The night was in its full splendor, the skylights still shined, although dimly from the heavens above.
And I was shaking like a leaf, planning my next move with my head in full swing.
A Sun-blessed citizen of the Sundoor had died at the hands of a Wastelands dweller.
There would be retribution. These things just did not happen to civilians. They couldn’t.
“Guys…” I said, my voice was but a whisper. “You will run away now, take the roundabout way, do whatever in the Abyss you want, but leave this place, now.”
“What? The danger has been soothed, I don’t think that’s-” Faruq tried to say, before noticing my look.
“F***,” he said.
He had understood.
“Alright. Roana, message as many of the people down below as you can. We need to run, now, as a group!” Faruq shouted.
“What? What is going on?” She asked.
“Loke?” Said a confused Nova.
“The Inquisition will be here shortly,” I said. “As soon as the people down there will start heading back where they came from.”
“Why? What’s happened?” Harlow asked.
“I’ve f***** up. One of them died,” I said, closing my eyes in acceptance.
Silence followed those words, then a heavy tone of dread from the two archers that had remained above with us.
The sound was soon followed by Alistar appearing from the broken stairs.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“No, Star, you have to leave, you’ve-” I tried saying, but was interrupted.
“I don’t care about what you have to say, Loke. I won’t live in fear anymore. I’ve healed from the Plague with my own strength. I’ve done that to live, not to survive. I won’t go back and hide from those bastards. I wouldn’t be able to live with the shame,” he shook his head. “No, I’m standing here with you. Wherever this might lead us. Just, someone get Lem home, please.”
“I won’t be leaving either,” said Roana after taking a long breath. “I would be leading them to my mother. No, I’ll stay right here with you. To the death, if that’s what it takes.”
“Ro…” I couldn’t help but be surprised by those words.
“Loke! What is going on!? What do you want to do?” Asked a slightly terrified Nova.
“I’ll…” I took a big breath, “I’ll have to kill all those that managed to see us, fight down the rest while the others leave. Then I’ll find a place to hide.”
“What!?” said both Nova and Harlow in a chorus.
“Harlow, please, go home. I need to know you are safe. Those that have seen you will not live to tell the tale; please go back to your father. We’ll see each other again.”
I did not allow her to answer. Instead, I turned toward Faruq.
“Faruq, there are things I need to ask you, but this is not the time. I’m entrusting my sister and the other’s well being in your hands. You are going to get them home, safe. I believe in your abilities.”
“I would love to fight together with you, but… you are my captain. I will do as you say,” he said, beating his chest with his right hand thrice, in fast succession.
I knew that gesture; it belonged to a really old memory, something I barely remembered. Something I had seen Venk, my master, do to somebody. I could not remember who that somebody might have been. I just remembered the rainy day of training. But it was clear that it did not belong to the Sunguard or the Church of the Sun. It was something else, and he had used it for a reason.
Harlow followed the gesture with her eyes too, I saw her, yet it was not the right time to inquire; it would have to wait.
“No! I won’t leave you!” Nova asked a little too loud, but her voice did not go through because, at that moment, voices from below started rising; people had noticed Berthold’s death.
“Faruq, get them, and leave,” I ordered.
He took Nova, placing a hand on her mouth, then giving her a punch in the guts to shut her down because she had summoned her blade to counter the tackle.
I jerked at that, but it was the right thing to do, probably the only one.
“Loke, I will not stop you. I just want to say that If you manage to, come to the hill. Some things may be useful to you… weapons, a hiding place, whatever you need,” Harlow said.
“You don’t doubt I’ll make it out of here, do you?” I asked her with a smile.
“Not, even for one second,” she answered back. Then she took my head in her hands and drew me in for a kiss.
When she detached, I could see her arms convert into hammers. “Lead the way,” she said to Faruq, dropping but preceding him.
I turned toward the petrified archers, “I’m sorry for the bow, Adam. I’ll bring you a much better one the next time I see you, but for now, I’ll have to keep it.”
The younger boy just nodded.
“Go,” I beckoned more than said.
“Are you sure you are up to this?” I asked Alistar and Roana as the others left.
“Yes,” Roana simply answered.
“It’s gonna be one heck of an adventure, but you need to take out the archers first,” Alistar said.
“Ro, tell me I can do it,” I said while nodding to Alistar.
She smiled, “You can,” she commanded.
I did not fight it with my Willpower; although it was much more automatic than I hoped, I let the command sink in.
Raising my bow up into the sky for the increasingly higher shouts of indignity for the death of one of their own, I let go of a Trick Shot. I was not the best with a longbow, but I did not need precision with this one; I just needed a way through, and the arrow I freed into the sky would be exactly that.
The next thing I did was shoot another arrow at one of the two Hunters I had thrown down from the building. The one that had not received any real damage.
He noticed it, he had been looking at me, but he had yet to understand how my ability worked.
When I transferred, I was right in front of him, and my Spectre’s Dignity found itself a house inside under his jaw, right through his skull. Next, his good-looking bow found my hands, and amid shouts of surprise and stupor, I transferred toward the first arrow I had shot.
I found myself behind the other Hunter of the bastards that had shone their lights on us. I reaped his life as well and stole his quiver as I did so. It took me a few more seconds than I wanted it to, but I took it and placed it on my shoulder as people started noticing where I had gone.
I pointed my bow on top of the building on which the Sundoorians had climbed then transferred myself there. The whole ordeal had taken me barely ten seconds.
Calmly getting to the edge of the roof, I took in a breath and roared.
“Whoever wants to live,” I shouted, covering my face with my hood as much as I could, “Drop your weapon now, or face the consequences. Whoever stays, know that you WILL die today.”
Saying so, I started a barrage of Track and Trace, shaking the s*** out of the almost forty citizens that had gathered near the two buildings, there were more around the place, but not everyone was interested in what was going on.
As I waited, I could see the people, my people starting to leave the clock-tower with the tail of my eyes. There were already monsters waiting for them, but they needed to face them themselves; they could get rid of them quickly. Faruq and Harlow were with them.
When I knew they were going to be okay, I grew steadier, my worries lessening by a great degree. I could do it.
I could do whatever I wanted. I also discovered whispers that were pressing on my mind; it was likely that one of my Trace II Perks had been promoted with those many Track and Trace.
Suddenly I heard somebody shout.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!?” asked the Aisha girl.
“I do, but they don’t call me the Night Hunter without reason, do they? I mean, it’s night, and I’m about to hunt you all down!” I said, crazed.
I had to show them that I was without fear.
However, that moment, somebody made the mistake of Tracing me, it might have been a rare Skill, but this was already the second person that had it.
Soon, I had my arrow aimed at a gunslinger that stupidly took too much time to raise his guns, and he yielded right away, but he had made the unlucky mistake of Tracing me. It meant… death.
My arrow found the Gunslinger who did it. But the moment my arrow left the bow, he evaded it was already evading.
However, he did not evade the arbalest bolt that Alistar shot at him.
He had likely followed the exchange, and to hit at that distance, Roana must have used Command on him, to bolster his abilities. It was the only explanation. But I was thankful because it gave me enough time to end the Gunslinger with the following arrow.
The arrows I had taken were made with extremely smooth and high-quality wood. I had never seen one of them intact before. I had only found arrows of that kind broken in the wastes littering the Dump.
People shouted as another of them died, and I could see a couple of them start to go away in the direction of their Flow-cart.
Screams of “No!” came from the Aisha girl.
I had no idea what such a diligent and intelligent girl, capable of seeing through my entire plan in a second, was doing among such shady characters and in such a shady place.
That had to wait, though. I could not allow those few to escape; it was too soon.
I aimed and released to the one running ahead of them.
It was a girl, but I would not let myself be stopped by that.
For them, our lives meant nothing; I would not let my principles discourage me from upholding my will for my people to survive this whole ordeal I had brought on them.
To fix it was my responsibility.
The regular arrow brought her down while I appeared from the Trick Shot. Slicing one of the other four Sundoorians’ hands and fingers.
It was only the start.
I took an arrow from my quiver and threw it to one of the escaping guys. Panicked as they were, they had stopped reasoning. Six of them would have been enough to corner me. More than enough, but they didn’t.
As I drove my knife into one of the other’s neck. I relieved him from his short saber.
When I threw it, the saber’s Shade copy exploded in an explosion of frost and ice that was much more dangerous than an arrow. It was almost as powerful as a grenade. Three down, one incapacitated, two to go.
They fell to my knife sooner than I thought possible. But then I felt a Flow-gun’s explosion, followed by a scream.
Somebody else had tried shooting at me, likely another Flow-gun users. They were common among Sundoorians. But once again, Alistar intervened.
The Fisher Sub-Class’s Perception was showing its worth.
Also, I saw the Aisha girl run at me with somebody else in tow.
Magicians were dangerous yet physically weak. They also shone at the medium range since, going further, their Magic lost its potency; it didn’t only if they were not specialized in long-range Magic. But that meant being an Ultimate Class holder. I doubted there were Ultimate Classes among these bastards.
There was no need to say that if they got too close, their Magic would hurt them as well, if not otherwise Skilled. The woman running toward me, judging from her momentum, had no intention of slowing down anytime soon, she was whether crazy or had a Skill that made her immune to her own Magic.
Anyway, I did not aim at her, but once again toward the sky, then released the Trick Shot, only to nock another arrow still and shoot it at someone at random of those that had seemed ready to fight, it luckily was one of those that had seen us.
I needed to inoculate them with the fear of the Night Hunter, or I would have to end up killing them all, which was rather unlikely. My time was running short, the less they were and the more spread out, the fewer my chances of coming out on top of this situation and buying the others time to escape.
The Shade arrow transformed into me, appearing with a pirouette, I took out the man’s life by almost bisecting his throat with the noticeable scary sounds of air ripped apart by a sword.
As it seemed, thirty-four points in Strength were enough to make a dagger slash feel like a sword slash.
The very next moment I ripped that man’s life, I rolled on the ground, getting in position, and shot another arrow toward the blameless sky, then I felt the pull of the previous Shade arrow descend toward the ground. I transferred to it, and my knife found somebody else’s back.
I had no idea anymore who was who, but not one among the people was higher than level thirty-five; no one came even remotely close to level 50 and thus to the Ultimate Classes. I did not need to fear for myself.
I repeated the action once more, and then again; an arrow took flight, I killed, transferred, then freed another arrow.
It was like the coming of the Reaper of Souls, the Church of the Sun talked about.
When I repeated the vicious cycle in which randomness stopped anyone from predicting my next coming, I had killed twenty people already, and the fear of death had been instilled among them.
That was one Alistar and Roana joined the fray.
I saw them get out of the building like bullets.
I expected that Alistar would turn out to be vicious in a fight, given his newfound love for warring given by the safety he felt from being the top of the class in Forms training. However, the hate I saw in Roana’s eyes was something I did not know about, something I did not expect to be there, not in that… sheer amount.
Was it the fact that those that usually bought slaves were Sundoorians, or something older, related to her previous life?
She had never spoken to us about it. But I could see it reflected in the way in which she stopped someone from cleaving her in two by using Command.
I could see the boy turn the pointy end of his saber to his own guts, and Roana helped him push the blade inside. It was utterly terrifying.
While when Alistar fought, I could see the magnificent and ideal ways of how a defender should fight.
The very nature of his Skills, Attributes, and Form, specialized in fishing for a target, to then surprise and destroy.
However, these people we were fighting were not delver; they specialized in Flow, in using their abilities during the day. They were regular Citizens although of a higher level than us. I suspected that had we met true delvers, it would have ended up differently.
At a certain point, I saw the Thermomancer I had lost sight of at some point attack, Alistar.
She got close enough, then she raised her hands to her mouth, palms facing inwards, and she blew inside of them.
What came out from her hands was not breathing. It was what looked like a solar flare.
It washed over Alistar’s entire frame, he defended behind his shield, but the scope of the attack was much too wide to defend against, and fast too.
I was paralyzed, and yet, I felt hopeful. That was not a killing attack for someone with Alistar’s Skills and Constitution.
When, in fact, the flare dissipated, a barely red-hot spear hit the woman on the side of the head, sending her tumbling.
I don’t know why I said what I said then, but something was brewing in my mind, some sort of plan, and it required that young woman to live.
“Don’t kill her! We need her!” I shouted.
“Damn f***** almost ignited my new armor and spear on fire! Harlow just made them!”
The Thermomancer had gone ahead of herself, but the only reason why Alistar had survived that attack and had not been cooked in his new, shiny armor was because of his massive Constitution, which paired with his Duress Skill, whose passive now worked even at night, gave him a colossal defense.
However, while we talked, people were starting to leave. Some of the other Sundoorians that were not present on the scene had likely understood what was going on and took the chance to depart on their Flow-carts.
Our time was running thin.
I transferred to a nearby Flow-cart; although I wished to hunt all the ones escaping, it was impossible to do so. I had no proper Blow arrow with me. My new exploding Shade projectiles were good but nowhere as good as those. I needed Blow arrows to take down a Flow-cart.
I was forced to let them go and focus on something else.
I had learned how to drive a Flow-cart in my long stay at the hill-house with Logan and Harlow. It was really easy.
So I got on one of them and brought it back toward us.
Roana and Alistar were still laying waste to scared shitless Sundoorian when I got to them.
“Hop on, it’s time to go. Bring the Thermomancer over,” I said.
“Wait, it’s important,” said Roana, who went toward one of the bodies, the another still, and another as well.
She was picking things up. I had no idea how she had noticed them, but, again, her senses were different from mine.
When Roana came back, she had brought not only a new weapon and leather armor for herself but also bags with utilities.
These Sundoorians intended to stay the night. They had brought a lot of things.
“Alright, we are good to go now,” she said.
“Then pick me a quiver too since we’re at it, or at least some arrows,” I said.
She smiled, “I already did.”
When we were finally ready to depart, I felt and heard something that couldn’t else be but little Loki.
He literally dove inside of the Flow-cart.
I was a little disconcerted since Harlow was supposed to have him with her.
Did something happen to the escaping party? But the cub answered with negative feelings.
He could understand me thanks to my Skill.
“So you escaped, you were looking for me?” The answer was a positive-happy feeling.
“Damn, he’s intelligent.” I said, “Much more than any other pet I had before, must be because of the peculiar way in which he was born.”
The cub purred as he took place on Roana’s lap; she was staying on the back of the Flow-cart with Alistar that looked after the fainted Thermomancer.
“So,” he said, “What’s the plan now?”
“The plan is that we go toward Wide Peaks, where they cannot easily follow, then we find contact with the nomads. We’ll hide with them during the winter. If anything, we’ll learn how to survive thanks to them.”
“Seems like a decent plan,” he said, shrugging.
“Yeah,” Roana added, “as long as we don’t get gulped down by an Earth-Dragon, it seems doable.”
We departed soon after, speeding through the ruins that were the Dump.
As I speeded through them, and I tried to force my mind away from the many lives I had just taken, I found myself thinking about the Dump.
It must have been a city before, maybe a long time ago, but how had it got like this? Who knew. It was much too old even for those with Logan’s knowledge to say.
However, as the Thermomancer had said, the Dump was not unique; there were others here and there.
If anything went wrong we might hide in them too, at least until we found a better plan, but for now. This would have to do.
So we left behind everything we held dear, departing into the darkness for their defense and to fix my damn mistake.
I just hoped that my friends accompanying me in this crazy journey would not suffer too much because of me and my, once again present, misfortune.
