“Torture? You want me to be tortured for this cause? What kind of cause is so important I have to sacrifice my whole life for it?”
The elder shrugged. “I shouldn’t really tell you. You aren’t important enough to know these things, because all of the important people already know them,” he said. “Never let it be said that I am not the kindest among the council of elders, however. The cause which you have been called to sacrifice your life for is the revolution of our people. It has been too many years that we have been under the rule of the disgusting dragons when our city and our sister city is so superior in culture and skill and in every way from all of these other,” he paused, “Creatures,” he spit, “That we cannot stomach continuing to be in such a system that values these vermin over our own kind.” His eyes grew dreamy and distant. “We will empower our people. We’ll destroy this facsimile of a world even as our kind first created the Shadeworld so that this realm and the original Earth will once again be combined as one entity. In the chaos the scared and confused mundanes will turn to our superior gifted humans for leadership, and the other creatures will seek our guidance when dealing with the mundanes who killed thousands of the the magical vermin during the Magic Crusades, and we will use the chaos to gain control of all species.”
Darien was staring at the old man. “You can’t be serious. What you are speaking of is revolution! It’s treason! In case you’ve forgotten, that means if any of this goes wrong we’ll all get the death sentence!”
The old man shrugged and brushed off the concern. “Some of our people may be tried for our acts, but it will all be worth it knowing that they’ve contributed to our future. A few dead and thousands of years of rule seems a fair trade.”
Darien shook his head. “I’m sorry. Elder, you know I am loyal to our people and have sacrificed years of my life as a spy for the benefit of the city. But I can’t kill two innocent people, and I can’t support the combining of the two worlds. Geeze, did you think of how dangerous this would be? Even if you ignored the wards and infighting that would have to result from all of this, we can’t know how dangerous it would be to fully unite the realms again.”
The old man glared. “So you are saying you would rather ignore your orders, betray your kind, and work against us?”
The teen held up placating hands. “Nothing that strong, I just feel like there’s a way to improve things without killing thousands of people first, most of them innocent. I’d just like to not be involved with killing at all, really.”
Gruzelvelt glared at him. “You are a nothing, a nobody. You don’t get the option of turning down orders. You will support our cause fully and do any order we give and kill any person we tell you to, or you will be cast out from our people.”
Darien sighed. “Well, since I am so useless to my people anyways, and the only way I can support them is to murder the innocent, then I think I must leave the city.” He tore off his necklace with a signet of his name, the only gift allowed to be given to his kind by their parents before they were entered into the Child Centers of their correct city to be raised and indoctrinated in the ways of their people. Casting off the one piece of family and roots he had was what was done by any who chose to leave the Domed City and be a rebel against their people like the Alchemists. It was a strong statement they both recognized as him leaving the cause.
The elder just smirked at him in the scrying sphere though. “So you have decided to abandon our cause. It’s no matter, really. You have been involved in all of this enough that when we go to the King himself and complain how this terrible criminal cast out by our people is trying to destroy the separation between the two worlds without care for all the possible deaths that could cause, we will have enough evidence to show that you are guilty of all of these crimes.”
Darien stared at him. “So my punishment for not supporting the murder of thousands, maybe even millions, is to be the scapegoat for the very crimes I protested against?”
Gruzelvelt grinned at him. “Who better? If you will not support us then we will punish you for your insolence somehow. It’s even more delicious to have you punished for the very thing you betrayed your people over.” Darien opened his mouth to defend himself more, though he did not know how to go about it. It didn’t matter. He opened his mouth and the elder cut him off again. “I have said my piece, you have abandoned your people, and now there is nothing more of importance that can be said by a betrayer of his people. You do not exist to me or any members of the city, you may not contact any friends, all of your belongings are now forfeit, and you are barred from communicating with any aspect of our city forever more.” He swished his hand and the scrying sphere collapsed, cutting off his last communication with any of his kind. He looked around the room, seeing his bedroom in the human world with his adoptive family as new. He had no great closeness to their so called parents, but he was close to Alyss and between the two of them they took care of each other. He had books he had bought on a shelf, and video games scattered in
