When they returned to the camp, he was disheartened to see Nidra waiting for him with her group. It either meant that she had a far more efficient method than he had come up with, or she had put much less effort into empowering her group than he did.

“Good. You’re back,” Nidra said as Hirrus and his half of the group rejoined them. “I was just about to send someone to find you. As much as I would love to take our time, we don’t have the time to take. What we have will have to be enough. Once we begin, it will get easier. Every challenge overcome will make us stronger. If you lack confidence in our strength now, that should only tell you how much more power we will gain before this is over.”

Hirrus tried not to stare at her as she spoke. She felt like a different person. Nidra changed so seamlessly from terse assassin to commanding leader. He wondered where she had come from. His own history included a lot of mercenary work before he was a guard. Perhaps she was a military general before she became an assassin.

“Should we-” someone asked. They immediately fell silent when Nidra’s gaze snapped to them. It was the red-headed child Hirrus had seen at the front of the group earlier. When Nidra didn’t snap or bark any commands, they tentatively continued. “Should we destroy the camp before we go anywhere?”

“An excellent idea,” Nidra said with an uncharacteristically soft smile. “We shouldn’t leave this monument to Rumi’s legacy standing. Those who escaped the fight and our hunt might use it as a rallying point for their revenge.” She swept her hand out, a gesture encompassing the camp. “Dismantle everything. Bring it all here. We will burn it all.”

The group went to work at that.

Hirrus found himself recognizing the genius of Nidra’s order. These people had - literally - bent the knee to them, but they had literally just met. Their unfamiliarity with true autonomy was likely what had bound them to following orders - or some lingering fragments of whatever philosophy had kept them following Rumi. It was tentative control, and they had no guarantee of their continued loyalty.

But as the group spread out through the wrecked camp, Hirrus could see that Nidra was taking another step towards building favor with them.

The majority of their new followers were attacking the remains of the camp with gusto. Their enthusiasm was no doubt driven by an emotional response to what they’d suffered here. Or, perhaps, an emotional response to what Hirrus had done. The group had aggression to work through, and there were plenty of inanimate targets.

Nidra taking a suggestion from the team, and using it as an opportunity to express understanding and allow some catharsis, was a smart move. Hirrus was impressed. And, perhaps, a little bit more hopeful that the loyalty of the group would not be as fleeting as their loyalty to Rumi had been.

Hirrus was surprised when it only took about thirty minutes for the assembled crew to turn the entire camp into one big pile. They had left the corpses alone, but piled all the tents and furniture they’d found against the sides of Rumi’s destroyed cart. The group that had gone with Nidra in search of Arcana had a potent move speed option available, and it allowed them to cover ground much faster as the task went on, greatly speeding up the effort.

When the work was done, Nidra gathered them all around the pile.

“Let this fire be a sign,” she said, “to all those who stand in our way. This is what will become of them. A pile of ash.”

She opened her mouth wide and unleashed an Arcana. A bestial roar issued from her throat, and a gout of flame struck the pile, igniting it so fast that a chunk of it burned to ash on impact, causing the whole pile to shudder and fall in on itself, scattering a huge plume of cinders into the air. The Arcana was very different from Hirrus’s Peppered Breath, which was issued directly from Hirrus’s mouth. This flaming roar erupted from the air itself about three feet away from her.

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“When I first followed Rumi,” Nidra said, raising her voice to be heard above the roar of the fire as more of the pile began to catch, “it was because I agreed with him. Not with his goal, but with his methods. He wanted to destroy the Shadow Council, who rule our country with a hidden grip of iron. He wanted to push them aside and replace them, to make himself the new hand on the king’s leash.

“That I did not agree with.

“But the Shadow Council? They should be destroyed! They should be pushed aside! But replacing them is the dream of a monster. His desire to become the newest shadow over a stolen throne was why I broke from him, and plotted his downfall.” She raised a clenched fist. “I will see his orders done, but not to the same ends. Not for a new master, but for no master at all. For freedom!”

Hirrus nodded along as she spoke, and saw others doing the same. Not all of them, but enough.

“Rumi is dead, but he was the least of the monsters loose in our country,” Nidra continued. She looked around the group as she spoke, making eye contact with each person in turn. “The Shadow Council’s members hold a power no adventurers should. Domination. Subversion of our will. Weaponization of our decision trees against us. The rightful king must rule, and for that, his dominators must die.

“If you will not fight for what is right,” she called, as her eyes met Hirrus’s, “then fight for yourself. For revenge. And not for what Rumi did to Awaken you, but for what the Council has done to you every day before that. Many of the struggles you faced in your ordinary lives were because of this very Shadow Council.”

She thrust her hand out to the east, and slightly north. In the direction where the capital lay. “Their power over the king has warped and twisted our laws and lives to funnel more power back to them.” She clenched her fists again, her knuckles turning white. “They amass more wealth than they can spend in a lifetime, and still call for more, while our decision trees make us scrape and struggle to feed our families. We must cut the food off our own plates to feed our neighbors because the Shadow Council takes the money that could put bread on every table in the country. And their only use for it is to gather it into a giant pile and stare in open lust at the power it represents.”

Hirrus flinched at that. He couldn’t help but think of Dahlia. He had always been grateful that his decision tree had allowed him to support her through the hardship of her pregnancy, after the loss of her husband. But Nidra was right. He shouldn’t have had to. The flagrant displays of ostentatious wealth he’d seen on display by the adventurers came into stark focus as a contrast to how they lived. It was not just the Last of the Strong’s gaudy mansions and expensive mercenaries, but Rumi literally building, sheltering, and feeding an entire army on short notice.

One man - even a far cry from the most powerful - was able to fund a force that could storm the country’s capital and install him in power. And yet Dahlia had to depend almost entirely on the kindness of her community just to be allowed to eat.

“When they can no longer control King Larisa Bors, he will put your needs above that of adventurers,” Nidra promised. “We will no longer be second-class citizens in our own homes. We will no longer be secondary to hostile powers that only exist to wring wealth from our bodies and our lands. We will make this a country where we can live in service to ourselves, and not in service to those who abuse us!”

The group’s silent nods turned to vocal agreement. To cheers.

Hirrus felt an uncomfortable chill. He told himself it was because he had been leading himself ever since he was liberated from his decision tree. It would take some time to get used to following orders again.

That wasn’t the reason for his discomfort, but he told himself it was.

Nidra began to issue orders, not to Hirrus, but to the other Awakened. She organized them into small squads, and designated a leader for each one. The enthusiasm of her speech combined with the earlier catharsis of destroying the camp had them moving to obey without question.

Each group was about six or seven people. The designated leaders were unexpected choices. One was the red-headed child. Another was the diminutive woman who had seemed on the verge of breakdown after the battle. Hirrus supposed he would have to trust what Nidra was doing. He took the opportunity to step away from the group, moving to the other side of the bonfire and watching the huge pile crumble to ashes bit by bit.

He found himself wondering if this was his fight at all. He tried to push the thought aside, but it kept coming back to him. Nidra’s confidence and capabilities s a leader seemed more than enough to handle this, but more than that, her passion outweighed anything he felt. He had no connection to what Nidra had said. Rumi had represented the final member of Last of the Strong that he needed to kill for his revenge. More than that, he didn’t need the country’s support. He was happy with his life, and moreover, he was happy to help Dahlia. He did not miss the part of his pay that went to support her.

Destroying the Shadow Council certainly seemed the right thing to do, but he feared he was just being dragged along for lack of any other cause.

Did he really need to be here?