As Cronk followed the pathfinder out of the alleyway he was met with a quite street with only a dozen people sluggishly walking to their houses after a long day at work. As he looked closer at the people's faces an odd feeling washed over him, ‘Are they not happy to go home?’ Cronk had never seen a sight like this, even when he would visit the dingiest of cities in the north people were always smiling when it was time to go back home. Feeling his brow furrow deeply, in equal part anger, and confusion, he opened his mouth to ask pathfinder a question, “Why is everyone so unhappy here?”
Seeing the pathfinder stop, and raise his brow, the pathfinder spoke, “I don’t understand what you’re saying. I haven’t seen anyone who’s unhap-”
The pathfinder was suddenly interrupted when he was shoved aside by a small child. Reaching out to the child to grab it Cronk stopped when the pathfinders voice range out, “DON’T!”
Stopping he turned to look at the pathfinder, but the pathfinder was already running after the figure while calling out over his shoulder, “Go ahead to the guild hall I’ll be there in a bit!”
***
Ethan saw the pathfinder walk out of the alleyway, and had started to walk towards him, but when a second figure emerged from behind the pathfinder Ethan stopped. Starting to panic Ethan breathed deeply, and tried to remember what Mary had told them before.
Hearing Mary’s voice in his head he repeated the words, “1. The pathfinder will never accept help from other people even if they try to assist him.”
Calming his breath Ethan darted towards the unsuspecting pathfinder. Reaching the pathfinder he inexpertly kicked the back of his knee while shoving him with his body in an attempt to topple the man over. The attack wasn’t as effective as Ethan would have hoped, but it did succeed in putting the man off balance, fumbling with his knife he managed to cut the pathfinders coin purse from his belt.
Running away he saw the other man reach out a hand to grab him, ‘I thought she said no one else would help?’ closing his eyes and continuing to run he heard a voice ring out, “DON’T”.
Not looking back he turned into the alley the pair had just came from. Passing a few crates he briefly thought about hiding behind them, but remembered the last time they tried to hide.
‘2. The pathfinder is very observant, distractions and hiding have never worked.’
Instead he threw the crates down behind him. That might buy him a few seconds. A sudden stream of bird calls caught Ethan’s attention. High pitched ,pause, short, short, short, medium length coo.
‘If I keep running this route he’s going to catch up with me before I can meet up with Mark’ coming to a decision Ethan turned into a right alley way. He would circle around, and go a different route.
Running, Ethan whistled four times in rapid succession, and hearing nothing in response he continued to run.
Making his way back to the main road he just came from, a long mournful whistle cascaded over him, ‘Great, and now we don’t know where he is.’
3. The pathfinder is tricky, if you can’t find him chances are he’s right in front of you.
***
Vigil was currently sprinting through the underground sewer system, it wasn’t exactly a faster method of travel, but it allowed him to stay hidden from the kids, and to catch Ethan we would definitely need to stay out of the sights of Ilo. Those two were fairly coordinated, Vigil smiled as he thought of what they could do when they were older. Maybe he would train them even if they couldn't win.
He had to hand it to the kids, in just over a year, and a half of doing this they had improved a lot. They started assigning roles to each of the team members, and even used bird calls to communicate so he wouldn’t figure out what they were planning, but over time, or maybe even because of those things the kids had gotten formulaic.
He could now predicate what they would do, he wouldn’t always get it right, over 50% of the time he was wrong, but 50% was a large percent. It didn’t help their situation that didn’t even need to predicate their plans anymore, because they would just tell him through the bird calls that they never bothered to change.
Climbing up the ladder that led to the main road he emerged from a pothole in the middle of the street in time to see Ethan emerge from an alleyway a few meters away. Climbing all the way up to the street he began his chase again.
***
Ilo had been jumping from rooftop to rooftop, frantically following Ethan, and the pathfinder. It was his job to call out information to the rest of the team, but he couldn’t do that if he didn’t know where the hell he was. Sighing he let out a low whistle, and continued to follow Ethan to the main street. Seeing nothing on the main road he continued to look around. Hearing Ethan yell he looked over to the street in time to see the pathfinder emerge from the sewer system.
Cursing, Ilo let out three high pitched calls in quick succession, letting the rest of his team that Ethan was in danger. “ Ilo take the coins!” hearing Ethan call from below Ilo looked down in time to see his friend hurl the coins to a nearby rooftop. Cursing Ilo sprinted across the rooftops trying to get to Mark, so he could get it to the guild hall.
***
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Mary was currently sitting on a rooftop, in the middle of Mark’s route, next to a crudely fashioned, and frayed net. Hearing Ilo’s warning whistle Mary jumped up, she had assumed that they would at least get to Mark before pathfinder got close.
Frustrated, Mary kicked the net. They were so close a few tries ago, but then Shaun decided to quit, and took half the team with him. It would have been manageable if pathfinder changed the rules, but he hadn’t even done that, he just shrugged saying, “Ok”
Feeling her rage grow she grabbed the net, and ran towards her brother. She’d be damned if they failed to get the coins to the pathfinders guild.
Arriving at Mark’s location she called down to him, “Be ready to run,” while slipping him a sheet of paper with the new plan on it. As if on cue she saw Ilo running at full speed towards their location with pathfinder not far behind him.
Readying her net she dropped it right before Ilo dashed under, the net had a few seconds of fall time, and she guessed by the time it fell the pathfinder would be under it. Her guess payed off, as the pathfinder reached out to grab Ilo, but the net fell directly onto the man stopping him and making him stumble forwards.
Hearing a small shout she heard Mark say, “Ilo we need to go now,” and with that the two ran off on their path, leaving Mary behind.
Turning back Mary saw that the pathfinder wasn’t struggling which she found odd. Climbing down from the rooftop she approached the pathfinder, and half jumped when the pathfinders hand darted out, grabbing her foot, “You’re out,” he said.
***
A few minutes later of constantly looking over their shoulders Mark, and Ilo felt a weight left from their shoulders as they finally saw the guild hall 100 meters away. By this time the sun had already set, and only candles from people's houses lit up their way to their destination. Dashing a few meters ahead Ilo tried to get to the guild hall quicker.
The figure of the pathfinder sprinted out from an alleyway a few meters ahead making the two children stumble in an attempt to negate their speed. Half yelling Mark spoke, “How’d you know it was us!”
Breathing heavily the pathfinder spoke through pants, “ I didn’t, I scared a few couple trying to find you.”
Giving each other a brief glance the two children darted off in different directions, Ilo to the left, and Mark back the way they came.
***
Glancing between the two running figures Vigil darted after Ilo. Ilo was the last one to have the coins, and instead of running back like Mark did he ran to the side, probably to get a better position, and make a dash for the guild hall.
***
Hearing footsteps following him Ilo frantically picked up his pace, only sparing a glance down at the green coin bag that Ethan had thrown him.
80m:
Just passing some crates Ilo pulled them down behind him trying to buy a few more seconds, yet the footsteps got ever closer
60m:
Almost feeling the pathfinders breath on his neck, Ilo stumbled around another corner stopping just out of sight.
50m:
The pathfinder rushed around the corner pushing off the wall opposite of Ilo in the same move he uses to not lose momentum. That’s when Ilo acted as soon as he saw the pathfinder rush around the corner he jumped back into the alleyway, and set off back to the guild hall.
40m:
Losing all of his momentum Vigil cursed, and sprinted after the child
30m:
Feeling like his legs were about to give out, his lungs barley were taking an any air, and his heart jumping out of his chest Ilo neared the guild hall
20m:
Able to see the details of the door Ilo reached out his hands while yelling “WORK!”
10m:
Ilo suddenly found himself on the ground unable to breath with the pathfinder looking down at him. “You were so close, don’t give up you’ll get it next time,” he heard the pathfinders words through a haze.
Smiling he responded, “No, we won this time.” Reaching down to his belt he opened the coin pouch, and poured its content onto the ground revealing a dozen cloves of garlic.
***
Note: Jesus this took forever. I decided to make this longer to make up for not posting yesterday. If there were any mistakes that made the fluidity of the story fell off feel free to tell me.
PS. Foreshadowing, Foreshadowing, look at the goddamn foreshadowing