After another few days of unremarkable lessons, Sionann and Fírinne returned to the temple of Kin-Galud. They didn’t have to visit the actual seal, as by now its presence was firmly established in the surface level parts of the temple. They were able to commune with it and receive top-ups of eldritch energy without having to take a trip up and down the stairs of indeterminate length. 

Kin-Galud had two tasks for them. The first was to permanently sabotage the cracked Barrier Stone, whilst disguising the fact that it was or ever had been damaged. The hammer and chisel Sionann had bought were to be used in this endeavour.

It turned out to be extremely hard to chip off a piece of masonry, even from the parts of the temple that had collapsed- requiring Kin-Galud’s personal assistance enhancing Sionann’s strength to ten times its natural level. Which raised the question- if just chipping a single piece off was so difficult, how strong was whatever had destroyed the temple? For that matter, how strong were the people who built it?

With the chip of eldritch masonry in hand (squeezed tightly in a fist, so as to shield it from the barrier), they returned to the Barrier Stone, where they very carefully expanded the fracture. Fortunately the Barrier Stone was made of a much less sturdy material, and no supernatural strength was needed to carve a wedge large enough to nestle the eldritch chip in. 

As soon as the chip was in place, it… sort of melted, flowing like living tar to perfectly fill the wedge. The entire stone seemed to shudder, as lines of darkness spread from the ‘infected wound’, criss-crossing until the text was completely obscured by a spiderweb of inky shadow. 

The entire barrier (or at least all of it that was visible from where they stood) dimmed, flickered… and then came back, good as new. The darkness faded away from the stone, with even the section previously fractured restored to pristine condition. 

The only difference was that a simple pulse of eldritch energy would open a gap, allowing Sionann and Fírinne to pass through with even greater ease than before. And, relevantly, take through certain eldritch artifacts that would’ve set off alarms, even on the damaged barrier.

Task number two was even simpler. Take the knife, which it had infused with eldritch energy, and kill somebody with it. Didn’t really matter who, so long as they weren’t a willing sacrifice. Willing followers, unwilling sacrifices, that was the way it liked to work.

“Woah, wait, hang on. Kill somebody? I definitely don’t want to kill anybody”, Fírinne protested. 

“What if they were about to kill me, though?”

“I’d gouge out their eyes and strangle them with their own intestines, but that’s a special case”, Fírinne said. [If anyone kills you it has to be me], she followed up in her thoughts.

Sionann opted to pretend she didn’t hear the second part. “Anyway, I don’t mind doing it. I’m sure I can find someone who deserves it.”

Excellent. Bring the knife back afterwards. 

“No problem.”

Problem. 

For all her bravado, Sionann couldn’t sleep properly that night. She’d agreed, since she figured she’d already mentally come to terms with destroying Reme as a goal- compared to the tens of thousands who would need to die for that, what was a single life? 

Well, it would be somebody’s. Not a number, but an actual person; a living, breathing person, who wanted to keep on living and breathing. She could already imagine the hypothetical person begging her for mercy, crying in fear as she held the knife in front of them. Blood spurting out of them like a cracked amphora where she stabbed them (she didn’t know what stabbing people looked like, but she imagined). Her father looking horrified, her mother shaking her head in disappointment. 

The only victim she could imagine killing in cold blood was Tullus Resius Pravus, but she didn’t like her chances of catching him in a dark alleyway without an escort. Besides, the investigation into the death of a senator would be rather thorough, and she wasn’t confident she could cover her tracks well enough to avoid getting discovered. 

She only fell into a restless, haunted sleep after hours of agonising. Only to be so obviously exhausted the next day that she was sent to the infirmary. A middle-aged Vestal was doing mysterious things with a mortar and pestle when she entered. After explaining that she had simply had a restless night, she was directed to lie down, then given a hot drink made from… some blend of herbs she’d never heard of. 

The drink calmed her down a little, but she was still wrestling with her assigned task. She ended up asking the attendant about it, in a detached way. 

“How do people kill others? I mean, how do they get over the instinctual distaste for taking a life?”

“Oh, bless you, child. They just don’t think about it. That so-called instinctual distaste never comes to the fore in the heat of the moment. A soldier doesn’t weigh the moral costs of his actions when faced with the enemy, he just stabs them.”

“I don’t think I would make a very good soldier, then.”

“Ahaha, well, you’re a very kind-hearted person. Don’t worry, there hasn’t been a need for Vestals to bear arms in many years.”

“Um. Why was there ever a need for Vestals to bear arms?”

“Oh. Ah, right, you haven’t- listen, you aren’t supposed to learn this for another few months, but- there are people who… use bad spirits to do bad things. I won’t go into details, just know that we are the only ones who can stop them, sometimes.”

“...what kind of bad things?”

“Like I said, you’ll learn about that later. I shouldn’t talk about it.”

She soon announced that she was feeling rested enough to return to her lessons, which was accepted. The day passed, night came again, and she still couldn’t sleep. Rather than spend another night tossing and turning, however, she decided to go for a walk. Outside of the temple. 

This was of course not allowed, especially in the case of an Initiate, but she was planning a fucking murder, a bit of curfew-breaking wasn’t going to make things worse. 

She put on a simple nondescript robe- which she also wasn’t allowed to do, or even technically own in the first place-, and though she didn’t think she’d use it, strapped the eldritch knife to her belt. She then cloaked herself in shadow, and quietly left the dorm. 

The streets of Reme were a lot quieter at night, but not empty. Notably, cargo traffic was significantly increased, as carts were allowed access within the walls. Sionann spent some time observing carts pass by, trying to guess at their cargo. 

Until a cart passed by whose cargo she didn’t need to guess at. A large cage, open to the elements, containing slaves. Elven slaves.

How… convenient.