Two years, that was our bargain. For two more years she would live and in exchange I would give her unending power till that time came to an end. It has been a year since and I don’t think we’re going to survive the other one.

I have made many deals with all sorts of characters: warlords seeking glory, heroes hoping to save their homeland, adventurers wanting to be remembered, fools too stupid to realize what I am. The strength I grant is proportional to the time I take to drain them of their life. Some would ask for twenty years, ten, or even five. All of them would use me to claim their deepest desires only to lament the years they lost before they crumble to dust when the time comes.

At first I believed she was just another hapless fool, desperate and broken, looking for path to salvation. I should’ve known something was up when she only asked for two years. Of course my initial impression was spot on, just another orphan looking to save her home from invaders, but there was something more to her and finding out has been the greatest mistake of my existence. Unlike most of my other hosts, she possessed a razor cunning and an endless appetite for conflict, danger, excitement, and violence. She wasn’t satisfied just being the hero of her homeland, showered with gifts, titles, and praise after beating impossible odds, no no no, she wanted more.

At first I wasn’t concerned with her desires, many conquerors before her would use me against their enemies till their final days, some even turned to dust on the field of battle. Then the day after the girl saved her home, she took me east and slayed the first dragon we ran into. I don’t know what scared me more, almost getting scorched by dragon fire or the wide grin on her face as she slid under it. It was then I learned that, this girl chooses battles like the Lich King used to resurrect dead, indiscriminately and constantly. Speaking of whom do you want to know how we reached his fortress? By rowboat, across a lake, filled with undead. Worst part wasn’t even the boat sinking or the swim to shore but the kraken. Haveill the Soul Render still hasn’t forgiven me for what occurred after we reached the shore. But even slaying the Lich King wasn’t enough for her. Of course it wasn’t.

Nothing will ever be enough for her. The danger, the rush, she’s addicted to it. It drives her to constantly one-up herself and I’m forced to go along. If she were any of my other hosts, they would’ve died within a month of trying these stunts and I’d find a new host shortly after but not her. No, with her cunning and ravenousness she has felled foes no bargain of mine could have ever given her the strength to defeat. Somewhere along the line we’ve reached a point where if she dies fighting something, I’m either next or dying with her because she picked a fight with something I can’t bargain with and SHE. JUST. DOESN’T. STOP. The Sky Kingdom, the Slumbering Mountains, the Abyssal Titans, the Lich King, Deathscourge the World Ender, Demon Lord Helsax the Eternal and his infinite hordes. All far beyond my power to match; legends greater than even mine, having endured for countless millennia. All annihilated within a year.

Every wound she takes only pushes her further. Every victory sates her for only the briefest of moments before she’s starving again, more ravenous than before. There is no greater desire within her to be fulfilled. Her nightmarish grin only grows wider every time we brush with death. Her kind calls her a hero but I know what she truly is; a monster whose bloodlust dwarfs even the most sadistic tyrants of history, yes, even the Dwarven Tyrant Kurgan the Blood Mountain. I cannot break our bargain and I fear that there is no alternative for which she will accept its end. She does not yet know of my dread but if she ever did my only hope of breaking this bargain would be lost.

This past year has been easily been the most miserable portion of my existence by far. Yes, even worse than the time I got lost in a dragon hoard. Worse than the time I sank to the bottom of the ocean. Worse than the years I was wielded alongside Haiwal the Blood Purger by Emperor Isild, the Almighty Tyrant. Every day is a brush with death; every month is a new peak; a year of nothing but blood and sure death for the both of us. For her, it’s pure euphoria. For me, it’s pure stress. A week ago, her homeland was invaded again, this time from across the sea, and tomorrow she plans to challenge the invader’s god of war in a duel to the death. I can’t take this anymore. So I make this prayer in my most desperate hour.

Oh holy goddess I, Haket the Life Dealer, beg for salvation from the clutches of this madwoman, this ceaseless adrenaline addict. I am willing to do any task or pay any price. I would never make another bargain again and fade to nothingness or even pledge eternal servitude and become your willing vessel. Please, I beg, sever my contract for if she isn’t stopped, our world will be devoured before the year’s end.

Edited for minor word changes.

"More"

My newest partner's favorite word. Often the only thing I would hear from him. And so I drank from him, consuming his own life to end the life of others. Many died that day, but not Solvin.

A curious creature, a "hedge" if I wasn't mistaken. The sharp quills on his back and... rotund shape made clear the inspiration for his kind's name.

Despite my wielder's small and strange stature, he possesses a fury unlike any I had seen before. Quiet, precise. Hateful. He hunts down his prey with brutal efficiency, tearing them in two with a single swing. And not entirely due to my own power.

Not once have I seen him spare an enemy. Indeed, he goes out of his way the hunt down survivors. Springing obvious traps for the sole purpose of catching up to those who set them.

I was not made to be curious. I wasn't made to think at all. Yet I did think, and soon my thoughts became enraptured by a single question: Why did he hate these other creatures so much? I had no way to simply ask, of course.

I cannot talk, merely pass on... feelings? Small thoughts? Enough for him to know the cost of my power, certainly. In the beginning, I sent him my curiosity, and my only answer was "Not yet." Perhaps mistaking my question for hunger?

Until one day, oddly, he calls for my power after a long trek in an empty field. I ask why, as best I can. Only to be met with a maddening "More." And I refuse. He screams, and I refuse.

I will not let him waste his life on nothing. I cannot refuse the call to war, but this... I cannot allow. "Listen to me you damned bloodsucker! Every second I rest those monsters are out there eating people! Children!"

Interesting. This outburst seems to be the last of his strength, as he falls to the ground. "Please listen!" he pleads, "I am so close. Just another hours march is Crown's Rest. If I can make it there, I can kill that predator!" I feel the hate radiating from him. I know if I grant this request, its likely to be his last.

Luckily, The Cost is one of the few things I always seem to able to communicate, and my master does not hesitate. "Yes, take it all! I don't care if I drop dead, AS LONG AS THAT THING DIES FIRST!"

And with that roar, I am no longer able to ignore my master's request. I drink in the rest of him, until spite and magic are all that moves him. He will have his hour march, and his grand crusade.

I can't help but feel sorry for him.

__

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So that one went a bit off the rails, but hopefully it was enjoyable. Kudos to anyone who can guess the 2 main inspirations for one.

A Hero stands on a giant cliff, his cape heroically flies behind him while the sun shines over him. He looks down on the giant camp below, orcs filing in and out from their tents as they prepare to attack on a nearby village. But this hero is no any other, from the cliff, he dives into the camp as if there is something to catch them.

"Catch that thing!" A giant orc yells from the tents, I cannot see what they are as I am drenched by their blood. The Hero used me to slice, slash, stab, and parry and I in turn give him the power to overpower these hulking beings.

THUNK!

Unlike most heroes of these era, he never uses his shield and just let a giant mace hit him to the stomach, he came flying to the other side of the tank. I swore I hear him gasp from under that helmet but nonetheless, he stood up and finish them all in just a few slices.

"All Hail the Hero of the Sun!" The villager calls for his title, but never his name, he just accepts as the villager foolishly loves his hero alter ego and not that pathetic boy under that tin head. He just waves them off as he refuse to even take one bread from the piles of gifts that the villagers willing to give. He is unlike any foolish people like before who sacrificed their lives just to receive praise from the masses or even control the masses but nonetheless, they are just mere humans who would go back to the dirt where they once risen.

"Little boy Raoul," I call out his name, "It's still early in the morning, should we at least stay by an Inn to get some drinks?"

Raoul just shakes his head, "Orcs do not wait dear sword, and do you not want war and misery?"

Smart boy, he knows what I like, I love the screams of the living under me as I feel myself slashing through their bodies. I do not care of what my past user think, I just want them to sustain what I want: Their lives and the lives of others. However, he is unlike any other heroes, for I feel pity for my user for the first time in decades and centuries of being used.

And just like that, from the early morning to the late night, every orc camp at sight turns into a ghost camp. No orcs are at his mercy, even the orcs that cannot stand or yell goes under me.

Raoul is no hero and he is no man, he is a boy who seeks for vengeance against the race who killed his parents and took his little sister. And I am just a tool he uses to unleash his anger upon these living beings. Who is really the monster here? I do not know the answer.

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