Eldritch Exorcist

"I can't just kill someone," whispered Ophelia, her eyes glued to the table in front of her.

I tilted my head a bit. "Sure you can. If the opponent's size is the issue, then don't worry, you won't be made to fight the sacrifice. They will be bound for you. Just a simple slash across the carotid arte—"

"That's not the point!" she shouted, her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "It's not that I can't, it's that I—I… I don't want to. I won't do something like that to people I know."

"Are you willing to die for them?" I asked, curious about her moral compass.

She stopped at my words. "If I don't do it, will the people of this village kill me?"

"No, they won't kill you." I paused and lowered my tone a bit, making sure she understood the seriousness. "But your actions will be seen as throwing away God's gift, as disobedience. Normally, this wouldn't cause immediate disaster, but you will be in the presence of a god's messenger, so I assume he will take your soul in place of the sacrifice."

She looked at me, her eyes wide. She waited for a second as if I was supposed to offer a solution. But I just sat there, waiting for her to make the decision.

She finally spoke. "You assume… You mean you're not sure?"

"No, I mean no one really knows what gods want or will do, but I'm quite sure that if you don't go through with the ceremony, the messenger won't just stand by. So I'm pretty sure he will kill you."

"But you are not absolutely sure." She really caught on to those words.

"If you want to risk your life and most likely your soul, then go for it," I said lightly, but inside, I had to say I would be disappointed in her. I expected much more from someone with magical talent and the attention of a deity.

"Okay." She tilted forward. "So, how sure, like what are the percent—"

I chuckled at her words. "What does it change? The messenger or the god will most likely kill you if you disobey. Why risk it? It is a simple choice you are given, your life or someone else's."

"That's not a simple choice to make. Nothing about this is simple. How can I make that decision and live with it?" She exclaimed, sounding closer and closer to tears.

"No, the situation is simple. You are the one making it complicated." I took a swig from the cup of ale and continued. "The choice is as straightforward as it gets. You either kill someone, get a god's patronage and live, or you give up your own life. There are no catches, no many-paged contracts to sign, no interpretations. You or someone else, and the choice is yours."

"And how do you think I should choose, if it is so simple?" she asked angrily.

"Just pick the person you like the least. The moral code is very clear in such cases. If you are in danger and have to choose between yourself and any other person, innocent or not, choosing yourself is always a good decision. Unless other choices are better for the good of the family," I recited the last part.

"I—I can't," she stammered. "It's not that simple. I can justify this to myself all I want, but this is selfish and just wrong."

"And what's wrong with selfish? Do you think anyone in your group would be willing to sacrifice themselves if they were in your place?" I could see she stiffened at my words. "You see, someone just came to your mind. I say you sacrifice that person. I mean, what are you afraid will happen if you do that? Even if you believe that this is wrong, so what? What will happen if you commit that wrong?"

She sat there mulling my words over as I sipped my ale.

"What about hell? Won't I go to hell if I murder someone?"

"Hell? You? What, did you make a contract with a demon? And do you think you will go to heaven if you're a good person?" I asked, surprised at her thought process. "You are going to form a contract with a god, so I assume your afterlife will be part of the deal, that's standard practice for most contracts with sacred beings. And since you don't have a deal with the God of the Bible, then no heaven for you anyway."

She sat there in stunned silence, processing my words, trying to make sense of them. "Afterlife as part of the deal?"

"Yes, most likely."

"So I will go to heaven of sorts? Even if I murder someone?"

I smiled at her surprise. "I'm surprised this is the part that got you so stunned. I did not take you for a believer in the first place."

"Well, I'm not, but being raised in a religious household, even if you leave, even if you reject what they told or did… I don't believe in hell, but I guess I'm still afraid of it. Like I was conditioned, I guess." She tried to explain.

"I can understand that. So to answer your question, yes, you can kill all you want, and as long as it doesn't piss off your god or break the contract, you will have an afterlife guaranteed. But a fair warning," I looked into her eyes, "don't think there are no consequences. Killing without a cause, or even worse, for pure pleasure, will inevitably turn you into a monster. And sooner or later, you will make an enemy strong enough to eliminate you." I put a smile back on my face. "Take it from someone with a couple of genocidal maniacs in his family tree, not a good idea."

"S-still, I don't know…"

"Well, we went from 'I won't' to 'I don't know,' so, progress." I nodded my head happily. She was a step closer to going through with the sacrifice. I pressed on. "Pick someone and be done with it. There is a name, at least one, and like ripping a bandage—say it. You will feel many things, maybe even think yourself a monster, but over time you will accept it and change, become a new, stronger person."

"What if I don't want to change?" She snapped at me.

"I saw your eyes light up at the mention of magic. You look like you want to change."

She lowered her head a bit. I could see the jaw muscles tighten. "So, is it what happened to you? You don't seem moved by the whole thing."

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"You are stalling for time," I chuckled. "But fine. I'm a bit of an unusual case, you see. I was taught how to kill and whom to kill from a young age. My moral compass doesn't have conundrums, at least not that many. It was taught to me like any other thing. I was presented with choices, discussed them, and even wrote papers that were graded. And when I got things right, I was rewarded, and when wrong, punished."

"That sounds horrible." I could see some empathy in her eyes. Was this Stockholm syndrome?

"It was nice. I would sit with my father late into the night and discuss our next sacrifice, and why or why not it should be a given person. And it's not that different from what you went through, just in your case, the reward and punishment were not that obvious. But in the end, both of us were conditioned to believe what we believe by our environment, to a certain extent at least."

She looked at me weirdly, her mouth half open, but she could not pick her words.

"Anyway, my point is, you will have to unlearn some of the things taught to you. Normally, that would happen over time as the world around you changes, but you don't have this luxury, so you will have to make that choice quickly."

"And what about the rest of the people? If I don't go through with it, will they be killed?" she asked. Her voice was strange. There was worry, but also a bit of hope. Hope that she would be forced into the decision, that the burden would not be on her, that she could tell herself she did it for others and had no choice.

I considered lying to her for a second, but decided against it. She had the right to know, and finding out I lied would probably destroy any trust she had in my words.

"Your decision won't change anything. They will be made to sign special contracts and let go."

She was clearly surprised at my answer. "They will go straight to the police."

"They hopefully will. Then the police will go around the forest, won't find shit, probably believe they got drunk and made it up. If you decide to go through with the sacrifice, then a missing person will be added. You know, the outcome of all the alcohol and going off the trail. Search parties won't find anything, and that will be it. A tragedy caused by irresponsible behaviour."

She sat deeper in her chair. There was a turmoil of emotion written on her face. I poured myself some more ale and waited for her to make the decision. I imagined it wasn't an easy one, although it was hard to empathize. If the choice was you or someone else you didn't at least have a strong friendship with, then what was there to hesitate about? People were sometimes strange like that, hard to understand on any other level than purely scholarly.

I sipped my drink, planning tomorrow's investigation in my head until I saw her sit a bit straighter in her chair.

"I—" she took a deep breath and let it out, raising her eyes to meet mine. "I will do it. I'll obey the will of the gods. I will… k-kill." Her voice broke on the last part, but her eyes stayed resolute.

A smile crept upon my face. "Good to hear. So who will it be?"

"I want to make the decision by morning. I think I want to talk to them, let them accept the reality, maybe even say a few goodbyes."

"While it sounds nice, I think it's a bit cruel. But whatever. Just remember the feeling right now. If you let them persuade you out of the idea, making the decision again will only be harder, and so much more mentally straining," I warned her.

"I made my decision, I just don't know who to pick."

I felt she did not make that decision entirely, but I think she was leaning toward it at least. She was moving with certain determination, so I could only hope she would not back down.

Before we left the house, I did one more thing. I took a mana crystal from my pocket. "Let me give you a present of sorts, to celebrate your good decision." Saying that, I closed her hand around the magic crystal. Her body instinctively drew on the mana as I helped guide it towards her.

"Consider it a sign. You were meant for the world of magic—born for it. Without it, you are incomplete. And all that is standing between you and power is your own resolution."

Her eyes widened at the sensation. She met my gaze for a second, her mouth hanging open. I wondered how long she had lived with the sensation of missing mana.

After a while, I let go of her hand. She stood looking at herself, confusion and many unanswered questions hanging in the air. After that, we both left the house, and I walked her back into the barn, leaving her with the rest of her people.

I stood outside and looked toward the sky. The darkness of night was slowly giving way to the first morning lights. I had maybe four hours of sleep before the agreed-upon time to meet with Astrid. I rotated my shoulders a bit to do something about the stiffness from hours of sitting, and went toward the hut assigned to me and Q'Shar.

Tomorrow would be the time to investigate the gods. But for now, I needed some sleep.

Ophelia absentmindedly sat back down in her spot in the barn. The entire trip back had been made on autopilot, her body mechanically following the man with hollow eyes.
But her mind was in complete turmoil. She did not want to die. She had spent all this time fighting for her life, for her own place in the world. She did not want it to lead here, to end in some godforsaken village with some deities she was still not sure she believed in.

The existence of magic, gods, and her own supposed power was a lot to take in, not to mention the decision she had to make, weighing on her shoulders like a boulder threatening to crush her any second.

She was still hesitating. Most of her resolve was just to get the man to let her go back and think in peace. But then he did what she could never have expected. He took away the emptiness. He gave her some crystal, and in seconds, the depression that had made her life a nightmare was gone.

She was torn and lost. Her mind was like a battlefield. On one side was her will to live and to see the new world opening before her. But on the other side was the fear of committing such an atrocity, and all the sadness and exhaustion that had accumulated throughout her life, whispering to her to let go, to give up, telling her that killing for her own survival would just add to the pain.

She sat down and buried her head in her hands. She wanted peace, a time to think, to rest. But it would not be given to her.

"So?" asked Oliver. "What is going to happen? Will they let us out? Do they want a ransom or something else?"

"They will let us go after some ceremony they want to go through."

Many people looked around with smiles and hope, some even whispered excitedly. But not everyone was eager to join the celebration.

"You are lying," said Alice. "Why would they let us out? They have to know we'll tell the police, and a search party that can use a compass," she looked at their professor, "will be sent. Did they tell you to keep us calm? Like cattle for slaughter, so that we don't fight?"

"No," groaned Ophelia. "They don't care about us. You can get all the search parties you want, they don't care, so go to sleep."

She tried to turn to the side, but Jimmy joined the conversation. "Yeah? And why did they ask for you? Oliver said you were praying to the elk thing. How do we know you're on our side?"

"Yeah," some people whispered. Some nods could be seen in the darkness of the barn.

"I'm just telling you what I was told. I don't know anything else, so leave me alone." She wanted to deal with the turmoil of emotion in her head, but the constant questions were just making it worse.

"I think you're keeping something from us," Tom said. "Look, we deserve to know what will happen. You don't get to keep it from us."

"Leave me alone, please. I have to sleep. I told you everything you need to know." She turned over on her patch of straw.

"Oh, so there is something?" Tom hissed.

She could hear him move and felt someone jerk her body to face the people in the barn. "You will tell us what it is!"

"Let go of me!" Ophelia shouted and tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he held on tighter. She could see his eyes, wide open, breath quickened, and teeth gnashed. He looked like a cornered animal, biting at everything that moved.

"Fucking speak! What do you know? Are you on their side? Are you a spy?" He was shaking her, barking questions.

Until she couldn't take it anymore, the asshole grabbing her, the looks full of suspicion, the clear hostility.

"They want me to pick one of you who will be killed in the ritual!"

She shouted at them, and heavy silence fell over the barn.