Ah, right… The language barrier…
The men sat there for several moments, staring at the ground. For a moment he was worried they weren’t talking because of loyalty, he didn’t have the expertise nor was he willing to torture possibly innocent men on the off chance they were Ginte, he also despised torture on principle for how inhumane it was. You could spend days, weeks, years breaking someone only for them to tell you a lie, and all you have gained in the process was wasted time and the knowledge of what you’d done.
There was a reason truth spells and mind reading were the main interrogation techniques in the Forgotten realms. Thanks to some of his required reading he’d done for several months he had a rather general idea of what the ‘culture’ was like outside of Earth. Many of the books had long rambling nonsense about the author, their life story, and their world. But just as many gave useful information - mostly just side comments made in distaste or mockery - that revealed useful tidbits that helped him understand what was possible.
He knew of plague magic from those books, and that allowed him to understand that Lilliha most likely knew someone capable of curing Ambrosia, the altercation that followed leading to his current predicament. He still asked himself why he tried to attack her. He knew he shouldn’t have, but as the Symbiote had said, he was under extreme stress.
Regardless of magic he didn’t know, or his ‘weak’ disposition towards violence as Lilliha had once called it, he was stuck with two men who weren’t talking and practically nothing he could do about that besides scare them, hurt them, or kill them. He’d just knock them out and toss them into a ditch somewhere, but if they came back with more people that could possibly put Chloe in danger.
I’m stuck between a rock and a bloody place.
He had to get them to speak, so he had to act, regardless of how much it felt wrong to do so. Maybe he was staying around Chloe too much, he’d never felt so reluctant to hurt someone who had tried to hurt him first.
Looking down upon the men as they kneeled beneath him he tried to think of who to threaten first. The obvious choice was the man who’d run as he’d already proven he was willing and able to abandon his partner to survive. There was also the chance he could leverage that fact, the man was obviously enraged when he’d been abandoned afterall. If he told them only one of them would leave alive he could possibly get them both to talk, one out of fear and the other out of anger or a desire for revenge.
“Here’s how this is going to work, one of you walks away and the other… doesn’t.” He spent a moment watching their reactions. The smaller man had begun shaking, while the older man had paled several shades.
They understand me, good.
“One of you tells me who you are, why you’re here, and what tribe you belong to. The other one meets a short drop and a sudden stop - if you catch my meaning.” Clapping his hands together for dramatic effect he tried to channel the personification of a psychopath, something he’d had personal experience with after meeting the Accountant. “So, who wants to speak first? Is it going to be the coward who abandoned his friend to die, or the man who was left to die by said friend? A bit of revenge maybe? Or are you going to hold out on me and ruin my fun?!”
He paused for a moment, allowing the ‘crazy bastard’ performance to sink in as warmth began to spread throughout his body. Whatever the Symbiote was, it seemed to be enjoying the show, or it just enjoyed scaring people.
I hope that isn’t indicative of something dangerous.
Finally one of the men, the one who’d been abandoned, spoke up.
“We are not bad, swear! We are Mura. Come from east, beasts died, Ginte hunt us, nowhere to go. Looking for new land. Sorry trespassing, forgiveness!”
Oh great, more broken English… At least they understand me. That does leave questions though, if they were just ‘looking for new land’, why not leave the area of the city, better yet - why were they tracking me?
The story itself was certainly plausible from the information he’d been given about them from Chloe. They were well known for raiding other tribes, kidnapping women and murdering children, cannibalism, the sort. The only tribes or communities they didn’t target were the ones that either paid for ‘protection’ or were too large in numbers or strength to risk attacking.
The Ginte were basically an old-timey version of a gang, tough when fighting the weaker groups but acted like cowards when faced with powerful groups, or those with Warriors worth fearing. Which meant that if members of theirs were caught they’d be far more likely to lie in order to save their own skin, and if they were Ginte they’d never admit it or they’d be killed almost immediately.
However the one thing that made a bit of a dent in that story was the fact that they were tracking him. He couldn’t blame them for being armed, wearing armor, or traveling in larger numbers than ‘one’ but he could blame them for trying to sneak up on him and being more than ready to attack him on sight.
Scratching the back of his head he began to deliberately pace back and forth in front of the men, pretending to be confused. "So, you’re not Ginte, but you still came into this land and tried to track one of us down while they were alone?” Waving his hand towards the men as he spoke he continued. “You come here, track me down while I am by myself, doing your best not to be caught in the process, then when I confront you about following me you attack me?”
By now the men were avoiding eye contact. The coward seemed scared, while the other man at least had the ability to appear frightened.
“The real question is… why should I believe you? Better yet, why should I care?” He stood over the men now, looming over them like some schoolyard bully. In any other situation he wouldn’t have cared so much about them tracking him, but the idea of a group of people actually hunting him peeved him, or more accurately him and his Symbiote.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
It had stayed quiet for the most part, no shivers or heat flashes, no vibrations or calls in his sleep, but that didn’t mean it was sleeping. It was always there, especially during hunts. It enjoyed hunting beasts, especially the strong ones like the Deer King that they had fought. The warmth that had spread throughout his body when he’d shattered its antlers before running away had been near divine. But the cold disappointment after he’d run away had made him feel… disappointed. Like he’d broken some form of taboo.
That cold feeling had only left once he’d figured out the men were tracking him, hunting him, and he had some ideas why. The Symbiote thrived on hunting, feasting, and evolving, it had told him as much itself when they’d spoken inside his ‘Core’. Evolution, strength, they all mattered to a Symbiote as much as having children or families mattered to humans. And the only way to get strong enough, to evolve to a point where they became ‘apex predators’ was to hunt. So when something weaker than it ‘dared’ to hunt it, it became… insulted, or enraged. He really couldn’t tell besides the temperature shifts and vibrations what it was thinking, even after days of them playing yes/no questions using the temperature shifts.
While he was mildly irritated, if not a little bit worried about Chloe when he found them hunting him, the Symbiote was feeling something rather intensely, and if he had to guess he’d say it was anger.
“You see, whether or not you belong to the Mura, or the Ginte, or whatever the fuck other tribe, gang, community, fucking empire or civilization that is out there, at the end of the day you tried to hunt me.” With a speed fast enough to catch a bullet he grabbed the cowardly man by the throat, dragging him closer to him until their noses were almost touching. “And no one. Hunt’s. Me.”
The warmth of the Symbiote spread through his body far more intensely this time, almost to the point where he was worried it was going to be painful, before it gradually began seceding back towards its black carapace. The comfort he derived from it being there was being slowly corroded by the fact that he knew that some of his habits had been changed slightly by it. While it was far stronger than his physical body, and gave him a massive boost in power when attacking something, he knew that some of the reactions he’d had over the months had been “different” in certain ways. From getting greedy during hunts, taking fights that he was unsure he’d win, even when he was speaking it felt like he had a desire for something he couldn’t place.
It sometimes felt like he was craving a food that he’d never eaten, nor knew existed.
The current situation was proof of that. He wasn’t all that angry at these men, if anything he pitied them a little bit due to them being caught by someone far stronger, someone they had no chance of fighting or running from. The feeling most likely stemmed from his experience with the cartel duo. But every time he thought of how they had tried to ‘hunt’ him, or how the coward had so easily abandoned his friend, he felt flickers of rage appear, before they were gone as fast as they’d arrived.
Hopefully it’s just a small side effect of the Symbiote, some form of emotional connection that fades or I can block out with Lilliha’s help. I’d rather not be emotionally bound to something that prioritizes ‘devouring’ and ‘evolution’ above everything else.
He stood there long enough for the heat to dissipate completely, until it was just a memory. He didn’t want to do anything unless he knew for sure it was him. Even the off chance the Symbiote could slightly control his actions terrified him to his core sometimes, and he especially didn’t want to be responsible for murdering anyone unless he was absolutely sure they deserved it.
When his mind was clear and the Symbiote had returned to dormancy he continued, still holding the now suffocating man by his throat. Once he realized the man genuinely couldn’t breathe, just about the time his entire face was flushed bright red, he dropped him back onto the ground.
I lost control for a moment, got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“So, now that we have that out of the way, who wants to talk first?”
And this time, it worked like a gem. In an instant the coward was choking up words as fast as he could spew them out through his panicked lungs.
“We told come! GINTE FORCE US! No reason! Fight or die! We no want, force us! Can't fight back, kill us, take child, please! Take Nika, can't fight, please!” By the time he was out of ways to beg in English he had resorted to begging, or praying, in his native tongue. He spoke so fast that Mark could barely make out anything other than jumbled up nonsense.
Figures, not Ginte - but close enough to be an issue. Nothing can ever be simple.
The other man began berating him in their native tongue while the coward wept, repeating the word ‘Nika’ - or most likely a name - over and over again in between sentences. It made sense why the other man hadn’t immediately dumped everything on his friend now, he was worried about his family.
They had been sent here as cannon fodder, no other way to put it. The Ginte knew he was strong enough to be classified as a ‘Warrior’, they just didn’t know how strong he was. If one of the men came back after nearly killing him, or losing one of the duo and succeeding, then they would know he was simply some above-average prick, or the men had gotten lucky. If they died, then they knew that they’d need to actually send someone important to deal with him.
It was becoming readily apparent that the Ginte tribe acted just like any other gang in the city. If you have trouble with someone you don’t know much about, send a couple of fodder in. If your men come back alive, then it was just some moron with a death wish. If your men die or you never hear from them again, then you know it’s an Altered, or there are enough people in that person’s gang to take your fodder out.
A fucked up way of scouting a potential enemy’s strength, but it worked. It worked even better when you weren’t using your men as well. This way the Ginte kept the other groups in line, while also getting an estimate of what they were dealing with.
Now he just had to figure out what he was going to do with them.
On one hand, they were sent by the Ginte. On the other hand, they were being forced with threats of death, and most likely the slavery and cannibalism of their families. He could let them go, wherein they’d most likely be killed for failing, or kill them, where he’d have to live with the knowledge he’d killed men just trying to save their kids, and most likely their families would die anyway due to the Ginte being all around assholes.
It was a bad situation for the men regardless of what they did, and judging by the coward being so easy to give in, he knew that.
The fact he gave in at all however, regardless of how small the chances are of his family being returned, didn’t show him in a good light however. He knew plenty of pricks from the city that would sell their own mother for a chance to run with the ‘big boys’, but he knew just as many men that would stab you just for saying her name the wrong way. While he didn’t like the latter all that much from personal experience, he despised the former.
However they were forced to be here, and judging by how angry the other man still was, he didn’t think the coward lied at all.
So the Ginte are forcing the other groups to track us down, meaning they are really pissed off I killed one of their boys. I wonder if he was someone important?
If he was going by the thought process that the Ginte were some tribal-gang running by the same rules as the ones in the city, then the obvious conclusion to why they’d waste so much time on him after he’d killed a baseline was that the baseline was someone important to someone important. No gang ever wasted this much time, resources, or effort on what they’d only think of as bad luck. They attacked some girl, the girl’s very angry and very protective brother, lover, whatever killed those men. They would most likely ask around and once it was clear they simply couldn’t find them they’d put a hit out or guess that they’d left the area afterwards.
The only reasons they’d go so far as to attack and kidnap people from other groups to force them to hunt him down was if they were worried about appearing weak, which didn’t make sense because unlike in the city there was no one around and no cellphones to record it or spread the murder around as gossip, meaning no one would know but them. Or, the person he’d accidentally killed had been someone’s family member or friend and they’d taken it very personally.
I wonder if I accidentally killed their leader’s son or something, but that wouldn’t make much sense because he was on his own without backup. If he went out to hunt, he would at least have one or two Warriors protecting him wouldn’t he? So who would be important enough to warrant this response, but not important enough for an armed guard? Or is it some form of ‘trial by fire’? Hunt alone, earn your stripes and return as an adult or some shit?
The questions were piled up, and the men didn’t know why they were being forced to hunt, only that they had to.
So once again, he’d done something that landed him in deep shit, and he had only two options to fix it.
Fight, or flee with the sisters.