Path of Dragons

"It's not what it looks like," Benedict insisted, holding his hands up in surrender.

"Oh. Good. Because it looks like you've been sacrificing people to summon demons," Elijah said with mock relief. "And that your people are cannibals. Can't forget that. So, I'm glad to hear you say that it's not what it looks like. I was getting worried there for a second."

Benedict relaxed.

"That was sarcasm, in case you missed it."

Indeed, Elijah was kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. Benedict was, at best, a sketchy sort of person. He'd seen that from the very beginning, when he'd concealed the fact that he relied on summoning demons to fight for him. But after everything else he'd seen since arriving in the Seat of Benediction, he was just about ready to call the man a lost cause.

"Just give me a moment," Benedict said. "I'll explain everything. I just need a second to collect my thoughts. It's been a while since I had to tell this story." He took a breath, then asked, "Can I get you anything? A snack? Something to drink?"

"I think I'll refrain from eating anything in this city," Elijah stated.

For a moment, Benedict looked confused. But then, realization dawned. "Oh. I guess that makes sense. You saw that they eat people, I guess."

"Thus the mention of cannibalism."

"I'm going to get a drink."

With that, Benedict crossed the room to a wet bar, where he poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter. From the smell, it was some sort of alcohol. The man downed it in a second, then poured another. This one, he clearly intended to savor.

He crossed the room and sat on the couch, which gave Elijah an opportunity to study his appearance. The clothes he wore beneath the robes he'd discarded were white, and he otherwise looked very similar to the last time Elijah had seen him. Which meant that he was disgustingly handsome, though with much shorter hair and a well-trimmed mustache-goatee combination that made him look like a villain from a swashbuckling film. Regardless, he could have passed for a model or an actor – or maybe a boy band member.

He was still slightly built, though. Almost painfully thin, in fact, and his cheeks looked slightly hollow. Otherwise marring his seemingly perfect features were bags beneath his eyes, like he hadn't slept in weeks. Or given his obviously high attributes, probably months.

"I don't know where to start," Benedict admitted with a sigh.

"How about right after the Trial of Primacy? That seems like a good place."

He took a sip from his drink. "It wasn't like I set out to found a kingdom or anything," he stated. "Before the Trial, I just sort of wandered. Never settling down. People were…people didn't usually accept me. At first it was the undead – did I tell you about the guy who decided to imprison me and force me to animate zombies so he could use them as fuel to level his army?"

"You didn't."

Benedict leaned forward, setting his glass on the table. "I was down there for months. Nothing but a bunch of zombies for company."

"That…must have been difficult."

"Better than most people, I've found," he admitted. Then, he downed the rest of the drink. Elijah could feel the ethera in it, suggesting that it was extremely strong. "The worst part was that I felt it every time one of them died. Like getting stabbed a hundred times a day for months." He sighed. "I'm glad that city was destroyed. I had no hand in it. Just a fortuitous twist of fate."

Then, he explained the time between that unnmaed city's fall and the Trial of Primacy. Elijah had heard some of it before, but Benedict was in a talkative mood. So, he let him ramble for a bit before bringing him back to the subject at hand.

"After the Trial?"

"More of the same. For a while, I tried to find Oscar, but from what I gathered, he was halfway across the world. But then I had to deal with a situation in this small town. I was attacked, and I went a little overboard. The imps got out of control, and they burned the place down," Benedict said. It was like he was recounting a boring work story, not the destruction of an entire settlement. "That was my wake-up call. I couldn't just go around killing everyone who tried to bully me. As much as I wanted to, that wasn't going to end well.

"It was about that time I found this place," he went on. "A lot of this was already built. The pyramids outside of the Seat of Benediction were ruins that had been repaired or rebuilt by the people who lived here. But most of this city is new. It's amazing how quickly things can come together with magic."

"I've found something similar in Ironshore. Every time I go back, they've built it bigger and stronger than before. It's like they've learned how to pack decades of development into a few months," Elijah agreed. "So, what's with the cannibalism?"

"Their thing," Benedict said with a shiver. "It's the same with all these ridiculous headdresses and the near nudity. A bastardization of Aztec culture, from what I understand. I don't ask too many questions about that. I play the role they've given to me, and in return, I get what I need to progress."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Left unsaid was that Benedict clearly considered it a good compromise. Without the Benediction's support, he would have been forced to enter Primal Realms or towers in order to gain levels. Or he might have gone on a rampage, which was obviously how he'd progressed before the Trial.

"I try not to judge them," he went on. "My people, I mean. It wasn't easy, surviving after the apocalypse. Food was scarce. So, they did what they had to do, justifying it in the only way they knew how. If it makes any difference, they only eat people who are already dead. And by this point, it's mostly ceremonial. They tell themselves it gives them power. It doesn't, but I let them lie to themselves."

Elijah frowned. He still didn't consider the practice sustainable or morally justified, but so long as they weren't literally hunting one another for food, he could accept the practice. That was pointedly different from approval, but he didn't think he was in a position to dictate that sort of thing to anyone. Hopefully, there wouldn't be health – or system – consequences.

"What about the blue people?"

"The devils."

"Right. Them. They feel…odd."

"Those, we do hunt."

"I'm going to need a bit more than that," Elijah said, his patience running a little low. As interested as he was in Benedict's story or how he justified some of the things going on in his city, he was far more intrigued by the origin of those blue creatures.

"We're not sure where they come from. Somewhere to the east," Benedict explained. "They just roam around, attacking anything that comes close. In return, we hunt them. There are other, smaller and less powerful creatures coming from that direction, too. We kill them, but they're sneaky. Thankfully, we have the Watchers. Otherwise, this whole city would be overrun."

Then, he went on to explain that the devils were much more powerful than the local wildlife. Because of that, they'd been on the brink of killing the entire local population before Benedict arrived, demonic minions in tow.

"It took a few months, but we established a safe zone," he said with no small amount of pride. "That gave our hunters the opportunity to catch up. Now, I barely even have to send my minions out to fight them. Though if I wasn't around…"

"You capture the devils?" Elijah asked, wanting to move the conversation along.

Benedict shrugged. "I won't apologize for that. They're enemies – of my people and of humanity as a whole. Sacrificing them results in much more powerful minions," he explained. "That's enough to justify it."

"Are they sapient?"

"I have no idea. Perhaps. They refuse to communicate with us, even when tortured. I don't even think they can speak," he explained. "For what it's worth, we did try diplomacy. They attack anytime someone gets close."

"And their meat?"

"Very beneficial. It doesn't taste great, but a decent Cook can fix that."

Elijah sighed. The situation was obviously much more complicated than he'd expected.

"What about the Third Army?" he asked.

"Those elves? They tried to attack," he said. "They didn't get far into our territory before we sent them running."

Elijah frowned. "And what if I asked you to help fight them?"

"You want us to mobilize?"

Elijah nodded. "They're not far from crossing the mountains. When they do, they'll take New York," Elijah explained.

Benedict leaned forward, his elbows on his knees as he stared at the ground. For a long few moments, he didn't answer. But then, he finally asked, "Did I ever tell you what my life was like before the world's transformation?"

Elijah shook his head. "No."

"It wasn't pretty. I was a medical examiner," he explained. "The dead were always preferable to the living – to me, at least. I had a rough childhood. Bullies, mostly. They recognized weakness when they saw it. At one point, I tried to fight back, but it was useless. They just targeted me even more. It didn't stop when I got older, either. Everywhere I went, there were bullies. I saw them in my sleep. At work. Everywhere."

He looked up. "And then everything changed. Suddenly, I had the power to fight back. I did, too. I killed a few of them only a couple of days after the world went mad," Benedict explained. "I didn't stop there, either. I still see bullies everywhere. Every slight. Every time someone ignores me. Even when all they do is disagree. Bullies, bullies, bullies."

Each successive repetition of the word came with more disgust.

"I've tried to get better. I want to be better. I need to be," he half whispered. "That's why I can't help you. Do you understand? Please understand."

"People are going to die. A lot of them. Maybe me, unless I can get help," Elijah said. He wasn't certain if he believed that last bit. As difficult as the situation with the Third Army was, Elijah expected that, at worst, he'd have to retreat. But he wasn't even sure if they were strong enough to force him to flee. That didn't matter, though. He wanted to make a point. "You could prevent that."

"People will die if I leave," Benedict countered. "If I commit my people to a war against those elves, there is a good chance that we will be overrun. The devils keep coming. They never stop. You deal with them, and perhaps I can help. But until then, I can't sacrifice my people just to save a bunch of strangers that wouldn't spit on me if I was on fire."

Elijah didn't dispute that claim. He'd seen enough of humanity to know that most people were, at best, self-interested. They couldn't afford to be otherwise. Yet, with power came the opportunity to overcome that default nature. Still, he found it difficult to argue with Benedict's reasoning. His primary goal was to protect his people.

A noble endeavor if ever there was one.

Even if Elijah found their practices objectionable, he didn't wish them dead. Sure, the notion of cannibalism was disgusting. So was eating the devils, as far as he was concerned. The duels he'd witnessed were troubling as well, and turning executions into a public spectacle that, as far as Elijah could tell, empowered the populace was distressing. Especially when one considered the implications – a chain of logic that could see people falsely convicted because the population needed their proverbial fix.

But as much as Elijah disliked some of the things he had seen, the fact was that it wasn't his place to destroy a civilization that hadn't crossed the line into evil. Even if it had, was he supposed to be the final arbiter of morality? Was he meant to police the world?

No.

He had no interest in that.

Did his recent actions with the herd of cattle and the gnomish golem summoner make him a hypocrite? Maybe. But in his defense, he considered that a wholly different situation. People killing and oppressing one another was just part of the human condition. But messing with nature was where Elijah drew his lines.

Odd? Maybe, at least by conventional standards. But he was okay with his boundaries, and it all made perfect sense to him.

"So, you're telling me that if I deal with these devils, you'd be free to help?" he asked, well aware that his decision to fight the war elves was the exception to his philosophy. Maybe his boundaries weren't as hard and fast as he wanted to believe, but he refused to stand idly by while an army set out to conquer the world.

"I'm not saying I would definitely commit to helping, but it would help."

"Then you'd better tell me exactly where to find them. I'll see what I can do."