No Such Thing as Good and Evil

“You feeling ok?” Shade asked peeking over at Faylen. The two of them walked out of the forest surrounding Shades cabin and onto a small dirt path that leads to the town of Fleetwood.

“Not really.” She replied softly while brushing dirt and leaves off of herself while checking to see if any of the branches scratched her exposed skin. “But if I’m going to one day take down the slave trade as I want to, I’ll have to be ok.” She said with clenched her fists and completely unconvincing confidence.

“It’s going to take her some time to mentally recover, maybe we should wait awhile before having her fight anything?” Lilah said pointedly while wrapped around Faylens shoulder.

He ignored Lilah while continuing to awkwardly peek over at Faylen. “Oh…well…I’m sorry to hear you’re still struggling with all of that.”

“It’s only been a few hours since she woke up crying, did you really think that she would get over it so soon? Not everyone is a cold-blooded murderer.” Lilah scolded.

Faylen was also beginning to get mad at Shade, but not for what he was saying. Unlike Lilah, she had noticed him constantly peeking over at her. She stopped walking, crossed her arms and turned to him. “What is it?” She said switching from sorrow to annoyed in the blink of an eye.

“What is what?” he said back awkwardly as he turned to face her.

“You have something to say, so just say it.”

“Well…it’s just…you know…” he replied while looking over her body. Faylen was still wearing the extremely revealing leather armor, having not changed since the previous night’s raid on the slave ring.

Faylen frowned and put her hands on her hips like a disappointed mother. “Really, you seriously can’t control yourself that much? Are you really that much of a depraved pervert, you can’t even walk next to a girl without thinking about fucking them?”

While Faylen was more annoyed, this infuriated Lilah as the bow began visibly vibrating around Faylens shoulder. “Do you not have a single empathetic bone in your dense body? After all she’s been through, she just told you she still isn’t over what happened, and you’re standing here thinking about fucking her? You truly are one of the worst people I have ever met!”

“If I’m one of the worst people you’ve ever met, then you’ve lived a pretty privileged life in this shitty world.” He replied sternly before returning to a more awkward voice. “But that’s not exactly it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you dressing that way. If you wanted to dress like that all the time, I’m all for it. And of course, if you wanted to have sex, I would be more than willing, just say the word and I’m ready to go. But that’s not exactly what I’m thinking…well its partially what I’m thinking of course…. but not the main thing.”

“Then just spit it out. What is it you want to say to me?” Faylen replied.

“Well…” he continued. “We’re going to the town of Fleetwood.”

“Ok? What does that have to do with you checking me out?”

“I just thought you might want to change before we get there is all…” he said looking around without making eye contact with her like a nervous school boy talking to its crush for the first time.

Faylen was rather baffled by the nervousness of the typically straight-shooting asshole. “Can you stop beating around the bush and just say what you want to say already.”

“Well…Fleetwoods the town where you would go to gather supplies while you were, umm, serving me. And from what I remember you would wear rather, how should I say, interesting outfits when you visited it.” Her face turned red and her annoyance turned to embarrassment as she began to understand what he was getting at. “Fleetwood is a human settlement. Humans are such a weak species that even most monsters just ignore them. Outside of maybe some weak bandits, or goblins and orcs, there’s not going to be anything around here that will be much of threat. There's really no need to wear that get up.” He then switched from an awkward tone, to his typical sarcastic self. “Unless you want to that is. Maybe you’re an exhibitionist at heart? Nothing wrong with that. Some people love the feeling of hundreds of eyes looking at them at they walk down the road wearing next to nothing. If that’s the case, there’s no reason to be embarrassed about it, I don’t judge. I don’t kink shame either. You do you.” He shrugged with a wry smirk as he finally looked directly at her.

She harrumphed at him, with puffed out red cheeks like an annoyed and embarrassed little kid, before storming past him back into the woods with her hand in her magic bag. After about 5 minutes she returned, wearing black boots, green leather pants and a white tunic. “There, better now? Or will your dick still be unable to control itself?” She said as she strolled back up to him.

Shade gave her a once over. “Meh, I think you look good in pretty much anything.” He then looked over at the dense forest. “Did you really used to walk through that forest wearing all those skimpy outfits?” Then turned back to her. “Wait, you have some of those outfits with you still, right?”

She smiled and tilted her head up defiantly as she started to walk down the path again. “Yes I do, and you are never going to see me wearing any of them ever again.”

He started to walk after her. “Unless they give you some crazy ability in combat that is, right? Then you would flaunt them like nobody’s business.”

She let out an annoyed yet somewhat amused giggle. After a few steps he caught back up to her. “I understand bandits, by why do orcs and goblins fight with humans? Because their weak like them? According to Aerith, humans are so weak, even eating them doesn’t provide much nutritional value.”

He looked over at her awkwardly again, and noticed Lilah, as a bow, somehow seeming to shoot daggers at him. “Yea…because their weak like them.” He said unconvincingly. Now probably wouldn’t be the best time to tell her about orcs and goblins kidnapping and raping human women to use as breeding vessels. Though there might be quests in town to save women who have been captured. Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. He thought to himself.

“Ok…” She said noticing his odd response, but decided not to pursue it. “Anyway, if I’m going to become an adventurer, could you at least explain a little how it works? You’ve always wanted me to become one, but never told me anything other than a few basic things, like will I have to start from the very bottom?”

“No.” He replied, then paused. “Well, actually probably yes. Most guilds have people in them who you can battle and have your abilities judged. But I doubt there’ll be anyone in a human settlements guild who can properly judge you, so more then likely you’ll start as a sand level adventurer.”

She sighed. “Didn’t you say there were like a million different levels.”

He laughed. “Yea, there are. Specifically, there is Sand, Glass, Tin, Iron, Steel, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Mithril and Obsidian. Not only that but there’s levels within each, 5 to be specific. Apparently, the guild uses it for some sort of equations. Like if there’s a gold 2 level quest, maybe 3 bronze Fours, two Tin threes and glass 2 could equate to being high enough to take it on. I’ve always thought it was useless, no matter how many people you have with you, anyone more than 2 levels below a quest shouldn’t go on that quest to me. A true glass two isn’t going to provide any help in a gold level quest. But the guild thinks it’s good practice and can help prove adventurers’ worth.”

She nodded. “But that means I can join in on hard quests as long as you’re with me, right?”

He shook his head. “I was registered under my own name, well my fake own name, but still. I would have to tell people that I’m Shade Night. Even if I just showed them my badge, they would need to verify it, and when they checked it, they would see who I am. While guilds are separate from any kingdom, and they would likely not do anything or try to bring me in if I revealed myself, they would inform the kingdoms of my continued existence, which for now at least, I’m avoiding. Being dead isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be, right Lilah?” he joked.

Lilah ignored the joke. Instead she was curious about truly how strong her new carriers crude companion was. “What level did you manage to rise to? A dragon like you I imagine was at least Diamond.”

“Diamond?” He scoffed. “You think they built a statue in the middle of a kingdom’s capital in honor of some shitty diamond adventurers’ death? I was obsidian level, thank you very much.” He said proudly, smiling ear to ear.

“OBISIDIAN!” Lilah yelled rather loudly, startling the other two. “I have only heard of 10 others to reach obsidian level; show me the badge!”

“Sure thing!” He replied opening up his black cloak and taking the obsidian badge off of his belt before proudly showing it off to them like it was a priceless artifact. The badge was, as one might guess, made from pure obsidian. It was shaped like a three dimensional diamond and It glowed black with his fake initials SK carved into it. “Though when I stopped going around, there were probably like 25 of us at that level.”

While extremely impressed by the badge, Lilah managed to notice something else around Shades waist. When he had thrown his robes open to grab the Obsidian badge, another badge caught her eye. The unmistakable dark brown leather badge shaped like a kingdoms banner with two golden swords crossed behind a golden helmet embroidered on it. “What knight did you steal that from?”

“I didn’t steal this, I earned it!” he replied defiantly.

“No, not that badge.” Lilah responded, though she would be lying if she said she didn’t have some doubts about the validity of his obsidian badge. “The knights badge. You have a knight’s badge on your belt as well. I’m not sure how I’ve never noticed it before. You really killed some knight, then wear their badge as a trophy everywhere you go? For someone as murder happy as you are, they must have been a big deal. So, who was it you killed?”

The proud smile on his face instantly disappeared and he paused before answering. “I didn’t steal that either, it’s mine.”

“What?” Lilah said with a doubtful shock.

Faylen was just as shocked herself. “You were a knight? Aerith never told me about that!”

“Yea, well.” He replied somberly. “I wasn’t one for very long, and it was almost a hundred years ago now.”

“Where were you a knight?” Lilah asked with growing suspicion.

He let out a slight smile “Why do you think Alessandria was so eager for me to die?”

“You were a knight in Alessandria?” Faylen asked before letting out a gasp of realization. “Oh, that’s how you know Gaelin!”

Lilah stared at him as suspiciously as a bow could stare at someone. "My previous carrier never mentioned you were a former knight either. That seems like rather pertinent information." Shade just shrugged in response. Lilah and Faylen discussed internally whether or not he would allow Lilah to search his mind for memories from when he was a knight, but came to the conclusion he wouldn't, so Lilah continued her questioning. “If you were a knight, and they built a statue for your death, should I assume you committed some sort of treasonous act?”

“Sure did.” He replied somberly.

“And what was it?” She asked.

“Don’t worry about it.” He responded.

“I have to worry about it. I already don’t like Faylen traveling with you, and if you add on the fact that you might be some dishonorable…”

He cut her off, as the simple mention of honor turned his sorrow from the memories of his time as a knight to anger. “Dishonorable? I’ve said it before and ill say it again. Honor is bullshit! Just an excuse Kings and Queens use to get people to die for them.” He said pointedly staring at the bow. “Kings and Queens like you. I might not have been a knight for long, but I was ‘honorable’ for almost the entire time. But then I tried to fight against the corruption, the horrific acts nobles would commit and get away with. And you know what happened? The kings and queens like you who throw the word honor around swept it all under the rug. So your highness, don’t tell me about honor!”

There was an awkward silence as Faylen and Lilah discussed this revelation, and his reaction. Lilah was quite skeptical of his stories, and was telling Faylen as such. Being a long thought to be dead lucifer dragon who happened to be a knight and an obsidian ranked adventurer seemed borderline impossible to her. Faylen though wasn’t nearly as skeptical. Rather she was much more worried about him. While she would never admit it to him, she did somewhat care for him, and she had noticed his angry breakdowns about his past becoming more and more frequent.

After a few minutes, Faylen broke the silence. “So, you were a potential king, a knight, an adventurer, mercenary, vigilante and bounty hunter. Anything else you did you haven’t mentioned, you’re not going to tell me all the sudden you were a bard, are you?”

Shade let out a slight smile, appreciating the change of subject. “Would you like me to sing you a song?”

She smiled back. “Only if you had a Lute, then maybe I would consider it.”

“You know I once had a lute, then I killed someone with it and it broke.” He replied.

“Of course you did.” Lilah sighed, while Faylen just shook her head.

The two of them, three if you count the bow, made small talk about various inconsequential things as they walked down the dirt road toward Fleetwood. As they approached though, they began to realize something.

“Faylen, when you used to walk here, do you remember it being this…. quiet?” Shade asked.

“No.” She replied just as confused at the lack of people they had seen. “There was usually some sort of horse drawn carriages coming through here.”

They got to the gates to the small town and walked through, beginning to walk down the main road. The town was rather small, maybe a dozen or so stores with a little over 50 houses, but still not a soul in sight. As they walked, they began looking at the buildings more closely. They were all basic looking wooden shacks which also all had their windows and blinds closed. Many had some sort of damage to them, from broken windows, to cracked roofs. One building, what looked to be a general store at some point, was almost completely collapsed. “Bandits?” Faylen asked.

Shade shook his head. “No, I don’t think goblins or orcs either. Bandits wouldn’t be dumb enough to destroy the town they’re stealing from. They would then have to move and set up camp by a new town. I don’t think orcs or goblins either, they don’t come to these places to pillage supplies.” He said as he surveyed the damage himself.

A door to the left of them opened and both of them looked over. “Faylen, is that you?” An older human man with short grey hair and a grey handlebar mustache said softly peeking out from the door.

“Chris!” Faylen said excitedly.

“SHHH!” Chris said. “You need to get out of the streets, it’s dangerous. Come in here.” He motioned for the two of them to go inside his house. Having no idea what was happening, the two of them accepted the invitation and walked through the man’s front door. I knew Chris was a great human name. Shade thought to himself as they went inside.

They followed the man to what appeared to be the living room. There they found 3 other people. A woman, who Shade assumed was the man’s wife, holding onto a small boy child, maybe around 3 or 4, with a little girl around 7 sitting next to her on a black cloth couch. As Shade looked around the house, he found it was completely barren, with the couch being the only piece of furniture he could see.

“I’m sorry.” The man said as he noticed Shades confused scan of the household. “We’ve had to sell everything off just to be able to afford food, and now with the store gone, we can’t even really get any of that.”

Upon closer inspection of the family, all of them were clearly malnourished, as they looked more like skeletons cosplaying as people rather than actual people.

“Honey, we don’t have enough for ourselves, we can’t be taking more people in.” The woman said looking nervously at Shade and Faylen.

“What did you want me to do, leave them out there to die?” he replied.

“Mommy, she has rainbow wings.” The little girl said pointing at Faylen.

Chris' eyes went wide as he himself noticed Faylens wings. “Rainbow? You were hiding who you were before, weren’t you! Your royalty, aren’t you! You’ve come to save us!” He said excitedly, running up to Faylen and grabbing her shoulders, shaking her back and forth.

Faylens eyes went wide as well as she saw the crazed desperation pouring out of his. “I’m not royalty, at least that I know of, we just came here to visit the guild.” She said awkwardly as her mind raced trying to think of how to calm the desperate man down.

“Even so, with wings like that, you must be powerful. Please, you have to help us!” Chris pleaded as he continued to shake her back and forth.

Faylen looked nervously over at Shade with her eyes basically saying "Help me." He sighed and walked over to Chris. “Ok, lets calm down now.” He said as he gently picked Chris up, and gently placed him back down a few feet away from Faylen. He didn’t want to push Chris away as he was worried he would shatter him like a piece of glass.

“Sorry.” Chris said as his voice and body language returned to the depressed father of a dying family. “I just got a bit excited, I guess. We’ve been really struggling, and I got carried away seeing a possible way out. I’m really sorry.” He said in a half bow.

“It’s ok Chris.” Faylen replied. “No need to apologize, if we can help, we will. Just tell us what’s happening.”

At her saying they’ll help; Shade made a very stoic yet clearly annoyed face. She shot daggers at him with her eyes and he relented in another sigh. “Ok, we’ll help if we can. Just tell us what’s going on.”

“Thank you.” Chris said with a sad smile, before the smile left his face. “It all began two months ago, a flock of Griffons began attacking our farms, destroying the fields. When we tried to fight them off, they began attacking the people, and have even now began attacking the town.”

Two months ago, this has been happening for two whole months? I knew society could give a flying fuck about humans, but letting this happen for two months seems odd. They must truly not care one bit about these people. Shade thought to himself. While Fleetwood is the closest town to his cabin, when Shade went grocery shopping, he flew back to Ysyl as he wanted to get more ciabatta bread from that baker. He also wanted to give the clerk at the ‘clothes’ shop a piece of his mind about the warrior outfits, but decided not to be one of ‘those’ customers. While he was in town though, he didn’t hear anyone talking about this. Fleetwood is still technically part of Alessandria, even if it is a human town towards the edge of its territory, yet not a single soul was talking about it being under siege by monsters. “Griffons?” he said confused.

“Is that odd?” Faylen asked.

“Very.” Shade responded. “Griffons are huge, double the size of a horse. They look mean as well, with huge talons and of course their birdlike head and beak. They’re also very ferocious when they fight, and are quite hard to kill, so you might think they’re battle-hardened monsters. But in reality, they’re quite a gentle species. They eat plants, and usually mind their own business. In fact, they’re so gently, many of the flightless species, like elves and wolves, use Griffons as mounts. But they aren’t usually this far north; they’re typically only found in the southern kingdom of Lyari. Also, they don’t normally travel in flocks. Usually, they’ll find a mate and stick with that one mate through their life. They may have kids, but those kids leave eventually. If it really is a flock of them, that would be quite odd.”

Faylen then realized what Shade had caught immediately. “Wait, if this has been happening for two months, why hasn’t the kingdom done anything? Why haven’t they sent any knights?”

There was a long, awkward silence. “Because they’re humans, the kingdom doesn’t care.” Shade replied matter of factly.

“What?” Faylen said with growing anger. “They’re a part of the kingdom like everyone else! It’s the kingdoms job to protect its people!”

Shade laughed. “You would think, right? I mean, protecting its people would be the ‘honorable’ thing to do.” He said pointedly looking at the silent bow. “The reality of life is a bit different though. Why do you think adventuring guilds exist to begin with? Knights really only exist to protect the capital and the nobles within, or go to war if other kingdoms invade their land. Outside of that, a few people dying here or there doesn’t concern them, and they leave the masses to fend for themselves. Thus, adventurers were born.”

“But this isn’t just a few people, this is a whole town!” Faylen protested.

“A whole town of humans.” Shade said shrugging. “I’m not sure how many times I have to say this Faylen, but welcome to the real world. Its shitty here. Humans in the grand scheme of things offer little to nothing to society, no offense Chris. If War is really brewing with Merellien, Alessandria isn’t going to risk some of its knights lives to save a town of people that it really doesn’t care about. Hell, most of the people in Alessandria probably don’t even know this town exists.” He then paused and whispered to himself. “Wait… Merellien.” Before turning back to Chris. “Has this been happening anywhere else?”

“Yes.” Chris said somberly looking at the floor. “Many other towns have been attacked by large monsters recently.”

“All of them human towns?” Shade inquired.

“Yes.” He responded.

“And are all these towns around or relatively close to the Merellien border like this one is?”

“Yes.” Chris responded again. “You don’t think?”

“I do.” Shade responded shaking his head as he stared angrily at the bow once more. “I think this is Merelliens doing.”

“Why would they do this?” Faylen asked.

“Simple. They know as well as anyone how little people care about humans. All these events are happening on their border. They could claim that the monsters started crossing the border and attacking its citizens, giving themselves an excuse to come in and clear out the monster issue. Then they would just, never leave. Since the land was only inhabited by humans, and Alessandria wants to avoid war, they would most likely not do anything about them not leaving. Merellien would gain land and influence without actually going to war.”

“But how are they getting creatures like Griffons to act differently then you say they usually do?” Faylen asked.

“That’s a good question.” Shade replied putting his finger to his head. “There are such things as monster tamers, but that’s a dark echos skill. You need to be able to feel their soul in order to do that. If Aerith is correct, they seem hellbent on killing or enslaving all the dark echo creatures, so using one like this would be odd, though I guess they could be forcing a dragon or vampire into doing it.” Then he gasped and looked over at Faylen. “Or, what if they had an item like your staff? What if they could change their echos to dark? Could they then tame monsters? Feeling a soul should be a species-specific thing, but what if it isn’t? What if its just about how strong ones echos are? If a very strong light user changed their echos to dark with some sort of item, could they interact with a soul like I do?”

While Shade debated with himself about whether or not a light echos creature could be doing this, Faylen looked back to Chris.

“Could you tell me where these events have been happening outside of town? Do you have any guesses where they may be using as a base of sorts?”

Shade snapped back to the conversation. “I’m going to guess the attacks began east of here, toward Merellien.”

“You are correct.” Chris nodded. “The first attacks were on our wheat fields to the east of here, before gradually surrounding the whole town.”

“Stunner.” Shade said sarcastically, before looking more seriously at Chris. “Is there a quest to defeat these griffons?”

“Yes.” Chris replied. “But we’re a tiny town, we have very little and can’t offer much for reward, so no one has taken it.”

“What’s the reward? And what’s the quest level?” Shade asked.

“Diamond two.” Chris said somberly again. “The reward is only 100 coins.”

“100 coins!” Faylen replied rather excited. “What do you mean not much, that sounds like a lot!”

“No, it’s not, it’s barely anything.” Shade responded back. “Adventuring is one of the most dangerous jobs there is, but it can be one of the most profitable as well. A diamond level mission would usually have a reward of about 10,000 coins. Think about it, most adventurers travel in groups, usually 4 – 5 people, sometimes more. Splitting 100 coins 5 ways would leave everyone with 20 coins. That ice cream I bought you in Ysyl was 2 coins. Fighting a flock of Griffons and potentially dying to get paid barely enough to buy 10 ice creams just isn’t worth it.” Faylen nodded as she internally laughed at him using ice-cream prices to explain the finances of adventuring while Shade turned back to Chris. “Faylen here though isn’t registered yet. We don’t really need the reward, but she doesn’t want to start at the bottom level of the barrel. Do you know who the guild master is? Could some strings be pulled maybe? If we go and take care of these griffons, do you think she could be registered at diamond, or maybe at least gold or platinum?”

“Absolutely!” Chris said with the smile coming back to his face. “If you take out the griffons, I’m sure the guild master would be more then willing to make a deal! The guild building is the one next to the crumbled former general store, the guild masters name is Allison, tell her Chris sent you.”

Shade nodded as he looked back to Faylen with a smile. “Well then Faylen, guess it’s time to go Griffon hunting.”