Prisoner Transport

Sulphurous eyes watched the false serpents fall indifferently, scanning along lazy paths that twisted across imaginary angles before settling on the rodent yapping orders at what remained of the pikemen. The vaguely masculine not-being could taste the touch of demons on the creature, could smell the ash that only the primordial fire could create soaked into the fur of its soul even under the taste of primal water. The tumultuous things masquerading as its thoughts swiftly congealed, and it knew this was and was not the thing its master sought.

Space was already screaming in protest of the foul mockery of a creature's defilement when its gaze suddenly snapped to a point in the distance completely opposite where its warped imitation of a face pointed. Starlight, the same tainted astral blaze it had tasted on stale winds weeks ago when that deep deep grey swallowed a little piece of the wretched thing the feebleminded call reality. It could feel the scent of heavy demonic influence dancing across its tongue, far stronger than the faint touch on the rodent.

Something a madman might call a hum slithered through the abominations metal teeth as the swirling cesspit it called a mind clicked and cracked apart something approaching the concept of an idea. A bone chilling simulacra of laughter echoed through adjacent spaces mortal eyes couldn't perceive as the sin against nature vanished.

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Of the hundred conscripts the Serpents had sent against us, sixteen could no longer stand or walk and were subsequently executed. The weaklings only netted me one hundred thirty eight exp all together, even the ones I killed personally netting no more than thirty exp at most. While I'd have loved to slaughter them all for even that miniscule amount of delicious exp, the short term benefit didn't outweigh the reputation gain from successfully capturing so many people.

I made sure to check the tattered remains of that lizard man I watched die for his poisons while my men weren’t looking; unfortunately the same explosion that shattered his bones shattered his vials as well, leaving him covered in a dark rainbow of nameless venoms and blood. I sighed at the waste of perfectly good weapons, deciding to quickly run back over to where I'd left the archer's corpse before I actually got my beleaguered troops started on heading back. I didn’t want to bother trying to saw through his thickly muscled neck with my dagger or teeth, so I simply stabbed him a few times in key places and activated Death Roll each time; once his flesh was torn up enough, I simply hacked through the thin remaining strands of muscle and esophagus with one hand and gripped his hair with the other.

Head in hand, I rejoined my remaining thugs and -ignoring their pained groaning and irritated grumbling- ordered them to get the show on the road. It took a little prodding to not quite literally whip the listless captives into shuffling generally in the direction we wanted them to. I was more than half expecting some sort of suicidal last stand or escape attempt, but it seemed the will to fight had fled them right along with whatever drugs gave them their strength; hell, most were barely able to muster the energy to be concerned by their limply hanging arms. Though, I suppose the couple dozen that kept staring at their ruined limbs and quietly crying counted as a reaction.

I ignored the weeping enemy slaves, keeping a wary eye on every vague shadow, shattered window, and blind corner around us as we traveled. The only living (or undead or artificially animated, I couldn't dismiss such possibilities) things we encountered were a few hobos sleeping in paper-padded wooden crates and one particularly disturbed, yellow-eyed addict that hissed like a rabid cat from a shadowy doorway. I was tempted to kill each of them, but didn't want to take the extra few seconds it would take; I had to assume that the enemy had reinforcements en route, and even if they didn’t a large group of lightly guarded cripples would look like an easy target to someone looking for easy exp. If I were strong enough, I would be tempted to attack a group like mine; I had to assume that kind of thought process isn’t unique in a world like this.

An attack in transit would be unpleasant, to say the least; armless as they may be, eighty four desperate captives taking their chances could easily turn any attack into a cluster fuck. Even if the attackers weren’t a huge threat (something I very much could not rely on), I wasn’t confident my meager forces could actually prevent these walking monuments to malnutrition from escaping into the surrounding maze of rundown and collapsed buildings that made up this abysmal excuse for a city if they tried their luck.

There was also the minor factor of not wanting to look like a psychotic maniac in front of nominal allies; being known as the kinda guy that would go out of his way to murder random strangers in an already precarious situation is not exactly the kind of reputation that inspires trust in my competence and reliability. I didn't particularly care what these random mooks thought of me, but they would undoubtedly spread rumors to their colleagues and superiors. I doubted Rokharth would do anything more than laugh (and possibly beat the shit out of me as "remedial training"), but Markus might find that kind of mindset dangerously unprofessional; a gang leader doesn't last long without recognizing that the kind of bloodthirsty idiot that would put their objectives at risk in pursuit of unnecessary bloodshed makes for an unreliable flight risk on any mission.

Fortunately, despite my increasingly twitchy nerves with every step we took, no ambush occurred; the streets didn't erupt into flames, no horde of monsters crawled from the shadows, no gas flooded the city, no well placed snipers opened fire on us, nothing. We arrived safely back at the Burnpike Memorial Hospital, our extremely vulnerable troupe utterly unmolested. It made my skin crawl with paranoid fervor and flies, but I couldn't say I'd have preferred my fears to be realized either.

I gave the door a sharp rap and waited for the grimy and far too knowledgeable creature that guarded it to respond. Several seconds passed with no reaction from the yellow-toothed little bastard (who my Paranoia showed me was sitting in a small alcove to the side of the door, hidden away by a dark brown cloth hanging over the entrance) and my already frayed patience ran thin. I reared back my hand and punched the iron door with all my might; eleven hundred Strength wasn’t quite enough to dent the solid metal aperture, but it sure made one hell of a bang and visibly shook the door in its frame.

My Endurance and Traits were more than sufficient to keep my own Strength from causing me any damage, though I shook my hand and clenched and released my fingers a few times just for show. A few of my men chuckled bitterly, but when I turned to look at them they very suddenly found something interesting to stare at in silence. I didn't care enough to comment, my attention taken by the suddenly scrambling little gremlin creature (I wasn't actually sure what he was) hurriedly rushing out of his hidey-hole to slam the door's eye slit open.

I stared him straight in his yellow eyes, deciding to satisfy my curiosity and Observe the filth-caked creature as he looked me up and down.

Name: Oskar

Main Title: The Doorman

Race: Bre'endali

Hp: 100/100

Sp: 100/100

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Mp: 100/100

Main Trait: Homebody: He is his home, his home is him; he knows himself, inside and out.

I barely withheld a shudder, and from the wicked little grin that formed beneath his far too luminous eyes I knew he could tell. His stats were far too perfect, too precisely even and unsettlingly normal to be real. My first thought was that perhaps stats can be hidden, my second was that his body may well be artificial; both would explain how exactly standard his stats seemed. I didn't have enough data to make a solid guess either way, so despite my misgivings I put that thought on the back burner

My third thought came to a screeching halt when I saw his Main Trait. It was opaque and cryptic, but what it said had the kind of disturbing implications that could mean a variety of unsettling things. At the very most basic it told me he was totally aware of his own body, but the wider statement of his home and self being one was far more concerning. If he's some kind of home spirit, some embodiment of the building, then that would explain why he seemed far too knowledgeable despite no one ever seeming to directly tell him anything. Despite his unkempt and greasy looks, the little creep probably knew every secret held within these walls!

I made a mental note not to ever mention any plans, nor do any sort of secretive training, anywhere within the building; not that I ever planned to do either before I learned exactly how foolish it would be, but reinforcing the point certainly didn't hurt.

Ultimately, while this news was unnerving, it changed little about my plans; I was already assuming that nowhere was safe to think aloud (honestly, anyway) around here, or anywhere for that matter. Having it confirmed that absolutely nowhere inside the Hospital was anything remotely approaching private changes little.

Even if the constant sense of being watched made the back of my neck itch.

The grimy little house spirit gave me a gap-toothed grin, "Ah, you's is returnin' wit' more mans than you's left wit', but I's cannae help but sees ya got less o' da mans dat came from 'ere." Listening closer, I couldn't help but find his accent strange, almost as if he knew enough about how to properly pronounce each word but chose to twist and mangle it just so as to sound like he barely grasped the concept of speaking. Given how often he must hear people talking around him, it struck me as odd that he wouldn't have managed to pick up how to do it properly himself. It could be a deliberate effort to make himself seem less threatening and important… or he could just like speaking that way, I suppose; even if he was doing it on purpose, I've seen far stranger habits than mangling one's speech.

I cast his odd speech pattern from my mind (for the moment) and smiled thinly, "Well, some got lost along the way, but…" I lifted the severed head of the sniper up so the creature slightly less diminutive than me could see it, " I think this, and my many new friends here, will more than make up for it."

I could see his eyes narrow as he scrutinized the head dangling from my hand, pupils moving as they took in as much as they could with their limited angle. I noted that he apparently couldn't use whatever apparent omniscience he had within the building to see even short distances outside, though a petty part of me delayed pulling back the sluggishly dripping skull further away for a few seconds. I could see the dort spackled creature didn’t recognize the mostly intact head even with a better view, which I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by really; limited omniscience aside, why would a doorman be familiar with the face of a random other gang’s members, even if they did have fancy titles?

I shrugged my shoulders at his dirty little unimpressed face, jerking a thumb over my shoulder and stepping aside. “Well, if the leader isn’t good enough, I’m sure the hundred captured enemies will be.” I watched his ill kempt eyebrows raise as he took in the gently swaying mass of broken men behind me.

Of course, my thought process came to a screeching halt as a simple question came to mind; if he needs to physically look out a little slot to see what’s outside, how did he know how many people I had brought back? Why does he even need the little eyeslot thing at all if his limited omniscience extends outside anyway? Is there some sort of limitation to his abilities that I don’t have the context to puzzle out at play here? Is he trying (poorly) to hide his abilities, pretending he isn’t aware of what’s going on outside his domain? Does he have some other means of viewing the entrance area outside the hospital (I considered this most likely, given I doubted he only had the one ability). Is he just fucking with me?

I couldn’t deny that, given what I knew of the greasy little bastard, he may well have been fucking with me.

The grubby little boggart grinned, stained cheeks creaking open to reveal yellowed and crooked teeth all ending in hooked points like some mad mockery of fangs, “Aye. S’pose da Boss’ll be da judge o’ dat.” Without a word more, the creature slammed the eye slot shut and began the laborious process of unlocking and opening the door.

While I admired the dedication to security implied by the multitude of locks, there does come a point when the need for a main thoroughfare to be able to open quickly outweighs the added security of an additional lock. For a door that may never be open, any level of security (including just welding it shut) is alright, but this kind of thing poses a serious risk if people need to very rapidly escape the building in a panic. One firebomb or gas attack, and the multitude of locks holding the door shut would go from a reassuring security measure to a deadly obstacle very quickly.

Though, being backhandedly fair, given the amount of windows the building was covered with, finding an emergency exit would not be all that difficult anyway.

I decided not to wait around for the door to be fully unlocked, turning to bark orders at my men, “Alright, get the cattle into a single file line. If any try to run, kill them and the two next to them in line.” I lowered my voice, jumping up onto the shoulder of the mook that carried themselves with the most confidence and speaking directly into their ear so the prisoners wouldn’t hear me and panic, “Once they’re in the building, blindfold them or gouge out their eyes -whichever is easier- and take them to where we keep prisoners.” I waited until the roughed up gangster nodded in understanding before patting them on their clean shaven head and jumping back down.

I took mild amusement from how the muscular mook rolled their eyes and shook their head before heading inside to fulfill my directives, though I did note them down for assassination if any unpleasant rumors about me started spreading. Light mockery and playful ribbing were common in most military and criminal organizations and engaging in them would make me seem more personable, but I was also aware that some people could be extremely petty and take vicious and violent offense to just about anything. Assuming the people around you are rational actors who will make sane decisions is an often lethal mistake, one I didn’t intend to make.

I didn’t expect this guy would be seriously upset (I wouldn’t have done it if I did), but I did know that people can decide to kill or harm you for any number of real or imagined reasons. If this guy wants to make an enemy out of a mildly demeaning joke, I’d be irritated by the trouble needed to hide his body (if that would even be possible with the doorman’s abilities, which really depended on if limited omniscience is even what that trait actually entails) but all too happy to take the experience.

The door finally swung open halfway through the mooks organizing the captives. I was more than tempted to simply run off to get the first word to Markus, but I decided that the image of thorough professionalism that staying to observe the proceedings would grant me was worth the weird swirling feelings of boredom and danger the whole process invoked. I also figured it might grant me a humble air to delay reporting my slaying of what I believed to be an important enemy figure in order to ensure everything goes smoothly; though, given the nature of this whole gang, looking like a gloryhound might actually be to my benefit. I suppose it depends on if Markus thinks a fame seeker is easier to manipulate or more useful than a humble soldier.

Regardless, it is much safer to maintain a humble professionalism than to garner a reputation as one that seeks out dangerous foes to flaunt my victory; actively seeking dangerous opponents for open combat is how you find yourself overmatched and dead, far better to prey on the strong when they're vulnerable or off guard.

Not knowing where the prison actually was (I had only really spent time in the barracks, various training rooms, and cafeteria during the torture Rokharth called "basic training"), I settled for looking as authoritative and certain as my small frame could while "graciously allowing" one of my subordinates to take the lead while I followed after.