It's The Little Things (Closed)

Words are amazing things. They are sight and sound, thoughts and feelings. They are both more than that and less than it, experiences codified into a tangible essence. They are something to be shared with others or to be secreted away, shepherded carefully against prying eyes. But sometimes words are not enough. Sometimes, even the most carefully crafted words fail utterly when they come up against something that cannot be codified. Something that cannot be listed or measured by something as limited as words. The Keeper’s library was one of those things.

Certainly there were words, many of them, which could be used to describe the library. Enormous, ancient, solemn, and full of a weighted wisdom. But these words could not truly encompass the full nature of the library. It was a place that defied description, an entity to itself that needed to be experienced for all that it was to catch even the barest glimpse of its true nature. Endless knowledge waited within the library’s shadowed recesses and far-reaching halls, if only one had the time and patience to seek out the answers to their questions. But today, for Acolyte Shim, The Keeper’s library was nothing more than a quiet place to mull things over.

The Keeper knew of Shim’s arrival, or course. It was in The Keeper’s nature to know things, especially the things which took place within the confines of his sanctuary. But it was unusual to find one of the acolytes wandering down the paths that Shim was taking. The acolytes were welcomed within all areas of the library, as only befitting the members of an order dedicated to knowledge, but Shim was an older acolyte and those tended to keep to well-known and familiar paths. Not that it was unheard of, but it was far more common to have to go searching for one of the younger acolytes who’d lost their way in the library after one too many fool hardly boasts to their peers. And Shim had never been one of the acolytes prone to wandering, not in the fifty-something years in which he had been allowed entry to the library. Something must be weighing on the elder acolyte’s mind, The Keeper knew. It was only right that he do what he could as head of Shim’s order to help ease the burdens which lay heavily upon the man’s thoughts.

“Good evening, Acolyte,” The Keeper spoke, his tone calm and soft. Despite the precautions, the suddenness of the words from the otherwise still air jolted through Shim, pulling a startled yelp from the old man and lifting him several inches off the ground.

“Oh, my pardon Keeper. I did not mean to disturb you,” Shim stammered, quickly regaining his composure in the face of the eldest. Even the deep lines that age had worn into the Acolyte’s face could not hide the flush of scarlet which flooded the man’s cheeks.

“Think nothing of it, Acolyte Shim,” the Keeper smiled pleasantly at the man, his blue eyes warm and soft. “After all, it was I who interrupted your meditations.”

Shim waved a dismissing hand at The Keeper’s words.

“Nay,” he said, “I am always at your disposal Keeper.”

“Shouldn’t I allow you the courtesy of having a little time to yourself, then?” The Keeper asked.

“I am an Acolyte,” Shim lifted his chin slightly, a sure mark of honored pride. “My life and purpose is to serve you and yours, Keeper. There is plenty of time for me to expect privacy when I’m not wandering mindlessly through your library.”

The Keeper chuckled slightly.

“Some would say that it is my life and purpose to serve, Acolyte Shim.” A single hand slid from the folds of his soft gray robe and tottered back and forth, giving Shim the impression that it both was and wasn’t. “So how can I help you?”

“Keeper?”

“You have wandered far into my library, and I don’t need to be The Keeper to know that something serious was on your mind. How can I help to alleviate your burden?”

“Oh,” Shim’s expression grew sheepish. “It is nothing, Keeper. There is no need to trouble you with the silly thoughts of an old man.”

“Nonsense,” The Keeper replied. He began to slowly walk down the aisles, gesturing for Shim to follow. The Acolyte dutifully complied. “What use is all of this knowledge if it can’t help with something like that?

“Gods above and below, Shim,” The Keeper snorted. “Everyone thinks that it’s the large problems that will bring about the end of the world.” The Keeper shook his head once, sadly. “It’s the small things that kill everything in the end, Acolyte. Even worlds.” The Keeper didn’t need to look to know that his words had had a shocking impact on the old acolyte. Still, the reaction was over in an instant, a sad look turning Shim’s face down.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know,” Shim sighed, “you are The Keeper.”

A single snort shook The Keeper’s shoulders. “Nothing so arcane as all that, I’m afraid,” he said. Solemnity returned quickly. “Physician Acolyte Hollister informed me this morning after your examination.” The pair walked in silence across several rows of ancient tomes.

“Such a small thing,” Shim breathed out at last. It was a sad, resigned sound. A bony finger reached up and poked at the back of his mottled scalp. “Hollister said that I was lucky that the headaches alerted me so early. Said he can brew up some foul concoction to slow the spread of the thing. Give me another year, two if I’m lucky. But it’s not going to get any better.” Shim sighed again. “All downhill from here.”

The Keeper nodded. This, too, he had known.

“You could help me though,” Shim squinted as he eyed The Keeper. There was no question behind those eyes, and no hope. It was simply a statement of fact. The Keeper nodded again, his face gone cold and neutral.

“But you won’t.”

The Keeper nodded once more.

This time it was Shim’s turn to snort. The old acolyte dropped his gaze to the floor, focusing on nothing but the soft shuffle of robed feet across soft carpet. Several minutes passed as Shim and The Keeper made their way, though they were pleasant and knowing minutes rather than tense, hurt minutes. Finally, it was The Keeper who broke the silence.

“You don’t hate me then?” he asked. Shim simply shook his head sadly.

“No, Keeper,” he sighed. “I’m an old man and I’ve spent my life serving you. Your gift, your responsibility, isn’t something that can or should be used so lightly or for such trivial things.”

“Not lightly,” The Keeper rebuked softly. “And not trivial. Your life, your servitude, should never be called these things.” This time it was Shim’s turn to nod.

“Still,” The Keeper continued. “There is a time for all things to end. One day my time as The Keeper shall end, one day Althanas itself will end. Your time has simply reached you sooner.”

“It’s been a good life,” Shim mused. “I’ve helped people, haven’t I?”

The Keeper stopped and turned to Shim, a soft, sad smile on his face. “You have, Acolyte Shim,” he said, “more than even I know.” The words cracked something within Shim, something that he’d not even known was there. And Shim cried and cried while The Keeper stood by, reassuring the dying man with his presence. Finally, when it was over, Shim looked up at The Keeper, his eyes raw and blood-shot.

“Is it really something small that will end the world?” he asked.

The Keeper laughed, and Shim followed suit, and then The Keeper told Shim how the world ended.

There was a mountain, known to the people of the Island of Scara Brae as Windlacer Peak. Though it was just one of many mountains which made up the Windlacer Mountain Range, the range’s namesake dominated everything around it. It was a monolith of stone and agelessness, thrusting well over a mile from its base into the clear blue skies above, defying men and gods alike with its cyclopean presence. Windlacer Peak stood proud and immutable, as it always had, likely the tallest edifice of its kind in all of Althanas. It had existed since the dawn of time, and no one had any reason to believe that it would not continue to exist well into a time in which all things but itself were long forgotten. But the shadow that fell away from the mountain, a hole which blotted the very sun from the sky, was somehow dwarfed by the all-consuming darkness of the lone figure which stood, a seemingly insignificant speck at the base of the peak.

The Devourer had returned to Scara Brae.

The Devourer had come to Windlacer Peak.

Heavy winds whipped and tore around the Devourer as it made its slow ascent up the mountain’s inhospitable face. Countless attempts had been made to overcome the ferocity of Windlacer Peak over the years, and the attempt had cost all but a handful their lives. Fewer still had successfully mounted the peak and had lived to return. But this mattered little to the Devourer, who was itself more a force of nature than the mortal thing it had once been. The ever flowing current of stinging wind and lashing cold raged against it, but was nothing compared to the storm which raged within the very heart of the beast.

Its storm was not one of mere pressure and speed, but was itself a living thing of ferocity which humbled hurricanes and a savagery which made the very quaking of the plates of Althanas seem small. This was the keening essence of madness, a howling wind lashed together from the gibbering cries of ten-thousand souls. It was life and death, creation and destruction, bound together into a single point of focus and then set to motion in a never-ending torrent of lust, rage, and sorrow which birthed and cannibalized itself in order to satisfy the Devourer’s hunger.

If the raging storm was the Devourer, then the hunger was the burning star at the core of the Devourer’s being. Swirling ropes of glowing ash lashed out to pull the Devourer step by step up the mountainside, leaving cooling rivulets of slagged rock and blasted earth in the creature’s wake. There had once been a time when the Devourer had been something different, something both greater and lesser than the beast which it had become. There had been life and love and happiness, and then there had been rage and revenge, and then there had been ambition. Maybe there had even been a glimmer of hope at one time. But all that was gone now, and only the hunger remained. But there was one thing, one glimmer of satiation which still pulled at the Devourer’s consciousness. A single spark of completion yet to be fulfilled which maybe, just maybe, could end the relentless hunger which had consumed it.

Thousands of feet of rock and sky fell away beneath the Devourer as it mounted Windlacer Peak with the same relentless determination with which it accomplished everything else. An inky tide of burning ash flowed calmly over the rock of the final ledge as the Devourer conquered the treacherous slope. It paused for a second, twin burnished eyes of flame shining through the haze of its being as it took in the sights before it. For all the trouble it took to reach this point, the Devourer had expected more to greet his arrival, and yet there was nothing before him save the dark maw of a single massive cave entrance which stretched long and low back down into the heart of the mountain. A guttural, inhuman hum of frustration vibrated out of the Devourer as it looked into the darkness, only for the same sound to be issued back at him from within.

“I know you, beast,” a voice spoke from the darkness, resonating from the heart of the massive cavern. Something shifted in the Devourer, an unspoken response to the challenge which the voice presented to it and it slowly glided forward, the rocks where it had stood glowing a bright orange against the thick gray clouds which had begun to swirl overhead. It was as if the mountain itself was gathering the very forces of nature against this unnatural entity.

“Your purpose is futile,” the voice continued, closer now. “I am the guardian of this place in mind, body, and spirit. My very soul is tied to the gateway here, so even if you somehow manage to slay me then the Tap will forever be denied to you.”

The Tap, the Devourer thought, once again feeling the pull of its hunger driving it forward. It was the very life force of Althanas itself. An entire planet’s worth of energy at his feet. Surely that would be enough to slake the red tide of hunger which pounded through every fiber of the Devourer’s being.

“You have already lost, mindless creature of destruction, depart now and forever,” the voice boomed out and from the darkness its source was revealed. A dragon, singular and massive, aged as Windlacer Peak itself, unfurled itself from the cavern. It was a titanic thing, with scales larger than the a wagon’s wheels, and thick horns and fangs which could cleave a giant in half as easy as a red-iron blade cleaved fresh summer butter. Its massiveness distorted the very air around the creature, eldritch power radiating in visible waves. Hard-earned experience from its mortal days as a monster hunter told the Devourer that this creature was near god-like in its power, and had the Devourer been anything else it would have quailed and fled as the creature demanded, knowing that death was a certainty.

But the Devourer was no longer that mortal monster hunter, and the hunger roared.

Ashes whipped in the rising winds as the Devourer surged forward towards the dragon and the creature nodded once as if expecting no other answer. Then, through half-lidded eyes, the dragon called forth the fury of the building storm and unleashed itself upon the Devourer. Light and fury tore at the swirling maelstrom from overhead as eldritch energies rent the fabric of space and time through the creature. And in the middle of it all, the dragon’s fiery breath pored over the Devourer with star-hot intensity. Nothing should have been able to survive the combined forces which poured through the Devourer. Nature, magic, and might combined into an insurmountable avalanche of force which turned a portion of Windlacer Peak itself into a swirling cloud of gaseous particles.

But though nothing should have been able to survive the dragon’s fusillade, the Devourer did, and its ashen form shot from the glowing center of focus the wash over the dragon’s maw. Claws of smoke rent and tore at the creature, innately sensing the weakness in the ancient creature’s seemingly impenetrable defense and exploiting them. The Devourer flowed up and over the dragon’s face and into the creature itself. In a single moment of clarity, the now wide-eyed dragon realized that it had not truly understood the creature before it at all, and that it was itself who had been dead the moment that the Devourer’s attentions had turned upon it.

And then the moment passed and the Devourer reached out with the power it commanded through the experience of lifetimes of strife and conflict, the very power to control the essence of the soul itself. With a single, well-practiced thought of eldritch rage, the Devourer tore the dragon’s soul apart, rending the creature’s essence into incoherent shreds of power which the Devourer then wove into the fabric of its own being. The ageless guardian of Windlacer Peak was now simply another voice in the storm of the Devourer’s mind. Finished, the Devourer flowed away from the dragon’s corpse. The strong, proud creature was already beginning to come apart, withering into dust under the touch of the Devourer’s power.

With nothing left in its way, the Devourer flowed forward into the cavern, seeking the siren which called to the hunger which burned just a little hotter with the fuel of the dragon’s soul added to it. It wasn’t hard for the Devourer to find, a simple gateway of rune-carved stone which twitched and pulsed with a dying energy. The dragon had said that the portal had been linked to the dragon’s own soul, and that it would close upon his death. But the creature had expected his soul to depart the mortal realm when it fled its body, not to be bound in an unending half-life as part of the Devourer.

The portal held, and the way was open.

But even as the Devourer approached the flickering energy with would lead it to a nearly unlimited source of potential something stopped it. The hunger continued to call out, insatiable, but its drive was not towards the portal. No, there was something else that it sought out, something else that was nearby.

A familiar laugh penetrated the darkness surrounding the Devourer. A horrible sound which cut straight through the maelstrom surrounding the beast and drove right into the core of its essence. It was a sound that called out to the first life, to who the Devourer had once been. The Devourer focused on that sound, turning slowly to face it, the swirling cloud of its essence condensing into the form of a burning human male, cracked lips peeling from jagged teeth in a snarl of incomprehensible rage.

“You!” the Revenant growled, somehow forced to once again take his true form by the laughter’s mocking hammer blows.

“Got to say, Willie,” Jensen Ambrose giggled as he oozed from the pores of the rock, “you’ve looked better.”

(In the past)

“Are we sure there is no alternatives?”

The room was narrow and small, a chill frost about it that kept everything around the surrounding area cold and bleak. It was a flight of stairs that led the progression into the deeps. Ever spiraling further and further and further into the maw of the mountain hold. The ruins were never repaired, the skeletons undisturbed from this mountain keep. Territory owned by Lord Vladimir Sigma was to be undisturbed, per the charter of the Unified nations of Salvar.

When it was time to find a home for the inpatient, he had agreed this venture to place him inside the castle prison. It was a fight worthy of the gods for sure, hundreds of soldiers killed, more injured and suffering traumatic episodes whenever they heard malicious laughter. This thing was said to be the only force of nature powerful enough to stop the Devourer. And with options running out, the very Tap of Althanas in jeopardy, they agreed that they would awaken one evil to stop another.

“We are out of options.”

The two lead warriors wore faded cobalt armor; Ixian legacy armor. They felt a measure of pride to be wearing the uniforms once more and that their actions held a weight that carried the world. Spines stiff, muscles ready to act, they entered into the bottom chasm. What they were told they would find had not prepared them. They held the rest of the expedition back, the two Ixians marching forth.

“My word...he’s not frozen...all of time around him froze!” one said. The man was portly, not seeing action in thirty years. He carried his sword at his side, but it hung with a heaviness of a man who had yet to reclaim his grace he once had. The woman next to him was a young thing, an elven maiden from Raeira who volunteered. She observed the scene and tried hard to not gasp at the awe of it all.

Suspended in a block of ice was almost a kandid moment of a stage performance. The crescendo of the act reaching the climax before it was immortalized in frozen rock. It was clear, and magical to the touch and within held fourteen warriors, all impaling a single solitary man within the core. His arms were held out wide, as if he had let them come, and the red stains of blood was a lake beneath his feet.

“One last check,” she said to him.

“He hasn’t come close to the Devourer’s kill tally. But he’s been known, if the legends are true, to be the only one who can’t be killed by him. No matter what, his soul is free of the Devourer. This is all we have.”

They called in the team, and within seven mages of the Royal Coronian Academy entered in awestruck wonder. It took an hour for preparations, Rethul Orlouge’s magic very precise to keep the immortal within contained so he wouldn’t reanimate. It had taken several days to melt the ice, bit by bit, eroding the magic. On the fourth day they reached the first body suspended within. He was long dead, his body frozen to death in suspended animation. He probably felt it the entire time. By the sixth day they reached the first impaled spear tip, and found it brittle and rotted in the frozen tundra. By the twelfth day they were alerted that the Devourer had reached Scara Brae.

They had no more time, and the captain of the expedition made his choice. He grabbed his mallet, swung it, and began to shatter chunks of ice. The cold bit at him, but time was out. Warhammers, picks, and other tools had been brought into the room where they fought the ice that chilled their very blood. Seven hours and two dead adventurer’s later, they broke through the ice to reach the last four feet to their target.

“Al~almost there,” the elf’s teeth chattered. The man nodded, lifting up his mallet and slamming the ice hard. The fissure created a spiderweb of fractures along the surface, and within the ice the body they were trying to reach pulsed. They stopped, all looking to him. There was a moment of hesitation, before a blast of electrical energy shot out of the immortal’s chest. It cascaded around the block of ice, chewing the ice apart as it ate away the cold. They all took steps back, drawing their weapons and waiting with breath held. The ice melted as a sickly aura of yellowish hue emanated from the body, his eyes opening and revealing a haunting golden hue. They turned to look, the head stiffly following the gaze as the ice was pulled away.

A fist broke free, batting away at the chunks as the eldritch green energy continued to pulse around and aid the body in escaping. What took the expedition twelve days was finished within mere minutes, and a heavy boot stiffly kicked free, the body retching and spasming as the power of the lightning magic formed around him, spiking into the shape of an ancient rune, before a ghostly image grabbed the bolt and stabbed the immortal in the chest causing him to scream with agony.

It collapsed onto the ground, the aura of famine around the warrior fading as he shut his eyes. The room remained silent for several minutes.

When the lead made to speak they all heard it, and it was subtle enough to send chills down their spines. A gale of wind rushed down the stairs, slamming the door behind them shut. The room panicked as the elven woman shouted for order. Her eyes turned to her comrade, and her heart broke to see a knife impaled in his throat, hands drunkenly trying to remove it. A boot kicked him in the butt, an ignoble action felling a noble man. With a cruel, gravely whine the skeletal like human with flesh that barely stretched around his bones reached his hand up, a knife within it and loosed before the elf could blink. Another man fell, his right eye impaled and he screamed.

“Hilarious, isn’t it,” the voice said, an ethereal tone like the wrapping of aged paper. “The last laugh is loudest when you die they say,” he turned to her, and in a moment of a breath he was behind her, another dead adventurer, a woman, was cast at her feet. “But what do they know?”

Blink

A mage was dropped at her side.

Blink

The room was a slaughter house. Infernal laughter ringing in her ears as body after body was dropped around her. At last, at long last, she was alone, and she took a fearful step back. Her mouth screamed when she felt her back hit something. She turned and flailed, her wrists caught by his bony hands.

“I want to hear you laugh, leaf licker,” he snarled. She screamed loudly, and his fingers reached down her arm and found their way to her throat. “Or at least tell me a joke,” he mused, smiling to her with a damning grin.

“Please, you have to listen to me,” she whimpered.

“This ought to be good,” he mused lifting her up so her feet dangled. She told of him of the Devourer and of the world’s plight. How they chose him to save humanity, despite humanity turning their back on him. He listened, lowering her, before releasing her. She apologized for crimes she hadn’t committed, she wailed in loss at the destruction caused by the Devourer. How the god’s themselves ran when he ate the essence of the Thayne’s. He chuckled at their deaths, before he leaned against the ice, his body melting it into a makeshift throne. He lifted up a dagger, cleaning his nails as she finished, her body bent to him in supplication. “We had to stop you, because you were no longer yourself, it was a choice our lords of old didn’t make lightly. But our current lord asks you to please, please, find your humanity that you once found in us, and defend this world.”

He looked down at her with judgmental eyes, before he kicked his feet up and stood, standing before her. His very aura of Famine drained her of any more fight. She had said her piece. Now it was up to him to make the choice. He leaned down to her, a gentle finger lifting her chin.

“You know…” he said earnestly. She watched, looking into his soul for the answer. It came quickly when his rotten breath laughed at her, fully making her want to gag. He bellowed in lung deep guffaws, hissing and whining like a hyena as he slapped her hard. He lifted himself and laughed turning to the door. “That is the most hilarious shit i’ve heard. Here’s another good one. The same lord of old you are referring to, Sei Orlouge, is the reason the Revenant walks the earth. And he’s also the reason why I lost my humanity. He let everything I love be taken and killed. Because at the end of the day, he couldn’t take a life. So he just kept taking mine over,” he lifted her by her hair. “And over,” his knife plunged into her gut. “And over,” he stabbed again. “And over!” he laughed, stabbing her again. “AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER!!!!” He was lost in hysterics as he stabbed her repeatedly until she was near unconscious from the pain and blood loss.

“I’ll fight the Revenant,” Jensen Ambrose said. “But not...not for you. Not for Sei and his family. Not for Humanity and Althanas. I’ll fight William...because he and I were destined to do this forever.”

“A~A~As l-l-long…” she murmured woozily. “As you...fi-fig-fight.”

“Fuck you bush humper,” Jensen seethed slamming his boot in her head silencing her. He tapped his chin with the bloody blade. “I’m gonna need a shower...and a potato; twice baked. With Bacon, Chives, and butter and sour creme.” He giggled to himself as he went back to his throne, slamming his fist into the ice shattering it. He pulled his coat out and looked to the names of those he lost in his immortal life time, the list too long for him atone properly. He stopped upon the middle, thumbing Stephanie’s name, Tobias name, and Azza’s name.

“Blood will be spilt guys...and I think this is my ticket out. But one more fight...for old times sake?” He lifted the jacket, feeling a warmth from it that made the cold in the room vanish. He reverently placed his jacket on and laughed as he lifted the shroud over his head in a cowl. He touched the edges and thought about his old home, and in a cloud of smoke he vanished into the darkness.

(Current Day)

The sweltering heat never bothered the immortal. One of the few warriors who had gone toe to toe with the Revenant enough to get past his heat wave. He looked upon the mess of a man that was once in a long ago fairy tale the closest thing to a friendly rival he had. A Frenemy of sorts. But even then it was touch and go at best. They tried to kill one another, they brought out the worst in each other, and they fought over the stupidest things just for the sake of fighting. It had nearly ruined his relationships, had cost him a few immortal lives, and even now, looking back, knowing where the road went he could honestly say he wouldn’t change things.

The real monster standing between the Devourer and the Enigmatic Immortal was Sei Orlouge.

“Though I suppose you could have looked worse,” Jensen giggled, his laughter always a sore point to his fiery comrade. He approached William slowly, tilting his head. “You even in there Willie?” he asked.

His hands reached to his side, pulling a satchel to his hip and holding it. “Look, I know you got a lot of anger and rage in there, and you got this idea about ending the world. Cannot honestly say i am not tempted to just laugh and join ya. But that’s...never been us has it?”

William said nothing, but tilted his head back. There it was. That was what Jensen had to know still existed. The healthy respect. The respect of two men who fought and bled together, trained together, killed together, but also wanted to kill the other. To break the other. It was this respect that prevented the Devourer from just charging in. And that same respect was why Jensen didn’t jump him. He made his presence known.

Suicide?

Perhaps. William was far more stronger than any other time they fought. But so was Jensen. They both had fought with the Kron’Tyr and the Storm Herald. They both had pushed themselves past normal limits of fighting pique. They pushed one another to become better, and then they split. Bad blood existed with Jensen for a while, and for William he was sure there was a bit as well, but in the end it had vanished back to clarity; this was just how they acted towards the other.

Knowing William was truly in there, somewhere to hold the demon within back, he lifted his satchel and pulled out a foil wrapped goodie. “This is what all the rage is about, Willie,” he tossed it over to the demonkin. “Twice Baked Potato. Go on, eat,” The immortal lifted his own and enjoyed the delicious scent. “It’s not like anyone else in the world is going to interfere. It’s you, me, this hell pit, and our appetite for destruction. This is all going to end one way or the other William. So...shut up and eat with me. Just one last time.”

He unwrapped his potato, smiling to himself and lowering his lips and taking a bite. It was exactly how he remembered it. He moaned loudly, sexually pleased by this potato of holy goodness. When he finished he looked to William, lifting out a third potato.

“And of course, enough for one more helping...but you gotta fight me for it,” he said laughing obnoxiously rolling it between them.

Something woke inside William, something so old that he’d forgotten the feel of it. There was a pattern to it, to the mad laughter and the cocksure swagger, a sureness in the orange shine of grease on foil that triggered an instinctive response from the Revenant. For a moment, the madness of his desire was gone, the hunger for destruction replaced with a more timeless hunger.

William reached out without thinking and caught the foil projectile. The swirling mass solidified even more as the potato dissolved into him, wrapper and all. He could taste it, taste the complex bouquet of flavors as it swirled through him. Each familiar sensation drawing him farther back into himself, into who he had once been. William eyed Jensen with unbridled hatred, feeling more and more like himself with each passing moment.

Several raspy sounds came out before William managed to growl again, “Of course it’s you.” The speech was broken, but coming stronger and more sure as William remembered how to speak. Icy wind whipped between the two of them as they studied each other, neither man seeming to notice.

And then Jensen pulled out the third potato. William’s nostril’s flared at the sight, though he was much too far away to actually smell the delicious morsel. A sudden and fierce hunger cramped his reformed gut, a hunger wholly unlike the destructive desire pounding in the back of his mind. William was certain that he’d never wanted anything in his life as much as he wanted that potato.

“Give,” he hissed, the words lingering between them.

“Come take it, big boy,” Jensen leered. The potato twitched in his hand, beckoning. “I’ll give it to you just like those noodles did.”

William snarled and took a single step forward.

“Too slow,” Jensen squealed in delight. His right hand shot forward, releasing a dagger at his charred foe. The dagger was a priceless artifact, a rune-etched shard of adamantine that Jensen had salvaged from the ruins of the Ixian treasury. It’s magic blade but not only flesh with ease, but soul as well. It was a terrible weapon, and its worth could not be calculated in petty coin.

The howling wind atop Windlacer Peak grabbed the dagger halfway through its flight and carried it off the side of the mountain. Jensen stared after the blade, a single eye twitching. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

And then William hit him.

Life exploded from Jensen as his chest caved in on itself. His body slumped, hurling the foil potato behind him as it fell. William gasped as the pure-happiness-in-physical-form sailed towards the same cliff that Jensen’s dagger had disappeared over. He planted one bare foot squarely on Jensen’s face, toes curling into the dead man’s mouth, and vaulted after it.

Time slowed to a stop as he neared the flying potato, only to return with awful speed the moment he closed his fingers around the prize. William yelled triumphantly and raised the potato over his head only to realize that he was still surging towards the cliff himself. The yell of triumph turned to a shriek of panic as he jerked backwards, arms flailing in an attempt to stop his momentum.

An open abyss rose in front of him, a straight drop of nearly a mile making the world seem small beneath him. But then it pitched back to normal, William’s desperate strength pulling him inexorably back from the ledge.

“Hah!” he yelled again, this time adding a happy jump to punctuate it. Then he paused, an odd look of realization on his face. “Wait a minute. I can fly.”

“Yo, Willie,” Jensen yelled, a surge of green lightning lifting his body upright and re-inflating it. “Your foot tastes like butt. Also, I believe that belongs to me.”

Jensen eyed the Revenant with his holy prize. A deep desire to have it coming over him. He had a wicked idea, the last parts of his sanity dwindling as he became a cackling fool. His hands rose to his chest pulling a few knives that weren't instantly melted by William’s attacks and let loose.

Easily they were snatched up by the wind, off and over the ledge. “GODS DAMMIT!” Jensen hollered. William gave him a snarky grin as he prepared to take the potato, but with a wail of laughter he was back to snarling.

In a blink Jensen was gone, black wisps of shadowy tendrils moving in the wind. William looked to follow but he was too late. “Tell me what this tastes like fucker!” Jensen wailed with laughter as he dropped from above, both boots drop kicking the demon in the face. He sprawled backwards, both arms flailing still holding the potato. Jensen grinned as he fell to the icy floor, bounding back up with agility and grace elven dancers would murder for.

He rolled back to gain momentum, pouncing forward with cat like ease and landing upon William, screaming in laughter as he pushed the already wobbly Revenant off the cliff. “Let’s see how this roller coaster goes!” Jensen screamed over the demon’s own high pitched wails.

The burning effigy of his body incinerated Jensen, his flesh peeling away in mere seconds. His lips never stopped his damning leer, the immortal’s Breath of the Undying sending eldritch green lightning to fork over his body and keep him a state of death and rebirth. He punched William, skeletal bones breaking and reforming as Jensen howled with Sadistic glee. It had been ages since he brawled to his potential and he intended to fight like this for as long as he could.

He pulled back one hand to punch, but before he could land a blow his jaw exploded.

It didn't break.

It didn't melt.

It exploded.

William’s fist ran hot with magma, dripping to the ground hundreds of feet below their descent as the icy winds whipped around them. Jensen gurgled, his tongue lashing side to side with no mouth to contain it as green energy began to form around his neck. He released his ashen hands from the Revenant’s collar, body flowing upwards.

In a moment black tendrils swam around the immortal’s body, and in a blink the demon lost sight of him. He turned in his fall and looked to the ground, growling with anger as he prepared himself to fly, but his gut felt a blow even his incredible fortitude couldn't resist.

Crozius glowed with a blue hue at the tip, the enchanted strength of the weapon making the hit to his stomach something that would shatter stone. William’s fiery eyes widened in pain and alarm as Jensen held the weapon back and grinned while falling.

“Now batting for the Coronian Rangers,” Jensen teased as his giggling intensified. He held the maul back like a professional ball player and swung forwards. The hit was barely mitigated by the Revenant who lifted his arms up to cover his face, the war maul shattering bone and limping his forearms as they dangled uselessly.

William spun in wide circles, cartwheeling and free falling as he yelped and flailed. The sickening crunch of regenerating bones was lost in the windy whipping against his skin, Jensen moving all around his body hitting him from every angle. Being one with the wind allowed him better maneuverability as he beat William like a ragdoll, laughing and giggling and cackling like a deranged jester of old.

“Willie ball corner pocket!” Jensen taunted with a high pitch scream of mirth, teleporting with the Veil of Darkness around his shoulders to above William with a two handed blow cooking for the Revenant’s back.