“Tob, don’t do this” Adam said cautiously. “You can’t think this is right. There’s more you aren’t telling us.”
Tob pushed away from his desk, his chair scraping along the wooden planks of the floor as he stood up. “Why should you get to know everything? You must come from a place of great privilege if you think you get to know anything you like. I said it goes deeper than you know, I’m sorry, it’s too late now.”
Adam and the others slowly backed towards the door as Tob walked towards them. Brian bumped into a full suit of guards armour that was mounted on the wall. Panicking, Adam started using a resource that wasn’t displayed in his hiker menu, information. “We know about the Church.” Tob stopped in his steps towards them, paused for a moment and chuckled. “So, what do you think you know then?”
“They are behind so much of this, worming their way into the whole city.”
“What do you know about the city? You’ve been here for what, a few days? You’re completely out of place, you’re making what I have to do here a lot easier to be honest.” He began walking towards them, Adam noticed Matilda and Brian from the corner of his vision, looking towards the door in hesitation.
“Please Tob, we can’t do what we need to do here if you do this. We have seen the experiments, the huge leeches sucking the energy out of the tree. I don’t know exactly how involved you are but they are killing your great tree. You’re right, I don’t know the city, the culture, the meaning of the tree, but I see how important it is for the people that live here. I feel like you don’t want to be on their side.”
Brian was about to make a run for it, Adam could sense it. “Brian please, let me talk to him, it’s all over once we fight and cause a scene here.”
Brian winced “We have to get out of here, if we can escape now we can keep our lives. I don’t want my head chopped like what’s going to happen to Vincent.”
Matilda nodded “I’m scared, maybe we just need to get out of here while we still can and reevaluate our options.”
“No!” Adam yelled “We have limited time here, the tree is losing energy as we speak, if we lose Vincent, we lose any chance at saving it and fulfilling our main quest here in the first place, how are we supposed to help Earth and make any progress towards this so called Grail if we can’t even help the first planet we arrive to. I won’t accept it.”
The others paused. “You value that over your life?” Brian asked.
“I want my life, but we don’t know what happens here, what if we can’t stop it, the tree dies, we fail? I’m just saying this is a situation where we have no choice but to put our lives on the line.”
Matilda smiled “Well I guess this depends, what say you Tob?” She said glancing over to the man who had been watching them argue in silence.
“Well, I see how serious you are about what you have seen, did you say giant leeches?”
Adam explained the story of their fight with Grace and what they saw to Tob, he nodded intently as he listened along, not offering much in the way of commentary, he let Adam finish explaining how they ended up on Hammy’s farm.
“I see, well, you’ve come to know things even I didn’t know about.” He said with a pause.
“What do you know, why are you fighting for the Church when they are doing this?” Adam pleaded.
“I can’t say, I just can’t. I’m sorry, I see what you are saying, I just don’t know. I don’t want to arrest you here, I don’t think you are in the wrong but what can I do. I can’t openly support outsiders and go against the church, I have a family to look after, this job pays well, I’m respected. Look, just go, I’ll let you go and say it was a big mistake. Even that is going to be rough on me, but it beats having to arrest you and quite possibly get you killed” Tob admitted.
Matilda pushed “Is that respect worth watching the tree slowly fade away to nothing, what even happens when the tree goes?”
“We have no idea, it has been here since long before any people were. It’s obviously not just any old tree that is just scaled up in size, there’s something special and magical it’s providing us, but even the captain of the city patrol doesn’t get to know whatever secrets the church has discovered. We know they spend a lot of time in and around it.”
“Inside of it? How does that work?” Adam questioned.
“Oh. Well, there are carved out tunnels and open cavities throughout much of the tree, we don’t really know where they came from, who did it, or if it’s some natural feature of the tree somehow. But high ranking church officials are in and out of there on a daily basis.”
“We need to push back against the church, Tob, you can help us, help you. You have friends here right? The men respect you right? Push against the church, we need to find out what they are doing with their experiments, the reason why they are draining its energy. It’s sinister, it’s definitely not for the good of the people or the tree.”
Tob shook his head “That’s ridiculous, I told you, get out now and I won’t say a word. I’m very sorry, I couldn’t forgive myself if it caused something bad to happen to my family, my son.”
They all sighed, Adam feeling deflated and confused. Adam felt such strong conviction in his mind and body, he had made up his mind on the situation and knew what he had to do. Why couldn’t other people be that way he thought.
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“Look, you might understand if you ever have children, sometimes even the most strongly held ideals, even the truth, has to be cast aside for the benefit of others. I promise I would if I could. Get out of here, you can leave the real killer here, I’ll deal with him. Might be a tricky one to explain, I’m not sure about that yet but I don’t want him back out on the streets.” Tob walked back over and sat back down in his chair at his desk, sliding back into place.
Adam felt something wrong in his gut. “What, just leave him on the floor here? He was with the church, what are you really going to do, return him?”
Tob slammed the desk with both fists, standing up yet again. “None of your business. But yes, I’ll be warning the church that I don’t want sloppy killers running around the east side of the city causing issues like this. But I’ll return the church property before I go organising executions or whatever. Happy? I can’t fulfil your request, if you keep fight me on it, I’ll have no choice but to arrest all of you.” He roared in violence. Taking a deep breath, he calmed down “Who knows what the guard outside the door is hearing or thinking, I’ll need to have a word with him as well, luckily I trust him.”
Adam stared down at the floor through tears of frustration. “This isn’t the end. Let’s go, he isn’t going to help us.”
They heard the door of the room swing open and saw a man wearing a full suit of armour running out of the room, holding Taj’s body in his arms.
Tob ran out of the room and ran down the hallway yelling out in a booming voice “MEN, A PRISONER IS LOOSE IN THE HEADQUARTER BUILDING, FIND AND STOP HIM AT ALL COSTS.”
Adam took off quickly, making ground on Tob and the man he was chasing after with his heightened agility. Matilda and Brian tried to follow but when Adam turned around to check on how far they were, he noticed they were stopped right outside of the room and fighting. He had no time to make sense of it but it looked like they were fighting a floating sword. Was it another invisible creation from Taj?
Adam considered it before scrapping it from his mind to focus on the chase. He now realised the man holding Taj in his arms must also be a creation somehow. He wished the hiker menu could explain other peoples powers somehow.
More guards were joining the chase as they noticed the commotion rattling down the hallway. The creation that Taj had summoned from who knows where was quite quick though, the guards in their heavy armour were having trouble keeping up. Adam got closer and closer, whatever agility this creation had, it wasn’t as high as Adam with his bonuses to agility.
He was now confident in his accuracy and threw up a barrier of psychic force to block them from running any further, Adam groaned as the man burst straight through his wall of force, throwing him well off his game and slowing him down. He had to take a moment to stop and shake off the shocked feeling of losing his barrier, having his spells be broken did seem to take its toll. Adam had never tried to stop someone running at that speed with that much bulk behind them before, the creation being a fairly large man and in a full suit of armour, maybe the force was just too much for his power level to handle, he really needed more power boosts and intellect.
After taking a moment to collect himself, Adam dashed down the hallway again, he had to try his running technique again, adding bursts of force to his feet with each step to gain even more speed, this time he wasn’t jumping across rooftops and he found it much more manageable. They arrived at the end of the hallway and the creation took a right turn, bumping into the wall as it turned, it didn’t seem particularly agile or flexible despite its great speed.
Adam rapid fired out platforms and bursts of kinetic energy to make a quick turn around the corner of the hallway, he jumped up, his feet landing on one small square force field, he then manipulate a more condensed, explosive collection of energy to shoot himself off of the square platform at a great speed, he felt a quick burst of pain in his legs as he went shooting down the hallway towards Taj and the creation holding him.
Adam landed hard on the floor and rolled over several times, he lifted his chin to avoid hitting the ground face burst, as he rolled around several times he quickly threw out thin but quick travelling and powerful whiplashes of force at the creations feet, as Adam stopped rolling he saw the creation stumbling with the first whiplash and then tripping over and falling down completely with the second lash of his kinetic energy. Taj went flying out of the arms of the creation and Adam saw him sprawled out on the ground a few paces further down the hallway.
Tob came running around the corner shortly after as Adam dragged Taj’s body with his psychokinesis back to the fork in the building, where guards gathered around the prisoner trying to escape. Adam made eye contact with Tob, he looked awkward, he began probing the prisoner.
“Why are you trying to escape? You were never going to get away under such a high level of security.”
Taj choked and coughed with a wicked grin on his face “I heard your nice little discussion with those outsiders in there. The entire city patrol is just a tool of the church. Did you all know that? I killed a random girl on the east side so they could pin it on Vincent.” Taj sat up, coughing again. He pointed at Tob. “He was going to cover it all up and have me returned to the church. This city patrol is a joke and so is the church. You can kill me now if you like.” He laughed maniacally.
The other guards gathered around Taj started murmuring to each other as Tob scratched his ginger beard in frustration. One of the guards in the crowd spoke up. “If what you say is true, why bother telling us, what’s in it for you, why would you even try to escape if you were with the church?” The other guards nodded in agreeance.
Taj sat there, staring at the floor. “Believe me if you want, the reason I killed that girl is that the Church made me do it. I was trying to escape this place because the last thing I want is to go back to that forsaken place.”
The same guard from the crowd quickly argued. “How would that be, how did they force you to do it?”
Taj smiled with widened eyes. “You obviously haven’t met Fargo. That high priest of yours? He is a monster beyond comprehension, once you’ve faced his, or her, whatever it is. Once you’ve faced it’s wrath you’ll do anything, agree to anything, say anything to make it stop. I wouldn’t wish it upon even the worst of the scummy dogs in this city.”
A different guard in the crowd fired back “You take that back, you’re just some insane criminal. Fargo is an honourable man who has contributed so much to this city. Tob will back me up. He’s our captain and he has met Fargo a few times now.”
Tob was pacing back and forwards, looking quite distressed. Itching his beard and pushing out heavy breaths, he turned to Adam.
“You have the ability to make someone tell the truth, don’t you boy?”
At this time Brian and Matilda came bolting down the hallway, slowing down as they pushed their way into the crowd of guards.
The crowd of guards fell to silence as they stared at Adam.
Adam paused in confusion. Wasn’t Taj already telling the truth? “Yes, I mean, not always, but if I can overpower someone into it, or if they are willing maybe. You want me to force the truth out of Taj? I might be able to, he’s in a weakened state and all.”
Tob looked at him and smiled gently. “I want you to force the truth out of me.”