Mask of Humanity

In the morning Nicolai found himself unable to properly perform his typical routine, as it was necessary to move his arm as little as possible. He removed the bandages and saw the wound was now a big mass of dark scab, the flesh around red and inflammed. Fairly typical, then.

He checked in briefly with Kleos. The head thought he should wait longer, until he was recovered, then go and find the ritual.

But if Nicolai was going to have to sit around healing, he would rather have a book to learn from and something to work on. He didn’t do well when forced to sit with nothing to occupy himself. From what Kleos had said, it would take him some time and practise to create a Soul Trap, so if he could get to it then he would have the perfect activity to fill the time required for his body to heal.

Nicolai knew he needed to avoid a fight, and he believed himself capable of doing so. He knew the path he would take to reach the library, he knew the dangers that awaited him. His left arm was still good, so he could use his shield.

He brought his knives, rapier, and the metal baton. The baton was a poor replacement for the polearm, but with his injury he wouldn’t have been able to properly wield the two handed weapon anyway. He was doing his best not to think too much on the loss, wary of how the madness was seeking to use it as leverage to seize control of him.

He also fashioned a bag by unwrapping the harness from his water bottle and instead using it to tie one of the more solid pieces of faded cloth he’d found into a makeshift bag.

Finally, before leaving he removed the sling, allowing his arm to hang freely. The sling was a sign of weakness, and he’d rather let his arm hang loose and free than broadcast his injury in the event he had an encounter with an opponent intelligent enough to recognise what the sling meant.

###

Nicolai soon stood before the door to the gauntlet. Would today be the day they caught him out? Perhaps.

But he moved through it easily, his steps smooth and practised, the limitations of his arm not an issue. He juked bolts of light, brushed thrown weapons from the air with his shield, ducked and dashed and dodged his way to the exit.

Pressing on, Nicolai switched from frenetic movement to quiet and care as he moved through the living quarters. Morning had only just come, which meant it was unlikely people would already be out here hunting and scavenging, but the undead patrols were still an issue and there was always the risk of an early riser looking to jump him for his things.

He came across the bloodstains from his fight and flight the other day, spots of his blood on the walls and dark splatters on the ground. After warily checking about, Nicolai found the room where he’d lost most of the flying archer, a blood stain leading into it.

The body was gone from the room. Taken by the people who’d chased him, or reanimated during the night and walked off… somewhere?

Nicolai approached the tunnel where he’d killed the archer and peered into it. Staring down its length to the light at the far end, his mind conjured up scenes from the day before.

Luring and killing the archer. The pain of a barbed arrow in his arm. The other archers balanced in the air and on the wall, shooting at him while he retreated, their arrows smashing into the back of his meatshield.

The white-marked archer dropping his polearm.

His hands clenched at the last memory. He started down the tunnel, and at the end peeked out into the open air, immediately looking towards the bridge. He saw the archers listlessly drifting above it, as always. From the distance he couldn’t see if any of them were the white-marked one. After checking above and to the side, he emerged.

A ragged hope drew him to the wall, and he peered down into the chasm, seeing the green of the jungle far, far below. His polearm was down there, somewhere, most likely in splintered pieces, but either way it was no good to him now. As he went to turn away, sunlight glinted on something and instantly he was back. His eyes grew wide and his hands gripped tight to the wall as he leant over and stared, mouth falling open.

Fifteen or maybe twenty metres down, there was a crack in the wall where a chunk of the stone was peeling off, leaning out. The light winked from the metal cap on the butt of his polearm’s pole. It was stuck in the crack, head-first, just waiting for someone to grip its end and tug it free.

‘You beautiful bastard,’ he murmured, disbelieving. How could it have caught like that? What were the odds? Had the archers not noticed? The white-marked one had seemed determined to spite him. I have the ring! I can fly down and get it! The air hissed through his fixed grin. This was very convenient.

Convenient. All of his thoughts combined and twisted and turned dark and ominous, a sudden shock of warning rippling through him.

Nicolai threw himself backwards just as he heard a snap and a hum. Something flashed past him and cracked into the stone, pin-wheeling away, an arrow. Nicolai scrambled back into the tunnel, turned and fled only to see the glitter of sharp metal in the dark and he jerked his shield up reflexively.

Sparks flared as a blade scraped off his shield, and his eyes met a gaze that burned blue through a helmet he’d smashed yesterday, now reformed though still looking quite battered.

The archer he’d killed swung again, one handed, and Nicolai caught the blow on his shield, bulled forwards and knocked it from its feet with his shoulder, charging past, all the way to the end of the tunnel and around the corner. Setting his body, shield in front of his face, he crouched down then shifted left to peek into the corner, just for an instant, then slipped away. Two arrows cracked the wall behind him.

He rose, and he ran.

In that moment he’d seen the archer he’d killed, now without a bow, but holding a decent looking sword in its one remaining arm, stalking towards him. Balanced on the wall behind that archer, outside the tunnel, two more archers had fired at him.

Where had the archer, now swordsman, been hiding?

After running down a hallway and reaching a corner, Nicolai looked behind and saw it standing there, staring at him.

In that moment Nicolai understood it perfectly. He had taken something precious from it. Now it was forced to walk on the ground, a source of… shame? How much did these undead feel?

It wanted the ring back, and the archers had worked out that he wanted the polearm back almost as much.

They had set a trap for him.

Clever, but their execution had been slightly off. A little too slow. He’d had time to smell the stink of it. But if he’d been any slower on the up-take, or they’d been a second faster, he would be dead. Nicolai grinned at the thought, his body tingling, his eyes on the blue light burning through the archer’s visor.

I’m going to kill you again and then I’m getting my polearm. There was far more satisfaction to be gained in beating an intelligent foe than a stupid one.

He turned away, checking for sounds and sights of anyone approaching, then ducked into a side-room and opened his map to work out a new route. He knew where he would go.

There was a bridge he’d seen that wasn’t too far down from this level, and was a good distance from the bridge with the archers. There were also more tunnels out of the living area, allowing him access to the walled walkway along the bastion’s side.

He didn’t know how to get down to the bridge the normal way, but from the walkway he could float down to the lower bridge with the ring, cross to the far side, then float back up to the level with the library.

The archers could wait for him and look after his polearm, for now. He’d be back for his weapon when he was recovered and had devised a plan.

Nicolai snuck through the corridors. At one point he was forced to duck into a hidden tunnel to avoid a patrol, but otherwise the journey went without issue. He found another tunnel leading out to the stone walkway where he moved in a swift, wary scuttle, keeping an eye on the sky and the stone of the castle stretching above him, the windows and balconies on the far side.

Arriving at his chosen spot, he looked down at the bridge below. He’d seen the large group of unusually augmented humans crossing via this bridge a few days ago, the same ones, he suspected, as had chased him after he’d gained his ring, which meant the bridge carried an element of risk.

But the odds of them coming across in the minute it would take him to cross were minor compared to the certainty of the vengeful archers he would encounter if he tried to take the route under the larger bridge. He had a feeling they would be watching far more carefully after his last encounter, that attempting to cross via the supports under the bridge was no longer an option.

Nicolai pulled his Seed from his mouth, placing it in his hand then forming a gentle fist. He chose his right hand, even though the arm was injured, as he could still move the hand itself without issue. This way he could keep his left and the shield free and ready. He wore the ring on that hand, and positioned the Seed so it was touching his ring finger and the ring within his half-fist.

He ducked back into a crevice in the wall as he calmed his mind and focused on connecting to the Seed. It was always hardest the first time in a given session, and his paranoia about being stood in the open didn’t help as he attempted to reach the necessary relaxed state.

For a moment, frustration brewed as he failed to connect, but he took slow, deep breaths, let his thoughts come and go, and then he felt the Seed’s state. It was curious, trying to look out from between his fingers. Stay, stay with the ring, he told it, hoping it would understand. He felt its affirmation, pliable and willing, trusting of him.

Then Nicolai pushed through, his Seed a bridge he crossed to enter the ring. Once the connection was made it quickly firmed in his mind, requiring less concentration to hold. His Seed held as much Oma as it was capable of holding, he’d made sure of that last night. He had three more Oma crystals in a pouch tucked into his leather-and-chain jacket, brought in case his Seed ran dry from all the floating he’d need to do.

Nicolai performed one final check around him, then began to feed Oma into the ring as he stepped forwards to the crenellated wall. He shaped the flight effect as he put a foot between the crenellations and lifted himself up, felt himself becomes weightless, then stepped off into the open air. He let gravity take him, slightly reducing the effect of his ring, and he floated gently downwards, enjoying the sensation of flight even as his paranoia told him he was completely in the open, his head twisting to try and watch everything at once.

He touched down on the stone of the bridge, gripping the store of Oma left in his ring tight to stop it continuing to generate an effect, and started running, taking long, loping strides towards the other side, his eyes watching the dark tunnel the bridge fed into.

As soon as he was close enough he re-activated the ring and leapt, his momentum from the run and jump powering him forwards and up with the ring assisting the upwards movement, cancelling out gravity. He enjoyed the smoothness of the process, and the fact that he was able to use the ring’s power more efficiently as a result of combining physical strength and speed with magic generated from Oma.

His aim was a little off and he had to push a little more Oma into the ring to send himself up over the wall. He allowed it to run dry just as he came over and landed with bent legs on the ground. Nicolai let out a happy little chuckle. Flying, or floating as it could more accurately be described, was fun.

Based on what he felt from his Seed, it had used a bit over one percent of Oma, and though he felt it was a little tired, it wasn’t strained.

Nicolai headed towards the library, moving stealthily as he approached the archers bridge which was before it. A side entrance allowed him to get into the large area with its statues and the stairs without going in front of the bridge.

Once more his eyes passed over the distant, bookshelf-filled levels of the library above. He started up the stairs, Seed still in his hand, touching on the ring.

Reaching the top he set into a jog while injecting more Oma into the ring, pushed off the ledge as he became weightless, and drifted across the lengthy gap to reach the other side.

Then, just like that, he was touching down on the far side, standing at the beginning of the lower level of the library. A grin touched his lips. All that time and effort had been worth it. At last, he was here. His grin faded, eyes narrowed; he recalled Kleos’ warnings about this place.

He had to be wary.