[1] You’re Killing Me Man

I ran everywhere. That was my job. So I ran even when I didn't need to. I ran all the way up to the foot of the tombstone, but no tears ran down my face. I ran my fingers along it, and the stone just off to its right. I ran and ran and ran, so that I could never find an excuse to slow down.

Then, I placed a bundle of flowers, evenly divided, in the baskets garnering the stones. I smiled and huffed out a breath as I got up from my squat to return to running.

I made it inside the Smithy, walked passed the small collection of Mages doing supply runs before their first excursion into a Dungeon, and sauntered right on up to the main man himself.

Tsume Biru, the city's best Blacksmith and the only one I actually enjoyed working for, was chatting up an obviously Unclassed Mage. I decided there was no need to interrupt, and took a gander at the job board he kept posted for his assistants and anyone else who worked under him.

I snatched the files for a job that fit my career, a supply run. I grinned, lobbed the required items into a Carrier and set off for the delivery site.

It was everything I'd expect from a church: pristine, orderly, and filled to the brim with haughty-looking people donning their best robes. The inside was quiet aside from the occasional chant or prayer, and everyone's attention was on a figure at the alter. He held a great metal band of black-gold.

He was a tall man, probably in his mid-fifties and had a stare that made me want to jump out a window because I'd lied to my mother once. I could tell then that I was meant to be there, not just to drop off the Staffs in my Carrier, but for something this man wanted too.

All of the sudden, the church went quieter, and I bet I could've heard a hummingbird's wing flap.

The man took one step forward, pulling a gorgeous Black Crown from somewhere, and his people all stepped forward with him. They surrounded me as if I was the tip of a crown myself, standing high and firm but always under scrutiny.

„Today," The man began, completely ignoring anything I might have to say about this.

„We will know at last if Immortality is possible. We will know if we can become just as great as our gods. We will know!" Then the man went to place the crown on my head, but I wasn't having that. I shrunk away, only to frown when I realized it was literally me against an entire church. They all looked back at me with tightened faces and eyes as beady-dark as the wrong side of the moon.

„We will know!" He repeated, and his lackeys encircled me, grabbing me in too many places and holding me steady as the crown descended. I clenched my teeth, but nothing happened yet. The crown must've just been an extra cool-looking crown I guess. Good for me.

The man wasn't done though. He started a winded chant in what I surmised was the Olde Tongue, his tone resonating with power. I could do nothing but wait, a crowd keeping me still and a crown that did who-knows-what, upon my head.

His voice twisted over the last word and the echo vibrated through the chamber. And nothing happened for three terrible seconds.

Then, as a great pang of foreboding shot through my gut, an eerie ringing filled the air. It was worse than a Siren's call, long and deadly and terrifying. It died off in a shrill note, and I watched as every person touching me was torn into bloody strips.

Meat and red and sticky human remains decorated the floors with something a bit too abstract for my tastes. I wanted to leave then, but my legs were lead and my head was syrup and my mind was ice.

The man came next.

His eyes were popped right from their sockets and burned away; his blood splattered onto me like it hadn't a care I was already too far gone to be saved. And whatever was in the Black Crown must've known it too, because I came last.

It poured sand down my throat first, choking me with fire and pain and rage. Then, it strangled me, cut me, broke me, drowned me in my enemies filth, and ended me far too slowly. I died with the Black Crown still tangled in my hair.