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((Mother's Day Special -- Page 2 of 12))
‘Nibas, wait--’ tried Feromas.

“I told you, my name is Morgunov, now.”

‘Fine, I--’

“It’s funny. I didn’t think you would break on the first question. I’m quite disappointed, honestly. I thought we could do a whole little dance with this, have a bit of back-and-forth, make a pleasant evening out of it! But no! You already gave me all the reason I need to kill you!”

Feromas was looking around frantically now, eyes lingering briefly on Damian. ‘Morgunov, wait! I can tell you where the Mask of Amordiin is! You’re interested in that, aren’t you?! But you’ll never find out where it is if you kill me!’

Morgunov’s expression went briefly flat, and when the man’s smile returned, it seemed pitying this time. He banged the bar cells another time. “Do you really know where the Mask is? ‘Cuz I have a funny feeling you’re lying again.”

‘I--! Agh--!’

“Hmm? What’s that?”

‘I... I don’t...’

“You don’t what?”

‘I don’t know where the Mask is.’

Morgunov let loose a throaty cackle. “You really didn’t understand what I was doing, did you? Well, that’s okay. Reapers are always a bit slow on the uptake with things like this, eh? So stuck in the past that you have trouble realizing when the future is staring you right in the face! It’s not your fault, though. It’s just your nature. I won’t hold it against you.”

Damian didn’t know what to do. Clearly, this was not going how Feromas had wanted, and his reaper’s panic had quickly become his own.

“Oh well,” said Morgunov. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and be reincarnated as a beautiful emu. Majestic creatures, those. I got myself one as a pet, recently. I don’t think he likes me much, but that just makes me yearn for his affection even more, somehow. But anyway, I suppose I’m just rambling now. And you know what? Since you’ve been such good listeners, and since you’ve also been so patiently waiting for me here, I’m going to give you a choice! How would you like to die?”

Oh no.

‘Morgunov, wait--’

“No. Waiting isn’t one of the choices, silly. Well, maybe it is. In a sense. I’ll just explain them, shall I? Okay, so first, I could kill ya slowly and painfully. Now, of course, the benefit to this option is that you get to live slightly longer, but I won’t sugarcoat it--it’s going to be quite miserable. Wouldn’t be my choice, necessarily. Though, maybe it would depend on my mood. Anyway, the second option is, as you can probably guess, quick and painless. Now, this one’s quite popular, but I don’t--”

As he listened, Damian became increasingly convinced there was no sense in any of this. He certainly didn’t want to die without a fight.

“--which brings us to the third option. And maybe you’re thinking, ‘Papa Morgunov, how could there be a third option when the first two seem to cover everything so thoroughly?’ Well, that’s the thing! The third option is a surprise! Might be even quicker! Might be even slower! Might be a mixture! Who knows?! Could involve some fun gadgets I’ve been working on! Now, what do you--?!”

Damian raised his hand and concentrated with everything he had, trying to disintegrate Morgunov’s head.