I saw the blast hit between my feet and froze. Dammit. I couldn’t go two seconds without being the unluckiest man alive. They’d caught me weaponless too. I looked up, to scan for an assailant as I ran for cover. I saw them, charging another blast in their hands on a nearby rooftop. I couldn’t make out a Noctis symbol on them, but then again, it was night, and we had a good deal of distance between us. Pressing myself against a wall, I broke line of sight, shouting out.
“Don’t you have anything better to do!”
I winced. My side and well…everything else still hurt, and the pain flared with every rapid step I had taken. I needed a way out of this. What did I have. I had the orb Shale had given me, for one. Summons a ‘decently strong creature’ according to him, but he wasn’t sure if it would obey him. I didn’t want to waste a one time resource here, either, even if the situation was dire, and as a final point against it, I wasn’t sure I could throw the orb far enough to be sure that if it was hostile, it would go for my assailant. So orb was out.
My next thought went to the pebble that I’d been given by Virion. Less volatile, and I felt like his crew, or just himself would be more likely to help me then some random creature. But my thoughts drifted to what Shale had told me about the group being a volatile element. That put a slight damper on my willingness to call on them. So I ruled it out.
That left me with my third and most reliable option: get things done myself. No weapon, no armor. I looked around the alley I was in an surveyed the situation. Some trash. A large sheet of metal which looked rather pristine for where it was, a lot of foul smelling foodscraps, some ashes and completely burned black wood, and stained robe. Not exactly great resources. I grabbed the metal sheet and managed to get it into a position where I could hold it in one hand, and then grabbed the largest chunk of wood I could find. Sword and shield, if you looked at it just the right way.
I turned my attention back outwards. The only immediate light was the still lit streetlamps, and more importantly to me, the outline of my attacker, who had seemingly charged up another blast while I had been taking stock of things behind cover. I could see him, but he likely couldn’t see me. He hadn’t moved, which implied he either had friends waiting for me wherever this alley led, or he knew this area better then I did and knew it was a dead end of some sort. Lucky for me, I intended to chance neither of those things.
I squinted at the charged circular mass of energy in his hands. It wouldn’t be something like the blasts of lightning or true ‘lasers’ I’d read and heard about. Those wouldn’t miss, and you couldn’t really dodge either. This was a slower, more clumsy projectile, which meant I could react to it, hopefully. Though, generally, a slower projectile, and one which charged, was quite powerful. So I would really have to not get hit. It would be tricky, but I was pretty sure I could get across the street, over to an opposite alleyway, scramble up the side of that building after throwing one of my two implements at them to knock him off balance, and then club them to death with whatever I had left. If you ignored any potential way it could go wrong, it could only go well.
I watched as the blast grew just a bit more, and decided it was now or never. Running from the alleyway, ‘shield’ interposed in front of my body, I sprinted with as much speed as I could with the pain each step brought me. The blast fired, I managed to get a brief window to adjust my metal barrier appropriately before it connected. It punched straight through, and it struck me-
But I wasn’t dead, not really staggered either. I decided it was nearly worthless now, so just as I got to the secondary alleyway across the street, I threw the sheet of metal upwards. I was injured, but still strong enough to throw a damaged chunk of metal.
I didn’t get to see if it connected before I had one foot planted on a windowsill, a hand on an exposed brick and a push up to the roof, where I scrambled for footing. A swift knee to my face was enough indicator that things had gone to plan, as I nearly fell off the roof before managing to grasp something and plant my foot to avoid that potential catastrophe. As I balanced myself, I looked up. The metal sheet had been dodged, since there was no sign of injury on them, as they wore a darker mages robe with a hood, and one hand occupied by some manner of wand. The other hand, I noticed, was charging another blast.
Without a moment to lose, I swung my improvised weapon, which connected with their midsection. They let out a brief cry of pain, and released the blast, which I dodged mostly thanks to their lack of time to aim and took my momentary chance to get back to my feet and move to charge the mage, firewood raised.
The mage managed to duck left, and I had over committed to the swing, not expecting that fast of a recovery. They swung hard with their wand, which I thought was an impromptu bludgeon, so I put more focus into counterattacking with my own improvised weapon. Then the wand connected, and I realized my mistake. Energy lit up, and it felt like I got kicked by a horse, send sprawling, slamming into the roof before bouncing slightly, and before I could catch myself, rolling fully off, dropping about ten feet and slamming into the ground below rather hard. I was seeing spots, dimly aware of another blast being charged above me, the faint glow being a small beacon to make me aware of my surely incoming demise. My piece of wood had shattered into a bunch of charcoal shards, leaving me defenseless. I had maybe two seconds before it charged up enough to kill me. I rolled right, not getting far enough as it released, slamming my shoulder hard, likely dislocating my shoulder. They released too soon for it to be a kill shot. They wouldn’t make that mistake again. I tried moving again, but the shoots of pain throughout my body made that too difficult. I tried to come up with a plan, but I couldn’t think anywhere close to straight before the blast fired one final time-
But a few seconds later I was still alive. I was sure the blast had fired, but yet…I could still feel every inch of my pain. I managed to see through my daze and look upwards. The figure above me was gone, and I could hear the sounds of combat right above me somewhere, heavy blows being landed in quick succession…though it didn’t sound like flesh on flesh, or even metal on metal. It was like someone was being hit back to back by an invisible force.
Or maybe it was just my brutal injury. It could be either, truly, with the amount of ringing in my ears and woozy sensations passing over me by the seconds. I was…somewhat certain I wouldn’t die, but I was definitely fucked up beyond a reasonable degree.
It wasn’t long however, before the sounds of combat ceased with the sound of a body hitting the ground and something clattering from their grasp. I really hoped it was a robed body and a wand falling.
It wasn’t long before another individual looked over the side of the roof. This time, however, it was someone I had more recognition for. Virion, the elf unarmored this time but not unarmed, holding a large staff seemingly made from pure stone, something which should be impossible for a man of his size to lift. He looked down towards me, and though I couldn’t make out his expression, he sounded concerned when he spoke. “Acuzio, are you alright?”
I must have not given a very convincing answer-that being no answer at all, as I could barely speak to formulate one, because Virion hopped down, not making much sound upon impact. I realized that was because he hadn’t made an impact at all, floating an inch or two off the ground.
“You appear to not be doing the best, friend” He said, now masking the concern in his voice slightly.
“…nope…how’d you…know” The conversation with Shale was still fresh in my mind, though I was having trouble keeping it there amongst the idle swirl of pain. I did want to know how he’d found me however, as that was…important to say the least. Had he been following me?
He reached down to me, and fished around in my pocket. I almost tried to move my arm to stop him, but deemed it too hard in my current state to be worth it. If he really wanted to rob me, he’d have knocked me out or killed me by now. He withdrew a small object from my pocket, that being a small stone-the same one he’d given me the previous night. The difference was that now, it seemed to be broken into five or so pieces.
“Probably broke during your fall or sometime before it. I had it…set, so that it would alert me if you did as instructed, or if it was broken, just in case something like this happened.” He said this all calmly, like he hadn’t admitted to deceiving me…at least a little. I’m sure that could have gone wrong somehow, but my head was swimming too much for me to think of exactly how. “Now-I’d assume you don’t want me to just leave you here? No offense, but I doubt you’re in much of a state to walk.”
I wasn’t, and I knew it. But could I really trust this guy and his cabal of friends? I kicked myself just a little mentally, being struck with indecision on such a simple thing. About ten awkward seconds passed before I finally got around to slightly shaking my head, sitting up slightly, and being wracked with pain because of it, but maintaining the position.
“Some help…would be nice.” I figured that if they wanted to do horrible things to me, at this point they’d had plenty of chance to. And I was the kind of person who utilized my resources whenever possible, and these people, or at least Virion seemed like he liked me for some reason. He reached a hand down to help me up, and I took it, grasping firmly and getting to my feet, nearly stumbling over immediately but catching myself with Virion’s help. “Thanks-” I grunted out, before being led, with his help, out of the alleyway. There, he turned to me again.
“I’m going to cast a spell so I’m not dragging your nearly unconscious body through the street. Just be aware and let it happen, I promise it won’t hurt you if you don’t resist it.”
That was a foreboding request. Then again. I wasn’t sure I COULD resist in my current state, so I just dully nodded my head, and he began a chant I couldn’t quite make out through my mental haze.
It wasn’t long before I felt a sensation take over me, like being lifted up and spun in a circle. A dizzying feeling, like standing up too quickly multiplied tenfold. When I was able to get my bearings, I looked down, I could see streets moving by rapidly…and from above. Only dimly aware, I looked around, seeing no sign of Virion…or any trace of myself for that matter. My body was gone, and I still felt horribly amounts of pain. Just my luck.
Thankfully we weren’t in that state long enough for me to truly comprehend it, as I soon felt myself return to corporality, almost faceplanting into the straight before being grabbed by Virion. My vision swirling now, I saw a largish vertical house in front of us, two people standing on the front stoop. One the redhead I remembered from last night, and another…I didn’t recognize him, or make out much for that matter. I certainly could make out something being said, but not what, as I soon found myself unable to hold on any longer and slipping into the void of unconsciousness.
Kindling And Miscellany 