"Duty is heavier than a mountain; death is lighter than a feather."

-from the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, Emperor Meji of Japan, 1882

==Zidaun: The Past==

A cane whacked against my head.

“Wrong!” Phanal said. “Try again.”

I was less than fond of daggers, but I shifted them in my hands again. I did my best to ignore the sweat coating my palms, grateful for the leather wrapping the handles.

The clay and stone dummy in front of me had already reset position, the dagger wounds smoothed back into a simulacrum of skin and flesh. The Adar controlling it stood silently off to the side of the room. I hadn’t actually learned their name yet.

Before Phanal could whack me on the head again, for waiting too long, I moved.

The dummy shifted in response to my attack, countering my daggers with blunted steel daggers of its own. I was half surprised Phanal hadn’t insisted the training dummy use sharp daggers, too. Maybe when he was training a healer, he would.

I countered the clumsy strikes of the dummy with my own, slightly less clumsy, strikes. The clanging sounds of metal rang in counterpoint to my breaths. I struggled to maintain an even tempo with both.

Finally, I managed to maneuver past the dummy’s guard. With a step forward and an abrupt stab back toward myself I sank the dagger into the back of the dummy’s neck.

“Leave the dagger there,” Phanal said.

“Yes, Sir,” I replied.

“Come around and look boy,” he said.

I didn’t bother to counter that I wasn’t a boy. I had tried that once, mentioning that it wasn’t possible for an Adar to be a boy. We were all adults. Phanal had simply rapped me on the head with his cane and said that I was a boy compared to him.

“You,” he stabbed his cane towards the Adar standing to the side, “reveal the bones and vasculature.”

“Yes, trainer,” He replied.

“I have a name, use it!” Phanal replied, entirely ignoring the irony.

“Yes, trainer Phanal,” he replied, his voice bland.

Phanal stared at him for a moment with narrowed eyes, but didn’t say anything further.

“Well boy? What are you staring at me for? Look at the structures,” He said.

I did as he said. Examining where my dagger had penetrated. It had actually hit where I was aiming for, between two of the vertebrae, striking into where the spinal cord would be.

“Looks like you can follow instructions, assuming I spell them out well enough.”

The lesson continued after that, the targets varying between various critical points.

After hours of effort, we were finished for the day.

“Okay boy, see you tomorrow,” he said.

“Sir, can I ask you a question?” I asked.

“Besides that one, you mean?” He waved away my response as my mouth opened reflexively. “Yes, go ahead.”

“Why are we focusing on humanoids so much? I know there are humanoid monsters, but we have been focusing on this form more than most,” I said.

“Caught that did you? Guess you are slightly more observant than I thought boy. You wouldn’t know it from how you wave those daggers around though.” He said.

I ignored the jab, I didn’t think he was capable of giving a compliment without one.

“You want to go out into the world, to explore. I did the same, once upon a time. That means dealing with humans. Now, almost all of them will do their absolute best to avoid killing you. Still, you run into one in a dark alley and they don’t realize what you are… it is good to be able to defend yourself.”

Phanal sighed, his posture slumping a little. He spoke the next part softly.

“You will have teammates. When you delve into dungeons with them, they might… learn too much. If you cannot get them to promise not to share anything, to take an oath… Well, it is good to know how to kill silently and swiftly.”

He stared me in the eyes.

“If you have a team, boy, promise me you will do your best not to reveal anything,” He said.

“I promise,” I said, though I didn’t understand his intensity.

Of course I would do my best not to reveal any of our secrets. It wasn’t like I had a choice. And of course I would silence any human that learned the truth. How could I do otherwise?

==Zidaun: The Present==

Old memories drifted in my mind.

I sighed.

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I hadn’t understood what Phanal really meant until I had a team of my own. I would jump in front of them to save their lives. Risk taking a lethal blow to save them from a monster. I knew if I was injured they would do their best to save me.

Even so, plans flickered through my mind from moment to moment.

My duty forced my mind to consider the best way to kill them. How to move the earth to trap and trip them. How to send spikes of stone crashing through vertebrae, ribs, eye sockets. How to kill them in their sleep with a perfect slice through the neck.

They would never see it coming. After all, I would never expect it of them.

I shuddered against my own thoughts. I didn’t want to do this, but I would do it anyway. I had no choice, unless I could make them listen.

“The chest is clean,” I said, my voice normal.

Gurek opened it, retrieving some pittance of money. I smiled against my will at his innocent enjoyment. It was what I would normally do, so I had no choice but to play along.

We quickly checked the surroundings, but there was nothing else around.

“Come, sit,” I said.

I raised up a section of ground slightly, clearing away the plant stumps and ragged grass. As I finished, I left behind a section of soft earth in a circle on the ground. I sat down.

The others came and sat down, Firi on my right, Inda on my left, and Gurek across from me.

“I am sure you all know the Adar reputation for secrets,” I said with a false smile, a slight hint of puppeted laughter in my voice.

Inda smiled.

Gurek’s usually exuberant attitude was more subdued, he already knew a bit of the truth. He might grasp some of the significance.

Firi reached out his hand tentatively, and with poisonous shyness I reached out to him, taking his hand traitorously with my own. I felt my face moved in a shy smile of its own.

I wanted to cry; it was not permitted. My eyes failed to so much as water.

“Gurek discovered something that we keep secret. I can share more with all of you. Honestly, I would be happy to share more with all of you. However, I will need a binding oath.”

The requirement was serious enough to make them pause, but Inda responded first.

“Well, even if we agreed, how would we get it done? We can’t just leave to go find a ritualist. Unless you happen to have a four-way scroll of oath binding on you?” She raised her eyebrows at that last part, looking at me.

“Neither,” I said. “I’ll perform the binding.”

“You’re a ritual mage?” Gurek said with some incredulity.

I wasn’t surprised. It was a serious magic.

“Not quite,” I said. “I have the skill, but I can only do a few small magics with it. The only exception is a binding.”

That was almost true. The other major ritual magic was an inherent ability. It made learning the ritual magic skill easier.

“What would we be agreeing to?” Firi said.

He smiled at me and squeezed my hand. Mine squeezed him back of its own accord, my face shifting itself into a smile.

“That depends on how much you want to know. At the least,” I said, “I need an oath not to share information about the object Gurek touched and this conversation. If you want to know more, then a broader oath not to share what you learn or anything you learn about with that knowledge.”

I looked at Gurek and my face moved into a smile yet again.

“I am fairly certain that you will want to know more. You are always asking me questions. With the oath, I will finally be able to answer some of them.”

“Only some?” Gurek said.

“Yes, I get to keep some secrets,” I said, rolling my eyes in genuine exasperation. Trust Gurek to push for more.

“And…” Inda’s voice was delicate, her tone questioning, “what happens if we don’t agree to the oath?”

Honestly,” I lied, “nothing would happen immediately. I would report what happened back to my people. Then they would place pressure on your government, who would then put pressure on the adventurer’s guild and your relatives. And then you would eventually be pushed until you agreed to an oath anyways, plus anyone that you told.

It would become this big deal, and everyone would have to take oaths in the end anyway. It has happened before, but no one hears about it…”

“Due to the oaths,” Inda said, her voice more relaxed. “It makes sense.”

She rolled her eyes.

“And I thought dungeon diving would get me further away from politics.”

Firi squeezed my hand and looked me in the eyes as I turned toward him.

“Do you actually think taking the oath is important?” He said.

I wanted to scream ‘Yes!’ I wanted to beg him, plead with him, take the oath. And if it was just him, I might have been allowed to, because I genuinely believed he would do it for me. However… that kind of attitude, would likely make Inda more reluctant. The thought of political pressure was more likely to make her cave. She cared about her parents, and they were involved in politics.

My duty had used my knowledge to calculate the best odds for everyone. Political pressure for Inda, curiosity for Gurek, and love for Firi.

“Yes,” I said, allowed to express a tiny bit of the depth of sincerity,” it is important. If nothing else, it will save each of us from a large amount of hassle.”

“I’ll take the oath,” Inda said.

“Me, too,” Gurek said with a sigh.

“The church says that oaths are not to be taken lightly,” Firi said.

My heart was in throat.

“However, you say it is important, and I believe you,” He said. “So I will take it too.”

I was allowed to slump with a small amount of relief.

“Good. We’ll need to back up a little then.”

Each of us stood up and scooted back a little farther.

I pulled stone from the earth below, shaping it as it rose. First came a thin layer of stone in the shape of a circular platform. I formed a thin wall of stone at the edge to make an outer circle. Then four smaller circles formed inside, each touched the outer circle, but not each other. In the very center, a tiny circle, no more than two fingers wide came next. Then four curving lines followed. Each line extended from one of the outer circles where we would sit, touched the circle in the middle of the line, and then curved back to touch the circle of the person across. When it was done a four pointed star connected the four spots we would sit, a small circle at its center.

“Okay, everyone sit in a circle.”

I sat down in my own circle, waiting as the others did the same.

I pulled out my dagger, using the point to cut into my palm. I held it just above the circle in the middle of the ritual formation. I let the blood run down, the greenish blue liquid flowing. I pushed a tiny amount of mana into my ritual skill, my blood starting to glimmer with light.

No blood stuck to my dagger, the thin coating of blood beading off as the ritual began. The individual drops made their way through the air to land in the center with the rest. My hand shimmered as the wound resealed.

I handed the dagger to Firi with a nod. My eyes were allowed to be serious. It was appropriate, rituals were serious magic. Now that it was started, it could be dangerous not to finish.

He cut his hand, red drops of blood flowing. It pooled in the center, not mixing with my blood. Once again the blood glowed, the dagger cleaned itself, and his hand healed.

The others cut their hands in turn, until four orbs of glowing blood touched each other in center.

I spoke.

“Here I act to keep a secret, and bind it in blood freely shed. Save with my permission or the permission of my god, none may speak except between us. This we seal, none may tell or record knowledge of the Artifact which Gurek now bears. Likewise we seal the knowledge gained of dungeons, or the Adar, from what we speak here, and future knowledge that springs from it.”

I, Zidaun, set this binding into motion. Do you each agree to this binding of knowledge?

The others each gave their assent. The relief that went through me was beyond what I could express, even had it been allowed.

“So be it.”

With the closing words I allowed a trickle of mana to flow into the ritual.

Power moved through the dungeon, vast quantities of mana shifting and pulled in. A ritualist only used a tiny fraction of mana themselves, the rest was drawn from the world. I could see the mana as it flooded through the dungeon, the aura around me thrumming and individual threads fluttering furiously.

Each of our blood pools rose into air, forming spheres. Mine made its way into the middle, a blue green star orbited by three shining orbs of blood. The three carmine orbs funneled a tiny stream of blood into the center sphere, staining it increasingly purple. Finally, all the orbs had merged into a single purple sphere. It expanded, growing larger and larger, first to the size of my fist, then two fists, then the size of my head, glowing brighter and brighter purple as it did so.

Finally it burst, transforming into a shining purple mist. The mist divided into four parts and swept toward each of us. The blood sank through our clothes, and into our skin, and then sank below that. I could feel it deeper. It burned painlessly inside me; it continued and burned past the flesh, into my very being.

The world returned to normal and the burning faded away. Finally, all was still. The ritual was over.