A part of me, a fairly large one even, regretted my actions. Sure, I had learned some quite interesting new things about the system, things that scared me to my core, but the price for those secrets had been steep, though luckily, it wasn’t me who had to pay the said price.
No, that price was being paid by all those living at the farm, all those who had been marked Oathbreaker, who suffered from that effect and would continue to suffer for quite some time. Their community didn’t manage to withstand the strain of having to organise a system of governance and pass judgment on those who had wronged me in word and deed. Unable to relate to one another, born from their inability to even look at another person without getting hammered by the Oathbreaker effect, things started to unravel, and soon, the first group left. Amusingly, it wasn’t even a group who had been involved, just a few Silent Enablers. Still, it was enough, especially when the act of leaving, of severing all ties to the group, broke the Oathbreaker effect. Maybe because the system tied the effect to the location or the community as a concept, not to individual people within the community, I wasn’t sure and not about to experiment, but effectively, self-banishment worked to get rid of the effect, at least for Silent Enablers and the few who had actively objected.
The result of that was as predictable as the rising sun. Everyone started to leave, taking as much of the stored food with them as they could get. Not that they managed to take everything; they didn’t have magic bags after all, but they carried away more than enough. Some of them tried to return, but, fascinatingly, as soon as they returned, so did the Oathbreaker effect, forcing them to abandon the farm. Only one person remained behind, though I had a feeling that she had originally planned to leave as well, as she had taken her share of the food and carried it away, only to return once everyone else had left.
That one person was Sylvia, the woman I had given a few magic lessons to and who had gained the favour of Lady Hecate to the point that she had taken up residence in the shrine and its adjacent living quarters, effectively tending to it. This might have been why she stayed, even with the Oathbreaker effect in play, as she wanted to learn as much about magic as possible before abandoning the shrine, but amusingly, fate had a different plan.
Once she was the only person in the area, and possibly because she was living in the shrine, not the farm itself, the Oathbreaker effect lifted from her, and with it, the Silent Enabler effect faded, too. Not that she immediately noticed, given that nobody was around to tell her, nor did it look like she was compulsively checking the system for her status, so she remained ignorant for a time.
Eventually, I did tell her, or rather, a scrying construct in the shape of a raven told her while giving her a few tips for her magic studies. What she made of that, I wasn’t sure, but it certainly was amusing to watch the confusion on her face. Maybe I should figure out a way to conjure scrying constructs in all the shrines we had set up and use them to give the visitors the occasional lesson on magic or simply observe the events there. It might be quite amusing and almost certainly good training.
On the other hand, as soon as I noticed the change in status, I used a scrying construct, created with a fair bit of effort due to the ever-increasing distance between me and the farm, and checked on the people who had actually wronged me and, for them, the Oathbreaker effect remained, at least on the few I managed to track down. They had split up, unwilling to remain in close contact with each other, and a few had met some misfortune, leaving them injured, dead or dying. A part of me wondered how long it would take for the effect to fade, but I doubted I’d be able to keep observing these people for more than a few days, even if I were so inclined.
A part of me wondered if the effect would return if the silent enablers and so on would return to the farm, and if it did, would it strike Sylvia, too? It was quite a curious question, and I took copious notes just in case I could make more sense of the system and the processes it used to judge circumstances and its mechanisms for punishment. Because as things stood at the moment, this set of events made me think the system wasn’t intelligent, certainly not sapient or capable of what I considered sound judgment.
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When I found myself in the endless, grey expanse of Lady Hecate’s domain, I needed a moment to adapt as the dream I had moments before faded away. Still, I could almost see some lingering images of an endless crystal forest and hear the sound of conversation, but I was unable to discern any details, no matter how much I tried. Without anything to go by, I could only accept that the dream was gone and I should better focus on Lady Hecate or She might get annoyed if I were to ignore her. That would not be a wise idea; even mortals got annoyed if somebody ignored them, and a being like Lady Hecate, accustomed to being listened to without fail or question, would react a lot worse.
“Now, my dear Jade, what have you learned from this whole chain of events?” the deity’s familiar voice asked, making me grimace just a little. Things had turned out quite different from what I had hoped or expected, but I could do little about it.
“Do you wish me to condense it into a singular lesson I learned?” I asked in return, knowing that there were multiple possible lessons, but I had a feeling She was after one in particular.
“Why, yes, let’s start with the most important one, will you?” She prodded, and I could easily hear the grin in Her voice, even without seeing a single of Her three faces.
“Be careful when experimenting on the system,” I admitted with a sigh, only to hear Lady Hecate’s tinkling laughter all around me.
“Not quite what I was after; you might want to reconsider experimenting on it at all,” She advised me. For once, Her tone was personable, without any distance between us.
“You should know, I quite like you; you are surprisingly interesting for a mortal. Those like you are all too rare, and I would hate to see your path end prematurely. Now, given your curiosity, that’s all too possible, even if your investigation is only focused on the mortal realm or the occasional poke and prod at the divine, but without that curiosity, you wouldn’t be who you are. But please, know that poking the System is…,” She paused, and I realised that my cheeks were flushed thanks to her compliment. Getting one from a literal divine being, especially one I respected for Her ability and experience, was quite something.
“Poking the system is a fool’s endeavour. Even I don’t dare do so recklessly, and I have a lot more experience working with, around, and within it,” She admitted. I could feel my eyes widen in disbelief at her fairly frank statement of inability.
“Believe me, you are not the first to seek to discern the system’s mysteries, its procedures and mechanisms, but I can only tell you to be very, very careful. Prodding and poking the system rarely ends up how you would expect, and far too often, the result will be detrimental to the one doing the poking. This time, you got lucky, and the people back at that farm got the short end of the stick. Next time, it could very well be you who has to hold the bag, and you never know what will come out of that bag but, from experience, I can tell you it won’t be nice,” she repeated her warning and, again, I could only nod in acceptance.
Regardless of my personal curiosity, if Lady Hecate felt it necessary to give me a personal and very direct warning that prodding the system would be foolish, I would probably be well-advised to heed the warning. Sure, it might be a ploy of the deity, trying to keep me from reaching some sort of special power but if I was honest with myself, I doubted that. If Lady Hecate wanted to hinder me, there were better buttons she could press.
“I hear your warning, Lady Hecate, and I thank you for it,” I gave a bow, trying to convey my gratitude properly.
“Don’t just hear the warning; heed the warning, Jade,” she chuckled again, “You do good work spreading Arcane Magic, and, even better, you also spread knowledge of me alongside our cute Daughter. I would hate for you to be struck down by some weird effect of the system, leaving you in a sorry state.”
With those words, the realm of Lady Hecate faded away around me, leaving me drifting in an endless, starless void for a few moments before I drifted back into my dreams, the warning vivid in my memory.
