It was with all haste that Manya traveled back to Dunnstads, then to Bryrwich, and then to that beach, where his teacher in the art of Black Magic resided in her yurt. Manya has had little experience with what he had seen, from pointless cruelty to aggression beyond anything that he could truly comprehend. He still believed in the individual goodness of people at least, but even that was wavering as he found himself doubting the intentions of others. But what about @Madison Freebird herself? She declares, without hesitation, that she's evil, but Manya still holds faith in her. Perhaps it was the fact that she had the potential to cause so much more harm if she wished to, yet she chose not to. Was it a person's intentions that defined them, or their actions? Was it the means, or the end, that justifies it all? He was almost about to quote Shakespeare, 'All's well that ends well', but then, what about the price that must be paid? So many questions, doubts, and insecurities plagued his mind so he had gone to the one person he respected above all because she had the patience to teach him, at least. What had brought on this black mood? None other than Vivian Cruz, of course. Meeting the woman, even for the briefest period, had shocked him to the core. Faceless men and beasts were capable of plentiful horror, but to think that someone like him could do it was something else. Again, he wished to consult someone far more experienced about this. So many things, so many doubts and fears, and the prospect of improving his skill all came together to one answer - seek out someone better than you. And that's how he found himself at the yurt once again. The sky was dark and it was well past dusk - Manya had lit his way here with an orb of light in one hand, and the shadow of his hat did well to hide the indecisiveness on his face. To ask about this so-called Queen... To truly question the morality of people, and what was right or wrong here... And to learn more about her branch of Black Magic, not just rot and plague, but true, violent magic. He could still see the man burn to ash, smell the scent of charred hair, skin, and blood. He felt sick, but the little Faerin had a surprisingly firm constitution. "Miss Madison?" Not loud enough, but still a shade higher than normal. He was not sure if she would appreciate such a late night call. And he did consider messaging, but he had forgotten to get her contact, after all. Besides, things of such gravity required more than a distant connection to settle.
It was always an odd feeling whenever she caught herself doing it, but Madison constantly fell asleep in-game rather than curling up in bed, throwing a pile of blankets over her virtual form, and logging out to go sleep on her futon in the real world. She'd wake up, groggy, her mind racing to figure out why she was surrounded by alchemical equipment and driftwood instead of greasy pizza boxes and half-empty beer cans. A few seconds would pass before she put two and two together, and then the guilt would come rushing to her face, coloring her cheeks. Needless to say, she was only out of it for a couple hours before the shrieking sounds of someone outside reached her ears. This particular night, she opted to take the form of a black cat--one similar to the Witch Ops sticky sticker that adorned her ankle. The intruder on the beach only had to call out once, but she woke with a start. Her amber eyes darted around from underneath the safety of her blanket fort, quickly growing accustomed to the nighttime darkness. Cautiously the feline druidess sniffed the air for anything amiss--nothing seemed off at first whiff--before she quietly padded onto the sandy floor of her yurt and moved towards the door. Madison slowly brushed aside the canvas cover to see who the hell interrupted her slumber, how many of them there were, and how much time she'd have to send them all packing with blisters and sores and patches of burning flesh. Much to her immediate relief, it was only one boy. One she'd met not too long ago. Went by the name @Manya Boole or something. The little fae who asked her to teach him a bit of the ol' Black Magic before suddenly developing a conscience. Madison's jaw extended as she yawned, letting the canvas flap of her doorway fall back while she retreated into her home. Closing her eyes once more, the woman reached out with her mind for the essence of her human body and latched on. In seconds she'd spun back into her old self, her limbs snapping into place while muscle and flesh rippled and reformed. Thankfully, she'd remembered to keep her clothes on this time. Wouldn't that have been a frightening sight. The plagueslinger slowly brushed aside the canvas cover and stepped out onto her porch. Now that she could see a little better, she immediately noticed the frightened, harrowing look in Manya's eyes. Poor kid must've had seven shades of shit scared out of him. But by what? Nobody from Bryrwich or the surrounding area mentioned anything particularly dangerous lurking in the shadows recently--the woman had done her job a little too well as of late. She leaned back, pressing her weight against the door frame and crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Isn't it a school night," she asked the boy a little rudely. He did wake her up, after all.
Manya waited patiently, his ears twitching as he heard a faint motion in the yurt. And the canvas flap over the entrance shifted to reveal...a cat? A black cat, too. A very witchy black cat. Had it been another time, Manya might have gone forward and patted the feline, since the boy was fond of most adorable housepets, but this wasn't the time for that, sadly. "I'm homeschooled.", he answered, shrugging at the question which may have been rhetorical. Besides, Harry Riven was British, and several hours behind most of his peers in the game. But Manya shook those thoughts out of his head quickly enough. "I'm sorry I had to come so late, but I had to meet you as soon as possible. I think I just...well, maybe I should start off from the top." He took a deep breath first, and let it out. "You were right." Despite all the stigma, Manya didn't really find it hard to admit that he was mistaken about things. unlike most, he'd prefer to have his assumptions corrected as soon as they pop up. "You were right about...having to hurt people to protect others, that a good offense was the best defense. I think I might have to fight someone soon, someone who's a lot more powerful than me...and I need to learn, to better myself and to grow stronger." He looked up at Madison, and that oddly ill-fitting determination gleamed in his eyes, alongside the fear and the doubt. "It just...doesn't feel right. Why are people so eager to wield their power over others? Why must everyone make a point of things by using violence and force? Is it too much to ask for a little empathy, or am I mistaken?" Of course, he was mistaken - empathy was not in the nature of the people he was dealing with. His words might have been disparaging that woman, or even Madison herself for her relation with Bryrwich. The truth was, it was all aimed at himself. To defend his point of view, his first thoughts were to contend with Vivian. Not to rationalize or be diplomatic, but to directly confront. It was like a primal instinct more than anything. And that scared him; the fact that his natural, true reaction to things was the exact thing he hated to see in others. "I am...aren't I?" He even felt defeated. Defeated by his own rationale And now he was curious, not just about this whole situation, but @Madison Freebird as well. What kind of a person was she truly? Beneath the tough yet cool exterior, the plagueslinger would be as complex as any other person, and Manya was seized by a sudden, morbid curiosity. It was one of his more ambiguously bad habits, being excessively curious about the stories of others.
Trying to appreciate and empathize with @Manya Boole's plight for a moment, Madison had to bite down hard on the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling when the faerin said she was right. It always sucked to learn firsthand that the world--any world, virtual or otherwise--was shitty sometimes. For some people, having that grand illusion shattered will break you, like absolutely shatter you and take the fun out of everything before leaving you in a quivering puddle on the floor before giving you a farewell teabag. From the hints of uncertainty and fear that soured his voice, it sounded like something pretty terrible happened to him. Apparently someone had gone and done A Very Bad, and Manya bore witness to it. Madison chewed on his question for a bit before hopping down into the sand and plopping her ass onto the porch. "Probably because some people haven't figured out masturbation," she half joked with a shrug of her shoulders. The quip died in the evening breeze, its rotting corpse carried off into the woods behind her. Oh well. I thought it was funny, she thought sourly as she waved a hand to the space on the porch next to her, a silent command for the boy to sit. Probably correct, too. Madison bit her lower lip as she thought of something else, something more insightful and intelligent to say. The apprentice mage clearly came back because he wanted some insight into whatever was bothering him and how "people like that" tick. The plagueslinger knew that there was no one in Terra better equipped to handle a delicate matter like this. "Let's start from the top," she began, her sapphire gaze drifting out over the endless horizon of the bay. "Tell me what you saw."
Sure, the joke was a bit vulgar...but surprisingly enough, Manya gave a small giggle. Perhaps the fact that his emotions were stretched so thin meant that his humor was at high sensitivity - he might have laughed at anything remotely funny by that point, before breathing in and out. It was a habit of his, calming himself down with a few, very visible huffs and puffs. At her gesture, he walked over and sat down beside her on the porch, staring at the beach. The rocks made it look quite unique, unlike the sandy beaches, he was more used to. It gave it a very rugged feel, too. Why did a plagueslinger stay so close to the sea, where very little grew? Wouldn't she be more at home in the forests? "Yes...well..." He looked at @Madison Freebird and was pretty sure that unless this person just dropped out of nowhere and started causing havoc, then she might know about her. "Do you know about someone called Vivian Cruz? Tall," Manya's description of 'tall' was anyone above five feet, so caution must be taken along with his words. "...long hair, fair face, black heart. Fire and Black Magic, and a vicious streak a mile long." Oh, he won't be forgetting her anytime soon. It was so irrational - this wasn't even the first time Manya saw such a gruesome death, but in that incident, he saw a very unsettling mirror of something that could have also happened to himself, had not someone else stepped in. "She was just minding her own business, so was a man. He bumped into her, accidentally so." He took a deep breath, once more. "She killed him. Burned him alive, right down to a crisp, just like that. And then she started cackling, talking about becoming the future Queen of Astorea and whatever. I tried to step in but..." But Manya felt fear. Indeed, Manya was overzealous, not stupid. He knew a lost cause when he saw it, and what he saw in a fight between the witch and himself was certain death. Which is why he was forced to stand by and do nothing and to run away. Helplessness was something he was new to, and he did not like it. Not one bit. "Do know about her?" He studied Madison's face. The darkness worked wonders in concealing expressions, but he could see that Madison too was contemplative, staring out into the ocean. He did so too. It was a very...calming sight. The moon, the waves, the sea...the endless, ever-persistent sea, of course. He found his initial question a bit answered; at least the view over here was great! Perhaps he might settle somewhere in Druuk Island, once he stopped wandering the length and breadth of the continent searching for teachers.
"Vivian Cruz, Vivian Cruz..." Of course the dark druidess knew her. She was the one responsible for her small crisis of identity weeks after she began playing the game in the first place. Madison remembered the woman clearly--tall, dark purple hair, a standard witch's hat and a dress that was a little too small up top, considering how her chest threatened to spill out of it. It was in the long, winding tunnels underneath the hall of the Bandit King that Vivian betrayed the group--well, betrayed is a harsh word, so let's go with unveiled her true agenda--and sent the whole mission into chaos. Madison also knew her as one of Lucia's lovers, one who got a little too ambitious for her own good and left the necromancer's embrace. Her sudden departure sent ripples throughout the group, everyone donning plastic masks that hid varying amounts of displeasure and disappointment. Maddy couldn't quite get a read on how Lucia was taking the loss, but a couple glasses of wine got Ezra to wistfully admit that the two of them could've been friends had things turned out differently. But the plagueslinger herself? She didn't give a rip either way. "Yeah, I know her," Madison said. "Why?" @Manya Boole told his tale. About how Vivian was jostled on a busy street, and reacted rather poorly to it by lighting the inattentive man on fire and leaving his ashes to scatter to the four winds. Such a display of heartless violence before the impressionable, well-meaning but morally-naive faerin clearly shook him to his core if he came scampering back to the beach at this ungodly hour. Madison leaned back, bracing her hands against the porch to support herself. "Sounds like Viv, alright," she said with a nod. From what she remembered, the witch very much had a "my way or the highway" attitude, threatening to collapse the tunnels under the Bandit King's lair if any of the group dared to step out of line and attack Zeus. "Not sure what this whole future Queen of Astorea business is about, though. But I suppose everyone needs goals." The druidess glanced over at Manya, outlined as he was by a thin bit of silver moonlight. "This is why I told you that you needed to be ready to use your magic to hurt people. Being the hero is great and all; but you can't talk down or reason with everyone you come across. Sometimes overwhelming pain is the only thing they'll respond to." She let that hang in the air before deciding to address his original question. "Not everyone who plays forgets that Terrasphere is just a game. Sure, we all love to pop on our headsets, dive in, and forget our worldly troubles by living an anonymous virtual life. But some of us has horrible coping methods." Raising a hand in the air before her, wisps of glowing miasma began to dance around her fingers, illuminating the sand at her feet in a soft amethyst glow. "Some of us know it's all fake, and simply succumb to their wrath, their lust, their envy, whatever is going through their mind and hearts." A wave of her hand, and the energy flowing through it dissipated into the night. "Which is why you get players like Vivian and myself running around, manifesting the darkness in our hearts upon the people of Terra." Madison was fully aware of the partial admission she just made. She felt comfortable around Manya and had a good sense of the uncertainty in his mind. He was no threat to her. What she wouldn't tell him, however, was the trail of dead she left in her wake in the previous VRMMOs she plugged into her headset--and how she originally wanted Terrasphere to be just another notch in her belt, but her aspirations were cut short when Lucia strongly suggested she would bring the full force of her undead army upon her if she tried to upset the balance of power and knowledge and life in the game. "That doesn't make how you decide to play the game wrong," she was quick to point out. "It's just how some of us cope with real life."
Manya studied the woman, taking in all the words she spoke, examining them with the intensity of a jeweler with his gems. He did not fail to notice that she was depreciating herself, nor did he ignore the fact that this was a game, where you were free to exercise your creativity... But cruelty still irked him. Whether it was to a person, or an animal, or even figments of imagination at this rate, Manya could not tolerate it. And if you really, truly had to do something, then why not be quick about it? He remembered reading a quote by Terry Pratchett, long back as a young student back in elementary school. "If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word." At this point, he could see the difference between 'good' and 'evil'. It was not the absence of the usage of force, but the intention, the fact that one exerts their power for themselves while the other does it to protect others. "I don't think I can ever...do it. Terrasphere just feels so real, it's more than a game from my perception. It feels more like another world...but that's just my senses speaking. It's that even then, all these actions feel wrong. I just can't reconcile myself with it!" He stared at his feet, shifting in his seat on the porch. "...you believe yourself to be a bad person." It was not a question, merely a statement of fact. But now Manya was curious. She was at least honest enough to speak so, and while she might be rotten and evil, she did not have the reputation for that. Not yet, at least. Now he wanted to know why @Madison Freebird thought so. "...why? What have you done that has wounded your conscience so badly?"
Madison was quick to interrupt the boy's musings. "It is just your senses lying to you. Despite everything looking, smelling, and feeling real, it's all just data being sent to your brain through your headset. You'll survive a lot longer if you remember that." The realistic nature of the game is what made it so dangerous in the first place, and is the thing responsible for getting it banned. Not that it stopped anyone of them from playing it, of course. "What about your actions in other games," the plagueslinger asked. "Mowing down insurgents in Call of Duty? Ripping someone's head off with their spine still attached in Mortal Kombat? Jumping on a turtle in Mario? Doing anything in Pokemon? Do any of those games make you hesitate like you do in Terrasphere? Any moral quandaries pop up when you're playing in front of a TV instead of on a headset?" She didn't wait for an answer. She already had a feeling what it would've been anyway. "If you're hoping to get anywhere in this world, defending your friends and saving the innocent or whatever, you're going to need to get over yourself really quick, unless you want to rack up enough Death Afflictions to become a quivering, whimpering mess every time to go to take an action." Madison shrugged her shoulders. "Or you could just stop playing. Your call, kiddo." A few moments later, the question of her own conscience came up. It was only a matter of time before it did, she supposed. Her time in other VRMMOs was not something she liked to bring up terribly often--it usually led to awkward questions and being blocked on a couple contact lists. But if @Manya Boole thought he could handle it, then the druidess would oblige him. "It's a long story," she quietly warned the faerin, "so bear with me." Suddenly, her mouth felt terribly dry. Maddy didn't have any drinks stashed in her inventory, and the cupboard was so very far away in the yurt. The woman pressed on. "I'll skip the origin story. Shitty parents, flunked out of college, I've worked the same retail job for ten years now. That should tell you enough right there, yeah?" Despite herself, Maddy cracked a smile. "This isn't my first VRMMO. The one I came here from wasn't a full dive like this, but everything was 'real' enough. I started out as an assassin, gleefully killing everything I could and completing every contract I was handed for money and power. Soon after that, I caught the eye of a leader of a shadowy organization--you know the type, I'm sure. Every fantasy world's got one or two. "Anyway, after running with them for a few months and cutting a bloody swath across the game world, I started to pick up plague magic. This was around the time that we were organizing a trade deal with a small island nation to keep our coffers full and characters supplied. But when we stepped foot on their shores, we were greeted by an army of 'heroes'" --the word dripped off her tongue like venom-- "who weren't concerned with the populace, but with the glory of getting to stop us from gaining more power." Madison paused for a moment, licking her teeth as she tried to figure out how to tell the rest of the story. Thinking of no way to creatively skew it to make her point without risking Manya getting up and walking, she continued with the truth. "They were better armed and better prepared for the clan war. They had the advantage of numbers and propaganda, since we were just a bunch of dirty villains who they claimed were trying to take over the island." She jabbed a finger at the boy. "Which was false, by the way. "But after the first two or three weeks of fighting, I decided that enough was enough. If we couldn't get what we wanted, I would deny them the glory of taking it from us. And I did it with five wagons, a couple dozen caged rats, and a couple samples of an engineered plague. In the week that followed, half of the citizens of the island were either dead or dying. Their crops were ruined, their water sources poisoned. My clan made our escape. The 'heroes' quickly realized that they had nobody left to fight, and got the hell out of their to let the island rot." Madison ran a few numbers in her head. "This was... hm, three years ago, I think? I still keep in touch with a couple people from the game. Apparently the island isn't recovering and the plague is spreading to several other nations." She didn't want to look at Manya. Not because she was afraid of his rejection or anger at the story, but because she didn't care to show him the complete lack of regret on her face.
Again, she had a point. It had never occurred to Manya, or Harry for that matter, that people existed behind the mask too. But then that was also half the reason he was reluctant in the first place; you were never truly sure of who was wearing a mask and who wasn't. She was right about the other games, and he remembered his time played Black Ops IIIIII quite fondly. But then, that was just a click of a button to unleash a hail of bullets. In here, things just felt so...real. He could feel the magic on his fingertips, feel that jolt of pain from channeling dark energy, and observe first-hand how his target crumbles away, turning to dust and rot. Maybe he should switch to Assist Mode. He shook his head, deciding to return to that thought later. Hearing her story though, Manya felt ashamed. He could not pinpoint the exact reason why he was ashamed, of all things. Was it because he made a mistake judging someone? Because he found it ironic that he was learning from a 'bad' person? Bringing up a story in such a negative light, without knowing that it was relatable to her? Or a combination of all of them, and many others? "They're no true heroes if they had to rely on a cock-and-bull story to pick a fight!" But he still rallied to her defense, anyways. "You said it yourself, that game wasn't as realistic, and that fight was just...just clucking bells! And your actions might have been extreme..." Who was he kidding? It was beyond mere extremity, it was downright horrid. But still... "They forced your hand! Perhaps you had crimes, things you and your allies needed to be persecuted for, but their cause was wrong, so they failed! It wasn't your fault still! Besides, anyone who is playing hero just for the right to control a place will not truly be kind to it - they too saw it just as another territory to be claimed." His justifications were loose and disjointed...but more so that finding a reason in her explanation, he was heartened. Both the fact that she trusted him enough to talk about it, as well as the fact that in this game at least, no one ended up competing with her for Bryrwich. When things are left to their own motions, they'd settle down, like they did now. This story also taught him the value of overwhelming force, interestingly enough. If either side could be wiped out quickly enough, none of that would have happened. "...perhaps you're right. You were a bad person and still are. But you're not as black as you paint yourself, Miss Madison. You still have it in you to be good, and kind. And there are worse people out there too. To you, it was a matter of power and achievement, but there are people who are evil just for the sake of being so! Tell me this: if you had the power of life and death over others, wouldn't you use it to make an agreement beneficial to you? Or are you truly evil? Would you kill someone for the sheer thrill and nothing else? Would you do the same if there was a penalty?" He could feel himself get worked up, so yet another cycle of breathing and he settled onto his seat once more. "...I still have faith in you. And even if you don't have to be good...just...don't be evil for the sake of being evil. I know that asking for a world without any ill feelings is a tall order, but I can understand if...there's a reason for your actions." Perhaps it was neither the means or the end, but the reason, the 'why' behind it. He looked over at Madison, and his expression softened slightly. "...thank you, you know. For talking to me. And listening to my ranting. It might not feel like much to you but this means a lot to me, at least..." It truly did. @Madison Freebird was, in the beginning, a faceless teacher to the overeager Manya, but now he could almost see her as a friend, too.
The plagueslinger couldn't help but to smile at all the hoops @Manya Boole was jumping through to try and justify her actions in another fantasy realm. A smile crept across her face--not one of relief at his acceptance, but one more like a child who was caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but was told by the parent they could have more. "I think you misunderstand something," she interjected. "They didn't force my hand. There were other backups in place, other escapes we could have made. Their only goal was victory over us; so I made the conscious decision to make it as costly as humanly possible for them. I even went with some of the groups to spread the plague myself. I wanted to see how fast it could spread and how much damage it could do." And then I went and sold it to a warmonger king who had the hardest of hate-boners for his elven neighbors, she left unsaid. "But hey, yeah, sure; thanks for trying to convince me I'm something I'm not." Madison leaned back and clasped her hands behind her head while the faerin boy continued to chatter. "Having done the whole 'killing for the sake of killing' thing," she finally said, "I can safely say it gets old pretty quick. I get no joy out of it. Taking someone's life comes pretty easily to me, I'll admit... But as I became ingrained in Terra and uncover its secrets, I've discovered that I only feel the need to kill when it's beneficial to myself and the world around me, like how you said. In order to maintain an ideal balance, sometimes people have to die." What beneficial meant depended entirely on the situation, of course. Like how she assumed control of Bryrwich. That was a messy week. "You just have to keep in mind that there are many kinds of evil, Manya. Not all of them are going to be blatantly obvious, like Vivian nuking someone in the middle of a street, or a lich lord turning half of Stokbon into a rotting army. You'll come across many other unseen, unknowable evils along your journey. People who would take advantage of your naivete and your talents and twist them for their own purposes. People who would work from the shadows, pulling your strings like a puppet, causing untold amounts of damage before you could even work out what was going on." Maddy opened her mouth to continue, but realized she might've been digging herself into a hole. "That's not an open invitation to take my story and warning as justification to run me through with a sword," she said with a finger pointed in objection. "I was once ambitious and bloodthirsty like Vivian--but I've made my peace and found my niche in this game. I don't have any other grand designs except to see Bryrwich and the rest of Dunnstads grow." She let a long moment of silence pass between the two before continuing. "So, did you need anything else from me?"
Manya agreed with her words again. Truth be told, he didn't understand why Madison felt the need to justify herself, since so far, it had always been Manya that had asked her for favors, and she herself hadn't asked anything of him. And he smiled at her, pearly whites catching the moonlight as he gave her his most brilliant, if childish grin. At least she admits it to herself. She has made her peace, so she was good again, right? Maybe he was just straight up ignoring all her other words. That might have been one of Manya's glaring faults - he had a tunnel vision when it came to his opinions about the goodness of people, but also about their worse parts. Just as he won't relent on his opinion of Madison, he wasn't likely to change Vivian's standing in his eyes either. "I've always felt that you weren't bad, or good. Just...well, wild. Like the forest. Like a plague. Sickness and disease, do they have a reason for killing people? Do they need one?" Well, that was a very...peculiar question. And perhaps one he shouldn't dwell too much on. But yes - nature itself wasn't inherently 'good'. But it definitely was balanced. Yes...balance is best. So if a crazy witch queen was going to rise up, he'd best tip the scales back to the median, shouldn't he? "I've come for training...again. I can use Black Magic well enough against monsters and things but..." Yet another deep breath. This admission was going to be tough. "Not people." He could almost see the future - either Madison was going to go out of her way and prove that she could be evil, by making Manya torture orphans. Or she might take the most ameliorated route and make him play vigilante, offing criminals and convicts. Either way, Manya silently resolved to stay steadfast to his principles. If I can grow stronger, then I can protect more people. I can make up for all that I do now, then. It was just a game too, right? Surely a path to power would be as difficult as possible, and difficulty could be a lot more than mere effort - it could also be a mental obstacle to be hurdled. He looked at @Madison Freebird , with a composed face. A very good poker face too, but his eyes were speaking another story. Please.
Wild like the forest, or like a plague. The more she dwelt on it, the more sense it made. Yeah, she kind of was now, wasn't she? Not killing indiscriminately, but killing because sometimes things needed to die in order to maintain the balance within the world. Killing, so other things--people and nature both--could thrive. @Manya Boole got around to the other part of why he came to her place in the middle of the night--he wanted more training in Black Magic. Specifically, he wanted to be trained in using it on humanoid lifeforms... Something until now he was apparently incapable of doing. Madison nodded. In the light of the moon, she could vaguely make out the pleading look in his eyes. The witch liked him enough, and was glad that he was finally coming to grips with the way things worked in Terrasphere. Not that she wanted him to become an absolute monster or anything, of course; she just wanted the faerin to be able to defend himself without any reservation. And of course, the best defense was always a good offense. So sayeth the support player. Maddy clapped her hands together and stood up, brushing bits of sand off her backside with a swipe of her hand. "Tell you what. My pet bear's been out hunting. He found a small bandit hideout by the highway a couple miles east that runs down from the top of the cape. They're terrified of him, so they haven't been bothering any traders who take the road. But they still need to be eliminated." The witch flicked open her UI and pinged Manya a set of coordinates. "We'll get some practice in on them tomorrow, okay? But for now, I'm fucking tired, so go catch some sleep in Bryrwich. I'll meet you at that map marker I sent you tomorrow around noon, Most of the bandits sleep during the day, so we'll catch them by surprise."
Manya hopped off the porch as well, straightening his hat and his coat. It was the time for action. Bandits were still human, but they were forsaking their right to mercy by their actions, after all. Hurting others was not a good way to get rich. Of course, he did not miss out on the irony of him saying that. He clenched his fist and closed his eyes. This is for the greater good. He opened his UI, receiving the coordinates and listening to the instructions, nodding to both. "Agreed, then. We'll meet up near noon? They might see our approach..." Not that it'd make a lot of difference whether they saw it coming or not. He stared out into the ocean once more. He had come to the resolution that sometimes, things had to be done no matter how distasteful it might be. And if he couldn't bring himself to fight for what he believed in, then he'd just keep trying to defend pointless causes until he just can't, anymore. He found himself in a very philosophical mood, thinking of yet another excerpt from a book. Or rather, classical literature: the ever-famous Hamlet. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; It seems that he believed in force being met by force, violence being answered in violence. He'd try his utmost to be a good person, and foster goodwill in his path, but god damn. He'd have to do it with bloody hands and rotted corpses paving the way. He looked at Madison and nodded. "Sleep tight, Madison. Sweet dreams!", he said, giving her a smile. It was surprisingly wholesome if slightly tinged with defeat. No hugs for now - for some strange reason Manya felt a mortal fear when he thought about trying it. And with that, he walked away, waving at Madison. They shall meet later, then!
