Chapter 63

The way Luke saw it, they’d either wandered into something meant for someone else and Myla was completely innocent of any malicious intent, or she’d led him into a trap on purpose and was an excellent actor. The third possibility, that someone had known where they’d eat lunch and managed to clear the whole place out to set it up for a trap in literally minutes, seemed too unlikely to consider.

If it was a trap, then it was probably the church. They knew about his existence, as evidenced by the fact that a templar brute squad had been dispatched to Tenebrous Valley to murder him, and he supposed it wasn’t impossible for another divine message to come down and paint them a picture of him so they knew exactly who they were looking for. That would just be his luck.

“Why don’t we walk while we eat?” Luke threw out, just to see what she’d say.

“Oh. Um, we can do that,” Myla said, clearly surprised. She didn’t seem to be against the idea though. “Did you have somewhere in particular in mind?”

Her hands started moving, shuffling the meal into a kind of sandwich using the bread as a plate. It barely took a moment for her to finish, then she grabbed her cup and took a drink. “I usually save my drink for the end, but it’s fun to do things differently every now and then, right?”

“Yeah, exactly. You should mix things up occasionally to keep life from getting stale.”

Luke picked up his own cup, which smelled like some sort of wine, and took a sip. It was a bit sweeter than he liked, but it wasn’t bad. He used the motion of drinking to hide taking another look around and confirm that no one had moved from their seats.

Myla took another long drink and frowned. “Maybe I can ask if we can walk with the cups if I promise to bring them back later. I think I’d still like to save a little for after I’m done eating.”

“Sure,” Luke said. He took another sip and stood up. “The food does look good though.”

It was kind of weird. Bread as a meal wasn’t something he’d enjoyed growing up. It was an unfortunate necessity some weeks, but not something to look forward to. On Aros, it was different. There were a lot more spices baked into it, and it was always fresh. It was a cornerstone to the meal, there more often than not, and he’d grown to appreciate it a lot more than the old thinly sliced bag of bread he’d had as a kid.

It was just one of a truly overwhelming number of changes he’d been hit with all at once. The food was different, the buildings were different, the people were different. Indoor plumbing was a thing of the past, and he had to go to a special building just to get hot water to bathe with. Boredom took on a whole new level without phones and the internet.

There were good things to balance it out, of course. Stats were amazing, though the whole XP madness kind of put a damper on that. Skills were neat, but also uncomfortable to use. His body moving on its own like that creeped him right the fuck out. It was getting better as he grew more accustomed to the movements, and most of his skills related to fighting didn’t jar him mentally anymore, but he doubted he’d ever fully be comfortable with the sensation.

“Luke, I believe you should check your notifications. You indicated that this type is a high priority to you.”

“I… what?”

System was standing in front of him, right behind Myla, who was watching him intently. He hadn’t noticed that she’d stopped doing anything else. The other three people were also watching him openly now, for some reason. Luke was more confused about why System had appeared and what notification he was talking about, but he checked anyway.

[You have been afflicted by the following condition: Poison- Draught of Waking Dreams (1H22M).]

That wasn’t good. Once System pointed it out, Luke realized that he’d been mumbling all of his thoughts out loud for the past minute or so, ever since he’d taken a sip of the wine. “You poisoned me,” he said.

“Oh? That’s unusual. I wonder if I made a mistake. No one ever realizes they’ve ingested this particular type of poison. That’s why I went out of my way to make it.” Myla sounded annoyed now. “Or is it that your stamina is just that high? Either way, the whole plan’s gone out the window. Get him inside so we can question him.”

Luke tried to move, but everything felt sluggish. He could barely even focus on the movements of the people around him, barely felt when two of them grabbed his arms and started frogmarching him into the bakery. “That smells really good,” he mumbled.

“Yes, they do make good food. I love eating here,” Myla said casually. “It’s a shame you wanted to go for a walk. I would have liked to enjoy my meal before we got to this part.”

“We could still eat,” he said.

“Ah, no, I’m afraid not. Time is of the essence. Given how lucid you are, I don’t imagine the poison will last more than an hour or so. Tell me, was it some sort of poison resistance skill or simply high stamina that saved you? I tried to account for stamina, but it’s difficult to guess correctly.”

“No, no. Not that,” Luke said. He tried to reach for a roll sitting on a display shelf, only to find that something was stopping him. Frowning, he jerked his arm free and the man holding him stumbled forward.

Luke ignored him to grab the roll and take a bite. “God, that’s delicious. If it had just a bit of butter in it…”

The man recaptured Luke’s arm with a grunt of effort and tried to twist it back behind him. Luke flexed and dragged him forward again to take another bite. He kind of wished he’d gone along with Myla’s plan now too. He’d already fucked up by drinking the drugged wine, and this next part would go better if he had a good solid meal in him.

“Look, what is it you wanted to ask me?” he asked, finishing off the roll and reaching for another.

“Let’s talk in the back,” Myla said, gesturing towards a door which had even more delicious smells coming from it.

Luke’s hand wavered over the next roll, then snagged a whole loaf of bread instead. It was hard to focus on what Myla was saying, hard to even remember what he was doing. The hardest thing, though, was keeping himself from saying his thoughts out loud. He suspected that was the primary purpose of the poison, to get him to just say whatever he was thinking when they questioned him.

It probably worked a lot better when the victim wasn’t aware that they’d been poisoned. That must be hard to pull off when the system went and told people that they’d been afflicted with a status effect. Then again, maybe it was just him. He had made modifications to his status, after all. Plus his whole bloodline was tied up in system stuff anyway. He would try to remember to ask about it later.

For now, Luke devoured the loaf of bread, barely even stopping to chew it. “So good,” he said, which was true, but that wasn’t why he was gorging himself on it. “I like it right here better.”

“I really must insist. It would be better for everyone if you cooperated.”

Luke triggered [Life Surge] and felt his head start to clear up immediately. He checked his status to confirm that the poison had been burned away, only to find that it was still present, but now read [Condition: Poison- Draught of Waking Dreams (18M42S)]. That probably explained why things were feeling a lot less foggy, but not completely normal.

Myla noticed immediately and snapped, “Grab him!” A knife appeared in her hand as if by magic and she lashed out at him, but Luke leaned backwards to avoid it. The man on his right drove a fist into his side, no doubt aiming for his kidneys, but his skills were kicking in now. He shifted his lean into a measured step back, slapped the hand down and away from him, and stomped the heel of his back foot down on the toes belonging to the man on the left.

Even with the poison still making things muddled, Luke was cognizant enough to be aware that he was in a bad position. There were four of them surrounding him, and he had no weapon. He needed to break free and run. Luke didn’t try to go on the offensive, not when all he needed to do was body check a guy who was already off balance and then hustle out through the bakery’s front door.

He lifted his foot just enough to hook it around the guy’s ankles, then slammed into him with his shoulder, which had the dual benefits of knocking the guy on his ass and getting him farther away from Myla’s knife. She was already closing the distance, this time leading with the point of the knife, and he could see some sort of wet coating on it. Getting hit by that was probably a bad idea for more than one reason.

Luke hopped over the man he’d knocked down, swiped a muffin on the fly, and rushed out into the street. He didn’t stop to pick a direction, since there wasn’t really anywhere safe to run to. The goal was simply to lose his pursuers. That turned out to be more difficult than he expected.

All four of them burst out of the bakery, but only three went after him as he sprinted down the street. Myla took one look at his retreating form and went back inside. Somehow, that made him feel even less safe not knowing where she was or what she was doing. He couldn’t take the time to backtrack and confront her, not that he wanted to.

Two of his would-be kidnappers were obviously not built for speed. They struggled through the crowds and Luke quickly left them behind. One of the men, the one who’d been pretending to read a book, either had some sort of movement skill or was getting by like Luke on raw agility, because if anything, he was closing the gap.

Luke wondered if he had the strength to match too. He took a running leap, and jumped as hard as he could, over the roof of a single-story house. It was only about twelve feet straight up, and he thought if he’d timed it better, he might have cleared the whole roof to land in the next street over, but instead he landed near the peak. He skittered across the roof and leaped the entire street to land on the one opposite of where he’d started.

Now with two streets between him and his pursuers, Luke hopped back down to the ground and started moving again. He was heading towards the busier business district near the docks, and though he wasn’t quite sure where he was, he thought he could figure it out if he turned and walked towards the water until he saw something familiar.

That plan depended on him having shaken his pursuers, but there was no telling if that had even happened. For all he knew, there were dozens more people in disguise watching him. There was no help for it, it was time to leave the city. Before he could do that, he needed his supplies. They were locked behind a door he didn’t have a key to right now, but Luke was okay with breaking it down. Hopefully that wouldn’t reflect badly on Zea, but there was no choice.

He just needed to make sure he didn’t lead Myla and her minions straight there first.