After the incident with the hag, it took a few days for them to fall into a comfortable routine. Those first nights were sleepless, as nightmares of tentacled hags merged with the Whispers of Yar-Khennor to haunt his dreams. But as the days passed by with no further trouble, their fear slowly faded away.

The trip was surprisingly pleasant. Jasper had grown up in the north, and while the jungles surrounding Hargish had been lush and verdant, they were also far too hot and muggy for his tastes. But, although the road to Gis̆-Izum marched inexorably southward, the temperatures steadily decreased from day to day. Despite being further south, Gis̆-Izum stood on a large plateau nestled high in the mountains. The jungle slowly fell behind them, fading into an alpine forest that Jasper could have easily mistaken for one back home. Stately pines, mixed with birch and poplar, towered up into the sky, and at night, as they sat around a campfire, his breath billowed up in the cool nighttime air. It was a welcome change, and he found himself half glad that they had been chased out of Hargish.

The road was largely empty, and the few travelers that they encountered moved with the steady clip of those on a mission. Once or twice, they ran into fellow adventurers, marked by their distinctive blue and gold uniforms, and on a handful of occasions, they were even fortunate enough to spend the night with merchant caravans. Those nights were a rare treat, as the caravans offered a far better meal and more restful sleep than nights on their own provided.

By far the most common travelers on the road, however, were squads of Corsythian troops. They always marched in the same direction, headed southeast towards the front with the Zalancthians. Jasper dreaded running into them, as their encounters with the army were always tense. While the empire recognized the importance of both the barracks and the guild, many of the soldiers marching to the front lines resented the guilders, and their hostility was often thinly veiled at best.

Jasper was struck by the vast stretches of empty land, bereft of even small hamlets. They passed one abandoned village after another, the ruins slowly crumbling into the sea of pine needles. It wasn't until they neared Gis̆-Izum that the signs of civilization finally renewed. Small farms and hamlets appeared out of the woods, merged almost seamlessly into the surrounding environment. Unlike the farms at Hargish, with their wide fields of corn and wheat, Jasper was surprised to see that the farmers here had only small vegetable plots engulfed by the surrounding forest. Ihra explained that the farmers of the highlands were famed for their woodland truffles and foraged goods, only growing enough crops to feed their family in the frigid mountain winters.

After nearly three weeks of travel, the pair finally spied, far off in the distance, the rising walls of Gis̆-Izum. As dusk fell, they arrived in a small village offering a roadside inn. The place was booming with business. The villagers, deep in their cups, danced across the wooden planks as a fiddler spun a merry song. With two steaming cups of wassail, Jasper and Ihra chased away the cold of the night. Lost in the merriment, Jasper jumped when someone clapped him on the shoulder.

He turned to see the pub owner, an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry to trouble you, lad. You and the miss are adventurers, right?

“That’s right.”

“Well, you see the village has been having some trouble with bandits as of late. Thought some adventurers like you might be able to sort the situation out. We’ve pooled some money together, and could give you fifty silvers for your troubles.”

Jasper frowned slightly as he pondered the deal. Truthfully, the payment offered was pretty low; they weren't hurting enough for money for the contract to be really worth it. However, because the payment was so low, he suspected that the guild may have turned down the villagers’ request. He felt a little bad for them. For the average villager, a silver was a good day’s wage, and the payment was probably all they could afford. He sighed, considering taking the job. “How many bandits are we talking about?”

The barkeep scratched. “Not real sure. Maybe ten or so?”

Ihra chimed in. “Or so? That’s a rather vague estimate.”

The barkeep flushed, his face cast down in apparent shame. “There’s at least twenty of them,” he begrudgingly admitted. “Figured you wouldn’t accept the job if you knew how many of them there were.” He looked up. “I know it’s not a lot of money for the job, but you can also keep whatever money you find on them. They should have some papers, some, uh, deeds they stole from the village, but anything else they’ve got, you can keep.”

“70 silver and the loot,” Ihra countered.

Jasper sat quietly as they haggled. A mixture of guilt and obligation warred within him. Thus far, he hadn’t had to kill a human. Humanoids, yes. But somehow killing trolls and night hags and evil crocodile creatures - even if they were cute evil crocodile creatures - hadn’t really bothered him. Killing humans did.

But he knew bandits weren’t just thieves. They raped, murdered, and stole from the outlying villages that were too far from the city for any real protection from the guard. If the villagers could afford the price of a contract, the guild would handle them, or if a bandit force got too large, the army might step in. But all too often, these sorts of minor disturbances would slip through the cracks. The threat was simply too small to worry about for an empire that was struggling to survive against an invasion, but that didn't mean that the bandits weren't still a very real scourge on the villagers.

Ihra and the barkeep finally settled on a number: 62 silver. 62 silver to kill twenty humans. Is that all their lives are worth? He shook his head, trying to push the doubts away. Helping out the village is the right thing to do, isn't it?

The next morning, instead of continuing south down the road toward Gis̆-Izum, they headed east into the woods. According to the pub owner, the bandits had set up camp in a small abandoned shrine deep in the forest. The terrain was rough and rocky, and they were forced to move slowly through thick underbrush and across narrow chasms. As the hours flew by, a sense of unease slowly grew in his mind that he just couldn't shake. At last, he could hold it in no longer.

“Ihra, don’t you think it’s rather odd how far we are from the road? This terrain is rough as hell, and we’ve already been traveling for at least six hours, with no sign of the shrine. What sort of bandits set up camp that far away from the road?”

Ihra shrugged, a tentative note in her voice. “They probably just don’t want to be caught. It’s safer deep in the woods. Maybe they have an easier trail somewhere.”

“But isn’t the whole reason that the village hired us is that the authorities couldn’t be bothered to do anything about the bandits? If the authorities aren't hunting them, they don’t need to hide deep in the wilderness. And what about the deeds that the innkeeper mentioned? What earthly use would bandits have for some stolen deeds from the village?”

“I did find that odd,” Ihra conceded.

“Before we go in guns blazing, let’s scout them out first. Maybe we can find one alone to interrogate. I’d just feel better if we make certain that they are worthy of death.”

“Guns blazing?”

“Uh, just a saying from where I’m from.”

Ihra raised a brow. Time and again, Jasper had said things that made her convinced that he was hiding something about his origins. Scuttlebutt at the guild had speculated that he was from the Harei Miqlat, but he made many references that seemed entirely foreign to her. Maybe he’s from outside of Corsythia? She let it pass though, and agreed to his plan. “Fine. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a straggler if we keep watch.”

The sun was high above them by the time they finally found the shrine the innkeeper had described. Hiding in the shrubs he counted the bandits in the camp. “Twenty-one. At least the barkeep didn’t lie the second time.”

“A point in his favor,” Ihra countered.

They kept watch for some time, surveying the movements in the camp. As they did, Jasper became more and more convinced that something was wrong.“Where are all the weapons? There’s what, a few bows and two or three hand-axes? They don’t even appear to have set up guards.”

As night fell, their opportunity finally arrived. One of the bandits, feeling the call of nature, ventured into the woods close to them. Jasper crept through the brush towards the bandit, while Ihra circled around behind him. Once she was positioned, he cast eternal night. Cloaked in the silent darkness of the spell, Ihra knocked the bandit unconscious. They carried him through the woods, away from the abandoned shrine. Once they felt certain that they were finally far enough away that no screams could be heard, they tied him to a tree and waited for the bandit to wake up.

Their prisoner was little more than a boy - perhaps fourteen or fifteen, Jasper reckoned. He was a scrawny lad, with a mop of black hair spilling out across the bony shoulders of his clearly malnourished body.

When the boy awoke, panic spread across his face. Struggling against bonds, he begged. “Please don’t kill me.”

Jasper gently pushed the boy against the tree. “Don’t fight the ropes; you’ll only hurt yourself. We just want some answers.”

The boy shook his head, struggling furiously against his bonds. “No, you’re from the village aren’t you? You’re just going to sacrifice me.”

Ihra gasped. “Sacrifice you?”

The boy sagged in defeat, as he realized his strength was no match for the ropes. “You’re with the cultists, aren’t you?”

Jasper shot a triumphant glance at Ihra, who studiously ignored him. “No, we’re here to kill a group of bandits living in the shrine.”

He shook his head vigorously, as the words tumbled out of his mouth. “We’re not bandits, I swear. We are villagers, or at least we were, up until a few months ago. Then old man Yarrow’s son came home from the army to set up the farm he got from his pension. He’s not really the farming type so he joined the guild, and started clearing out unmarked ruins in the woods. Found something in one of them, some kind of key to power, he said. Started claiming that he could give magic to all of us, make us proper adventurers."

"The whole village was excited at first. He had us training, getting stronger; said it would give us better skills when we got a combat class. Until he revealed the truth. In order to get your class, you had to sacrifice someone, and consume their flesh. He said we could just kill travelers who stayed at the inn, and no one would ever know.”

“Gemlir’s cult,” Ihra hissed.

“A lot of the villagers went along with it but, after a few too many travelers went missing, the guild came looking. With the guild snooping around, they couldn’t really go after the travelers, at least till the heat died down. Some of the other villagers got impatient, said they didn’t have time to wait around with one foot in the grave. The tension in the village got real bad, but we never thought anything was actually going to happen until a bunch of them attacked us in the middle of the night. Guess they figured that they if they’d sacrifice us, they not only get our power but take our lands. Some of us escaped into the woods, and set up camp in the old shrine.”

Jasper sighed with relief. We won't have to kill them after all. He walked over to the boy, and start to untie his bonds, but Ihra grabbed his arm. “Hold on a second, Jasper." She turned to the boy. "My partner and I just have a few things we need to discuss,” and dragged him off into the woods.

Once they were out of earshot, Jasper turned on her. “What the hell was that? The boy was clearly an innocent.” A surge of irritation ran through him. I was right about the bandits, and now Ihra is just being unreasonable.

She crossed her arms and scowled. “Is he really? Think about it. If this group is so innocent, why didn’t they go to the guild after escaping the villagers’ attack? The same guild that was already suspicious about cultist activity. Why are they hanging out in the woods by an abandoned shrine? Who’s the shrine dedicated to, I wonder? Maybe one of the dark gods?”

“But-” Jasper trailed off as the realization hit him. Ihra had a point. If the escaped villagers had gone to the guild, the guild would have responded immediately. There was no contract needed for cultists - the empire paid for all cultists to be exterminated. So why were the villagers camping out in the middle of the woods?

“Maybe the boy is telling the truth, maybe it’s a pack of lies, I don’t know, but did you notice that he never actually condemned sacrificing the travelers? They knew about the cultic activity, but didn't flee until they were attacked.” She paused, hesitating before continuing. “I know you want to believe the best of people, but we can’t just assume the kid is innocent. The best case scenario is that they simply looked the other way while people were being murdered.”

“Damn.” Jasper sighed, running his fingers over the thick layer of stubble on his chin. “If you’re right, then that means we might have two groups of cultists on our hands. These guys didn't go to the guild because they couldn't; they're as guilty as the others.”

Ihra nodded. “That’s my best guess as to what’s really happening here.”

“How can we be sure? I’d hate to kill a bunch of innocent villagers on the hunch that they're cultists, but we also can’t just believe anything they say.”

She grimaced. “You’re not going to like my suggestion, but there is one way we could test his guilt. Your inquisitor skills.”

He recoiled in disgust. “What? No. What if he’s just a normal kid who’s done something bad, not a cultist, and I burn him alive?”

“That’s not how it works, Jasper. Normal everyday life doesn’t really move the scales for those kinds of spells. In order for the spell to work, the target has to have done something really bad - murder, rape, cannibalism. The spells won’t burn some kid up because they teased someone, or stole a sweet roll. If an inquisitor spell activates on the kid, then he’s doing something serious, like sacrificing someone. We have to try though. If the spell does nothing, then great. The boy is innocent, and that means the rest of those folk might be, as well. But if it activates, you know what we have to do.”

Jasper finally relented. “Fine, I won’t use Purge though. I’ll use the other one, Sin Eater.”

She sighed, raising her hands in defeat. “Fine, do what you want. But you know you have to actually be injured to use that spell, right?”

He nodded reluctantly, holding up a knife. “I know.”