“I’m not going to explain everything,” Kaelen said, murmuring against the vice of his captured wrist.
“If you take me to the garrison now you’ll neither have an answer, or your companion who has just tried to murder you.”
The pressure did not break.
Nor did it increase.
“Give me reason,” the woman said, “why I shouldn’t.
Any one.”
He thought of Lyra.
Of the static that had devoured the image of her retreating form in the passageway beyond – safe, or taken, he knew not which.
He thought of numbers flickering on a monitor three days and a world away, representing the difference between his living and his dead body lying on some alien shore, his body still twitching in the throes of its useless death throes.
He offered her something that was not a truth.
Something, that was not even a lie, but a minuscule shard of truth wrapped around a haphazard collection of half-truths.
“Somebody that I love is dying.
And what is happening to me is the only reason that she is even still alive.
This is not why I came on this expedition.
It was the only reason for coming at all.”
That truth, and no doubt others would follow, was enough for her grip to slack.
“I’m coming with you,” she said, voice hard, “not because I trust you, but because the alternative would leave me wondering at my decisions for the rest of my days.”
“Acceptable outcome,” Nix commented, with all the nonchalance that he could muster.
“An extra pair of eyes will not have been wasted, so long as she isn’t a waste of space.”
So, now let’s find us some kind of paying customers.
The thick smell of sweat and cheap ale and the muffled chaos of a hundred murmuring conversations filled the room as Kaelen half-dragged, half-carried Corin towards the far end of the establishment, hood drawn low enough that the grey of his knuckles was concealed a sleeve-length of material.
The low hum of dozens more voices rising and falling in impatient, drunken song, was punctuated occasionally by the sound of coin hitting wood, and a sharp, cruel laugh from somewhere in the back.
[Structural-Vessel Integrity: 34% (increasing)]
If only you’d give me the goddamn day I need to rest…
The last table at the far end of the room was staffed by a broad shouldered individual of average height, and an obviously muscular build, his broad chest almost as wide as the thick neck that supported it.
Scarred knuckles tapped a steady rhythm against the edge of a worn wooden desk as he glared across the waiting space of another pair waiting to be hired.
“A name,” the great brute growled, voice a low, vibrating rumble that sent shivers up the spines of those that heard it, “and any experience you have, for why it is that you expect us to consider your candidacy.”
Kaelen gave a name, and made sure that his accent did not waver – because the bored arrogance he put into the delivery of the words would not have been in his character ten hours ago.
He was rewarded by the barbarian’s gaze rising to meet his own narrow ones, and a sour expression twisting his lips into a sneer.
“You’re joking,” the mercenary said, dismissing them with a wave of his hand, “that’s the look of a man who’d be good enough to lie here at my feet, dead, and the Weeping Catacombs would have eaten your bones by morning.
That experience of yours?
It should see you returned here with this condition treated, rather than trying to fight the likes of me without so much as a healing potion.”
There was derision in the laughter, and the contempt of men who knew the price they had paid for this work.
And not without reason, thought Kaelen.
Talia flexed her jaw beside him, but otherwise kept her silent, waiting.
Well, fine.
I’m not dead yet.
“Test me,”
The barbarian’s grin widened, as he rose to his full height.
“Careful, little pretty,” The crowd around them suddenly opened up as the muscular man drew his arm back, waiting for an opponent, “don’t cry now.”
[First Blood or Death Conditions; Victory Conditions: Survival/Concussive Defeat.]
I’ll try not too.
Nix, advice?
“Recommendation: Weaponize un-natural neural control.
Human muscle fiber activation is staggered to avoid tearing.
You are no longer constrained to this.”
…Say again?
“Fire all fiber at once.
It will damage the host, but will exert considerably greater power output than any that they were previously capable of.”
The host that will die inside of this one regardless, oh well, worth the extra damage.
That’s the plan then.
The barbarian moved first with all the aggression and grace of a man who had expected far less resistance, and would not live to see the morning unless his opponent was considerably worse trained.
Kaelen remained still, and allowed himself to be struck, the slow, curling loop of an elbow hooking back across Corin’s shoulder.
[Ding!
Micro-Seizure Active; Full Muscle Fiber Dis-charge]
Each muscle cell in the rotting mass of Corin’s arm screamed at once, tearing his nerves from within in a chaotic, animal howl.
And the sound that issued from the impact of the struck blow, was like the creak of a splintering tree.
The big man’s arm snapped sideways at an impossibly sharp angle, the movement so unnatural that he gave a startled grunt, not from sensation transmitted by nerves, but a primal shock at the sheer impossibility.
He was silent, his training overriding anything else, but the look that turned towards Corin’s pale face as he stood, swaying on his unsteady legs was anything but unremarkable, a mix of discomfort, surprise, and the growing realization something that he might have not won that fight in spite of the odds rather than despite them.
“…Guess you’ll do,” The barbarian said, voice tight, but he forced a smile through the pain, offering only the briefest, barely visible twitch of discomfort.
“Report before dawn.
Don’t be fashionably late.”
As the barbarian turned, the crowd erupted, the sound more of surprise and respect, than cruelty.
Those that had bet on the outcome of the match, exchanged money from eager hands, who grinned, laughing at the absurd, unlikely sight of an obviously pale, sickly specimen of a man standing against one of their own, broken for them.
“You should have died,” Talia hissed, as Kaelen moved to follow her as she turned away from the table, “I’ve seen what can be done.
I’ve trained alongside warriors that have fought and died, with nothing to show for but blood and their skins still intact.
What the devil was that?”
“Something to be feared, perhaps?”
“It may matter who sees it.”
She was right – across the street, and just within the cover of the awning of a boarded-up apothecary drug store, a woman stood peering through the gloom.
Older than Valen, but still young at fifty-five, sharp features were framed with black-streaked white hair tied back in a simple knot, her forehead marked with the silver circlet of somebody far better trained than even the best of the battle-mages the order possessed in its service ranks of the fighting elite.
Her posture, as she watched with keen, assessing interest, spoke only for her expression and gaze, both of which narrowed to look over at the strange, pale young man who stood and watched the retreating back of the mercenary as he left.
[Ding!
Anomalous Presence Detected: Level 9 Magic User, Advisor to Valen.
Target ID: Scanning…]
The woman – Kaelen barely had time to register a name before the sensation of it passed across him, like static, his skin prickled as some part deep within the marrow of the borrowed vessels he inhabited, reacted to the gaze of this stranger, assessing something unseen, perhaps unheard.
And he knew the second that the woman was no threat to him.
Because something – some force behind her, the source of her power – was trying to understand what she stood before.
[Warning: Partial Detection of Mana Signature – Unknown Origin Designator.
]
She’s scanning me.
Kaelen forced his expression back to the calm, bored mask it should have worn, as he marched past the front doors of the guild.
In the street.
Right in front of the only man whose notice that he would have to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid entirely, at the cost of all other ambitions he possessed.
[Structural-Vessel Integrity: 40%]
[Time Until Total Systemic Failure in Host: Below 18 hrs.]
Eighteen hours.
An expedition barely begun.
And a stranger who now knew that something was wrong before she’d had the opportunity to do any more than look.