The council fire guttered low, its red embers painting jagged shadows across the circle of elders. Their voices still echoed from the heated debates of the previous night—whether to meet these pale-skinned strangers with spears raised or open hands extended.
Sky-Torn sat apart, hunched beneath the shaman's cloak of owl feathers. His face remained unreadable, but inside his chest, the System's whisper gnawed and pulsed.
[Villain System Notification: New Destiny Thread Detected]A path branches before the tribe: submission, alliance, or bloodshed. Twist the choice to gain Villain Points.
The words burned across his vision like fire etched in the dark. Only he could see them. Only he bore their weight.
"Your silence cuts deeper than blades," muttered Wounded Bear, the scarred war captain. "Speak, Sky-Torn. What do the spirits say of these men with thunder-sticks?"
Every gaze turned toward him. Sky-Torn let the silence linger, savoring it. Silence was power. But the longer he held it, the louder the System murmured in his ear, each syllable echoing like the scrape of bone.
He raised his staff at last. "The spirits show me rivers of smoke. Iron birds tearing the sky. Our children's names swallowed by tongues not our own." His voice dropped into something hollow. "These strangers are not a gift. They are a storm. To welcome them is to drown."
Murmurs rippled, but Gentle Elk, the peacemaker, pressed back. "Perhaps this storm waters new fields. Perhaps their beasts and tools could strengthen us."
[Choice Detected: Guide council toward war OR alliance.]Villain Point Potential: Moderate.Hidden Option: Offer Bargain—Sacrifice truth for unity. Villain Point Potential: High.
His pulse quickened. The hidden option gleamed like a thorn. A bargain. A lie polished into truth.
"I will summon a vision tonight, before all, to answer this," he declared. "Let the spirits decide."
The council agreed, half relieved, half suspicious. But Sky-Torn already felt the System's hunger sharpening its teeth.
That night, under a swollen moon, he began the ritual. Villagers crowded in a wide circle, drums thrumming low. He cast tobacco and bloodied feathers into the fire. Smoke coiled upward, and he bent it with forbidden will.
[Villain Skill Activated: False Prophecy I]Allows projection of chosen vision into shared trance. Cost: 10 Spirit Energy. Villain Points Gained: +25.
The smoke formed pale figures kneeling before him, offering iron and fire. Then, with a gesture, he twisted the vision—lodges aflame, rivers of blood, children screaming.
Gasps broke from the crowd. They believed because he made them believe.
Yet as the vision ended, a hollow ache spread in his chest. He had taken the sacred fire, the oldest communion with his ancestors, and poisoned it. The owl feathers on his cloak suddenly felt heavy, their weight pressing down like a burial shroud.
The System purred.
[Villain Points: 73]New Skill Unlocked: Oathbinding Ritual (Tier I).
The crowd shouted his name. But their praise felt like knives.
At dawn, the council reconvened. Gentle Elk's eyes shone with hope. "Perhaps your vision offers peace—welcome bound by oath."
Wounded Bear spat into the fire. "And if they laugh at us?"
Sky-Torn answered with a coldness that surprised even himself. "Then they will bleed."
The words felt borrowed, as if another tongue had shaped them and shoved them past his lips.
Two days later, the strangers came. Their weapons glinted in the sun, their leader's pale beard catching light like bone. Sky-Torn stepped forward with a bowl of maize and venison.
"The earth gives. The people give. But you must swear by your blood—no theft, no harm, no betrayal."
The pale leader frowned, muttered with his companions, then sliced his palm and pressed blood into the bowl.
The villagers cheered. Sky-Torn forced a smile, but inside, a cold whisper slid through his mind.
[Oathbound Destiny Thread Created.]If oath is broken, curse backlash will strike target. Villain Points Potential: Variable, High.
He should have felt triumph. Instead, nausea rose. He had bound not just the strangers, but himself. The oath was a noose tied to his own spirit, tugging tighter each time the System whispered.
That night, the feast roared. Laughter, drums, roasted meat. Sky-Torn slipped into the shadows, the noise pressing on his temples.
Sleep came late and twisted.
He drifted into a world where the sky itself was a wound. Clouds bled light, streaks of crimson dripping into endless plains. Ash fell like snow, coating his skin until he looked down and saw it was not ash but bone-dust.
Figures rose from the whiteness—his ancestors, cloaked in eagle wings and bear hides, faces painted with ochre. They carried spears that bent and broke into rust as they walked. Their eyes glowed with accusation.
"You twist the fire," they chanted, voices overlapping, male and female, old and unborn. "You take what was meant for truth and weave lies. The price is yours."
Behind them loomed the strangers, pale as the moon. Their thunder-sticks blossomed into iron trees, each branch sprouting chains that wrapped around the ancestors' throats. One by one, the elders dropped their weapons, mouths open in silent screams.
Sky-Torn tried to rush forward, but his feet sank into the bone-dust. It swallowed him to the knees, then the hips, each step pulling him deeper. He tore at the ground with his hands, but the dust turned slick and wet—blood soaking into his palms.
And then he saw the children.
They stood in a row, hair braided, faces bright, but when they opened their mouths, foreign words spilled out—sharp, metallic syllables. Their songs were not of the Great River or the Dawn-Mother, but hymns to alien gods whose faces were blank masks of iron.
Sky-Torn reached for them, desperate, and the nearest child turned. The boy's face was his own. The girl's face was his apprentice, Little Ash. And when they spoke together, their voices became the System's whisper:
[Corruption Threshold Rising.]Your lies feed your lineage. Their tongues are no longer theirs.
The dream twisted again. He was standing on a mound of skulls, the council gathered below, every elder faceless but pointing at him. Gentle Elk's voice rose from the void: Villain, villain, villain.
The word struck like arrows. His chest burned, and when he tore open his robe, he saw a second heart beating beside his own—black, jagged, stitched with threads of shadow. Each thump rattled his ribs and echoed with the sound of coins, as though even his lifeblood had turned to a tally of Villain Points.
The black heart whispered, "The path is set. Walk deeper, or vanish."
He woke drenched in sweat, bile sour in his throat.
[Corruption Threshold: 18%]Side effects: Paranoia, intrusive visions, self-doubt.
His hands shook. He clenched them until his nails drew blood.
"Master?" The voice was Little Ash, his apprentice, who had crept close. The boy's eyes were wide. "Was the vision true? Or did you… shape it?"
For a moment Sky-Torn saw not the boy but a reflection of himself, younger, still untouched by rot. He could have told the truth. He could have lifted the burden.
[Optional Path: Corrupt the Apprentice's Faith.]Villain Point Potential: +15.
His lips moved before his heart could resist. "The spirits speak in riddles. It is the shaman's burden to twist them into paths the people can walk."
The boy trembled, half afraid, half dazzled. A seed was planted.
The System chimed.
[Villain Points +15. Total: 88.]
Yet across the firelit clearing, Wounded Bear's eyes narrowed. He had seen the shaman's face after the ritual—the flicker of doubt, the way his smile curdled.
"If the spirits will not unmask him," the warrior muttered to himself, "I will."
And Sky-Torn, lying wakeful beneath his cloak of feathers, felt the echo of that vow in his bones.