I opened my eyes to see water. It splashed up onto my face causing me to spit and curse. Damn Tim, when he lets me come back without feeling like I am falling I end up waking up to some annoying shit. I looked up and realized that I had floated onto one of the sidewalls of the canal. I crawled up the wall and laid down on the cobblestone road.

My clothes were soaked and I felt like shit. My body had already healed but the headache was still there. I wasn’t sure if we had won, that is until I saw Iscarat’s old decrepit body jogging towards me. He stopped a few feet before me and fell to his knees where he started coughing and wheezing.

“I really need to get in better shape.” he said to himself between wheezes.

“Did we win?”

“Well, you seem fine and yes we did.”

“Don’t be so sassy with me. I am in a lot of pain. Speaking of which, how is Scott?”

“He is in a lot of pain too but Elysif should be taking care of him now.”

“Good, then I better get over there.”

Iscarat helped me up and the two of us walked over to Scott and Elysif. They were in a very strange set of circumstances where Scott was writhing on the ground in obvious pain while Elysif stood above him like she was trying to cause him this pain. I was starting to think that Elysif was really as sadistic as Scott made her out to be.

“Is he okay?” I asked cautiously.

“He’s fine, the medicine is just kicking in. He'll be in pain for the next few minutes but it will heal up his organ damage.”

“Oh, where is the masked man?”

“Over there.” she replied pointing at the bridge. I saw the trail of blood seeping down the edge of the bridge and into the canal but I didn’t see a body. Maybe he was dead but I didn’t want to give my hopes up. I walked onto the bridge and I couldn’t believe it. Before me was the decapitated remains of the masked man.

I stood above the body and lifted up the masked head. I wanted to see what he looked like underneath the mask. Taking off the mask I found that it was an old man. He had tears stained onto his cheeks and his wrinkles were cold and rubbery. All the hair on his face was white and looked as if it hadn’t been trimmed in months.

On the backside of the mask though I noticed something. A rune or sigil? Nothing else though. “Hey, Iscarat. What does this rune mean?” I asked, throwing him the mask. He caught it and studied it for a moment before getting wide eyed.

“This rune is called the puppet master. It allows one to control a body living or dead from anywhere. There is also a transference rune in here, which allows someone with the same rune to change places with the person who has this rune.”

“Which means someone else was controlling the person we were fighting this whole time.” Elysif said.

“Great, so we aren’t done.” Scott said sitting up and drinking some of the contents from his flask.

“Oh good, the medicine has finally finished working.” I said.

“ya , fuck you.”

“Hey I got my ass kicked too.”

“Ya but all your wounds are healed while I have several broken bones that will have to heal naturally.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“Hey don’t talk to your superior like that.” Scott yelled.

“He is right though.” Elysif said.

“Not you too Elysif? Actually you have always been like that so nevermind.”