A CHANCE IF YOU SHOULD EVER BE IN NEED OF ONE.

  YOU KEPT SAYING ‘JUST ONE MORE’

  WELL, HERE IS ANOTHER BUT IT WON’T PROTECT YOU FROM YOUR OWN FOOLISHNESS. SO DO NOT RELY ON IT TO SAVE YOU.

  IT IS ALSO A WAY FOR ME TO KEEP TRACK OF YOU.

  YOU ARE BOUND TO BE AN INTERESTING MORTAL, DEFIANT.

  I WILL BE KEEPING AN EYE ON YOU.

  The memory ended then, but the light did not fade. If anything, I could feel it on my eyelids and skin which I wasn’t aware of in the memory. A memory that was swiftly slipping from my mental grip.

  “So, are you back with me now?” A familiar voice asked.

  Gluttony.

  “I think so. What happened?” I asked him, taking a look around. Mostly myself since that was my biggest concern.

  I had been on the ‘counter’ with him hugging me and had been trying to comfort me. I was now laying on something like an actual cot and the inky blackness had been cleaned off me. My scars were still there though but at least they weren’t oozing blackness anymore. That had been bad. I also still had the new skill ‘installed’ on me, but it was sealed and inactive at the moment. A new blanket was also covering me as comfortable as the others had been.

  “Not long after I started to hug you, you seemed to find a way to calm down. I thought it was a good thing until you became limp and unresponsive. I chose to move you to a cot since it would be something you would be more comfortable with being on and cleaned you up as best as I could. I was in the middle of that when this… ‘thing’ appeared, and I thought it wise to move it away from you some since your miasma seem to take offense to it. It, however, seemed to take offense of me and I got a few burns in the process.” He told me.

  I looked up at him as he spoke and saw that he was seated quite a bit higher than me on a stool next to where I was laying. He had his long legs and arms crossed in a rather relaxed pose but gave off a bit of a miff air like he was annoyed with something. It wasn’t me he was annoyed at, I don’t think, but I did see the a fore mentioned burns on his hands when he gestured to this place’s new light source. And I did a double take.

  “Is that my star?” I asked, feeling myself reach for it on a mental level. It reacted by coming to me and I found its flickering light comforting to look at as it came to hover in front of my face.

  “I do not know what it is other than what I have told you and that I do believe it is yours and yours alone. It is not something that can be bartered or traded for or even taken away from you by force. Beyond that, I have no idea.” He replied.

  “I’m sorry it hurt you.” I said, palming the ‘star’ and sitting up on the cot. I fiddled with the item for a moment and heard a sizzling sound coming from somewhere nearby.

  “No worries. It – huh. How curious.” He commented and I looked up at him. He was looking at his injured hand and, as it turned out, that was where the sizzling noise was coming from. Black wisps were sinking into his burns, and they were healing.

  “Woah!” I exclaimed when I saw that.

  “Woah, indeed, Samuel. You certainly have an interesting item there.” Gluttony said in agreement as he marveled at his healing wounds.

  When they were gone, he massage and felt the skin that had been burned. I also learned another thing I did not need to know. His skin…. wasn’t really attached to what was under it. It slid around on the bones underneath with only the mouth and claws on it acting as anchor points for it.

  Thankfully, my…. well one of my current stomachs grumbled at me to remind me that I was hungry. I hadn’t notice it until then, that I wasn’t feeling it. Well, it returned now with a vengeance to remind me of my still ‘Starved’ State.

  I had just let the star go to put a hand to my midriff to rub at it when my ‘new mouth’ stirred and flexed. It made me pause to look down at it and my star drifted closer to it since my attention was focused on the mouth. Suddenly, opened and the tongue flicked out to grab it. Before I could do anything to stop it or even protest, the tongue yanked it into the maw and the frustrating thing swallowed it.

  “Heey! That wasn’t food! Give me my star back!” I objected.

  I tentatively grabbed at the mouth flaps and pulled on them gently, worried that I might hurt on myself on the sharp looking teeth. I needn’t have worried as they felt dull to me and the mouth was more than willing to open for me when I tugged. I looked inside of it in hopes of spotting it but no such luck. I could feel that it was in there somewhere though. Not necessarily in the stomach though, but it was nestled somewhere in the… ‘bonus flesh’ that came with the skill. It was fine as far as I could tell but… that wasn’t something I had wanted to happen.

  “Looks like you are feeling better.” The demon commented with a chuckle at my antics. I sighed and let the mouth flaps go. They came back together on their own, but they kept flexing like they wanted to chew on something

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  “I guess so. Still hungry though.” I replied, slightly disappointed still at what had happened.

  “That can be easily remedied.” He told me and got up off the stool he had been sitting on.

  I saw him go over to one of the space’s not-walls and slid one of his mini-meat hook claws into it. He pulled down on it with a tug and the wall parted to revel a somewhat familiar storage space beyond it. I could see a pile of meat in there as well as the shell piece. There was also a glint of something metal in there too and, when I looked around the room, I couldn’t see his swords anywhere. The counter was missing too but that had less of a mystery to it since I more or less knew how it had been made.

  While I was pondering things, Gluttony gathered up an armful of the meat and brought it over to me. He set his armful on the floor in front of me and, before he could fully put it down, the skill’s tongue darted out of the mouth. It snagged a couple of the larger slabs of meat and pulled them into the mouth to be immediately swallowed. I gave Gluttony an embarrassed chuckle and look while he just gave me an amused look in return.

  “You seem to be very hungry. I will get some more.” He commented and went back for another arm load. When he returned, the meat he had left was gone and I was leaning on my knees while my skill licked its chops.

  “Sorry. I know that was given to you to have for yourself because of something my mark did but here I am, eating it all with a skill you made for me.” I said in a rather apologetic tone. I held a hand over where the corners of the mouth flaps met to pin it shut so it couldn’t grab and of the meat before he had finished setting it down. It grumbled in protest but didn’t fight me on it.

  “It is fine. I was the one who got you hurt after all with my mistakes. I did not fully hold up my end of things with that, so it is only fair that you get most of it back because of it.” He assured me.

  “Most of it?” I asked and let the mouth feed while we talked.

  At least it was a touch more ‘polite’ about it this time around and didn’t guzzle the food down. It even made an attempt to chew eat piece which added yet another thing to the weirdness pile. And it was being clean about it, keeping itself close while it chewed which was a bonus.

  “I did give you a means to fully complete your quest after all and I still intend on helping you with that.” He told me with a knowing smirk. I squinted at him with mistrust.

  “Alright, what’s the catch?” I asked him.

  “As terrible as your experience has been with it, creating the skill has put you into something of a debt with me. But do not worry, I will just be taking a bit more than you may have intended to give me in order to pay me back for it. There will be more than enough to finish your quest and still sustain you for quite a while. It is a lv. 50 monster after all and quite a massive one at that.” He explained to me. I listened calmly before nodding in agreement.

  “I suppose that’s fair. Now what’s this about giving you more than what I intended to give you? Also, we’re out of meat again.” I told him.

  He chuckled at me before getting up and heading over to the still open storage space to collect another armful of meat for the skill to munch on. This time, he had his swords help him carry more back and I ended up with twice the meat but half of it was no longer the nicely cut hunks he had made earlier. The skill didn’t care though but it was my turn to raise an amused eyebrow at him while it helped itself to another chunk of meat.

  “That long huh?” I commented as he sent his swords back to the storage space so we could talk in peace. He also cleaned himself while he talked since raw meat was still raw meat.

  “It is related to a way to increase the power of your fate aside from taking on trials. Tributes, offerings, and sacrifices are all different forms of more or less the same thing, a trade of something for greater power or aid. What you did during your trial was what would be called an offering. A very big and extensive one at that. Technically, I can do or take anything I want from you because of it as well but I will just stick with ‘eating you’ occasionally like you told me to.”

  I made him pause on cue when I offered my arm to him. He chuckled and pressed the offered limb down.

  “Perhaps another time.” He told me with no small amount of amusement before continuing.

  Was it weird of me to be getting that comfortable with the idea of him munching on me? Yes, yes it was but I chalked it up to me just feeling better than I had in a long while and set the matter aside to focus on his explanation.

  “Another would be what your Mark had done on your behalf earlier. Something you have collected can be given to me in tribute for aid or greater power. A sacrifice is something I think you might be more than a touch uncomfortable for you to do. It requires you to offer me either a live creature I want or a one that you had just killed. I would take the whole creature from you in return for something you wanted. I would give it to you so long as it was within my power and baring trial sealed skills and abilities... not that there are many you can use or access considering your sensitivity to foreign miasma.” He finished and I nodded in agreement to his assessment.

  “I don’t think I would have that much of a problem with letting you have the occasional freshly killed monster but anything alive would be unlikely, particularly anything sentient.” I told him.