Nicolai went on a wide route, outside of the areas he typically travelled, because the undead seemed quite upset in response to him killing some of their patrol. As he'd left they had been spreading out and searching for him. He wanted to find a place to settle down for a bit and practise using the hook, before continuing on to the archers.

So, he opted to go further afield and avoid them entirely. This led to him venturing into a portion of the living area which was new to him. Here the corridors ran for longer distances without interruption before a doorway would open. These doorways didn't lead into small, single rooms, but into suites of linked rooms of various sizes, seeming to be complete homes as opposed to simple sleeping holes. These rooms were lowered, with short stairs in their entrances leading a couple feet down into them.

Just as he turned a corner he heard something. He slipped back behind it then peered out. Someone screaming? He wasn't sure—

A scream tore down the corridor, bouncing off the walls, impossible to mistake.

Nicolai tried to work out where it had come from. That doorway, over there? Or the next? Another shriek of pain sounded, and his eyes flicked between the various options. That one.

Nicolai crept forwards, drawing his rapier.

Going towards screaming wasn't typically a safe thing to do, but Nicolai didn't believe in putting safety above all else. Opportunity and danger often came hand-in-hand.

And anyway, he was curious.

He drew close to the door from which the screams emanated. They sounded like they came from a man, one in a great deal of pain. Nicolai made out begging, pleading, in between the screams.

'Hurrr, paa, pahhh, pleeee—' the attempt at words dissolved into another agonised, horrified scream.

Nicolai hunkered low, 'til his face was near to the ground. People tended to keep their eyes at about chest or head height. He slid his head close to the doorway, ready to run or fight, whichever necessary, then with one eye just peeking out, he peered inside. After a brief moment to take it in he pulled away, considering what he’d seen.

The room, like all the others, was slightly lowered, a short flight of stairs leading to the ground. There were seven people inside.

A small man tied to a table, covered in ugly red cuts and tears. The source of the screaming. The table had little metal wheels, which made it a bit of an oddity in this place. There were also a young man and woman huddled in a corner, uninjured but looking terrified, the whites of their eyes shining as they watched what was happening. More victims. No threat.

The dangerous ones comprised four. Two large men who bore a striking resemblance to one another, one of whom was making those cuts and tears with the knife he held, a look of brutish glee on his face. A woman stood to the side, observing with her mouth twisted in a kind of vicious satisfaction. Near to her was another man who stood by the head of the individual they were torturing, staring down. All of them had weapons near to hand.

Nicolai had noted that the torturers were doing a very amateur, if enthusiastic, job. It clearly wasn’t an interrogation, a hunt for information, as their current victim didn’t look capable of speech, not with what they’d done to his face. It was for pleasure, then, which made them almost as twisted as Nicolai. But, at least he had control of himself. Mostly.

They didn’t know he was out there. They were unready. The sight of blood had stirred something within him and it was pulsing through his body. What was there to be gained by killing these people? Perhaps their Seeds, some supplies. Not much, but it was all the justification Nicolai needed, and their actions had rendered them acceptable targets according to his vague understanding of standard human morals. He readied his polearm and prepared to move, the thrill rising eagerly within him.

‘There’s someone up there!’ he heard a sudden hiss, then the sound of them shifting around down there. A moment later someone else called out, ‘who is that? Come on, show yourself.’ A chuckle followed this. ‘We could use more company.’

How did they know? There were many possibilities. Likely the answer lay in sensory augments, perhaps a sonar device set in someone’s ear, allowing them to detect the faint sounds of his breathing and heartbeat. Such a device would work by pattern analysis, filtering sounds until it spotted ones that didn’t fit, double-checking to be sure, which would explain why it had taken a moment to detect him.

Nicolai rose, moved around the corner, and they all came into view.

The two big men stood out front, one with a battleaxe, the other holding a mid-length spear. Not a great weapon for the close confines, but it would be difficult for Nicolai to get through the entryway with it coming after him. The tall man held a longsword, and the woman a shortsword. Those two were spread to the side, flanking the big brothers.

‘What d’you want?’ snarled one of the big boys, the one with a battleaxe.

‘I want to join you,’ said Nicolai. ‘This looks like fun.’ He cast a friendly grin around at them.

‘Oh?’ The tall man looked him over, eyes narrowed. ‘Is that so?’ The tall man smiled. ‘Sure. But you’ll have to hand over your weapons first, have a little chit-chat with us. We’ll need to check you’re a good fit.’ His eyes fell on the man on the table and the two huddled in the corner. ‘Perhaps we’ll set you a little test.’

‘Here,’ said Nicolai, and he tossed his polearm to the big man with the spear. The big man’s eyes widened and he raised a hand to try and catch it, his other with the spear lowering. For just a moment, every set of eyes was focused on the polearm as it sailed across the room.

All but one. Nicolai drew his rapier in a snap of motion, darted down the stairs and launched himself across the space between him and the big man with the battleaxe, rapier extended in a flying lunge. The man grimaced and tried to get his battleaxe up to block but Nicolai simply twisted the rapier around and it dug into the man’s chest. A good hit. If the man’s biology was standard, that’d be right through the heart.

Nicolai ripped the rapier out as the big man collapsed, clutching at his chest, and he twisted away, dodging back to avoid the tall man’s longsword as it whistled past him. The spearman had dropped the polearm and was trying to bring the spear to bear but Nicolai closed the distance in a snap and the rapier slipped out to catch the man in the neck, punching all the way through.

The big spearman gasped out a bloody breath and his hand grasped at his throat, clenching around the rapier blade as Nicolai sought to withdraw it, holding tight, bending and staggering off balance as Nicolai wrenched on it. The man’s grip proved firm, unwilling to let go and have the metal leave his neck. He was falling to his knees, no longer a threat.

So Nicolai let it go and dodged sideways, avoiding a stab from the snarling woman with a shortsword. He grabbed her arm before she could retract it and threw his body into hers, knocking her off-balance, but she wailed at him and her free hand came at him. She scratched like a cat at his face as he bulled her across the room and she cracked into a wall, becoming momentarily limp as the breath exploded from her body.

He could sense the tall man coming after him so he spared a moment to turn and put a foot to the table with their victim, which was now between him and the tall man, and he shoved it away with all the strength of his leg. The table’s wheels squealed as it spun across the room to crash into the man who was knocked stumbling.

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Nicolai turned back to the woman who was drawing a knife from her belt. He caught that hand, too, by the wrist before she could bring it to bear. He saw her grit her teeth and glance down and understood her intent. He twisted his hips, and the knee she slammed up towards his groin glanced off the side of his leg.

Next he twisted her knife hand, getting a better grip. She was thrashing and snarling so he threw her against the wall again then twisted the knife up and drove it into her chest, deep to the hilt. Blood bubbled around the wound and air wheezed out as her eyes bulged. Punctured lung.

A squealing sound from behind precluded the tall man, who Nicolai glanced over to see was charging towards him, behind the table which he was shoving towards Nicolai, building up momentum, quicker and quicker. The table was a solid thing to begin with and it also had the additional mass of the victim tied on top of it. If it hit him, he would not fare well.

There was no time for Nicolai to dodge out of the way. So he let the woman go and bent his legs, sinking smoothly into a crouch. He ducked his head as the tabletop came towards him and it brushed his hair as it passed overhead. There came a snap and a crunch as one side of it smashed into the woman and the other the wall. He heard a grunt of agonised pain and expelled air from the dying woman, and an answering curse from the tall man.

Nicolai stepped out from underneath the table and rose beside the tall man who was shuffling backwards. Too slow to bring his sword to bear; Nicolai was already there, close enough to hug. The guy gaped at him, unsure what to do in the milliseconds available to him.

Nicolai didn’t waste that time. He grabbed the tall man with one arm wrapped around the man’s chest, tugged him sideways to break his balance, then Nicolai kicked out and swept the man’s foot. He twisted and threw the man to the ground where he hit with a heavy grunt as the breath left his body and a hollow, bony thump as the back of his head met the unyielding stone.

The man’s eyes half-closed and his arms raised sharply, the sword falling from trembling hands as he held his arms straight out and up, body tense, slowly rolling over. The fencing response, a sign of brain damage. Prognosis: recovery is unlikely.

Nicolai cast his eyes around. The woman was bent over the table, unmoving, her blood joining that of the tortured victim. The big guy with the battleaxe had been dead since the start, splayed out on the floor. His brother with the spear had dropped it and was sitting slumped against the wall. Still alive.

The man’s raspy breaths were loud as he stared up at Nicolai without hope, one hand holding the rapier that was still buried in his neck, the other limp on the ground. Blood was slowly leaking from the either side of his neck where the rapier entered and exited. The man let out a wet cough and Nicolai saw blood in his mouth. He quietly swallowed. More raspy breathing.

Nicolai strode toward him.

‘Please,’ rasped the big man.

Nicolai surprised himself by pausing, just for a moment, looking the big guy over. ‘I’m not really the sympathetic sort,’ he said. He worked up his simulation of humanity, and requested its judgement. It moved his eyes in a glance at the bloody shape tied to the table, before turning them back to the dying man. He spoke again.

‘And even if I was, I don’t think you’ve quite earned any sympathy, have you?’ He raised his eyebrows meaningfully then grasped the rapiers hilt and ripped it out. The big man coughed and spluttered and clutched at his throat as blood poured, choking to death on it.

Nicolai moved across the room, flicking a glance to the young man and woman huddled in their corner. They were quiet, watching him with just as much fear as they had the other four. Apparently they didn’t consider him to fit the mould of a heroic rescuer.

He found that slightly unfair, but ultimately couldn’t blame them. Maybe one day. He snorted. Unlikely. He stopped above the man who’d been tortured. This individual stared out from the red mess that was his face with half-closed, empty, animal-like eyes, breathing in quiet, scraping breaths. Lengthy pause between each one.

This guy was dead. It was just a matter of time. In many ways that wasn’t Nicolai’s problem, but it cost him nothing to end the man’s suffering and he figured it was the human thing to do. So Nicolai gripped the rapier in both hands, one halfway down the blade to help him aim, and held it over the man’s chest then drove it sharply down, between the ribs, stabbing him in the heart.

The man shook and gasped, body thumping on the table as he arched his back, eyes bulging wide. One final gasp and he was still. Nicolai dried his rapier on the man’s clothes, sheathed it, and retrieved his polearm.

Nicolai looked to the young man and woman who stared back at him. Nothing to be gained by killing them, except perhaps to remove the memory of his face and the fact of him killing these five. His paranoia felt he ought to kill them anyway, just for the sake of neatly making sure this matter and all memories of it ended here, but even Nicolai understood that that would be considered “going too far.” This, then, was another opportunity to be a Better Man.

Thinking on that further, his simulation of humanity pushed an idea at him. Maybe he could take these people with him. Bring them under his wing, as it were, adopting them. Like pets. His attempt at humanity suggested that this might be a way to really nail his goal of being human, being better.

Nicolai dismissed the thought almost immediately. He didn’t know them, didn’t trust them, and they would be of no use to him. Maybe if he held more justification, more reason to do so other than simply sating his desire to be human, he might have. But as it stood… no.

Anyway, it could well be that these two would be better off without him. He wasn’t exactly reliable when it came to the friendly-and-kind-and-human-and-sane side of things. His simulation shrugged, acquiescing.

‘Go on,’ he said to the pair, tilting his head towards the exit. The two glanced at one another then rose and stumbled away, up the stairs. They hadn’t said a word the entire time. He turned away, a little eagerness rising within him. Now, to see what he’d won for himself.

That was when he heard a shout, and he twisted his head around to see the pair had reached the corridor outside, and he saw them standing frozen, staring in one direction. An instant later they broke into a panicked run, going the opposite way.

Not a good sign. Nicolai was quick to follow, rushing up the stairs and looking where they’d been looking. A crowd of people filled the corridor, all of whom were quite similar in apparel and demeanour to those he’d just killed.

A lot of them. Running towards him. Looking very upset. A barrage of yells and shouts erupted when they saw his bloodstained form slip out of the room.

Nicolai turned and chased after the other two. Fuck. A crying shame to leave the dead without stealing their things, but it seemed their friends had come. He turned a corner and had almost caught up to the young man and woman. The two were slow, clearly exhausted from whatever they’d been through.

‘’Scuse me,’ he said a few seconds later as he slipped around one of them. He heard their despairing, panting breath behind and a glance over his shoulder revealed the armed group in fast pursuit, gaining.

Those two would slow them down. He’d get away without issue. He and the people trailing behind him had now passed out of the area with larger rooms and into a hallway he recognised. He’d been through here earlier and had studied it, like everywhere else he passed through, in detail on the map. He knew that in a short distance was a room with a secret entrance. He’d go through that, then a few twists and turns later he’d be completely away.

But his desire to be human, or at least to be more than he’d been in the past, was rising through him. He felt nothing for these people, but he knew that he should, he knew that the better man he vaguely desired to be would at least try to do something.

He wouldn’t get himself killed for them, but he supposed he could at least try.

‘In here!’ he yelled, waving to them as he ducked into the next room. He found the secret button, pressed it, and the door hinged open. He glanced back to see them crash into the room after him. ‘Go,’ he said, gesturing to the opening, and they darted past. He ducked inside after them and closed the secret door just as the first of the enemy came through the entrance to the room.

He was quick after the other two, and found them at the far side where they were struggling with the lever. They got it open as he arrived and the three of them piled out. He could hear the scrape of the door opening behind, but they’d gained quite some ground. It seemed those chasing had struggled to find the hidden button. He slammed the door behind him to further slow their pursuers and saw the two he’d helped disappearing out the room then down the corridor to the right.

Nicolai chose to go left, dashing away from them. Whether they survived was now on them. He gave them good odds; they’d gotten a decent amount of distance and should be able to lose themselves soon. He quickly found another hidden entrance and completed his escape.

He supposed his act of helping was largely meaningless, on the larger scale. Still, he felt it counted for something. He was being a Better Man. This thought helped him get over the loss of the loot from those he’d killed, something that was quite upsetting to think on, as he felt sure they would have had some Seeds on them, somewhere.

That thought made him freeze. What about the two he’d helped escape? He almost turned around and went back after them but, no, that group would have taken their Seeds. He couldn’t be one-hundred percent certain about that, however. He paused, teetering, frozen, uncertain. A Better Man wouldn’t steal their Seeds, said his simulated humanity. And anyway, it’s too late. He grimaced, shook his head, and kept walking.

It was time to resume his journey to the exterior, and his true targets for the day, the archers.