Free twice cursed mage 05 - claimed by j a cipriano

is a vorpal sword, you know, the weapons from Dungeons and Dragons that slice off the head of your opponent when you roll a twenty and critically hit. Then we’d be in business.”
    “How about a vorpal cane?” he asked, holding his jewel-encrusted pimp staff out to me. “It’ll work pretty similarly, only instead of decapitation, it will turn their skulls into paste, but yeah, same general idea.”
    “Hold up,” I said, examining the die. Each number appeared to glow with preternatural pink light and just holding it made icy spiders crawl up my skin. “Are you being serious?”
    “Yes,” he said, snatching the die from me so quickly I didn’t even see him do it. He held the die up in front of his eye. “Just slot the die into the cane like so,” he pressed the die into the center of the diamond on the top, and as he did, it popped into the diamond, reminding me of the dome with the die inside it on the center of a Trouble game board. “And pop the top.”
    He hit the top, just like in said game, and the die bounced around before coming up on twenty. The entire cane glowed with eerie pink light as runes along its length came to life and melted along its surface like the contents of a neon lava lamp.
    “Now it’s ready to smash some skulls like a police officer at a hippie protest.” He offered me the cane. “Try not to lose it, I’ll be wanting it back.”
    “Nice analogy,” I replied, taking the offered cane. I could feel the thrum of energy running through it. I couldn’t quite explain what it was like, but it sort of felt like what I imagined having nuclear launch codes felt like when some douchebag insulted your mother. It made me wonder what else the thing could do. I’d be a fool if I thought smashing skulls was all it did, but I doubted Mammon would tell me. No, I’d have to pay for that information, and at the moment, I wasn’t feeling particularly spendy.
    “And it can be yours for the small price of doing something you were already going to do,” Mammon’s voice poured over me, and I nearly staggered under the force of it. Something wasn’t quite right with the guy, but at the moment, he had a point, and I hated when demons had points. It was way easier to deal with them when they were crazy fucking psychos. I mean, he still probably was, and I was sure I could win without his help, but why not? Why fucking not take my cool ass pimp staff and smash some skulls.
    “And all I have to do is kill the council of seven and Asmodai for a total of eight total kills?” I asked, staring hard at demon. There was a catch, I just didn’t know what it was.
    “Technically, seven kills, since you got one already.” He shrugged. “And I’ll even make it so you don’t have to directly kill them. Them all just being dead works for me.” He held out his hand to me. “What do you say?”
    “If I do this, you’ll take over Vegas,” I replied, staring at his white-gloved hand. Part of me wasn’t sure I was willing to hand over an entire city to the demon, but most of me wasn’t sure it’d actually get much worse since Asmodai owned it already. What’s that saying? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?
    “True, but I already own most of it, anyway.” He smiled, and the glare from his teeth was nearly blinding. “Who do you think turned it from what it once was into the family friendly destination designed not just to loot the random gambler but every day wholesome families?” He thrust out his hand a little farther. “But I’ll play nice. Promise.”
    I let out a slow breath. He had a point. Man, I really needed to stop making deals with demons. Every single time I did, it somehow came back to bite me in the ass twice as hard. But hey, I could do that tomorrow. “What if he starts replacing council members?”
    “You’ll have to kill them, unfortunately.” He shrugged. “But again, you would do that anyway.”
    “You make an excellent point. Looks like we have a deal,” I said,