Neitra’s smile looked like it was more filled with mischief than a desire for vengeance. But judging from the wickedly sharp dagger she held in a reverse grip, her idea of a silly little prank might very well have been stabbing someone in the face.

  Which was all well and good for Artyom, who gave his own smile, one filled with confidence.

  “Careful, she’s got a mean swing, you saw my broken arm after all,” said Artyom. “But we should be fine if you have more healing potions like that.”

  Neitra looked over at him with surprise. “That was my only one, they’re incredibly rare and only found in ancient dungeons. Didn’t you know?”

  Artyom’s eyes widened. “Well now I do!”

  It explained why he didn’t see any for sale in the market when he passed by, here or even in the larger cities he’d passed through. He felt even more gratitude towards the kobolds for giving him theirs now.

  He shook his head and focused back on the fight. “I was almost able to calm down Sister Elery before Lensa showed up and did something to magically enrage her. You’ve known her longer than I have, would taking out Lensa be easier?”

  “She’s the team’s support and only uses her staff to fight if anyone gets near,” replied Neitra. She bit her lip before continuing. “But nothing’s been able to hurt her, and her swing can kill any monster in a single hit.”

  “Yup, that’s my experience so far as well, save for the broken arm instead of being killed.”

  The sheer bullshit abilities the goddess was able to provide her priests with…

  “Do you think you can land an effective hit on her? Maybe get her to drop whatever hold she has on Sister Elery?” asked Artyom. “She resisted my strongest attack spell, and it’s supposed to bypass armor.”

  “I’ll try,” said Neitra before running at Lensa with her knife drawn.

  Artyom didn’t let her rush in alone, however.

  As the rogue cut through the undead between her and her quarry, Artyom channeled his spells into her. Speed of the Olympian and Lion’s Strength would get her a better running start and final push to plunge her dagger into Lensa, and an adrenaline-infused aura would let her use every ounce of strength available to her.

  Lensa’s eyes widened as Neitra turned into a blur of death, the falling undead corpses heralding her speeding approach. The chamber’s torchlight reflected off her dagger, the dim shine the last thing she saw before the blade made contact with her robes.

  Neitra plunged the knife into Lensa’s stomach as far as it would go and even twisted it for good measure. The rogue’s look of determination however quickly turned into shock as she jumped back and avoided a swing at her head.

  Artyom didn’t bother to ask her how it had gone. One look at the clean blade she held told him everything he needed to know.

  “I even used all of my Skills on that attack…”

  “Well, look on the bright side,” said Artyom with an apologetic shrug. “She’s a sitting duck while we deal with Sister Elery.”

  Neitra nodded but looked towards the ground. “I… I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “Me neither, but we have to be ready to do what’s necessary. Let’s start non-lethal.”

  “Wait, lethal?” asked Neitra with a sudden look of shock. “I don’t want to hurt her at all!”

  It took all of Artyom’s willpower to not blurt out, “what kind of rogue-assassin are you?!” But he held his tongue. “That’s what I mean. Start out non-le… harmingly? And work our way up from there.”

  Neitra looked uneasy for a moment, but soon nodded. “Alright, so what’s the plan with that?”

  Before Artyom could respond, more undead began to rise up around them to replace the ones they’d taken down since Sister Elery’s empowerment.

  “Monsters! Perverters of goodness, heathens to the goddess’ will! You two must die!” shouted the priestess from somewhere in the expansive room. The sound seemed to come from behind multiple pillars at once.

  “I’ve been channeling an aura of calm throughout the room since you and Lensa showed up, and she still seems pretty upset. It worked earlier, but it doesn’t look like it’s doing anything now. I’ll try to get closer and hit her with something stronger to see if that’ll do anything. Can you cover me?”

  Neitra lifted her blade and nodded, before charging at the nearest zombie. “I’ll be right behind you and keep you safe.”

  Artyom nodded and turned towards the sources of Sister Elery’s voice, the first of which was the pillar at the back-right of the room.

  The masses of the undead in the way were quickly dispatched by Neitra, who’d quickly poked holes into their weak points, leaving Artyom a clean path. Occasionally, Artyom would cut a leaping ghoul down with the rusted sword he’d pilfered or with a Gravity Lance, but the effort was trivial with the rogue backing him up.

  “And behind door number one…” began Artyom as he peeked behind the first pillar. “Nothing.”

  “Die, die, die!” shouted Sister Elery, her voice now projecting from the other three pillars in the room as even more undead began to fill it.

  “Wait a minute, stay where you are, Artyom,” said Neitra as she began to run towards the pillar on the opposite side of the room. Despite the extra distance from having to cross diagonally, it took no time at all for Neitra to rip through the foes in her way to get to the other side.

  Artyom couldn’t help but feel some relief that Neitra was on his side here instead of against. Fighting against someone that swift in a space filled with so many undead would have been a nightmare. But if it did come to that point, he would just leave the basement and try a more opportune time to interrogate Sister Elery.

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  Thankfully all he had to really worry about was Lensa, who was a very angry snapping turtle compared to the other superpowered combatants. One with an impervious shell and a bone-crushing bite force, mind you, but still very slow.

  “Artyom, I see her, she’s behind the back left pillar!” shouted Neitra.

  He began to move, but was interrupted by another shout from his ally.

  “Wait! Make sure you can still see behind the pillar you’re currently at so she doesn’t disappear!”

  Artyom gave her a thumbs up and moved into position, giving him line-of-sight with his target.

  Sister Elery’s rage-filled eyes widened before Artyom launched a beam of soothing aura at her.

  His magic struck her directly, and-

  The priestess screamed and summoned a ring of undead around herself, before disappearing again.

  “I recognized that Skill!” shouted Neitra, as she made her way back to Artyom’s side. “It’s an advanced Rogue ability that hides you between multiple possible spots, but you don’t actually appear at one of them unless all of the spots are being observed at the same time.”

  “So some kind of quantum mechanics type Skill?” thought Artyom. “What kind of upgrade did Lensa give her?”

  “Did your spell work? We can find her again with the same trick.”

  Artyom shook his head. “It didn’t. Whatever Lensa has on her is completely overriding her natural feelings, which is what my aura specifically affects.”

  “So what now? Do we have to…”

  “Forget it, just accept your fate and die for me and the goddess!” shouted Lensa as she began to run towards the two. Her pace was thankfully slow, but the undead moved aside to let her pass, so she was still almost as fast as the other two when they were clawing their way through the horde. “Give me my redemptio- ack!”

  Artyom didn’t hesitate to throw a Gravity Lance into her open mouth.

  Lensa choked for a second before hawking out a globule of spit and glaring daggers at him.

  “If that’s your response, then I- hurgh!”

  Lensa splashed the contents of an open vial into her mouth next. The majority of the green liquid hit the back of the throat and forced her to swallow.

  “So how long until that takes effect?” asked Artyom.

  “Well, she should start to feel sleepy immediately, but…”

  “And how long before it takes full effect?”

  “That is the full effect.”

  Artyom turned to look at Neitra. “What do you mean that’s the full effect? Did you give her a sleeping potion instead of lethal poison?”

  “It’s actually venom, so I don’t know how well it’ll work if eaten.”

  “Ok, I get wanting to spare Sister Elery, but Lensa?”

  “She’s still in the party and helping Tommy stop the Dark Lord, she’s still a good person.”

  “If she were, then she’d be helping us calm Sister Elery down instead of trying to kill us!”

  “…there’s more to good and evil than a single mistake. There’s an entire person’s life to look at. Can we really kill a person over it? We can’t take it back, after all.”

  “Gonna be honest, you’re definitely the weirdest assassin I’ve ever met.”

  Neitra pouted in response.

  “I get where you’re coming from, and don’t think this is the place for that kind of mercy, but let’s save this for later. I think I have a plan to get everyone out of this alive. Just follow my lead.”

  Lensa was staring at the two with confusion. Even the undead surrounding them stopped their approach as if to listen to their bickering. But her exasperation soon turned back into murderous hatred, and she advanced towards them at a deliberate pace, seemingly no worse for wear despite ingesting the venom.

  “Wow, I can’t believe you haven’t noticed what I’ve done yet,” said Artyom in a cocky tone as he broke away from Neitra and started to carve out more room for himself in the approaching horde of undead.

  “Uh… yeah!” exclaimed Neitra. “And you’re supposed to be a priestess who can heal people? How can you do that when you don’t even know when something is wrong with someone!” She looked at Artyom with hopeful eyes and he merely nodded, not making eye contact.

  “You did nothing,” spat Lensa. “Anything you could do is meaningless against the blessings of the goddess.”

  “Why don’t you let Sister Elery answer?” asked Artyom. “She’s probably feeling it now, underneath all of that raw power you’ve given her. A strained heart, red at the edges of her vision, maybe even a difference in her usual decision making?”

  “That’s all standard for my-”

  “And it’s only getting stronger the longer this fight goes on!” shouted Artyom, drowning out Lensa’s reply.

  “What are you-”

  Artyom focused his defensive spells into his throat and shouted even more loudly. “The crawling dread, it only approaches, the curse is coming, can the goddess dispel it when even her greatest priestess can’t see it?!”

  “Wait, no!” shouted Lensa, but it was too late.

  “The goddess’ wrath is mine, and it shall crush your feeble curse with her holy might!” shouted Sister Elery from seemingly multiple spots in the room. “[Benediction: Absolution from Influence]!”

  The undead in the room immediately froze, and the armor began to slough off the ones who wore it as if the rusted steel had suddenly turned into mud. They soon began to fall over themselves, once more returning to lifelessness seemingly by their own volition.

  “Using the goddess’ power against itself, her divine Skill to cancel out mine…” said Lensa in a low growl. “But that won’t stop me from reapplying it and Sister Elery learning better than to-”

  “Lensa, stop!”

  The lavender haired girl froze. She slowly craned her head to look over at the source of the noise, behind the back left pillar.

  Sister Elery stepped out from behind it, looking at Lensa with a severe look.

  “B-but mama-”

  “Lensa, enough. I heard what you said to them, and understand everything. Please, stop this.”

  “But I’ve abandoned the goddess’ will, I need to-”

  “No you haven’t, you’ve been abiding by it perfectly. More so than me, in fact,” said Sister Elery as she looked down at the floor in shame.

  “No you haven’t. I knew it was you who took the armor piece from the beginning, the goddess told me herself, but I didn’t tell anyone so you wouldn’t get into trouble! I could have just asked for it from you and we could have left, but I wanted to stay in town near you and papa as long as possible, so I…”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay sweetie,” said Sister Elery as she rushed over to Lensa and wrapped her up in a bear hug. “We can just continue, the goddess has given us mercy through your friend, who’s offered me his.”

  “I still stand by it,” said Artyom. “Nobody’s harmed, so I’m not snitching. I just want to ask you a question about something.”

  Neitra nodded along with a wide smile.

  Lensa looked at the two and their dope grins, and replied with a frown, which soon grew until it marred her entire face with a dark shade.

  The lavender haired girl pushed away from Sister Elery and stumbled back a step.

  “Lensa, what are you-”

  “No, it’s not alright. I’m supposed to follow the goddess’ will above all else, even my own! It’s my purpose, why I was created! I-I’m still not redeemed, and I don’t know if I even can be!”

  “Wait, created?” asked Artyom before Lensa began to slowly float into the air.

  The ground began to shake and loose rubble began to fall from the ceiling.

  “My actions are sin, my existence is apostasy, and above and below me are the testaments to my failures. To earn redemption, I shall cast all of it to dust!”

  And they learned hell.