We spent two days simply walking around the small town, sometimes venturing into the countryside for an hour or two, but mostly we let ourselves relax, did some shopping and generally bumbled about. I used the time to run some errands outside of Mundus and even went to have coffee with Chris. He asked again, if I wanted to come work for the bank he was working at, or if I wanted to have dinner with him some time, but given that I was fully immersed in Road to Purgatory, I declined.

When I returned to my Capsule-Space later that day, there were a lot of notifications, telling me that someone had tried to contact me, or tagged me in a post. Not quite sure what was going on, I looked at the contact requests first, with some ninety percent of them coming from Malachite. I was still confused about what was going on when there was another request for contact.

With a thought, I was on my Throne, comfortably sitting, and accepted it.

“Morgana? I’m so sorry.” she blurted out, my confusion only increasing, though now with added worry.

“What is going on?” I asked, not liking this one bit. Wordless, Mal sent a link over, to the official Road to Purgatory-Forum. Scanning the thread quickly, my face darkened and I was getting seriously annoyed. Though, reading Malachite’s responses to the thread, my annoyance changed direction, from the initial impulse to shoot the messenger of bad news, to shooting the person responsible.

“I see.” I frowned, trying to remember just how much of my abilities I had shown during my time with them. But that train had sailed, so it was no use crying over spilt blood. But maybe spilling some more blood would help.

“What are your plans now?” I asked, more curious than anything. The way Mal had posted in that thread, it made it very obvious that she wasn’t happy with her teammate.

“Leave of course. What good is a team, where you can’t trust your teammates? So, fuck that guy. He can take all those likes he got and shove them up his arse, maybe they’ll taste like skittles on the other end.” she snarled, her words enough to make me chuckle.

“Mibo and Myra won’t really care, I think. Gilo will probably stick with me, but what we’ll do, no idea. Leave Gaber for once, look for some new teammates in one of the cities, or maybe focus on Alchemy for a time.” she shook her head, a frown on her face.

For a moment, I considered things. On one hand, Jakyl had proven that someone’s word wasn’t worth much, at least in his case. On the other hand, Malachite hadn’t broken her word, so rejecting her for the actions of her teammate, when those actions were the reason she quit the team, wouldn’t feel right, either. After all, what other action would I want her to take, in order to distance herself from Jakyl? On a third hand, there was my Lone Traveller-Trait, that incentivised travelling without a party of Travellers, but did it really matter? The area until we reached the coast was rather calm and peaceful, a low-levelled area. There wouldn’t be a lot of combat, certainly not high-level combat, until we reached the coast and ports, where we’d likely split up anyway.

“If you are interested, you can journey with us to the coast. We are headed to Torop.” I offered, maybe a little impulsively, but I wanted to learn more about Alchemy and see if her ideas would push my own magic a step further.

“I’d love to, but I’m not sure it’d work. I’ve got some obligations in the real world that I need to attend, meetings and such. Most of my work, I can do in a home office, or the capsule, but some of it, I have to meet people in person.” she explained, looking reluctant.

“We can try. If you have the first few days mostly open, we’ll get out of the hills and into the lowlands, where travel is mostly safe.” I suggested in return, the reluctance leaving her face.

“Thank you.” she gave me a smile, “I’ll see you in Mundus in about an hour?” she asked, getting a nod from me in reply.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Certainly. See you on the flip-side.” I nodded before we closed the connection.

Looking at the thread again, my frown only deepened. By now, there was a short video of myself clashing with the Skeleton Lord, obviously from his perspective, and another one, showing the Shadow Cleft, a massive chunk of it covered in snow.

Luckily, neither of those fights showed me using anything actually new or interesting. The Blades of the Northern Wind were simply an application of the flying Icicles I had been using since the beginning, and while the conjuring of that Wall of Ice before using it to turn the nine blades into a single, temporary weapon, was interesting from a magical standpoint, so far, nobody had pointed out how I did those. But even if someone did, recycling my own Astral Power wasn’t some game-breaking trick, not with the inefficiencies involved. Useful? Most certainly. But nothing more.

But the comments of Whisper made me wonder. I had heard about her, the Daimon of Secrets, as some called her, an information broker in one of northern Daiea’s desert towns. She wasn’t a prolific poster, so why did she pay attention to that particular thread?

Pushing the question away, I closed the browser and triggered the log-in to Road to Purgatory. Wondering about the actions of a deliberately enigmatic player would only give me a headache.

But how to deal with Jakyl? Killing him, especially in a nicely brutal and messy fashion, had a certain appeal. Maybe encasing him in a block of Ice, watching and waiting as he froze to death sounded like a fun thing to do. But there was the problem with the quest his group might have taken, killing him in, or even near, Gaber would likely cause the residents to dislike us, simply because they lost their capable helper.

The residents' dislike wasn’t too important for me, but the Guild certainly had the means to cancel out the positive influence completing the quest and getting the letter of introduction had, simply because they had spread the matter in the first place.

So I needed a different way.

Remembering just how serious the natives took their oaths, I decided on a different path. Far less satisfying but without drawing hate on my own group. If anything, I might be able to get a lock of hair, or maybe some blood, and with that, all kinds of fun magic tricks from a distance would become available. If he just happened to be cursed, a day or three after we had left, well, that was too bad but I wouldn’t shed a tear, after all, it had nothing to do with me. I was long gone.

But before that, immediate justice needed to be done. When I opened my eyes within my Hallow, I immediately prodded Lenore, urging her to find Rai.

“What is going on?” she asked, clearly confused at the sudden urgency.

“For once, I need him to steal something, not kill,” I replied, a grin on my face. While getting Blood, especially if I was using Blood Magic to draw it, would be preferable, fun things could be done with hair as the focus. Fun things indeed.

Finding Rai, who was together with Adra, didn’t take long, an aerial view was useful for that, and quietly ordered him to sneak up to Jakyl and rip out some hair, making sure he got the roots, was done in a few sentences. Blessed be my disciple, he didn’t even question me, simply nodding when I told him to do so. Adra raised an eyebrow, but when I shook my head, she simply accepted the rejection and moved on.

“Lenore, can you take to the sky and find him?” I asked, getting an affirmative reply.

Jakyl, just like Adra and Rai, was in town, replenishing supplies together with Myra.

When I was walking up, I deliberately let some Ice Astral Power seep out, forming a cold mist around me.

“Jakyl. I name you Oathbreaker.” I loudly announced, focusing on the indignation, the knowledge that he had given his word to keep the events secret.

“Before the Gods, do you have any defence for your treachery?” I further asked as he stared at me with a look of shocked confusion..

“What are you talking about?” he finally rallied, to which I only nodded, as if in acknowledgement.

“So, you deny it, before the Gods?” I asked again, letting more Astral Power flow out. The air around me started to become dense with mist, even a few snowflakes forming and falling. When Jakyl didn’t reply out loud, merely muttering something under his breath, I nodded, again.

“Your denial, before the Gods, will be remembered. May they know your treachery and punish you for it. In this life or the next, it matters not.” I announced, letting the Astral Power around me fade.

Leaving him behind, I simply turned away, taking a step and turning into a raven, Lenore taking to the skies. Around the market square where I had confronted him, the people started to point and talk.

Now, what would happen to his reputation if he got struck down by a mysterious curse in a few days? Divine Punishment or the act of a vengeful spellcaster? Either way, people would talk.