Standing up as he held the small brown crystal in his hands while he tried to reason out what just happened.

  [Good Samaritan] was a Skill that obscured him when he was doing acts of good at his own detriment. He was helping Fendrascora now, which was an act of good, but he hadn’t consciously tried to hide it. The only reason he could see the level up now was if there was an actual effort to find him, from someone who he didn’t want to find him.

  The suspicious timing seemed to imply that it was the Shaman who’d trapped Fendrescora, most likely placing a trap into the crystals. Dei hadn’t gotten the level up earlier, so it was specifically when he dug out the crystal that some sort of tracking failsafe activated. When he dug up the other crystal but accidentally destroyed it, the failsafe hadn’t activated, so it required a delicate touch for the tracking to activate.

  He wondered for a moment why that was, but had a suspicion that it was because of someone's intelligence. If something was smart enough to find and gently dig up the crystals, they would be smart enough to negotiate with, and potentially talk to Fendrascora. On the other hand, if they weren’t smart enough to talk to, the monster that finds Fendrascora would just kill her for experience.

  The Shaman had a failsafe against if anything tried to negotiate with her, or at least a small backup plan. That's why he wasn’t being tracked from the moment he’d taken a step into Fendrascora’s prison, because the Shaman that trapped her didn’t care if something killed her, but he didn’t want her to escape.

  This meant that the Shaman would be heading down here as soon as he could to catch Dei, and see if he either killed Fendrascora, or saved her. Dei couldn’t fight a Shaman, and Fendrascora likely couldn’t escape one in her weakened state, especially since she couldn’t escape him the first time.

  But Dei didn’t think they’d be fighting a Shaman. He heard how his mom had talked about Iora’s punishment for failure, it was execution. As a matter of fact, there might not be anyone at all to come get them! The best case scenario was that the Shaman was killed, and the tracking mark was obsolete. The worst case scenario was that the Shaman was alive, still a Shaman, and currently on their way down to hunt for Dei.

  There was little to no chance of them still being a Shaman though. If they weren’t executed, then they’d have been demoted and potentially imprisoned.

  Really though, Dei thought he would just be dead… Iora hurting a single child, him, unjustly, would have supposedly been grounds for execution. That Shaman letting an entire village die?

  Dei didn’t want to imagine what response that would have incurred. It was clear that the Gem Dweller society was extremely brutal on its leaders.

  But if the Shaman was dead, why would he put a tracking mark in the stones? He would have known he was going to be executed the moment he returned.

  But he wasn’t the only one who was wronged. Many people lost their loved ones in Fendrascora’s attack. The Shaman might’ve left a guardian to watch over the tracking mark, someone who lost people close to them after Fendrascora broke the ward, so that they could exact vengeance after he’d passed away.

  Hmmm… this was starting to make a lot more sense.

  He had one more source to check before going forward. The Shamans own memories.

  The Shaman delivered a packet of information to Fendrascora when he found her, containing all the pain he suffered. It blasted her as a mental attack, digging into her psyche and making her feel his pain, but it did still contain information. Fendrascora gave him a “general overview” of sorts when she’d let Dei read her memories, but he would need the source material.

  “Fendrascora” Dei called out to her with [Meaningful] as he walked towards her. “Do you remember when the Shaman hit you with the mental attack of all his pain?”

  She sagged a little when reminded. “Yes, of course. How could I forget?”

  “Well, I might need to read into that a bit. Would you mind if I Identified it thoroughly?”

  “Why?” she asked defensively. It was probably a sensitive subject for her.

  “Well, we might have either a mob of people, a Shaman, or both coming down here to kill us right now. I’d really like to find out what. There are tracking marks hidden in the crystals and I have one on me now, so I need to figure out what is tracking me.”

  He felt frustration emanate from her as she sent an agreement to let him check, and he dove straight in with his Identify, feeling his mind dive into the stream of information contained in the Shamans mental attack.

  The packet of information was spotty, containing only moments, but it was organized chronologically. He didn’t want to be drawn into too many scenes unnecessarily, because it honestly did hurt to watch them. Every memory was imbued with crippling pain, dejection, and the weight of his failure. Dei glanced through the early days, but stayed distant from each memory.

  The Shaman had worked tirelessly for three straight days, either draining all his magic or physically throwing himself at monsters, desperately trying to keep them away from the people he protected. Near the end of the third day, a task force of fifteen other Shamans appeared, finally driving the monsters back. Despite that, the village was rubble by that point. Once reinforcements showed up, Dei watched the Shaman pass out mid-fight with a monster, hoping that he would never wake up to face the judging faces of his former peers.

  He did wake up though. He was successfully saved, and pulled back to safety. The next day was dedicated to trying to help with the recovery services, the entire time being scorned by the former villagers. The other Shamans never glared at him or cast judging glances at him, but they didn’t talk to him either. They did not acknowledge his presence in any more than a professional sense, and that hurt him more than any hatred.

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  Once everyone that could be saved, was saved, he had his Shamanic staff taken by the other fifteen, and he was transported back to a much larger city. Dei didn’t know where, but he got the sense that it was a “Central” location of sorts.

  He was delivered a verdict, and this is where Dei dove in a bit deeper.

  * * *

  Tir stood before the ten council members, head down as he could not find it in himself to meet their eyes.

  “You failed.” his master, Yva, said. It hurt most of all coming from her, but thats why she was chosen to deliver his verdict. They wanted him to feel pain, and he did. “After only seven years. You failed.” she said, neutrally.

  That was the worst of all. In the time he’d been here, not a single person had scorned him. None of the Shamans glared at him or hated him, he was simply an objective failure. There was nothing else he could have done, so there was no reason to hate him, but people were dead. A lot of people were dead.

  Even if there was nothing else he could have done on paper, Shamans were meant to go above and beyond, do the impossible in dire times of need. If he were a true Shaman, he would have pushed past his boundaries to bring the ward up faster, or single handedly held off the hundred-strong swarm of monsters. He’d done neither.

  He’d failed.

  “Your soul is not strong enough to be transformed into a staff, but you are a Shaman nonetheless. You will be hollowed out and turned into an augmentation for another staff.”

  He knew what he was getting into when he’d chosen to become a Shaman. Shamans didn’t retire or die at the end of their lives, they were turned into artefacts to continue assisting the people. Those strong enough became staffs, those who always succeeded but didn’t become strong enough became augmentations. Those who failed became hollow augmentations, their minds erased and their souls turned into strength for the stronger souls.

  “Before you are hollowed out, you must resolve the lingering grudge first. It is far more difficult to erase someone attuned to Wrath with a grudge as strong as yours currently is. The final verdict is as follows: You will temporarily be lended your staff once more, and hunt the creature responsible for the initial breaking of the ward. Once the grudge is resolved, you will return to the capital and be hollowed out in preparation for your eventual imbuement into a trinket. Do you accept that the verdict is fair and just?” Yva asked him.

  “I accept that the verdict is fair and just.” He managed to say without his voice cracking.

  “Very well, you are dismissed.”

  * * *

  The moment the memory was dismissed he drew himself out of the packet of information completely.

  ‘What the fuck. The verdict was fucking what? To be hollowed out and used as a tool? Holy shit… and he just accepted it too! I can sense in the memories that he really did think this was a fair verdict! He really just went back and let himself be erased!’

  The thought sent shivers up his spine. The dedication required to do that. It made him… afraid. He’d told himself that, eventually, he would become strong enough. He was on the path to becoming a Slaughterer, the Achievement of which sounded so grandiose, that he thought it’d be simple enough to get stronger than the Shamans.

  He felt very foolish now. There was no way it would be that simple. He’d thought it would be decades before he could get strong enough to at least see his mom, then simply escape before he was caught. But if this was the level of dedication required to become a Shaman, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Slaughterers were no doubt powerful, but Dei was getting a glimpse into another view. He was peeking into a different path of power, one that required an unshakeable will.

  Who would win? A full-grown Slaughterer, or an experienced Shaman? He suspected they might be equal…

  Was there an Achievement for becoming a Shaman? It seemed difficult enough to justify one.

  He had to stop thinking of this. It was destroying his confidence, and he had immediate things to worry about.

  First, he’d verified that this Shaman was now… not dead, but probably worse. He wouldn’t be coming back, but Tir also knew he wouldn’t be coming back. The contingency wasn’t for Tir himself. Dei had to keep searching through the packet and see if there was anything else to find.

  Diving back down, he skimmed through the memories following the verdict.

  In his hunt, Tir ran into multiple obstacles. Fendrascora was slippery, and not just in the literal sense. She was smart enough to evade most traps, but her energy had been documented for months. When she permeated the water, it hid her, yet now that same permeated water was like a beacon to find her.

  Tir was not the only one searching, but not many could match the power of a Shamanic staff, and he got close enough to capture her more times than any others.

  There was one other though. One that Tir saw almost every time he closed in on Fendrascora.

  He was a large ragged man, of the surface dweller variant with his tan skin and dark hair. The man always had bloodshot eyes, and was always tracking Fendrascora. He was the only one who never stopped searching, never rested like all the other hunters.

  Every time Tir saw him, the man's face was pained and furious. Dei figured this was someone who’d lost their family as well.

  The only time the man stopped his hunt was when he saw Tir. Every single time, without fail, the man would go berserk if he managed to catch a glimpse of Tir, lunging at him animalistically, clawing and even trying to bite him in one case.

  It was clear that he hated Tir, likely for Tir’s failure.

  He was the only other recurring character in the packet. Every time Tir saw the man, dread filled him. Not because the man was dangerous, but because Tir’s guilt would spike immensely. Dei could see it in the berserk mans face… he’d lost everything. He had nothing to live for anymore, other than pure rage.

  If Tir would give access of his tracking network to anyone, it would be this man. One of the only other people who knew the pain Tir felt, and was just as determined to see Fendrascora suffer and die.

  He could be wrong, Tir might’ve handed over access to someone else, but there were no other clues Dei could find. At the very least, this man would be one of the people hunting him.

  He’d work under the assumption of the worst case scenario: this man was coming for him, and he was bringing friends, potentially others that Fendrascora hurt.

  Withdrawing himself from the mental memory packet completely, Dei found Fendrascora and Clever looking at him, waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “I’ll start from the beginning, and make it quick,’ Dei messaged. ‘The crystals powering the array to Fendrascora’s prison have tracking marks built into them. One such mark is now on me, though I cannot find it. I now know that the Shaman who originally built this prison is dead, and that someone weaker will be coming for us. We have only one win condition: survival. Now, how are we going to do this?”