Chapter 1043: I Am an Adventurer (Patreon)

Jason turned away from Thadwick, once more looking out at the city. The sun was on the verge of dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in glorious teal and gold. Long shadows were cast by the ruined buildings, and the wandering giant’s distended flesh took on a strange green hue. It continued to shamble through the streets, giving no indication it had noticed their presence.

“I’m hoping you’ll take the first option,” Jason said, “although I don’t think you will, based on our conversation so far. It’s the one where you turn against the people who have been using you and stand with me. Maybe even help me clear the corruption from this place before we all get out of here together. I have places where vampires can find sanctuary, where Knowledge or Umber or whoever else will never be able to reach you.”

“The people that have been using me,” Thadwick said. “Wouldn’t I just be swapping them for you?”

Jason turned to look at him again.

“You don’t have to help me, Thadwick. Just stop hunting me. Either way, I’ll take you and your people out of here.”

“That sounds reasonable. I’ve learned that the people who are best at using others often do.”

“Can’t argue with that. I guess that brings us to option two, which is you and I duke it out. Plus, the vampires you’ve got skulking about. We both know they can’t win, even with those replica weapons they’ve got, which leaves the question of how much difference you make. How much will that sword affect me, and how well can you wield it?”

“We shall find out together.”

“No need to go jumping the gun, mate; there’s still option three.”

Turning back to the roof edge, Jason frowned.

“You’d think there’s be a railing or something. Does the afterlife not have occupational health and safety?”

He walked to the edge and sat down, his legs hanging off the side.

“Sit down, bloke. No one’s going anywhere, and neither of us would even get hurt from the fall.”

Thadwick stared at the back of Jason’s head for a long time before joining him on the edge, two arm-lengths away.

“I’m not going to lie, mate: option two feels kind of right to me. You didn’t exist when I knew Thadwick, and the last time I saw that weapon of yours. The two things came together and here you are. I’ve changed too, in all that time. It kind of feels like that sword has been chasing me, ever since I first saw it. You and me being here, it feels like coming full circle, you know?”

“I understand what you mean. You and I never met before this, yet I feel like I have been deeply shaped by the hatred of you in my memories.”

“It would be a knock-down, drag-out thing. One for the ages. But it’s not the smart play. You see, I am wary of that weapon. Without the more cosmic aspects of my power to hold it together, this avatar is very vulnerable to that thing. Not to mention, this avatar is more of a first-draft situation. My next one is going to be stronger, but that doesn’t do me any good now. You take it out here and I’ll just be a corpse doing nothing until the binding on it finally expires. While that’s happening, a lot of people are going to get hurt. This place will probably fall back into corruption. My avatar might even go undead and fall to the corruption itself.”

“I was sent here to make that happen, and I will honour my promises.”

“Like I said, there’s three options. The thing is, you only get to decide whether to take option one. If you don’t, options two and three are on me. Option two feels right, but option three is the smart pick.”

“What is option three?”

“You’ve got your vampire army, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s only the third biggest army here. The corruption is number one, and number two is all the people I’ve saved from it. They’re a big army, full of warriors, hunters and the like. They’re smart, they’re skilled, and they’re very grateful to me. They’re also not big on the idea of you killing me.”

“The shadow man didn’t seem to think that killing you was possible. Just slowing you down.”

“Yeah, pretty much. Time is the one thing you can cost me and the one thing I can’t spare. Which is why that army is waiting for my signal. Eyes in the sky. And when I give it, a bunch of portals will open and they’ll pour through, dealing with you and your vampire horde. While they’re doing that, I’ll go see what I can do about fighting the Jolly Green Jason. They’ll deny you the fight you came here to have.”

“It won’t be that simple. My agreement was not to keep the other vampires alive. I can ignore that army and go for you. I know the cleansed souls will be wary of returning to a corrupt state and will not want to go near the giant thing that looks like you.”

“Maybe. And you’re doing this to, what did you say? Honour your promise?”

“Yes.”

“Because honour and integrity are what make you different from that body’s original owner.”

“Yes.”

Jason let out a sigh.

“What are they for, Thadwick? Honour and integrity. What’s their purpose?”

“They are the purpose. Upholding them as principles is the very point of them.”

“I don’t see it that way. They have value, don’t get me wrong, but they are ultimately rule systems. Structures. And like all structures, they are rigid by nature. They might work for most situations, but not all. They can even cause harm when strictly adhered to in the wrong circumstance.”

“It is easy to justify surrendering one’s integrity. I have seen it many times in my memories.”

“I know you have, and I’m not saying that your principles are without purpose, but they are means to an end. For you, that means not being like Thadwick.”

“Yes.”

“Why not?”

“Thadwick was a bad person. He made everyone and everything around him worse.”

“Yes, he did. You could say that being a good person is leaving things better, or at least no worse than you found them. It’s a simple enough concept, but simple is not the same thing as easy. That’s why we have structures like honour and integrity to help us navigate it. I’m not going to tell you what you are or what you should be, Thadwick. But if you’re looking for the opposite of Old Thadwick, it isn’t a man of honour and integrity, it’s just being a good person. That’s a lot harder to navigate, trust me, but it’s much more worthwhile.”

“Are you a man of honour?”

“No. I try to be a man of integrity, but it’s hard to know what that is sometimes. I can tell you that I’ve made allies, with the intention of betraying them from the very start. I’ve told lies and killed without mercy. Manipulated friends and enemies alike. Through it all, I’ve tried to be a good person, but the right answers aren’t always easy, and sometimes all your options are bad. Having power means being responsible for it. It’s not good enough to watch people that you could have saved burn and say that you made the honourable choice. Sometimes the right thing means sacrifice. I’ve sacrificed honour and integrity both to do what I thought was right, and I didn’t like it. What that did to me. That’s what makes it a sacrifice.”

“What you’re suggesting doesn’t sound so reasonable anymore.”

“Oh, good. I thought I was losing my touch.”

“You are positing a situation where breaking my word does more good than harm. You are also assuming that doing good is what I want, because that is the opposite of what Thadwick was, but he never did anything to be bad. When he hurt someone, he believed that it was because they had wronged him. Taken what was rightfully his, or failed to give him the respect he deserved. He was selfish, arrogant, greedy, petty and self-deluding, but he was not evil for its own sake.”

“No one ever is. In the end, most evil comes down to selfishness and lack of empathy. Someone wants something and don’t care enough about who they hurt in taking it. Thadwick, there are moments that define who you are. They might be big or small, but usually big when you have power like ours. What matters is that you have to look at yourself and decide if you’re the person who does this thing, or the person who never would. I’ve had a few of those, and I haven’t always liked the conclusion I came to. Sacrificing your principles may be the best option you have, but that doesn’t mean it feels good. Or right, even when it is.”

“You think I face such a choice here?”

“I do. You see, the corruption in this place is changing, almost certainly becoming more dangerous. Going forward, I can’t face it while worrying about you at my back with a knife in your hand.”

“That’s why you came here now,” Thadwick said, looking at the horizon as the sky grew dark. “You were giving me the opportunity to confront you in as favourable conditions as I could hope for. With another enemy ahead, one your allies would be wary of, and a battle without sunlight.”

“Yes.”

“And you still believe you can win?”

“When Umber brought you here, I’m guessing that he told you something along the lines of that without access to my cosmic powers, I was just a gold-rank adventurer.”

“Something like that, yes.”

Jason nodded.

“Yeah, I thought he might. He’s the type to focus on the power and not the effort. All the cosmic power stuff, it mostly just happened. Right place, right time and a lot of luck. My skills and accomplishments as an adventurer get overlooked under all of that, but I earned the strength of my arm. I was taught by good people; I trained diligently. Pushed everything they taught me to the limit and then past it. Sacrificed to get stronger, not for the strength itself but because that was what I needed. A lot of times, it almost killed me. A few times, it did. I’m not just an adventurer, Thadwick. I am an Adventurer, and woe betide anyone who looks down on that.”

Jason got to his feet.

“Mercy is a luxury of the strong, and the people who sent me here sealed my strength away. I can no longer have you lurking in the shadows, so today, you either step into the light or learn that there are worse things in the dark than vampires. If you fight me, I will kill you and all your people. Every one of them. Then I’ll take your weapon and probably turn it into my next strange power. Maybe I’ll find a way to make an avatar out of it and become a true terror to the messengers.”

Thadwick stood up and the two men faced each other.

“That’s the choice, then,” Thadwick said. “Fight, and risk all of my people, or break my word. Sacrifice my integrity.”

“If that’s what you think integrity is. For me, integrity is being true to myself, whatever that costs. And your view of the choice in front of you isn’t complete. Let’s say we fight and you win. I go down, and however many of your people survived are safe. All the people relying on me, here in this realm and back on my homeworld, suffer the consequences. Knowledge gets what she wants. Umber gets what he wants. Millions die. Souls fall back into corruption. But you get to feel good that you kept your word. The thing that mattered to you happened, however many had to suffer for it. How exactly does that make you any different from the last Thadwick?”

Thadwick flinched.

“Now, what happens if you break your word? Your people live, and I can get to work saving mine. And you have to start figuring out who you are when you don’t have simple, rigid principles to hold onto. When you have to take responsibility for your choices.”

Thadwick turned from Jason’s gaze, looking out over a city now plunged into darkness. He stayed silent for a long time before he spoke.

“You said that you knew I would come tonight.”

“It wasn’t hard to guess. You’re not headquartered far from here. Right timing, right circumstances. The opportunity you’ve been waiting for.”

“You know where we’ve been hiding?”

“We found you years ago. Eyes in the sky.

“You could have come for us.”

“Yes. The others wanted to, but I held them back.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to give you this chance, on as close to your own terms as I could.”

“Why?”

“Mercy.”

“I thought mercy was a luxury of the strong.”

“I have strength enough for you, Thadwick, but only if you choose it. I’m not strong enough to force you to accept it.”

Jason paced running his hand through his hair.

“This has been a long time coming, Thadwick, but maybe a story doesn’t have to end in a fight. Maybe it can end in a choice. What do you think?”

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