The barely alive, transmuted man groaned louder, crawling towards Christopher’s light. It wasn’t human anymore, or really alive in the typical sense, since it no longer had a mind. Things without minds can’t have souls either, so the former man wasn’t alive. He was more like an undead by that point, the mindless, soulless kind. The creature was an abomination between living and undead, a dreg.

It needed to be destroyed, yet nobody else seemed to want to take action, and the Governor was on the verge of a mental breakdown, so Allen took matters into his own hands. He seized the opportunity to experiment a little by channeling Fractured Nova into a throw away dagger using Cloak of Chaos.

“It seems like Cloak of Chaos and Chaotic Synergy are enabling me to actually control the spread of Nova in the blade.” Allen observed, mostly because of how the dagger wasn’t exploding instantly.

He tossed it in the air and caught it again, feeling his hold weaken on the Cloak around the dagger, but not to a catastrophic extent before he caught it again.

“In conclusion, I can make chaotic mana bombs,” Allen thought to himself. Without a second thought, he flicked the dagger at the creature, lodging it deep into the thing’s head area with a dull squelch. An instant went by while the transmuted man groaned in unfeeling confusion, then the blade exploded with a low thud, releasing a ripple of barely visible chaotic miasma. The blast bathed the tunnel in gore and splashed Christopher’s quickly erected barrier with little chunks of brain and bone.

You have defeated Fleshmorph Dreg – Level 167.

Awarded: 45 XP

“As I thought,” Allen murmured. “The system counted it as a monster, not a disabled human. I got the full amount of XP.” He cringed inwardly as Mr. Norbury tried to get his breathing under control. The mess of blood and guts was arguably easier to look at then the thing when it was intact. “This is a fucking mess. We never should have brought Meredith with us.”

Christopher just grunted, while Amelia wordlessly knelt down to inspect the bloody chunks by her feet. Allen wrinkled his nose as she poked around, squeezing some grey matter between her fingers.

“It’s not human anymore,” she said, as if to herself. “How did Meredith do this?”

“W-who is Meredith?” The Governor asked.

Allen candidly ignored the man as he tried to sort through his thoughts. “She uh… uses Soul magic to rewrite a living being’s core essence. Dawn aspect analytical magic, and Mystic Light threads make that possible. And yes, she has a dual aspect Job.” For a moment, Allen felt a little stupid, but she asked, so he answered.

“How do you… know about the core essence?” Christopher asked, raising an eyebrow. “Who taught you about the inner soul?”

“Wait,” Amelia began, standing up, “How does she change human tissue into being biologically inhuman without Life aspect? I thought Meredith was a nice lady, how come she did this?”

“So many questions.” Allen sighed to himself and rolled his shoulders. “Because mind magic affects the ego and therefore the inner soul, Doc taught me that stuff since he’s a necromancer, because the core essence is what drives the restructuring of the body during healing, and absolutely not.” Allen fixed Amelia an impassive look, though of course his mask ensured every look he made was impassive. “Meredith is an insane, serial murdering psychopath, but the genius kind; you can learn a lot from her.”

The three others looked at him for a moment before Mr. Norbury started sobbing out of pure confusion. His face was already drenched in sweat, so it was hard to see the tears.

“The point is,” Allen said, smiling with his eyes and getting everyone’s attention. “These thingies aren’t people anymore, so I’ll be popping any of the ones we find that are somehow still alive.” Allen received two nods and a whimper in response. With a nod, he hefted the lady up on his shoulder and set off into the dark, musty caves once again.

As the group reached deeper into the caverns, the number deformed dregs increased exponentially. About one in every ten were still kicking and had to be put down. The others were fully dead, the life drained from their bodies long after their minds and souls had crumbled away. More than a few of them were even fused together in some of the most unsettling ways, like Siamese twins. None of those were still moving.

Eventually the shock must have worn off, because Mr. Norbury’s expression had gone from a panicked, silent scream to a hollow-eyed look of dismal acceptance. He no longer so much as flinched when either Allen or Christopher finished off one of the dregs, he just sort of pretended it wasn’t happening. Eventually though, he spoke up in an exhausted voice.

“Who… Who are you people?”

There was a beat of silence before Christopher hummed to himself. “I take it you’ve realized we aren’t exactly members of your government?”

The Governor just glanced back at the professor with an empty expression.

“We’re just angry citizens carrying out some… street justice,” Allen began with a twirl of his hand, “but the bounty is real, so it’s probably best to just think of us as bounty hunters.”

The Governor almost scoffed, but Allen could tell by the distant look in his eyes that he was more afraid than anything. He scoffed at the absurdity of his situation; what was absurd to him, as a pencil pusher, cooped up in his office all day, not even leaving to eat lunch. More often than not, a book isn’t enough to learn about the reality of the world, the cruel truth must be experienced firsthand.

“There are ways to do this properly,” Mr. Norbury said, almost pleadingly, “The law should deal with this, so that these…” he gestured at a pile of nondescript flesh, “…so that this doesn’t happen.”

“If I had a copper for every time I’ve had this conversation,” Allen muttered. “All this has happened in spite of the law. Maybe you forgot, but your watch commander is probably down here trying to do some damage control, and not in the way you hope. If there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s that you should pick your subordinates a little bit better next time.”

The Governor swallowed audibly, and the sound echoed through the silent caves. “Commander Williams was appointed by the district lord,” he grumbled, “he’s not my subordinate.”

“Whatever,” Allen argued. “The point is, the world isn’t black and white, it’s in shades of grey. And you, you’re too honest... too innocent,” he added, glancing back at the man. “Probably too innocent to run a city, if this is what goes on right beneath your feet.”

Mr. Norbury didn’t have anything to say.

“Black and white are still shades of grey,” Amelia said. At first it seemed like she was talking to herself, but Allen knew better.

“Quit making me look bad,” then he snorted, “Is a serial killer like Meredith any less evil because she only murders other murderers and child slave traffickers, or because her own kids were tortured and sacrificed by the Holy Church? Is a saint like late Elven Matriarch of Shuura any less good because she hated vampires and lead a crusade against the ancient Alnaroch Dwarves?”

Amelia mumbled something.

“The answer is they absolutely were,” Allen said, stopping to fix Amelia with a hard look. “I’m not saying good is evil and evil is good, that’s stupid, but true good and true evil only exist in fiction.” When it became clear that the Healer wasn’t going to respond immediately, Allen kept on ranting. “There is no such thing as incomprehensible evil, you’re just too stubborn and naïve to understand why people do the things they do. In most cases it’s weakness, in others it’s fear or greed. In this case, is the Governor any less evil because this situation is the result of his honest incompetence? Yes, of course!”

Amelia was glaring at Allen by that point. She grit her teeth, looking over at him. “How can you… sympathize with evil people? You… you said you were captured by Terminus, do you sympathize with them? That makes you no better than they are!”

Allen clenched his fists. The cave went completely quiet as the two other men stayed out of the argument entirely. “That’s too far. If she had any idea.” His voice came out cold, mostly to hide the shakiness, “I empathize with them, Amelia, because you can’t really fault evil people for being evil. It’s just what they do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand them. The Spades don’t bother to sympathize with those people, we just kill them.”

“S-S-Spades?” The Governor stuttered, terror plain in his eyes. Then he suddenly went from looking like an unenthusiastic child on a field trip to a caged animal in the midst of deciding on either fight or flight.

Allen ignored the man, turning away from Amelia and walking down the corridors again. [“Jack?”] he sent, [“What’s the situation?”]

The Ranger’s voice came though the link a moment later. [“There’s a facility just ahead of you,”] he replied. [“It’s like a kicked over anthill in there. I can sense about a town’s worth of minds too, also a few dozen fighters around your level… and one guy at in the upper six-hundreds. Um, but no Meredith though.”]

[“Well,”] Allen thought, cringing, [“that’s concerning.”]

[Yeah… and hey, you seem kind of upset, is everything alright?”]

Allen sent a mental smirk. [“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine. Just dealing with self-righteous little girls.”]

Jack laughed, [“Oh, the Healer? You should just sleep with her already.”]

[“Fuck you, she isn’t even my type.”]

Jack laughed even harder. [“Yeah, that’s right, I forgot you were vampire-sexual.”]

Allen hissed into the link, though he couldn’t help letting a smile creep onto his lips. [“That was four years ago, and she was hot!”]

[“Okay, but pretending to actually be affected by her geas is pretty lame as far as roleplay goes.”]

Allen shook his head. [“We’re not having this conversation again. What are our targets?”]

[“Sure, its everyone who’s still alive. It seems like almost all the slaves managed to lock themselves into a cellar in the bottom level, but there could be others outside. Since prostitution is legal in Hillford, I can’t see these being anything other than slaves.”]

[“Alright. That guy you pointed out earlier is Norman Williams, the Hillford watch commander. See what you can get out of him.”]

With that, Allen turned his attention back to the group of three following behind him. “There’s a facility up ahead. We’re going in and leaving no survivors.”

Christopher cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes, I sensed a wall a little while ago, but I can’t see past it.”

Allen nodded, “Okay, you should probably try to get to level two-hundred from this. The experience will be good.”

Neither the professor nor Amelia replied to that suggestion in the time it took for the group to reach a solid stone wall at the end of a particular corridor. A rusty iron door blocked their passage into the facility, while bodies of transmuted guards and other accomplices piled up throughout the vicinity.

Allen withdrew a sting potion from his inventory and poured some of it onto his fancy new dagger. The black viscous fluid stuck to his blade like glue, ensuring that its next few victims die for the last time by its edge.

“C-can I go back?” The Governor asked, “I can get help, I can—”

“No,” Allen replied, pushing the unlocked door open with a light tap. It screeched on its hinges revealing a dingy candle lit hallway that smelled of mold, alcohol, filth, and blood.