Being no small percentage of bookworm, Darron was plenty used to being cooped up somewhere oppressively stuffy. Yet never had fresh air felt so good as when he and his companions felt the cool breeze that signified one beautifully important thing: the exit to the cave.
As much fun as it had been to galavant around the inside of a volcano, it hadn’t actually been any fun at all and everyone almost died. Darron used to dream of visiting the great volcanic nation of Dynamo, but that dream was now dead. He was officially done with all volcanoes, forever.
Cresting out of the mouth of the cave, the trio beheld a vibrant series of foothills rolling below them, a sizable town nestled comfortably inside their clefts. The sun’s position revealed it to be early morning, although Darron had no idea what day. Due to sheer exhaustion, the three of them were forced to sleep inside the volcano once despite the dangers. Darron had instructed everyone on how to identify heatstroke in case his spell began to fail, and they took watch in shifts. Without the sun to keep track of time, Darron had no idea how long that lasted or how long they had spent before and after that rest. If he were to hazard a guess, it was the dawn of the third day after they entered the mountain, totalling their journey somewhere close to fifty hours. They had probably slept for less than eight of that.
Shara immediately declared the nearby town as their next destination, and Darron had no objection to this. They were fugitives of Elpis, sure, but they weren’t actually in Elpis territory and likely still had all of Mt. Phlegethos between them and anyone trying to cross over from Terranburg. Going over the mountain would take a normal person nearly two weeks.
Adgito walked next to Darron as Shara led the way down the zig-zagging trail to the city, which didn’t escape Darron’s notice. Something significant had happened when Adgito picked up Shara’s powers, he gathered, but beyond that he couldn’t be bothered to care what it was. Adgito was a wild card, and at this point Darron didn’t mind if he stuck around or decided to leave one way or the other. He was a huge help but also a huge liability, and those attributes seemed to mainly cancel out. A good few hours back Adgito had poked Darron and become male again, dropping access to Shara’s mind-reading abilities and returning to the form he used to bring them to Mrs. Garnersworth’s. Incidentally, none of those transformations managed to clean Adgito of the full-body dunk in vrochthízo blood he took, so he and Shara looked and smelled like death itself. On the upside, Darron now had a spell to shut off someone’s olfactory receptors, so that was nice.
The defenses around town was barely a fence compared to the mighty walls of Terranburg, but the guards at the gate actually looked much better equipped. They were decked out in half-plate armor and armed with spears and shields. These were men that knew they couldn’t just hide utop their walls and fire from safety if monsters threatened the city; they were well-trained and likely well-experienced in the art of slaying beasts up close and personal.
The guards looked surprised to see anyone coming from the trio’s direction, and tensed up to prepare for an attack. Shara just gave them a friendly wave, though, and they visibly relaxed the closer the three of them got.
“Titans, girl,” one of the scruffier guards called out as they approached, “when we saw a black speck come down tha mountain, we up an’ thought ya were a vroch!”
“Would a vrochthízo really be using the trail, though?” Shara called back, which incited a hearty chuckle from some of the guards.
“Aye, ah suppose they wuddn’t! Charge headfirst down tha mountain, they would!”
“Yeah. We, uh, stumbled on a few on our way through the pass. It got a bit messy. Looks like the remains of a nest were in there, but something had taken it out. Found the mom’s corpse in there, and the eggs were all taken out too.”
The guards looked on the group with hesitant skepticism.
“...Ifin yer yankin’ us around, it ain’t in good taste, girl.”
“Nope, dead serious,” Shara said, “Four arms, big scythe blades, snake tail? I swear on my name, the monster’s rotting in a pile of its dead children. Probably ran into a fire dragon, or something.”
After a moment of disbelief, the gate guards erupted into whoops, hollars, and swears of celebration, clapping Shara on the back, shaking her around, and other overly manly displays of rambunctious joy. Darron and Adgito, not being the touchy-feely types, immediately retreated a step back. One of the guards approached Darron to forcefully include him in the festivities, but Darron held out a hand to block him from closing in beyond arm’s length.
“I’m glad you’re all so happy about this,” he lied, “but would you mind telling me the date?”
“Hmm? Oh, it’s tha forty-third ‘o spring, lad.”
“Right,” Darron said, “Well in that case we’ve been in Mt. Phlegethos for about three days, and we desperately need somewhere to rest. Is there any chance you’ll let us into town?”
“Oh!” The guard exclaimed, as if walking up to the town gate and wanting to actually be let into town was the most surprising thing in the world, “O’ course, lad, o’ course! Security’s just up cuzza tha vroch threat, gates are open! Welcome ta Oinos Springs, please make yerselves at home!”
Darron did so, pushing past the gaggle of guards and entering the town proper. Three days wasn’t so bad, he supposed. It certainly put them far ahead of schedule. Despite becoming a fugitive, Darron still had every intention of reaching Hydronia and going to college there. Elpis and Hydronia weren’t diplomatic allies, so it was unlikely Elpis would be able to chase the three of them past its borders. A total of four days had passed since they started their journey, leaving Darron with fifty-two left to make it on time. He’d expected ten days less before passing over Mt. Phlegethos. Taking deadly shortcuts had its advantages, he supposed.
“Darron, you big party pooper!” Shara complained, catching up with him, “Couldn’t you let me enjoy that for a while?”
“I did,” Darron responded. “A few seconds is a while. Now we need to get some actual rest and then get moving.”
“All right, all right,” Shara grumbled. “We need to buy some new clothes first, most of ours are ruined. And then we are absolutely going to those hot springs!”
“Hot springs?” Adgito asked.
“Yeah, they named the town after ‘em! Oinos Springs? Besides, you can’t tell me we don’t all need a bath.”
They really did. Darron was safe from the effects thanks to his olfactory deactivation spell, but more than a few people wrinkled their noses and turned away as the trio passed. Shara and Adgito also had the added benefit of being covered in dried blood, which was especially conspicuous. They couldn’t spare drinking water to clean themselves back in Mt. Phlegethos when they didn’t know how long they’d be trapped within its maze-like depths.
“I suppose we could use a quick wash, yeah,” Darron conceded.
“Quick wash?” Shara asked, appalled. “Oh, that’s right! You’ve never had a real bath before! Oh man, you’re in for a treat!”
Shara rushed off to get directions from some unfortunate passerby as Darron was left to regret his decision to agree in silence. From his understanding, a “real bath” involved being completely submerged in water, which just seemed unpleasant and extremely wasteful.
Oh, well. It would be a minor distraction at worst. Darron had better things to do with his attention than get bent out of shape over Shara’s uncontrollable whims. She seemed excited about it, which was worrying, but it probably wouldn’t be that bad.
Letting his gaze wander as they traveled, Darron took interest in the local architecture. The town was built into the side of Mt. Phlegethos, giving the town a sloped layout that allowed a clear view to most of it at once. A large mansion loomed on the opposite end of the city, and there were many fancy-looking houses near the upper areas, but most of the town seemed like a small, middle-upper class village. A far cry from the stuffy atmosphere of Terranburg, Oinos Springs was fresh, open, and beautiful, with well-kempt streets, lively shops, and friendly inhabitants. Had Darron been a more experienced traveler, he’d notice the clear air of a tourist town, designed to expect heavy-pocketed travelers on a regular basis. Thanks to that expectation of reliable revenue, haggling was fairly minimal as Shara perused around for new outfits. Darron noticed her skip over a few shopkeepers, but nowhere near as many as they’d needed to bypass in Terranburg.
“This place is kind of a bummer,” Shara commented offhandedly. “The people here are putting on a brave face but I’m gathering that something pretty tragic just happened.”
“I mean, those guards knew about the vrochthízo,” Adgito said, “so either the mom passed by on her way to the mountain or some of her kids managed to find the same exit we did.”
“Probably the latter,” Shara acknowledged. “If a vrochthízo lord had come through here, we’d be able to tell.”
Darron was barely paying attention to the conversation, his eye catching on a small poster that seemed to be plastered around many places in town. He gave it a quick read.
To the residents of Oinos Springs and the many friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, and admirers of the late Gregory Cornwall, you are hereby invited to services in his name. The public funeral of our beloved mayor will be held in the Cornwall Estate gardens at noon on the forty-fifth of spring, in honor of those that died defending our city in the recent attacks. All guests are welcome.
“Yeah,” Darron confirmed, “It looks like some people died in attacks, plural. Not a single catastrophic event. Funeral’s in two days.”
“Yeesh,” Shara said, “Good thing we’ll be out of here by then.”
It was at this point Darron noticed a minor commotion in front of an important-looking building, which turned out to be labeled as the Onios Springs Sheriff's Office. A row of prison stocks sat in front of the edifice, one of which was occupied by what appeared to be a young woman. Darron couldn’t make out many details about the girl, whose neck and wrists were locked in the stocks and whose long, black hair covered her face as she stared at the ground. Three young children stood in front of her, boys no older than twelve, and took turns kicking her in the face as they yelled angry accusations. Another woman, probably in her early twenties, was desperately but ineffectually trying to shoo the children away. Tiny in height and plump in stature, the young boys barely paid her notice as she panicked and pleaded at them to stop.
Here we go again, Darron thought, for there was no doubt in his mind that Shara was about to step in and get caught up in someone else’s business. This would be Adgito all over again, he just knew it. Sure enough, Shara noticed and began to make her way over in that direction. Darron followed, reluctantly. There was no stopping the Shara wagon, he could only ride.
Yet, as if through some glorious titanic intervention, Shara suddenly stopped, still quite a ways away from the commotion. A puzzled look spread over her face, slowly turning into worry.
“Hey, kids!” She called out, and the three young boys turned to see a bloodsoaked, heavily armed woman glaring at them in the distance.
“You need to cut that out, or else one of you might get hurt,” she intoned.
It was enough to send the children scurrying. Shara then turned and continued down the path towards the hot springs, avoiding the woman in the stocks and her plump, ineffectual keeper. The enchained woman wasn’t moving, Darron noticed. He should probably go check on her; head injuries were no joke, even from children.
“It’s fine,” Shara informed him, “just leave it.”
That was… unexpected. Shara was normally quite eager to help someone out like this. Besides, it probably wasn’t fine. The woman had taken some heavy blows. Sure, Darron didn’t really want to go help her, but that was irrelevant.
“I said it’s fine,” Shara said. “Trust me?”
Normally Darron would be happy to trust Shara, but this was a medical problem and Shara considered six broken ribs to be an “it’s fine” situation. She was hesitant and worried about something, and that was worth paying attention to, but Darron figured he had a pretty good handle on what that was. More likely than not, Shara picked up some mental info regarding why those kids were beating up on what appeared to be a helpless prisoner. Shara likely found something fairly heinous or incriminating in the prisoner’s mind, something that disgusted her enough to decline assistance. The prisoner was probably a dangerous sort that was getting her just desserts. But that was irrelevant.
“Look, there’s more to it than that,” Shara said. “Can we just go?”
“Feel free,” Darron responded, “I’ll meet you there.”
“Don’t make me drag you,” Shara threatened, narrowing her eyes.
“I doubt they’d let you force me into the girl’s changing area,” Darron calmly responded. He wouldn’t be fooled. If she was actually planning to force him, she’d have done it already. “I’ll be quick.”
Darron approached the stocks, even though it was probably a bad idea. Shara was almost always right when it came to people. But that was irrelevant. Darron judged people by their actions, and all he saw was a helpless person taking repeated blows to the face without offering resistance. What was the point of being a doctor, if you don’t help someone after that?
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
To Darron’s surprise, Shara led Adgito away towards the hot springs, instead of following after him. This was actually quite reassuring; she probably would have come with if she thought he was in danger. The small, plump woman that had been trying to stop the children earlier waddled towards him with a frantic expression.
“Oh my, thank you so much for getting those kids to go away,” she jabbered as if Darron had done anything other than stand nearby. “It’s been dreadful trying to–”
“I do not even remotely care,” Darron said, refusing to get involved with her pointless B-plot. He was just here to slap some magic on a criminal and go take an awful bath.
He squatted down to place himself at eye-level with the stocks, for they forced the girl on her knees and kept her head looking at the ground. Now that he was up close, it was clear the girl wasn’t entirely human: a long, black tail emerged from the base of her spine, tipped with a dark stinger. Her fingers were clawed and her skin was pitch dark, making her look very much like a vrochthízo. Perhaps this was the reason for the enmity displayed against her?
Reaching forward, he pushed aside the unkempt black hair that dangled down from the woman’s head like a willow tree. The girl’s face was completely covered with a blank white cloth mask, although patches of it were stained with a dark liquid that was probably blood. Careful not to move her neck, Darron began to cast an unobtrusive scanning spell to determine the severity of the woman’s injuries, ignoring the worried babbling coming from the small lady behind him.
The spell was designed to work on humans, so the results came back… incomplete. Some parts of the spell simply didn’t take, returning invalid or nonexistent information. Most of it still functioned normally, though, leading Darron to believe the girl was probably some kind of humanoid offshoot. Perhaps a crossbreed, or the result of some arcane accident. Regardless, Darron confirmed she didn’t have any traumatic spinal or brain injuries, and that was the important part.
Also interesting to note was that, best Darron could tell, she was conscious, which changed the situation significantly. Darron felt obligated to obtain consent before working on a mentally sound individual.
“I would like to cast a few healing spells on you,” Darron informed her. “Is that okay?”
“...No,” the girl said, her voice calm and direct.
Oh. Well, that was that, then.
“Okay,” Darron said, and got up to leave. Trying to heal someone that didn’t want you to wasn’t benevolence, it was hypocrisy.
“W-w-wait!” the plump woman stammered, “You’ve got to help her!”
That statement was objectively untrue, so Darron ignored it and started walking.
“Please!” the woman insisted, “She’s distraught! She’s not sound of mind!”
Frustratingly, this was a far more potentially valid claim. Darron felt obligated to address it, so he stopped and turned to face the woman.
“Are you her guardian or caretaker?” Darron asked.
“Er, no. If anything, she was my–”
“Then I won’t accept your permission on her behalf anyway,” Darron interrupted. “She denied treatment. She doesn’t have a concussion. Her injuries will be painful but they’re not life-threatening. I have no reason to ignore her desires, and frankly, you seem more unsound of mind than she does.”
“She didn’t do it!” the woman pleaded, “she shouldn’t be locked up in the first place!”
“That’s nice but it has absolutely nothing to do with why I’m here or why I’m leaving,” Darron informed her. “Bye.”
He ignored the rest of her protests and made his way to the bathhouses where Shara and Adgito had no doubt already begun their cleansing. He supposed it was therefore safe to remove his olfactory deactivation spell, and…
Darron dry heaved a little at the shock. Goodness, he was just as rank as they were. He increased his walking pace.
One short walk and a small entry fee later, Darron found himself at the hot springs. Once he got undressed and made his way into the bathhouse proper, he was completely floored. Darron had never seen so much water in his life. Tubs, showers, pools, and springs were spread out everywhere in the massive building, countless men bathing, lounging or relaxing in the warm water. Where did all of it come from? Would Hydronia be like this? Could they transport this ridiculous surplus of water to the southern plains somehow?
“Yo, Darron!” an annoying voice called out, and Darron looked towards it to find Adgito waving from one of the bathing pools. It seemed he hadn’t transformed into some kind of fish-person yet, still sporting his generic male human appearance he’d had since before they exited Mt. Phlegethos. Darron wondered how close to his limit Adgito might be. Darron approached, having nowhere better to go.
“Hey, you made it!” Adgito said, “Shara blabbered the whole way here about how you’d probably have no idea what to do and made me promise to help you out.”
“I assume I just sort of get in the water,” Darron said.
“Wow,” Adgito exclaimed, “you really are a genius!”
Bracing himself, Darron dipped his toe in the disgusting waste of fluid, anticipating that soggy feeling of damp discomfort that always paired with sponge baths. It never came. In fact, the hot water actually felt kind of nice. Darron deigned to dip the rest of his body into the pool, sitting down next to Adgito. As usual, Shara was right and he hated it. The warm water was not entirely unpleasant. He allowed himself to soak silently in the bath, calmly plotting new and better ways to refine the many spells he’d come up with on the journey through Mt. Phlegethos.
“So,” Adgito suddenly said, jerking Darron’s attention away from more important things, “Uh. Darron. I’ve been meaning to bring this up, but, uh, I can’t help but notice that you… don’t seem to like me very much?”
Darron sighed. This would be the beginning of a long and tedious conversation, he knew, but he probably shouldn’t just ignore it.
“That’s true,” Darron agreed, “But I wouldn’t really say I dislike you, either. You’re just sort of there.”
“Uh,” Adgito stammered, “that… that seems worse than just outright being told you don’t like me, honestly.”
“I am not really what one would describe as ‘socially adept,’” Darron admitted, “but I mean what I say. If it makes you feel any better, I did, in fact, outright dislike you when we first met. My negative opinion towards you has since shrunk in severity.”
“Uh, I’m not sure if that makes me feel any better, no.”
Darron shrugged. “Oh, well.”
Silence returned, so Darron returned his attention to his magic. This bliss did not last for long.
“Is there, um, anything I can do to make you like me more?” Adgito wondered.
Darron supposed he may as well make use of this tedium. He had quite a few questions, after all.
“Did you still have any baby teeth when you first got your abilities?” Darron asked. “If so, were they baby teeth in all of your forms? What happened when they fell out? Were they missing in every form? Did your permanent teeth erupt at the same time between forms?”
“Uhh… I don’t remember,” Adgito informed him unhelpfully. “I don’t remember a lot about way back then. I try not to.”
Frustrating, but expected. Darron presumed if Adgito simply had a tooth knocked out it would be healed by transformation along with his other injuries. But how does it affect natural biological processes? Adgito’s body was presumably reconstituting itself when it changed forms, as some of his forms didn’t have internal organs at all. For most processes, this wouldn’t be largely affected: Adgito’s heart stopped existing when it wasn’t needed, and started beating once it existed again. It kept doing that and would keep functioning as it always did, so long as it was around, because its function was a constant event, only changing due to stimuli rather than extensive time. However, the movement of permanent teeth through a person’s gums was a long, extensive, and ever-changing process that built upon progress previously made throughout a person’s life. Learning about how it was affected could teach Darron a lot about the exact nature of Adgito’s transformations, but apparently it was a dead end. Adgito didn’t remember, and even if he did it was very possible that, at age fourteen, he’d recently gotten most or all of his permanent teeth anyway. There weren’t a whole ton of other biological processes that both took an extensive period to complete and that Adgito could describe to Darron qualitatively, but Darron asked about the next one anyway.
“What about your menstrual cycle? Do you have one, when you’re a woman?”
Adgito coughed on the deep breath he was taking and looked at Darron incredulously.
“What???”
“I asked, ‘what about your–’”
“I heard you! No! We’re not talking about this! This is the worst possible place to talk about this!”
Darron grunted in frustration. This always happened when discussing any part of biology affected by dimorphism. He didn’t understand why people didn’t like talking about it. Out of every aspect of the human body, it was arguably the one thing that needed the most vocalization. Otherwise, half the population had no other way to understand that part of the other half. Besides, in this case it would be the most helpful. The timing window of other options small and highly variable. Darron figured he may as well ask anyway.
“Okay, what about defecation and urination? If you need to relieve yourself, but then you switch forms, do you still need to relieve yourself?”
“Oh titans, you ask the weirdest crap,” Adgito complained. “Yes. I still have to pee if I become a lady or whatever.”
“What if you become a form without a digestive system, like your magma form?” Darron asked. Adgito scratched his cheek.
“Uh, I guess I never felt the need to pee in that form?” he said.
“If you needed to defecate, then switched to your magma form, and then switched back to a form that had a digestive system, would the need to defecate return?”
“I don’t have any clue!” Adgito exclaimed, exasperated. “I’ve never tried! When I need to piss I just find a bathroom and go! I don’t do a bunch of experiments on it!”
“Well, you should,” Darron claimed, then returned to contented silence. There probably wasn’t much point in asking more questions to someone so fundamentally uninterested in science. Unfortunately, Adgito seemed more interested in changing the subject than letting the conversation die like it deserved.
“So, what made you want to become a doctor?” Adgito asked.
“My grandmother taught me biomancy,” Darron sighed, “and I ended up being rather good at it. Magic is interesting to me.”
“Yeah, but, why a doctor?” Adgito pressed. “It honestly really surprised me when you went off to help that prisoner. You were really insistent about it. I kinda get the impression you don’t like people, but you picked the kind of magic most focused on dealing with them.”
Darron thought about that for a moment. It was true that going out of his way to help someone clashed with his misanthropic tendencies, but there was more to it than that. He wanted to be clear in how he articulated it.
“It is true that I don’t enjoy talking to or being around people,” Darron admitted, “but that does not mean I wish for their misfortune and pain. I want all people to live happy and healthy lives, even if I don’t wish for them to impose those lives on me. I simply don’t have the time or inclination to waste on the kind of smalltalk everyone else seems to feverishly engage in, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in doing the right thing. I can care for someone’s well-being without caring to hear about the minute details of their day-to-day doldrums.”
Adgito’s expression was hard to read. Worry? Confusion? Pity, almost?
“Um, I dunno. Can you?” he asked. “If you only care about healing someone’s body, I think you’ll miss some of the really serious issues they’re dealing with. Are you sure you’re not just coming up with an excuse to only do the part of the job that you like?”
Darron didn’t have anything to say about that. He slouched, letting the warm water wash over his shoulders as he mulled it over.
“So, uh, how did healing that prisoner go, anyway?” Adgito asked.
“They were beaten up pretty bad, but they denied treatment.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Nothing. They denied treatment, so I left.”
“See, this is what I’m talking about!” Adgito exclaimed. “That’s not normal. You should have looked into why. ...And I realize I just had this argument with your sister from the opposite side, but still. There’s a middle ground.”
“I’m not really sure what you’re expecting, here,” Darron said. “I have no talent in that area. I’m unlikely to be of any actual assistance.”
“Darron, I have no talents in any area,” Adgito huffed. “If I let being bad at things stop me from doing them anyway, I wouldn’t know how to walk. You’re a titans-damned genius. Figure it out.”
Adgito let Darron finish cleaning himself in silence after that, but the quiet wasn’t as relaxing anymore. Pride wasn’t a useful emotion, Darron knew, but if there was one thing he did have pride about it was his skills as a healer. Yet since he was a child, Darron had always had Shara around to deal with the mental side of people’s health. Had he been taking that for granted? Had he really been neglecting a key aspect of his profession out of laziness, rather than practicality? Had he really just been mentally outmaneuvered by Adgito, of all people?
The feeling stuck with him as they finished their bath, got dressed in fresh clean outfits, and met up with Shara. It was still morning when they checked into an inn, but the three of them collapsed from exhaustion anyway. Three days of volcano-navigating and monster-slaying had caught up with them. They needed to rest.
The sun had already set when Darron awoke. He laid in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, wondering about the events of the morning before. Had he been negligent? Should he return? He had no personal connection with that person, and he didn’t want one. Plus, it was probably a bad idea to approach a criminal in the middle of night.
But that was irrelevant. Irritated and reluctant, Darron removed himself from bed and exited his room. Self-destructive tendencies were a sign of mental unwellness, and he should have acknowledged that. He would go pay the criminal another visit, and try to get her to accept treatment.
“Not without me, you won’t,” Shara said. She was waiting at the end of the hallway, arms crossed and a grumpy expression on her face. She was dressed for battle, as always, but she seemed a little too well-prepared for a medical visit.
Still, Darron had no objection to her tagging along. He didn’t want to rely on her completely, but he also wasn’t going to settle for a subpar mental diagnosis simply because he refused to accept help.
“Should we wake up Adgito?” Darron asked.
“No, let her– him sleep. He’s not going to want to join us.”
“Why not?”
“Um, because he’s still traumatized? Wait, you don’t– didn’t you see that thing up close? The prisoner’s a vrochthízo, Darron! I don’t know why they’re locking it up instead of decapitating it, but it’s definitely a vrochthízo.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Darron said, puzzled. “Her body was extremely similar to a human’s. I detected a lot of things that wouldn’t fit with what we know about vrochthízo biology.”
“Darron, the main thing I know about vrochthízo biology is that they’re hungry all the time and they adapt to what they consume. If its body is like a human’s, that probably means it’s eaten a ton of humans. It’s a monster. Let it rot.”
Darron thought about that, briefly. Then he walked past his sister, down the stairs to the inn, and started to make his way towards the Sheriff's office.
Darron didn’t know as much about monsters as Shara did, at least not ones that lived outside of the southern plains. He certainly didn’t know very much about people, beyond how their bodies worked and how to keep them alive. He did know a few things, though.
To Darron, the difference between a person and a monster was the mind. Maybe he was biased, being of somewhat high intelligence himself, but he believed it was that intelligence that separated people from non-people. That was an important line to him, and he crossed it when fighting the vrochthízo lord. She was sapient. She could speak, reason, and conclude. Of course he had no choice but to slay her, assuming he wanted to live, but there had been a huge difference between killing that so-called monster and killing all the other monsters he had over the years.
Even if this prisoner was a vrochthízo, she was still on his side of the line. And Darron did have a choice this time. Even with his middling ability to pick up on social cues, it was obvious the annoying, plump woman woman cared very much for that prisoner, for some reason or another. Could the vrochthízo really be a monster, if she had inspired so much empathy from even one other person?
“This is a bad idea,” Shara insisted.
Probably. But that was irrelevant.