O, DEATH
The blow of the hammer rang out like the clear toll of a bell.
The sound of Janet's cracking skull was a single pure note, one final, percussive solo in a catastrophic symphony.
It was a burst of color in a fog of white noise, a breaking point in the chaos of flickering tally-marks and blinking warning bars.
HP dropping. 25%. 10%. 2%. The dwindling battery of her body cried for help even as Iván delivered his absolving blow, fractured wits blown apart by might and music.
As the tallies went dark and
WRATH gleamed like predatory eyes from the wall—reflected back at the adventurers who had turned on the tainted—the girl fell. It was slow, and sagging, and soft as satin. There was no thump or scream or dying breath. She died in the darkness and fell without sound, and only after her form had stilled did treasure spill from her pockets, her shoes and her shirt-sleeves, her blouse and her bodice. One-by-one, slithering-quiet as raindrops, the coins pooled from her body in lieu of blood. Golden. Gleaming.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
And so Death claimed Janet, and cleansed her of her sin.
TALLY YOUR SINS
Beyond was madness.
Janet (she was the only one, now) was exposed. There was no hiding from the aura Cain emanated, his magic bright, his vicious passion brighter. Gross fear twisted the girl’s face in a mockery of its owner, faint and pale from the shadows.
She tried to change form. Into who? Was it Ira, who’d touched a golden coin before he’d flicked it dismissively back onto the pile? Into Nikephoros, who’d cut the canyon cord and left his companions behind? Into Darko, who’d followed his companions blindly, or into Iván, who’d struck the first blow against a friend? She—She couldn’t focus, not with the music playing counterpoint, not with that disharmony at work within her mind—
Even as Janet began to change shape, a gross ripple distorted her body and Cain’s image took her place as if her hand had been forced, superimposed by sheer willpower and melody. Doubt crossed the doppelganger’s face for just a moment as he looked down and his mouth curled into a snarl, eyes as dark with anger as Cain’s were filled with wild light. “Have it your way…”
But he could not. No actor could give himself so freely, could mirror the display of melodic mastery. He could not pass as Cain, and he could not match him. He needed to buy time, to shift again. He chose Ira—Iván struck him down, a curse be on the masked man—he chose Darko—down he went, a third removed from combat—he chose Nikephoros, and the Yladian man too was lost.
And with each change of scene, of pace (of LUST, of PRIDE, of ENVY) the badass song wore at his mind and tore at his sanity and reset him back to Cain. Half-kneeling in the orange light. Mid-swing, bathed in blue. “Stop it! Enough!” he snarled. Harmonic magic richocheted and echoed off the tally-covered walls, reflecting back at their user, but it meant nothing. Morality, consequence—they paled before the two men, the two assassins who’d skirted the depths and turned temptation down. They alone had persevered.
Alas… When shall my bones be at rest?
With the last crash of azure notes, of steely hammer, of illusion, the snarling face of Cain was stripped away.
Death will not have my life. Is this how I vanish? Flesh, and blood, and skin…
What was Sin? A player, a questgiver? A figment? A philosophy? AN AGONY?
Your quest is done. At last, I knock upon my mother’s gate. Perhaps now she might give me grace.
Thud. The sound of the cloaked man’s staff, Sin’s scepter, as it struck the ground. A hairline crack of light that drew its way across the ground and far wall with a shaky architect’s hand, shining bright. The final tally.
For a moment, it was still.
Krshhhhhhhh...
A dull roar in the distance. The gray cloak on Sin’s shoulders rippled in slow-motion as his body sagged, his jaw slack, his hands unclenching. His staff fell to the ground as Sin buckled, bubbling beneath the fabric of his shawl. The rumble from beneath the ground increased and water suddenly gushed from the fissure, a pressurized mist that became a stream, then a fountain. Water sprayed from the scratches on the walls, the back wall of the cave where the group had first found Janet beginning to tremble.
With a last shudder, Sin’s body turned to water and he splashed from existence, dissolving in a sad schlop like wet contents shaken from a tin can. At the same time, a cracking sound reverberated through the cavern and the walls burst, chunks of stone imploding as an avalanche of meltwater gushed around toppling stone slabs and lapped across the floor.
It was already four feet deep before the flash flood bore up Janet’s body, gold coins whirling in eddies and turbulent bubbles around her. Her brown hair swirled in messy tangles as she body-surfed the wave, pushed from the womb of her resting-place into the light like the maidenhead of a ship, the breaker of tides.
The flood was sudden and relentless. It stripped the mountain bare as it roared down the slopes, and cast off winter like a gray cloak. It poured like a waterfall from cliffs and ledges (bearing Janet along with the dignity of driftwood) and rode the shallow creek-bed deep into THE BELLY. It carried chunks of ice and bones and frogs and Janet deep into the canyon. It sliced through the gorge with the practiced air of a well-rehearsed routine, a thaw of grand proportions, a cleansing rain of grace.
Far away at a distant shrine, Janet would reanimate unharmed, unfazed, unburdened of her golden gleanings. But here, where water filled the hollow Belly with its stomach full of coins, the player’s body drifted. Floated. Stilled. And then slowly, burdened by the metal in its pockets, it was borne down and came to rest.
And so the Seven who sought Sin defeated him, but not themselves.
Four fell to Sloth, condemned by sheer inaction.
Two fell to Wrath, unfettered in their passion for the hunt.
And one fell to Greed, tempted by Sin’s bounty, and died in the darkness there.
Now, good men, God forgive you your trespass
And ware you from the sin of avarice.
AVARICE: END
