Judine felt the trigger of the metal. The crossbow. She would deliver justice to those innocent killed for not having money, and those who were killed by a guilty person being released.

  The man staring at her was an older judge, Judge Marxillious. Judine had a mask on, and Marxillious was just sputtering on and on about who she was, and how she’d be given an innocent verdict had she let him live.

  The crossbow was perfectly trained on Marxillious, without even shaking. Marxillious had deep blue eyes, and her eyes, a nice golden glow against the room. The room was lit ablaze when Judine had kicked down a candle stick.

  The orange glow reflected in the blue eyes, and Judine simply muttered a question, “If you had the chance, would you pay off all your sins to survive?”

  The response was something both completely expected and not all the same, “I will never give my money to the likes of you, even if I burn in hell!”

  The answer was objectively wrong, Judine knew in her heart that this judge would only continue his sin of being bribed. Constantly ruining many people’s lives for the sole purpose of getting richer.

  And the strong snap of a crossbow’s fire was all that was heard, Judine jumping clean out the room. The fire burned the building behind her the same shade of orange. She’d committed the unforgivable.

  And it felt awful at the same time it felt good.

  [Class Evolution Scholar -> Judge of Justice]

  It didn't help that the system just fed it.

  ******

  Clara led Shammus to the rest of the group. Everyone except Bariton, who was still doing… something. Nobody knew where he ran off to, or at least they pretended not to. Shammus stared at the entire group.

  Clara sighed, drawing attention to herself. Shammus remembered her kindness, her attempts to heal him before he fell asleep. But then she healed him anyways outside the realm of consciousness. And she used a repair skill on his equipment too.

  The dripping of water slowly going down the stalactites to hit stalagmites, to form them. The water continues dripping, and dripping, and dripping. Time seems to feel stagnant despite the constant rate of the water.

  Clara began speaking, “That floor was probably worse for all of you,” she begins. Shammus found himself wondering about what the other 4 dealt with. Sornid, despite having seen him only once, piqued his curiosity.

  Clara continued on, “It was probably far far worse for Sornid. There was a burning house during the first night. It seemed to have some connection to our poor mage…” She catches her breath which seemed to be running off on her, “He was crying.”

  The rest of the party seemed shocked at this. As if Sornid was some kind of stoic man and not the child that he was. “He was crying, and he kept trying to run into the building. I stopped him myself.”

  She raised her hands to look at them. Clara was shaking, and she declined Pallad’s support. “I stopped him from diving into the burning house. I was scared I’d lose him there.” Clara’s account continued, her voice slowly breaking. “I know we were all strong enough to survive a fire, but he was unconscious in the burning building when I first found him.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She shakes continuously, her words got more messy too as her pink eyes filled with tears. “He was strong enough, but I stopped him… And the building collapsed. The building collapsed over two other people that Sornid was trying to save. He could've saved. If I didn’t stop them.”

  She continues shaking as tears fall from her face. Pallad rushes forward, but Shammus couldn’t understand why she was crying. “It isn’t your fault though. Some teammates do stupid things that wind up getting them killed, and you prevented him from doing just that.”

  Judine’s gold eyes flashed with… something as she snapped towards Shammus. Her glare was full of something negative, her eyebrows were furrowed. Shammus simply just led his gaze back towards Clara thanking Pallad, but his attempts to comfort were simply brushed away.

  The cave was once again filled with Clara’s voice as she continued, “Thank you Pallad, but I’m okay… I swear. But, Sornid had also recounted his past with the tower’s recreation of his childhood forest. His childhood tree had a great amount of shade, and it smelled like… Spring. Freshly blooming flowers, newly budding trees.”

  Her passage of time continued, “But, it was interrupted by something… far worse than Shadowing Voices. I think he said his name was something related to the heavens, but I couldn’t hear it. There was too much.”

  Shammus’s eyes locked into Clara’s, but he stayed silent, biting his own tongue. “The man was too fast. His appearance is locked into my mind. I couldn’t even see his movement, and they killed Sornid as soon as he tried to act to save me.”

  “Sornid’s gone. I tried to revive him but I couldn’t. The system tried to tell me something, tell me that it wouldn’t work,” Clara took in another deep breath, her tears falling quickly at such a pace that it looked more like two steady streams, “But it also failed because I was too weak. I was too much of a failure to repair Sornid’s body in time, and he was dead by the time I cast.”

  Clara’s speech fell more to babbles of repetitions, and Shammus simply approached her and sat down beside her. He didn’t make any move to comfort her other than his own presence.

  The unlit campfire was formed, probably by Pallad earlier, while the seatings were made by the cave itself, or by the tower. The stone was uncomfortable to sit on, but was better than standing.

  “I understand why you would blame yourself.” Shammus recalls his own time as a commander, back when he’d decided Justice and Agony were too violent of weapons, and learned how to wield a more noble weapon like a rapier.

  “I understand how you would blame yourself.” Shammus continues to see himself in the fancy noble clothing, hand on the rapier on his hip. It was gilded in gold on the handle similar to Justice.

  “But you need to understand that the past is the past.” He remembers burning the noble clothes outside his shack. “And that we can only push onwards, using the past as fuel to keep ourselves warm with comfort, and strong with determination.”

  The rest of the party looked on at him. “You are right in that I do not know how to comfort, I was considered the worst of the Grecian Codenames at comforting. I was given the name Achilles due to my tough skin, both physically and emotionally.”

  Time seemed to come to another still after he said those words. He didn’t draw his weapons, it felt tense like just before a battle. But he knew he could trust these people with his life, and they trusted him the same.

  Otherwise Clara wouldn’t have led him here.

  “Hm, wise words…” Judine muttered under her breath as she wrote something down in her notebook. A sound from Pallad implied he felt the same. It was odd, to hear his words validated in such a way.

  Clara simply nodded to his words, muttering a small thank you before leaning on Shammus. His instincts told him to push her off, but he held those down. Pallad lets out a small chuckle at that, and Shammus glared at him.

  Pallad simply walked forward and caught the two in a group hug. And Shammus felt something pop in his back. Maybe break as well. “I am glad to have this group.” He says out loud, as Shammus and Clara were both lifted up off the ground.

  “Wait-” Shammus manages to sputter out, but a healing magic cooled over him after Pallad let the two go. Shammus looks at her in surprise, but she simply smiles back, wiping away her tears.

  “We’re all glad to have one another.”