As Humphrey came inside, Jason noticed his body language was uncertain and uncomfortable, and he was uncharacteristically quiet. Humphrey normally moved with confidence and was quick with the verbal niceties.

“Something the matter?” Jason asked as he directed Humphrey into a comfortable chair.

“Jason…”

Humphrey was hesitant but carried on.

“…can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“I… can you not answer the question with a question?”

“Is something bothering you, Humphrey?”

“I watched you fight the other day in the mirage arena.”

Jason chuckled.

“I’m not sure anyone was expecting that,” Jason said. “Even me. Your mother gave me way too many advantages. Do trap weavers really show up in numbers like that?”

“During the monster surge they do,” Humphrey said. “The last surge was when I was a boy, but a whole army of them got into family grounds. Walls don’t stop something that climbs the way they do.”

“Wow. You couldn’t have been more than six or seven.”

“How are you alright with what you did to them? Rick and the others, I mean.”

“Ah,” Jason said, leaning back in his chair. “You’re concerned about the way I fought them.”

“We were watching you, from the viewing room,” Humphrey said. “Watching them, really; we didn’t see that much of you. What we did see, what we heard… the way you took Hannah and Henry while they were distracted. That laughter as you mocked them from the darkness. It was chilling. What you did to Hannah’s body, draping her body off a monster’s webs like a decoration.”

“What do you think about what I did to them?”

Humphrey sat up in his chair, shaking his head. “You always do this. I ask you about something that seems questionable, but when I question it, you just question me back. Instead of defending what you did you just talk and talk as if right and wrong are whatever you want them to be if you explain them enough.”

Jason sighed.

“You know, I’ve been where you are,” Jason said. “A lot more recently than I’d like. I accused a friend of mine of having an immoral perspective on adventuring, without ever having been an adventurer myself. You’re making the same mistake I did, not seeing my perspective, any more than I did hers.”

Jason gave Humphrey a friendly, but tired smile.

“I know this is coming from a good place,” Jason said. “You have this certainty about right and wrong, and you don’t want a friend going down a bad path. I’m not going to sit here and say that you’re wrong to do that, but not everything is as simple as it seems from the outside.”

“Some things are just right and wrong, Jason.”

“Sure,” Jason said. “But the consequences of our actions aren’t always what we want them to be. Humphrey, let me put a hypothetical situation to you.”