I found more players than before gathered at the east gate, almost all of which were trying to persuade, bribe, or threaten their way through. None succeeded other than those willing to suffer being marked for death.
Instead of posting to the forum I just walked into the crowd and began selling my consumable weapons to normal players and small guilds alike. Most didn't take me up on the offer, but I did find someone here and there who would purchase at least one of my special concoctions at a price that was double what I had paid for the materials to craft them. Economics was a beautiful thing, and I was still doing a good thing while making money.
More people arrived as time went on while I continued to sell my wares, retracing my steps to the market every time I ran out, buying up all the cheapest stock I could find for more. As it turned out, the molotovs were far more popular than thermite since those I was selling to either didn't know how it worked or knew more than enough to realize its potential uses.
I ended up buying lighters to go along with the molotovs, though they were often only somewhat functional or not entirely filled with lighter fluid. My profit was meagre, only two hundred credits sitting in my account by the time someone threw the first molotov.
Things snowballed from there the moment the glass bottle shattered against a plastic barrier, setting it ablaze. I made my way out of the crowd and into an alley that other players hadn't already occupied, watching as more and more people were lighting their own molotovs or brandishing knives, even as the NPC guards began to take action. Heavily outnumbered, their non-lethal weapons were quickly swapped out for the more lethal options, but it didn't matter as the guild players were already moving back toward them. Some were on fire while others shrank away from the ensuing chaos.
Normal players either listened to their instincts and ran from the area, or they ignored them entirely as they charged forward, bullets tearing through the air and impacting bodies. The sound of glass shattering and fragments of light exploding into the air cleared the minds of a few others who broke off, running down side streets while more still surged onward, now within just a few meters of the NPCs.
One after another I watched players fall to the ground, waiting for the right time to move even as the tidal wave of chaos hit and buried the guards. I started running forward into the melee, my knife dull but still more than sharp enough to do what needed to be done. This had gone past being a heroic act of mine, turning into a riot that would result in major repercussions if allowed to continue.
I started stabbing players again and again, carving my way to one of the many spots I'd seen the guards fall under a pile of people. I dragged people back again and again, stabbing anyone who resisted, catching many off guard. The NPC I found was bloody and beaten, his helmet cracked and his torso bleeding a bit.
I hauled him to his feet even as his free hand reached around for a stun baton. The guild players were gone at this point, though now I had to be a villain if I was to get out, and this meant saving as many of the guards as possible. I waved my knife back and forth as I shrugged my backpack off and onto my knife arm. It was a little unsteady as I pulled out a thermite grenade and lighter, but nobody dared to rush me as of yet, though a few were eyeing me crazily. I stared back, morphing my expression to that of absolute lunacy.
"Anyone want to see how thermite works?" I dropped the knife into the bag and flicked on the lighter. The players surrounding us stepped back even as some of the others slowed their assault. "I guarantee at least one person dies after I light this. Who's first?" The guard I'd rescued stepped around me, thankfully choosing not to treat me as an enemy. I moved with him and the players followed.
"Anyone ever played a shooter before? You might know just how dangerous this little toy can be, since explosives like the one in my hand are used by the military. Think C4 is dangerous? This is twice that." I was lying through my teeth, but the bluff seemed to work well enough since the players had backed off while the NPC saved his friends, beating the other rioters off. They were all battered and bloody but still alive, one of them holding a handgun with a white knuckled hand.
Neither side stepped forward. The players I was facing began hurling insults at me. I took them in stride, always one for a good bit of wordplay. I didn't bother glancing behind me as one of the guards grabbed a radio inside the checkpoint, requesting immediate reinforcements. "Let them through the gates. The wilderness is clearly where they want to go anyways, and after that they won't be our problem." The best thing I could do now was try and fast-talk my way through this situation.
I waited for a response, breathing a sigh of relief when I heard the gate begin opening. The door was pulled upward, revealing a treeline just beyond a slight incline. THere were guards stationed outside and when they noticed what was going on, a few of them stepped forward, guns raised. "Let them leave, and they won't cause any more trouble. Don't waste the ammo." I said this slowly, my gaze unmoving from the people I'd essentially incited just a little while ago.
It was a few very tense minutes even after the players left the city, all of them splitting up fairly quickly. Not one of them had stuck together as far as I knew. Mob mentality was only so strong.
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It was at that moment that both guard and guild reinforcements arrived. The guards looked at me with not a small amount of suspicion while the guild players looked at me with outright hostility. All I did in response was give both groups a big cheesy grin, fit to match the cheshire cat. Since my brain was working overtime to make this plan work on the fly, I hadn't really had a moment to process all that happened. Nor did I take into account that making an enemy of what was likely a large organization was a very bad idea.
"You must be the guy that-" I quickly cut him off by speaking as loud as I could, which was admittedly only about as loud as he was speaking. "The guy that kept these five from becoming mincemeat before reinforcements could arrive, while also not taking part in destroying your forces which quite frankly, blockaded this area, keeping brave people who could help provide for and sustain the city and our obligation to send resources and supplies back to our ocean friends, yes. I wouldn't recommend keeping volunteers from trying to do their part as some of them are quite clearly overzealous." I was speaking absolute bullshit and luckily, I was quite fluent in that particular language. A quote I often remembered from a friend went something along the lines of "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit."
In this case, talking faster and more than they could and using several leaps of logic was enough to get their mouths to stop moving while the NPCs secured the area, though it wasn't enough for me to be cleared of suspicion. To both sides I had definitely played an obvious part in what had gone on, but I denied having any involvement whatsoever right up until the point where the guards had enough of me, letting me go free and telling the guild players to shove off so this situation wouldn't happen again.
The gate was still open at this point so I took the opportunity to leave. It wasn't a brilliant strategy since I'd have people following me and I'd also be marked as kill on sight, but I'd have the same problem even if I stayed inside Bastion. I was reminded of this fact as I left the guard stations behind, getting a notification.
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You are leaving the city of Bastion. Beware, for the lands beyond belong to the lawless and desperate.
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The guild players began tracking me out into the forest fairly quickly, but lost my trail after I threw a thermite grenade at them and ran. I couldn't help but giggle to myself as the forest was lit up by a white hot light behind me, blinding everyone who stared at it.
The trees and grasses around were perfect for running around unseen, my black shirt and pants adding to the difficulty in perceiving me. The boots however did not help, the rug soles slapping against the ground louder than I had anticipated, cracking twigs and branches alike.
"So much for that attempt." I found a broken tree stump to lean against and laboriously cut the duct tape from my boots, tossing the rug aside. My knife had dulled quite a bit at this point, having gone through several materials it shouldn't normally cut. It was a nice change of pace though, to go back to doing something simple instead of talking my way out of certain death or incarceration. I looked up at the night sky, a shooting star racing across the blackness, taking a deep breath of the peaceful night air.
The sounds of twigs snapping and branches breaking tore me from my thoughts, footsteps slowly growing closer. I hadn't fully lost my pursuers. "Where is he?" Voices from behind shouted in the dark, angry and filled with bloodlust. I should have moved, I should have done anything, but instead I froze in place, hands clenching tight around the knife. They were searching for me, and if I didn't do something, they were going to find and kill me.
My heart beat faster, a steady drum beating against my chest as a lump settled in the back of my throat, fear pressing against the back of my mind like a hand gripping my skull. My breathing turned shaky as I fought to break free of the terror. The footsteps were closer now, individual footfalls audible. It was at this moment that I felt more than heard one word in the back of my mind.
Run.
Without missing a beat I scrambled to my feet, taking off like an arrow loosed from a bow, my boots pounding against dirt, twigs, and pine needles, snapping and breaking my way through the undergrowth. The voices behind me were whipped up into a frenzy, whoops and hollering echoing all over. "Over there! Kill him!" My instincts overtook me as I fought to hold back a scream.
I'd always been able to see well enough in the dark, and the meager light from the moon and stars aided me tonight as I took a running jump over a ditch, my backpack shuddering up and down across my back as I hit the ground. There was a popping noise, and the sound of wood splintering to my left as a bullet impacted tree bark. One of them had a gun.
Another pop, and the noise of ricocheting lead sailed ahead of me, dirt flying into the air. Something primal in the back of my mind urged me to retaliate somehow, to scream and defy those that wished to end me.
My knife went back into my bag, my hand coming back out with a molotov and a lighter. I lit the rag up and threw it at a nearby tree. I missed horribly, though the glass bottle still shattered upon hitting the ground, the crude napalm mix being set alight near instantly. I didn't know if the fire would spread or how fast, but for the moment it blocked their vision well enough that they wouldn't be able to see me for a few moments at least.
I could've hidden, or found a hole to take cover in, picking them off one by one with the stabbing end of my knife. I'm not ashamed to admit that I did neither, simply continuing to run as fast as my legs could carry me, my breaths coming hard and fast.
Another solid minute of cross country sprinting through the forest and I left the treeline, the patchy grass and dirt shifting to much taller grassland that stretched on for maybe another forty meters ahead. There were buildings past the grassland, a city even. Streets and fallen lampposts, abandoned cars and parking lots.
Another gunshot sounded as my right foot hit the ground, something hot and very uncomfortable tearing through my right shoulder and nearly causing me to fall as my body's display turned immediately crimson in that area, indicating a severe injury. An icon popped up next to my health as it began to tick down, red teardrops indicating a bleed effect.
More gunshots rang out again and again as other players followed behind, bullets whizzing by and impacting the crumbling walls, abandoned cars, and parking lot asphalt of a bar that lay directly ahead of me, its neon sign long without power and missing several letters. That's when I saw the pack of dogs appear from behind a burnt out car.