Tibaut faded in and out of consciousness during the day, occasionally catching glimpses of the others coming by to check on him. The next time he woke up, the room had gotten dark and he looked outside to see it had become nighttime. With the night as quiet as it was, he was able to organize his thoughts.
("So I'm back at step one huh? Old Man Bentley, whether he knew or not, handed me an opportunity to end this and I fucked up. Then I let the only lead we had escape. Bastard has probably either died in a ditch somewhere or left the parish.")
He rolled over on the bed and pressed his head into the pillow. He soon got up and stared outside.
("Tch, I can't even get revenge right. I am gonna fail like this when I go back home? Are they just gonna slip out of my hands and do what they did to me, to someone else while I twiddle my thumbs?")
As he could feel himself get enraged and he tightly gripped the window sill, he saw something outside. It was a person several feet away walking by. His attire was all black and he wore a familiar burnt cloak. Tibaut had to pinch himself when he saw this as it didn't feel real. He was mocking him. That had to be why this man was casually walking around outside his window.
He immediately opened the window and jumped outside. He didn't care that he was still injured or he was overpowered in their last encounter. He wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away, even if he had to die to take him out.
He flung the window open with such force it shattered and the man in black took notice and quickly walked away. Tibaut knew it was obvious he was leading him somewhere based on his reaction but he couldn't care less.
The thought of killing him removed any sense of self-preservation he had. He heard a door open in his exit but paid it no mind as he ran after him. Without the moonlight, he would have immediately lost him and wondered if this was some sort of redemption the gods had given him. No matter how fast Tibaut was, he was barely able to keep up with him.
He fired fireballs and firelances at his enemy but they caused damage only to the surrounding, leaving the man himself unharmed as he skillfully dodged them while maintaining the gap between.
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This gap was so large it allowed the man in black enough time to climb up a structure and enter it through the roof. This gave Tibaut some pause but he immediately started climbing himself as he didn't care if he went to the bowels of hell itself, he was going to be the man to kill this cultist bastard. After making his way to the roof, there was a single guard on the roof knocked out.
He briefly checked her condition and feeling they still had a pulse he continued his chase into the main building by going down the stairs. Judging by the material used and the size of the structure, Tibaut was able to work out this was the unfinished fort the lord was working to restore to his own tastes.
As he ran through the top floor, he noticed there were various guards on the floor and unusual implements scattered across the place. The ones he saw as he ran through were whips and collars but he chalked it off as them not cleaning the place out yet. When he ran to the bottom floor he couldn't help but notice an awful smell coming from it.
It almost smelled like a barn.
At the end of the hall, he noticed the man in black exit through a door and make his escape, so Tibaut followed. As ran down he saw prison cells on each side but he paid no attention to them until he reached the exit. Until out of the corner of his eye, he saw something he had to question was real.
He didn't want to stop but, he didn't want him to slip out of his hands yet again but this thing he saw was egregious, so appalling, so inhuman, he had to stop to see if his eyes were playing tricks on him. The torches on this floor were scant and the only thing that supported his vision was the few rays of moonlight coming through one of the cells. He looked in the cell and stood there in horror at what he was looking at. It couldn't, it shouldn't, why is there… a human inside this cell?
He looked at her hoping his eyes were playing tricks on him but she took notice of him. She was chained to a wall with a gag around her mouth and had only a single cloth covering her lower half. Her chest was exposed for all to see. She had some bruises across her body, mostly on her torso. When she caught him in her vision, all she did was start crying. She didn't even attempt to cover her chest.
Tibaut backed away, hoping the scene he was seeing was some sort of attack the man in black had planned but he backed into the next cell. He turned around and there was no window but he heard something. He used his magic to shine a light and he saw another woman. She had no clothing and wore more recent bruises and cuts across her body. She was soundly sleeping with bags under her eyes.
He stepped away with anger, disgust and sympathy all having a battle over who would reside on his face. But dread became an upset winner when he realized he had looked at two cells. By his count, there were 12 here.