chaos.”

*Snap*

A rolled up parchment materialized itself out of thin air and unfurled to reveal the full terms and conditions of a summoner’s contract.

“See here, this amendment right here, clause 23-4,” stated the floating tea kettle. “And I quote - ‘should the mortal Warlock acquire the means through which to affect the immaterium, their soul will become the rightful property of Overlord Liusolra upon their death.’”

“Let me see that!”

The God of Death snatched the parchment and gave it a once over.

“You just added that in there!” he complained in a displeased voice. “There was nothing like that the last time I checked!”

“And when’s the last time you checked?! It’s been in there for at least 1,300 years! You know, ever since that whole ‘Soul Eater’ debacle?!”

“That’s hardly ground for- I mean yeah, okay, that did happen, but isn’t that in direct conflict of the way we’re supposed to handle Heroes normally?!”

“Mort, if you had objections, you should’ve said them when I asked you about this change!”

“You never consulted me on this!” insisted the robed skeleton.

“Did too! You even approved of the draft I sent to your G-mail!”

“… Hold on.”

Mortimer suddenly fell silent as he searched back through his mental repository of correspondences with the other Gods. Looking back over a millennia ago, he was indeed able to confirm he had received a memo titled ‘Soul Eater Prevention Suggestion’ detailing that exact clause. One that he had replied to with a simple ‘k.’

“Yeah, alright,” he admitted with a sigh. “You can have the blasted thing.”

He hated giving up another Hero’s soul, but he hardly had a choice in the matter. Even if he was swamped with work in the wake of that nasty business and probably didn’t read the thing as thoroughly as he should have, he still signed off on it. As such, he had no choice but to accept it.

“Marvelous!” stated the giant fly with a chipper tone. “Glad to see you’re still such a good sport! Come on, Boxxy, let’s get you- Huh? Where’d the dearly departed go?”

The black puff of smoke had disappeared somewhere while Mortimer and Kendra were arguing over that little technicality.

“… Now that you mention it- Oh, that bastard!” exclaimed the God of Death. “Just how much Taboo does he want?! Right, that’s it! I’m sending my Reaper after him!”

“Who the what now?” asked the confused beer mug.

However, Louey did not get an answer as the outraged God of Death disappeared back to his divine area.