My mind kept wishing Lust would pass me another note. Nonetheless, I pressed on in search of Envy. The speed at which I was collecting non-Envys was astounding. I guess if I opened enough doors I could probably get lucky eventually. Lo and behold, another door and it wasn’t even locked. The inside was empty except for a young boy in a glass box. Runes adorned the metal corners. A man slept in a chair in the corner next to the box tattooed with runes as well.

Teacher had tried to teach me some runes but I had no ability with sorcery, so god knows what those runes meant. Well first to get rid of the guard, then on to the box breaking. The kid can’t be that dangerous if he's only protected by glass. I raised the knife and got cut off by a note from Lust jutting in my face. It said “Sloth”. I had nearly made all of us sleep forever.

How the sorcerers even contained him was beyond me. Teacher told me it had something to do with thousands of awakening runes and a lot of sacrifice. We backed away from the child and closed the door. I was increasingly tempted to look at Lust's arms again, maybe a little higher the beautiful bitten nails and and… I do wish that I had a mirror to look into. Put me out of this misery.

We kept walking around in hallways that seemed to be made of doors. Lust handed me a note saying to try the door to the right. I immediately complied then questioned why I did. Oh well. I walked in front, Wrath, who was following quietly to my surprise and Lust holding the rear. What I would do to hold that rear… I need to get some help.

Behind the door was finally the person we were waiting for … or not. Instead, there was a winged figure trying to avoid three guardsmen in the room. Manacles clanked together as they held the wrists of Pride together with a chain attached to the wall. He was flying just out of the reach of the guardsmen. I backed up slowly and tried to close the door.

Luck abandoned me again because the door creaked in the most conspicuous way possible. The three guardsmen looked at the noise and then clattered to the floor like dropped pans. Nope. Did not want another useless Sin to follow me around. Slowly back up, almost there... Pride shouted at me. Such a pain, he wouldn’t even be any use trapped in a castle. He was still shouting stuff like “help me” and “don't you dare close that door!” I had met Pride only at the annual feast and I recall disliking the experience. He didn’t even have a personality going for him.

Lust intervened with a note saying we should help. Couldn’t refuse him which itself was a disturbing thought. I walked over to the fallen guards all the while Pride yelled about the outrage. Blah blah blah. I ruffled through the pockets of the guards and found a key. It turns out the manacles were not a match to the key. So after listening to more whining I found another key kicked into a corner of the room.

That gave enough time for the pain from the earlier punches to reappear. Like a magic trick. Presto, pain. By the time I got the manacles off, I had a headache that greatly increased the chances of dead bird boys. He didn’t seem to realize how his incessant nagging was getting very close to murder levels. I asked Pride if he wanted a staring contest. He shut up quickly after that. It may have been because Wrath and Lust were waiting by the door.

It was surprising when he rudely asked who those two were. I said, “They are the beautiful illustrious Lust and Wrath.” He followed up with about sixty questions in one breath. I was going to kill the bird boy and then myself. It seemed like he wasn’t at all enchanted by Lust. He asked loudly “Are you two stupid? What are you waiting at the door for? Come…” I tuned him out and began walking away.

He cried out in such a desperate, pathetic voice that I turned. I looked to where his finger was pointing. His leg was missing, instead was a piece of carved wood that looked like a talon sat nestled where it should have been. Whoever the carpenter was had a sick sense of humor.

Air rushed from my lungs in a sigh that lasted a minute. Why not just fly, I asked really hoping there wasn’t a good answer. He said haughtily, “I have been, for 2 hours trying to not get caught by ruffians”. There was a longer spiel, but I turned towards the door halfway through and started walking away. He started to cry, with great sobs wracking his little body which was too much for my caring heart to ignore. I grabbed him and put him on my shoulders. No ulterior motives here. I was simply wondering if Lust liked guys who were good with kids. I kept that thought to myself and tried to drown out the barrage of questions coming from bird-boy. Would they be squawks? I wondered to myself in an attempt to ignore my passenger.

The noises from the battle seemed to be over, which was bad because currently, I was walking with a sexy man, a girl who isn’t angry anymore, and a chicken. Probably not combat-ready for a large scale force. It was time to find Envy.

I walked out the door, across the hallway and continued until I reached the next door which looked like a castle condensed into a door frame. If Lust was behind the other reinforced door that meant that something cool would be behind this door for sure.

I really hated the existence of keys. Where was the trust in fellow man? My problems always seemed to solve themselves. Here came keys down the hallway. Whatever was left from that battle, came around the corner. Bloodied armored men began dying in droves as I played eye tag. Luck seems to have just waltzed out of the building. The remaining men formed a shield wall that huddled around one person in the middle. That would most likely be a sorcerer. Bad news all around. A sleep spell could take out all of us in a few clean rune strokes.

Luckily, Wrath got angry again. Maybe she worked like bulls except instead of red, her trigger was shields. She grew comically fast as a skinny twelve-year-old girl turned into a hulk of muscle that cracked spines like eggshells.

I waited till most of the men were shattered into pieces before walking over and grabbing the sorcerer. Looks like the shield wall did its job. He was in one piece although dazed and coated in blood. I dragged him to Lust while looking at the floor. A hard task, as I kept tripping on pieces of men. Every time I almost fell, the bird boy would chirp and pull on my hair. I was about to launch bird boy into the air to see if his wings really were tired.

Lust seemed to get what I meant without speaking although there was a limited amount of things you could do with a prisoner. He began writing with those gorgeous hands and his legs were so curvy… I need to fall on a knife fast.

When the sorcerer came to, Lust passed him the note. He looked up at Lust's face and spilled his deepest secrets while pawing at Lust’s legs. Lucky bastard. Wrath came over slightly smaller and held him at a distance growling the whole time. Lust flashed a note Wrath’s way to prevent an early death. Such restraint from Wrath. I’m surprised a little piece of paper could tell Wrath what to do. I’ll not question a gift when I get one.

Lust’s power was affecting the sorcerer way stronger than the rest of the Sins. I was only mildly entranced and Wrath seemed to be about the same while bird boy was unaffected. This guy was crying, he was so happy just to be near Lust. It was gross. I mean I also adored being around Lust, even catching his scent was heaven… maybe I could get Wrath to kill me.

The sorcerer was so captivated that he told us about the key and where Envy was. The key was in the mangled remains of a guard captain. I slipped on an intestine and ended up even more soaked with blood than before. I wonder if Lust was into blood-soaked men. Probably not.

With key and sorcerer in hand, we walked to Envy’s cell. Turns out everyone had left Envy’s cell alone. Probably for good reason. Bird boy saw it first from atop my head. There was a massive rune of sleeping on the floor in front of the door. Someone hit by that would be sleeping for a long time. Luck had graciously given me an expendable someone. I gestured for the sorcerer to go first. Lust had to convince him to walk forwards away from his side. One discharge of a rune later and the way was clear. The key creaked in the door lock and an empty room presented itself.

Envy? I cursed and found a shank at my throat. A chipper “hiya Death” came from behind the door. Envy changed shape from a wall patterned blob to a tall lanky girl that I had seen before. Nobody knew what Envy actually was. The story goes that they didn’t know their original identity and can’t even remember what they looked like. Envy never seemed to mind. I usually called it safe and went with the identity she was sporting.

I tried to tell her the situation in a speedy way but bird boy kept butting in.She didn’t seem to care that much.

“We gotta go now”, she said

She said she'd explain what was going on later. I was quite used to not knowing what was going on so that posed no problem.

Next up was our destination. I had only planned on getting to Envy. Her plan was going to the armory first . Lust disagreed immediately, waving with a note. It read simply food is first priority. There were more and more eyes to avoid looking into. After Lust and Envy finished haggling we split up with me, Envy, and my talking parrot going to the armory and Lust and Wrath going to the canteen for supplies. The second they were gone Envy began trying to justify leaving them.

“Let’s go, they'll only slow us down. We both know how little encouragement Wrath needs to murder people”.

“Coming from an assassin” I retorted. Her voice sounded upset when she barked orders. Envy always felt like an open book that was written in another language. It was impossible to read whether or not she was acting.

We got to the armory in silence but without incident. A guard, apparently, was supposed to be there. He was not. His blood was. A nasty fight had broken out there.

Envy began selecting pieces of equipment that weren’t bloody and seemed in good shape. Bird boy got a light jerkin which he adjusted with a knife to have slits in the back for his wings. I got a studded leather jerkin with a kite shield. I preferred chainmail but we were going for lightweight and speedy. I also got another knife and a short axe. Envy went to a special chest in the corner and pulled out two needle-thin blades and some bottles filled with murderous looking liquid.

. We were about to leave when bird boy piped up that he wanted a bow. We extracted a quiver and bow from a very dead archer. I wonder what is worse to die from, spear or arrow. Are arrows like small throwing spears? I'm pretty sure ballistae are just big crossbows. Are there tiny throwing spears? Do ballistae use just normal spears?

That sidetrack in my mind meant that I was not paying much attention when Envy motioned to stop. Instead I waltzed into a sizable contingent of armored knights.Luck was smiling as they seemed pretty intent on breaking down a door in front of us which meant they didn’t notice my idiocy. A dead man’s wit could have probably guessed not to go over there.

Walking away from whatever poor people were about to get stabbed, we managed to make it to the stores room before we noticed the fumes curling along the floor. The smoke smelled like pine needles. It began burning the eyes and nose in a new searing sensation. I had plenty of experience blind navigating so I closed mine and gave Envy the rag to breathe through and ran into the storage room. Wrath had reverted to her skinny form and was coughing into her arm. So was Lust, I could hear both of them.My heart helped by beating faster when I grabbed him and made a beeline for the chapel.

Once a year there was a ceremony where they attempted to cleanse me of my sins. This happened in the chapel of light which also had lots and lots of windows.A helpful feature when poisonous smoke attacks. I remembered the walk from the year previous and the deep brown carpeting that was near the chapel. It was the only thing I was allowed to look at. I opened my eyes to check if the carpeting was the same. Yep, and if possible I had a blister on my eye.

We blasted through a door that was emblazoned with the church of light’s mark and breathed. I laid down on the carpet and choked for a few hours. Bird boy fell off, which was nice. I scanned the room for people. It was empty. Seems like the priest was gone. Good. His exorcisms never did me any good anyway. We were considered demons by the church. They weren’t exactly wrong. My mind seemed to be racing. I asked Envy to give a headcount.