Knives & Levels - Chapter 76

Colt handed over the black cloak to another man; it felt odd to give it to another after all they’d went through to earn it. But if he rocked up to New Nashville to deliver the news that they’d taken the Minotaur, the letter wouldn’t even have been read.

Gone would be their opportunity to set up the ambush in the guise of a ‘hostage trade’, and gone would Jimmy’s best chance of freedom in the first place, since the Governor probably chained him up somewhere.

Denny would’ve walked out with his entire army, and then there would be fights with the town liable to get involved, and countless people would die.

Getting the attention like that wasn’t their goal. If they could win a straight-up confrontation in Denny’s home base with whatever tricks they’ve been setting up, he would’ve opted to do just that.

Cut evolving had changed things. Now, they had a trick up their sleeves.

“Try not to lose it, and be careful and quick,” Colt warned the blond-haired cop, Finn. The guy had a [Rogue] class and a few handy tricks to keep him concealed in an operation like this. Maybe from his previous undercover work—or so he’d confided in Nate, and his friend had passed that along.

“I understand how important this is. You can trust me to take care of it,” Finn said, giving a firm handshake as he accepted the cloak.

“Your life is more important. If we take care of Denny, the city will need help. Capable people, I’ve been thinking that your previous lives as cops might go a long way to giving some sense of stability once we take it away,” Colt scratched at his chin, and Finn gave him an odd look.

Like Harry, the cops probably thought he was out to take the rule afterward and threw their lot in with him rather than with Denny.

Oh well. Let them be surprised by the truth.

With that, Finn left to go on his nighttime mission of delivering their letter. Thus, if it all went to plan, they would have their stand with Denny tomorrow.

It was a risky maneuver to send him. The cops insisted they had an ally in the wall who they could hand the letter to, a guard on the outside they’d coordinated with for the dead drop. It was the sort of sneaky plot that would have left a pit in Colt’s stomach before. Now, though, it just made him wish he was the one actually doing it.

That, and a healthy mistrust of new allies, made him go with what he’d thought best.

So, when the cop left, he began to follow, trailing him.

Not planned, but with a risky operation, a little more insurance was necessary. He trailed the cop through the underbrush, going from tree to tree as a whisper, phasing in and out of reality as he moved, a veritable demon of speed and precision as he moved through the dark forest. When a building appeared, he opted for that route, having grown used to this kind of night-time reconnaissance in his last week of searching for the Minotaur.

Finn moved slowly. He was being cautious. Alone and in a city, so keeping pace with him while abusing the Movement Edict was a simple process. What wasn’t so simple was when Finn would employ his rogue skills and slip out of view. Every time he did that, he threw Colt into a state of disarray as he was forced to jump around and track the man again.

They speared through the city—stopping briefly as a bush-man came out of the works, catching Finn by surprise. The cop let out a yell as a literal moving monster appeared and ambushed him; Colt almost pulled the trigger and blew his own undercover work until Finn overcame his surprise and chopped it down with a hatch he’d hidden in his cloak.

It was swift work—in another world, it would’ve been like a gardener trimming bushes; here though, there was some blood, some cursing, and a lot of hatchet swings to ‘trim’ the bush until it stopped moving.

Colt observed from above, too far to see the exact level of the monster, but once Finn had it in hand, he restrained himself from jumping down and getting involved. It would be tragic to watch an ally die, but after the initial confrontation, Finn got it back in hand

This delayed the trip again, but it did provide some valuable insight. He’d known Finn didn’t have an Edict—and the man was an Uncommon Class, Rogue. Which was funny, in its own way given Julia kept calling him a rogue.

He fought well after overcoming his initial surprise… But even being a mid-level forty, he wouldn’t have done all that well inside of a D- ranked dungeon; that much was clear. And, presumably, though Colt had yet to see it, there were dungeons filled with stronger enemies above that. Some of the groups had scouts, but over the last week of trying to form alliances, he hadn’t much time to question them.

The point was, seeing someone fight like that—tooth and nail—with a rank-and-file monster that Colt would have eviscerated in a couple of slashes was a stark reminder of this world.

Not all levels were equal. Not all powers and abilities put someone on the same stage as another.

To truly grow powerful in this world, a person needed to be tested again and again, Cut by the pain of growth, and then healed stronger—that much was certain.

Finn shivered as he pulled himself away from the dead branches; the cut-off leaves and branches were like an early-come autumn. Finn looked both ways and then began to move again, unaware that he had a ghost tailing him, and now, after his close encounter with the bush monster, he was sure to be terribly certain that he was alone.

All Colt had to do now, was monitor. A ghost in the night if this operation went well, if Finn’s plan was as good as he claimed.

###

Finn jogged through the night. It’d be cold, save for his borrowed cloak and the light run. Now he stung from about a dozen wounds, little nicks from the branches of that damned monster were like cutting through the thick brush while hiking.

Or… Well, Finn’s less than legal hobby.

He smiled as he maneuvered close to a destroyed building, wrecked by trees and bursting with nature. The place was a veritable wonderland; he could go anywhere and do anything—ducking down under a broken bridge… It had the same thrill, alright. And it was part of the reason why he didn’t want to stay inside the city in the first place.

Exploring the ruins was too much fun. Now that he didn’t have to do his job, he might as well do what he loved to do. The whole world was screwed anyway.

With that in mind, Finn tried to enjoy the rest of the trip, well aware of the danger at the end. There was always danger there, and the closer he got to the city, the more he found himself going on longer detours—intentionally cutting through the wrong street, taking a path through a building that wasn’t necessary, just because he was curious about what was inside.

Finn figured he had about a fifty-fifty shot of getting out of this unharmed… And the thrill, even as he peered into the lives of someone else, long forgotten, explored a corner of this new world that someone else might never see again—the thrill got his heart racing.

Call it what it was, but the risk made everything worth it. Helping people was that extra little bonus that made him feel like it was a worthwhile risk, the type that was worth pursuing.

Besides, this town had killed Jon. That man had killed Jon.

After about an hour of wasting his time, Finn felt that he had gone around long enough. Now the dead of night, his man should be outside.

Their guy on the inside, his buddy and long-time exploration partner when they went into parts of the city and nature they probably shouldn’t have been in, and the guy who folded under the pressure of New Nashville took their group out of fear. At first, it’d made Finn angry, but he began to understand the why. Thrill was fun when you could go back to a safe home at the end of the day, but when there were no safe homes anymore, and you had to live on the edge constantly, was it as worthwhile?

Finn stalked closer to the city, no longer playing around. Activating just about every Skill in his arsenal—his steps became silent, his body became hard to pick out from a background, and as he roamed around the city, eyes scanning the guards on shift, he looked for his guy. Again and again, careful as he could be.

All the while, his heartbeat was a thrill as he waited. Thrill and fear went hand-in-hand, invaluable as one couldn’t be without the other, and thrill made life worth living in the first place.

Then he spotted his guard—a man with red hair—though it was fading now. His face was indistinguishable, with a scar on his chin from a particularly nasty fall on one of their hiking trips.

He still remembered that day, dragging him about a mile until they left the forest.

Finn waited.

Guards came and went, and his buddy still sat there, bored; playing guard wasn’t fun. Finn would know, he hated security detail as a cop. All that sitting, staring out into the night, was boring on the mind. An hour whittled by, and the entire time, he felt his heart beating quicker and quicker, waiting. 

Tonight, his buddy was on shift with another guard, watching the stadium’s eastern side, which was far from the entrance. Just the two of them this late at night, passing the time like two people on a stakeout. 

This meant that if it were just the two of them there would be the chance to talk to his buddy without too much of a risk. Every now and again came a patrol around the stadium to check in with the guards. Without radios, everything was more of a pain than it should be.

Then, the time came—his partner left, probably for a piss. Maybe a change in rotation, leaving his friend as the only guard on shift at this godforsaken part of the stadium.

Finn jumped out from his building, scaled a quick little roadblock, and threw himself into the line of sight—making sure the hood of his cloak was down.

His friend looked shocked.

Finn kept running toward him.

And then the change of guards reappeared, and his heart sank. The timing was wrong. A patrol. Those had been infrequent tonight. “Shit.”

All of the attention was on him. He pulled his hood back up, not sure if this thing would keep his identity hidden if it was down, but it was too late. The guards were riling up, their weapons pulled. His friend jumped down and started to scream to calm them.

The plan always had been a risk; that was the fun of it. It was why Finn had agreed to go out of everyone. And now, as he looked a couple of seconds from the full wrath of the guards coming down, he only had one recourse. Finn approached slowly, hands in the air, relying on his friend to try to calm the rest of the people—he was just here to talk, after all.

When he finally closed the distance, his friend was there.

“You’ve come to join the city?” He asked, a hint of desperation as five anxious guards lingered behind, overhearing. He wanted that to be the answer, and wanted to defuse this bomb that Finn had set in his lap.

Finn cleared his throat and gave him an apologetic smile, “I’d love to discuss the possibility. I wandered in.”

“Can you uh…” he gestured to the cloak and gave a nervous glance behind him. “Why uh, where did you find that, Finn? We’re looking for someone in that cloak.” he whispered the name and leaned in, and Finn took the chance, shoving a piece of paper into his hand, using a flare of his ‘pick-pocket’ skill to do so, hiding the move with their bodies. His buddy looked down at the paper, eyes wide.

Finn mouthed the words, ‘Read it,’ and then, knowing this wasn’t about to end well, turned and began to run as fast as he could. There were shouts from the guards behind him, but he threw everything he could into his legs, tossing himself forward, headed to the dark city yards away.

It was a tried and true method to get out of trouble. Run; he’d seen it work as a cop. A little-known fact was that around half the time, people got away by running at the right time.

Running solved a lot of issues.

He got about thirty feet before a flash of light flared through his leg—he looked down, tripping as the leg failed, an arrow of light through it.

A man stood on top of the stadium—a man with a bow made of light. He’d shot Finn from up there.

“Ah. So I failed.” Finn said, his voice faint as his leg started to bleed.

Captured.

The guards were closing in now that he was wounded—he saw a flare of light above, on that distant rooftop, another arrow prepared to rain down and end him.

It was over.

His heartbeat, the thrill still running through him, the ecstasy of the risk, was now shrouded by an air of fear, the inevitability of people approaching a cold shock of reality that came every now and again. Choices came with consequences, and he’d finally met his.

Finn started reaching for his hatchet, determined to go down fighting and trusting his friend whose life he’d saved to deliver the rest of the message to Denny. They needed to allow the governor to address this issue ‘quietly’ to save as many lives as possible. The whole plan hinged on that alone. So, if it had to be this way, it had to be this way.

Then, a ghost appeared. Rocketing into the space before him, a knife wreathed with a bright golden law.

Colt.