David's first thought when his knife found his way into the the back of the old man's head was as follows:
'That's not right.'
And, not long after:
'Oh no.'
See, the man's skin wrapped around the blade of the knife in a rather grotesque fashion. As if the man's flesh were made of sentient meat.
This was almost immediately followed by the turning of the man's neck 180 degrees, and a rather clumsy dismount from the chair the man was stationed on.
There was a brief moment where David was glad he put the right amount of faith in his goddess's words.
'It sure didn't work huh…'
The momentary peace of mind was very quickly diminished by the unnatural way the man sprung towards David.
That was when all hell broke loose.
David didn't even have time to look back at Eleanora, because, from the old man's position on the floor, he flung himself using unnatural strength directly towards David.
The way he pushed himself from the floor was yet another near mesmerizingly grotesque feat. He used all of his limbs to launch himself in a weird spiral motion.
In the split second between the deceptively heavy mass of the man barreling into David, David saw the man's muscle fibers snap, and the bones in the forarms and calf of the man splinter into pieces as he launched himself.
This, hurt.
More than anything, it was so, so gross.
Daniel flew back into a table, the edge hitting his back just right to make him want to scream in pain. Either way, he found himself in the floor.
Of course, he couldn't scream. After all, there was a rather pretty girl present. If she wasn't dead already, that is.
At that thought his concentration on the reforming flesh of the old man broke as he searched frantically for Eleanora. She was his ticket… anywhere but here, after all.
'Ah sh… huh?'
Eleanora was doing a much better job at holding off her attackers than David did.
She was obviously very proficient in wielding the knife she still had. That wasn't all it was though. No, Eleanora was proficient with everything. The way she moved her body, used the environment to her advantage, the way her enemies moved clumsily and desperately crashing into furniture, everything was, to put it bluntly, very impressive.
'Damn… she's handling four of them at once… four?'
That realization hit David harder than the old man did. If there were 7 husks in the tavern, and she had 4 of them, the other two…
A young woman lunged, crashing into several chairs and a table as she did so. If it slowed down her momentum at all, it wasn't enough to matter.
'I'm going to die'
Fortunately, modicum of luck was still lodged within David's being, as the woman's partner from before crashed Into her as they both lunged for their target.
In the span of maybe four seconds, Daniel, and the three husks meant to deal with him were all on the floor.
There was a split second where David observed the limbs and muscles of the old man, previously attached by only by threads, reform.
This made David want to puke.
'Damnit… how can I do damage then?'
David quickly scrambled to his feet trying to put anything solid between him and the woman, who was the first to try and attack again.
He grabbed a chair to try and fend the woman off, pointing the legs towards her.
The woman in turn prepared to throw a punch.
Some part of David's mind thought the chair would be an adequate buffer.
That thought was quickly reassessed as he watched the woman's shoulder break in a wind up. It was as if she had held her right arm out straight, and just kept moving it back until it was flat against her back.
Needless to say, the chair didn't hold.
The punch the woman threw was so devastating that not only did it shatter the chair into splinters, it sent David flying back yet again. This time into wall.
The wind was knocked out of him, and he couldn't remember if he lost consciousness briefly or not, but he was sure he was hurt.
He locked up and could focus just enough to see the womans arm reforming around bits of the chair. Pieces of wood and nails protruding from her arm.
'Gods Eleanora… what the hell…'
The smell of cooking meat made him look back at her.
Thankfully, she really was doing much better than he was. Granted, the bar was low, but she really was holding her own.
One of the four was thrashing about on the ground, with all of its limbs burned off. Another two were preoccupied, as one's head was sticking out of the others chest, which seemed to have healed around it, leaving just the waitress for her to deal with on her own.
'What the hell? Why am I here? Am I supposed to be like that?'
But he couldn't be like that. He didn't know who he was. He was hurt. He was confused.
'What the hell is goin on… I can't do it. I was just born and I'm already going to die. I can't.'
He hurt.
His body seemed to moved on its own.
There was a piece of a broken chair leg next next to him that he picked up as he steadily rose to his feet.
He didn't have long and he knew it. He needed to be the one to act first. Every single time.
The man who was with the woman was the first to reach him. He launched his whole body at David, and, at the wall.
The satisfying "splat" and "crunch" of his body against the wall after Daniel dove to the side was enough to keep him going
The man dented the wall and began to reform.
Davids dive was done with reckless abandon, and thus, he found himself in the floor, again.
He had a plan, though.
'Even if some messed up shit is controlling you, you have human anatomy.'
David quickly scrambled to his feet for the third time, chair leg in hand, and rushed towards the reforming body of the man, where he stabbed it into where fbe man's spinal chord would reform in his neck.
Davids guess was simple. Even if what ever controlling the bodies could push them to their limits, some things were simply impossible. Forcing abnormal muscle strength and healing is one thing, but what would happen if nerve signals couldn't even be sent?
"Hell yeah!"
His guess was right. After the body was nearly reformed, the piece of wood stayed in the man's neck. It prevented the spinal chord from connecting, and causing the man to slump over and fall to the ground limp.
He was careful not to celebrate too soon, though, as the old man was back.
David didn't get a look at the old man's face properly before, but it was truly a sight to behold. The hollow and dried out eye socket was particularly striking, but otherwise he was almost exactly what one would think of when one thinks "old man".
Not too far behind him, was the woman with the wood in her arm.
There was a strange feeling in David's chest. It wasn't bad. Rather, it was actually very good.
David felt his heart rate quicken. His limbs, though in a lot of pain, felt full of energy. It was like he had to move.
So he did.
He rushed forward, meeting the man's face with his fist.
This didn't do much besides hurt David's hand. The man was unmoving, and so, as David's fist came into contact, his momentum also came to a halt.
This was fine, though, because damaging the man wasn't his goal.
He grabbed the knife from the back of the man's head, and lunged again. This time, for the woman.
The blade found its mark swiftly, and stabbed into the woman's neck like it was nothing.
It was just deep enough to sever the spinal chord from the front.
She stopped moving, but her eyes still met his. They weren't "lifeless" at all. Rather, it just wasn't her life they were full of. What looked back at him was nothing but rage so potent and foreign it made David shiver slightly.
Still, David wasn't done.
'No knife this time… you are one ugly bastard.'
Somewhere, glass shattered.
David was too late to act. Not that he had many actions he could even take. The man was too close.
David could only watch as the man lunged again, wraped his arms around David, and began to squeeze once they landed on the floor.
"Bastard… no less painful way to kill me?"
David could feel the air escaping his lungs struggle to return. He could feel the strain on his bones. He could feel his ribs crack.
Perhaps the most annoying thing to David, though, was that he kept finding himself on:
"-this gods damn floor!"
He managed to squeak out before he lost the ability to speak completely.
Just when he thought he was at his breaking point, he looked over to see Eleanora.
'She's… glowing?'
She was, and, she was making her way over to David.
Fast.
Before David knew it, there was a third member in the wrestling match.
Eleanora held a broken bottle in one hand, and a knife in the other. Using the bottle like a chizzle, the used the pommel of her blade like a hammer, and drove the bottle into the neck of the man.
He went limp.
Eleanora was quick to drag David out from under the man.
"I'm sorry," she began to speak while out of breath. "-I shouldn't have dragged you in here. But why didn't you use any of your abilities?"
David was too busy gasping for air to dignify that with a response. Otherwise he would have said something along the lines of: "What abilities?", "Bold of you to assume a god you don't know has given me abilities!", or "yeah why the hell AM I here?"
Instead, he answer her with wheezing.
He looked over at the "things" Eleanora had been fighting. The the situation was relatively the same, with the two stuck together struggling to separate, the new addition of the woman missing a head, and the one with limbs turned to ash.
The woman's head, which was several feet away, was ever so slowly inching its way back to the body, using its tongue of all things, and the limbs of the one on the floor were slowly, but surely, reforming from the ash.
She looked over at them as well.
"I can't burn them. The only reason I was even sent here and I can't burn them…"
David met her gaze briefly, before she pulled him up to his feet and wordlessly helped him hovel out of the tavern.
When Ralph saw them there was a brief look of shock and worry on his face.
"What the hell happened in there?"
"Failure" Eleanora responded. "He'll need you're medical attention again."
"Great. I'm not a healer you know…"
Eleanora rolled her eyes as Ralph grumbled, and with relatively little concern for the pain David would feel, she shoved him into the carriage.
A particularly sharp and disdainful wheeze escaped him as a result.
"-Just do it later. First we need to leave. Now!"
Daniel wondered briefly what the hurry was, before remembering something Eleanora said earlier.
'If everyone's fake… how many people are in the town?'
David heard Ralph swear loudly, and felt a large thud hit the back of the carriage as soon as he staggered to his feet.
David dreaded the next few inevitably painful hours of his life.