Runelords 09.3 - Who You Want To Be

"I'm sorry to barge in again, Mr. Quint..."
"Oh nonsense," he cut her off, "It's nice to talk to someone who's academically inclined."
Luna smiled slightly, and pulled out the amulet she had received earlier, when they had stripped Nualia's body of useful belongings like vultures picking a corpse. It was somewhere between innocuous and portentous, like a cleric's holy symbol: a golden circle surrounding a seven-pointed star, holding some sort of meaning that wasn't fully understood. "We found this, but...I couldn't quite figure out what it does..." she said as she passed it over to the man. 
He took it and held it up to the light, squinting at the tiny runes etched into its surface that gave it its enchantments. He himmed and hawed, muttering comments to himself as he explained circuitously what the spells did for the wearer. A minor protective spell to ward against accidents and spells, like those often put on cloaks or pauldrons; a more powerful ability that should allow the wearer to cast the spell False Life once a daily cycle. Luna nodded, having been able to identify those herself. The third spell was a bit trickier, he mused, and explained that it was a constant Gentle Repose effect, but it had been modified slightly: to what end, he couldn't tell. Luna frowned, "Why? What would you put Gentle Repose on a necklace for?"
"Oh, well, it's a spell to banish the effects of rot and decay," Quint explained. She nodded politely, not mentioning that she was already fully aware of the spell and its effects. "Rich people who don't have anything better to spend their money on like to put it on jewellery, to keep their bodies from rotting after death. A stupid past-time, keeping corpses around forever to gawk at. But it has lead to some interesting archaeological discoveries. Have you read about the tomb of Mirvek'dhal? Fascinating bit of history there," he went on to describe the various advancements in knowledge that had been learned from the excavation of this particular tomb, which apparently had made great use of the Gentle Repose spell to preserve the bodies within.
Luna nodded politely, only half listening. Why was the spell on this necklace, had been her question. Gentle Repose had no use for the living, and the other two spells had no use for the dead: it was a curious combination. She considered what possible reason the enchanter had had to create such a contradictory item: perhaps an adventurer who didn't want to burden his comrades with carrying his decomposing corpse back to a town for interment? An expensive bauble for something like that. 
Eventually, Quint rambled back towards the topic at hand, "...but that's why the spell is always put on metal and not cloth. Strange though, I can't discern what those modifications are for. They don't seem to impact the spells' effects, at any rate, and it isn't a fourth spell. Perhaps it's just a peculiarity of the enchanter; I've seen my share of enchanters who went out of their way to blend in their signature into the spell itself. I suppose it's important, signing your work, and if it's in the spell itself, well, good luck stealing the credit for it! It was a favoured habit of the famous enchanter Travin Yirhalsk; you've heard of him? I'm sure you have. He's best known for the Ruby Convergence, but he's also credited with no less than eight other sets of unified equipment," Quint said, setting off on a ramble once again.
When he had finished, he handed the relic back to Luna, adding, "It's a lovely specimen, and it would make a wonderful addition to my collection, but considering its enchantments, I assume it is better in the hands of one who is actively exploring, and can use its protection."
"Oh," Luna was taken off-guard by the sudden switch in topics and took the necklace, "Yes, thank you."
"Don't thank me; it's your artefact," he said good-naturedly. "All I ask is that you don't lose it. Or break it. And consider me if you find you don't need it in the future."
She smiled, "I will. Thank you again."
With an exchange of pleasantries that took longer than it needed to, Luna stepped out. It was late afternoon now; Quint could certainly talk at length when the subject interested him. She considered the strange amulet once more, confused as to its intended purpose. Sighing, she slid off the jade necklace the others had urged her to wear earlier, in order to replace it with the golden star. Unlike the other necklace, the jade was no mystery: a simple spell to increase natural defenses. It was really better off in the hands of one of the men who appeared to make a living of getting hit in the face. Once again, as she dawned the gold amulet, she felt a curious spell effect take hold of her. It wasn't the protective spell, she knew, and the False Life would need to be activated. Was it the Gentle Repose? She dared not put her hopes into it. The knowledge of her inevitable decay into a monstrous skeleton haunted her continuously, as it had for decades now, and she had spent many sleepless days and nights researching ways that might prolong her human appearance. Gentle Repose was one of the first things she had found, but it was well established that this spell had no effect on the living dead. Perhaps...that's what the modification was for. Perhaps that was the missing piece in the mystery of this item's creation. Spells with no use for the living, and no use for the dead...but all of which would be enjoyed by something that was neither, if they could be made to work. A protective amulet made for a vain undead who, like her, loathed the loss of its human beauty. Was this what she had been looking for: the answer to her problem? But...if it was, how had something so valuable to an undead come into Nualia's possession? Was it abandoned in one of the Magelords' sunken dungeons for an enterprising cultist to find, and if so, why? What if it came from somewhere else entirely? There were so many questions still floating around this curious piece of metal. She tucked it inside her shirt and tried to put it out of her mind for the moment; she didn't even know if what she hoped was true, and she didn't want to get her hopes up prematurely. First, she would have to see if it truly was working, and that would take time; she wouldn't dwell on it now. 
She decided to walk up to the coast; the last twenty-four hours had been tiring, and perhaps the waves would be soothing after the life-and-death scramble that had taken place at Thistletop Shrine. Luna's thoughts became morbid as she considered that she had helped kill a woman. It was a strange thing, that she didn't feel as bad about it as she thought she should. As much as she thought she should be regretful, she could really only conclude that killing a person was only a small step away from killing a goblin, which she had done without thought or remorse over the last few weeks, and which in and of itself was only a small step away from killing an animal, which she did every day with her hands and teeth. She supposed that it helped that Nualia was no one to mourn. She had threatened the city with fire and death, her mercenaries had killed over a dozen people and destroyed families and livelihoods in the process, and she would have gone on to kill hundreds more. She really deserved no mercy in turn, no matter what slights she felt she had suffered under. Luna wondered if she was always this pragmatic about murder, or if it was because she had spent so long killing animals that she had started to lose her sensitivity to life. If she didn't care about killing chickens and rabbits, or goblins, and now murderers, how much farther did she really have to go until she realized she didn't care about petty criminals? Or anyone at all? She sighed heavily. This is why people didn't trust undead: a lack of concern for the living combined with a taste for flesh is hardly a trustworthy combination. As she harshly scrutinized her own morality, she noticed Virgil sitting on a rock some distance away. She paused for a moment, and deeply weighed the relative merits of talking to him. Nearly a minute passed before she sighed slightly and made her way over: in the worst case, his awful manner would at least reassure her that she wasn't the most morally lacking person around. 
As she drew nearer, she could hear him whistling some sort of melancholic tune that was mostly washed out by the sound of the water. If he had noticed her approaching, he made no sign of it, and it was Luna who spoke first. "Shouldn't you be out celebrating?" He stopped whistling and turned to her as she added, "I mean, you stopped the villain; isn't telling people about it the part you like?" Virgil winced noticeably and turned back to the water, his expression hinting at a barely restrained anger. She frowned, taken aback, "...What? What is it?" 
She had to prompt him a few more times until he replied, voice tight, "...It was, yes. But right now, I'm in a terrible mood, and I don't want to snap at people. I'm trying very hard not to snap at people." 
Luna made a dry expression, "Like you tried not to snap at Mr. Quint earlier?" 
Virgil growled slightly, "Yes. No. Rgh, I didn't mean to snap at him like that; I didn't realize my temper was that short. It was a ridiculous thing to get that upset over, especially that quickly, and...augh." He threw up his hands, "I don't know. I don't know what's me and what's wrath and I can't stand it and I have to get this fixed somehow." 
Looking at him with curiosity, Luna folded her arms, "Is that what you were mentioning earlier? You didn't explain yourself very well. What's going on?" 
He huffed, sick of explaining, "I fell in the wrath runewell. It changed my affinity. My source of power and sustenance is wrath, and I hate it. My temper is short, shorter than normal, and I enjoy getting people upset. I can't tell if I'm so angry because it's me, because I am legitimately angry, or if it's because I've been manipulated by the runewell into something different. I need another runewell, any other runewell, because I can't spend eternity like this." 
"...Any other runewell?" she asked after a considering pause. "Don't you need a pride well to...well, go back to normal?" 
"Anything is better than wrath," he replied bluntly. 
This seemed to confuse her. "...Why?" He looked over his shoulder at her as she elucidated, "What makes wrath so much worse? They're all sins, they're all bad. It's why they're sins." 
Glaring pointedly at the water, he considered her question before eventually replying, "It's the worst sin. It's the least civilized, and the least likely to be a benefit to anyone. It's violent, and short-sighted, and makes everything worse. I...I like helping people! And fine, yes, maybe some of that is because when you help people, you're liked. I like being liked, I like being thanked, I like being appreciated. That's my pride; that's me feeding on pride. But, wrath...I don't want to make people angry. That's the opposite of what I want to be. Making people angry, and afraid...that's what monsters do. Violent, angry creatures that hurt people, and wrathful people who want to start trouble and cause panic.That's the sort of thing I protect people from. I don't want to be that! I...I can't be that..." he trailed off, and his voice dropped as he continued, "But...I need to have anger, or I'll go insane. I have to be around angry people, or make them upset myself. And it feels good. At the same time, the things I know I should like, being praised for helping, won't feel like anything at all. How long will it take to become a monster that hurts people for fun in that case?" He sighed and hugged his legs, pressing his knees into his forehead. 
Luna looked up at him sitting there for a moment. Eventually she sighed, climbed up beside him and sat down. They sat quietly for a few minutes before Luna offered, "I guess I was thinking about the same thing earlier. How, when I sat down to think about it, I wasn't sorry that I helped kill Nualia. I hadn't killed anyone before; it should have been horrible. ...But I've killed so many animals, that I guess I stopped caring, somewhere. So when goblins attacked, I killed them, and I didn't care. They aren't that much different than animals. And when Nualia was there, and would have killed us and so many other people, I helped kill her. And that wasn't very different from the goblins, which weren't very different from animals, which I've stopped caring about. So, I started worrying, because what if, someday, I realize kidnappers or rapists aren't that different from murderers? And then that street thugs and thieves aren't that different from them? Eventually, no one is really that different from animals, and I find that I really don't care about killing at all. Then I won't care about the difference between eating a chicken and eating a human. I've heard that there really isn't any comparison, and once you eat a person, there's no going back. But it won't matter at that point, because what's the difference, really? And then I'm just another murdering zombie for people to be terrified of. A monster to be hunted down." 
They sat there for a moment longer before Virgil offered, "I can't honestly ever picture you hurting someone, who didn't threaten to kill innocent people first." 
"...Maybe. ...But I'm physically wired to want to do it. Killing and eating people would feel good, or so I'm told. It's not that different from what you said." 
"...I guess." 
"...If you can't tell what you should do because it feels right or wrong, you have to think about it harder," she said. "I guess I have to think harder about killing, because if it never feels wrong, I have to know that it's wrong, regardless. I have to know and act the right way, even if in my heart it feels like something else is easier or better for me, because I know where that leads and I don't want to be that kind of person." 
Virgil considered this for a while, eventually muttering, "...I need to stop myself from succumbing to anger. I'm pride, not wrath, and I need to keep acting like that." 
Luna frowned, "It's...it's a little more than that." He raised an eyebrow towards her, and she fiddled with her hands as she explained almost timidly, "It's not just about being prideful over being wrathful. They both have the same problem. I get what you said earlier, that it's easy to hurt people with wrath. But pride hurts people too. They all can. That's why they're sins." She picked at her nail, staring at it as she offered, "If you're a devil, you're always going to want to sin, because it feels good. But that isn't right, or, at least it isn't always going to be right. Just because what your pride demands is the best thing to do is...I don't know, a reasonable approximation of the right thing, doesn't mean that it should dictate your decisions any more than your anger, or anything else." 
He sat considering this, while Luna sat stiffly; her timidness belying a fear of reprimand. His reply was slow in coming, "...So...how is anyone ever supposed to know what the right thing to do is?" 
"Huh?" 
"Everyone just does what they feel is right. So, how is anyone ever supposed to judge what the right thing is, if what you're saying is that devils and undead and probably a lot of other people have skewed opinions? How is anyone actually supposed to know what they should be doing is?" 
"That's...that's a really complicated topic. And, I don't really know a lot about the philosophy about it..." she replied. 
"Well, sum it up," he said. 
She sighed and thought about it for a minute before replying, "I don't know about universal morals, or good versus evil, or any of that. I'm not religious. I don't really even know much about it. But...I guess if I narrowed it down...you're either helping other people, or helping yourself. Sometimes, helping one means you hurt the other. Helping is good, but hurting is bad, and...I guess you want to minimize the hurt you cause, across the board. To do that...actions need to be thought about, not just done on impulse, or else you're just always going to do what feels right in the moment. It's more than just doing what feels right, because then I'd be eating people. You have to think about...not want you want, maybe not what others want...maybe...what you want to be? What sort of person you want to be. And who you're really trying to help. Then you do what you think is going to bring you closer to that." Virgil sat quietly, thinking about this. "I don't know. I'm not a philosopher. I just...I just don't want to be a monster," she added. 
"Me either," he replied. He took out a cigarette and lit it, as both of them looked out over the waves. After a very long silence, Virgil said thoughtfully, "My uncle is a devil of wrath. ...He's not really my uncle at all, but we called him that growing up. He's my father's right hand, his marshal. He's a monster, really. He was a murderer and torturer when he was alive, so you can guess what he is as a devil. It's funny, actually," he grinned humorlessly, "you can find books and paintings and statues of him, in Mirilarin, that say he was a visionary general who was instrumental in bringing about political change. I guess he was. But he was a murderer who got off on slaughter and horror. An angry psychopath who was very good at his job of doing what my father told him to do." He flicked the ash from his cigarette and continued, "I've watched him kill things. Devils, sure. Tons of animals. But when I was a kid, I watched him kill a family. Four kids, pet dog. In the most brutal fashion he could muster. Just, because." 
Luna listened, expression somewhere between horrified and confused. "Couldn't...couldn't you stop him?" 
"I was barely twenty, if that," he explained, his reminiscent voice flat. "I was terrified. I knew him; I'd grown up with him. He could kill me as easily as breathe, and my words meant nothing. I couldn't stop him." He paused, taking a drag before continuing, "He knew I was there, watching. That was the point. I saw him somewhere strange, a long way from home, and wondered what he was doing. Thought I was following him in secret. I wanted to know what he was up to, so I thought I'd just watch. He led me around, went into a house, and I watched him kill everyone. When he was about to finish, he called me out. He had known I was there the whole time. He had led me there, from the moment I first saw him. He picked this house at random and killed these people for fun, and to make me watch. Because I didn't understand pain or fear, he said. Because he didn't like how my father was sheltering me from horror, he said. Because one day I'd go to Hell, and what did I know about it? I suppose the twisted fuck thought he was helping. Or maybe he disliked that someone else had my father's attention besides him. Maybe he didn't like me suffering less than he and my father did when they were kids." He took another drag, "I do know that he hurts people for his amusement. That he gets into rages and destroys everything around him. That he is exemplary of wrath. And that if he wasn't my father's right hand, he'd be on the top of my list of people that need to die." He gave a snort of black laughter, "I'm pretty sure I'd be on his too. But we're family. So here we are." 
Luna sat awkwardly, unsure of what to say to that. Eventually, she offered, "...I don't think, even if you didn't find another runewell, that you'd become like him. You do care about people, even if you screw up sometimes, and I don't think you'd ever delight in suffering." She added after a pause, "What he did was awful, on...on so many levels...I'm...I'm sorry, that you went through that. And whatever else he did. That's..." she hugged her elbows, "You must've had an awful childhood." 
He replied with a measure of sarcasm, "Didn't we all?" He continued seriously, "It was good. It had it's dark peculiarities, but it was good. I was loved." The two looked out over the waves for a long while, both people not needing to go anywhere, unbothered by the autumn chill or the discomfort of the rock they sat on. The silence was broken by Virgil once, who muttered, "...what I want to be, and who I want to help..." 
Category:Rise of the Runelords