The first indication I had that my party wasn’t exactly happy with this revelation was a slight twitch in Mark’s eye. It was ever so small, but in the sudden stillness that followed my proclamation, it was highly visible.

  “You have to kill her.”

  Angel’s voice was dead, bleeding disappointment and disbelief in similar amounts that made my stomach shrivel up and die from—well, I didn’t really know what. It was an emotion similar to shame, but not quite there yet. Maybe embarrassment? Dread? That was a distinct possibility. It was like my mom had just said my full name in that tone all mothers wield far too well.

  Still, it wasn’t like I had done anything wrong, I had just been the straw dummy standing in the way of the system’s curve-ball of a task.

  “Yeah, it’s rather unfortunate,” I said, trying to laugh it off, “I’ve already tried once, but it went about as well as could be expected ending with me in pretty much the same state I’m in right now. That treant really packs a punch. My shoulder’s been turned to mush by it twice now.”

  “Wait, you’ve faced it more than once?” Harald asked, leaning forward with a keen interest.

  “Well, the first time I was only level two, so I kinda just… endured for that one. And I wasn’t exactly sane, or conscious, for the majority of my fight with it yesterday, but I can assure you it’s quite strong. Definitely strength focused, likely a little health and defense thrown in as well. I’m at least a semi-decent match for it, but not at level five like I am.

  “The witch is worse. She has been completely corrupted by madness. So much so, that she attracted and managed to manifest a Shadow. It’s a Lesser Shadow of Mortal Madness, so it’s nothing compared to its brethren, but it’s a Shadow nonetheless.

  “She is also—as the system announcement said—a ritualist, so she can prepare spells and curses ahead of time to be cast on the fly. Traps, enhancements, summonings, nothing is out of her reach. I don’t blame y’all if you won’t join me in trying to kill her.”

  At the mention of the Shadow, Angel paled. The others, though, just gave me questioning looks. I could tell they had no idea what I was talking about. And as I didn’t know much about Shadows myself—not much that I was willing to share, anyways—I turned to Angel to give them a more fitting, less terrifying explanation.

  “Do you know what shadows are?” Angel asked the two of them, and they each nodded. “Good. A shadow is the shape of something outlined by light. It’s like a hole. In fact, in some instances, shadows can be holes or passages—or portals for that matter. To be brief, a shadow is a representation of the thing itself, of the concept of Angel-ness in my case.

  “These Shadows are the same, except they embody non-physical things. Things like love, fear, happiness, and in this case madness. These attributes can be divided into two different categories with two different sub-categories.

  “First, there are the fourteen Greater Shadows which represent the fourteen great attributes: the seven virtues and the seven sins. Then there are the countless Lesser Shadows for things like madness and happiness(different than joy). Next, we have the difference between Mortal and Divine Shadows, which is basically just the level of power they possess and a bit of a ephemeral line. Felix probably knows more about them, but that’s all I have.”

  She looked over at me and tilted her head in a manner that pushed me to continue from there.

  “I do know more,” I said, “But that’s a good enough explanation for our purposes. A bit archaic and slightly inaccurate, but good enough. What you really need to know about these things is that they are incredibly hard to manifest. Incredibly hard, to the point of being borderline impossible. The only way they can be created is through a very pure source of their metaphysical wellspring and an iron will. This makes them unusually powerful. That Lesser Shadow of Mortal Madness, while manifested by a level nine, is probably at the level of a strong Novice tier. So… level eighty-something, maybe ninety.”

  A round of gasps followed that statement, including from Angel who likely didn’t even know this much about them. Everyone knew what happened when you tangled with a target of a higher tier than yourself, even if it was just by one or two levels. The natural power suppression and difference in level quality lead to death ninety percent of the time. Jumping up two tiers was just suicide.

  I decided to allay their fears a little. “This isn’t actually that much of a problem for us, though.”

  “Isn’t a problem?!” Mark shouted, incredulous, “How can this not be a problem? We—”

  “Let him speak, Mark,” Harald said, “He was just about to inform us why it isn’t a problem, wasn’t he.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  That last part was firmly directed at me, more of a command than anything. Also reinforcing it was the sheer terror etched into Mark’s face, and the hopelessness on Angel’s. Something was eating at her from the inside, and I was fairly certain I knew what it was.

  “That’s right, I was. And I didn’t say it isn’t a problem, I just said it isn’t much of one. See, Shadows are incorporeal; they can’t touch you, so they can’t kill you outright. The real problem comes from their ability to directly affect your psyche. They can overload any other emotions or spiritual phenomena with their own. And they don’t just make you feel or experience their attribute, they create it to a harmful degree.

  “This means the Shadow of Happiness can make you feel so happy you will accept death with open arms like it’s a missing loved one. Madness, like the one we’re facing, can make you rip out your own throat in a fit of insanity if it goes far enough. And the Greater Shadows? They’re even worse. They can reach beyond death, so even if you have a resurrection skill you aren’t safe.

  “You can’t kill Shadows. The only way to disperse them is to kill the one who manifested them. And if they’re freestanding, good luck with that. You’re gonna need one heck of a soul-rending skill to deal with them.”

  I looked around at the horrified looks on the faces of my party members. Yeah, perhaps it wasn’t the time to go deeper into the living existential crises that were the Shadows. It might be better to leave the true horrors of those that walk beyond for a later date. Now for some encouragement.

  “So all I have to do is kill Dalia and the Shadow will go away. Now, before you voice your bouquet of terror and despair I need to tell you something. I am absolutely forbidding you from attacking or in anyway advancing on the witch. I will deal with her. If you do approach her, I will just end up mopping your guts from the floor. You hear me? You. Will. Die. Or worse, you will just go insane and force me to kill you on top of her.”

  Angel frowned, doing the obvious math in this equation. Then she frowned even deeper. “Well, what do you need us for then? You could have done this all by yourself a long time ago.”

  “That’s a good question. I need you to keep the stupid treant off my back for once in its life. You don’t have to kill it, the curse should fade after I kill the witch. Just keep it occupied while I’m fighting. Also, we need to do this tomorrow or my madness will become permanent, which I need not remind you is a bad thing.”

  Ticking off his fingers one by one, Harald murmured, “So we’ve got the witch and the treant covered, and Angel should be able to deal with the witch’s summons as well. That just leaves the Shadow. How do you plan on dealing with it?”

  I grinned, accidentally leaking just a tiny bit of insanity back into my consciousness and renewing the struggle to keep back that strange, bloodthirsty part of me, “I won’t.”

  “But you just got done telling us how dangerous these things are,” Mark said, “You can’t just ignore it, it’ll drive you mad.”

  My grin widened even further. “And who’s to say I’m not already? You remember the An Dreores, don’t you?”—Angel flinched at the mention of her brush with death—“Of course you do. That was just a couple of hours ago, after all. I can replicate that state of mind any time I want to. In fact, I’m actively holding it back at the moment.”

  That probably wasn’t the right thing to say at the time, but it seemed better in the moment. Looking back, I remember the looks my friends the shot between themselves. They were looks that said they were at least slightly regretting inviting me to the party already. I hadn’t been a member for longer than an hour and I was already getting them into trouble they were entirely unready for. Little did they know at the time that it would get far worse in the coming years.

  I was perhaps a bit too confident back then. Sure, I had suffered some near-death accidents, but I hadn’t seen anything near what I have now. Besides, I was missing a vital piece of myself. You may have noticed the lack of sarcasm lately. Yeah, that’s why. There were things in that forgotten past that caused it. I won’t spoil quite yet, but the time is coming. Eventually.

  Besides, what had I to lose? There wasn’t anything I had worth more than my life. I barely even knew my party, and I was at least partly insane. For that matter, my fight with Instinct wasn’t faring too well either. And it was getting worse, too. My control was just beginning to slip.

  Mark yawned. “Well, we should probably get some rest if we’re going to fight tomorrow. You still won’t be in the best shape, but less wounds are preferable to more.” He stretched his arms over his head and stood. The others stood with him, and I followed suit.

  Mark and I put out the fire together to limit the possibility of detection by random creatures out there in the darkness. Especially against yet another An Dreores. I shivered at the thought. I really didn’t want to have to deal with one of those again. That would be a problem.

  “Goodnight everybody!” Angel called as she crawled into her tent.

  “Goodnight,” the two boys echoed, and the light in their tent flicked off.

  And before I could say anything or mention the fact that I didn’t actually have anywhere to sleep or any bed to sleep on, I was left alone in the darkness, the dying embers of the fire flickering weakly in the circle of rocks and the wind keening mournfully between the massive trees. Not that I minded, really. I was used to being alone. I had been alone for over a third of my two and a half decade-long life now.

  Still, it hurt a little. I expected this sort of treatment from people on the street, and from old friends who knew what I was really like and turned their backs on me. But I didn’t expect it from people I had just met and was in a party with. They were supposed to wait at least a month or so before doing this.

  As I sat down with my back to the nearest tree, I reflected back on my life so far. It had been a mostly dull experience with bits of excitement here and there. The only real change in it had come when I ran away from home at the age of sixteen or so. It hadn’t been my parents’ fault, they were just as loving and caring as always. No, it had been something else. Something I couldn’t quite remember. It lurked there at the edge of my memory, but it was like trying to grasp wet ice in both hands—it kept slipping away from me whenever I tried to look at it.

  I sighed. It was going to be a long night, wasn’t it. Oh well, at least I could keep watch to pass the time. If you could call that passing the time.