He threw up till his stomach was empty, then spasmed as he heaved some more. The hunger had kept him eating ever since he regained access to his inventory, but Alex was coming to realize how profoundly stupid it had been to do so before committing his first premeditated murder. A decision that had likely ruined the entire escape plan. His expulsion had been rather vocal, and Alex fully expected to find Trevor’s ugly face staring down at him as he looked up, however that wasn’t the case. Sixth Sense eventually stabilizing to show him as the only person in the cell, the only living at least.
Taking another few seconds to regain his bearings, he backed away from the skewered woman and extended his sensory skill’s sphere, relishing at the ease of the process now that the restraints had been removed. Rather than headed in his direction, as Alex had expected, Sixth Sense showed Trevor was still sitting against the wall, unmoving. With the confirmation that he was safe for the moment, Alex activated Soul Sight to get a better view of what kept the man.
Flying closer to the dwarf’s face than he’d ever wanted, Alex found the answer to be nothing, nothing he could see at least. Trevor was still alive, unfortunately, staring straight ahead with a bored look on his face. He knew the shorter man should have at least heard his retching if nothing else, since Alex had heard Trevor’s fake grunts earlier, but for some unknown reason he hadn’t gone to check the noise out.
Making sure to keep Sixth Sense’s range wide in case it was a trick, he dismissed his astral projection, and thought on what to do next. At a glance the woman looked to have little in terms of gear. Her clothes were rags, much like his, and besides the knife, he didn’t spot any weapons or storage devices. It was possible she had one hidden somewhere, but Alex wasn’t up for a more comprehensive search at the moment. Trevor was expecting him to pass that gate soon.
His exploration the night before had shown that his best option out of the cell area was past the brazen dwarf. To the right of his cell were a few more individual enclosures before the section was cut off by a very large, very thick, and very locked stone door. That wasn’t the only barrier, he’d spotted quite a few spread about separating the two-sides of the facility. It was true the healer provided a set of keys, but Alex had no way of knowing if any of them were for this specific lock. So the question was whether he was willing to risk trying to open the door in the hopes of avoiding a fight.
No matter how he looked at it, Alex knew trying for that door wasn’t a viable option. Too many things could easily go wrong, potentially leaving him at even more of a disadvantage than he had now. He was better off keeping the element of surprise on his side rather than give it up for some off chance at a clean escape.
Alex immediately pushed a fair fight to the bottom of his list of options. Sure, Trevor was a higher level than him and any fight against the man would be tough, but that wasn’t the issue. In any head on battle, Alex was pretty sure he could beat the man, especially if he got off the first strike. He was more worried about what would happen after taking the dwarf down. A quick search showed Greyson still at the surface, body relaxed as he stared directly at the facility’s entrance. With him blocking the only path, Alex would have no choice but to take on the level 45+ man directly. Fighting Trevor in a similar way, knowing that was the case, would be to his own detriment.
It took Alex another couple of minutes to come up with a plan that he believed presented a reasonable degree of success. Eyes flicking around the barren room as he thought, they eventually settled on the one thing he’d avoided looking at the most, a morbid idea forming. Deactivating Battle Trance now that he’d made a decision, Alex got to work on removing the blades from the woman’s body. The whole “cleaning” process was disgusting. The healer’s body was covered in its own blood, and at one point he saw what he was pretty sure was bits of brain. Looking away as nature took its course in other areas, Alex did his best to make the body appear a bit less dead.
In the end, it took Alex much longer than he first thought it would to leave his cell. Periodic checks on Trevor and Greyson showed both men to be holding their positions the entire time, leaving Alex to wonder what their orders had been exactly. Picking the healers body, the heft of the small frame surprising him, Alex put one arm over his shoulder like he would a drunk friend. Giving the room that had housed him for the majority of the worst week of his life one last look, he shuffled out his cell and down the hallway.
Alex’s Weekend at Bernie’s-esque plan was largely dependent on Trevor assuming that something had gone wrong with his healing. It would explain away their delay as well as his earlier retching while, hopefully, keeping the man ignorant of the woman’s death. It was obvious she’d been caught off guard by Alex’s strength in the cell, but he guessed that based on the men’s positioning, she had prepared for resistance. In keeping with that logic, he was hoping Trevor wasn’t just there to act as a prop, but was rather supposed to follow behind and keep an eye on the escaping pair.
The echo of the cavernous tunnel did well to obscure the sets of footsteps, though Alex was finding it difficult to make it look as if the healer was carrying him. Taking a few steadying breaths as he approached the cell Trevor sat in, Alex kept Sixth Sense trained on the man. The skill’s detail improving now that he could see the dwarf directly, Alex watched anxiously for any sudden movements as he peered inside. Relishing the ability to be on this side of the gates, even after all his time in Soul Sight, Alex looked over the man who by all accounts appeared to be dead.
Not wasting a moment, he continued past the next couple cells then out the cell block entirely, not turning back until he felt he could do so without the sudden lack of noise raising any suspicion. Banishing the woman’s body to his inventory, and glad to no longer need to touch it, Alex activated Silent Strike and dashed back toward the cell’s entrance. Crouching on the wall closest to the open gate, Alex watched as Trevor remained stock still.
It took the dwarf another two minutes to reopen his eyes and, even as nervous as he was about the time, Alex resisted using Soul Sight to check on Greyson’s position. His hunch proved to be true when Trevor rose nearly five minutes later, and he found himself suppressing a smile. One that vanished entirely as he realized what being right meant in this context. Still, Alex was much less conflicted about killing the man who’d spent the better part of the last week brutally torturing him.
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Trevor’s boot falls were heavy as he made his way to the door, the look on his face as bored as ever. The way each step resounded through the space helped Alex to understand why he had waited so long, and the would be assassin gave the man a final once over to make sure the only surprise in this conflict would be his opening attack.
Trevor was dressed in normal clothing, all of which was covered in blood. There were no visible weapons on the man, but he was wearing enough jewelry that odds were high at least one piece was a spatial storage. Alex hoped to finish it before the man could pull anything out, but these plans had a history of going sideways. Keeping the short sword steady in his hand, and the woman’s knife in the other, Alex struck the moment the dwarf was in range.
The fight, if it could even be called that, ended fast, almost too fast considering the amount of torment the man had put Alex through. To say Trevor had been unprepared for an attack would have been a massive understatement. He’d been mid-yawn as he crossed the threshold, eyes closed and arms raised to the sky. After walking into the blade, and essentially impaling himself on the sword, the gruff man just stood there blinking for a moment, as the healers knife entered his throat. Alex, for his part, never let up, stabbing Trevor repeatedly with the Thorn’s Touch imbued blade until the man slumped, the level coming as the body hit the floor.
Ignoring the notifications for the moment, Alex stored the corpse and began moving closer to the facility’s exit. He’d gotten a pretty good look at the man’s face as he’d died and his mind was currently doing its best to commit it to long term memory. Something that was making him quite nauseous. Knowing he couldn’t go into another fight like this, no matter the time, Alex sat on the rocky floor and set his projection flying to the surface.
Greyson was still near the exit, though the man was now standing near the tree stump he’d previously been sitting on. The relatively little movement the men did had Alex on edge, but it was obvious Trevor hadn’t been aware he was escaping, and he saw no reason for the same not to be true for Greyson. Heart still racing as he rose back to his feet, Alex went over his most recent notifications, those few hours of exploration making it easy to maneuver the subterranean base as he read.
***
Your skill [Acting] has advanced to Level Five.
Your skill [Fear Resistance] has advanced to Level Sixteen.
Your skill [Fear Resistance] has advanced to Level Seventeen.
Your skill [Fear Resistance] has advanced to Level Eighteen.
Your skill [Soul Sight] has advanced to Level Sixteen.
Your skill [Silent Strike] has advanced to Level Eight.
Your skill [Stealth] has advanced to Level Twelve
Your skill [Dagger Mastery] has advanced to Level Five.
Your skill [Sword Mastery] has advanced to Level Four.
Your skill [Thorn’s Touch] has advanced to Level Thirteen.
Your skill [Thorn’s Touch] has advanced to Level Fourteen.
You have defeated Human (Level 32). Bonus experience awarded for killing an enemy above your level.
+2 Gold
Congratulations, you have advanced to Level Eighteen
Attribute Points Granted. Allocate Free (1) Point(s)
You have defeated Dwarf (Level 37). Bonus experience awarded for killing an enemy above your level.
+3 Gold
Congratulations, you have advanced to Level Nineteen
Attribute Points Granted. Allocate Free (1) Point(s)
***
Finishing his notifications about halfway through the long tunnel, Alex opened his status screen to read over the current values and assign his free points.
***
General
Health: 1729/2553
Mana: 1357/2037
Stamina: 1906/2588
Attributes
Strength: 32
Dexterity: 46
Endurance: 30
Wisdom: 29
Intelligence: 36
Willpower: 21
Luck: 17
Charisma: 16
Fortitude: 11
Perception:
Free Points: 7
***
Alex felt a bit dumb upon realizing he’d been sitting on five unused free points, though he knew applying them earlier wouldn’t have mattered much while chained to a wall. In the end, he decided to split the points between Endurance and Dexterity, bringing them up to 33 and 50 respectively. He’d picked those two mainly because both raised his overall health. From what he could tell Endurance had a larger effect, but Alex had given more to Dexterityin the hopes that something would happen upon reaching a milestone. Nothing did as far as he could tell.
Stopping as he neared the dingy door that led to the surface, Alex smiled as he looked over the results of his search. While he didn’t have the stomach to pilfer the bodies directly, he’d managed to find an auxiliary function of his inventory that revealed the goods for him. Rather than seeing Trevor and everything he wore as a single entity, the storage skill recognized every piece of clothing and gear as their own item. The items would stay on the body by default, but Alex could remove them if he wanted. When he’d queried the inventory for spatial storage devices, two rings and a bracelet had popped up.
Not wasting a second, he pulled all three out in the hopes of finding something that would be useful in his upcoming fight. Based on their contents, Alex guessed all three were Trevor’s. Besides a few throwing axes and hammers, which he added to his inventory just in case, there wasn’t much of use in the two rings, though he did see plenty he didn’t understand. Promising to give Trevor’s possessions another look when he had more time, Alex skimmed through the bracelet without much hope, only to be pleasantly surprised as he spotted something useful, potions.
The man had been carrying a couple boxes of the solution, and not just the diluted ones he’d been surviving on the last few days, but rather proper E grade potions. He doubted Greyson would give him the chance to take many during combat, but having them felt much better than not. Instantly downing one to max out his health, Alex transferred the rest to his inventory for easy access. Finishing up with his search of the final storage, and finding nothing else of immediate use, Alex unlocked the door that would take him out of this hellhole. All that was left was to kill Greyson.