Chapter 6: horrible evil creature experiences regret for the first time
"Your crime is incompetence. The sentence is death."
— 10 —
For the longest time, the guy says nothing. Molly's decided they're a boy at least. He just lies there, turning his head to watch everyone. Jack backs off, leaning against the cave wall. Molly and Eddie find places to sit. Just giving it a bit of a short rest as they wait for the guy to get his wits about him.
And wait.
Until it starts to get kind of awkward, you know? Molly waves at the guy, thinking maybe he's in shock. But he just turns and stares at her.
"Hi?" she says.
"Finally, I am addressed," he says. "No one was speaking to me so I presumed you were deliberating on a response."
"Wait, you were waiting for us?"
"Is it not polite to do so?"
Molly exchanges glances with the others and just shrugs. "You asked a weird question, I guess?"
"Yes, that," he says, turning his head to Jack. "Have you ever murdered me before?"
"No?" Jack says, folding his arms uncomfortably. Thinking really hard. "I mean, I don't think so?"
"Great. I would hate to be dead after you saved my life. If you ever think you did kill me, it was someone else. Mistaken identity happens to everyone. Humans look alike."
"Sure, that fits into my worldview," Jack says easily. "I'm willing to accept that."
"Splendid!" the guy says. "We shall make great friends."
Molly walks around the two to get a better view, leaning against some old box. "Hey, thought. Aren't you human?"
He pauses again, squinting at Molly. Still on the ground, though. "Yes. Entirely. I am making a self-deprecating joke about myself and nothing more."
Eddie is side-eyeing Jack, with ample space between them. "Are we already moving on to something else? Because this whole situation is extremely weird and uncomfortable."
"Nothing is weird about this or me," the guy says quickly. "I, whose name is Tav and I—"
Tav stops mid-sentence. He reaches into a pocket and takes out a notebook, scanning it quickly. "Am a person who worships a normal god. It's because my adopted mother was in the clergy of—" He glanced down at his notes again. "Mask."
"Mask has a clergy?" Molly asks.
"Does she not?"
"Mask is a man."
Tav writes something in his notebook. He's only on the first few pages. "Yes, he is. I am sorry I misspoke and forgot. This is a regular occurrence of mine."
Eddie looks very tired suddenly. "Please don't tell me we have another amnesiac on our hands?"
Tav shakes his head. "No, everything is where it should be. I merely lost my old notebook."
"What were you keeping in it?"
Another pause.
"Poetry," he says dubiously. "Incredibly slutty poetry that you would not want to read and would emotionally damage me if you did."
"That's… nice, I guess?" Jack says.
"You are wrong; it is terrible."
Eddie looks over her shoulder back the way everyone came. "This is still weird and I don't like it. We saw those memories and…" She sighs, shaking her head. "Actually, I don't care. I categorically do not care. We're on a timetable here before we all die. Tav, are you the cleric that went with Zevlor?"
"How could you deduce I, Tav, was a cleric?"
"That cantrip you threw at Jack—our paladin here—matched the gestures of a sacred flame. It's a simple cantrip many clerics favor. If you have a tadpole, though, it's a safe bet you're not enough of a healer to help us with that."
Tav nods. "Now I know Jack, who I myself have never seen before. Who are you who is wise in the ways of spellcraft?"
"We call her Eddie," Molly says. "She's a mage."
"Mages!" Tav says happily. "Horrible people."
"Excuse me?" Eddie asks.
"Mages only leave their towers to die or cause calamity," Tav says. "This relates to a story from my life, at an earlier point in my small hometown of no memorable name. It all began when." Then he just stops, lips curling into a confused sneer. He checks his notebook again and doesn't seem any happier. "Oh. That is no good. Nevermind, I lied. I have no qualms with mages. You are perfect the way you are."
Eddie pushes a finger into the side of her own head. "How long have you had that tadpole?"
"A regular amount of time," Tav says. "Time, which is typically divided into hours, minutes, and seconds."
"And how many of those ago were you infected?"
"I have not decided yet."
Eddie considers the man before heaving a sigh. "Looks to me like you're a little further along in the process of ceremorphosis than us. Memory loss is a later stage of the process."
"This would explain many things to me if I knew what that was."
"You got skull-fucked by squids," Jack says. "Tadpole we all got is gonna eat our brains and memories or whatever. You're infected, same as us."
"Oh." Tav's face brightens up. "Oh! Yes, this is perfect." He starts scribbling down notes in his book. "I have hitherto led a normal life in Baldur's Gate from my home on Loklee Street. Alien parasites have eaten my brain. This answers any holes in my past."
He snaps the book shut, smiling to himself and very pleased. "Actually, now that I think about it, I am no longer sweating and itchy now that you are here. Now I feel as though I certainly could have shot you dead instead of being too meek to aim."
"Yeah, sure," Jack says with a wave. "Are there other people with you? Someone perhaps we could talk to who knows how to use contractions? Those goblins said there were tieflings here. In the plural. "
"No!"
"So it's just you?"
"Goblins are not known for their mathematical acumen."
"Would you like to stand up?" Eddie asks. "You're just laying there on the ground. It's weird."
Tav looks at his body. "No. I am quite comfortable in this position."
"Okay then," Jack says with a one-armed shrug.
"I have a long history of sleeping and relaxation," Tav says, flipping furiously through the handful of pages and their notebook that have any writing in them.
"Okay?"
"It stems from my rough yet regular childhood on the mean streets of my town."
"Th-that's nice?"
"Where I was adopted by a priestess and trained in her ways after her untimely yet peaceful death."
"Cool," Jack says. "So like I was—"
"The details of which I am struggling with currently, which is unusual, because my brain is being eaten alive. This makes me feel complicated emotions. Which I will now attempt to give voice to. 'Ah!' and even 'great distress!'"
Molly jumps to her feet. "Are you doing a bit?"
Tav frowns. "What?"
She gestures around. "This. That. The way you speak. That little notebook you keep writing in. Are you fucking with us, Tav?"
"N-no," he says quietly, shrinking in on himself.
Molly strolls over, standing above him. "It's like you're making up yourself as you go. At least put in the effort to prep-wet that shit. Because right now it's not even convincing."
"Oh. Even with my tadpole justification?"
"Honestly? I think bringing attention to an excuse like that makes it worse."
"Yeah, way worse," Jack says with Eddie making an agreeable noise beside him.
Tav is practically shrinking and there's nowhere for him to go.
"Look, I almost don't really care," Molly says, and she means it. "You were with Zevlor?"
Tav is very still. "Yes."
"And he's still alive?"
"I left him as such, yes."
Molly holds out her hand.
"What is that?" he asks.
"A hand, dumbass," she says. "Listen, you're sick like us and looks like you can do magic. Plus, you were helping Zevlor, so that means you're cool with me. You wanna hitch your wagon to us?"
"Uh, no we are not," Eddie says. "We are not adopting any more lackwits. It's bad enough babysitting you two."
"That does sound pretty stressful for her," Tav says, nodding.
Molly hunkers down to pat Tav on the head. "Don't you worry about Eddie. Big sister Molly will keep you safe from her wicked ways."
"Why am I the bad guy here?" Eddie asks.
"You do like making that face at people," Jack says. "Kinda scary."
She rubs her jawline. "What face? I'm not doing anything."
Tav focuses on Molly. "I am sure I have never had a sibling. I regret that suggestion as I would not know how to behave as a sibling. I am, however, open to cooperation."
Molly shrugs. "Eh, close enough. I only just got out of being a big sister to a bunch of kids anyhow. Tell ya what: you're a cleric, right?"
Tav shrugs. "That is actually a very reductive summation of my abilities, but yes."
"Do you know magic?"
"Of multiple purposes, yes."
Molly stands back up and offers her hand again. "That's exactly what we need to complete our gang. We're looking for a cure for the parasites. More swords at our backs might be the edge we need to make it through the other side without extra tentacles. What do you say?"
Tav grabs her hand and Molly helps him up. On two feet he's not much bigger than her. Lithe but not wiry, hair tied back in a messy ponytail. His clothes look expensive, though. She wonders if she can steal them at some point when he's not looking.
"Does this make us a party?" Tav asks hopefully. "Like in all those old stories of heroes."
Molly grins. "Yes, it does! Like, exactly what we are down to our skills. We've got enough muscle, magic, and me to get through any problem. Also because I recruited Tav, I get a cut of whatever he loots!"
"That sounds fair to me," Tav says. He opens his book for a glance. "Also, I have several recipes in here. I am fairly certain I can cook out in the wilds, if it comes to that."
"We can rest after we find Zevlor or Halsin," Eddie says, giving Jack a really nasty stink-eye for some reason. "That's why we came to find you, Tav. Not to adopt you."
Tav flips to another page of his book. "Yes, those two. After crashing here, I found Zevlor. I went with him to find the druid Halsin. He may be a great healer. Goblins accosted us. I tried to go for reinforcements and found myself injured and my mind rotting."
Molly gasps. "Oh shit I forgot those Absolute cult guys are still back there!"
"We should defeat them to help Zevlor escape," Tav says.
Eddie inclines her head back the way they came. "They seem to think we're in charge of them because of our tadpoles. We can probably make use of those idiots."
"We can work with them, then," Tav says.
Jack folds his arms. "Zevlor's under siege, right? If we want him and info on Halsin, we're either going to break that siege up top or clear the cultists over that."
"They are a threat and must be dealt with."
Molly puts her hand on Tav's shoulder. "Maybe settle for a single plan of action there, sport."
Tav beams. "I have no strong opinions on this topic one way or the other but am open to becoming opinionated."
Molly sighs. "We'll work on that. Still, with them out at the cave entrance, they're going to recognize you."
"No, they will not," Tav says.
"You were fighting them, though."
"They will not recognize me," he says seriously. "They expected tieflings, not a human, which I am. We can use that to do with them whatever it is we decide."
Jack looks at the cave ceiling. "Assuming they haven't heard everything we done been saying from the echoes."
"Only one way to find out!" Molly says. "C'mon, I got a plan!"
— 11 —
Back the way they came.
Technically, this is totally all Molly's idea. She should be in the front.
But Molly knows things. How people should be arranged like this.
Which just means she pushes Jack to the front in case anything goes wrong. Eddie is in the back, limbering her wrist in case it actually comes to that. Tav is just sort of staying uncomfortably close to Jack. Like, breathing down the paladin's neck. Molly thought it'd be smart to keep Tav behind the big guy in case the goblins do recognize him.
This is just weird. Jack would pause to change directions to walk around cave garbage and Tav would just bump into him, smiling like nothing is wrong.
At least Molly took apart the traps. Makes getting back to the cave mouth easier.
"Ey, True Souls comin' back!" the lead goblin calls out.
"Yes, we are!" Molly calls out. "The tiefling problem is gone. Except for me, but I don't count. Everything is handled!"
The goblins don't look happy. One points at Tav, asking, "Wait, who's that there? Where'd she come from?"
"Well, he—it is he, right?" Molly asks.
Tav shrugs and writes something down in his notebook.
"He isn't a tiefling, is he? He's a True Soul, too. Check. We had him come from the other side of things."
She walks over to Brynna and gives her a little hug, which makes the human visibly freeze. "What's good, girlfriend? I handled the tieflings."
Brynna finds her voice. "Oh. I-I see. Should we just go further in to push out the rest? Or go back and tell the drow?"
"You hold off on that. I need to go check some things real quick, okay?"
"Uh…"
Molly moves at the center of the goblin crowd, hands on hips, very proud of herself. She gestures for the others to space themselves out and follow her lead. Classic confidence game stuff. Jack and Eddie get to talking to the human cultists.
"Hey, you," she says sweetly, with a little jostle of the hips.
"Huh?" a goblin asks, looking up at her.
"Have any of you made your contributions to the Absolute yet?" She gestures for the other goblins to surround her. "Well, have you?"
"You mean, like, hunting down Her enemies?"
"No, silly!" she says, leaning down. "Have you tithed to your Goddess?"
"What's that even mean?" another goblin asks, climbing down off the barricade.
"That sounds to me like your faith is in doubt!" Molly says, hand over her mouth. "To tithe is to offer proper tribute to the Absolute. To do without is to fail in her worship."
"What?"
"Have any you been blessed like Brynna over there?" Molly asks.
"Uh, no?"
"Wouldn't you like to be?"
"Yeah!" one says. "Do we get that for helping hold watch against those tieflings?"
Molly laughs. "No, silly. You have to tithe first."
"Meaning, True Soul?"
"Give me all of your worldly possessions, of course!" she says with a giggle.
She glances at the others. Jack and Eddie are awkwardly conversing with the humans, Andrick and Brynna. Tav just holds his hand out towards Molly. Pauses. Finally figures out how to do a thumbs-up.
Yeah, they have it covered.
"What?" a goblin woman asks. "That's not—what? Is this some new policy from that Drow who's been bossing everyone around?"
Molly crouches down, eye-level with the green-skinned woman. She smells awful. "It's just how things are. It's a holy offering, like giving gold in a temple. But the Absolute is so much more than some god like Lathander or Helm. Her blessings are absolute. So you must give absolutely."
"Everything we have?"
Molly pats the goblin on the shoulder. "This is why the Absolute loves you! You understand. Whoever your leader is, they've been holding back. As a True Soul, I'm here to set it all straight and give you the same blessing as me. So give me everything you have."
"What's the difference between this and robbery?"
"Ha!" Molly laughs. "Because you're giving to me willingly, and I'll pass it along to the Absolute. You won't need lame things like 'objects' or 'money' when the Absolute inherits the world."
The group of seven goblins look between each other, grimacing, hesitating. A couple look back over at Molly's party, and Tav is just death-staring at them with his thumb up. Unmoving. Molly thinks she saw him blink, like, a minute ago or something.
"But we don't have very much money," an older goblin says, arms crossed. His armor is dirty. Probably not worth much.
"Someone poor who gives all their gold is worth more than someone rich who only gives a little, y'know!" She winks. "There's a reason your goblins can be Her favored easier than 'civilized unbelievers'."
They hesitate.
Molly scowls, standing up straight and flicking her tail. "I offer this once to you for your help. It won't come again."
"All I got's me is my bow and arrows," one says. "Won't we need that?"
Molly considers. The base of one of her horns itches. "Nah. We'll handle those heretics. You don't need your weapons or any money. So give them up. To me. I'll give them to the Absolute. You can go to Priestess Gut with my blessing."
For a moment, Molly feels warmth in her breast. Like she's waiting for the gooey, runny goblin thoughts to swirl around in their brains. Until they comply or decide she's full of shit.
A goblin puts his sword and some dirty bits of money on the ground. "There. That's all I got. My name's Hizzor."
"Hizzor!" Molly says, patting his head. "The most faithful among you. Are none of you so willing to be blessed?"
"Wait, I am!" "Me too!" "Fuck you, Hizzor, I have three gold coins to give the Absolute!"
Molly stands there, hands on her hips. Watching the goblins pile their weapons and any money on the ground. One even has some shiny gems. It's not worth too much, but she knows a guy. Molly always knows a guy. She can fence this off to someone.
The goblins are disarmed.
"Good!" she says. "I"ll see you soon. I am Moleeska, True Soul. You are all under my care and protection, like those humans over there."
Jack is staring at her now, too. He's twitching slightly. Like he didn't think Molly could pull this off. Oh, ye of little faith. Ha!
Molly has practice. She's been working with a gang of rowdy children to steal stuff for, like, maybe a month and some change. It's all been for this moment. Convincing goblins to give up all their stuff and join her gang.
A sub-cult, if you would. Way sexier than whatever they were doing before she showed up.
"What do we do now, True Soul?" Hizzor asks.
She flicks her tail, thinking. "Return to the temple and Priestess Gut. Tell her you seek a blessing. Oh! And tell everyone else about tithing, if they haven't. Mention me by name, Moleeshka. I have a license to take tithing. No one else is qualified."
"That sounds great!" Hizzor says, smiling. "Praise the Absolute."
"Praise Her," Molly says. "Now scram, you little monsters. Go out there. But, take your time. There's no rush."
"Wait, what are you doing?" Brynna asks, walking over. She looks at the goblins' loot all in a pile before Molly. "True Soul?"
Molly waves her hand. "Collecting tithes. Now don't you worry. Actually, I have a task for you, as your protector and True Soul."
Brynna swallows. "What? Because, no offense, but this is really weird, True Soul."
"Go find Edowin."
"Huh?"
"Yes. We did our ritual to his body. We'll need you at the temple or whatever." She shrugs. "But take all the goblins and leave and go be with him."
"With Edowin?"
She sighs. "Yes. Go be with him. The body, I mean. Should take you a while, but have faith in me."
Jack twitches and moves with a sudden jerk. He kicks the back of Andrick's knee hard enough to pop something. The man collapses. Jack drives his sword through the man's throat with enough force to half-decapitate the man. Blood sprays in every direction from the ripped neck.
She thinks that's it. There's going to be some horrified silence from what he did. She's not even sure where her own lungs are.
But it happens so fast Molly can't keep track of it.
Tav and Eddie move in sync.
Eddie fires bolts of magic into the goblin crowd indiscriminately. Tav throws radiant fire at Brynna's back. She stumbles forwards, screaming, alive, into Molly.
Brynna's not dead. Molly tries to shove her away and it doesn't work. They tumble to the ground. The impact compresses Molly's lungs empty with a gasp.
"Why?" Brynna asks.
Molly grabs and pushes. They roll together. Brynna grabs for her mace. Swings it. The distance is wrong and all it does is crack Molly's ribs.
Molly grabs her little sword and drives it into Brynna's guts. Frantically shaking and twisting as she tries to angle it for something vital. Brynna screams and gurgles and coughs and then that's it.
That's it.
Over.
Brynna goes limp, her eyes dead and tear soaked. No last words. No accusations. Nothing to drive the nails into Molly other than that dead look. Inches away as her corpse sits atop Molly.
A goblin steps near Molly. A moment later and it's a broken mess of exposed blood and organs.
They're dead.
It's just like that.
Molly keeps thinking. It's all she can do. Part of her expects that this isn't real. No, that's wrong. It's just it doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel like it should.
People are dead. She's seen bodies before. And in her line of work, it's an eventuality.
She just thinks she should be feeling more the first time she ever killed somebody.
Instead it's just this dull sense of expectation. There should be more. There has to be more. These emotions aren't right. They're not vibrant and colorful. They don't feel like anything.
Jack rolls Brynna's corpse off Molly. There's nothing but carnage around him. Most of it splashed onto Jack.
"Wha'?" she says. Or tries to say anyhow.
He regards her with this self-satisfied little smile. He's still, an intense look in his eyes. She almost doesn't want to say anything. Like he might realize she's there if she says something, and that's how she dies.
Until Jack says, "If those two missed their dwarf so much, only made sense we reunited them."
It snaps her out of it.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she screams. Her voice echoes off the walls of the cave. Again and again.
It lasts longer than the slaughter against the cultists. Feels that way, anyhow.
Jack holds up his hands, backing away. "Okay, so that's more a postmortem one liner than a joke. It's not meant to be funny. A witty observation."
"No, I mean—I mean…" Molly realizes she's sitting up, knees folded to her chest. She sees the dead woman staring up at her, the tears rolling down her bloody cheeks. All Molly can do is crawl backwards until she hits a wall.
"You killed them. Why did you—I had it handled!"
Tav walks through the carnage, taking down notes in his book. "I was under the impression they interpreted your words as the sign to attack. I mostly just followed what the mage did."
Jack frowns. "Wait, so the plan wasn't to disarm and then jump 'em?"
"No!" Molly says sharply. "I was just trying to hustle some money before I made them just leave."
"Huh. Well, that was not communicated very well," he says.
"I guess."
"Oh."
Molly glares.
Jack takes a breath, shaking something out of his limbs. He sits down beside Molly and joins her in silently staring at the bodies. Mostly at Tav, who's picking at the corpses. She keeps thinking Jack is going to berate her for feeling anything, like he's working up to find the right words. She just wishes she was feeling something other than a strange lack of anything.
Eddie is off in the distance, arms clasped behind her back. She looks with disgust at the dead goblins. When she catches Molly's eye, she cock an eyebrow dubiously.
"You need a moment?" he asks.
"Don't patronize me, Jack!"
"I'm not. I'm being serious."
Molly scrunches her eyes. "I'll be fine. It was just very, y'know, very sudden. I'm surprised."
"So let's make sure it doesn't happen again," he says.
"Hm?"
"We wasn't talking to each other," he says. "We was assuming. So let's make up signs. Some code or gesture to tell each other what we're doing. Sometimes we can plan, and sometimes things happen at once."
She thinks. "I… used some signs to coach the kids."
"Sign language?"
Molly shakes her head. "More, like, part of Elturel's thieves cant. It's not really a language; it's halfway between slang and the right gestures. Picked it up and it can be useful."
"Teach me," he says seriously.
She holds up a hand, unsure what to really do with it. Until she just acts out the signs as she talks. "So, like, this gesture means 'it's okay, stay back.' This one means I need help. This one is to escape."
Jack leans in, trying to mime them.
Molly scowls. "No, that's sloppy. Your glove is getting in the way."
"You've got a glove on too."
"Oh yeah, I do. I forget. Fingerless slut gloves."
Jack snerks. "What?"
Molly blinks. Grimaces. "I don't know. Lady I took them from called them that. I think she was an artist. I don't know. They're comfy. Stop looking at me like that!"
"Wanna trade?" he asks.
"Huh?"
Jack removes his gloves and offers them to her. After a moment she gives hers to him. His gauntlets are heavy and damp inside. She can smell the sweat inside them. Blood has dried in the rims. She holds her hands up, flexing the fingers.
"Damn, these are sturdy," she says. "Shame they're really ugly. They do nothing for you, Jack."
Jack gets most of his fingers into one of her gloves but can't get it any further. "You're just hatin' on ya boy here 'cause I'm twice the woman you are."
"Yeah. Maybe twice the party by weight, big guy."
"You're talking mad shit for someone within unlubricated handjob distance, Molly!"
She snorts. "What?"
"Sorry, slut gloves talking," he says innocently. "I don't know what came over me. Want 'em back?"
Molly just stares at Jack, the big paladin still covered in blood. And finds her lungs shaking. A moment later she realizes she's laughing at him. Jack just smiles at her.
"This is fucked up," she says, holding her mouth closed.
"What, laughing?"
She points at the corpses. "Y'know, while they're staring at us."
"Oh."
Molly breathes, running her hands through her hair and horns. She stands up and only feels a slight darkness at the edge of her vision. "Maybe let's not have a bonding moment with a bunch of dead bodies?"
"Yeah, probably right," he says, cinching his gloves back on. "We got this here cave to explore."
Molly grabs the pile of goblin tithes and opens Jack's backpack. He doesn't resist as she stuffs it full.
"Look," she says, "we're adventuring out here in a world full of monsters with parasites in our heads. This kinda thing is going to happen a lot, isn't it?"
He nods. "Yeah. But at least we're not alone in this. That's what separates serial killers from adventurers. Let's pave our path with blood. Build our castle with bones."
She snorts. "That's a new one. 'Sinisterly reassuring.'"
"I'm trying, okay? Gotta cope with this life one way or another."
Molly rubs her face, walking off towards the rest of the cave. "Yeah. You're right. This is gonna happen again. Who the fuck am I to feel bad? I'm not going to fuck this up by getting in my feelings when we need to do, y'know, this."
"You're allowed to feel things."
She scowls. "Not if it puts us at risk."
He shrugs, keeping pace with her. "Could maybe switch up tactics. Figure out how best you fight. Maybe you'd do well with a bow. Staying mobile and blindsiding bad guys while they're focusing on me."
"I know a little how to use a bow. For perfectly illegitimate reasons relating to crime, I assure you. I think I grabbed one from the corpses."
"Give it a shot. Never know what'll turn out to be your thing."
"You really think it'd help us out?"
"'Us.' You keep using that words." He grins. "Sounds like this team is becoming friends. Who's down for a celebratory group hug, Eddie?"
Eddie looks up from some magical-looking scroll she found on a table. "What is with your creepy obsession with touching me? And wash yourself off; you're disgusting and covered in blood."
Jack waves his hand. "Verbal abuse is just how she shows affection, Molly."
"It's not," Eddie says mildly. "Now can we stop sharing your stupid feelings and return to the task at hand?"
"See what I mean?" Jack asks, nudging Molly with his elbow. "This is why she and I get along like fire and orphanages. We're all in this together, Molly. Till death or agonizing transformation do us part. Least I can do ya is the little stuff."
"I, Tav, am however open to hugging," Tav says, appearing suddenly by Jack's side.
Jack almost jumps. "Where did you come from?"
Tav points to Brynna's corpse. "She had such a normal face. Fascinatingly bland. Useful case study. Also, I stole her silver necklace." He holds it out to Molly. "Yours?"
Molly pockets it without thinking. "Wait, why?
"The ten percent of the spoils we agreed to. At least, I think so. I am not exactly clear on the value of items, but this feels correct to me, Molly."
"Oh yeah, that."
"I presume you send ten percent of your gains up to Jack or Eddie?" Tav asks. "They seem your seniors."
Jack leans forwards. "I'm having second thoughts about this strangely pyramid-shaped structure of our party."
Molly realizes it's happening again. That thing in her lungs. Laughing. This throaty noise despite everything. A stupid sound. Surrounded by corpses and blood. And just laughing until her voice echoes through the cave.
Maybe they are going to make it through this.
