After they spent enough time grieving on the top deck, people began to go their separate ways. It was a slow but steady moving on. Morning was different here in the swamp. People died every day, and it was just something you had to get used to. The reaper came for everyone. The longer you spent mourning and feeling bad about the people that you had lost, the more likely it was that he would come for you as well.

  So, people went about their days, they got busy training, getting back on guard duty, or they went to the cafeteria with Patrick and they settled their sorrows over a glass of beer and a hearty meal. For his part, Ozzy remained up on the top deck. It was no secret that he was a little more susceptible to the sad things, and the sorrows, and the grief than everyone else was here. He'd hardly known the people who'd gone, but he'd seen them around, and to Ozzy, that meant something. So, he waited a little bit longer, hopefully letting their spirits know that he cared.

  On the top deck with him was Lucy, and Emil and Liza had stayed as well. His friends staying more in support of him than any true feeling of need. Lucy however, it seemed was up there for the same reason he was. The men and women who were no longer with them had been her responsibility, in the end, she had been the one to end the lives of potentially more than half of the lives of the hydra’s victims. If they had died to their flames, their deaths would have been something of a mercy. They would have died regardless, and she'd really only done them a favor, ending that terrible burning rot that had plagued the warriors of the first segment.

  That was a machine's way of thinking, however, not a leader who felt responsible for her people.

  “I'm sorry for your loss.” Ozzy said, consoling her in a tried-and-true earthly method. It was safe, distant enough that the person wouldn’t think you were trying to relate to them, but at the same time letting them know you were thinking of them.

  It didn't look like Lucy cared for the comfort. She lifted an annoyed eyebrow at him. Staring him down, searching his features for any sign of pity. All she found was care and a resonance to her own feelings.

  “Lorelei was a friend,” she said, “She was one of the ones who helped me start the district. She pulled money with me to by our first little bit of territory. Recruited friends she had in the guild. She even fought with me in our first territory clash.” Lucy stopped looking at him, facing down at the floor.

  “I didn't know Carly and Lyle, Patrick was the one who brought them in.” She said, looking back up at Ozzy, Emil, and Liza, who were the only ones still on the top deck.

  Ozzy had nothing to say, admittedly not knowing what counted as the normally acceptable way to comfort the aggrieved, he was nervous to say anything. The last thing he wanted to do was to offend Lucy, especially in her vulnerable state. He doubted there were much other times when she was like this, and it would certainly not do for him to speak out of turn.

  Sniffling, Lucy rubbed at her nose. It was the only overt sign of emotion she'd let them see. “I want to know what happened to Colber.” She said, casting off her weakness and returning to the demanding intense woman Ozzy had come to expect. “I want to know what reason the Saint of Light had to let the Hydra eat him. Only then to go to you before rescuing that poor sod after he’d already given up the ghost, and I have the distinct impression that it has to do with you.” She said, her glare boring through Ozzy.

  “I don't know that this is the best place-” Ozzy said, only to be interrupted.

  “You can tell me now, or you can tell me while I dangle you over the side of this platform. You're keeping something from me, and it endangered one of the only irreplaceable members of this operation.” She snapped at him.

  “He wanted a favor from me.” Ozzy said, throwing no further light on the situation.

  Lucy didn't so much step into as she exploded into Ozzy's personal space, impacting his chest and sending him stumbling backwards. It had hardly been an attack, But the message was clear, she was not asking.

  “His god wanted a favor from me.” Ozzy said.

  For a moment, Lucy looked as if she might laugh, a sparkle dancing between her eyes as she looked Ozzy up and down like he was the biggest fool who’d ever set foot in front of her. The emotion was short-lived as she glanced between Ozzy and his two companions, all of them deadly serious. In an instant, her expression went from mirthful as she moved past Ozzy to stand in front of Emil and Liza.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “You knew?!?!” she said incredulously, rage booming out of her throat.

  Emil and Liza looked away, shame clear in their faces.

  “As much as I want to wring the fool's neck behind me, he doesn't know a thing about what any of this means. You two, on the other hand, should be more than capable of understanding the entirely screwed-up nature of what is going on here.” She glowered. “I'm guessing the Goddess of Light is not the first deity he's dealt with, is it?” She demanded of them, and Emil and Liza shook their heads.

  “Ozzy Irman,” she spat his name out like a slur, “Upon our departation of this vessel when we return to Myreluck. You are no longer a member of my district. If I find you in my district, outside of official capacities, I will be announcing to the hunters that someone wanted by the College of Science is in my district, and to come get them.” She whipped around, turning to Emil and Liza. “And you two, you should be ashamed of the danger you brought into our homes. A stranger is one thing, but one of the blessed? Were you two out of your minds?”

  “He saved my life.” Emil said, just barely above a whisper.

  “And he nearly drug us into a war with the edge slingers. Had the Watchers not been attacking that very same day, we would have had a raiding party of edge slingers at our front gate, destroying everything we care for and hold dear. Considering the circumstances, I was happy to overlook that. But this is too much. I will not allow him and whatever god he's affiliated with to pull everything I've ever worked for and all the people I care about into some holy war bound for destruction.”

  “I'm not starting a holy war.” Ozzy said.

  “Know what it is that your God has tasked you to do? What is he having you do in exchange for whatever power he's given you?” She snapped the question out at him like a whip.

  “All he wants me to do is make Myreluck a better place.” Ozzy said.

  “How? By purging? By destroying the structures which corrupted as they may be, hold our city together? Or does he just want you to go to war with specific other churches? Maybe with the Goddess of Light and her thousands of followers? Were you someone else, I could see it, I could see it maybe being a fair fight. But you're alone. The only people you have around you are a Tier 1 and a Tier 0, and a district that no longer wants anything to do with you. I hate to say it, Ozzy. I want nothing to do with you.”

  “He just wants me to get stronger, I'm not doing anything until I'm at least tier 3.” Ozzy said, anger rising up in his own throat.

  “What makes you think you'll get that far? The Goddess of Light already knows about you. I'm sure plenty of other gods do. They already know that you're doing things to get stronger, they might just decide to act early and snuff you out before you become any sort of problem.” She said.

  “The Goddess of Light just wants to talk to me. My god was blocking her from doing so, and so she needed a way to get through to me. Aside from one other god, she's the only one who knows about me.” Ozzy promised.

  “Glory be, and who might this other god be?” She asked sarcastically. “Remulas, the Rat God.” Ozzy said.

  “And the other?” She asked. “Your main patron?”

  “His name is Fauga, the Lord of Powder. I’m his only follower on this entire planet. He doesn't care about power or any of that, he doesn't allow cores of his to form, all he wants is to make the world a slightly better place, and he's working through me a little bit to do that. He's not tasked me with going and clearing out any churches or going to war with anyone. All he’s said is that we can make this place a little bit better together.” Ozzy explained desperately, and to his astonishment it seemed to be what Lucy wanted to hear.

  “Then why does the Goddess of Light care? I know you have a rat core which gives plenty of cause for the Rat God to know about you. I don't care about him. What I want to know is why the goddess of light cares and why she’s reaching out to you and endangering my people.” Lucy asked, notably calmer and less hostile than before.

  “She wants me to be one of her followers. As far as I can guess, it's because I have my powers. I'm the only one on the world with them, and she might want that. At least that's what my God made it sound like.” Ozzy said. “The agreement I have with her is to go listen to what she has to say, and then I can leave. I don't want to be a part of any holy wars either. I just want to be here. I want to be a hunter and I want to survive as peacefully as I’m able to. We don’t fight on my home world, like you people do here. All of this violence and chaos is the furthest thing from what I want in my life. I swear to you, I'm not some omen of doom. I'm just a guy who's here against his will and trying to make the best of it.”

  Lucy nodded, seemingly appeased by the answer. Sighing loudly, she moved to lean against one of the half walls. “How can I be sure you're even telling me the truth?” She asked, looking back up at Ozzy.

  “I swear it. I'll swear it on anything you want me to. I'll do whatever you want me to do. Just please let me stay with Emil and Liza. They’re all I have here.” Ozzy begged. “And if you say that I can't I'll go. I won't endanger your district if you think that's me being there will do.”

  “I’ll think about it. I like you, Ozzy. I think you're doing good things, but I also think you're dangerous. And if I think for a second that that danger surpasses what I and my district can handle then I'm going to ask you to leave. We'll talk again once we're back in Myreluck.