Sylvia was dragged from the blessed unconsciousness of sleep by the sound of arguing voices. That, in and of itself, was nothing new; arguments were tragically common, an almost inevitable consequence of having too many people in too little space with almost nothing to do all day, leading to boredom and eventually to arguments. It was even worse since the storm had made going outside an unpleasant prospect at best, so people stuck inside and tried to find something to entertain themselves until tempers started to rise. As they apparently did now.

  Though it didn’t sound like a normal argument, the entire thing was too loud and passionate, causing her to crinkle her forehead into a frown. Blinking open her eyes, the first thing she noticed was a blue box, a notification from the system. After a moment or two of blankly staring, she blinked again before wiping a bit of grit from her eyes to read it. And what she read made her blood run cold and caused anger to rise in her soul. The first blue box in her vision was a notification telling her that she had been assigned the title of Oathbreaker.

  The name alone would be ominous, and the description only managed to make it worse. An Oathbreaker, as the box informed her, was somebody who had been part of breaking a solemn Oath, giving the example of abandoning one’s sworn duty or reneging on a promised reward for a completed quest. Furthermore, anyone seeing her would know of the title, and the only way to get rid of it was to undergo a fair penance, depending on the level of involvement.

  The next box described her as a Silent Enabler, somebody who looked on but did nothing. At first glance, that didn’t sound too bad, but Sylvia quickly realised that, while it might not sound too bad, the connotations were still painful. Memories of history classes sprung up unbidden, of large groups who all claimed that they just did not know. Silent enabler, they had been called, a label she now carried as well. And at .east until they managed to figure out what the fair penance was, she would be forced to continue to doing so. Whatever ‘fair penance’ meant in practice, there wasn’t really a guideline here.

  Rising from her mattress, she quickly dressed before leaving her small private area. Given the continuing argument, she considered it likely that it was about those very boxes and what might have caused them. When she saw Serene, somebody she considered something of a friend, she instinctively paused, the sudden knowledge that she was looking at an Oathbreaker and a silent enabler flashing through her mind. It wasn’t like the boxes from the system, something easily ignored and pushed away until one had time to deal with it, it was something a lot more intrusive. Just looking at her friend, who flinched when looking at her, suggesting that she was experiencing something similar, made her uneasy. The continued barrage of knowledge told her that she needed to be cautious, that she couldn’t trust that woman. It was almost maddening, not due to some great, singular impact but because it was continuous; as long as she was looking at Serene, the thought just didn’t go away.

  “That’s some punishment, isn’t it?” Serene asked, deliberately looking past Sylvia as she spoke.

  “Given that I have no idea what I actually did, or supposedly have done, yeah, it’s some heavy shit,” Sylvia replied, deciding that looking at the wall was better than having the fact that Serene was an Oathbreaker hammered into her head.

  “Well, you know that woman who made the wall outside, Jade or whatever?” When Sylvia nodded in response, Serene continued, “Apparently, Jacob and a couple of others had the glorious idea to keep her from spreading some undefined evil here, so they decided to take some of Detlef’s moonshine, or whatever that stuff is, mix some Molotov's and try to burn the witch, or something along those lines,”

  Syliva could only stare in abject horror. Sure, the words individually made sense, but when taken together, it sounded as if Jacob and his merry men had tried to murder the woman who had, amongst other things, pulled an almost modern house, completely furnished, from the ground with little effort. Who had protected their fields and houses from the flooding and even saved Jacob’s life.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  “They tried to kill her?” Sylvia had to ask, not wanting to believe that idiotic idea, “Wait, we gave them a quest yesterday. Did that ever get paid out?” she continued, realising what might have happened. After all, giving out quests underpinned by the system and then killing the people who helped you would be quite problematic, so it was eminently possible that this was the broken Oath.

  “No idea,” Serene admitted with a shrug, “But anyway, they failed, quite spectacularly, and that got them, and apparently us all, into hot water. They are just in a lot deeper than the rest of us.”

  “Now I’m almost scared to ask what happened to them?” Sylvia had to ask, despite feeling deep down that she would regret it.

  “Take a look,” Serene suggested, nodding towards the front and the arguing voices. Despite knowing that curiosity was an evil cat-killer, Sylvia couldn’t help herself and moved in that direction. As soon as she could see the arguing people, information slammed into her mind, just as it had earlier with Serene. Only, when looking at the various people here, it wasn’t just the knowledge that they were Oathbreakers. She also knew that four of them, including Jacob, were labelled as Perpetrators, while the others were a mix of Silent Enablers and Malevolent Cheerleaders. Only two carried the label of Active Objector and curiously, they invoked the weakest feeling of distrust. On the other hand, the feeling she got when looking at Jacob and his perpetrators made her reach for a weapon; it was that strong.

  She also knew that they were perpetrators and had been struck by Divine Punishment for desecrating a shrine to Lady Hecate. The punishment was not detailed, but the message was very, very obvious.

  “That’s… something,” Sylvia muttered when Serene stepped up next to her, listening to the continuing argument between Jacob and his perpetrators and Stephanie, who was joined by a few people, including the pair of active objectors. It didn’t take long for the gist of the argument to become obvious: the question of what would constitute Just Punishment, according to the system, and whether they all should bow to it.

  Amusingly, the second part was discussed with much less fervour, even though Jacob was quite passionate about it. That might be because he was one of the primary perpetrators, so any punishment would seriously hit him.

  “I believe we have to bow to this,” Sylvia joined into the argument, only to quickly realise that she couldn’t make any new argument. The problem was fairly obvious. As long as the punishment persisted, even something as simple as looking at each other was disturbing and faintly painful, though given the persistent nature of the mental bombardment, it was doubtful whether the pain would remain faint. Most likely, it would quickly mount, like some sort of water drop torture, and that was ignoring the side-effect such a persistent barrage would have.

  Just having her brain bombarded with the knowledge that somebody she called friend was untrustworthy and had to be guarded against was somewhat disturbing, but what if that bombardment was describing a loved one, a spouse or, maybe worst of all, a child? Or vice versa, what would happen to the mental and emotional development of a child brought up with a constant barrage telling them that their parents were untrustworthy?

  No, this punishment needed to end,and it needed to end soon. Otherwise, their community would shatter. Hell, it might shatter anyway, just because people were disturbed by the connotations this event had. Maybe the discussion shouldn’t just focus on how to punish these fools for causing it but also how to keep such an event from occurring again.

  As the discussion continued, more and more people joined in, drawn by the occasionally raised voices and the arguing. Only, thanks to the negative title, even usually pleasant people were getting aggressive, mistrust and a faint disdain soon joining the general annoyance, and things were heating up quickly.

  All it would take for the entire situation to escalate in some rather brutal fashion was a spark, a spark that was struck just as Ned, the usually oh-so-calm and somewhat stern Legacy, the best fighter of their entire village, struck Jacob, yelling at him that annoying a Sorceress capable of powerful magic as Jade undoubtedly was could be considered foolish, attacking a Shrine without having some sort of divine patronage and backing was a lot worse.

  From that small spark, things escalated. And escalated quickly…