I stood up, winced and grabbed the knife and the keys on the wall. He was well trained. The sounds of battle echoed upstairs. Three guards were slumped over in puddles of crimson. The assassin's knife had been busy. I ruffled around the assassin's corpse grabbing his armor and whatever else he had. A piece of paper with some code on it. Useless. A quick search yielded the knife which was promptly used to stab each of the guards on the floor to make sure they were dead. Yep, dead as doornails.

First up was finding Envy. I needed Envy if I wanted to leave and stay outside of the cell. I knew little of the outside world anymore, but Envy made up for all of that. They probably also knew who was sending assassins. Envy was the only sin who was allowed out often, ironically to do some assassination themselves. The problem being, I had no idea where Envy was.

The battle wasn’t going to wait for me to finish thinking, so I jogged to the stairwell enjoying the liberty. Soon, frustration replaced enjoyment. I wish that dungeons had maps, it would make my life so much easier. Why couldn’t I have a magical map or a geographical awareness of my surroundings? It would be less of a pain than death eyes. Speaking of which, I needed the rag so as not to kill Envy by accident. I ran back down the stairs, grabbed the rag and then looked for a map. The piles of bodies did not encourage exploration. A door beckoned behind a dead guardsman. I stabbed the knife in him to confirm he was dead, splattering blood on my new outfit. Then fate came knocking. Fate being the twenty-odd guardsmen that came barreling down the stairs. I slid next to the slain guardsman and tried to blend in. Years of sitting in a cell gave me the power to barely move for long periods of time. Their first mistake was that they didn’t stab the corpses. A welcomed mistake! Hadn’t they heard of ambushes? The one with the cape shouted orders, “secure Death then go to the east wing to capture Pride. Squadron two will secure Envy. Nobody goes near Lust. His Majesty wants all of them alive if possible.” Second mistake, shouting orders for everyone to hear. Teacher would probably be furious at their lack of awareness.

Luck appeared to have blessed me in a profoundly frustrating way. What wing was this? Better yet, where was Envy’s wing?

I waited until they jogged further down the hallway before following what I hoped was squadron two. Either they disappeared or I went the wrong way. A thick iron-studded door was inconsiderately in my way. The keys I had were tiny compared to the lock on that door. The noise behind me was a fun surprise. What a cruel mistress luck is, not warning about a punch from a massive hulk of a man. Darkness kissed me on the nose and pain slapped the back of my head for the second time that day. Crashing to the ground with a thud, I opened my eyes as he was about to punch me again. He kept looking where he was punching, an unfortunate mistake. More unfortunate was his ability to see. Most unfortunate was when he landed on me. Dead bodies were hard to move, especially when you weighed less than half of the corpse.

Once I wiggled my way out from underneath him, I went to check his pockets and was met with the warm flesh of his thigh. Turns out, it was a loincloth and he was, in fact, a eunuch. The keys were there, although other things weren’t.

I went through the door, fairly certain that Envy wasn’t here, but I had taken a punch to get whatever these keys were for. Maybe there were weapons, maybe there was gold, maybe this was all pointless. I probably couldn’t carry too much gold anyway, but at least for a second, I could say that I was rich.

Instead, I found a bedroom. No weapons, but instead a red-haired boy sitting on a bed. I quickly turned away, for both my sake and his. Shit, Lust. He rose with a rustle and tapped me on the shoulder. Strangely, I couldn’t really say whether I was entranced or not, although my heart was beating a concerning tempo.

“Don’t look into my eyes,” I barked, my voice squeaking like a little kid.

I heard scratching noises that confused me more. A hand poked out around my back, waving brightly in front of my eyes. “Hello, Death” was written on a clean white paper clutched between immaculate fingers. The skin was almost the same color. Like moonlit snow...

After that intrusive thought, I immediately panicked. I was definitely entranced. That was bad. So was the sound of battle echoing from the hallway behind us. I said a little louder than expected “If you want to come, come now”. Followed by a mortifying “I will protect you”. Being entranced was really starting to grind my gears.

A paper slid into my hands. “I’ll watch your back”, said the note in a curving elegant script. Slamming my head against a wall was increasingly seeming like a good idea. One more look at his handwriting and I would either propose or jump out a window.

I ambled ahead peeking around. I didn’t want to get another eunuch surprise. Once we were through the iron door, I saw the guardroom the eunuch came through. A perfect ambush spot for oblivious idiots like myself. Kinda strange he didn’t have any weapons. I guess he thought I could be taken as a prisoner, his mistake.

A steady jog carried me down the hall and to a left turn, followed by a right and then another left and returned to the exact same hallway. Yep, lost again. I then asked Lust where Envy might be. I didn’t need to see his face to feel his shoulders shrug. Guessing time. The battle seemed like a good spot to start.

I followed the noise until I found about 18 bodies. Hard to tell with the limbs everywhere. Wrath was nothing, if not thorough in her dismemberment of enemies. Looks like they had not been prepared for the ugly side of the little girl. A mistake I wasn’t about to make. I whispered to Lust about the certain death in front of us. He didn’t seem to catch it in time, walking right in front of me just as Wrath finished mashing the corpse on the floor to a liquid.

She turned towards us with a lumbering menace and I had to quickly cover my eyes with my arm. Putting myself between her and Lust, I prepared for my future life as paste and waited. We couldn’t outrun an angry Wrath. I waited some more for the inevitable bellow and thuds of a charge. A note slid under my arm. It said, “Is she calm?”.

A shrug wasn’t really a satisfactory response. I peeked over the arm at her. She was staring right at Lust in a scarily intense way. I guess Lust’s power even worked on Wrath, which would have been good information to have before almost wetting my pants.

The battle wouldn’t last forever so I shook off the vestiges of terror and plowed onwards. Lust was told to grab Wrath and follow me. Suddenly Wrath spoke, which was a surprise in itself, but especially so, because normally it was a curse about or related to your mother. She instead said, “Makua, you came to save me?” I was flattered, of course, before I realized that she was talking to Lust. Scribbling ensued and I heard Wrath muttering. Was that bad? I had no idea, but time was dying and I wasn’t much better in terms of sanity.