Death's Favorite Warlock

by Charles Dean

“What’s your name?” Lars asked, tired of not knowing what to call her in his head.

  “Desdemona. But people usually just call me Mona. It’s easier.”

  “Desdemona”—Lars let the word sit on his tongue for a second as he once more eyed the mixture—“you were in charge of harvesting herbs and ingredients. Does that mean you have something with you to store this in?”

  “Uhh . . . yeah.” She pulled out a few glass vials and a tiny metal scooping instrument that Lars had never seen before. It was like a spoon, but the head was small enough to easily fit in and out of the vial. “How much should go in one vial?”

  “Let me,” Lars said, taking the containers. He used the guidance of his apparently amazing and wonderful internal master alchemist to portion out the immunization rations. There were four full vials’ worth of the cure, and the voice assured that each contained enough for even someone weighing 250 pounds to become completely immune to many toxins the same way he was.

  “So, are you going to sell those? I imagine they’d be worth a fortune if you could prove they worked,” Desdemona asked.

  “Maybe,” Lars answered, looking at the four vials. After a moment, he handed one to her. “You should take one yourself. You might have been poisoned too.”

  “Huh?” She looked shocked. “I . . . um . . .” She stared dumbfounded at the vial.

  “This doesn’t mean I like you or that I even approve of who you are. There is no reason you should have been in my town, and there is no reason you should have just gone along with what they were doing—selling people for a comfortable night’s sleep. I still think you’re a monster.” He made sure to spell it out clearly for her, not wanting to give her the wrong idea. “But I’m not you, and I won’t become you either. Take one and drink it so that you don’t die before we reach a town.”

  “You know, one of these might be worth enough to buy one or two more Stage 2 Qi-Gathering Cultivators, ones you don’t hate, right?” she asked, clearly not understanding his gesture despite hastily complying with the order.

  “I guess you’re the expert on slaves,” Lars snapped back, walking over and lying down next to the fire. He was done with the conversation and with her for now. He just wanted to close his eyes and forget about everything—forget about the town, his mother’s possible fate, the people he had to kill, what he had been forced to do to Desdemona, and what had happened to Ramon. It had been a long, rough day, and as he closed his eyes, he was hoping for a little peace and quiet. Unfortunately, he didn’t get that. Instead, a familiar voice crept into his head as a message appeared in front of him, one he could see even with closed eyes.

  You know, “Master” isn’t a bad nickname for me . . . if you ever feel like you need to give me one.

  Are you mad that I’ve never asked for your name, but I’ve already asked hers? Lars was a bit amused at the tone she used. He had wanted to shut the world out, but for some reason, her voice was incredibly comforting at the moment.

  No. Why would I be? I don’t need a name. I’m part of you, so for now, your name will do just fine as my own. But, if you need to give me one, you’re welcome to use “Master.” It’s a fitting moniker since I’ve taught you everything you know, regardless of how ungrateful you’ve been.

  Fine. Lars chuckled a little at his “master’s” tone and jesting seriousness. You’ve been a good master. I’ll try not to be unfilial if we make it through these woods.

  That’s the spirit! Now, you and your little slave girl still have work to do if you want to make sure another monster doesn’t try to eat you before dawn, so let me walk you through the best ways of masking your scent and how to hide the light from your campfire while getting the most out of the warmth. You’re going to have a long night ahead of you, little disciple, so prepare yourself. Also, eat some of those joowangberries. They’re delicious, and that Toxin Immunity will protect you against the harsh effects.

  Chapter 3

  Name: Lars

  Level: 1

  Power: 75

  Speed: 31

  Fortitude (HP): 29

  Resistance: 33

  Unspent: 16

  Elemental Abilities

  Toxin Qi: 32

  Fire Qi: 18

  Ice Qi: 8

  Wind Qi: 6

  Water Qi: 6

  Abilities

  [5] Advanced Reading Level 1 [26,342/1,000,000 Words Read]

  [5] Knife Hand Level 1 [0/5 Unaware Combatants Killed]

  [20] Toxin Immunity Level 4 [1/10 Toxins Consumed]

  [N/A] Unyielding Ice Veins [No Level]

  Item Skill Progressions

  Enslavement [1/5 People Enslaved]

  Mmm, something smells delicious, Lars thought as the aroma of sizzling fat and caramelizing meat graced his nose.

  Oh, that does smell good! I want it!

  Me too, Lars thought as he rubbed his eyes and sat up slowly. He looked around and was immediately able to identify the source of the smell: Desdemona, having healed partially with a bit of rest, had made a fire and cut away some of the monster’s flesh, and she was now cooking it over a flame using wooden spikes that she had formed into a makeshift rotisserie. As he watched her in curiosity, he realized that she hadn’t noticed his stirrings at all. She just stared intently at the meat cooking in front of her, almost as if she were bewitched by it.

  In case you were wondering, yes, either your slave is a moron, or she’s trying to get us killed. Might as well order her to bring you your last meal so you can eat it while lying down and staring at the canopy of leaves above us.

  What? What do you mean? Lars asked, but he hadn’t even finished the thought before he realized what she was talking about: predators. If he could smell the meal so strongly that its aroma woke him up, then it was definitely strong enough to lure any beast lurking in the woods.

  You moron! Lars bit his tongue to stop from shouting since he didn’t want to do anything else to draw attention to them. Instead, he pushed himself to his feet and rushed over to her.

  “What the heck are you doing?!” he whispered as best he could, trying to keep quiet while at the same time trying to get her attention right away.

  “Food,” Desdemona answered. She reached to her right, where a big stack of already-cooked meat lay, and grabbed some of it before taking a bite.

  “Are you trying to get us killed?!” he asked. “Put that down right away!”

  Desdemona blinked, and her face twisted for a second as her hand let go of the meat it was holding, which fell in front of her. Her eyes remained glued to the falling morsel, and the moment it hit the ground, she reached down and grabbed it, dusting it off with her hands before chomping away at it again.

  That girl knows the five-second rule. FIVE-SECOND RULE FOR LIFE.

  Lars flinched as he watched her. He had originally promised himself he wouldn’t force her, order her, or take away her free will, yet here he had done it again. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since the contract was established, and he’d already broken his promise more than once. He’d used the collar in such a trivial manner too, and that fact was even more gut-wrenching.

  Oh, stop pouting. If we’re going to die, might as well eat up first . . . and then, maybe you can order her to stay here. Use her as bait. If she made the problem, she can be the solution, right? Who knows? Maybe you’ll get lucky and stumble your way into killing another big predator while it’s slow and lethargic, busy digesting her.

  I’m not going to just let her die, Lars replied, but he had to admit it was tempting as he studied the pile of food. And she is the one who is causing this mess . . .

  “I’m going to die anyway,” Desdemona responded as if she could read Lars’s internal monologue. “It’s certain. That thing . . . We had no way to stop it. If it had hit me or you instead of Ramon, do you think we’d be any more likely to live? Nope. Death is what awaits us, so we may as well go out well fed with the best meal we can make.”

  Thatta girl. She knows what’s up
. Grab yourself some meat and use her for bait. You can be nice and not even tell her what you’re doing. Just hide in the distance. As long as you cover yourself with mud and stay very still, you should be fine. I think.

  You think? Lars did not like hearing “you should be fine” and “I think” in the same survival plan from his only source of information about the outside world.

  Despite likely being positive about the fact that she was going to die a slave in the middle of the woods, Desdemona was awfully calm and even smiling a little as she spoke. “You know,” she began, “they never did let us eat properly at the sect. It was always, ‘Purify the blood, cultivate the heart, fortify the body,’ or some nonsense. And most meat apparently isn’t pure—or so they said. Cheap vegetables meant for livestock is all I ever had. Which makes sense. After all, that’s all I was to them.”

  Oh, man. She’s broken. I’ve heard that type of talk before. She’s gone. She’s gone for good. I know I said having a slave would be helpful, and having live bait would be even better, but maybe you should just harvest that EXP now. Crazy people are too unpredictable to be used. Best put a clean, quick Knife Hand right into the back of her skull.

  “Desdemona?” Lars looked at her, the strange dullness in her eyes causing him to worry. “Desdemona, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Never been happier. I’m going to die, but what does it matter? I didn’t live. This is the best morning I've had in a decade, it feels like . . . and I’m going to die. Whatever.”

  “Don’t . . .” Lars quickly bit his tongue. He didn’t want to accidentally bark out another order that Desdemona would be forced to obey, but she didn’t care at all.

  “Had me going for a second there,” she laughed. “I thought you were going to get sentimental or something and say, ‘Don’t give up!’ And then I’d be stuck with that crappy order forever. Ugh, what a drag that would be.”

  “You don’t look very worried,” Lars noted instead.

  Desdemona simply shrugged. “So should we pack up and start walking for hours on end while I deal with this barely healed wound, or are you going to carry me again?” she asked with complete sincerity.

  Lars’s mouth dropped. She wants me to carry her again? After she . . .

  “Oh, right,” she said, reaching down and handing him a piece of meat from the cooked meat pile. “Here you go. I can’t have my new master go hungry before the journey.”

  Yup. It’s absolutely certain now: she is definitely gone, Lars. The adrenaline from the kill and surviving such intense situations has worn off, and all that’s left is the horror. It’s time to harvest that EXP. She’s been as useful as she can be, so let’s reap and roll, baby! REAP AND ROLL! But eat a little first. It’s only polite.

  No, Lars objected, I’m not just going to leave her. I’m going to . . . Lars looked around. He didn’t actually have anything that could be useful for making a trap. He knew all too well from his work patching up his mother’s house back at the village that it would take forever to fashion any sort of spiky instrument for a pit trap. He lacked a proper amount of rope for the other go-to hunting trap they used to employ back home too, and he didn’t have a bow or an arrow with which to try to fight a beast from the trees. He could try to hide on one of the branches and use his Qi, but it wasn’t likely to do a lot of damage, and he didn’t have enough of it.

  The venom! Lars thought, twisting around to stare at the dead baem’s head. The venom in its fangs was lethal enough to kill a Stage 2 Qi practitioner, so . . . it should easily kill a beast, right? Lars thought as he grabbed one of the fangs with both of his hands and began yanking it out of the dead snake’s mouth.

  Ugh, even with stat increases, this is just sad. Do you not know how to pull? Don’t you know how to yank it properly at your age? You should be able to pull it out without an issue.

  Hey, unless you want to do this yourself, be quiet, Lars retorted, silencing the criticism as he kept pulling at the fang. Since it wouldn’t budge, he took his knife and began digging around the gums until the fang finally popped free.

  Once he had the tooth, he looked around the camp, finally finding a stick that was straight and sturdy enough to be of use.

  A spear? Really? Fine. If you want to make a spear, go get yourself a jagged hand-sized rock, a fat hand-sized rock, and another stick. You’re going to need all of it. The next stick doesn’t need to be straight though.

  ‘Kay. Lars didn’t waste time arguing. He did what he was told and gathered up the two large sticks, breaking one so that it was just the right size for the spear. Then he followed her instructions, taking the jagged rock and placing it on top of one end of the straight stick, which he had stuck vertically into the ground. Next, he used the heavy flat rock to smash it into the wood, sharp end first. It took a few tries and a little more strength than he had expected, but he was eventually able to create a nice split at the end of the stick. When he was finished, he took the fang and jammed it into the split with the pointy side facing upward.

  To make sure it didn’t go anywhere, Lars grabbed the jagged rock again and began using the sharp edge of it to peel off a long, thin strip of bark from the other stick. He hadn’t thought of it when Ramon was trying to weave his blanket, but the bark strips ended up making a great makeshift twine, which he used to fasten the fang in place and create a tight bind so that the speartip wouldn’t budge an inch.

  When he finished his work, he saw Desdemona watching him with the same blank expression, and while he wanted to say something, he still didn’t know how to deal with her.

  Now that that’s done, do you have any idea how you’re going to slow down the inevitable predator enough to kill it? Or are you going with my bait method?

  I’m not using anyone as bait. Lars brushed that idea off as he stared back at Desdemona. She might have tried to kill him, but she was still, by some rather uncomfortable method, his slave now. Even if he was furious at her for starting the potential problem that would appear, he didn’t want to lose someone else. He had already watched so many people die, from Dawn to Ramon to the strangers he had fought. He had been drowned in the experience of death, and part of him just didn’t want to see it again. It was all too senseless.

  “Do you have anything to hold water with?” he asked Desdemona, who was still staring at him as she slowly took another bite of her meat.

  “Yeah,” she said, handing over a bowl she had made out of a bit of snake bone. “Have at it,” she added before turning her eyes back to the fire.

  You know, you could command her. Make her use a spear too. She might not look it at the moment, but she is a competent fighter—even if that freaking moron thought a flying kick would be a good idea. I’m still so annoyed. WHO DOES A FLYING KICK?! I don’t care if she does have tail feathers; that’s just stupid. Then cracking like this? Ugh. Why did your slave have to turn out to be such a dud? You could have gotten a handsome combat butler or one of those . . . Oh, you probably don’t know what a French maid is, much less a butler. But you could have had one of those! Instead, you got Miss Polly-Wanna-Turn-into-a-Cracker.

  Why do I feel like what you’re saying is more offensive than it even sounds? Lars shook his head and used his Water Qi to fill the bowl. He couldn’t help but be amazed at how easy it was to make water. He had always needed to go out of his way to find a good, clean source of the stuff, having to buy it from vendors, hike out to the well, go down to the river, or bum some from his neighbors. But here it was, just pouring out of his hands like magic.

  ‘Cause it is magic.

  Right. It is magic, Lars thought. He didn’t know if, how, or when he should start to question things like how he could, using just his body, produce a substance that could sustain his body. That didn’t make sense, but at the moment, he didn’t have time to think about it. Even though things were calm right now, at any minute an enemy could appear.

  And the bait is still sitting there, waiting to be used. Isn’t she polite?

  She’s
not bait! Lars snapped back at the thought. He almost said it aloud—he even almost yelled it—but he didn’t want Desdemona to hear. For all he knew, she might be okay with being used as bait with her current defeatist attitude. She might give him the thumbs up and throw a piece of meat on her head.

  Well, if you don’t plan on using her as bait, could you at least tell me how you plan on getting her to move? You don’t want to give her an order. Fine. Don’t. But without one, what are you going to do to snap her out of . . . that?

  Well, I’m just going to . . . Lars’s thoughts drifted off as he slowly did his best to direct his Toxin Qi into the water, making it a putrid greenish-black color and what he assumed would be an incredibly poisonous concoction. Success!

  Still not solving the dead-weight issue.

  Yeah, yeah, I’m thinking . . . Lars really was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The only two options he could see were to order her to help, make her run away or move, or let her stay there and act as bait. He didn’t like any of those options, but here he was, being forced to choose.

  “Mona,” Lars began, using the nickname she had shared with him yesterday, “I need you to not be right there next to the giant pile of fresh meat, letting it coat you in that smell.” He did his best to describe the situation perfectly without issuing any actual command.

  “You think I’m any safer where you are?” she asked, looking over at him. “I’m going to die, so just leave me be.”

  What the hell? What am I even supposed to do? Lars grumbled. He wasn’t talking to his master; he was just lost. He felt confused and conflicted. He didn’t know if he should just carry on and keep treating her as bait since he couldn’t get her to move or if he should just give her an order. His principles pulled him in both directions, and he had no idea what to do.

  Desdemona still just sat there, watching Lars. “Look, just leave me be. This is my happy day. I just want to . . .”

  Do it, Lars. Trust me. It’ll work. I’ve seen this more times than seconds have passed in your life.