Chapter 13 I Meet Justice

Part B

"What is going on here!" A large older man yelled. He reminded me of my retired gym teacher. He used to have muscles, but they had been lost somewhere with age and inactivity. His salt and pepper hair was closely cropped and he wore clothes that were obviously, even to my untrained eye, of much finer quality than anyone else in the room. His black boots were shined and so was his belt buckle. He wore a large gold ring on one finger.

He had come bursting in with three armored men. All three of them had some sort crest painted on their shoulders. It looked like a brown blob in the center of a larger red blob from across the room.

One of the three men had his red and brown blob outlined in gold. Looking at him I had the feeling I was looking at Sturgis twenty years in the future. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he was somehow related to the brothers. He had a scar on his chin that stood out like a white stripe against his tanned skin.

I opened my Gamer Glass because everyone else seemed to instantly know who these men were. I would have looked like an idiot if I had stopped the drama and asked someone. I looked up the armored man first. I really wanted to know if he was related to the brothers.

*Marl (Sir)

Level- 56

Human-Male

HP 15584/ 15584

Age- 58

Knight belonging to the house of Holjior. Captain of the Yellow Springs Knights and the Holjior house guard. Two-time Torentig Champion.~

Was that it? Nothing about his family connections? Well, that wasn't the information I wanted at all. What was a Torentig and why was that information important enough that my Gamer Glass needed to mention it.

*Torentig- A championship tournament held every four years on the Crystal Continent. Each kingdom or government takes turns hosting the contests. The most skilled warriors from each land are sent to compete in these goodwill games. The winners of these games are called Torentig or Torentig Champion. Along with the gold and the medal from the games, the winners often receive other incentives such as a low ranking noble title, houses, and plots of land from the participating governments.~

*Would you like to read more about the specific contests of the Torentig Games? Yes/No~

I selected no. So the Torentig seemed to be a martial arts style Olympic Games. So this guy was the best out of everyone on the continent twice. That was very impressive. Still didn't tell me if he was related to Sturgis and Crue though.

I shifted my stare and focused on the man making all the fuss. He was ranting and had made some speech about the ungrateful masses as I had been reading about the Knight Marl. He seemed like a pompous jackass. I already didn't like the man, but I thought it prudent to at least know who he was.

*Horace Holjior (Lord)

Level- 29

HP 4059/4059

Human-Male

Age- 62

Baronet of Holjior, Uncle to Baron Holjior. Horace Holjior is the highest ranking noble residing in Yellow Springs.~

So this guy was a big deal. I didn't know a lot about the hierarchy in noble classes. I wasn't sure if Baronet was high or low on the noble chart so to speak. All I really knew is that he was below a king and below a baron. I looked it up.

*List of kingdom nobility hierarchy in order. King, Queen, Crown Prince(ss), Duke, Prince(ss), Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron, Baronet. Knight, and Lord. This list does not include religious titles, tribal, or race specific titles. ~

"All that stands before us while we carry out our capacity as a Godly Triumvirate will also be judged," Edomael declared solemnly, "It does not matter to us if you are rich or poor if you have connections or are a recluse, a nobleman or a simple shepherd."

"All are equal before us and so will be judged equally," Aequitas continued.

"I will have none of this nonsense. Disperse this crowd at once, Tagert," the Baronet commanded. His face was turning red with anger as he helped the magistrate to his feet, "I won't have this sort of civil disruption in my town."

"Sir," the Commander argued, "that is Lady Aequitas herself, Lady Amoris and Lord Edomael as well. They called for this gathering."

"So just because some tart dresses up like a god you believe her? Have you all lost your minds? There is no reason for a god to be here in Yellow Springs We have worked too hard for a bunch of impostors to come in and sully the reputation we've built," he was waving between both himself and the magistrate.

"Arrest those three at once. I want to know who they really are," the Baronet pointed to the three gods.

Well, he did have a point. You couldn't just believe anyone who walked into town claiming they were a god. There were a bunch of minor ones after all and you couldn't be expected to know what they all looked like. However, Amoris, Aequitas, and Edomael were part of the main twelve deities. Presumably, a lot of people knew what they looked like. Heck, Amoris was standing under her own statue. All the guy had to do was glance up.

Sure, there was the possibility of an impostor, or a look-a-like pretending to be a god. Though, you would think the gods had some sort of system in place to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

Blessings were the only thing I could think of that would prove that a god was, in fact, a god. However, trying to prove you had a Blessing from a god would be an issue as well. It's not like the All Seer can detect Blessings. Maybe whatever the priests used to help normal people allocate their Exp would show their Blessings?

Amoris turned around and touched her statue. While I wasn't certain what was happening, everyone else seemed to understand. Her statue began to glow silver and the eyes looked like there were signal lights behind them. I assumed that this was some sort of way the gods had of actually proving their divinity. It made me wonder what the minor gods did though. It's not like they had handy giant statues of themselves. Did they carry around small porta-statues?

I imagined little action figures of the gods. Each one in their superhero-esque glory. Children could collect them all. If every child in the kingdom was collecting them then even the minor gods would be able to prove their divinity with a children's toy. I was laughing at the image in my head. I had become so distracted by it that I failed to notice nearly everyone was looking at me. Hell, did I laugh out loud?

Amoris who had wandered up beside me slapped me hard on the back and laughed.

"Why didn't we think of that?" Edomael muttered, looking at me as if I grew a second head.

"We'll have to bring it up at the next meeting. It's such a simple idea," Aequitas shook her head.

"Who the hell is that!" Lord Holjior practically had a fit standing there pointing at me.

"He is my oracle," Amoris answered him simply. "He carries out my will."

I didn't know about that, but it did give a sense of legitimacy of why I was standing there with all the high ranking priests. I'm sure the people in the crowd who had seen me walking with Edomael and Aequitas had been thinking the same thing. Amoris giving the crowd a good reason for the gods to be around me would probably save me a lot of headache later.

"Actually," Amoris linked arms with Crue then with me, "both of these men have recently become my oracles. It is because of my oracles that the crimes of the John family came to my attention," she glossed over the circumstances of Crue's involvement.

"So let's get down to business shall we, Lord Holjior," she unlinked her arms and stood in front of the man hands on her hips. "I have proven myself to be Amoris and as you can see I am not a prostitute."

"Now see here young miss!" Lord Holjior blustered. He actually took a deep breath to begin his ranting again, but Amoris stopped him.

"No," she said calmly, "you see here. You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and for being an accessory to murder."

"Oh, shit," exclaimed Crue. The crowd erupted with noise. He was the only person out of the crowd I could actually understand because he was standing right beside me. I could see Lord Holjior shouting, but I honestly couldn't make out what he said. Everyone was exclaiming and commenting all at once. It was pure noisy chaos.

"QUIET!" Aequitas shouted over the din. She touched her sword handle again and gave everyone a hard stare down.

"...arrested at once. To slander the," Lord Holjior continued to rant, as the crowd went silent until Edomael hit him with restraint. The Lord fell to the floor, leaving his friend the magistrate, standing above him.

The magistrate glared at Edomael, he too had been on the receiving end of his magic. He was smart enough to not act, he would have been on the floor with his lord.

"Let us start from the beginning for those who missed the first part." Aequitas held out her hand towards the knights. They had all drawn their swords but seemed at a loss at whether they should be pointing them at a goddess.

"Please do," Sir Marl rumbled like a bear. At some point, his vocal cords must have been damaged. He sounded like a six pack a day smoker.

"The John family are guilty of multiple counts of rape. The elder John is guilty of infanticide as well as misappropriation of funds. How his case connects to the magistrate's and the Lord's is as follows.

"The elder John is on the town council with both of the other men. John is one of the merchant representatives on the council." She waved her hand at the older man. "He is also in charge of distribution of the funds for the building of your wall. The workers are not being paid enough to get them out of debt and so must continue to work on the wall. The excess money John stole, from these poorest of men, was used to pay off the magistrate.

"When the guards began to investigate the various rapes surrounding his family he paid the magistrate a small fortune to make the guards stop digging around. The magistrate has been the only judicial recourse in this town since my head priest died last year. He has used his position to knowingly put innocent men in jail and have them executed. One of these innocent men stands before you today," Aequitas waved her hand towards the skinny man who was still being healed by the priestess. He lifted his hand in a very weak wave to the crowd when she mentioned him.

"This man was falsely accused of rape by John. The magistrate, aware that John had been committing these rapes, took the money and sentenced this innocent man to first have his tongue cut out so he couldn't proclaim his innocence, later to be executed.

"For this reason alone he is guilty of murder. However, his crimes far exceed even that.

"Over the last year he has plotted with Lord Holjior to 'clean up' this town," she made little air quotes around the words clean up.

"The first step would be to get rid of the infected prostitutes. Tourists enjoy going to the brothels during their vacations, what they don't enjoy is going home with an STD. Using his influence, Lord Holjior was able to learn about which prostitutes were infectious. He gave this list to the magistrate along with a bag of gold.

"The magistrate took it upon himself to hire these women. He'd pay extra to have them meet him in a remote location in town. He'd already made certain that no guards would be on patrol in those areas at the time. He would then use his magic telekinesis and would kill the woman from a distance.

"That wasn't the end of the plot though. This town also has a problem with homelessness and debtors, in large part because of the elder John. It doesn't look good for a tourist town to have a high homeless population.

"So once again the men plotted. Who would be to blame for all the dead prostitutes? Random indigent men of course. They are prone to drinking and fighting it made sense that these men would get into an argument over payment and kill the women.

"That's how that scenario played out at least fourteen times within the last year. That's twenty-eight innocent people that these men have had killed.

"They will try and justify it by saying that it was for the good of the town. That happy tourists mean more money coming into the city. Which meant more money going towards the town council and straight into their pockets," Aequitas finished her summation of the events and stared down the knights who still had their weapons drawn.

"Now child, we will get to you and your mother," Amoris addressed the teenager. I was half expecting the teenager to start proclaiming his innocence again, but he stayed silent.

"Excuse me, but are you saying that Lord Holjior knowingly participated in the murder of all those people?" Sir Marl interrupted.

"That's exactly the situation if you need further proof the idiot kept a ledger with the amounts he paid to have those people killed. You can find it in his bottom left desk drawer. There is a false bottom where he kept the real records. Any further questions Sir Knight?"

"Lord Holjior is a nobleman. As part of the nobility, he must be taken before the king to be judged for his crimes. I don't doubt what you are saying is true, my Lady, but without permission from the king, or without having a higher ranking nobleman present, we cannot arrest him."

"That's actually not true in this case, Sir Marl," Dickson spoke up.

"He's right," said the head priest of Edomael.

"You see," said the priest of Aequitas, "normally the king is the highest judge of the land. Only he can render judgment upon the nobles. However, there is a power higher than even the king. That is a Godly Triumvirate."

"I don't think it's happened in this kingdom in over ten years," said Dickson, "so I guess it's understandable that it wouldn't be part of common knowledge."

"I just can't take your word for it I'm afraid," Sir Marl shook his head, "It's my duty to protect that man. I can't just allow you to execute him based on your word."

"It is commendable that you take your duty so seriously Sir Knight," Aequitas said. Then she turned to her fellow gods. "Take care of the mother and son while I go with Sir Marl to assuage his duty." She walked over to Sir Marl and placed her hand on his arm. Then they just disappeared.

"He's going to be in for a shock," Amoris muttered.

"Him? Just imagine what King Luden must feel. Even if he is a King it's not often we just pop in," Edomael commented.

I was learning all sorts of new things today.

*King Luden Araimen- Monarch of the Araimen Kingdom. Taking over for his grandfather at the age of twenty-four, King Luden is considered to be a more temperate monarch. He is known for his demilitarization of the borderlands and free trade agreement with neighboring lands.

King Luden has two wives. Queen Margret Nubencloss and Lady Savina Lanister. He has one son Crown Prince Marcus, born of Queen Margret. King Luden also has five daughters. Twin princesses Iris and Ivy, also born of Queen Margret. Lady Savina gave birth to three daughters, Sophia, Isabella, and Emmaline.~

He had two wives. Was that a common thing here? I hadn't met many married people so it was too soon for me to know. It could be just something the King did, or maybe even nobility. The cost of having more than one wife wouldn't be something the average person could afford after all.

"...knowingly administered Hiscup juice to your daughter to induce miscarriage," Amoris was saying. I hadn't been paying attention at all, but it seemed like she was addressing the woman.

"No, I was trying to save my baby," the woman bawled hands out pleading. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying and she periodically wiped her runny nose on the sleeve of her dress.

"If you were so concerned about your child, then why did you allow the abuse to continue? Furthermore, why didn't you inform the authorities of your husband's crimes? You were only worried about your family's comfort and reputation. You had no concern for your daughter past that.

"You didn't want her to bear a child because then more questions would be raised. You decided to administer the poison, not for the care of your child, but to maintain your status in this town," Amoris stamped her foot.

"No, it was for my baby," the woman screamed at the goddess. She began to yank out her own hair. Lotte tried to step in to stop her but was shoved to the side by the teenager.

"Don't touch my mom," he yelled standing and squaring up to Lotte.

"As for you," Amoris turned on the boy pointing her finger straight at his nose. "While we understand that you had no knowledge of any of the crimes your family committed it doesn't mean you aren't guilty of your own personal transgressions."

Amoris marched up to the boy, passing by the woman still ripping out her hair, and poked him hard in the chest with her extended finger.

"Fortunately for you, we can't judge you for crimes we believe you would have committed if we hadn't stepped in. You had several futures in front of you and in all of them, you were following in your father's footsteps. However, you can not be judged for crimes you have yet to commit and seeing as you are still young, there is a possibility of reform."

She turned to the crowd after poking the boy in the chest a few more times.

"John, Joe, John Jr., Magistrate Givens, and Lord Horace Holjior are sentenced to death. Sentencing to be held after Aequitas returns.

"Sarah, for poisoning your daughter and being complicit in her abuse you are sentenced to fifteen years in the kingdom's penal workforce. I leave it to Commander Tagert to decide where to put you.

"Justin," so that was the teenager's name, "seeing as you are now an orphan and still underage, you will be sent to the Temple of Aequitas. You will remain with the temple for ten years, there we hope you will learn a different set of values. The priests will become your new family and we hope that you choose a more honest way of life. After ten years, you may choose whatever path in life you wish.

"The child, Juniper, will be taken in by my temple. She will be provided the best of care here and in time she may choose her own path." She clapped her hands together as if signaling all was closed.

"I'll be eighteen in five years. I'm supposed to stay at a stinking temple even after that!" The boy Justin protested.

"You are not innocent, your crimes are just very minor. Bullying, insults, fighting, petty theft, and most concerning your relations with your female peers. Consider the extra time your opportunity to make amends to the people you've wronged thus far in your life," she gave him a look that clearly said that he was not to argue the point further.

That was the end of that. People began to file out probably heading towards the town square. Personally, I didn't want to see it, but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to miss it. For some odd reason, the three gods seemed determined that I did not miss this trial and execution.

It made me wonder what they saw in my multiple possible futures. I doubt they would tell me even if I asked. In every book I had ever read nothing good came from knowing your future. Even if the future could be reliably predicted, it's not like anything was ever set in stone.

Edomael was speaking to the Commander and Sturgis. He was giving them orders on transporting the prisoners to their respective locations. Apparently, the mother, Sarah, and the teenager, Justin, were to be spared the site of seeing the rest of their family executed.

A part of me thought that maybe letting the kid watch would scare him straight. Even just sitting there he looked sulky, not like he really cared that much about his family at all. He really seemed like a selfish brat. Though, I should try my best not to judge a person based on just watching him react on what was most likely the worst day of his life.

"Do we have to go to the execution?" I asked Crue who was still standing by my side.

"We are both Oracles of Amoris. She's acknowledged us publicly, we have to go as her chosen representatives," he sighed and his posture slumped. "To tell you the truth, I don't want to go either but everyone will expect to see us there."

"Damn, it's not like I need to see that sort of thing."

"It wouldn't just look bad for us, it wouldn't look good for Amoris for her to have chosen two oracles that refuse to witness her justice. We are obligated to go, unfortunately."

"He's correct you know," the Edomael head priest interjected. Dickson had wandered off to talk with Amoris leaving Crue, the unknown priestess, the priest of Aequitas, the head priest of Edomael, and I standing around. Naturally, the group had formed a circle in order to continue the conversation.

"I'm Murray, Head Priest of Edomael here in Yellow Springs." He held out his hand in introduction.

"I'm Eri, nice to meet you." I shook his hand. It was dry and calloused, but he had a firm grip.

"This is Darcy, she's the lead healer here at the temple," Crue introduced us and we also shook hands.

"Pleasure to meet you Eri. Our temple looks forward to working with you in the future."

"My name is Conner," the Priest of Aequitas introduced himself with a wave and a smile.

He was younger than both Darcy and Murray but looked older than Crue. I would estimate his age in his mid-thirties. It seemed a little young to take over the head priest position, but I was certain Aequitas and her temple had things under control.

"This is one hot mess of a situation isn't it," Conner continued, "I can't apologize enough for our temple's lack in this case." He bowed his head in the general direction of Amoris' statue.

"No, we were scolded soundly before everyone showed up as well." Darcy interjected, "We lacked faith in our Lady and failed to appeal for her help. We are also partially to blame."

"We will probably be gathered to hear Aequitas' divine wisdom when this is all over as well," Conner sighed. "Still, I'm blaming myself for missing something this big. I knew something wasn't right with Magistrate Givens, but it was just a gut feeling. If I would have followed my instincts maybe this wouldn't have gotten as bad as it did. Twenty-eight people were killed," he trailed off and shook his head as if clearing his thoughts.

"I think there is plenty of blame to go around in this case," Murray said, "We performed the funerary rights for many of the women killed. We should have noticed something was wrong with the bodies. In fact, one of my priests mentioned something felt off about one of the women, but I dismissed his concerns once the 'guilty' party was found." He used air quotes around the word guilty.

"I knew what was happening to the child and I failed her," Crue said all that in one sudden exhale. His posture bent even more and a hand went to his face. Darcy placed a hand on his back. I think she was about to say something comforting, but I interrupted.

"The way I see it is that the people who are to blame are about to be marched into the square. We should be blaming them for their actions not playing the what if game. Yes, mistakes were made, but none of your mistakes would have been made if the crimes had not been committed in the first place. It won't do anyone any good if you continue to blame yourselves for someone else' actions."

"My child is correct," Edomael had snuck up behind me during our conversation. I am not ashamed to say I jumped when his hand came down on my shoulder. "While you were all remiss in some way, you can't shoulder the blame for another's actions."

"I don't have to listen to you, you're not my real dad," I did a pretty decent imitation of the sulky teenager. Edomael laughed and slapped me on the back.

"Right, I never did get you a birthday present," he smiled.

"My Lord," Murray bowed his head deeply at Edomael, "would you please explain."

"Basically, you lot all made a series of small errors that culminated in a larger issue. Normally, any one of your mistakes wouldn't have mattered because another group or temple would have caught the problem.

"Your dismissal of the odd way the females looked normally wouldn't have mattered all that much. You trusted the guard to know what they were doing. Likewise for the guard. They trusted the Aequitas temple to inform them if a serial killer was on the loose. However, with the death of the head priest, they were not able to have the authority to investigate someone as high ranking as the magistrate.

"Now the Amoris temple knew about the abuse of a single child. They had no way of knowing that there were actually murders involved. Dickson may have been the only person who took some direct action in this case. When he went to the magistrate with his concerns and was rebuffed he immediately sent word to the main temple in King's Cross.

"As you know Amoris' Temples across the kingdom are sending merchants to pick up this new chocolate. The main temple was in the process of sending an investigator. So this issue would have eventually been resolved by human means."

"I didn't know that until I popped in on Dickson," Amoris walked up. She had just seen that the last of the crowd was leaving the room and the guards were making preparations to transfer the prisoners. "Aequitas didn't know about it either since the investigator was sent out by my temple and not hers. It's not often that my people get involved in justice.

"Our point is that you shouldn't place blame on yourselves. Learn from these mistakes, take what you've learned and build on it. Eri is correct that the ones who committed the crimes are the ones who should shoulder the guilt." She touched Crue on the cheek gently and brought her forehead to his.

They stayed like that for a while. She must have been speaking with him in his mind because part way through he began to shed silent tears. She gently wiped them away and held him close to her while he cried.

The other priests chose to politely ignore the exchange and proceeded with the conversation as though the two weren't even present. In normal circumstances ignoring a goddess and someone who was in emotional distress would probably have been rude. However, Edomael was ignoring them and everyone followed his example.

Murray started asking Edomael ecumenical questions. The other priests stood in rapt attention at his answers. I wasn't a very religious person and I was new to this world, so a lot of the content went over my head. Not that I was paying much attention. Long difficult conversations that I didn't understand quickly lost my interest.

I wandered over to the corner where there was a small offering table and began stacking boxes of chocolate on it. I was keeping an eye on the gods and the priests waiting for their various conversations to be over. I figured while I was waiting, I might as well leave the temple a gift. It had been a difficult day and chocolate always cheered me up.

One of the lower ranking priests saw what I was doing and came over to help.

"We will take these to the back room immediately, Sir," he started picking up boxes.

"These are for you," I waved my hand at the priests and the temple at large. "I mean, I would like for you to share it among the priests of the temple."

"Very well, Sir, I will have these taken to the kitchens," the man bowed and issued instructions to some other close by lower ranked people.

After a bit, I guessed the conversation with Edomael was winding down. I approached the group again and handed each person, including the god, a bar of milk chocolate.

"What is this?" Conner asked as I passed them to everyone, except Amoris and Crue. They were still having their mind talk.

"It's chocolate," explained Darcy. She unfolded the paper around the bar and took a bite to show him. "Lady Amoris has recently become a patron of chocolate."

Murray, watching Edomael unwrap and bite into his bar, did the same. He nibbled gingerly at the corner, then realizing the taste took a big bite.

"This is amazing!" He exclaimed while still chewing.

"It really is," Edomael smiled. "Eri keeps coming up with so many ideas for us. I'm waiting for him to think of something new for me as well," he chuckled and patted my back.

"After all just moments ago he solved a problem that many of my minor peers have run into. How to prove the divinity of a god without a holy vessel."

"Really, what is the solution?" Murray asked curiously.

"While the plans haven't been finalized, Eri thought of children's dolls. If we can make toys for children of our likeness and make it a collecting game then no matter where we gods roam there will always be at least one child with a god doll in the area."

"Dolls and holy statues are different," Conner frowned, "It takes a lot of effort to sanctify a holy vessel," He paused, "well, it takes us mortals a lot of effort."

"The logistics still haven't been worked out as of yet," Edomael shrugged, "but it's too good an idea to just let go. I'm sure we will be able to work something out."

"My Lord, My Lady," a scrawny town guard bowed in the doorway, "the prisoners are at the town square everyone is ready."

"Thank you, inform the commander that we are waiting for Aequitas and Sir Marl, then we will begin. They shouldn't be too much longer."

The guard nodded and retreated.

"Should we wait here for her or head to the square?' I asked, I silently handed Darcy another bar. She had finished hers rather quickly and was looking at Conner as if she was going to take his bar and run for it.

"By the time we arrive she should be finished with her business and will be able to meet us there," Edomael confirmed.

He turned and led the group out of the temple and into the street. Amoris had linked arms with Crue, so I was saved escort duty. I really had been beginning to feel like they had very little faith that I wouldn't bolt. If I was going to make a run for it, now would be the time. I really didn't want to witness an execution.