Looking at the sky, Akiel spots the plume of smoke rising from the burning merchant's tent. Cautiously making his way around the market place, he finds a vantage point of the burning tent. At this point, quite a few people were working together to put the fire out. “At this rate, the fire will be extinguished. Magic really is too convenient.” he sighs. Sneaking around the commotion, he makes his way the town gate.
Stopping behind a wagon, Akiel crouches and sneaks a peek at the gates. Both guards are still there, although a little unnerved. One continuously paces while the other nervously glances to the town center. Frustrated, he turns back heading his way back to the edge of the market square. “The ideal dungeon is just a few hours away. The only thing stopping me is that the main entrance is the closest exit. The two females that are looking for me should be looking for me in the outskirts. Exiting through the back entrance of the town may lead me to them.” he ruminates.
Stepping aside to let guards through he weaves into a narrow alley and scales a ramshackle building. Heaving himself onto the roof, he overlooks half of the town. Walls surround the town, all manned by sparse but diligent guards. The burning merchant's tent is just to the south of him, the outskirts slightly beyond. The opposite way housed much wealthier and sturdily made homes. Rows and rows of homes made of the finest wood and the best security. Too bad, with all the security, he would never be able to cause a distraction as he is.
Scrutinizing the alleys below he finds a beggar moving through the back alleys skillfully. As the beggar navigates through the alleys, he gets closer and closer to the building Akiel is standing on. Easing himself off the roof, Akiel waits for the beggar to walk under him before letting the roof go. Falling onto the beggar, slamming him into the ground.
Grunting, the beggar displays a surprising amount of strength, heaving Akiel off. Bewildered by the causal actions of the beggar, Akiel jumps, slamming his stony elbow down on the beggars back. Awarded with a crisp snapping sound, Akiel redoubled his efforts. He continued to slam his elbows into the beggars back, eliciting a pain filled groan.
The beggar, quickly adapting to the situation, pushes himself away with a half jump, half pouncing motion. Clutching at a crate full of rubbish, he glares at Akiel.
Astonished that the beggar was still able to move, Akiel quickly closes in. His initial punch caught in the beggar's hand, he pulls the fist back with the beggar. Launching another punch as the beggar lurches forward uncontrollably. To Akiels surprise, the beggar manages to catch his other fist as well. Although in an unsightly position, both of Akiel’s fist are held by the beggar.
No better off, the beggar pants raggedly, occasionally spraying blood as he coughs. “You made a mistake picking on me boy. Just because I'm old and look impoverished doesn’t mean a D class rookie can take me on.” he sputters spitefully.
Akiel, finally reorganizing himself, focuses his mana into his hands and forehead. “I may be a rookie, but stone is harder than flesh. Unless you got more tricks, your done old man.” Crushing the old man's hands back into themselves, he starts losing control of his legs. Akiel pulls the old mans hands and savagely headbutts him. Over and over until the only sound left is a faint whimpering.
Taking the old man by the head he activates his mana vision. The old man, unfortunately, had a very small amount of mana flowing through him. Faint traces can be seen around his spine, but the mana structure is dissolving at breakneck speeds. Focusing on the mana, he tries to absorb it only to meet an obstruction. The mana seems to ignore him no matter how he tries to influence it.
Taking another look, Akiel decides to try to absorb the mana after it’s current host dies. With a swift punch to the throat, the beggar shudders before hanging limply from Akiel’s hand. Only after a few minutes did the mana within the beggar start to leave. Not wasting any time, Akiel focuses on the mana, pushing it to enter his hand. Although most of the mana dispersed, the mana closest to the head entered Akiel.
Gratified by the success, Akiel removes the cloak from the beggar and studies his body structure. Satisfied with his observations, he activates his remodel ability. Changing his face to match that of the Beggar's, he alters the height and shoulder with to match. Wearing the cloak he stoops over and picks up the beggar's body and stuffs it into the crate. Folding the legs carefully he snaps the arms into place. Looking around, he makes his way back to the main entrance.
Behind a wagon and out of the sentries sight, Akiel makes his way to the front of the wagon where the horse is drinking water. Gently spilling some water onto the ground he rubs his hand coating it in the mud. Applying the mud to his face, he covers every crack and wrinkles with mud to hide his grey surface.
Slowly standing, Akiel tries to mimic the beggar's gait, not to the point of hobbling but enough to notice a slight dependency on the right foot. After practicing behind the wagon until he is satisfied, he confidently walks to the main entrance. WIthout so much as looking at the sentries, He saunters past the guards.
As he passes, one of the guards says, “Don’t forget, I want a young Brandleback! You promised you would get some stock the next time you visit.” Managing a slight smile, Akiel holds his hand up in acknowledgment as he hastens his pace.
Not noticing much at first the guards smiles nervously until he glances at Akiel’s hand. Half of it was a dirty brown, the rest was grey. Signaling his partner the guard calls out, “Mr. Alif! I forgot, there was someone who mentioned you. He gave me a letter to hand over to you.”
Hearing the incoming guard, Akiel drops the improvised gait and breaks into a run.
Completely convinced that Akiel is an imposter, the guard starts to speed up. Gradually accelerating even faster, closing the distance faster and faster.
Ripping the fireball talisman off his neck, Akiel draws mana from his other hand and much of his torso into it. Leaving only a few strings of mana connecting to his lower extremities, the rest of the mana gathers in the talisman, causing small waves of light to undulate.
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Just a arms distance away now, the guard swings his pole staff down on Akiel, “Comply or die, imposter!”
Turning halfway stiffly, Akiel discharges the talisman. After a brief pause, a fiery explosion throws the guard away. Dismayed that the talisman was no longer operable, Akiel drops it and continues running, leaving both guards behind.
The guard sent flying wheezes while slowly getting up, “Mother of Sharn! Who gives a doll a fireball amulet?” Passing him, his partner drops his spear, drawing a shorter and lighter dagger instead, “Call for assistance, I’ll follow him.”
Akiel speeds through the forest, trying to lose his tail. Crashing through a thorny bush, Akiel sneaks a peek backward to see a guard slowly but surely catching up. ‘Just how much stamina do these guards have? He’s clearly running at his full speed, just how long does he expect to keep going?’ he thinks to himself as he focuses on keeping a steady rhythm.
Sneaking another peek he sees the guard just meters behind him. Instead of being anxious, Akiel becomes relieved instead, Although his internal mana concentration was gradually thinning, the guard is beyond any doubt, spent. His skin flushed red with exertion, veins popping. His eyes bulging, and several abrasions on his skin from thorny bushes and stray branches.
Continuing to run, Akiel keeps track of the guard, waiting for him to get closer. The guard, assessing his own situation decides to stop. Akiel slows down, turning around while slowly backing off. The guard fumbles with a strap on the lower side of his chainmail. Curious, Akiel decides to see what the guard had planned.
Pulling a cylinder out, the guard slowly raises it in Akiel’s direction. Taking his free hand, he bashes the bottom of the cylinder in. Immediately, a bright yellow object shoots into the sky, leaving a trail of glowing yellow dust that blanketed everything on the ground.
“Oh wow, they have flairs. It’s really not a medieval world.” Akiel mutters as he turns and runs off an angle from the yellow dust trail in the sky. After having run for quite a few minutes, Akiel slows to a walk and pulls his guidebook out after not finding the map he stole. Flipping to the map page, he finds new information added to his map. Locating the nearest dungeon, he adjusts his heading and starts running at a more moderate pace.
After an hour or so, he starts to hear sounds of pursuit from behind him. “Either they have someone who can smell me, or they can see extremely well during the night,” he mutters in resignation. Slowing to a jog, he pulls out his guidebook and adjusts his direction to the closest body of water. As he runs, the sounds become clearer and more distinct.
Hearing the barking of dogs, Akiel congratulates himself on figuring out the mystery and forces his mana to his legs, fortifying and speeding up their movement. Despite the fortification, small fragments of stone continually fall off from the abuse.
Reaching a large river, Akiel wades in awkwardly. With his arms lacking the mana to move properly, he continues to walk in the water as it submerges him. At first, he felt a weightless sensation, but as he looks up, countless air bubbles escape from his empty eye sockets and open mouth.
Settling at the bottom, Akiel makes his way to a boulder sticking out of the water. Slowly walking through the water, he remodels himself so that his hand had an ear attached. Slowly making his way around the boulder, he raised his hand so it would lay on the surface of the water. Keeping his ear above the water, Akiel patiently waits.
Just a few minutes later, several steps approach the river bank. ‘This is a surprisingly quiet river bank.’ Akiel muses to himself. Shifting uneasily he waits while the beings above shuffle around. Finally, after an hour of hurried footsteps and grunts, a conversation is started.
“It is here according to the spore hounds. Unless he removed the sun spores himself, he couldn’t escape their senses. Take half of the troop and circle around the river. Set the nets up and progress upstream. Deploy the aquatic tamers and find it! Remember, it has already killed innocents. Show no mercy.” a voice commands from above.
Taking his hand back from the surface, Akiel remodels his ear back to the side of his head. Having heard that they would start to comb the river from further down river, he unhesitantly starts walking upstream. The only problem was that he was making very little progress. Sighing internally, Akiel gets on his knees and starts clawing his way upstream.
Looking back, he had made about 13 meters of progress after battling the river current for several minutes. Shaking his head in disappointment, he turned sideways and starts crawling his way to the other river bank. ‘Hopefully, I can get out of this before those aquatic tamers do whatever they’re supposed to do’ He deliberates.
Slowly progressing towards the opposing bank, Akiel checks down the river with his mana sight. Several small people were on either side down the river, casting nets and leading large, dog-like creatures around trying to pinpoint his location.
Just when things seemed terrible, they got worse. ‘Heh, so that's what aquatic tamers do.’ he muses as several large creatures appear in the water. Some large and slow, some slimmer and faster. All deadly and making much faster progress than him. Mentally slapping himself to focus, he looks around, searching for something hidden to use. There is nothing on either bank. There is nothing in the sky or further upstream. Helpless he looks for something underneath him. Surprisingly, there is something underneath him, a large amount of pure mana. The type of mana that the gods use.
Before making a mad gamble, he tries to use remodel to remove the spores that help his enemies track him, only to feel hopeless. It was like trying to remove sticky grains of sand, one at a time. Cursing his luck, Akiel remodels his body so that most of his body becomes more compact and compressed into a disk shape, while one of his arms turns into a drill. Modifying his other arm to be like a clamp, he ends the session. With his mana reduced by a third, Akiel gets to work.
Letting the bulk of his body cover his activities, he clamps one hand down on the river bed, digging to get a better purchase. With his body being in the correct position, he retrieves all his mana and concentrates it in his drill arm. Rotating his drill, Akiel remodels the majority of his body to detach, acting like a crudely made shield. Pushing deeper, Akiel remodels two eyeballs, both on the remaining portion of his body. One looking backway at the incoming beasts and one overlooking the progress of his drilling.
Unfortunately for him, the faster creatures were just meters away from him. He, on the other hand, was a solid meter of digging away from the source of the mana. Briefly considering visiting his patron gods, he reconsiders. It’s not that he couldn’t, it’s that he may not be able to come back. The first time he was obliterated back into the real world, this time they might just obliterate him for the real world for not being competent. It really was just a matter of life and death for him, nothing like ceasing to exist. What was really at stake is the ultimate wish.
Steeling his mind, he pushes on, ignoring the probing attacks on his outer shell. Half a meter away, the creatures rip his shell off, trying to tear it apart. Nervously continuing, Akiel gets ready to detach most of his remaining body, as long as he himself is present, the size of his body shouldn’t matter. The creatures, take turns gnawing and jostling at the shell before becoming bored. The drill hand attracts their attention immediately as it sends dirt, fragments of rock and sand flying. Thankful for the temporary cover, Akiel anxiously watches as his hand drills closer to the pure mana source. Just centimeters away, one creature gets lucky, managing to get a tentacle around his clamp hand.
Decisively detaching the hand, the digging slows as the pressure applied lessens considerably. Just a centimeter away from the mana source. Akiel uses remodel to open up the upper fringes of the drill and ejects spikes. Elongating the remaining part of the drill, he pushes his reduced body with the tiny amount of mana he has left. Just millimeters from breaking through, his new body was found, this time by one of the larger creatures. Silently screaming assault, Akiel pushes with the last vestiges of his mana.
Slowly but surely, a small breach forms. Excited, Akiel celebrates when his body suddenly jerks away from the breach. The beast had dug him out.
In desperation, Akiel eyes the breach and detaches almost everything left, leaving just a small ant-sized portion and his consciousness. Slowly he drifts down, with no vision and no senses. Slowly he tumbles through his hole, getting closer to the breach. As he reaches the bottom, he teeters on the edge of a groove dug by him when he was using a bigger drill. A stray river current pushes him deeper in the hole by chance. Slowly drifting down, Akiel loses consciousness for the second time in this world. His last thought being, “It’s too early for capital punishment, I still want a twinkie.”