Hirrus wasn’t sure if he was horrified or enraged.

Cedril was an Awakened. He had the same potential for power as Hirrus himself. More than that, he was supposed to be prepared. He was supposed to be powerful. Rumi and Nidra both thought he was enough to take on the most powerful group of adventurers in the country - if not the world.

“Who taught you to fight?” Hirrus asked. His voice was harsh, and so he took a deep breath, calming himself down. “I’m sorry. Who was supposed to teach you to fight?”

“No one, really,” Cedril said. To his credit, the man didn’t flinch back from Hirrus, even though he was probably a sight to behold, covered in gore. “We were given time to spar, but we didn’t have instructors. I didn’t receive any training before I was freed of my decision tree. I was just a clothier, you know?”

“And your Arcana,” Hirrus pressed. “What do you have for Arcana?”

“Mostly what you got us,” Cedril said defensively. “The Boar Charge, the stuff from that worm monster-”

“But before that,” Hirrus interrupted. “Wasn’t Rumi supposed to prepare you to fight? Weren’t you supposed to take down the Shadow Council?”

“At the beginning? Yeah,” Cedril confirmed, “but like I said, I was just a clothier. Rumi said his resources were better spent building up the guards and soldiers, who were already strong. Like you. And once he had all the resources, he just kept making them stronger and we sorta fell by the wayside.”

“Fool,” Hirrus said with a grimace. “And he thought he would succeed?”

“Can I-” interrupted the one surviving adventurer, who had surrendered. “Can I leave? Or is your vision based on movement, and you forgot I was here? If I run are you gonna chase me?”

Hirrus shot a glare at her. She was dressed in boiled leather armor, dyed a shade of green too bright to blend in anywhere natural. The weapon at her feet was a broadsword that almost looked more decorative than functional.

“Get out of here,” Hirrus spat, waving her off. “You chose to surrender, so you chose to live. I would be a poor negotiator if I was unhappy with what I demanded at the start.”

She turned and bolted like a frightened rabbit, leaving her weapon behind. Hirrus wondered if he was truly that frightening, or if she thought he might change his mind if she waited.

“As I was saying,” Hirrus said, turning back to Cedril. “Why would Rumi do that? Did he think that kind of strategy was going to give him a force that could contend with his enemies?”

“Way I understand it,” Cedril said, crossing his arms and shrugging his shoulders, “that’s just adventurer logic. The people who were powerful were more important to him. That made him inclined to give them more power. When they were more powerful, they became more important, so he gave them more power. I think one of Fire’s people said ‘the rich get richer’ which seems a strangely apt metaphor for his behavior.”

“What was his plan, then?” Hirrus said, standing up and looking around at the scattered corpses of their attackers. “Was he no more a tactician than these fools? Just throw his forces into the fire and believe his own self-importance would carry him through?”

“Considering that was most of his strategy against you,” Cedril said with a smirk. “That does seem likely.”

“But there were others more powerful,” Hirrus continued. “Those with proper training. Proper preparation.”

“There were,” Cedril said. The man moved back to the campfire, retrieving another chicken-filled bun before resuming his seat by the fire. “Not anymore, though, thanks to you. Like I said, the most powerful were basically Rumi’s pets. They threw their lives away trying to stop you from… you know.” Cedril gestured with his lump of bread, mimicking the series of slashes Hirrus had used to reduce Rumi to chunks of meat. “The others probably fled after that.”

“So none of them were left,” Hirrus asked. “Not one of the Awakened that Rumi properly prepared to fight are with Nidra’s group.”

Cedril looked down at his meal. Gingerly, he tore it open and let the steam start to escape. After a long, uncomfortable moment, he finally said: “probably not.”

Hirrus wished he could curse like an adventurer. Real words seemed inadequate for conveying his mood at this moment. He strained for a moment, trying to force one past his lips. The one that began with an ‘f’, and apparently - from the context he’d heard - meant sexual intercourse.

Just like with GM Dave, he couldn’t.

It was physically impossible.

Nidra was doomed. As Hirrus struggled to express how much that upset him, his mind raced back and forth over that concern. He’d been led to believe that the forces she had were formidable. That they were strong. Not a match for Hirrus and Nidra, certainly, but more than sufficient to put up a fight. Instead, Nidra was left with the dregs.

Rumi had been a monster, but Hirrus had expected him to be intelligent. Cunning. For some reason, Hirrus had built the man’s army up in his mind as an attempt to match Hirrus’s power and multiply it a hundredfold. Instead he’d been building himself a little court, where he could play politics with a little clique of sycophants, and distribute power to those who pleased him.

Nidra had to know. She was one of those who enjoyed Rumi’s favor. Surely she wasn’t too blind to see what was happening around her then. Why had she thought these forces were going to help her take on the Shadow Council?

Why had she let Hirrus leave, when she didn’t have enough power to fight without him?

Hirrus wasn’t sure who he was more furious with. Rumi or himself.

He’d had faith in Nidra, but that all melted away now. She was strong, but had struggled when facing many foes at once. And even if her skillset let her isolate targets to fight them on her terms, adventurers were a treacherous bunch.

They could employ all manner of tricks or gimmicks.

Fidelis could have bested her with his Mirrored Echo.

Orlina might have been able to overpower her with the combined power of her pants and X’ruhn’s Balance.

Nidra would have struggled against challenges Hirrus had obliterated.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.

Even now, as he considered what he had to do, he felt like he was being manipulated. But this time, he was the only one doing the manipulating. And the only manipulation going on was knowing what was right.

He didn’t like it because he was realizing that he had been wrong. Even when it was himself saying that, it was hard to accept.

“I have to go back,” Hirrus said at last.

Cedril nodded. “I know.”

“You can continue on to Nael, if you like,” Hirrus said, “but I can’t turn my back on Nidra’s cause.” He shook his head with a grimace. “Not after what you’ve told me.”

“Continue to Nael?” Cedril snorted. “Alone?”

Hirrus looked at the man, not understanding. Cedril gestured around, encompassing the clearing, which was still full of dismembered adventurers and splatters of gore.

“I’m only alive now because I was with you,” Cedril said, before taking a bite of his chicken-filled roll. “I’m not going anywhere on my own.”

Hirrus wanted to object. He wanted to say that Cedril would have been fine. But he couldn’t. The whole reason Hirrus knew he had to go help Nidra was because Cedril would not have been fine. These adventurers would have shredded him just as easily as Hirrus had shredded them in turn.

“I’m alright, though,” Cedril continued, looking up at Hirrus with a smile. “I think I should go back with you.”

“Why?” Hirrus asked. “You wanted to go home. This wasn’t your fight, right?”

Cedril held up the meat-filled lump of bread. “Eating this without…”

The man swallowed hard for a moment, looking away.

Hirrus knew what he meant. His spouse’s favorite meal, without his spouse.

“What am I going back to? A pile of ash? A slab of granite and a mound of dirt?” He shook his head. “No. I’m going with you. Maybe I can be of use.”

He looked up at Hirrus with a ghost of a smile. “Maybe I can repay you for saving me.”