Shaker

"Paladin who isn't breaking their oaths, they're absolutely destroying them." - Making Up Adventurers, Cohost, 2023 CWs: vivisection.

"Within the boundaries of this circle, it is impossible to tell a lie."

The paladin drug the blunt tip of her sword through the dirt as she spoke, drawing glyphs and markings with a practiced hand. "I invite you to test it. Additionally, for the duration of the spell, no one outside of the circle will be able to do you any harm. You may have noticed my colleagues." The colleagues in question, a number of other bloodied, sweat soaked adventurers, were busily screaming epithets at the paladin who had trapped them outside. Leaving herself alone with the dark lord, who knelt before her, bound and defeated, but still proud.

"The sky is- blue. Blue? It is... Blue. Fascinating. Very well, fool. Proceed with wasting your time." The villain who had plagued the realm for hundreds of years, constantly tearing away at the remaining pockets of light and safety, looked for all the world like a human being. His voice still reverberated with the fading vestiges of power, though, and it had taken the lives of nearly half the party as well as dozens of allies to finally bring him to his knees, here at the very edge of his victory.

"The core of my faith is that anyone can be redeemed, if they are willing to make an honest attempt. Brought back into the light. However, we aren't foolish enough to simply extend the benefit of the doubt to every liar who crosses our path. It must be genuine." The paladin explained, patiently, laying her sword on the ground and unrolling a pack containing what appeared to be steel surgical tools as she took a seat on the ground before him.

"Thus the circle." the dark lord replied, understanding dawning, and beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he took in the tools.

"Precisely. However, the second highest tenet of my faith is that we do not kill - no one, even in defense of our lives. We pledge to never take a life for any reason. I have sworn a vow that no matter what, I will not take your life. I will grant you as many opportunities as possible to come to the light... Or, though it may grieve me, leave you unable to harm another again." She gestured towards her toolkit. "I can offer you several hundred opportunities to change your ways."

*I... Understand. May I take a moment to consider?"

"Take as long as you should need."

The villain knelt in silence, flexing the broken remnants of his power, reaching out to his lieutenants and servants, to the spirits that granted him strength, to his dark gods. All were gone, annihilated or banished beyond his reach. He was truly alone. Every bargain he had struck for immortality had been undone. The choice would either be to die, proud, or humble himself and continue to live. More life had always been his prize... The way forward was clear. And every vow had a hole in it, somewhere. Someday, he could find a way to return to power. And if not, well, perhaps - perhaps simply living might be enough. He drew the Paladin's attention with a cough.

"I. I vow..." His voice was tentative, the limitations the magic placed on him forbidding any play of words he might have been tempted into. He seemed to be feeling his way through the oath as he spoke the words. "I vow I shall do no harm to another, n...nor cause anyone to be harmed on my behalf. Ever again, as long as I shall live. You have my solemn vow, here in this holy circle." As the words came out of him, glittering lights began to drift through the circle, pleasing gentle yellows and greens, signs that the Paladin's deity was listening, and adding their sacred weight to the vow, binding it magically to the dread lord - now former dread lord. The paladin's companions, watching furiously outside, battered uselessly on the boundaries of the circle.

The paladin smiled, her eyes wide with pleased surprise. "Your reputation for wisdom as well as power is well deserved, dark lord! I never imagined I would get a truthful oath so swiftly." She deftly took a scalpel from her pack roll, and cut the ropes binding the once-villain, helping him to his feet. "How do you intend to live?"

The lord stumbled as he rose, shaky and pained from his recent wounds, healed though they may have been, his hands and feet asleep from the binding. "I ..I was a man of a faith myself, once. Maybe I could take it up again, if any god would have me. Find a small parish, far far away..." he has a tone of curiosity at the words tumbling out of him, as if these were long forgotten wishes newly coming to the surface. The lights swirled brighter still, the deity's pleasure evident, the voices of sweet, invisible singers drifting around the circle.

"I imagine you would be quite a prize to my god. The Redeemer has a special place in their heart for the ones with a hard road ahead. Speaking of my god, though - you yourself helped me to my faith, you know." As she spoke, she rested a friendly hand on his shoulder, drawing near.

The man blinked, confused, uncomfortable with this sudden nearness but unsure. "How do you mean...?"

"I used to live in a small village in the east reach. Don't worry about the name, you won't remember it. The beasts you called to your banners rolled over it like an ocean wave... I was the only one who survived, buried in mud under the bodies. Everyone I knew and loved, gone. I found the strength to continue by pledging to the Redeemer. And they set me on my path, the one that led me so many years later, to you. To you, at long last."

"I am... I can't begin to, I-"

The paladin cut him off, her smile fading into a look of fervent intensity, eyes locked with his. "I vowed to never take the life of another, not even in defense of my own, to never seek revenge, to never turn away from one who seeks to change their ways. This I swore, and I've kept those oaths for decades." And then with a swift and determined motion, she plunged the scalpel she still clutched in her hand into the dark lords stomach and dragged it roughly upwards. The glowing lights stilled and dimmed, the otherworldly voices quieting into confusion, and then a shriek of betrayed dismay. Her oath breaking severed the sacred connection to the Redeemer with a sound like a gigantic bell cracking, deafeningly loud. "I lied."

The lights vanished in an instant, but the flickering magic of the circle lasted a few minutes more. The screams lasted much longer.