46-Scream

James spent the next hour celebrating with the Rodriguezes and reconnecting with one of his original party.

“Good move solving the food shortage,” Alan said. “You’ve won everyone here over, probably permanently. I hope you don’t intend to go on many more solo missions, though. You have a fair number of people here who would happily fight and die beside you.”

James read the words, ‘including me,’ between the lines of that last sentence.

“I get it, Alan. Thank you. Really. I don’t want to do this to you again. Next time I go somewhere dangerous, you’ll be right there beside me.” Then he changed the subject. “It’s crazy that there was a food shortage. Hasn’t anyone been hunting since I left?”

“People have tried,” Alan shrugged. “Chava sent hunting parties out. He himself did not go on any of these expeditions, I noticed. The victims of his plan came back with nothing but spider bites to show for it. Which Sierra and I healed, naturally.” He sounded as if he thought he’d shown saintly patience. James was noticing an edge to Alan these last few days that the old man had never shown before, and James was still deciding if he liked it.

“Of course. He would send them out and get people bitten before I exterminated the whole colony.”

“It’s still astounding that you did that.” Alan at least sounded suitably impressed. His reaction was more gratifying than Sierra’s. She’d seemed almost annoyed that he survived.

“Yep.” James smiled grimly. “I got a special Title for driving a species to extinction too.”

“Jesus. The shit this System rewards!” Alan went paler than usual.

I won’t mention to him that I met a god, James thought. Probably best to leave out the new immortality quest I unlocked, too. One shocking revelation at a time.

“Yes. It is quite brutal. Have you noticed anything else about the politics here?” James said. “And how have they been handling the low food supply?”

“They’re being less active,” Alan said. “They burn less energy that way. The men go out hunting. When they come back injured and empty-handed, they get healed. Chava has nixed any talk about leaving this spot since you left, so there’s no real solution. And no one within the family seems particularly upset about it.”

“And Camila? What’s she saying about it?” James asked.

“Not much. Chava mostly keeps her in her tent, he says so she can recover faster.”

“But you don’t quite believe it?”

“I think what you, Sierra, and I did saved that woman’s life. If she’s still unwell, this is an awfully slow recovery compared to most of what we’ve seen since the System appeared.”

“Sounds like Chava wants to keep things in stasis.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Alan agreed.

“Thank you, Alan. Very helpful.”

So, everything Sierra told me was true. He looked up at the sky, gauging the time. The Sun was getting a bit low  Almost time to uproot the family tree! But he had another hour or two to socialize before then. He left Alan and went to look for Cliff.

James was still getting used to how it felt to move among people in his new body. As he walked past grateful Rodriguezes, nodding and smiling at their kind words, he towered over all of them. He felt graceful and strong. His new body was clearly better fitted to his current capabilities than his old body could ever have been.

Which was good, since he suspected that if he were clumsy in this new body, he might accidentally kill people by bumping into them too hard.

He wondered if his face was any different. Or, more accurately, he assumed that his face was different, and he hoped the changes were improvements. He hadn’t had the chance to look in a mirror yet.

As he walked past Chava’s tent, there was a rustling within. Chava himself quickly emerged from the tent flaps, carefully making sure they were closed behind him. He looked nervous at the sight of James, but the older man quickly tried to hide it.

“James,” he said quietly, “you survived. I’m so glad to see you came back alright!”

“Hey, Chava! People keep seeming surprised about that!” James said affably, smiling broadly and throwing up his hands. “Almost as surprised as they are about me having wiped out all the spiders. It’s like they didn’t know how powerful I am. Well, I guess your family and I were strangers before. Everyone knows my name now, that’s for sure! I’m glad to see you guys were able to hold down the fort here! I hear the hunting is quite dangerous in this neck of the woods.”

“Oh, yes,” Chava said mutely. He looked queasy. “Dangerous.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t go yourself. The family needs to keep you and Camila very safe.”

“Uh, yeah, right,” Chava said. “That’s what I’ve been doing. Keeping Camila safe, ah, very important. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something, er, alone. Wouldn’t want to distract you from anything you’re doing here, of course.”

James nodded politely, trying to keep his expression blank. Inside, he was gleeful. Permission to hasten my revenge, granted!

“I’m happy to walk off with you, somewhere private,” James said. He gestured at the trees in the distance. “Do you need to give anyone any instructions or anything?” Any last words? He tried not to smile like a demon.

“Uh, no, everything is running itself for the moment, we can go right now.”

What, worried I’ll change my mind? James almost laughed, but he turned it into coughing.

“Ah hem, ah hem. Alright, how about we go that way?” James gestured at a dark patch of woods in the distance behind Chava’s tent, where it would be difficult for anyone to see them.

“That seems fine,” Chava said. A note of suspicion in his voice.

“I know we still have some unfinished business to take care of,” James said confidentially. “About the camp’s next steps.” He gave his most charming fake smile.

“Oh, yes, of course, exactly!”

Good, he sounds reassured. Chava took the lead, walking ahead of James. I hope you enjoyed being a free man, Chava!

James cracked his knuckles and followed, smile evaporating as soon as he was out of view of the other family members.

They came to a dark place under the trees where the shade was thick enough that it would be difficult for people in the camp to see them.

James looked back, and he gauged that no one could see what was about to happen to Chava.

The old man looked James in the eye, and James suspected that he might be about to use the Skill he’d placed James under before. So he hauled off and slapped him in the face.

Chava went down like a sack of bricks, instantly unconscious from the open-handed slap. Yep. The Strength differential is as big as I thought.

And James dragged him further into the woods, where they would definitely not be seen.

—

Drip. Drip, drop, drip.

Chava awakened to the sensation of water dripping on his head. He was sitting somewhere. Apparently somewhere with falling water? He felt woozy. Like he wanted to go back to sleep.

Then he was hit with a wave of pain. Shattering pain that largely washed out coherent thought. He hadn’t felt pain that bad in—well, ever, probably. The closest he could grasp to it was a concussion he got playing baseball as a kid.

“Ohhh, my head,” he moaned. “Wuz happened?”

He opened his eyes but realized that he was blindfolded. He tried to raise a hand to remove the blindfold, only to feel something binding his arms to his sides.

“Oh, shit. W-where am I?” he whimpered.

Only silence answered him.

He sucked in breath in preparation to scream, but that was when he felt a stabbing pain in his guts.

“Aaahhhh!” he squealed.

“How does your ability work?” a voice asked calmly. It took a moment for Chava to place it as James. “I thought I’d ask you that first.”

“Wha-what are you doing? I swear, if you don’t let me go, I’ll—aaargh!!!” The pain in his intestines had just ratcheted up several notches.

“What was that, my friend?” James asked. “I couldn’t quite hear you over the sound of my knife in your guts!” He let out a low, sadistic chuckle. “Heh heh heh. Feel free to scream. In fact, go ahead and make all the noise you want. Where I’ve brought you, no one can hear you scream.”

“Just kill me,” Chava whimpered.

“Oh, no, you don’t get off that easy,” James said. “Not yet at least. We’ll see where the evening takes us.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, you sick bastard?!” Chava felt the knife pull out of his body, and he sucked in air as he felt hot blood pour out.

“Why shouldn’t I?” James whispered. Chava felt his hot breath close against his ear and shuddered involuntarily. “After what you’ve done.”

“Don’t kn-know what y-you’re t-t-talking about,” Chava managed. He felt like his body was shutting down, energy pouring out of him.

“You know, if you had invested some of your Stat points in Strength or Fortitude or Agility instead of putting them all in Will, you might have been able to resist a bit more effectively.”

“How did you know what I did with my points?” Chava asked wildly, suddenly energetic, adrenaline pumping through his veins, keeping him conscious at least for the moment.

“Well, it was obvious,” James said.

Chava felt the blindfold lifted off his eyes, and he blinked in disbelief, not daring to hope. But there James stood, in the dying light, not meeting Chava’s eyes, holding the blindfold in his hands. They were still in the forest, clearly, but not in the clearing. There were trees all around, and Chava didn’t recognize any landmarks besides his apparent kidnapper. The young man turned and faced away.

“Your mental manipulation power works with eye contact, does it not?” James asked. “And it requires you to out-power your opponent in Will?”

Chava nodded, before he reminded himself that James had his back turned. He cleared his throat.

“Ah hem. Yes, that’s how it works, you’ve got it right.”

“Very good,” James said. “Now you’ve answered those questions honestly, time to start the real interrogation. There’s no point in refusing to answer, or lying. All the truth is coming out tonight.”

“I can just wait until I bleed out,” Chava said.

“Let’s forget about how slow and painful it is to die from a gut wound like that for a moment, because you have no way of knowing that,” James said. “Old man, did I smack the sense out of you when I knocked you unconscious? Don’t you remember how you and I introduced ourselves? The very first thing I did, when I arrived at your camp? Before you sent me out to die alone?!” Those last words were almost shouted. It was the first moment that James had broken his even tone.

“Before I—you—yes. Yes. I, I remember.”

“Good. Then you remember what matters right now.” James smiled so widely that Chava could see it even in the uneven dusky light, even with James’s back turned, in the movement of his cheeks. “You remember that I can heal.” A green glow surrounded him for a moment and abruptly died off.

“What do you want?! Just tell me what you want! I’ll give it to you.”

“Answer my questions, like I said,” James said. “Then I’ll decide what to do with you.”

“Whatever you say,” Chava said, voice betraying the trembling that had slowly overtaken him.

“Have you been controlling your family as well as me?” James asked.

“W-well, not control,” Chava said. “Influence.”

“Hmph. Fine. Good enough. What happens if you die?”

Chava saw a chance to lie, but he decided he’d be better off not taking it. “Nothing. Nothing happens. The control just fades slowly over time.”

“Good, good. That was what I thought. Why did you decide to send me off to die in the woods?”

Chava sucked in air sharply. “I just wanted to be rid of you. You were a threat to my headship. My leadership of the family. It’s necessary for me to maintain that to keep my Job.”

“Gods, so you were willing to risk your family’s safety by throwing away their strongest protector, just so you could keep some of your power?! Pathetic! You’re even worse than I thought.” He sounded almost impressed. “What was the Job, anyway?”

“Clan Leader.”

“Uninspired name. Alright. I also heard you sent some of your family members out hunting, but I know you never joined them. Why was that?”

“Like you said, my Stat points are all in Will, I’d be worse than useless!”

“Why all in Will, though?” James asked. “I don’t really need to know, but I just don’t understand. Will really is an almost useless Stat. It increases Mana, but so does Intelligence, and Intelligence is useful for more than just magic, obviously.”

“You know why,” Chava said lifelessly. The adrenaline was draining out of him, and he had given up. Do what you want with me, he thought. Kill me or let me go. I don’t care anymore.

“No, I really don’t,” James said. “Tell me.”

“It was so I could keep control of them. The situation. Everything. Anyone I came in contact with. I could bamboozle them, like I did you.”

“Yeah, I thought as much,” James said. “You wanted to control them more than you were ever worried about protecting them. That’s just sick. A few last questions before I give you a chance to get out of this. What were you planning on doing, anyway? What was your end goal? Why were you keeping the camp in place? Were you ever going to go anywhere?”

“This is a fucking forest of death, you crazy motherfucker! Why would we ever move after we found a safe place?! Me keeping us in this camp was me keeping my family safe!”

“That’s either bullshit or bad reasoning, and I don’t much care which anymore.”

James turned back around to Chava without making eye contact.

“Well, I think we both know that the only way you’re getting out of here with your nonexistent physical Stats is if I let you go,” James said. “I’ll give you a chance. Do you want to try your Skill out on me again? If you succeed, you could make me let you go. If you fail, assume the consequences are unspeakable. What do you think?”

—

James made direct eye contact with Chava, then, and the old man grinned.

Instantly, James knew what he’d decided. The two were locked in a staring contest for almost ten seconds before they were pulled into the place of the mind where their Wills had struggled against each other before. A barren wasteland where two armies crashed against each other representing the respective sides. In one army, every soldier had Chava’s face. In the other, each one was a James clone.

Unlike the first battle, which had felt like it went on for hours in this place, this clash was quick.

Chava looked away, his expression pained.

Looks like I gave him a little bit of a migraine, James thought.

“I knew that wouldn’t work,” he said. “Just thought it would be interesting to let you believe you had a bit of a fighting chance. A real shot at getting out of what comes next.”

And ensure that you feel your utter defeat, on your own chosen field, James thought.

“How did you know?” Chava asked.

“What, you don’t remember how hard it was for you the first time? I remember. You barely won! Before we started this time, I’d used Identify to confirm you haven’t increased your level one bit since our previous encounter. But while you’ve been sitting on your ass at camp, sending your own blood out to die, I’ve been improving! Multiple levels! Plenty of points in Will even though I didn’t know I’d need them. That’s what this place is really about. That is why you lose.”

“Just kill me already, and quit your gloating, you son of a bitch!” Chava barked. “Spare me the sound of your fucking voice!”

“My pleasure,” James said.

He used Predator’s Armaments, and his fingernails became razor sharp. In one smooth, clean motion, he cut Chava’s throat. Thus began the night’s real mission.

Pillage!

James first obtained a Skill called Familial Influence. It did just what the name suggested.

Disgusting, he thought. Who would want to manipulate their own family that way?

Laying on Hands restored Chava to full health. James could have just brought him back from the brink of death, but he wanted to make sure, for purposes of using Pillage again, that Chava would be considered to have experienced a separate instance of dying each time.

James waited a few minutes for Chava’s breathing to steady.

Then he stabbed him in the heart. Pillage! Come on, luck be a lady tonight!

But no. James acquired the Skill Familial Telepathy, which was interesting, but not what he’d been looking for.

No big deal. Would be nice to actually have some music, though. He pulled the knife out and used Laying on Hands to mend Chava’s broken heart.

He had enough Mana to continue this through the night if necessary.