The two dark figures hiding behind the outhouse poke their heads out a bit more and I realize it’s Yoel and Bella, both fully clothed this time. I check to see if there’s anyone else in my surroundings before putting my axes away. Walking over to them, I whisper, “What are you two doing here?”

Yoel responds, “Brother Isaac, what happened to the citadel? Where did all the raging flames come from? Are we under attack again? Did the Vipers come back for revenge?”

I don’t respond immediately because I don’t know what to say. I’ve essentially single handedly toppled The Fold and both of their lives along with it. I don’t even feel like lying to them because it isn’t really fair towards either of them. But I can’t bring myself to say it.

“Both of you need to leave the citadel tonight. Get to the stable and grab two horses. Pick a direction, ride, and don’t look back.”

There’s a look of shock on both of their faces and it doesn’t look like they believe me. This time it’s Bella who speaks, asking, “But what about The Fold? What about the Savior? Where would we even go?”

“The Fold is gone, the Savior is dead, and you can go anywhere you want, do anything you want, and be anything you want. You know where Ocean’s Rest lies right? That’s not a bad choice.”

There’s a pained look on Bella’s face as she asks, “We’re just… supposed to leave? We’ve lived here our entire lives. We don’t know how to live anywhere else. What are we supposed to do from now on?”

Just like Millson. But instead of a giant talking snake, they got me. I wonder which one would have been better for them. I’d say less people would have died if they just had the snake to deal with.

Sighing, I look at them and put on the coldest expression I can muster before saying, “Listen, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the two of you do. You want to know why your little citadel burned down? I did it. It was me. Why do you think everyone lost their collective minds today? I fucking poisoned each and every one of you.”

From pain to horror. Yoel and Bella look at me exactly how I imagine I looked when Bertrand and I stood face to face with that monstrosity back in the gemstone cavern. Yoel stammers while shaking his head in denial, “N-No. Brother Isaac, you’re The Fold’s hero. Why would you… no. That’s impossible.”

Glaring at him, I growl, “Not only is it possible, but I was planning every step of my plan the moment I climbed my way out of that hellhole. What, did you fucking lunatics really think I’d obediently join your disgusting, little cult just because I climbed a fucking wall? No, every day I stayed inside this shithole you call home, I meticulously planned exactly how I was going to burn it all to the fucking ground. You think The Fold really fell apart because you guys were unlucky? Nah, it was all me.

“The dozens who died at the valley ambush died because I wanted them to. I put my blade through Eldon’s heart because he kept snooping around me and it pissed me off. How do you think the Vipers found out about your little, cracked wall on the easterside? I told them. The reason everyone was acting strange today is because I poisoned your water and once all of you were running around in a drugged up frenzy, I set this place on fire. Gavin tried to stop me and I put my sword through his heart for his troubles, just like Eldon.

“Once that was all taken care of, I paid a visit to that horrible abomination you call your god. You should have seen him crying and sniveling at my feet, begging me to spare his life.” I grinned at them, making sure they could see my canine and chuckle, saying, “I can still hear his piglike squeals as I hacked his body into pieces. I ruined your little cult and took your lives away from you. Now the get the fuck out of here before I slice open your throats.”

Tears stream down both of their faces as they look at me like I’m a monster. Losing my patience, I pull out an axe and slam it into the side of the outhouse, shouting in a low voice, “I said now!” Both of them grab each other’s hands and start running towards the front gate. I just stay standing where I am, unsure of what I’m doing anymore. Suddenly, I hear someone walking up behind me and I yank my axe out of the wall before spinning around, checking to see who it is.

Hawthorne walks up to me with a smirk on his face. He stands in front of me and crosses his arms, still smirking like an idiot. Unable to bear the silence, I break it first by asking, “What?”

“That was a nice performance.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said. It was a nice performance.”

Shaking my head at him in helplessness, I walk past him, heading back to my shack. He shouts after me, “Do you at least feel better now?” When I hear his words, I only pause for a brief moment before I keep walking. Once I’m back at my shack, I swallow a dose of Schon before falling asleep.

…

Early the next morning, everyone packs their things, getting ready to leave the citadel. Since both the crossbow and the bow could be useful, I fashioned a leather sling for the crossbow that I could carry on my shoulder and carried the bow by putting my arm through it. Luckily, the two quivers of bolts and arrows had metal hooks that attached to my belt. At the morning campfire, the brothers hand me a piece of bread which I struggle with since there’s no water to soften it up. After I finish the bread, I notice most of our group are standing over a hunched-over Hawthorne, looking at something with interest. Walking up next to them, I see Hawthorne kneeling on the ground while drawing on a large piece of paper.

When I ask Jonas what Hawthorne’s doing, he explains what happened. Hawthorne was doing a bit of scrounging a little earlier and found some maps in one of the houses. One of the maps was locally centered and it should help us get ourselves out of these woods as well as skirt around the Vipers’ camp. The map he’s working on right now is a map of the kingdom and he’s just filling in some parts with his previous knowledge.

It was interesting because I didn’t know there was an entire, massive desert south of the Nasaar Kingdom called No Man’s Desert. At the very western tip of that desert is something called the Leap of the Faithful which is where King Rhys’s kingdom resides. Though the details regarding that are a bit hazy since all of this is coming from Hawthorne who was stuck in The Pit for a couple of decades. Hell, from what Hawthorne remembers, King Rhys was only on his fifth wife when Hawthorne got caught by The Fold.

After Hawthorne finished filling up the map, he rolled it up and placed it securely into Gavin’s leather pack which he’ll be taking for himself. Once everyone was ready, we headed off towards the front gate and the stable. Along the way, we saw plenty of dead bodies but not a single living person. It seems once the cultists’ drugged stupors wore off and they saw the state of the citadel, they took off running.

I noticed this last night since Yoel and Bella seemed perfectly clear headed when they spoke with me but it looks like the Doom Shrooms wore off before the 24 hours I was expecting. I guess it makes sense since I had to dilute the small bag of ash I had with water and then spread it evenly among a dozen barrels of water. Thankfully it was still strong enough to bring about such pandemonium. When we come across one of the bodies, I freeze in my steps.

It’s a little girl no older than five years old, her lower half trapped under the rubble of a wooden house. This house doesn’t have any burn marks and probably collapsed due to all the chaos last night. This was the little girl who gave me an apple yesterday morning. Slowly walking up to her, I put two fingers on her neck but I don’t feel a pulse. I knew this was a possibility but actually seeing it…

When I stand back up, I force myself to stare at her body. There’s no tears because I don’t deserve to cry. There’s no sadness because I don’t deserve to feel sad. This is the reality of the consequences of my actions. I either learn to accept it or I run away and live out the rest of my life on a farm in the middle of nowhere. But damn is it hard to accept.

Seeing me stopped, Hawthorne walks up and gives me a pat on the shoulder when he sees what I’m staring at. He doesn’t say anything or give me comforting words or anything like that because he knows it won’t help. All I want to do is burn this image into my mind to always remind myself this is the price of retribution. The Fold isn’t necessarily evil, they’re just people. Really weird, inbred kidnappers but humans nonetheless. We just happened to run into each other and unfortunately, only one of us survived our encounter.

There’ll be more bodies from here on out whether it’s here in these woods or it’s in the grimy back alleys of Midriver. I just have to remember… There's always a price. After I take a moment to close my eyes and let out a deep breath, we keep moving forward, like always.

…

Someone stole my fucking horse. When we got to the stable, Genuine was nowhere to be seen. Godsdamnit, I liked that horse. It doesn’t even make sense because there’s still a few dozen other horses still inside the stable, free for the taking. Who the fuck would specifically choose my horse?

I grab a random one from the stable as everyone else picks theirs. We let the ones that weren’t chosen out as well because they’d eventually starve to death if left alone without caretakers. From there, we used Hawthorne’s map and my memory to navigate us out of these woods, staying as far away from the Vipers as possible. It was an intense week because we were constantly on the lookout for Vipers but we managed to make it back onto a main dirt road and found other travelers.

Our small group of 13 total survivors from The Pit dwindled even further when six of us split off for Everview. It was a bittersweet moment because I imagined it was supposed to be an emotional moment for them because they could finally go home after all this time, but there was no elation, just defeat on their faces. We started traveling north towards Ocean’s Rest where the rest of them wanted to go. Along the way, we were able to trade with the passing merchants and stockpiled enough food for quite awhile.

When we finally broke free from the Plainheart Woods and found a road that ran straight to Ocean’s Rest, the rest of the group, aside from me, Hawthorne, and Slyvia, took the road and headed east towards the ocean city. For some reason, the brothers had a tearful goodbye with me and seemed a bit reluctant to part with me. I have no idea why. I used them as distractions during fights, made them handle corpses after fights, and forced them into being my enforcers until the night of my plan. By all accounts, they should have despised me but they didn’t. I guess I’ll miss those goofs.

Looking towards Hawthorne, I asked him, “You sure you don’t want to go with them?”

Grinning back at me, he scoffs, “What, and miss all the fun in Midriver?”

Raising my eyebrows at him, I ask, “Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah, I’ve done my thinking. A new start for me and this little one doesn’t sound too bad. Besides, I owe you one.”

“No you don’t. You saved my life and when I got you back to the surface, I considered us even.”

He just smiles at me without saying anything. After a moment, he says, “A debt of 20 years isn’t that easily repaid. Also, you need someone watching over you to tell you when you’ve gone too far.”

Giving him a questioning look, he continues, “When we first met, I had you chalked up as a little psychopath that was irredeemable. I liked you, but there was no way in hell I’d stick my neck out for you. Since then, you’ve shown me there’s more inside you than what I initially thought. Your two little friends you saved that night a week ago because you knew if anyone in our group saw them, they’d end up with their heads bashed in like the rest of those cultists. The little girl that was crushed inside her own home. These were all signs that led me to believe there’s still good inside of you somewhere.

“As you grow older, those two sides will keep warring against each other with you as the battlefield. Sometimes you’ll veer toward either side too far and you need someone to bring you back, otherwise, you’ll lose yourself forever. I thought since I wasn’t doing much with myself and I owed you, no matter how much you deny it, I’d take that role and make sure you don’t turn into an unredeemable little shit.”

Looking at him, I don’t really know what to say. I know he’s saying he’s looking out for me and he wants to make sure I don’t go too far, but he does know we’re going to be bandits, right? Scoffing, I roll my eyes and say, “Thanks, I guess.”

With that, we turn towards the northwest and start our journey to Midriver.