"Please, please go back. I-I want to see my mom… Please!" Dzan is holding the small beastkin boy on his shoulder as he continues climbing the stairs towards the fourth floor of this apartment building.
He is trying to get away from his pursuers, the cult members. He's on the fourth floor right now. He succeeded at what was most important: stealing the two vials from the cult members and grabbing the child from their grasps to ensure his safety.
Now however, there are people running after him. Even while carrying the child, Bels, Dzan has proved himself to be faster than any of the ones after him. But, he cannot keep running. He needs to bait his pursuers into a trap as originally planned, while also keeping Bels calm.
"Hold on, kid, hold on. You’re going to see your mom soon. I am doing what she wants. Above all else, I know she wants to keep you safe. You understand, right? Your mom loves you more than anything in the world. She wants you to be as safe as possible."
She wants you to live. At least her child should live, I bet that’s what she wanted more than anything else. Fuck… She’s still back there…
Dzan goes into the fourth floor janitorial closet before his pursuers can see him. Right about now they should still be climbing the stairs to this floor. There are mops and brooms in here as well as some bottles filled with cleaning fluids and a couple of cheap magical tools. There is a dim always-on magical light in this room allowing him to see what he needs to see.
Dzan knew that this closet was here because Sigvor had stashed the coins they had lifted today in a similar closet on the ground floor. Dzan places the boy sitting against the wall of the somewhat dilapidated closet.
The boy is crying quietly.
The janitorial closet is halfway through the hallway of the fourth floor set of apartment units. A few seconds after he enters the closet and closes the door behind him, four humans open the stairwell door. They're angry. They shout out for the man who stole their sacrifice to come out.
"Come out, you fucking mangy beast! Hey!” One of them shouts. Dzan hears them shouting obscenities about him while also demanding he show himself and hand over the vials as well as the kid.
They were being incredibly loud, which might result in people in the building moving towards them to check them out. Dzan doesn’t understand why they’re behaving in such a foolish manner.
Are they that confident they can handle any of the demihuman residents who confront them? Or are they just a bunch of fucking idiots? They don’t really even sound as if they’re panicking. Why are they so confident? They really didn’t seem that good at fighting to me, otherwise they would at least have the sense to stop me when I grabbed the kid. So fucking arrogant…
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Dzan gets annoyed hearing them shouting out while he’s considering his plan of attack against these four. If he can just get rid of these four, then he might be able to go back and confront the other four. Four against one just seems like far better odds than eight against one. Especially if he can pick them off one by one while making use of the element of surprise.
He checks the weapons he has on him. He feels the vials in his pockets and shivers a bit. He might have a chance here even if he just relies on his trusty curved dagger. Sweat runs down his brow as he thinks over his options.
I-I might even be able to save the mom. If they need the kid back anyways, they wouldn’t just kill the mom, right? They’d need her to convince him to obey them, right? Right?
All of a sudden, Dzan hears another one of them shouting something more threatening.
“Hey! Kid, if you want to see your mom again, shout as loud as you can! We still have your whore mother with us, if you don't come out, we're going to continue cutting her. You don't want that, do you? We won’t just disfigure her, you know? We’ll cut off her limbs. You wouldn’t want your mom to be a cripple like you, right?"
Dzan understands exactly what he needs to worry about right now. Before Bels can shout anything out, Dzan hurriedly rushes to him and covers his mouth with his hand. The boy tries to scream, but Dzan pinches his nostrils preventing him from exhaling any air through his vocal cords.
Sweat drips down Dzan's brows. He had thought over a rudimentary plan. Things had worked out perfectly so far. He had first stolen the two vials and the boy, both preventing a terrorist bombing while removing the kid as a hostage.
Then, he had gone upstairs in an effort to split the group up so that he could ambush three or four people instead of fighting the full eight. After that decision however, things felt like they devolved.
Dzan is not a battle expert, he's a pickpocket. He can fight a few guys all at once in street fights maybe, but these men would have magic and weapons at their disposal. Furthermore, he’s finding it difficult to conceive of a strong plan to ambush these cult members. The more he thinks about his ambush options, the worse he feels.
He's made a mistake by handling things this way. But, that's not even the most difficult part to deal with.
Dzan just doesn't know how to deal with a kid right now either. The biggest problem is how he can make sure that the kid won’t scream or otherwise prevent him from surprise-attacking the cult members from this closet. The next problem is that he worries the second he leaves this kid by himself, he’ll be grabbed as a hostage when Dzan is in the middle of combat.
"Kid, please…" Dzan whispers. "Be as quiet as possible right now. I'm going to try and ambush these evil men. But, if they figure out where we are then they're going to make things difficult for us."
The boy looks at him pleading for him to let him see his mom. Dzan picks up on his thoughts, just by seeing the tears streaming down his face.
"D-Don't worry, don't worry, your mother is fine right now. You don't need to worry about her." Dzan lies through his teeth.