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The moon hangs heavily in the sky, blood dripping from its teeth. There’s a dogged gleam in its eyes that is akin to the stare of an animal on the brink of starvation. Its sickly cream-white glow blots out the simple twinkle of the stars, even here, far from the piercing artificial light of civilization. Likewise, here, without the constant coughing and sputtering and rumbling and roaring of city nightlife, there is nothing to mask the moon’s distant hissing giggle.
Joel finds it disgusting. Always has. The fuck does that thing have to laugh about?
“Feel anything?” Etho says. Joel looks away from the moon and directs his attention back down. The two of them are sitting side by side on a crooked branch in a massive old tree that overlooks a large abandoned mansion hidden deep in the forest. Small monsters have been lurking around below, but nothing like what they’re supposed to be looking for.
Joel snorts. “No. Do you?”
Etho hums, swinging his feet back and forth. The branch sways slightly. “No…”
Joel frowns. “Where the hell are they?” He thought for sure that Cleo and Bdubs had already entered the mansion by now. Why is it taking so long for them to do anything?
“I mean…” Etho says. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t leave. At least Cleo wouldn’t…”
“They sure are taking their time,” Joel says. He’s impatient. This is their biggest job in a long time. The logging company already paid them a deposit for this and the final promised payoff will be enough that he and Etho won’t have to worry about work for a while. Even split between the two pairs, it’s pretty damn significant.
Of course, he and Etho will still go out looking for jobs even after this one is done. Can’t resist the thrill it brings, after all.
But the money always sweetens it.
“When we get that money,” Etho says, his words echoing Joel’s thoughts as if they’re in sync already, “I’m taking you out.”
Joel gasps, turning almost too quickly for the branch to handle. It bounces under the shift in weight, but holds steady as Joel grabs Etho’s hand excitedly. Etho won’t look at him, but Joel can see the slight hunch in his shoulders and the tilt of his head. He’s shy.
“Aww,” he coos. “Where are you taking me?”
“That’s a secret,” Etho says. “You’re gonna like it though.”
“I’d better like it,” Joel says.
Honestly, Joel loves any place that Etho takes him to. Even if it turns out to be dreadfully dull, Etho is always willing to cause a scene with Joel in order to turn things around completely. Once, an amusement park was a bit too packed with other guests for Etho and Joel’s collective patience, so the two of them decided to forego the rides and games altogether and instead snuck around sabotaging as many mechanisms and game setups as possible until they had to leave before their uncontrolled laughter gave them away. What a beautiful memory. And that was only a week and a half ago.
A flare of resonance energy brings Joel’s reminiscing to a halt. He glances at the mansion.
“Guess they’re ready,” Joel says. He starts to get up, but Etho doesn’t move. Instead, his partner yawns and leans slightly back.
“I don’t know, they might still want to take their time,” Etho says slowly.
It takes Joel a moment. Then he realizes. He snickers and settles back against Etho’s side. “How long are we going to make them wait?” he says. Below, the energy flares again. As if it’s a match that’s struck a fuse, the coiling hostile monster energy in the mansion builds and pulses sickeningly, steadily increasing in intensity.
That’s what they’ve been waiting for.
“Hmm,” Etho says. “Well, we’ve been waiting for… what? An hour? At least.”
“I bet it’s been two hours,” Joel says, grinning at Etho. “Awfully rude of them.”
The energy from the dilapidated mansion is loud now, clashing in horrible dissonance, but if Joel presses his ear against Etho’s skin, he can hear something far more pleasant there.
“But we can be nice,” Joel says softly. “One minute. Then we go in.”
Because as funny as it is to make Cleo and Bdubs wait and hopefully see them struggle without their backup, it’s far more fun to jump into a fight with Etho. It’s been too long since the last time. Two weeks since their last real job.
“That’s really sweet of you,” Etho says, leaning his head on top of Joel’s.
Joel’s hand finds Etho’s. He clasps it with fondness: he knows every line, every crease, every smooth and rough spot. Etho’s hands tend to be cool, while Joel’s are always warm. They could hold each other like this for hours and the points of contact would still be perfectly cool against perfectly warm. And Joel will never have enough of it. That’s what love feels like, he believes.
Joel’s heart picks up and the rest of his body floods with his warmth and he knows— he knows— that Etho feels it too.
He leans closer against Etho. It’s probably been a minute already.
“Me first,” he whispers.
Etho meets his eyes. They reflect the light of the moon, but there’s a beautiful and magical thing about Etho that turns the awful moonlight into an intimate and lovely glow, only for Joel. It makes his soul sing. Etho makes his soul sing.
The song builds. Joel bends and changes his shape, happily secure in Etho’s hold. He closes his eyes and listens to the sound of Etho’s soul, meeting it with his own music. It feels so right. Together, always together, they fall through the air, towards one of the balconies on the upper floor of the mansion. Etho lands and rolls, bringing Joel close to his chest to keep him from hitting the exterior wall.
Etho passes through the glass door and starts to make his way swiftly through the empty rooms, smashing messily through the locks. In his other hand, Joel watches, keeping an extra eye out.
“Looks like everything’s down with Cleo and Bdubs,” Etho comments, running down an empty hallway full of creepy statues and rotting banners. “We could look through all these rooms just to be sure… or we could go join them.”
“Go downstairs,” Joel says. “That’s where Cleo said they were gonna be.”
“If I can find the stairs,” Etho says. He turns another corner. It’s just another dark hallway lined with closed doors and creepy shit.
“Etho! Just break through the floor!” Joel yells. Come on! He wants to fight already!
“But—”
“For goodness’ sake!” Joel changes his shape, twisting in Etho’s hand and swinging him outwards. Etho is changing his shape right as Joel solidifies into human form, and their song changes to a bright major key. Beautiful, beautiful.
Without losing his momentum, Joel twists his hand, aiming Etho’s huge blade at the floorboards. He’s still in the air, suspended in their synchronization dance. Etho’s soul is sharp and heavy and deadly, but it sings alongside Joel with all the familiar love of belonging.
“Coming down!” Joel yells. He stabs Etho downwards, shattering through the floor like it was made of dry matches. They fall through the hole they’ve created, landing in a darkened room full of even creepier stuff than what they saw upstairs.
Crucially, there are no monsters here— none that are alive anyway— but the energies directly below are pulsing in strength.
“One more floor, I guess,” Etho says.
“Right! Then we’re switching back!” Joel says. He smashes Etho through the floor again and they drop once more, this time heading straight down into a writhing horde of undead monsters filling every square centimeter of a huge ballroom. At one end of the room, they can see Cleo and Bdubs fighting a swarming crowd of the creatures.
Joel doesn’t care much, he’s already switching back. Etho laughs with excitement as he takes Joel in his hand. He plants his feet securely and gets into a ready stance.
Joel’s line whips through the air, slicing cleanly through every monster in their immediate radius. Etho brings his line back quickly and rushes towards the nearest huge corpse-like monster, which lumbers angrily at them. Etho steps in and swings Joel at a sharp angle. Joel’s wicked barbed hook lashes out and catches the monster in its eye.
“Gotcha!” Etho says.
Etho reels the monster back with Joel, causing it to howl in pain and rage as it’s dragged towards the pair. Etho and Joel laugh together, and then give a particularly fierce tug that launches the monster up. It sails over their heads and then comes crashing down to the ground, crushing a smaller group of zombie creatures trying to creep up on them from behind.
This is so much fun.
Etho casts Joel’s line up towards the ceiling. Joel’s hook catches a chandelier and he pulls Etho up, safely out of reach of the thronging monsters below. As they drift in the air, almost weightless, the ground shudders with a force like an earthquake. The ground splits, stones and roots and mounds of dirt pouring up like the ground was turned to liquid and splashed its contents out.
“You took your time getting here,” Cleo says sharply, her tone carrying over the clamor of the monsters filling the huge room. She wields Bdubs with a single arm, smashing him powerfully through another wave of undead creatures and crushing them without mercy.
“We came in through the top floor like we planned,” Etho says. The two of them start to fall back down, slowly, enveloped in Joel’s warm and loving air currents. “Couldn’t find the stairs.”
Cleo barks out a disbelieving laugh. “Yeah, going by the hole you dropped in from, I’m sure that kept you quite busy.”
“If you two were gonna be late, might as well not show up at all!” Bdubs’ voice echoes. “Me an’ Cleo, we can handle this fine! And! And we won’t have to share the payment!”
Etho casts Joel’s line out again as they fall more rapidly. Once again, they cut through a wide arc of the monsters, killing them quickly.
“We were giving you an extra minute or two to feel like you were contributing to the cleanup,” Joel taunts. “Etho and I will have this place cleared out in no time. You can stand back if you want! Watch a real pair working together.”
“WHAT DID YOU SAY!?”
“Don’t bother arguing with him, Bdubs,” Cleo says, smashing through another wave of the monsters with her partner. “They’re not worth your time. We’ve got a job to do.”
Etho hooks another large monster with Joel. With a flick of his wrists, the line loops lightning-fast around the monster, then starts to drift down slowly. Another tug and the lines constrict, slicing the flailing monster into pieces, effectively destroying it.
The smaller undead monsters keep swarming around them, though, forcing them to keep moving. Etho swaps with Joel again, and Joel settles on the creaking old floor with his partner in hand. Minor to major key again.
Joel is only stationary for a moment. Etho’s blade cuts down the closest monsters, and then his long reach prevents any more from getting close. Joel steps into a dance he’s done so many times that he almost wants to close his eyes in the comfort of it all— the loving, cool embrace of his partner’s soul, moving in perfect sync with his own soul, cutting through monsters guided by instinct more than sight or sound. Etho’s soul resonates with Joel’s confident movements and it expands, linking their shadow to every shadow it touches, and every shadow those shadows touch and—
Their song builds and builds.
Joel spins Etho in his hands so his blade faces downwards. He stabs straight into their shadow as the song of their resonance becomes so loud it would deafen a normal person. To Joel and Etho, it’s just the sound of love.
Several dozen blades connected to a hundred identical glaives shoot up out of every surrounding monster’s shadow, impaling every single one simultaneously. They linger as the monsters dissolve into nothing, leaving a momentary forest of skeletal steel death.
Joel lifts Etho out of the shadow and their song returns to normal. All of the other glaives disappear as the shadows they emerged from are no more, their previous owners now gone. Across the room, Cleo and Bdubs are also doing something noisy and flashy, but Joel pays them no mind.
He takes a moment to kiss the flat of Etho’s blade, watching his partner flush under the gesture of affection.
“Doing amazing, babe,” he says fondly.
“Aww, that’s you too,” Etho says, just as besotten as Joel. “I could fight with you all night. All day. You’re amazing.”
“You’re the best,” Joel says. He runs for another crowd of the undead creatures. Etho’s blade cuts through them like they’re nothing.
They cut down one after another, swarms at a time, wave upon wave of the undead creatures. Joel’s soul is singing in tune with Etho’s, his solid weapon form comfortable and cool in his hands as he swings and blocks and cuts and stabs. Handling Etho’s balanced weight is as natural as any of his own movements. He’s big and deadly, his blade dripping with building shadow energy whenever Joel sweeps it low to the ground.
And the monsters keep coming. Joel narrows his eyes when he catches sight of a crumbling wall on one side of the room, where it looks like more monsters continue to pour in.
“Joel…” Etho say. The two of them have paused to catch their breath after taking down a particularly large monster. “Does it feel like there’s, uh… a lot more than there should be?”
It does. There are two pairs in here cutting down the undead creatures— which aren’t even particularly challenging foes, not even the bigger, stronger ones— and the room barely feels like it’s been cleared out. Sure, they’re luring all the monsters in the nearby vicinity to their presence with how their soul energies flare like bright beacons, but… are there really this many monsters here?
“Maybe,” Joel says. “But we can handle it. We’re not even breaking a sweat.”
Still, he can’t help but feel like there might be something else going on here. He looks back across the room to where Cleo and Bdubs continue smashing through their own swarms of undead monsters. They’re no amateurs, and yet even with all four of them working together, it’s still this bad.
He tries to focus on fighting, but now that doubt has crept in, he’s just… not sure. Etho can definitely tell that he’s a little bit distracted now, but he doesn’t comment on it again.
Joel starts to fight his way back over towards Cleo and Bdubs.
“Joel,” Cleo says, calling out over the gross ever-present noise of the monsters. “I think there’s something here.”
“Yeah, a load of fucking monsters,” Joel retorts, cutting through more of the undead. There really is just no end to them all.
“No,” Cleo says. “I can feel something.”
“What do you feel?” Etho says.
Joel’s grip tightens possessively on Etho. He turns his back on Cleo and continues cutting through the monsters. Soon enough, the impact will be noticeable. They’ve been at this for so long already. They just need to keep killing. With enough power and force, they’ll succeed. They always do.
“There’s something downstairs,” Cleo says. “There must be a cellar pretty deep down, because I didn’t notice it at first. But there’s… well, it’s not monster energy. It’s too subtle to get a good read on it.”
“Whatever it is has gotta be hiding its presence,” Bdubs says. “If it’s coming from a witch, then we might be in some serious trouble.”
Joel makes a face. “You think a witch would cause something this big? There’s no organization to these monsters. What would be the point?”
“But the only other options would be a meister or a weapon,” Etho points out. “If it’s something that only Cleo can sense.”
Joel blows out a sharp exhale. He doesn’t have the time to be thinking about stuff like that. The mansion is still packed full of monsters that keep pouring into the ballroom, attracted by the bright gleam of two resonating pairs. This is what they were hired to do— to clear out the mansion. They don’t need to be poking around in whatever the mansion might be hiding— as long as they keep at what they’ve been doing, all the monsters will be lured to where they’re hiding.
“I want to investigate it,” Cleo says. “If that presence has some kind of an influence on these monsters, then we’ll have to do something about it— because come on, you have to admit that this number isn’t normal!”
Joel rolls his eyes. “Do whatever you want, Cleo,” he says. He pauses and stretches his shoulders casually. “I guess we’ll have to handle these things up here.”
“As if you didn’t want to do that anyway!” Bdubs shouts. “No sense in pretending this is some, some grand noble thing you’re gonna do.”
“Be careful with whatever’s down there,” Etho says. “We’ll clear you an opening.”
Joel can feel the echo of protectiveness from Etho. He doesn’t like it. He can understand it, of course. A part of Joel will always wonder about how… how he’s doing. But it doesn’t matter. The more Joel tells himself that, the more he’ll believe it. He isn’t here. That— all of that is in the past. Cleo has Bdubs now and Etho has Joel. They’re all much happier like this.
“Joel?”
Etho’s soul is cool against his own. Love, love, love sings out, much louder and stronger than the echo moments ago. Joel breathes out.
“I know,” Joel says. His soul relaxes against Etho’s, their song building in resonant harmony as the shadows around them intensify. His eyes close, and he lets instinct guide his movements once more.
Joel swings Etho in a low sweeping movement, slicing through the closest crowd of undead. His slashing movements become brisker, steered by the shadow energy embracing them on all sides. The energy builds and builds and Joel’s eyes snap open.
He stabs into another large undead monster with a powerful force.
Glaives burst out of the dark shadows all around them, piercing through dozens of monsters.
“Cleo! Go!” Joel yells.
There’s a mighty shuddering along the ground as Cleo shatters a great hole in the ground with Bdubs. Joel doesn’t bother to check on them, already moving to hunt down the monsters rapidly filling the gaps left by the ones they just slaughtered.
“There’s so many of them,” Etho says.
Joel laughs. “When have numbers ever been a problem for us?” he says. He’s back to slashing and stabbing wave after wave of the monsters with Etho. It takes a while for the shadow energy to properly build up, and doing this is effective… usually. When there aren’t so many bloody monsters in every direction.
“True,” Etho says. “But let’s switch back. Your ability should be able to get rid of more of them than mine.”
“Alright!” Joel leaps into the air with Etho, twisting his body into a flip as he changes his shape.
As they come back down, Etho is already lashing Joel’s line out like a thin and vicious whip, slicing through a huge group of the monsters. And still they come, harboring nothing but a single-minded drive to pursue the bright points of soul energy, hungry to overwhelm and consume them.
Typical brainless undead.
“Ready, Joel?” Etho says.
“Let’s go!”
Etho lifts Joel up above his head and whirls him in a tight counterclockwise rotation. Their souls start to resonate powerfully again in a minor key. Joel’s line whips around, extending and whirling, forming a tall, protective barrier around them. Gusts of wind follow along with his line, picking up strength and speed with every second. In moments, Joel has formed a small tornado, tearing and gathering the loose dust and debris in the room. A few of the smaller monsters are thrown off their feet just from the sheer pulling force of the hot winds.
And then, the tornado is as ready as it will ever be. Laced with Joel’s deadly line, it cuts into the unstable floor and ceiling of the ballroom. Etho charges and Joel strains himself to maintain the fragile balance of the lethal disaster around them. With Etho in a safe central column, the pair drive the tornado through the nearest crowd of monsters. Anything that is sucked into the storm immediately falls prey to the deadly sharp line whipping along with the rapid layers of twisting air.
It’s devastating. It’s beautifully effective. And it’s unstable, especially inside a room as old and run-down as the mansion, but Joel keeps it going for as long as he can so that Etho can guide it through the room full of monsters.
And it works.
Mostly.
“How are there still so many?” Etho gasps as the air settles back into normal around them. He’s panting, motionless for the moment. Joel feels bad— it takes a lot of energy to maintain the high soul resonance level required for that particular ability. It’s hugely effective, but it’s costly. They might not be able to do it again, but by the amount of monsters still present in the room, looming in on them fearlessly, they might not have a choice. Etho’s special ability can only cover a certain range, and the accuracy of the glaives isn’t quite perfect without the fine-tuning of a meister. It’s not looking as good as it did on paper a day ago.
“I don’t know…” Joel says. He really can’t sense much in the miasma of hostile energy. Cleo and Bdubs’ presence is too distant to feel anymore, so there’s no way of knowing how they’re doing down below. What he does feel, quite intimately, is how Etho is getting very tired of fighting.
Joel is getting tired too. The monsters might all be weak, but the sheer number of them is becoming overwhelming. More and more, he’s understanding why the logging company would only go ahead with the job once two professional pairs signed on. Maybe they tried hiring a single meister and weapon pair before and it didn’t work out. Whatever the reason, Joel can maybe admit— at least to himself— that this kind of job would be a lot less awful if Cleo and Bdubs didn’t have to run off down into the cellar.
It really isn’t looking good.
They’ve already used their more powerful abilities several times, simply to make a few dents in the massive numbers of monsters that aren’t even noticeable now. It’s dangerous to keep doing this all night, especially when there’s no telling what their backup is doing right now.
It might be time to do something a little drastic.
“Etho,” Joel says. “We should try… you know.”
Etho’s hesitance comes as an uncomfortable ripple in their resonance. A momentary tremor of fear. The wrong notes playing in the music of their souls.
“It’ll be okay,” Joel is quick to assure him. “Just for a little bit. We can control it.””
“We shouldn’t,” Etho says. He backs up from the encroaching monsters, his hands shaking slightly where he holds onto Joel. “Joel, it’s— it’s dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Joel says. A lie, and they both know it. “What’s going to hurt is us trying to keep pushing ourselves like this.” His mind races as he eyes the crowds of zombies drawing closer with every passing second. Still too many. Everything they’ve done, and it looks like they haven’t done a single thing! “We need to take care of them fast, so they don’t keep wearing us down. This is the best choice we’ve got.”
“It’s not— it’s not good for us,” Etho says, shaking his head. He’s still panting.
“Just one more time won’t hurt,” Joel says. “It’s going to be fine. You’re taking me out somewhere once we’ve done this, right? We can go on a vacation and relax. We… we just need to get through this. I trust you. We won’t lose control.”
Etho makes a soft sound. “Okay. Just… be careful. I’m here with you, don’t forget that. I’ve got you.”
Joel braces himself as he feels Etho’s hand close around the sharp hook hanging from his line. It’ll be okay. He knows what’s going to happen. They’ve done this before, he just needs to anticipate it so it doesn’t shock him too badly.
Etho’s skin presses into the hook, resisting the perfectly honed point for a second.
Then—
Blood.
Etho’s blood, smeared across Joel. He’s bleeding, Etho is bleeding.
Joel’s soul screams from the shock. Their resonance jolts abruptly into something entirely different.
Etho is bleeding.
Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt. Etho is hurt.
Joel’s soul is pulsing uncontrollably. His shape warps as it reflects the state of his mind and his soul. Strong bands wrap around Etho’s arms protectively, lashing him closer to Joel so that he can protect him. His body contracts, builds, transforms into something far more hostile. His hook— his blood-covered hook— elongates into a wicked pointed barb.
“Joel! Joel!”
Etho is hurt.
Etho is—
No, he’s— he’s safe. Safe because Joel is here. He’s going to be safe because Joel is going to destroy every last monster that would ever dare to come after his precious partner— the love of his life— the perfect accompaniment to his soul’s song.
Joel fights against the swell of blood madness and forces himself to concentrate on Etho. His presence is here, familiar, grounding. Joel shudders in Etho’s hands.
“I’m okay,” he says. “I’m okay, I’m— I’m stable.” He breaks into laughter. “I’m going to KILL! EVERY! FUCKING! THING! HERE! These things are going to be FUCKING DEAD!!”
“Okay. Okay. Let’s get this over with,” Etho says.
Joel is faster now. He’s deadlier. His harpoon fires in such rapid succession that Etho has to keep moving to stay properly balanced. Each shot pierces through not only the nearest monsters but also plow through row after row of monsters until they embed in the far walls.
Joel laughs at the devastation. Amazing! Amazing! He’s unstoppable! He’s unbeatable like this! Nothing can overwhelm them, nothing can hurt them! The monsters don’t stand a chance! Nothing could— this is Joel at his deadliest! Etho has nothing to worry about! His hands are locked in place on Joel with the strong bands laced along his forearms. Aim! Fire! Aim! Fire! The monsters in every direction are dying, so much faster than anything they did before! Yes! Kill! Die! Kill!
The room is clearing. Joel’s energy surges, his soul pushing Etho’s, urging him to move, run, keep killing, keep killing. Etho goes to chase after the lingering stragglers. A single shot for a single monster is such overkill that each one bursts into pieces on impact and Joel shrieks in delight.
Yes!
KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL! KILL EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING IS GOING TO DIE!
“Yes!” he screams. “Yes! Kill them! Kill every single one! HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!”
Nothing else is coming through the doors and crumbling walls. Joel’s harpoons shoot through every last monster and it’s not enough. It’s not enough! They need more! They need to KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL—
“Joel—”
“GO!” Joel screams, his bands winding higher around Etho’s arms. The yawning hole in the ground where Cleo and Bdubs dropped earlier, there’s got to be more down there. GO! GO! GO! GET THEM ALL! THEY ALL WILL DIE—
Etho leaps down. They’re in a chilly, dark passageway with narrow stone walls. Nothing here, nothing, nothing.
“Keep going,” Joel says, desperately pushing his soul against Etho. He’s hungry, hungry for destruction and death and killing, killing, killing— “Keep going, there’s got to be more! Kill them, kill them, I’m going to kill ALL OF THEM!!”
“Joel, calm down,” Etho says, even as he follows Joel’s instructions to start running down the hallways. “We— we cleared it. Cleo and Bdubs are fine. Probably. They— it’s okay.”
It’s not over, it’s not. Joel can sense Cleo and Bdubs’ resonance, off in the distance. Growing closer as Etho runs down the passageway, turning left and right to continue on towards the only source of energy they can sense right now.
They need to keep going! They need to keep FIGHTING KILLING KILLING—
But Etho is slowing, coming to a stop.
“Joel,” he says. “We need to— we need to stop now. It’s okay. We did it.”
Joel rattles in Etho’s hands, his bands tightening around Etho’s arms. No, he wants to— he wants to keep— his soul is so loud and so powerful and he’s unstoppable, he’s so powerful and—
And Etho. Cool, gentle, loving Etho. He— yes. Etho is— he’s what Joel is doing this for— he’s— he’s Etho’s partner. Yes, this was their plan, and they… they accomplished it. They don’t need to keep fighting. They’re going on a vacation. They need to— Joel needs to—
With effort, he relaxes the bands that he’s wound tight around Etho’s arms. Joel wills his soul to stop screaming and shouting. It burns and his soul screams just from the attempt to bring it back. It hurts. It hurts so much. It feels like he’s tearing apart, but he— Etho’s got him, he knows this, he has to push through—
He can hardly hear Etho’s soul over the clamor of his own. Joel bites back the screaming and tries harder.
The blood resonance falls. Joel stumbles back into his human form, but Etho catches him.
“There we go,” Etho says softly. “Alright. We’re alright. Right?”
“Did I hurt you?” Joel says as soon as he remembers how to speak. He’s shaking. He feels hot. He feels unstable. He feels raw and horribly vulnerable, his soul struggling to recover from the madness.
“No,” Etho says. “I’m fine. I’ve got you, I’m fine.”
Joel nods. He closes his eyes and leans into Etho, refamiliarizing himself with everything he loves: Etho’s breathing, his smell, his solid form, his heartbeat, and the steady chiming sound of his beautiful, beautiful soul. This is why— he can’t ever lose sight of this. He can’t. He can’t.
“I’m sorry,” Joel whispers. “I… I got carried away.”
Etho is silent for a moment. “We shouldn’t do that again,” he says.
Joel shakes his head. He doesn’t want to think about the blood resonance. He doesn’t want to assess whether or not it was worth it. They can just move on and put it out of their minds. Tomorrow will come, and their payment will come with it. They’ll leave this place and go on to something else. They’ll go on a date, on a vacation, and forget about this.
Joel doesn’t move from where Etho is holding him. He doesn’t want to move at all.
He still hasn’t quite gotten his soul feeling comfortably stable again when he senses the resonance of Cleo and Bdubs fade. He and Etho straighten up and share a look.
“I guess we should go check on them,” Etho says.
Joel nods.
They meet up with Cleo and Bdubs in a tiny stone cellar with a handful of candles set up on a table illuminating… not a whole lot, actually. From what he can see, Joel assumes this is some kind of… study? Storage room? It’s mostly empty, and it looks like there’s only a few scattered boxes and random bits of junk on the barren shelves leaned against the walls. Bdubs is crouched on the floor, tearing through crates and chests while Cleo stands near one of the shelves skimming through a book.
“What’s going on?” Etho says.
Cleo shuts the book and tosses it back on the shelf. “We’re not sure,” she says, sounding reluctant to admit it. She squints at the other contents on the shelf and then shakes her head. “We spent a lot of time clearing monsters out and chasing something that felt like— well, it felt like a meister, but not quite.”
“What do you mean by that?” Joel says. “What else besides a meister feels like a meister?” He peers at the closest opened crate. Nothing in there but some oily looking cloth and candle stubs.
“I don’t know…” Cleo muses.
“We didn’t even see them!” Bdubs says. “Just kept giving us the runaround! And then— poof! Gone! No trace of them left!”
“Really?” Etho says. “So… if not a meister, then… a witch? Or a weapon with— have you ever heard of a weapon with… I don’t know, teleportation abilities?”
Cleo huffs, frustrated. Her arms are crossed and she’s tapping her finger against the shelf. “It didn’t feel like a witch. It felt like a meister. But there was no— well, if there was a weapon they were resonating with, the bond was extremely subtle. But… I don’t think any kind of resonance can be so weak that I can’t sense it. Especially at the proximity we got to them before they vanished.”
“Huh,” Etho says.
Yeah, Joel has no idea either. He can’t sense meisters unless they’re trying to resonate with him, and he sure as hell can’t sense witches unless they’re doing something right in front of him.
Cleo shakes her head. “I doubt we’re going to find any clues as to what they were doing here. We’ve gone through a few rooms now and most of them are completely burnt. I imagine whoever was here might have been making sure all their tracks were covered. Once that was done… not much point in sticking around.”
Joel stands up and walks back over to Etho’s side. This place is creeping him out now.
“I just don’t know,” Cleo continues. “Whatever was happening here, we won’t have a chance to actually investigate it. They wanted to have this place demolished as soon as possible to keep more monsters from moving in...” She suddenly claps her hands together. “Well! Not that it’s any of our business anymore! We did our job— you two cleared out everything upstairs from what I can sense. Great job! I think I’m going to head back to town and get some rest. Bdubs?”
“Yes! Let’s go!” Bdubs says, rushes over to Cleo’s side. They exit the room, and Joel hurries off after them.
“I’m pretty sure Etho and I killed more monsters than you! We’re not splitting the payment fifty-fifty!”
“That’s not your decision!” Cleo sing-songs back. “We all signed that contract, Joel. You’ve already agreed to your side of the payment.”
Unfair! Absolutely unfair! Etho and he did most of the work! Joel starts to pursue them so that he can argue, but he comes to a halt when he doesn’t feel Etho’s presence at his side. He turns back. Etho must still be in the room.
When he heads back in, he finds Etho standing in the middle of the room, looking up at the ceiling.
“What is it?” Joel says. He goes to stand next to Etho and looks up, trying to spot something that his partner might be looking at. It just looks like a bunch of dark bricks to him.
“Just… I don’t know,” Etho says. “Does it look like there’s something… written on those bricks? Or is it just scratches?”
Joel narrows his eyes. It’s hard to see in the darkness, so he goes to grab one of the flickering candles from the table.
“I’d guess that whoever was here was in this room,” Etho says. “Unless Bdubs and Cleo were the ones to light the candles…”
Joel holds the candle up to illuminate the stone ceiling overhead. Perhaps a few hundred small dark stone bricks form a simple pattern, broken up in regular intervals by wooden cross beams. They just look like bricks. Old bricks, and they do look scratched up but that’s what happens with old bricks, right?
“It’s… it just looks like scratches to me,” Joel says. He lowers the candle and looks at Etho. “Why? What do you think it could have been?”
Etho is silent for a long moment. “I’m not sure.”