“He healed you?”
“Yeah, after he shot and stabbed me. That fuck.”
“Well, how’d he do it?”
“I don’t know, my wounds glowed and then… just pulled out of me..”
“Glowed? What color?”
“Gold. What Affinity does that?”
“Interesting…”
“What does that mean?”
“Leave him alone but keep an eye on him, I don’t know how much we can trust him yet. Try to get closer to him.”
----------------------------------------
Something hit my face and I woke up swinging. I pulled the towel off my face to Meredith looking at me with a somewhat panicked look on her face. She pointed at the door.
Knock knock.
“Hellooo? Tom, are you up?”
I moved to the door, throwing and kicking shit out of the way, then cracked it open. Vivi.
“What’s up?”
She sniffed and tried to look past me, “You… have someone in there?”
I narrowed my eyes, I really needed to find out what her class was. I pushed some dark slime around my eyes and caught the faintest wisp of… something. I pushed the tiniest force of Will I could against it. I felt my Will push up against another and brush away… Whatever that was. She started, as if she was unsure about what had just happened.
“What’s up?”
“There’s a bit of an issue.”
I fucccckkkiiingggg hated when people did the ‘there’s a problem’ shit. JUST TELL ME THE PROBLEM.
“Well? What’s the ‘issue’? Out with it.”
She seemed a bit hurt by that and tried to peer past me, I moved my body to block her nosey eyes. How the hell could she tell that someone was in here?
“Hello? Vivi? What’s the problem?”
“It’s uh, we need to clear out some of the animals. They are growing too dangerous.”
“What about the other patrols?”
“Too many were injured yesterday.”
“What about the healing wine?”
“Too much was used and it takes time for Jon to make more.”
“Doesn’t the shield handle that?”
“It can’t run all the time.”
That… made sense, otherwise it’d be even more bullshit-OP than the Mortician. That… started to give me an idea. I needed to be-
“Are you coming?”
“Yeah yeah, let me get dressed.” I shut the door, cutting off her last words and locked it again.
I got dressed and motioned for Meredith to get ready herself. I hesitated before settling on giving her my kbar. I almost gave her my pistol, but as I rubbed my thumb over the ‘D’, I just couldn’t do it. Giving her the shotgun would just make her a clear target for the people targeting me. For a second I seriously considered just bouncing and bringing her back to Ontiveros before anything bad could happen to her but then I dismissed it, I’d solve this crap in a day or two and then I’d do bring her. I mean, we were less than a half day’s walk from there, it wouldn’t take much time once we started.
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In a whisper, “Head out through the bathroom window, don’t team up with Tracey or Fo- Ron.” I waited for a nod, then not receiving one, prompted her with a nod of my own. She returned it.
I ripped aside some of the stuff into the bathroom and checked first, nothing. I peeked out the shattered window and didn’t see anyone either.
In a low voice, “Alright, head out and be careful of the string trap. Remember, you don’t know me and we’ve never met.”
She nodded and crept away. As I opened the door to my room, I heard the cans jingle from outside. Vivi’s head whipped in that direction. I slammed the door fully open and she jumped. I forgot to warn Meredith about Vivi. I felt a creeping foreshadowing. Dammit.
“Did you hear something?”
I looked back inside my room and drew her eyes with me, “I mean, it’s kind of a mess in here, so probably just something falling over?”
It didn’t look like she believed me much and as I looked back I caught sight of the makeshift towel bed that Meredith had made on my floor.
I quickly closed it behind me, “So, are we going or what?”
“Ah? I mean yes.”
She took off toward the outside, where my shattered window and Meredith was heading. I cleared my throat to stop her, then proffered my arm and she looped hers within it and smiled at me. I didn’t feel like it but I smiled back and waited a few somewhat awkward moments. Meredith should be gone by now.
We somewhat quickly made our way to the front of the building, it took a fraction of the time it would have taken had we maneuvered through all the halls on the inside. I was even more sure that it wasn’t ‘architectural design’ no matter what Renaissance master they tried to credit.
Despite waking up to a towel on my face, I had actually slept pretty well. I assume it had been that Refreshing Rain I had gotten before falling asleep. A good night’s sleep and somehow missing out on a hangover thanks to the Rain, I felt way more sharp.
I had been approaching this whole thing entirely the wrong way. I wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracey, or even Thomas, P.I. I was just Average-Guy Tom. I squeezed my arm against my side, trapping her interlocked arm.
“You’re the Usurper.”
She struggled to pull away.
“What? No, I’m not!”
I studied her until she quieted down.
“Really, I’m not that,” She laughed, “Not at all.”
Her behavior was strange, but honest. I felt reasonably confident that she wasn’t actually the Usurper. What didn’t add up was how she knew about the ‘Usurper’. There were only two possibilities on how she would even know what that is.
“Sorry about that,” I grinned, “Miss Scarlett in the bedroom with a candlestick.”
She timidly grinned back, there was something else there though, I was sure of it.
Having her arm around me made me feel uncomfortably clearly the seeping grease from her… aura? I pushed and tested my own Will to try and… like put it around me or something, like a shell. It brushed aside her vile aura, enough that she actually released her arm from mine. There’s a first for everything. Besides that, I wasn’t quite sure if I was getting the Aura thing down.
We approached an area to the side of the main entrance, there was a large, raised marble patio with a bunch of people. Congregating in a close group around Morrigan were Tracey, Ron, Jon, and…
“Who’s that guy? Holding the cleavers?”
“Oh, Mark?”
Right… I don’t know how I had forgotten about the most obviously suspicious person here. Didn’t I almost fight him at dinner literally the night before? Sweet lord I needed to get better at this shit. I plugged some salty water from my pack around my shoulders and took a deep breath. Between rehydration, a good sleep, Refreshing Rain and the early morning sun, my mind was starting to clear from the multi-day wine stupor I’d been in.
“Good afternoon everyone! There is some… dire news. Some of our patrols from yesterday have reported a swelling of animals just beyond our home. Today, we need everyone’s efforts in clearing them out.”
I motioned to Morrigan with my eyes. He raised an eyebrow in question, but swept out his arm to me.
I joined him on the raised steps, “I’d recommend that everyone have a ‘battle-buddy’, someone you trust and that you are responsible for.”
Morrigan gave me another look before Tracey scoffed in my ear, “We already have that system, dummy.”
I narrowed my eyes, but nodded. I had other things I wanted to say but it seemed like that time had passed as he started pairing people off or acknowledging pairs of people that had already teamed up.
Head more clear than it had been in days, I really should have gone through my Order of Operations. I was doom spiraling without it. I also had some questions for Morrigan but he was already gone… somewhere? Where the hell did he go?
Trying to be casual about it, I saw that Meredith had joined with… Vivi. How’d she get over there? That… probably would be a problem.
Then, someone was standing in front of me. I looked up.
“Oh hey f- Ron-”
Was he always this large? Shit.
“Why’re you looking at Meredith?”
“I was looking at Vivi.”
He turned and stared at her.
Ron nodded and turned back to me.
“You’re my partner today.”
I nodded in return and looked to the sky, chance of rain: 10%, chance of violence: significantly higher. I didn’t give a shit how big he was, I fucked him up once, I’d do it again. If I had to.