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“The Mask,” the mountain lord replied, “is mine. The caldera, mine. The fortress, mine. Everything within, mine. Does that make the state of things clear to you?”

“I am familiar with greed.” she told him. “However, the time has come for both I and the Mask to fulfill the purpose for which we were made.”

“You are not mine. The mask is. Go where you want, but you will not be taking my mask with you.”

Madonna stepped forward, leaning her neck to one side and sweeping her hair from it. With an amused tone, she said, “Is that all? Then make me one of yours, and I’ll be about my task. But the full set requires all pieces. That means the mask must come with me.”

He took a step back. “You don’t know what you ask.”

She resumed her more normal posture. “Let me be clear. I am the devil Blacksoul Madonna. I am the whole reason there was a devil in that volcano in the first place. I have a destiny, and it requires the mask. Okay, I’ll admit we don’t have the power to force it from you. I’m not trying to steal it away, like some thief. It is time, and you will surrender it into my care.”

Intsa, whom I hadn’t noticed leave, returned to put a gourd into his free hand. He took his time to smell it, and drank two mouthfuls.

“Ew.” Kismet said. “Must you drink blood in front of us?”

.....

“Blood?” the lord asked. “This is nothing more than coconut water. If you’ve not had it before, you must sample...”

“Pass.” Kismet said, holding up a hand in the polite version of the stop gesture.

“Have I offended?”

I sighed. “We were stranded on an island where we had to deal with cannibal pygmies. We... survived. But I am willing to have coconut water.”

“My glutton husband.” Madonna said, proudly. “When you inherited all those possessions from the Keeper in the Magma, you also inherited one singular duty. To hand the mask over. Behold,” she said, pulling the items from her inventory as she named them. “The Boots of Blackness, the Obsidian Dagger, the Ermine Cloak. Only the Belt, safely in Boadicea’s Girdle, and the Mask remain.”

“Then you should proceed with an incomplete set.” the lord said, “You may not have the Mask.”

“I don’t understand.” Madonna said. “Your duty as the Keeper...”

I understood. “The story told by the Benapongo.” I said. “It isn’t the truth, is it? At least not the entire truth.”

The lord looked at Intsa, who shrank away, but refused to take her gaze from him.

With a sigh, he took a final sip from the gourd, and placed it on a nearby shelf. “Walk with me, this is not something my people need to know.”

“Have you not told us the truth?” Intsa asked, hurt.

“You have the truth, just not all of it. There are parts that are too painful, even now. I... I am ashamed of the remaining truth.”

But when he moved towards the door, she stepped into his path. “We share life. We share blood. We share tradition, and we share the TRUTH.”

“That is between me and your speaker of spirits.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Then perhaps you wish to share blood with only him? No. I, Intsa, pay your price. It is I, Intsa, who demand the truth.”

He sighed, and looked down. Gently but firmly, she guided him to a section of severed tree trunk that served the Benapongo as chairs. He did not resist as she sat him upon it.

“The tale,” he said, “is true. The devil of Hellespont had grown bored. He played games with our youth, male and female alike. There was a ... a selection process. I was chosen to be his next victim, his next plaything. But I went armed. Not with knife or hammer, but instead with song and story, with every bit of lore I could gather from our people.”

“It was my intention to parcel the stories out over weeks, telling him a piece of our history each day. I need not tell you that Entrall Person is an enchantment, yes? He siphoned all of the stories from me, and then fed me and locked me in a chamber, the remains of previous guests still littering the place. The next day, he had me repeat a story, and began picking at the logic of it.”

“Autism.” Madonna said. “No wonder he was selected for this duty. Go on, none of this is shameful.”

“Oh, but it becomes so.” the lord said. “I was still his plaything, and he was so very, very creative in making certain I experienced all seven of the primary sins. But always, he returned to pick at and dismantle everything I know of my culture. On the third day, he asked a detail I did not know. I was expecting him to kill me. Instead, he bade me to go to the village, learn the story in full, and return.”

He looked down at his left hand, flexed the fingers carefully. “I considered running, or hiding. Even then, I knew I could not long survive the physical assaults he subjected me to, let alone the mental and emotional ones. Except, somehow, that I did. I survived a week, then two, and then longer than anyone before me had survived. I began offering my own opinions, my own guesses, and in time, we began chasing the core truth of my people together.”

“Oh, the torments still continued. Creative and cruel, a new punishment each day.” He closed his eyes. “Weeks, then months, and then years. And then, then I turned twenty. No longer was I a child, although my innocence had long since been broken. And on that day, he chose the most wicked of his punishments. Go among your people, he said, and select one young and innocent, and bring them before me. And the tribe selected one for me, spared me that damnation, at least. And I tried to teach her how I had survived so long.”

“If only I had known. I should have long before hurled myself into the lava.”

“I will not go into detail about how a vampire is born from a human. Mine was a blasphemous process, one that left me... alive. Alive forever, at the cost of turning my back on all that made me human.”

He was openly crying at this point. “But that is not... he became more my father at that point than my captor. The punishments took on a different flavor, each one meant to teach me what was for him a valuable life lesson.”

“And I learned these lessons. Even when he began to teach me the arts of diabolism, of magic that was ... that is not magic. And when my System granted me direct access to my points, he guided me in where to place them.”

“I have no doubt that he meant to make of me a guardian, a warrior so foul and full of prowess that even the angels would fear to come to his lair, although they already did not do this thing. And then, in his foolishness, he taught me how to fight demons.”

“That’s it?” Madonna asked. “You killed your father with the weapons he put into your hands? Please. You must know that’s a story older than your entire species.”

“Killed.” he said. “If only I had killed him. Instead, I... I am sorry, I cannot speak of this. Not now.”

He rose, and dragged his feet first to, and then out the door, a near-frantic Intsa helping to support him.

Madonna snorted, and grabbed the Mask from where it had fallen from his grasp. “What? I need this.”

“I said nothing.” I said.

“I didn’t hear him say anything so horrible.” Kismet said.

“Come.” Madonna said. “We can be under way to the Girdle by the time he’s done moping over nothing.”

And we were. Captain Munfred set sail as though being chased. I learned later that some breeds of vampires can swim.

But he either could not or chose not to pursue us.

Madonna came to me while I was looking back over the stern of our vessel at the shrinking island.

“It is almost over.” she said. “Two centuries of plotting, of planning. And less than a week’s travel to its end, if the weather holds.”

I turned to swivel my head into the breeze. “It will not hold.” I said. “A storm is coming.”

She smirked. “How do YOU know?”

“Corvina.” I said. “And jealousy. I can tap storms for mana, it seems only natural that I should buy some manner of weather detection ability.”

“But that spell isn’t... You bought a skill bonus, didn’t you?”

“It’s amazing what one can do just with System skills.” I said. “Especially when you link them into your reticule.”

“Skills are imperfect.”

I shrugged. “I am certain that those clouds are a storm.” I said, pointing at them. “A storm is coming.”

“No. No, we are too close to just die because of some wind. Captain Munfred, should we not be anchoring?”

“Oh, not here.” he responded. “Up ahead, around that bend, there is a lagoon, where we can at least be protected from waves and the worst of the swells.”

“Oh.” she said, “Well, then ignore my fretting.”

“Was always planning on it.” he said.