Jen watched as Tamako and Sam sprinted and climbed up the mountain away from the pit trap. The plan was for them to try and start a small rock avalanche at the top of the mountain, but as she watched the boulder on top of the pit trap shake and fracture from the efforts of Dickless to escape, she knew that plan would probably kill Pudding who was just sitting there without any protection, while only slowing Dickless down a little.

***

During his short window of time, Pudding hadn’t let the opportunity go to waste. He gathered Lord Deathless' hair and blood from Tweety's claws in the hopes that he would have enough time to activate his voodoo doll.

While team Kelly had been preparing the pit trap, Pudding and Jee had worked on carving a voodoo puppet doll. He'd prepped the doll and his spell as much as he could without having the fresh blood and hair or other body matter that would let him activate the doll.

Sam was desperately working with Tamako to dislodge a massive boulder several hundred yards up the mountain, when Lord Deathless punched through a bottom corner of the boulder covering the pit, and pulled himself out. Other than a few small bloodstains and dirt on his torn and shredded robe, Lord Deathless was completely unharmed.

Sam looked over at Tamako, and said, "We're out out time! Pudding made us promise to run if we couldn't stop Dickless. We need to go now!"

As Lord Deathless pulled himself out of the pit and stood up, he screamed, "I'm going to hunt you two down, and if you think Soup Bowl Bob had it bad, you have no..."

Pudding cut off Lord Deathless as he held up his finished puppet voodoo doll and hollered to team Kelly, “Dis Doll be mighty powerful. It have da same type of power as de dropper, jus on a smaller scale. Watch dis!”

Lord Deathless' face paused in shock for a split second, but before he could attack Bob, Pudding tried snapping off the doll’s leg, but the wooden puppet leg wouldn't actually break off, at least not permanently. As quickly as Pudding snapped the doll's wooden leg, it repaired itself. But the roar from Lord Deathless let everyone know he felt the pain.

Deathless reached down and grabbed his leg in pain as Pudding broke the doll’s leg, but it was only a second before it healed.

Pudding didn't waste seconds and twisted the neck of the doll completely backwards, and started snapping every limb of the doll, and then continuously and repeatedly broke and twisted the doll as it continued to self-heal.

The dropper’s bones were clearly breaking and straigtening with his limbs at odd angles, and his neck was twisted too far around. Tamako prayed that the doll would eventually kill the man was as she ran towards him intent on trying to cut his head off to permanently kill him. Before she could even reach Deathless, his body started twisting and contorting less as he self-healed over and over. Tamako then jerked in surprise when the dropper screamed again, followed by a fountain of blood bursting from his chest. Then she noticed Jen standing next to Pudding, repeatedly jabbing her dagger into the chest of the voodoo doll.

Jen hollered, “I think I can stay ahead of his regeneration and keep him down by repeatedly stabbing him through the heart, but the doll pushes my knife out of its chest, and almost heals before I can stab it again. The same thing is happening as I try cutting the doll's neck off! Suggestions people?”

Pudding added, “We must work quickly, da dropper’s regeneration will use up the blood and hair on the doll and destroy my magic soon.”

Tamako smiled at how quick and brilliant her Jen was, as she heard Jen command, “Tamako, get some more of the dropper’s blood and guts. Pudding and Jee make another doll.”

Pudding quickly made another doll and Tamako brought him heaps of blood and body matter, getting everything done in less than two minutes.

“Pudding, how many times can you do this spell?” Jen asked.

Pudding smiled, “wit dese materials, I can make dolls for hours, as long as you keep stabbin him. If he had come better prepared, or his other party members were here, this would not be working. We can no let his regen catch up though. You must keep stabbing him, and no let up!”

Tamako was keeping watch over the dropper while Jen was stabbing the doll, and pudding was preparing more dolls to enchant as the body matter would get used up.

Sam called out to Tamako, “Is he dead? I mean, can you loot him at the same moment as Jen stabs him in the heart?” Tamako walked up to the dropper and called back, “There’s a loot window, but it doesn’t allow me to loot him. It’s like he’s dead, but his body is regenerating so fast. The loot window flickers on and off so fast I can’t activate it.”

“Just a second. I’m going to try something,” replied Sam.

Jen noticed Sam cautiously walking towards Deathless, and asked, “What’re you doing?”

Sam replied via his onboard text message, just in case the dropper could hear him, and explained his plan as he neared Deathless and pulled Tamako back a short ways, “I'm going to hit Dickless with a lightning bolt, and Tamako, I want you to try and throw your spear into his heart at the same time. We're going to try and do it altogether in that moment his loot window appears.”

Tamako was not quite holding her breath, but if this failed, she didn’t know what they would do.

Sam texted the group, “Jen, yell ‘stab’ every time you stab the doll.”

Jen started chanting “Stab, Stab, Stab, Stab,” as she constantly stabbed the voodoo doll.

Sam called out, "Now!" as he finished casting his spell.

Tamako timed her throw perfectly, and grinned as Deathless body convulsed and bled on the ground, but then she heard Sam exclaim, “Damnit! I couldn't activate the loot option.”

Tamako watched Sam as he paused for a second in thought and frustration, then Jen messaged, “Pudding has already prepared another doll if this doesn't work. Sam, I want you to strike the doll I'm currently stabbing with the strongest lightning bolt spell you can create." Jen then looked over towards Pudding, and said, "Let me know when you have the spell on the new doll 99% complete. If this doesn't work, I want you to finish the spell and keep breaking Dickless until we can come up with another plan."

Sam nodded to Jen when his spell was ready, and messaged her to keep from interrupting his spell chant, and messaged, “O.K., take the doll out in the open over there, and when I say run, you run to where Pudding is with the next doll and start stabbing again. Tamako, you get ready to protect me in case this dick-head can get up before Jen starts stabbing the next voodoo doll.”

Sam didn’t want to give the dropper any warning if he could hear him, so he continued to use his control panel to text the countdown to Jen and Tamako. “3, 2, 1, run!”

Tamako would have missed what happened next if she wasn’t expecting the unholy powerful lightning strike that hit the voodoo doll in the open field. Even so, she still flinched from the power of the strike, but she witnessed the dropper continue to lie there screaming as his body continued to be broken and self-healed, and a moment later she saw Sam collapse.

Tamako caught Sam before he hit the ground. She could see he'd used the rest of his personal mana to power the lightning strike, and he would be O.K.

As she slowly lowered him to the ground, he smiled weakly and turned his head to look at the river and panted, “let’s see if that fucker can regen without any fucking air!”

"Damm! I love these people! Not an ounce or even a second of give up or quit in them!" Tamako thought to herself as she moved to get closer to Deathless to throw a rope around one of his legs.

Twenty minutes later, Deathless was at the bottom of the river with a 2-ton boulder covering and crushing his body into the riverbed.

Tamako was trying to see if Deathless was moving, and commented, "I can't see him under the boulder. Any ideas on if it is working?"

Jen replied, "Keep a watch out for him. Something is happening, I'm not sure what it is though." She turned to Pudding again, "What do you think?"

"Ms. Jen, I no have an idea if this is working or not, but the doll is regenerating more slowly each time you stab or break it. Unfortunately, I have seen de Dickless go without air for many hours once, of course he wasn't being stabbed and broken repeatedly at the same time. I will prepare the spell on this other doll that Jee just finished carving, just in case the spell is failing on dis one."

After a few more minutes the doll finally stopped re-healing itself, and she heard Tamako cheer as they all received notice of experience points from the death of Lord Deathless.

As Jen dropped down to take a seat on the ground and tried to command her body to release the stress and adrenalin that had built up, she felt her link with Slim activate, and a clear impression from him to RUN!

"By the Seven Decks!" she thought.