Everyone was injured in some form or another. Well, except for the tentacled manifestation of Corruption which had just finished separating itself with a sucking pop from Titus. That thing seemed completely fine.
The beaten guard and the guard with the hatchet wound in his back stalked toward Tilly, their thick short swords in hand. The third guard shuffled warily toward Titus who was still gasping on the ground in shock. All the while, the Steward took in the scene coolly.
The manifestation’s appendages quivered, and several of them honed in on the approaching guard as it stood over the body of its previous host possessively.
“Mr. Evander, I’m not sure this thing is going to let the master go.” He said hesitantly, as more of the appendages tilted toward him at the sound of his voice.
“Shut up Trivus and do your job. You know it cannot survive long outside of a host. Do what you have to do and end it. Retrieve the master.” the steward droned as if giving a particularly boring lecture.
“Easy for you to say, I hate this stuff…” He muttered darkly, even as the other two arrived within attacking range of Tilly and split to either side to box him in. He held up his hatchets in what he hoped was an intimidating manner, but his left arm screamed at him in pain as he tried to raise the weapon above shoulder height. The guard on that side smiled and Tilly stirred up his mana prepared to surprise both of them with Flame Expulsion.
They were both 14 levels higher than him and seemed to be free of Corruption, which would have been his only trump card against them. So the best he could come up with was a full frontal assault using the main chunk of his remaining mana.
“GARRAAGGHH” The sound of a gurgling scream cut through the impending conflict like a knife, and all three combatants turned to the incredibly disturbing scene playing out behind them.
The manifestation had pounced on the approaching satyr in a burst of speed, and the guard was furiously stabbing at it with his sword. Unfortunately for him, the thing didn't care about the grievous wounds being inflicted on its center mass. It was busy putting all its effort into shoving as much of itself into the openings on the guard's face as possible.
The guard's two companions were slack-jawed at the horrifying sight, and while Tilly found it equally disturbing, he had unfortunately seen far too much of the Corruption’s nature for something like this to throw him off. The Steward was also taking advantage of the distraction. Skirting around the two, he made his way over to the now-unconscious Titus.
Tilly knew it was now or never and struck viciously with his good arm at the guard to his right. Even taken completely by surprise, the man’s sword still came up for a block, but just too late to catch the head of the hatchet as it buried itself in his shoulder. The second guard spun back towards the fight even as Tilly followed up his strike by ramming his shoulder into the guard on the right for all he was worth.
Hitting him felt like trying to force open an industrial steel door. Nonetheless, he caused the guard to stumble back two steps. In the craziness of the conflict, the guard had not been expecting the ferocity of the attack or the immediacy of the follow-up. He responded with a weak thrust from his back foot, and his partner tried to grab Tilly from behind, but he was already shooting the gap created by the move. Before they could fully react, he was behind the guard on the right, breaking out into a full run, dropping the hatchet in his weak arm in favor of building speed.
“Get him, you idiots!” The steward shouted as he dragged Titus’ body away from the now collapsed guard and the quickly disappearing appendages of the manifestation.
Tilly was several steps ahead, almost at a full sprint when he heard both guards curse and give chase. He thought that with his emphasis on Dexterity, he would have an advantage in speed, but that idea was quickly put to the sword by the sound of heavy breathing drawing up behind him.
Tilly’s shoulder injury shot jagged pain through his body every other step as he pumped his arm as best he could. The guards were faster than him, but not by much and he was going to make them work for every gained foot. He blindly sprinted down the street in the direction Amelia had gone and desperately hoped he was moving toward backup, not away from it.
The side street opened up to a main thoroughfare about ninety feet ahead, he could see people moving agitatedly in a single direction, but he wasn't going to make it. The hooved feet of his pursuers were now hitting the cobblestones just behind him in loping rhythms and he could almost feel a strike that was about to land.
He churned up the flame in his chest desperately and reached for the compressing sensation that had accompanied Flame Expulsion the first time he had used this ability against the Corrupted poison fog. The flame inside his chest roiled and then shrunk to a nova pinprick in his chest, just as he heard a grunt of effort behind him.
The compression reached its bursting point and exploded out of him in a sphere of blue flames. He held his breath just in time as they washed over him in a pleasant heat. The guards behind him were not as prepared. If they had seen the attack coming they probably could have sheltered behind their extremities and gotten away with superficial burns. Especially with their obvious Endurance. But mid-chase? They suddenly found themselves running into a wall of fire, eyes open to the flame, gasping in lungs full of superheated air.
The huge Mana expenditure left him feeling even more tired and hollow than he already was, but he pushed on for another ten steps before recalling his hatchet and turning back towards his foes.
Both guards were hunched over covering injured eyes and heaving dry painful sounding coughs. Tilly didn't give them any more time to recover, launching an enflamed hatchet at one with his good arm, and then shifting the second hatchet to his right hand and throwing that as well. They were stationary targets at about 25 feet and Tilly easily scored significant hits on both of them at the base of their necks in the gaps of their armor.
Not waiting to see how they reacted, he spun and continued his flight emerging out into the crowded street a few moments later. The street was choked with citizens all heading deeper into the city and the sound of fighting could be heard in the opposite direction of their fleeing. Tilly could vaguely see the walls in the distance back the way they came, and the road curved slightly up ahead blocking their destination. Not that many of them probably knew where they were headed, they just wanted to get as far away from the fighting as possible. The emergence of a wounded human from the side street seemed to go unnoticed as they continued to push and shove further down the street. He entered the flow of refugees, buying himself some time.
He had barely and miraculously escaped a situation that should have been his end. With this realization came the galling pain of having lost control again...
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This time for much more than a moment of unbridled rage. Something about Titus and the way he reveled in revealing Tilly’s infection to Amelia had sent him into a spiral. He had blanked out, only coming back to himself at the sound of Cog’s scream. Sure, he'd done everything he could to help Amelia and the boy get free, but that did little to cool the burning shame at the thought of almost being responsible for their deaths.
It had clearly put them in danger to not know he was as much a liability as an ally, and all the excuses he had spun up to delay telling people now seemed shallow and self-centered. Everything he hated in Titus... Part of him wanted to pretend that Corruption’s influence had been some unstoppable internal influence, but that just wasn't true. It pushed him, urging him to lose himself in his darker nature, but it wasn't forcing him along a path he didn't already want to walk.
Asking for help had slowly grown into a no-fly zone over the decades and he especially hated being seen as the one who held back the team. This drive had propelled him into training time after time, as he pushed to make sure he was never the one lagging behind. He was deeply uncomfortable with needing anything from anyone else, and the Seed had played that part of his mind perfectly.
Now here he was knee-deep in his bullshit plan to fix himself. At least no one else had gotten hurt... this time.
He kept moving looking back over his shoulder. There was no way his hasty strikes had finished the sturdy pursuers. Builds like that were born to take hits and keep going. Without the 200% bonus, he simply didn't have the attack power to win out against such powerful opponents. Not to mention they could have a healing potion or something.
He thought for a moment about following the crowd toward the center of the city but discarded the idea. That was probably exactly where they would look for him to head. Plus, the crush of the crowd was only getting worse further in.
So, reluctantly he turned perpendicular to the flow of the crowd and started moving at a slow jog in the direction of the opposite street. Those fleeing treated him as just another obstacle and flowed around him as he moved at a decent pace looking to find another side street. Then he spotted a break in the buildings ahead. He hopped and dodged around through the stream of people, hoping that the gap had an outlet on another street.
Then Tilly’s blood ran cold as he heard shouting intermingled with coughs from behind him.
“Where is he?!”
“Who here has seen a Human? Guard Business!”
Tilly ducked into the cool darkness of the opening to the alley, hoping he had not been spotted. The relief Tilly felt shriveled up and died at the sight of the dead end thirty feet into the opening.
There were two doors in the alley and Tilly desperately threw himself against one, finding it firmly barred from the inside. The other was the same and he backed away from the barred door way looking around for any other options. The walls were made of crumbling stone and went up three stories on both sides. He had to have picked the two tallest buildings on this street to hide between-
“This way!”
The shouting sounded closer. Apparently, the sight of an injured human didn't go as unnoticed as he thought. His eyes flicked up to his HUD as he gingerly swung his arms back and forth a few times, willing his shoulder to heal faster.
Health: 62%
Mana: 45%
There was no way he could turn and fight cornered. While he still couldn't lift his right arm above his shoulder, the strength in his grip had returned. It would have to do. He moved to a particularly crumbly streak in the stone wall and reached up to grab hold of a jutting stone just above his head with his right hand. He pulled up and stepped into a crack next to his left knee, thankful, for the first time that he was wearing mocassins instead of stiff, clunky boots which would have made climbing impossible. He awkwardly reached to his left for another crack and bit back a moan as he grabbed it securing his weight on his injured left arm, freeing up his right to reach higher up the wall.
He pulled up and wedged his right foot a few feet higher than his left and repeated the agonizing formula again and again. Like climbing the tree to gain vantage in the forest near the Lapin village, Tilly knew what he was doing would have been way past impossible with his old body. His balance and physical control were far beyond what they had been back on Earth. Not that he could particularly relish in his new abilities. Every time he secured himself against the wall with his left arm the gaping hole left by that lunatic shot a bolt of pain through his whole body.
But climb he did, one agonizing foot at a time. He had probably made it two-thirds of the way up when he heard the sound he had been dreading.
“Shit, those farmers said he ducked in here. Check the doors.” Tilly froze at the sound of voices at the entrance to the alley. He did all he could to turn his billowing effort-filled breaths into the silent gas exchanges they were meant to be.
The sound of two booming crashes thundered up from the ground, “They are barred fast. Do you think he made it inside?”
“No you idiot, any door with a working lock has been shut up for days. He has to be here somewhere.” The second guard growled before the alley filled with a long silent pause. The toes on Tilly’s right foot burned wedged into their current crack and he had of course had to freeze right as he was leaning into his left arm again. His whole body trembled with the effort and he slowly, silently tried to shift his weight to another handhold. Then the mortar under his left hand cracked and a stone fell to the ground, landing with an incriminating crack.
Tilly winced, and then cursed as the sound of an evil chuckle echoed up from the ground,
“Of course, what else would a monkey do? He scampered up a tree, Attus! Stay here and make sure he doesn't come down, I'll find another way onto the roof to meet our new friend.”
The discourse was followed by another thunderous crack against the barred door. Tilly redoubled his effort to reach the roof, he could not afford to get there after the guard. His fingers and toes were far past cramping in effort, but still, he kept shoving them in cracks between stonework like a fat kid reaching for candy. Two more blows and Tilly heard the door give way.
“I'll see you at the top Monkey Man. You are going to pay for every little trick you pulled back there!” The brutish Elite Guard shouted up mockingly. Tilly’s only answer was to continue gasping for breath as he hoisted himself up one hold at a time.
The sound of subsequent doors being destroyed reverberated out into the ally, and Tilly silently thanked God for doors as his mangled right hand finally reached the lip of the building and he heaved himself over the side. He collapsed gasping for air, while scanning the roof for its access point.
'There!' A warped wooden trap door lay closed at the other end of the flat-topped roof. Tilly hauled himself up to his feet and recalled his hatchets. Hoping he could get a jump on the brute.
Then the door exploded upward and the Guard quickly pulled himself up through the opening. Tilly threw a hatchet at his climbing form, but in an impressive display of Dexterity, the guard whipped up his short sword and batted it aside.
“Uh uh... I know your tricks now, there will be no more of that. It's time to have a little chat.” He growled menacingly, holding up his blade in a guard position, ready to ward off another throw as he smoothly pulled the rest of his body through the opening. Tilly's mind raced, as he attempted to think of a way out and the guard started to stroll forward, sword at the ready.
“Attus, I’ve got ’em. Come on up and join the fun!” The guard shouted triumphantly down to his partner before continuing,
“You are gonna pay for what happened to Trivus.” He continued, false cheerfulness draining away as he addressed his quarry.
“Seems to me that had more to do with your boss than me,” Tilly responded shifting his eyes to the nearest roof, trying to gauge the possibility of a jump. Unfortunately, the look wasn’t missed by the guard,
“None of that now, can't have you breaking your neck and ending our talk early. Attus! Get your dumb ass up here,” he shouted again and frowned as no response came.
Then Tilly felt hope bloom in his chest, and he lifted his weapon while recalling the other, taking a ready stance of his own.
He did his best to mask his emotion with a scowl of pain at the wound in his shoulder and fixed his eyes firmly on the approaching guard. Making absolutely certain not to give away the long-eared figure silently flowing up and out of the opening in the roof.