The Morality System

I arrived at Sally's and looked across the street. There was a nondescript building across from Sally's that wasn't lit up in any way. The street was lined with light poles with gas lamps on top of them. But all the ones around that building were off or not working.

I walked to the shadiest part of the building. The back entrance in the alley. Since it was nearly pitch black here, I donned my living bone armor and created a sword from bone.

I knocked on the door and then stepped out of view against the wall. "Who's out there?" A voice said.

"Vermillion," I said.

"Oh, why didn't you say so?" He opened the door.

I came into view and kicked him in the chest, knocking him over.

[Auto Crit on Evil activated]

'Have you committed harmful acts to the innocent?'

'Yes, but only because I was told to. I don't like killing. I don't regret it or feel bad about it though.'

"Good enough for me," I said. I summoned a giant spike and impaled him with it. I suppose I could've taken the Auto Crit on Evil as confirmation, but I wanted to be sure.

[You have defeated evil! Rewards incoming]

[Choose your reward]

[Evil Eye: The ability to determine if someone is evil]

[Command: The ability to give someone one command they must carry out how and when you want them to. Only one command can be active at a time]

[Heart's Guidance: The ability to show someone how to become their best self and give them the motivation to do it]

Ahh, damn it. I really liked Evil Eye and Heart's Guidance. I could use a quicker way to determine evil, but Heart's Guidance just seemed so good. Not necessarily useful to me, but good.

'I choose Evil Eye.'

[Granted. Your aura is not affected]

'Thanks.'

Unfortunately, I'd have to pass on being able to save people's miserable lives and make them better people. Being able to determine evil was too important. Saving people from danger was a higher priority than saving them from themselves.

Before I could travel any deeper into the building I got a notification.

[You have committed several good deeds! +50 good aura for Lloyd's family +10 good aura for Henry +10 good aura for Stu +15 good aura for Abigail]

[Subtracted against your 30 dark aura, you are left with a status of 55 good aura]

[Threshold of 50 good aura met. You have gained the ability Emanate Good Aura Level 1]

[Emanate Good Aura: The ability to give the instinctual impression that you are a good person to others]

'Interesting. I wonder how much of that good aura will get canceled out by what I'm about to do.'

[All of it most likely]

'That's what I thought.'

I toggled on the ability, Emanate Good Aura, and then I dispelled the giant spike. The giant spike disappeared. I didn't want to leave any evidence someone with my abilities was here. That would be far too easy to track back to me.

I walked into the next room. There were 10 men sitting around a table playing some form of game. I was dressed in a suit of bone armor. I checked them with Evil Eye and they were all evil.

"Does anyone know where the restroom is?" I said.

"Oh, yeah, it's down the hall to the right," one of them said. They all turned back to playing their game. That must have been the good aura at work.

I used the time to set up 20 floating spikes, with 2 aimed at each man. They turned back around. "Hey, are you sure you belong here if you don't know where the bathroom is?"

They still ignored the fact that I was wearing creepy combat armor. But then they saw the spikes. "Hey, guys, this guy's clearly up to no good. Let's get him!"

As soon as they stood up, I sent the bone spikes into their chests, and they sat back down. I got one Auto Crit on Evil notification but the rest were just me. Apparently, I could only auto-crit once every 10 seconds, which made it less useful in situations like this.

I sent bone spike after bone spike into each guy until they all stopped moving. And then I dispelled the spikes. I didn't want to leave any obvious evidence. Sure someone could analyze the wounds, but there was nothing I could do about that.

[You have defeated evil 10 times!]

[Your dark aura has increased by 5 per kill. 5 good aura remaining]

[You have unlocked new reward options!]

[Roll a new ability (choose 1 of 3), Upgrade an existing ability, or save kills for an ultimate ability (50 kills)]

'I'm going to go with upgrading an existing ability. Let's upgrade Evil Eye.'

[Evil Eye upgraded! You can now recognize the nature of an evil doer's wrongs]

[You have 9 remaining rewards. Will you Roll, Upgrade, or Save?]

'I'm assuming I can't upgrade my bone spells or Emanate Good Aura since I didn't get those from defeating evil.'

[That is correct]

'Then let's upgrade Experience Plunder.'

[Experience Plunder's radius of effect has increased from 1 mile to 2 miles]

[Your dark aura has increased by 5 (0)]

[You have 8 rewards remaining]

'Upgrade Experience Plunder 8 more times.'

[Experience Plunder's radius of effect has increased to 10 miles]

[Dark aura increased by 40 (-40)]

Nice. Experience Plunder felt underwhelming in its original state, but now I might be able to get some decent gains. And I was close to hitting the -50 threshold for getting the Emanate Dark Aura ability that I assumed existed.

I checked around the rest of the first floor but there was no one around. It made sense. It was an office building and it was night.

I went up the stairs to the next floor. I tried to be as stealthy as possible. I made it so the bottom of my feet didn't have bone armor on them. This way, my footsteps didn't make loud noises. I was wearing leather boots underneath.

I carefully open the door out of the stairwell. I opened the door and no one was around. There were desks and chairs that appeared to be for administrative staff or office workers.

Nothing sinister here unless you consider who they were working for. Regardless, I don't think Evil Eye would ping them as evil.

I moved onto the third floor and carefully opened the door. The room had several what appeared to be adventurers or mercenaries or both inside. The walls were lined with crates of weapons, armor, and crystals.

They appeared to be eating and arguing about something. "What I said was—" one of them said, and then everyone turned and looked at me. Someone in the background dropped their sandwich on the floor.