"Black." Isaac's one word was all it took to cause the entire world to stop for the boss of the bandits. His consciousness had just returned and everything about him hurt. He was nauseous and decently surprised that he was even alive. He knew that the only reason he was alive was because the Lord of Darkness wanted something from him. There was no other reason for Isaac to have even played along with his request in the first place.

The area around the boss and Isaac darkened to a point where the only thing that the boss could see was Isaac's pale skin in the near total darkness. The light from the moon and stars had been entirely snuffed out by his simple command. They were inside of his world and there was nothing that any god the boss prayed to could do about it. Even if a god did have the ability to leverage enough of their power to save the boss from Isaac, there wasn't any point. Isaac was more than capable of powering through any halfhearted attempt at saving the boss by a god locked behind the veil that shielded Primatia from the heavens and hells. If they were to leverage their full power, it would be tantamount to declaring a holy war against a singular mortal. The implications alone would be a nightmare for all of the gods and deities with connections to Isaac and the boss.

The thoughts of the gods hadn't even flashed through the boss's mind. He knew that he was entirely at Isaac's mercy from the start and didn't even bother moving after Isaac had spoken. "You went easy on me." The boss told Isaac as he struggled to make out any of the Lord of Darkness's features.

"I did." Isaac confirmed. "You didn't flinch even though you thought you were going to die. That kind of resolve is half of the reason we are even talking right now." Isaac went on. "Why are you a bandit? What did you do to get exiled?"

"I heard a-" The boss took in a sharp inhale through his teeth as his fractured ribs flexed and sent jolts of pain through him. "-a rumor you could see that kind of thing."

Isaac smirked. "Tell me."

"I got drunk, blacked out, woke up in a compromising position with the governor's daughter, and she said I raped her." The boss got straight to the point. His story was a bit different from what Karson had said but that was not that surprising. It was both second or third hand and from someone obviously slimy. "I was convicted and exiled. I wandered around until I was taken in by the old bandit leader. I've stolen plenty, killed a few, and didn't do anything when some of the others got a bit out of hand."

"Was she questioned under a truth spell?" Isaac asked his follow-up question and then immediately went into another: "What about after you became their boss?"

"She wasn't. But I couldn't argue with her. I don't remember anything about that night. I do know how I got when I drank too much though, and I got smacked plenty of times for it, so it wouldn't surprise me that much if she was at least partly telling the truth." The boss told Isaac. "After I became the boss, I stopped them from getting handsy but I already had the power to do that. It doesn't take any courage to tell the idiots to stop screwing around to get back to work."

His openness and honesty was making it really hard to just kill him for a crime that Isaac saw as crossing the line. The real problem was that a false accusation against a person with his track record wouldn't even be questioned. Once again, life was complicated and Isaac was forced to choose between the safe bet for his conscience and what was better for his goals and future plans. He could kill the bandit, which he had every right to under the law and he was getting paid to do so, or he could save a man who was complacent in an unknown number of assaults and who may or may not have done it himself in a drunken haze.

Usually, Isaac would just kill him. It was the safer bet and if the man had truly been innocent than the god the man worshiped would most likely take his soul into their divine realm before it could be sent to the hells. The issue was that the other two bandits had a high chance of being more trouble than they were worth if the boss wasn't there to wrangle them.

"Lenna." Isaac spoke just loud enough for his mate to hear. The paladin in question walked into his field of darkness and stood next to him, next to the man still crumpled half inside of a tree. "I cannot come to a conclusion. Judge him for me, as my Lady of Hellfire. Whatever you decide will do."

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Lenna nodded and looked down at the bandit leader. "Will you swear, on your life, on your very soul, that you will fight with everything you have to see our goals come to fruition as penance for what you have done? The good you do in our names will still be good that you have done yourself. We will not order you to do anything that we ourselves would not do." Lenna's aura bore down on the man simply from his close proximity as she let it all out as an expression of her own conviction to go against the will of her ancestors and even fight a truly divine being if it came to it.

"T-that is a lot." The boss grunted out under the weight of her aura. "To swear on my soul? You want me to become a paladin of Redemption."

Lenna nodded. "I do."

"And you'll kill me if I don't?" The boss questioned her.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that lest it interfere with your decision. A paladin oath cannot be made under duress but if I tell you that you will walk free either way then you will have no incentive to listen to what I have told you." She replied calmly with all of the authority of a woman who would challenge a god and meet with kings in the same breath.

The boss looked like he was in deep thought. "You have until dawn to make up your mind." Isaac told him. "If Halya is going to be your divine witness, then she will have the easiest time of it at dawn or noon but we will be leaving after breakfast in the morning." He turned to leave and the darkness surrounding the boss faded away to let in flickering campfire light and the twinkles of the stars. Lua was half hidden behind the clouds so it really hadn't gotten much brighter but the air had gotten far less suffocating for the boss, especially because Lenna reined in her aura as the darkness lifted.

"Okay." The boss said and tried to nod. "Oh, um, can I get a little help?"

"He's good to stand, right?" Isaac asked Lenna.

"Yes, as long as he doesn't fall too hard, his bones should stay set." She confirmed.

Isaac nodded. "Stand." He ordered the shadows inside of the man's clothes and armor.

"Wh-ah!" The large man cried out in shock as his clothes ripped him free of where he was stuck and hoisted him onto his feet. Isaac and Lenna were already leaving to sit by the campfire when the boss had finally gotten his bearings again. "Uh, thank you!" He called out and then instantly regretted it as his ribs protested quite painfully.

The boss never tried to go far. He walked just out of sight to relieve himself a few times throughout the night but otherwise just sat or stood against a tree while deep in thought. The other two bandits were always within Shamesh's line of sight and had spent most of the night pretending to sleep under his watchful gaze. They probably would have tried to make a run for it if they had any chance of successfully escaping, but at least they both knew that escape from the Lord of Darkness was not going to happen, at least not at night while only a few dozen feet from him.

"What made you decide to give him a chance?" Isaac asked Lenna. Shadows clung to their faces so only they could hear each other.

"If he truly is as earnest as he appears, then making an oath to redeem himself is the best option. Paladins who have sworn an oath of redemption are permitted to enter cities even if they have criminal records and have been exiled in the past. I did some research into it after Macken died. I wanted to see if there was another way for my kin to break free of Dri'El and be accepted into human society." She explained. "There is no way that he doesn't know this already though, as an adventurer, it had probably been offered to him as a way to continue with his adventuring career after his sentencing. Which begs the question: Why hasn't he already done it?"

Isaac nodded in agreement. "From what I can see, fear." Isaac told his mate. He had been keeping an eye on the boss both with his eyes and some shared vision with the shadows from time to time. "He looks like he is afraid that his conviction is not up to the task."

"There is a risk, but if Halya is his witness, the risk will be far lower." Lenna replied. "If his conviction is not up to the task of forming a divinely backed oath, the god in question will reject him. A god of war or justice might smite him on the spot but Halya is far too gentle for that."

"From what he's said though, I don't think Halya is the god that keeps coming to his mind." Isaac said with furrowed brows. "Remember what he said before I sent him flying? Something about an honorable death leading to his god accepting him again."

Lenna nodded. "He is probably a worshiper of Battle or the human god of War." She surmised. "If he is a follower of Battle, then he must know that Battle is not capable of backing an oath. Only a fully realized god can do that."

"Who is the human god of War?" Isaac wondered. He really had never felt the need to look at the entire list of human gods. Halya was the one that mattered to him because the rest of the divine beings who were interested in him were ancient deities who didn't need churches or worshipers to be unfathomably powerful.

"Raegen." Lenna replied. "The only thing I know about him is that his clerics are known for retreating as soon as it looks like they are going to lose. There are probably exceptions, but a war cannot continue if one side holds their ground until they are wiped out. It makes them look like cowards but if cornered they will fight like men possessed."

"How do you think he will react if the bandit's conviction isn't up to the task of forging an oath?" Isaac asked his favorite paladin.

"Oh divine smiting for sure." Lenna said with absolute certainty. "Lightning from the sky or a direct pit to the hells under his feet."

Isaac looked over his shoulder at the bandit leader who was still staring up at the stars like they held the answers he was looking for. "Well, whatever the outcome, it'll be decided in the morning. I'm not sure I want to let him live if he doesn't swear the oath."

"Then he will either die at dawn or become a new man shackled with responsibility." Lenna stated simply and tossed another log onto the fire. One way or another, the old bandit leader would be no more.

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