54-Run

Once the appropriate amount of earth mana had settled around James’s body, he directed it downward, shaping the earth according to the image he had in his mind.

The lattice-like ceiling of the underground prison slowly, subtly lifted off the ground until there was enough space for a crouching man of James’s height to step under it. And the wall of the pit closest to James formed itself into stair steps, descending into the darkness. Earth Affinity, he had noticed, came with extremely fine control of earth Mana.

After casting one last look around to make sure he wasn’t seen, James hunched down, ducked under the raised ceiling, and stepped down into the shadows.

“It’s not mooorning yet,” a voice yawned.

James froze on the stairs. Then he realized stopping was pointless. These people had been in complete darkness until he opened the ceiling up; there was no way they’d fail to spot him while he was still on the staircase, especially when that was where the moonlight shone most brightly.

He descended more quickly.

“Shhhh!” he whispered. His Evolution had substantially improved his night vision, so that as he moved into the pit, he could scope out the general shape of the pit and count how many shapes there were present before his eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness. The pit was even larger than he had anticipated from the size of the ceiling, and there were around two dozen people crammed into the tiny space, most of them in a seated posture using the earthen walls for their pillows. There wasn’t enough room for them to all lie down.

Most of them remained asleep, and the one who had noticed James was distinct because he groggily shook his head as James got closer. Maybe he thought he must be dreaming.

“Urk!”

James looked down and realized his foot was pressing into someone as he took his first step off of the stairs. It was incredibly tight down here, and as he breathed in, he realized there was also no separate space for the prisoners to relieve their biological needs. The pit was toilet as well as housing for these people, an atrocity worthy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

As if I didn’t already think the Moloch cultists were savage enough. James didn’t need any more reasons to dread the prospect of falling into their hands, nor to justify this prison break.

He pulled his foot back, and then leaned down to the person he’d stepped on and whispered urgently: “Sorry I hurt you! I’m here to set you guys free! I need you to wake up your neighbor and pass the message on. We have to sneak out quietly as a group. If anyone makes noise, we’re all screwed together!”

“Thank you, man! Thank you so much!” The woman’s voice came out in a raspy whisper.

She seemed to understand the urgency of the situation, so James moved onto the one he’d awakened first. The yawner was staring at him curiously, looking half-asleep.

“This is not a drill,” James said. “I’m here to save all of you. You need to get up and–”

“What’s the point?” The man interrupted. His voice was much less sleepy now. He sounded upset. “You’re just going to piss off that Prophet and get us sacrificed faster. It’s not like we can get away. We’re starved, thirsty, weak–”

“Would you rather die now or live to run?” James asked. “Because I can mercy kill you if you don’t believe you have a chance at getting away.”

The man shrank away from James at that, but said nothing.

“Wake up the next guy,” James hissed. “Don’t waste our precious window. We don’t have unlimited time!”

The naysayer began gently shaking the man next to him.

James went around the pit, roughly shaking and waking various prisoners, explaining the situation, and telling them to rouse more of their neighbors. The whole process took a few minutes at most, and he thought they were off to a good start. Virtually everyone understood the gravity of the situation almost instantly upon waking.

So far, no one was breaking the stillness of the night.

James leaned down to wake one more prisoner. He shook the man vigorously before spying motion out of the corner of his eye. James turned and saw the naysayer from earlier was shaking his head emphatically from side to side.

Do I have to come over there and knock you out? James questioned. I can’t afford the distractions right now. Then he saw the man was mouthing some words.

“Don’t wake him up,” the naysayer’s lips subvocalized. “He’s a plant!”

“Prophet!!! Prisoners escaping!” James looked down. The man he’d just been shaking was yelling at the top of his lungs.

James groaned to himself and slapped a hand over the man’s mouth. He continued trying to yell, but it was muffled by James’s palm.

“Poff!!! Tum kick! Pissoners!” James could sort of make the muffled words out still, and it was a problem. He used his knee to drive the air out of the sitting man’s lungs.

Then he turned to the naysayer and growled: “Lead your people out of here right now! Run for the forest, away from the fire!”

There was a stirring, as the prisoners began moving up the stairs to obey. James felt a sharp pain in his side, and he looked down to see the tattletale had drawn a knife and stuck James under the ribs.

Fortunately, he didn’t get anything important, James thought optimistically. He could tell he wasn’t critically injured. It hurt like hell getting stabbed, though.

He pressed his knee down harder into the man’s chest, and there was a rewarding hiss of air out of the cultist’s mouth. James pulled his palm away from the man’s mouth, put it to the knife stuck in his side, and pulled the knife out. With both hands, he plunged the blade into the cultist’s neck with his upper body’s full weight behind the thrust.

There was a quiet sound of cracking bone, a gurgle, and the feeling of blood trickling down over his palms and then onto his pants. Then the notification came.

[You killed Sid Rohan Lv. 8. 140 exp gained!]

Well, that’s one down. Hopefully the next cultists I kill don’t manage to ventilate me further before I can finish them.

James sensed someone approach him from the side, and he swiveled his head sharply, wary now. He felt a bit of blood trickling from his torso wound as he moved, but keeping his bleeding to a minimum was not as important right now as avoiding further surprise attacks. But it was the naysayer.

“Hey, man, you need help?” he asked.

“Absolutely!” James snapped. “I need you to get your people out of here! Try to find the Rodrigez camp! It’s about a mile or two away, in that direction–” He pointed off in the direction he’d come from. “Tell them when you get there that they need to take you guys and get out of this area! The Moloch cultists will be after you guys, even if they never figure out that another camp existed very close by to them, and they have eyes in the sky. It would be best for them to move at night to avoid being seen.”

“You’re not going to kill the cultists?” the other asked.

“Didn’t you just go on about how starved and weak you all are?” James gestured at the man and the other prisoners, who were still cautiously making their way out up the stairs and through the gap between ceiling and earth that James had created.

“Well, but you’re–”

“What about my sister?” Another man interrupted. “Have you seen my sister?”

James used Identify.

Moishe Rose, Lv. 9

Hopefully strong enough to be useful, James thought.

“I have seen her,” James said. “She’s in very bad shape. She needs a healer right away.”

“Did you get her out?!” Moishe asked. He seemed to be in great turmoil.

“She was too weak to be moved, and she wanted me to get to you.”

“Ugh!” Moishe covered his face with a hand. James thought he saw tears tracing a path through the dirt on his cheeks.

“I’ll do my best,” James said. “Just hurry up and get out of here with the others.” Everyone else had made it to ground level in the time James had been dealing with Moishe and the naysayer. He used Identify so he’d know who the naysayer had been for later.

Theodore Rowe, Lv. 6

“I’m a healer,” Rowe said. “Do you need me for anything?”

“Just stick with your group,” James said. “They’ll need some healing, and—”

“Jeff! We need some help up here!” It took James a moment to recognize that the voice calling down into the pit was calling him. False Impression was still active, causing anyone who used Identify on him to see him as Jeffrey Ross.

He scrambled up the stairs, and he saw the prisoners huddled together around the entrance. Why aren’t you idiots leaving?! he thought.

Then he saw why.

A half dozen of the Moloch camp’s finest guards stood in a semicircle, loosely surrounding the prisoners.

“What’s the meaning of this, Ross?!” one of the guards called as James looked around and took in the sight.

“Just thought Moloch didn’t seem like such a great boss after all!” he called back. To the people around him, the weakened, disheveled prisoners, he rasped: “I’ll make you an opening between these guys. Then you have to run for the tree line. Move that way—” He gestured in the direction he’d come from. “—and don’t stop until you meet another group of people. Join up with them. Safety in numbers.”

“What about you?” Moishe Rose’s voice sounded from behind him.

“Are you in a position to worry about what I’ll be doing right now?!” James hissed. “Lead these human sacrifices out of here, keep them alive, and I can rest easy.” He paused. “I’ll see what I can do for your sister, but I’m not optimistic.”

Then James focused on the guards around him. Four men, one woman. There had been another before, but that person seemed to have run away to alert yet more people. James had to make whatever moves he was going to make quickly.

He drew the Wolfbone Dagger from its sheath, and instantly, the two closest men stepped backward. This might be easier than he’d thought. Maybe they haven’t seen any real stand-up fights, just ambushes arranged by their Prophet.

He Identified those two.

Leonard Robie, Lv. 7

Antony Roku, Lv. 6

Then he heard one of the further away guards whispering to another: “We should stay back until the Prophet gets here. He can heal us.”

With that, James leaped into action. Time was really not on his side.

He closed with Roku first, using Quick Strike to jump within a foot of the other man. Before Roku could react to the sudden movement, James slashed his throat with such force that he could feel he’d almost decapitated the other.

Heal from that, he thought.

He turned to where the next closest man had stood, but before Roku had even crumpled to the ground, Robie had turned and run. James didn’t have to look to see the other so-called guards were giving him distance now too. None of them wanted what Roku had gotten.

James had made the promised opening.

The prisoners needed no further prompting. They ran past James and Roku’s corpse and into the tree line.

James only had a few seconds to enjoy the feeling of success before he was rushed. Two guards at once, but he thought they must be feeling brave.

Identify.

Mustafa Roshan, Lv. 10

Fatemeh Roshan, Lv. 9

Siblings, he guessed.

He dodged a sword swing from the man and slashed the woman’s arm with his dagger, opening a long, red line in her white cloak.

These white cloaks are terrible for fighting at night, James thought as he moved around another very telegraphed sword swing, getting inside Mustafa’s guard. They almost glow in the moonlight.

He leaned into Mustafa, so close that he could kiss the other man, and in the same moment, James lifted the bottom of his mask up, just enough to expose his mouth. And then: Venom Fang! James sank his teeth deep into the warrior’s neck.

Mustafa dropped his sword and collapsed to the ground, clutching at his throat, but even as one opponent fell, James felt the sting of a blade sinking into his lower back.

Perhaps this was a suicide mission.