Odin set out once more from his hotel room, waiting until the dead of night to disappear into the streets of Era. He didn't bother trying to hide his exit from the hotel, instead just choosing to walk through the front door, even stopping to wave goodnight to the man working on the reception desk, a man who was too terrified to do anything after Odin had threatened to eat his entrails after not getting the room he had wanted. Of course, the Lich would never dream of doing something so disgusting like cannibalism, but it was always funny to watch people think it was something he was capable of and partook in. Even though there was nothing stopping Odin from developing a 'taste' for human flesh -he couldn't taste anything that he tried to eat anyway- it would take a lot of effort to gain a reputation for doing it. Perhaps one day, if the world needed another reason to fear him, he would become the cannibal. After all, it was quite an intimidating moniker. Many mages would bravely try and fight a Lich if the only worry was defeat or death, but if that Lich were to then try and bite your arm off mid battle, that brought an entire new fear into the fight. The fear of being eaten alive, worse than defeat or simple death.

After moving past the happy train of though that was the possibility of becoming a cannibal for fun, Odin tried to remember exactly where it was he was going. It was the same house as last time, the house he had visited with Erebus a few weeks ago. They had killed some guards and a couple of chefs while inside, and had stolen a good amount of loot while they were there, but reinforcements had arrived that Odin was not prepared to fight against, so he had left out of the window with the loot he had. He needed to go back, for a couple of reasons not just the loot, but he needed to wait for his heat to die down and that took a lot longer when you stood out in the crowd. After all, a man that stood taller than most average people was already something that caught people's attention. If that man then had no skin and was simply a walking skeleton clad in armour with flames where his eyes should be, it garnered a lot more attention. That's why it took Odin a few weeks to be able to go back, whereas Erebus probably would've been able to go back after a few days. Then again, Erebus would not have the same reason to go back that Odin did, as he had explored a different wing of the mansion they had found. Having been in a different wing, he had not uncovered the same information that Odin had uncovered, or at least, what he thought he had uncovered. This was why he needed to go back. One, to make more money, but two, to find out what exactly was going on in this mansion.

523/3000

The bodies had been cleaned up outside the mansion. Where before there was a river of red and the beautiful picture of death and destruction, there was now a stone path and entrance garden that looked like it was attended to by gardeners every single day. Luckily, for them, it looked like they had already been today, and wouldn't be back until tomorrow. Odin couldn't help but feel sorry for them, as the gardeners and cleaners were going to have a busy day when the sun rose the next morning. Standing in front of the main entrance were four guards, some kind of private security by the looks of them. They all wore interesting armours, and each had their own unique weapon. A scythe wielder, a halberd, a dagger and a club accompanied by shield. It was an interesting combination, but the way they held their weapons told Odin something that would make his day go a lot smoother: these men were mercenaries, not mages.

If they had been mages, it wouldn't have made their deaths any less inevitable, but it would've reduced the effect of Odin's Fear ability. Against mages, his ability either proves ineffective -if those mages are particularly powerful- or it simply weakens them to a small, but noticeable, degree which can often give Odin the edge needed to overpower them. But against normal humans, non-mages, the abilities were quite more pronounced. Unless they were above average in terms of their physical abilities, Fear would simply cause them to fall unconscious and be useless in the fight, which actually gave Odin a much more interesting idea. A little experiment he wished to run on the men gathered as protectors of the house.

If Odin walked out in front of them, and only two of them fell unconscious, how would the other two react. Fight...or flee?

That idea invigorated Odin to try out. He had been tempted to simply kill the four men, but this could give him something to do at the end of the evening, once he had his pockets full of loot, and more information to go on about the master of the house and his maids.

Walking out, Odin always enjoyed the part that came first. The men would look at Odin, this Lich approaching them with a desire to fight. The initial confusion of someone approaching, slowly forming into the realisation that they wished to fight, with a little fear mixed in at the idea of fighting someone like a Lich, and finally the amusing note of the mercenaries realising they weren't getting paid enough for this. This all happened in the space of a few seconds, and reminded Odin of how lucky he was that, being a Lich, his facial features were always deadpan. Other than those that had spent a lot of time with him, of which there were maybe three or four people, no one could read his face. But these men could be read like a book. They began to draw their weapons, which prompted Odin's reaction.

He activated his Fear.

1044/3000

The effect wasn't instant, it never was, and that was the true beauty of it. If it were, then people would instantly faint, or drop to their knees and surrender, or just run away. It was the slow build-up of the power that Odin loved sometimes. He could watch as the Fear took over the men in front of him, each one slowly coming to terms with the overwhelming difference in power between them and the Lich. Their eyes as they understood that this was likely the last few moments of life that they would have, and the frantic thinking as they tried to work out a way to survive.

These emotions all came and evolved over moments, too short to be defined as seconds, but the effect they had stuck with the men for the rest of their lives which, in fairness, wasn't going to be that long anyway. One of them, it seemed, would survive maybe an hour or two longer than the other three. Now, it wasn't from favoritism that Odin left the scythe and dagger wielder's live, although the idea of a Lich walking around Fiore with a scythe as he rends the flesh of humans and steals their souls was a fun concept, but rather it was their weakness that let them live longer. Of the four mercenaries gathered to try and stop Odin from breaking it, the scythe and dagger wielders had the lowest willpower, and so they had been the two to faint onto the side of the entrance. Unfortunately for the dagger wielder, fate has other plans. While he too fell unconscious along with his scythe wielding comrade, he didn't land on the grass just to the side of the entrance. He fell hard onto the concrete steps, and his neck bent backwards on the landing, a brutal death that he wouldn't even have experienced due to falling unconscious. That alone was enough to make the club and shield wielder throw up, but both he and the halberd owner were both still conscious, which meant they both had to fight.

The club came in first, which made sense given the reach of the halberd which could attack while Odin tried to avoid his close up attacker. That was their plan, to use their weapons as intended, and it was so obvious that Odin wanted to kill them just for their lack of originality. If anything, having all four of them attack him at once would've just made any attempts at teamwork impossible, as there wouldn't be enough space for all of them to maneuver round each other and keep Odin on his toes. Odin had improved their chances of victory by taking two of them out already, and yet they were wasting that chance by using the oldest trick in the book. Hell, they weren't even trying to trick him, they were just planning on hitting him and hoping for the best.

Amateurs.

1545/3000

The fight lasted seconds, if you could even call it a fight. The club wielder struck the Lich across the jaw, maybe trying to dislocate or break it? Odin couldn't be sure given the strength of the attack. Regardless, it didn't do any of those things, and instead Odin simply took the blow, taking the club off of the man as it connected with him. That meant he only had a shield to atack with, but Odin simply swiped diagonally across the man's neck, the club shattering along with both the man's shield and his collarbone. He was down instantly, in pain but not yet dead. Odin had wanted to beat him to death with his own weapon, but the strength of the Lich's attack had been too much for the wooden club to handle, and it was now just a stump and a pile of splinters. It left Odin with no choice but to kill the man through much simpler means, using his skeletal hands to choke the life out of him, but in that moment a sharp prick stabbed into his shoulder.

In the heat of the moment, Odin had completely forgotten about the halberd wielder. The thought of beating someone to death with their own club had completely overturned any thought of actual combat, which said much fort Odin's opinion of these men. There was no way he was going to lose, this was just sport to him. The point of the halberd was retracted by the man, who was preparing for another strike, his eyes betraying the false confidence he was trying desparately to show. However, when Odin's piercing eyes met the man's, and peered deeper into his soul, the weapon fell to the ground, and the man tried to open the mansion door. He couldn't work it open, and instead would feel the cold bone of Odin's hand caress his head before slamming it into the wood, breaking through the door and causing wood to pierce the man's face. His agonising screams and wails of pain amused Odin, as the blood trickled down the mercenary's face. Odin looked at him, bringing the man's face to meet Odin's once more, before placing a hand on his throat and squeezing. It was light at first, enough to only slightly cause the man to lose oxygen, but as he started squirming Odin would close his fist more and more and more until...

The man's body went limp, and Odin turned to look at the club wielder, who was still unable to move from the pain of his collarbone. Odin would walk over to him, and stamp on both of his legs, breaking them instantly with a clean *snap*, before progressing into the mansion itself, the door easily opening after the latch having broken. There was a scythe wielder unconscious and a broken man on the porch, but Odin would get to them later. Right now he just wanted to ransack.

2052/3000

He knew straight away which way he was going. After all, he had been here before. Straight through the main entrance towards the kitchen, noticing the lack of anyone hiding around this time. Before, there had been chefs busying themselves around the kitchen, before their untimely demise at the hands of Odin and Erebus. It had been brutal, their deaths, but the Lich had taken a sick pleasure in it. He had felt in total control, unable to be stopped as he ripped them apart, and it had been wonderful. Their corpses, or what had been left of them, had since been cleaned up, which was interesting for the Lich to notice. There was no sign that any struggle had ever taken place, the place was scrubbed clean. Something was off.

Odin, despite the knowledge of his own power, decided to move cautiously from this point on. It's not that he expected a great deal of resistance -he'd defeated vampires, werewolves and even a Manticore at one point- but it just felt... uneasy to him. Regardless, he pressed on towards the room he knew held some fun secrets: the room of an insignificant maid who seemed to hold a letter and a very pretty necklace that she could, in no way, pay for herself.

He remembered its location exactly, having left the necklace there so as not to arouse suspicion. He took it this time, and once more opened the letter, wanting to see exactly what it said.


Not giving a name was an interesting choice, considering everything about it made it evident that it was the Lord of the House himself that was speaking. Not that Odin particularly cared about the squabbling of nobles, but he had to admit that the maid was stupid. She had left out a prize piece of jewellery, one that she shouldn't even own, for the taking, and Odin was taking it, taking it and going. That would fetch a nice price for him.

2519/2500

-Exit-