“You want me to do what, now?” Abby asked, leaning back in her uncomfortable seat among the sharp branches of the metallic nest.

“Is there a problem? Perhaps you do not wish to give up your weapon?” asked Mrwyska. “I assure you, the Framework rewards sacrifice, whether it is putting yourself in danger or something more material in nature.”

Abby wiped the perspiration from her forehead; even atop a mountain, where the air was almost frigid, she was dripping with sweat. Probably because she was within striking distance of a pair of monsters that could end her without straining themselves. Her death would barely be a blip in their existence, much less the cause of grief. And while she didn’t think the thunderbirds would kill her without reason, she wasn’t so naïve as to trust such creatures implicitly. Even if they weren’t monsters, she had enough experience with powerful human beings to know that power had a tendency to change people, right down to their core. One wrong move, one bad answer, and she would be gone. It wasn’t an outright battle, but the consequences of a single misstep would be the same, nonetheless.

“It’s not that,” she said, looking down at the hatchet in her hands. Mostly, it looked like a fairly mundane weapon, save for the green tinge along the edge of the blade. However, it was anything but normal, and what’s more, it was the first item she’d gained after partnering up with Zeke. It meant more to her than any weapon should. “It’s just that I don’t know how to make it work. Usually, it doesn’t activate unless I cut something with it.”

“Ah, so it is not an issue of willingness,” Mrwyska said, bobbing her head like a grossly overgrown chicken. “That is good.”

Over the course of her conversation with the thunderbirds, Abby had begun to foster some level of understanding regarding the creatures. Mrwyska, the female, was far more powerful than Duragos, but she was also more the more reasonable of the pair. Or perhaps Abby just felt that way because of her preconceived notions that females of any species would be easier to deal with. Either way, she felt secure in her judgment that Mrwyska’s mate, Duragos, was grumpy, vindictive, and vicious, as evidenced by his plan to deal with the gnolls and destabilize the temple’s runic cage that had imprisoned the thunderbirds.

If Abby was honest with herself, she didn’t really understand how it all worked. Sure, the thunderbirds had explained it, and she got the basics – the gnolls made sacrifices, and that was somehow converted by the temple into the energy necessary to imprison the thunderbirds – but beyond that, she was a bit lost. Zeke probably would’ve been perfectly happy to study the underlying runes for weeks, but she didn’t have the patience or the ability to do the same. In any case, Abby didn’t need to really understand something in order to break it.

The plan, such as it was, was simple. First, she had to deal with the gnolls, and then, once they were gone, she would undermine the temple’s underlying, runic structure. She had instructions for both, and even if she wasn’t entirely certain that it would work out as well as the thunderbirds seemed to think it would, she wasn’t in any position to argue or refuse. Ignoring the fact that she didn’t want to get on such creatures’ bad sides, she needed to complete the quest. Otherwise, the entire trip would’ve been for nothing.

“How do I do it, then?” she asked.

Mrwyska cocked her head to the side, and for a moment, Abby wondered what the creature was thinking. Then, the thunderbird reached out with one of her talons and, with a screech of claw on metal, drew a fairly simple rune on one of the nest’s rare flat surfaces. Then, the thunderbird said, “This rune will unlock the item. Be wary, though, because you are not immune to poison.”

Abby studied the rune; it was a simple glyph – far simpler than anything Abby had seen in Zeke’s book – and she said, “I have a friend who’d love to talk to you about runes. He –”

Abby never finished her statement, interrupted as she was by a sharp, stabbing pain behind her eyes. She let out a wordless scream before, after only an instant, it faded, and she collapsed, panting with remembered agony. “W-what…what was that for?” she managed to demand.

“Apologies,” Mrwyska said. “But if we ever see your ‘friend,’ we will be forced into action. He will not survive the encounter.”

“What? Why?” Abby asked.

“He has a habit of genocide,” Mrwyska stated. “Not a problem, in and of itself, but he is also chosen by the gods. That combination makes him dangerous for beings such as us. Your thoughts say that he is not the man his actions paint him as, but that is not a risk we are willing to take. As I said, if we ever see this Zeke, he will face our full might. However, we will not seek him out. That is our bargain.”

Abby hesitated. Was that really how monsters saw Zeke? As some sort of genocidal maniac? She wanted to argue that Zeke had always had his reasons, that he’d felt justified, but wasn’t that the case with anyone who took such actions? No one ever considered themselves the bad guy, did they?

“Fine,” she said, glancing back down at her hatchet. “So, what do I do? Carve that symbol into the axe, then drop it in the well?”

“Yes,” said Mrwyska. “It is simple.”

Simple. Right, she thought. All she had to do was sneak back out of the temple, poison a well, and then come back inside to break the enchantment that had imprisoned the thunderbirds. And it had to be done in that order, too; otherwise, the connection between the gnolls who’d sacrificed via self-mutilation would make the enchantment too strong to sever. She had to cut it off at the source, then destroy the altar.

With a sigh, Abby rose, then said, “Guess I just have to do it, then. No more hesitation.”

“Indeed,” said Duragos, his massive beak hovering over her.

Abby ignored him. Instead, she took a few minutes to memorize the rune. Then, once she was satisfied that she could replicate it with relative ease, she climbed out of the nest. As she descended the spiraling staircase, Abby thought of all the ways her plan could go wrong. What if the blind gnolls somehow detected her? Or worse yet, what if some of the gnolls from the village below ascended the steps and found the evidence of the previous night’s murder? Surely, they would come to investigate.

But as much as she dwelled on how things could go sideways, none of that changed the fact that she didn’t have much choice in the matter. She was committed, and in more ways than one. From a personal perspective, she couldn’t afford to turn away from such an opportunity. Certainly, it didn’t seem likely that she would ever find another way to gain a powerful skill – not that she could accomplish, at least. And then there were the thunderbirds to consider. Sure – they were amiable enough for now, but they were still monsters. And if she refused to help, Abby considered it a fool’s hope that they’d let that betrayal slide. At best, they’d go on a rampage, killing indiscriminately the moment they managed to escape. At worst, they’d hunt her down. She didn’t want either of those possibilities to come to pass, so she was hemmed in by circumstances.

The descent back into the temple went off without a hitch, but when she reached the main amphitheater, she was horrified to see that it was almost entirely full of blinded gnolls. One and all, they circled the altar, their heads tilted toward the sky as they let out low whines. In the center of the huge auditorium, atop the oversized altar, was a naked gnoll. Abby wasn’t an expert on gnollish expressions, but she couldn’t interpret the look on the monster’s face as anything less than ecstasy. And it didn’t fade even as it poured some sort of steaming, boiling substance out of a crude amphora and directly into its eyes.

The moment the tar-like liquid made contact, the gnoll screamed in mingled agony and ecstasy, accompanied by a rhythmic chanting that emanated from its brethren’s throats. Then, without warning, a surge of power lit up the red, ruby rivers through the stone, announcing that the sacrifice had been accepted. However, the sacrificial gnoll didn’t stop screaming. Nor did it cease its sacrifice, because a moment later, it was slicing into its own hide with a flint bladed dagger.

Abby looked away, feeling nauseous. That the gnolls would go so far was abhorrent, but at the same time, it wasn’t as bad as some human practices back on earth had been. At least the gnolls were only hurting themselves, rather than sacrificing innocent victims. That didn’t make it any less grotesque, though.

With the gnolls both distracted and blind, Abby had no difficulty remaining undetected as she circled around to the temple’s entrance and out into the courtyard. A hundred yards distant, she saw the steps that descended down the mountain, and she wondered how long it would be before the centurions and their like followed her trail. A day? Maybe two? It wasn’t worth considering, because it didn’t change what she had to do.

The well that was her first destination was positioned almost halfway between the temple and the steps, and she didn’t waste any more time before jogging into position. When she reached it, Abby looked over the edge, but she couldn’t see the bottom – not that it mattered. Its depth wouldn’t change what she had to do.

After looking around to make sure that the blind gnolls were still occupied in the temple, she pulled her familiar hatchet from the loop at her belt. Then, with a sharp-bladed dagger, she carved the necessary glyph into the haft. As soon as it was done, she felt a pulse of venom so strong that she very nearly dropped the weapon. However, she withstood it just long enough to send it over the edge of the well, where a couple of seconds later, it landed with a distinct splash.

It was silly, but Abby sort of expected something to happen, then. That it didn’t was kind of the point; poisoning the gnolls’ water supply probably wouldn’t be terribly effective if it was announced by a rolling wave of magic or blaring horns, would it? Still, it seemed a bit anticlimactic as she crept away from the well and back into the temple, where she quickly found her way back up the spiraling stairs to the thunderbirds.

“It is done,” said Mrwyska.

“It is,” Abby agreed, climbing back into the nest.

“I sense that you are conflicted,” the thunderbird stated.

“She is weak,” interjected Duragos. “All humans are. They do not understand that it is a cruel world where only survival matters.”

“Do you really believe that?” Abby asked. “Is that why you agreed to help the gnolls in the first place?”

“Fertility,” Duragos harumphed. “We wish to propagate our species, ensuring our survival.”

“It is moot,” Mrwyska stated. “The gnolls betrayed us, as is their nature. Now, we will exact our revenge. That is the way of our world. An offense must be answered. A wrong must be righted. Otherwise, we are no more than animals.”

Abby didn’t really follow that logic; in fact, she thought it was the other way around. Animals mindlessly retaliated without considering what had driven their attackers to act in the first place. But she didn’t say as much. She was already on thin enough ice as it was, and she didn’t want to offend her hosts, not when she was so close to reaching her goal.

For the next few hours, Abby was summarily ignored while the pair of thunderbirds cooed over their returned egg. It wasn’t until she felt an influx of experience that announced that she’d killed something that she knew the plan had begun to work. Then, an hour after that, a veritable deluge of energy flooded into her as, one after another, gnolls began to succumb to the poison.

“It’s too many,” she muttered. “There were only a couple of hundred gnolls up here…”

Duragos looked up from where he’d been nuzzling the gem-like egg, saying, “That well fed the entire village below, too. You aren’t just killing the sacrifices. You are killing their village as well, right down to the last pup.”

It took Abby a couple of minutes to wrap her mind around that statement, but when she finally did, she couldn’t stop herself from vomiting. “Oh, God…”

“Is this not what you wanted?” Mrwyska asked. “You will accomplish your quest and grow more powerful, in more ways than one. And the gnolls will be punished for their betrayal.”

“I…I don’t…it’s just that…”

“Weak,” Duragos spat.

“Why did they want the egg?” Abby suddenly asked, realizing that she’d missed something in their previous explanation. It just didn’t make much sense for the gnolls to imprison their protectors, not when they were getting precisely what they wanted out of the previous bargain. The only explanation was the egg, a supposition supported by the fact that the gnolls were carrying it down to the village.

“They eat them,” Mrwyska answered. “When they do, their warriors become stronger than they otherwise would be.”

“But why?” Abby persisted. “They were safe.”

“As were you when you chose to leave the human city to the south,” the thunderbird reminded her. “And yet, you came here. You threw yourself into one danger after another, all in the hope that you could grow stronger. The gnolls aren’t so different, though their actions are born of pure instinct that we should have anticipated. That we did not is a source of great regret.”

“It cost us more than you could know,” Duragos rumbled.

That’s when Abby began to wonder just how many eggs they’d already lost. Dozens? Hundreds?

“Thousands,” Mrwyska stated. “We have been imprisoned here for more than a century.”

Abby’s jaw dropped. While she knew they were just eggs, each one represented a potential child, and one that had been snatched away before it even had the chance to develop. Suddenly, Abby understood the thunderbirds’ thirst for vengeance in a way she never expected to.

Once, after she’d been married for a few years, she’d gotten pregnant. The news had been met with absolute joy, both on her part as well as her husband’s. Back then, he hadn’t yet shown his true colors, so Abby had been ecstatic to have the prospect of starting a family on the horizon. However, that ecstasy soon turned to horror when, after a couple of months, her doctor informed her that she’d miscarried. After that, nothing had been the same for either her or her husband; and while it wasn’t an excuse for his alcoholism and abuse, she wasn’t so deluded as to think that it didn’t contribute to his descent.

Now, even though it had happened almost twenty years ago, Abby still felt the pain of having lost a potential child. And the thunderbirds had experienced that thousands of times over the past hundred years. It was no wonder that they sought the gnolls’ extinction.

“You understand,” said Mrwyska. “That is good, because nothing can change your course, now. The damage is done. The gnolls will die. The only question is whether or not you can cope with the act.”

Abby took a deep breath, steeling herself against the flood of experience. Even as she crossed into the next level, she remained stoic in the face of her actions. Zeke had often talked about killing an entire population of trolls, and Abby had silently judged him for it. She knew he’d had his reasons, but even then, there was an itch at the back of her mind that told her she was sleeping with a genocidal maniac. Now, though, she understood his actions in a way she’d never anticipated. She didn’t like that her actions had resulted in so many deaths, some of which were innocent, but the gnolls were monsters. Objectively, they’d acted evilly. And as such, they deserved extermination. Just like the trolls Zeke had encountered so long ago.

A few hours later, Abby finally fell asleep, and when she awoke the next morning, the tide of experience had ceased. Now, it was time to finish what she’d started, complete her quest, and then go back to Zeke and her friends. She’d had enough of gnolls and thunderbirds.

So, after confirming her plan with the thunderbirds, she descended the steps for the last time. The moment she stepped into the amphitheater, Abby lost control of her stomach once again and vomited all over the steps. Laid out before her were the sprawled corpses of a hundred or more robed gnolls. They hadn’t died easily, and most lay in puddles of their own fluids. The bodies had grown bloated and misshapen, and they were, one and all, twisted in agony. As steely as Abby’s resolve had become, the scene nearly saw it slip away. But she grasped it as hard as she could, determined to finish her task.

Ignoring the bloated corpses all around her, Abby descended the amphitheater’s steps and approached the altar. Three corpses were draped upon it, and by necessity, she dragged them away, gagging at the smell as well as the detestable task. Once the altar was clear, Abby knelt beside it and began to draw glyphs. She had no idea what they would do; she didn’t have that talent. But the thunderbirds had drilled them into her mind, so she made no mistakes. After about an hour, she finished the task, and a wave of power surged through the temple, shaking it like an earthquake.

Having no desire to be buried alive, Abby fled the temple, and when she looked back, she saw a pair of lightning-winged thunderbirds fly into the sky. Free at last, the giant birds twirled and twisted in the air, their joy evident. Then, without warning, the temple gave a shudder and collapsed in on itself.

That’s when Abby got the expected notification:

Congratulations! You have completed the quest [Thunder, Thunder, Thunder!]. Your reward is the skill [Thunder Strike] (F).

Abby took a deep breath, then inspected the skill:

[Thunder Strike] (F) – A majestic thunderbird has bestowed upon you an inkling of its power. Using an attack to mark them, you may bring down the fury of a thunderbird upon an enemy.

An F-Ranked skill was, by its very nature, incredibly powerful, and given what she’d seen from the thunderbirds, Abby knew that she’d gotten precisely what she’d hoped to get. However, it only took the fresh memory of hundreds of bloated corpses to remind her what it had cost. As she began to descend the steps, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it.