Gideon_v_Caligula/twofatal.md

Gideon swore again.

"Fuck!"

The blood in on her forehead was starting to drip along her eyebrow, tickling as 
is grew ready to flow along the bridge of her nose and right into her eye. 
She tried to use her right arm, without dropping her enormous sword, to wipe
the it off of her forehead before it dripped into her eyes. But the shredded sleeves 
of her cultist robes were already soaked through and the gesture only smeared sanguinous
sludge over her nose and mouth.

"Fuck. FUCK!" Gideon swore. In frustration she started to use the back of
her other, less slimy hand,  to do the job, forgetting about the razor sharp obsidian
knuckle knives strapped to her left wrist. She stopped herself only a cunt-hairs breadth
away from gouging the last pair of functioning eyeballs out of her skull. She still needed
those.

"Did I say fuck yet? Because seriously, fuck this ... Oh FUCK NO!"

Moving her left hand had made her lose her grip on the princess's body. It slipped out from
under her arm and fell back further into the pit, dislodging  other precariously piled corpses
and threatening to start a charnel avalanche which would bury Gideon in fresh human remains.

"OMG Gideon what are you doing!? You let it go!  I swear on our 
eternal rotting goddess, if you don't bring my body back in one piece I'll 
personally feed your fingers to the ommigrindr. I'm not bluffing!"

The dead princess was bluffing, but calling her bluff would be nearly as painful 
as the actual omnigrindr, so Gideon said nothing. Instead,
she craned her neck to keep her still-functioning eyeballs glued to the 
desicated royal corpse as it continued to slide deeper into the pit,
closer to the aperture. Aiming from memory, she then swung her great
sword backwards, tossing it up and out of the pit. With normal luck it should land
in something soft, (hopefully a priest), and stay put. With Gideon's luck it would
definitely spin in three perfect circles before plunging straight back down through
her skull. At least that would shut the princess up.

"OMG Gideon, what are you doing? That was your sword!" the once and former
princess pronounced helpfully. "Why did you do that!?"

"It's okay your highness. I'm sure you'll buy me a new one as soon as we bring 
you back, right?"

"OMG Gideon what are you thinking? I can't... we can't afford... there is 
absolutely no... Oh.  Ha ha. Ha."

Death, (or undeath as it might be), must have improved the princess's powers of 
perception because it was typically the next day before she detected sarcasm, if
ever. 

"OMG Gideon what are you doing!?  Ahh! Ahh look it's going to fall in.  Get it!  
Why aren't you looking!? Save it! Save me!"

No matter how many times she had haunted Gideon, the princess couldn't seem, or couldn't
be bothered more like, to understand the basics of parasitic possession.
She never accepted that she could only ever see exactly what Gideon was seeing
with her own, adequately functioning, eyeballs no more no less. Right now what Gideon 
was seeing was this:  the precious  corpse was starting to come unwound, its linen strips
unravelling as it slipped and rolled over fresher, more fetid, human remains on its 
way toward the aperture at the bottom of the huge conical pit that Gideon and descended
into on a rescue mission for the terminally damned. The aperture was a narrow choke
point exactly like the throat of and hourglass. But instead of sand measuring minutes,
the gently used, previously owned, second hand flesh-houses of humans measured 
eternity as they periodically tumbled into a stinking scarab-infested  cavern below. 

The bodies came from all over. Most were offered by devout descendants of their lately
devout ancestors. The Emperor Undying sent a regular shipment of 'retired' slaves from 
the arena or the mines. The army contributed a regular, though surprisingly modest---all
things considered, share. But not all deceased homo-sapiens were appropriate offerings 
to the pit.  For example the mummified corpse of the unholy princess of misery was a 
completely innapropriate offering---as the princess herself had been quick to point out.
The bureaucratic error that had led to the present scenario was one of such gravity that
mere death (even if preceded by unspeakable torture) would not have been sufficient 
punishment. However justice is blind, stupid and utterly corruptible; the very office that 
originated this unforgivable sin had managed to arrange things so that it became entirely
Gideon's problem. The ghastly princess herself seemed to lose all interest incriminating 
the actual guilty party upon realizing she had obtained the opportunity to nag and torment
Gideon, albeit briefly if the swordswoman was not successful. 

Gideon blinked. Sand scratched the inside of her eyelids. She wished devoutly that the
princess could feel that too. Holding her breath and moving slowly she gingerly bent her 
knees and reached down to take hold of the end of the princess's linen wrappings which
extened like a long fuse toward the regal stiff which was still unravelling slowly. 

Gideon swore again. 

"You fucking better have something on under those bandages, your highness. If I have to see
your sundried titties or your fosilized fanny I'll rip each of my eyes out and throw 
them in the pit after you."

"OMG Gideon what are you talking about!  I'm ravishing and you know it. You should be so
lucky."

This was not the first time the princess revealed that despite seeing through Gideon's 
completely operational eyeballs, her vision was gravely flawed.

Gideon, still holding her breath, gently tugged at the the cloth, the body started to roll faster. 
She gave a tremendous, pull hoping to snap the regal corpus back up towards her like a yo-yo. 
The force of the did flick the little morsel of dried princess meat into the air for a second 
before it tumbled directly through the aperture.

The incorporeal princess screamed like a Saturday morning sacrifice victim from out of 
the depths of Gideon's skull.  Gideon hadn't thought her head had such impressive acoustics
but the spirit of the princess of misery's miserable shriek was reverberating through
her brain like a amphitheatre.  The linen wrap end in her hand was momentarily slack as 
the body tumbled into the void but then it grew taught with a sickening crack. Surely, 
the princesses body would have crumbled into dust at that shock.  But no, the concientious
embalmers of yesteryear must have done a good job of converting the petulant bitch's remains
into some sturdy taxidermy because it held. The same clever embalmer, bless her heart, must
also have had the stunning foresight to tie the shroud tightly around something, probably 
the imperial neck bone, as insurance against exactly today's eventuality.

Gideon held firmly to the thin linen ribbon and could feel the body begin to swing at the other end.
It was terrifically light at least. It hadn't caused her to lose her footing only a few yards
away from the openning. Slipping now would mean falling, with the corpse, into a vast cavern. 
With any luck, she'd break her neck. With Gideon's luck she'd break her legs and stay conscious
as the scarabs ate out her functional eyeballs, tongue, and tonsils before using her warm body
to incubate scarab eggs. Eventually they'd get around to eating the princess's chewy hide but no doubt
they would save if for last so Gideon would have some shrill complaining company during her last 
miserable days of life.  Though, come to think of it, the princessly ghost was strangely quiet 
right now. Gideon decided not to think about what that might mean and dutifully started winding 
her catch back in.

Angling for the dead like this had to be done slowly; to avoid slipping; for reasons that are now plainly
established. So Gideon had time to think. That was bad.