The words of the oath still clung to the night air like smoke too bitter to breathe. Sky-Torn felt them burning on his tongue, every syllable heavy with power. He had bound not only himself but the strangers across the fire, pale-skinned men with eyes like river ice. Even as silence fell, he could feel the world tilt, as though the spirits themselves had stopped to listen.
The colonizers shifted uneasily. They had nodded along while Sky-Torn spoke, yet the weight of the oath unsettled them. One of their leaders—a man whose beard was streaked with gray, whose coat was lined with brass buttons—whispered hurriedly to the others. Their language was a hammer striking iron: harsh, clipped, incomprehensible to most of the council.
But Sky-Torn understood enough. Not words, but tones. Doubt, caution, the brittle clink of fear. They had expected obedience disguised as ceremony. What they received instead was a binding—an oath that wrapped chains around their presence here.
The bearded leader forced a smile when he turned back. He bowed stiffly, more a soldier's jerk than a gesture of respect. From a leather pouch he drew forth a gift: an iron blade, its hilt bound in dyed cord. He held it out for Sky-Torn.
Iron. A gift of blood. Sky-Torn took it, and in that moment the Villain System stirred, glowing faintly in the air before his eyes.
[Villain Points Gained: +50. Action: Accepting the colonizer's symbol of binding.][New Ability Unlocked: Tongue of Twisting – Your words are no longer merely spoken. Each utterance may plant devotion or suspicion, truth or falsehood, as the listener's own fears decide.]
The others did not see the system's light, only the blade in his hands. Wounded Bear's brow furrowed deep enough to cast shadows across his face.
"You take their steel," Wounded Bear growled, rising from his seat. "Do you know what it means to bear the weapon of a stranger? It means you carry their war into your own lodge."
Murmurs spread among the council fire. Some elders nodded in grim agreement, others hesitated. The younger warriors stared at the blade with hungry eyes.
"They offer it as pact," Sky-Torn said, letting the new gift gleam in the firelight. His voice carried the new weight of his ability, each syllable dropping like stones into still water, sending ripples through every heart that listened. "To refuse would be to spit on their fire, to mark ourselves as prey. To take it is to bind them by their own gesture. What oath is stronger than one sworn with steel?"
Some faces softened, convinced by his reasoning—or perhaps by the twisting of his tongue. Yet others stiffened, sensing treachery woven into his words.
Wounded Bear's fists curled at his side. "I have known you since we hunted our first stag together. You never spoke so smoothly then. What spirit whispers in your ear now, Sky-Torn? Is it our ancestors? Or something darker?"
The air tightened. Accusation was no light thing. Sky-Torn met Wounded Bear's eyes and saw a mirror of what he had once been: honest, brash, unwilling to bow.
Before he could answer, the colonizers stirred again. They were restless, as though the exchange between the two men meant more than they understood. Their captain muttered to a younger man—perhaps a translator in training—but the youth shook his head helplessly. Words had become weapons, and the foreigners had no shield.
The gift-giving closed the meeting. Smiles were worn like poorly sewn masks, both by colonizer and council alike. The fire burned lower, its glow barely reaching the ring of faces.
When the council dispersed, Wounded Bear did not approach Sky-Torn. Instead he lingered near the fire, speaking low to two other warriors. Sky-Torn caught only fragments—"danger," "spirits," "betrayal"—but the tone was enough. Suspicion had taken root.
That night, sleep did not come gently.
Sky-Torn lay upon his mat, the iron blade across his chest. His dreams were chains, glistening wet as though pulled fresh from a river of blood. The chains stretched across the sky, binding stars to earth. On one side of the chain, colonizer soldiers gnawed with broken teeth, blood on their gums. On the other side, his own people did the same—warriors, hunters, even children. All desperate, all devouring, yet none able to break free.
He heard a voice, deep as thunder in a cave: You have yoked them together. Their struggle is your struggle. Their blood is your blood.
When he awoke, the chains were gone, but the taste of iron lingered in his mouth.
Outside, drums sounded faint in the predawn dark. Not his people's. He slipped from the lodge and saw figures moving by the riverbank: colonizers, carrying timber, hammering wood. They were building something under cover of night.
The System's glow returned.
[Villain Path Progression: Betrayer of the Earth.][Notification: Colonizers have begun Rooting. Structure: Unknown (fortification, symbol, or shrine). Consequence: Erosion of tribal claim unless countered.]
Sky-Torn's hands clenched on the blade's hilt. He should have expected this. Words alone never stopped conquest. The oath was ash in their mouths; they would spit it out when convenient.
By dawn, scouts returned to the council with the same report: the strangers were driving stakes into the ground, raising walls.
"This is what comes of your oath," Wounded Bear thundered before the gathered elders. "You gave them the right to root in our soil. You let them plant their god in our riverbank."
The council erupted in argument. Some said it was a fort, a nest for war. Others claimed it was only a marker, a house for their spirits. The younger hunters whispered of steel, of firesticks, of the power that might come if they played patience.
Sky-Torn stood in the middle of their clamor, silent. The Villain System hummed within him, its unseen glow brighter than the fire. Each new fracture of trust, each seed of doubt, was power in his hands. Yet power carried weight. Every path forward seemed to drip with blood.
He raised the iron blade and drove its tip into the earth between them. The sound cut through the arguments like a crack of thunder.
"They are building chains," he said, his voice steady, his Tongue of Twisting wrapping each word in hidden barbs. "If we let them root, the earth itself will betray us. But if we act with cunning, we may turn their roots against them. The oath still binds them, even if they think it does not. Let me speak with them again. Let me twist their own chains until they strangle on them."
The council fell silent, caught between dread and conviction. Some nodded, some turned their faces away. Wounded Bear's eyes burned, yet even he did not find words to answer.
The iron blade quivered in the earth, its edge catching the firelight. Sky-Torn felt the world narrowing around him, choices collapsing into a single crooked path.
The System whispered in his mind: Villain path deepens. You are marked as Betrayer of the Earth. Each step forward will darken the soil beneath your feet. Continue, and history will curse your name, even as destiny bows before you.
Sky-Torn did not flinch. He had chosen his place in the story the moment he took the oath. Whether hero or villain, the earth would remember.