As we were marching away from the small farm-turned-village, I was just a little less attentive and vigilant than I usually would have been. Luna and Silva had to pick up the slack but given that I had warned them beforehand, that wasn’t all that problematic. They knew my mind was, quite literally, a few miles away and getting further from us with every step we took, as my mind was largely focused on the scrying constructs I had placed around the farm. Those would hopefully give me a bit of insight into the consequences the locals had to endure for driving us away without giving us the agreed-upon reward for the quest we performed for them. After all, how could anyone trust the system if some random guy might give you a quest and, after you completed it, they tried to murder you so that they didn’t have to pay you? The entire thing would unravel, and once a part of the whole unravelled, who knew what would happen to the rest?
At least, that was my current thinking; I wanted to see how close to the truth I was and for that, I needed to see the effects of our departure. Now, with the sun slowly rising over the mountains, I was quite hopeful I would see the first effects soon.
It was quite fascinating to watch, even if I felt a little sketchy, because I had to place one of my scrying constructs right next to a window so I could observe the events. However, that slight discomfort was one I was quite willing to disregard to satisfy my curiosity. And satisfy my curiosity, I did.
The moment one of the locals woke up, I could immediately see the change through the window. The guy looked briefly confused, and at the same time, I suddenly knew I was looking at an Oathbreaker and a Silent Enabler. As an Oathbreaker, they couldn’t be trusted, and as a Silent Enabler, I knew that they wouldn’t care to act in order to prevent injustice as long as it didn’t directly impact them.
How I knew that, I couldn’t discern; it was as if the moment the guy awoke, the information was transmitted into my brain, alongside an instinctual caution, as I just knew the guy couldn’t be trusted. It didn’t take a tremendous intellectual effort to connect their betrayal and attempted murder of me with the fact that they were now branded as Oathbreakers; I was more curious about the fact that it apparently only applied to those who were awake. Or maybe only once the person awoke for the first time and was informed by the system of their new status. At least, I assumed that the system informed them, but I couldn’t be certain.
What I could be certain of was that the effect that branded them as Oathbreakers was a lot louder, for lack of a better expression than the effect that informed people about the divine punishment Jacob had been subjected to. This was something I doubted anyone would be able to conceal, even if some people would probably want them to, simply because the effect was almost painful in its intensity. Like some sort of constantly wailing siren, only the sound went off directly in your head the moment your sight focused on one of those guys. It was quite the perplexing effect, working through sight even though my eyes were currently far from them, making me wonder if I could replicate something like that. Or something like that; it was a fairly fascinating effect. I couldn’t detect any medium it was travelling through; there was no magic, no Astral or Divine Power I could detect; it was simply the most pervasive and, at the same time, the subtlest effect I had ever come across. Somewhat maddening, yes, but also incredibly fascinating.
Out of curiosity, I moved another scrying crow over to another window, looking at a different person, waiting for them to wake, too. And, again, as soon as they awoke, I just knew them to be an Oathbreaker, but with this one, it was accompanied by the information that they were a Malevolent Cheerleader, egging on others for nothing but their own amusement without any regard for the suffering they would cause others. Here, the knowledge that they couldn’t be trusted was also joined by a faint disdain, a simmering sense of anger and annoyance directed at them, making me more likely to lash out if I were to encounter them.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Slightly discomforted by the outside influence exerted over my mind, I largely retreated from the scrying constructs, just keeping enough of a connection so they wouldn’t dispel and instead focused inwards on my own mental processes. There was no trace of the influence I had felt just moments earlier, nor was there any indication that I had received a transfer of information beyond the streams coming from the scrying constructs. This lack of any evidence only drove home that the effects they were under came directly from the system, meaning it might use some form of system-internal effect beyond the magical arts I knew about. While I desperately wanted to study it, the problem was that I just couldn’t detect ‘it’, just infer ‘its’ existence thanks to the currently available information.
Shaking my head, I focused back on my scrying constructs, hoping to learn a little more. But what I saw made me pause in surprise; things had escalated quickly. Before, a few people had been walking around; now, a number of them were arguing, and that number was growing fairly quickly. Just as I thought things might calm down a little, as Ned had joined the argument and the guy was, to the best of my knowledge, the strongest person in town, things escalated even further when the first punch was thrown.
I could only gawk in disbelief as the argument turned into a full-out brawl, with shouting, screaming, and even a bit of hair-pulling and scratching, all interspersed with punches, kicks and bites. It was quite brutal, and I could already see a lot of blood splatter around, but then it got even worse when one guy pulled a knife.
“Wow,” I couldn’t help but mutter, my attention partially returning to my body.
“What’s going on, mom?” Luna asked; my muttering had caught her attention.
“The people back at the farm started to fight,” I replied, pausing my slow walk to fully focus on the fight back at the farm while narrating a bit of what I could see to my daughter.
“From what I can tell, they were all branded as Oathbreakers, I would guess, because they drove us away without paying us our promised reward,” I explained. “I think the branding makes them distrust each other, plus, they also have an effect labelling them as enablers, cheerleaders or perpetrators, dividing them even further. That division, alongside some anger from those who consider themselves innocent, riled up the collective temper until it exploded violently. Once violence had started, it only got worse, as such things sadly often are,” I finished, just as the first guy at the farm went down with a knife stuck in his gut.
“Yikes,” Luna sounded appropriately horrified by the image I was describing of people who turned on their friends and caused a massive mess, though I wasn’t quite as sympathetic to them as she was. Maybe because she had spent more time with them, I wasn’t sure.
“I wonder why they were all subjected to that Oathbreaker and not just the one giving us the quest,” Luna mused, making me consider the question as well.
“As I understand it, only the leaders of a community can assign quests. That’s how Mrs Wu explained it to me when she reached that status. But what if there is no elected leader, just some strange sort of general consensus they follow?” I paused, trying to find the right words, “I mean, they probably all agreed that somebody should go and help Ned and his group, right? So they all supported the quest, at least subconsciously. Or maybe the somewhat anarchic structure they had meant that everyone could assign a quest if the need was there. But, in turn, they were all on the hook for the quest they didn’t reward, and now, they are all being punished for it.”
“Harsh,” Luna paused for a moment, “We should make sure that we are never part of such a group. I don’t know what the Oathbreaker thing actually does other than tell everyone that this person is an Oathbreaker, but I don’t want to be subjected to it.”
“Agreed, we might want to ask Lady Hecate at some point; she undoubtedly knows more; we just have to figure out how much it would cost us to obtain the information,” I nodded, just as unwilling to experiment with that particular mechanic as Luna was.
“Maybe, though you still have that demonstration from earlier to digest, don’t you, Mom?” Luna asked, chuckling just a little at the fact that Lady Hecate had turned cursing of those four into a demonstration on proper curses for me. Maybe to reward me for catching them and bringing them into her shrine for judgement, or because I had left the punishment to her, who other than Lady Hecate knew?
