The other path was filled with far more twists and turns, and the sound of Kindra's armor scraping against itself had the opposite of a calming effect on the group. They were not tense, but they were aware. So when they turned a sharp corner to see blue light emanating out of a chasm before them, everyone stopped, and all hands dropped to weapons.

Fykes shook his head as Katerin made her way forward, and he stepped out first, taking cautious strides across the floor. In the center of the room was a long dining table that's wood seemed rotten. Seated at the head of this table was a hunched skeleton, and the source of the light came from him, or maybe the crown upon his head.

Fykes' steps seemed not to cause any ill effect, but when the rest of their companions stepped in the room, Katerin watched the skeleton straighten, and blazing blue eyes looked upon them all.

The skeleton was up from its chair in a second with a long, heavy blade in its hands. It rushed for Fykes, blade poised to strike.

Fykes skipped aside from the heavy blow, but as the skeleton's blade impacted the stone, a burst of energy emanated, so abrupt that it knocked Katerin to the ground, and sent Fykes skidding away on his heels.

Before anyone had a second to breathe, they were fighting for their lives.

The skeleton moved faster than any man. His large sword sliced for Kindra's knee, flowing back like water and thrusting for Brazen. The blow did not connect, but once again energy erupted, and tossed them all away from the imposing, crowned figure.

Katerin focused her breath, pulled lightning from her palms to stretch around her fingertips, and netted it around the figure. Her opponent staggered, as if Katerin's lightning weakened him.

He rushed her, swung his sword for her in a wide arc. But in a flash of energy she was behind him.

Her companion's struggles melted away from her thought in the moment, and she could swear she was back in Alkyrindaun's training arena, as the figure pirouetted and his next blow slid along her breastplate with a screech.

Fykes, Brazen, and Kindra all rushed back toward the figure in Katerin's periphery, but before they could attack, he yelled, and they were pushed again. It was as the skeletal man contained the anger thunder and used it on command.

The skeleton only had focus for her, and his blade cut along Katerin's elbow, jarring her arm as the blade met bone, halting her attack. She reached out with her other arm and grabbed the figure's collarbone, jolting energy into him. If the light had been bright before, it was brilliant now, as the lines on Katerin's skin ignited to glow so brightly it blinded them both.

Katerin expected the form to shudder, or try to pull away. She heard a wispy grunt, before the skeleton slammed its crowned head into her face, causing her to stumble and recoil.

As she readjusted herself, and watched her companions rush to her aid, the skeleton pointed his sword defensively. "Wait!" he called, and his ethereal voice shook the building. "You," he pointed to Katerin.

Katerin wiped the blood from her forehead, smearing it across her skin as she stared up at the skeletal figure. "Now you want to talk?"

"You're marked." The crowned man's stance relaxed a fraction. There was a heavy sigh.

Fykes was by Katerin's side in a second, and his fingers brushed her arm above the cut, the look in his eyes asking if she really wanted to talk.

"And somehow that changes your desire to kill us?" Katerin looked at the man with one eyebrow raised.

"Marked souls do me no good." The energetic blue eyes sockets seemed to scan them. "And I only need to kill two of you."

"Why kill us at all?" Fykes asked, Ahlindrion still held at the ready.

Katerin glanced to Kindra, who was pacing like a wolf waiting for the moment to strike.

"To be free."

Katerin leaned her weapon on her shoulder and reached out her uninjured hand. "Maybe we can help you. I'm Katerin." The gesture was a risk, and Katerin could count all the ways she could be stabbed by offering the man her hand, but she had a feeling it might work. Something in the tone of voice was distressed and desperate.

"Dagir Whatill," The skeleton said with a sigh, forgoing his own weapon, and gripping Katerin's hand with a brisk shake.

"Is it a habit of yours to murder anyone who passes through this chasm?" Kindra asked, halting her pacing.

"This chasm is my home. My land." The skeletal head shook. "Trespassers are not welcome, nor common."

"Are you defending it?" Katerin asked.

"I am trying to return it to its... former glory. It was taken from me long ago... collecting souls that pass through is my chance to regain what I have lost."

For a skeleton that could show no emotion, Katerin could hear the desire in his tone.

"But I cannot leave, to seek these souls, and each time I am close, it seems I lose more progress than I can gain. My bargain has not been a fair one."

"Demon deals tend not to benefit anyone but the demon," Arjiah spoke now, with a sympathetic look upon her face.

Dagir's posture shifted as he looked at her. "I made no deals with any demon. The goddess Lodyne."

Katerin stiffened at the mention of the name and took a step away from Dagir.

"That is why it would be... retrogressive, should I take your soul." he gestured to Katerin. "And by your looks I feel that if I were to kill one, I would need to kill you all."

"That's true enough," Fykes said, with a nod of acknowledgment.

"Why do you think it is only us that would die?" Katerin asked. "What did Lodyne offer you?"

"That is a lengthy story. But Lodyne promised me that I should exist in this state, forever, until I could collect all the souls she required. So even if I were to perish momentarily, I would return. And the process would start again. One thousand souls in one thousand days seems nothing, in the course of so many hundreds of years, but Lodyne seems quite content with the deal as is. I sometimes wonder if I face purposeful setbacks, so my count of souls might grow even higher for her."

The pain in Dagir's voice was familiar to Katerin, and she knew that her own thoughts took that same tone often when Lodyne had meddled within her mind. "She is a goddess of pain. Did you expect anything else when you made a deal with her?"

There was a dry chuckle, and Dagir shook his crowned head. "I was a desperate man. My son was very sick. It was an illness that even my best and most studious scholars and clerics could not reverse. I tried everything I could to cure him, and in doing so, my kingdom weakened. Eventually, Lodyne came to me. She told me that for all I owned, she could cure my son.

He would be well again, if only I was willing to forgo everything I owned and loved. If I accepted, I would only have one way out. I would have to collect one thousand souls in one thousand days. Failure to meet such a deadline was punishable by the counter resetting. I took the deal. My son improved. He woke up, smiled, the delirium faded from him.

And then my kingdom fell. Ruarden Hold was a force to be reckoned with, and in all of a second it fell from its mountaintop into nothingness and death. And so I have been here, collecting souls and mourning all that I lost in the name of desperation."

As Dagir spoke of his son, Katerin's world spun. She waited for him to quiet, before she spoke. "This illness. Can you describe it further?"

Dagir gave her a curious look, but spoke of his son's illness in depth. How he grew sicker each day, fevered so strongly that it was a miracle on its own that he did not perish. He spoke of the days when he doubted that his son even inhabited his body, and he spoke of the days that gave hope, only to lose them in the night hours, and to face a person who he swore was not his child.

When he finished, Katerin's hands were shaking, and she had no defense for the tears in her eyes. With every sentence she could see her father, and his struggles with a similar fate.

"You know of this?" Dagir's voice was forceful and rushed. "Was it cured? Does your loved one exist free of it?"

A quiet "No," was all Katerin could manage.

"How many souls do you need to be free of this?" Fykes asked, looking with sympathy to Katerin.

"I need but two more, in a tenday." Dagir was reserved.

"And these souls have requirements?" Arjiah asked, as if working to follow Fykes' line of thinking.

"It can be anything, so long as it possess a soul."

"No," Katerin said, as she saw the looks on Fykes' and Arjiah's faces. "We are not—"

Dagir stayed silent as they spoke, his hands crossed in resignation.

"I'm not suggesting we let him kill us," Fykes said, holding up a hand. "But what if we can strike a deal? Help him?"

Kindra stepped forward. "I think Katerin has a point."

"It's Lodyne," Katerin said, a sharp word of warning in her tone.

"Katerin," Brazen's shoulders were slumped. "He's trapped."

"Everyone has to face consequences." Kindra spoke with surety.

"And if two rabbits could free him of those consequences? We get dinner, he gets freedom." Fykes held out his hands.

"It's Lodyne. I think you of everyone here can understand my hesitance to this idea." Katerin was staring only at Fykes, unsure if she was angry or shocked.

"If it was anyone else, you would have already said yes," Fykes tone softened.

Brazen looked at her with an expression that begged her to agree.

Katerin scoffed. "And what happens if we make a deal and get stuck in it as he has? What then? Do you want nothing more than to haunt some empty chasm, killing only because you must? She will make it a miserable existence."

"Or we could make his worth living again," Arjiah said.

During their debate, Dagir had sidled back, as if to leave them with their privacy, though he could hear them.

"What do you think?" Fykes turned to him. "Is it possible?"

Dagir nodded. "It is possible. And a deal I would make without hesitation."

"We don't even know if we can help him!" Katerin hissed. She was growing desperate, looking across her companions with horror in her heart. She turned to Dagir. "How would we even collect these souls for you?"

"You have magic. You know the power of a deal made in the name and words of magic. It is not impossible." Dagir spoke while he looked at her, and he stared so surely she wondered what he saw.

"I understand your hesitance. Lodyne and I are far from close, and I despise her touch on me and my former lands. She is nothing to trifle with, and I have regretted my choice for many years. Distance between yourself and her is wise." He waived a hand. "Regardless, I have ten more days. Another cycle of this madness and I fear will lose myself. The last to enter this chasm promised to help me, but I believe his words to be a ploy, if you are the woman he spoke of. He gave me only one soul, and told me the ease of taking yours. Shortly I shall become nothing more than a murder for a goddess who has caused me nothing but pain and hatred... Two souls is very few."

Everyone quieted, watching the two of them as they interacted.

His words struck Katerin like a physical blow, and she wondered if this man was a promise of her future. A slave to a god whose only love was pain and chaos. "How many years, Dagir? How many souls?" Still, its two souls too many to give to Lodyne, she thought.

Dagir's words cracked like old poetry, and his tone was mournful. " Near to five hundred years. Countless souls, but never enough."

Katerin bit her lip and stared at him until a thought occurred.

This man had been a pawn to her enemy for years. He was wise, powerful, and she doubted that those qualities came only from Lodyne. If she were to free him, that could weaken Lodyne. It would do nothing for the attention upon her, but it may lead to an advantage in her sparking fight with the goddess. She turned to Fykes and Brazen, looking them both in the eye. "You both realize how badly this could go?"

Fykes shrugged. "I think the risk is worth it."

Brazen shifted back and forth. "Katerin, we've seen evil. I can't believe that Dagir is. He's trapped, and I know a stone elf in the Stormlands who might have something to say about being trapped against his will."

Katerin's heart shuddered as she sighed and thought of Huen. She gave Fykes a look that told him her feelings about it, but she gestured to Dagir. "We will harvest two souls for you."

Dagir chuckled. It was dry and humorless, and he looked her in the eyes as her hand extended. "If you should keep your word, then you will have me and my kingdom as an ally for the rest of your days, Katerin."

As he grasped her hand, she felt a chill along her spine. "I don't make deals I can't keep." Dagir began speaking over their clasped hands, and the chill that wracked Katerin started at the base of her spine and stretched through her limbs. Magic tingled in her blood, and it felt like a curse.

The rest of her companions stepped forward, and Dagir repeated the same phrase of over each of them. When all was done, he sighed. "Now, the next two living things which you slay will be delivered to me, before they are passed on to Lodyne. Once you have completed our bargain, the binding will leave you, and I shall return to my former glory."

Katerin sighed. "One more thing. You said someone else passed through?"

"Often," Dagir said. "With empty promises each time. He said you would come. And that I should take my souls from you. Yet, I now wonder if he knew of your marked soul, or not."

Katerin wondered whether he spoke of the mark of the Storm Barer, or of Lodyne's interest in her, but she pushed that aside. "Where does he go when he comes here?"

Dagir gestured to the path behind him. "There is another cavern, close to here. I've heard many voices, as if he is in council."

"If we pass back through here later, are you going to attack us again?" Kindra asked, her tone sharp.

"Why would I do such a thing to people who have offered to help me? I may be ancient, but my memory has not waned."

Kindra huffed and stared at him a moment. "Then lets go see if our little rat is still hanging around."