As the group headed back, Kazius filled them in on everything that had occurred.

Kazius purposefully left the details of how they managed to gather the strength for their attack purposefully rather vague. He basically summed it up as the power of teamwork and friendship, nothing more.

The rest of the facts though, were the truth. This included the likely fate of the scouts, who were currently missing. Though Kazius dubbed them missing, he still believed they were dead… But it would not hurt to send out a search party. At least if the bodies could be found.

Once they returned to town though, they were greeted by an alarmed-looking Caleb. He seemed relieved to see them, especially Damon.

“Thank Vind you’re safe,” Caleb stated, looking quite shaken.

“Buahaha! Of course, I am, brother! Why would I not be?” Damon questioned in confusion.

“Aren’t you supposed to be keeping a barrier up?” Kazius questioned with a frown, after all, if things had gotten worse, the barrier may have become a matter of life and death.

“I am… I just… I stepped out because I was worried. The mana in the air… It changed… The sky looked weird, and I could have sworn I heard something… And then the statue of Vind just exploded… I had no clue what to think. I thought you were…” Caleb trailed off, a helplessness in his expression. After all, he feared he had lost his brother and there was nothing he could do about it.

At his words though, Kazius began to sweat.

‘The statue of Vind exploded? Shit… That is definitely our doing…’ Kazius thought to himself in alarm and concern. He did not like Vind and he had been happy to piss her off by using her power as he wished… But Kazius began to fear that he had done more than that. After all, he had turned her champion against her and then used a weapon she had put her power into and used it in such a way… Partially out of desperation and partially out of malice, but that did not matter.

Whether he intended to or not, he had taken things too far.

Having a bad feeling, Kazius slowly turned his eye to look at Egil. As expected, Kazius could see his expression grow from horrified to enraged.

Egil grabbed the shaken Half-Elf by the collar and began to shake him.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT THE VIND STATUE EXPLODED?!” Egil snapped, sounding the angriest he had ever been.

“I-I don’t know why! That is why I said that I was worried!” Caleb exclaimed defensively.

“Let him go! He has been stressed out enough. He has not done anything wrong.” Damon demanded, grabbing Egil’s hand and making him let go.

Egil looked upset but allowed to have his hand removed. He looked around, almost like a corned animal. He was the one most upset about the news.

It was then Egil seemed to stare at Damon’s spear. The longer he stared at it, the more his expression darkened.

He noticed.

“You…What did you do!?” Egil snapped, enraged, practically baring his fangs at Damon.

As this happened, Alice began to look nervous. It seemed she realized what they had done. Of course, she did not know about the disdain Vind and Kazius had for each other or that what Kazius had done was partially on purpose.

Kazius was exhausted due to what happened combined with their walk back… But it seemed there would be no relaxing. He would not have Alice deal with Egil, he had to take care of this himself.

To be honest, the simplest solution was just to kill Egil. Despite anything Kazius may think though or that The Shadows insisted made the most sense, Kazius refused to do so. After all, not only was Egil useful, but he had a family. Kazius strived to be better than anything his darker urges told him to do. He cared about the people of Vargstam as their leader and this included Egil.

If he just treated everyone around him like a broken toy whenever they did not do or act how he wanted… Just what kind of person would he become? Then again, perhaps learning to lie as easily as it was to breathe was not a good thing.

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“Damon did not do anything wrong, Egil. We defeated the Frost Giants and Damon helped us in that effort. I am sure Vind lent us her strength… She cares about Vargstam so deeply, you know that. I think she may have sacrificed more strength than she could afford though.” Kazius stated, spinning the tale in a way that made him nauseous. He did not want to give Vind credit for anything… But at the same time, this situation was bad… But also, an opportunity.

Thankfully, it seemed Egil believed Kazius.

“No… Vind… Did she… Did she sacrifice herself to save Vargstam without us knowing?” Egil stated in horror.

“Who knows… But that is what I suspect… As for that symbol, I have no idea why it appeared on the spear.” Kazius stated with a sigh, feigning sadness. To punctuate his words, he found himself speaking with his hands much more.

He did not like how easily this amount of manipulation came to him, he found it disturbing.

Above all, what felt most disgusting about the situation was the fact that as he lied, he recognized his new mannerisms. Kazius was not one to emphasize his words with his hands, but it was a habit that High Priest Jordan had. Now that he was lying and trying to manipulate someone so blatantly… He found himself copying the most manipulative and nasty person he knew.

Still, he wanted to get out of this situation, and to do so he could do nothing other than lie.

Damon of course said nothing during all of this, he knew the truth of how Kazius had used the spear. A part of Kazius wondered if he had even felt anything from Vind’s end as they stole her power… But if he did, he had chosen to say nothing about it.

As for Alice, she knew they were not telling the truth. Sure, she did not know the extent of things, but Kazius could tell she knew he was lying. Kazius’ tactics were not too different from what The Church at Ratier had done… Despite this, she did not once point it out. Perhaps she understood why Kazius had to say what he did… or perhaps she thought what happened to Vind was accidental and Kazius was just trying to protect Damon.

“This… But I still feel her blessing… How can we still have her blessing if she is gone?” Egil questioned in dismay, his expression showing just how heartbroken he was.

“Vind has always loved your people… Especially Damon’s family. Perhaps she wanted to make sure you would have the strength to fight, even with her gone… We have to keep going… If she really did make this sacrifice, we owe it to her to prosper and go forward.” Kazius stated firmly.

Caleb looked greatly saddened.

“We must send out a search party for the scouts… And then if they are found dead, we must celebrate our victory in their honor and Vind’s… It is what she would have wanted. Then after our sendoff, we can bury the pieces of the statue that we can find. We will give her a proper rest.” Kazus assured, that part was not a lie.

After all, Vind was important to his people… And while he had only intended to spite her… He had not meant to take things this far… She was an obstacle and an annoyance that was now gone… So, he was happy about that, but he knew he had done something he shouldn’t… Though it was too late now…

That did not mean Kazius was not worried about Vind anymore though.

Considering what Azanor said a while back… Vind and the other Gods were incapable of being in this realm directly. Perhaps Vind had anchored herself to Mount Cyklon somehow, but there was a good chance she was just back in the realm of the Gods and was not actually dead.

Kazius was not sure which reality scared him more. The idea of Vind seething with rage in another realm… Or to have in a way continued his father’s work and now be responsible for the death of a Goddess.

“I will go help with the search myself… I owe that much for not being fast enough…” Egil stated, clearly blaming himself to some extent. It seemed he believed that had he arrived on time, Vind wouldn’t have needed to ‘sacrifice herself’.

“That would be a good idea. I will handle the cleanup over here… We all did a lot to protect Vargstam, some of us sacrificed more than others… I hope you know this took a lot out of us all… Kazius used a lot of power to get us there as fast as he could. He needs rest.” Alice spoke up to help him.

To be honest her behavior surprised Kazius. Alice was usually so caring and despised the lies in Ratier… Yet she was helping him without hesitation despite his questionable explanation. It made Kazius feel guilty. He was hiding so much from her, yet here she was helping him… Perhaps because she just believed in him that much… Even if Kazius himself found his own motivations to be concerning.

“Thank you, Alice… Yes… I need to rest… But first I want to make sure Azanor and Eve are okay… We did get separated from them. We… We can talk later. Don’t overdo it.” Kazius stated, his expression softening quite a bit as he studied her face, hoping to understand what was going through her mind.

Alice smiled at him, her expression was a genuine one, with an almost hopeful look in her violet eyes.

“I won’t, I promise. You should take Damon with you, I’m sure if the two of you work together then you will find them faster.” Alice stated warmly. Seeing her expression only ate away at Kazius’ conscience even more.

Kazius was just so confused. She should have at least some hesitation…

Damon perked up, grinning.

“Buahaha! We will find them in no time!” Damon assured.

“Wait, before you go, Damon… I… I need to at least apologize for accusing you the way I did.” Egil stated, seeming to truly believe he was in the wrong.

At this, Damon perked up, almost as if he was unsure of how to respond. After all, the accusation was correct in the end. At the apology he simply smiled, patting Egil on the back.

“Don’t worry about it! I know everyone is tense right now, I don’t blame you.” Damon assured.

“If you say so…” Egil trailed off, clearly like he had once again failed Damon’s grandfather by yet again turning against his grandson over the slightest suspicion.

Kazius only grew more concerned about this. Damon was normally so honest and wore his heart on his sleeve… Yet here he was, collaborating his lie…

He was beginning to realize he was not being a good influence on his friends at all… He had to do better…