"Wait, he`s in the pit?" Matt was already moving towards Lucy, a smile on his face. One of his Ape-iaries was smashed, sure. But from the looks of things, Leel had gotten tangled up in several traps on his way in, and there was nothing about his personality that screamed, "would stay at the bottom of a pit trap if he didn`t have to" to Matt. This was very good news.

　　"Yup. Fully down there. Leel, how are you doing?" Lucy gloated.

　　Leel groaned. It didn`t sound like he was doing very well.

　　"You should be ashamed of yourself. That`s a terrible joke."

　　"I don`t care. This is like a holiday. Matt, come look at him. He`s messed up."

　　Matt did. As he looked down into the hole, he saw a literally broken man, with arms and legs going all sorts of wrongdirections and a general look of, as Lucy had said, puffiness. He looked like a man with a seafood allergy who had questioned the fidelity of a superpowered shrimp`s wife.

　　Matt watched as Leel`s arms and legs twitched uncontrollably and was cautious for a moment before he realized what was happening. Leel`s limited vitality was trying to pull his bones back together, but couldn`t because the pit itself was keeping the bones from being able to realign. If he was outside of the pit, Leel would probably be capable of walking by now. As it was, he was stuck.

　　But then, Leel`s remaining unbroken arm twitched in a different way, pointed at Matt`s head, and fired. Matt was completely unprepared for the weak-version fire bolt headed his way. By the time his reflexes kicked in, he was able to pull back just enough that the fire bolt hit his forehead instead of the center of his face, flinching his eyes shut as it hit.

　　"Shit! Matt!" Lucy scrambled over as Matt`s head snapped back from the impact. Matt`s hands jumped to his head to inspect the damage. His hair was singed, which he already knew from the smell. But where he expected to find blistered skin or no skin at all, he instead found a pain more similar to a bad sunburn, already rapidly diminishing as Rub Some Dirt In It worked to heal the damage.

　　"That son of a bitch!" Matt yelled, patting his hair to make sure none of it was burning. "Don`t worry, Lucy. I`m fine."

　　Lucy paused as she looked at Matt, who somehow did seem fine.

　　"How in the hell are you fine? He just capped you in the head from near point-blank range."

　　It was a decent question. It was possible that Leel had suddenly gotten worse at casting his fire bolt spell, but from what Matt had seen, Leel wasn`t the type to do things halfway. He would expect Leel`s attacks to fail outright before he`d expect them to suddenly suck. Then it hit him.

　　"It`s the worm skin, probably. Remember that limited resistance to other elements` nonsense? I`m guessing this is it."

　　"Oooooh. That`s incredible."

　　"Yeah, great for this situation anyway." Matt peeked over the edge again, This time holding his shovel. Leel`s arm twitched once more, only to have the spell fizzle in his hand. "Not that I need it that much. Looks like he`s spent."

　　"We should leave him down there," Lucy suggested.

　　"I`m pretty sure that a crime," Matt said.

　　"Then how are you going to get him out of there?"

　　Matt paused. As drained as Leel appeared to be, he had managed to demonstrate a fairly varied bag of tricks up to that point. Matt had no desire to get down in the hole with him and then find out he had a cave-in spell, or something of that nature.

　　Actually, that might be it.

　　"I`m going to try something stupid, but I promise you it`s not actually dangerous. It probably won`t even work."

　　"What?"

　　"Just hold on. I don`t want to spoil the surprise. And Leel, it`s slightly possible this might kill you. Sorry, if so." Matt ignored Leel`s sudden groans of protest. Honestly, if he accidentally did die here, it would be sort of nice. There were some things Matt didn`t want to confront yet, and beating a broken man to death was one of them, even if Leel had been trying to kill him for a while now. But if that man died during an experiment, then all bets were off.

　　Matt activated Trapper Keeper. He was almost shocked when it worked, absorbing the pit like it had never existed. He was even more shocked when not only was Leel expelled from the hole, but expelled with actual momentum, shooting a few meters into the air like a mostly-defective mortar shell before slamming back into the ground, broken bones and all. Leel screamed in pain, heard only by two people who couldn`t care less.

　　"First things first," Matt said, bending down over the still writhing Leel. "I don`t think I want you to have this anymore." He reached down and ripped the talisman off Leel`s neck, not sparing any effort to be gentle. Leel yelped as blood welled up around his neck where the chain rasped his neck as it broke.

　　"Give that back! It`s mine!" Leel yelled, somehow still having the energy to make a surprising amount of noise.

　　"I don`t think so, asshole. Matt and I are keeping that," Lucy said. "Now, how do we free the guardian that`s inside there? I don`t think I believe there isn`t a way."

　　Leel said nothing, and just glared at Matt.

　　"Kick him, Matt."

　　Matt was happy to oblige. He kicked Leel in the ribs, hard enough to hurt him, but hopefully not hard enough to actually kill him. Leel skidded a couple of feet back.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author`s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

　　"Why? Ow. What was that for? Oww. Give me the amulet back."

　　"Don`t ignore my friend, you weirdo."

　　"Who? Your guardian?" Leel looked bewildered for a second. "I`m not ignoring her, you moron! I can`t see her now!"

　　"Oh, right," Lucy laughed. "I forgot how that worked for a second. Matt, ask him."

　　"Tell us how to get the guardian out of the amulet. "

　　Leel rolled his eyes. "I can`t. There`s no way."

　　Matt kicked him again, this time catching Leel in the sternum and knocking the air out of him.

　　"I really can`t!" Leel yelled, after partially catching his breath. "It`s not something I`m trained in. Binding is an incredibly specific field. I don`t know more than the rudiments, just enough to ensure obedience in the servants. That kind of thing."

　　Matt looked at Lucy. "Do you believe him?"

　　"Yeah, I think I do, sadly." Lucy sighed.

　　"What now?"

　　"I think that was the last way he could potentially be useful. I think it`s probably time to end this."

　　Matt tightened his grip on the shovel. He wasn`t sure he knew how to painlessly kill someone, but he figured with enough force he`d at least knock Leel unconscious with the first hit. That would have to be good enough. He lifted the shovel above his head.

　　"Wait! Wait!" Leel opened his mouth so far that his lips split. "The star of the south! You care about it! You can`t kill me!"

　　Matt stopped. "Why not? We have it now."

　　"You have it, you idiot, but you don`t own it. You aren`t bound to it. Bound guardians can only be transferred at the occasion of the former owner`s death."

　　"Sounds fine." Matt lifted the shovel again.

　　"No it doesn`t, you absolute dunce." Leel rolled his eyes, which immediately made his pupils disappear behind his almost-swollen-shut eyelids. "You can`t have two guardians at once. Taking on a new guardian would eliminate your old one. If you could even start the transfer, which you can`t. I can`t. Again, it`s very specialized work. If you kill me, it will break the binding on that talisman and kill the guardian. It`s as simple as that."

　　Matt turned to Lucy. "What do you think?"

　　"I don`t know, Matt. Even if he`s telling the truth& that guardian has been trapped in there for hundreds of years. There might not be much left. Hell, he or she might even appreciate it."

　　"Maybe not. And we`ve pulled weirder stuff off, honestly. We might be able to save it. Of course that means leaving this," Matt kicked Leel again, "alive. And that`s a danger."

　　"Not as much as it used to be. If a couple of traps can take him down, I`m pretty sure he`s having trouble recharging his batteries," Lucy said.

　　"I`m not a danger!" Leel lied while Lucy was talking.

　　"You aren`t a danger yet. And shush, the adults are talking," Matt said to Leel.

　　"It`s up to you, Matt. I`m split. I can`t decide."

　　If Matt was being honest, this was a great excuse not to kill Leel. He was still squeamish around the idea of taking down humans, and this amulet situation was giving him a great excuse not to. At the same time, if he was actually admitting the truth of it, it was a long shot. He didn`t know magic, and there was very little he could do to free the guardian, even if there was a way to do so in the first place. Leel didn`t pose a threat now, but a Matt who was being even the least bit honest would have to admit to the fact that letting Leel go was a very, very bad idea.

　　But he wasn`t being honest.

　　"Just go."

　　"What?" Leel looked shocked that his threat had worked. "Just like that?"

　　"Just like that. Have fun out there." Matt waved his hand at the wasteland. "Doing whatever it is you are doing. Just know that I`ve got a feeling that I`m about to get much stronger, and I still have this." He brandished his shovel. "Do your best to keep out of my sight. If I see you, even for a moment, I`m going to end this. Actually, permanently end it."

　　"Well, I`m glad you`ve seen reason. If you just give me a few moments to& Well, pull myself together, I`ll be out of your way."

　　"No. Now."

　　"I can`t walk, Matt. I`m rather broken, which you might have noticed if you weren`t so&"

　　"Crawl. This is a one-time offer, Leel." Matt stabbed the point of the shovel into the ground next to Leel`s neck, hard. "The next one won`t miss."

　　Leel opened his mouth to protest, then apparently saw something in Matt`s eye that convinced him not to. Slowly and painfully, he brought himself up to his good arm and knees, and winced and whined as he crawled away.

　　He didn`t move quickly, at least at first. Matt and Lucy watched for the better part of an hour as Leel`s abysmal vitality score slowly knitted him together, letting him crawl faster and faster until eventually, he could stand. Finally, he was out of sight.

　　"Think he will be back?"

　　"He almost has to come back at some point. If he could have run back to his world, he would have at the bottom of the pit. But he can`t get any stronger out there. At worst, we will have to deal with someone as strong as he was the first time we met him. And I have a feeling this new eating skill will help even the score there."

　　Matt reset what few traps Leel had sprung, but kept the hole trap in his skill for now. He had never suspected that would work, and he rather liked the idea of a portable hole, even if he didn`t have an immediate use for it.

　　"Can you keep an eye out for a while? For Leel, I mean. Or anything else, I guess."

　　"Sure, Matt. Going to bed?"

　　"Yup." Matt held up the bag of repair stones and rattled it. "Tomorrow we use these. I want to be rested up when we see what the Gaians have in store."