Otherlife Dreams: The Selfless Hero Trilogy (23 page)

Small tables with high backed chairs inter spaced the area. Many of the tables held half finished drinks and food while others were conspicuously empty.

Exiting the stairs he picked his approach to run along the sidewall. It was his best shot at getting to the other side of the room without disturbing the space he was moving through. Stealth was key as long as they were undetected. This being a guard only city space, there was no way of knowing if changing the decor would be classified as detection or considered an action that would deactivate the ability.

Tables passed by him as he inched along the outside. Out of fear based in paranoia, he checked the chairs he crossed by. Finding one such chair occupied Runner held his breath in panic.

The man’s head was down on the table, his arms spread out amongst a few empty bottles of what he assumed to be alcohol. The high backed chair had hidden him perfectly on Runner’s initial inspection.

This must be the drinking buddy of the man snoring himself to death downstairs.

Straining to keep his movements fluid and light, he put some distance between himself and the drunk guard. Runner finally exhaled in relief, his eyes moving from chair to chair to make sure there were no other surprises. Finally he reached the other end of the room, the hair on his neck crawling, knowing there was a sleeping guard behind him.

Now before Runner stood a door leading to the wall itself. Regrettably this would not be their exit from the tower. On the other side of this exit was two guards who had no patrol, but guarded the intersection of the tower and the wall itself.

Opening the door on its own would definitely be a tip off to the guards. They’d most likely investigate since that was part of the AI. The plan had been to reach this point and look into getting out of the tower from the room above. It had windows that would allow an exit to the exterior of the tower.

Haphazard would be a polite way to describe such a plan, but it was genuinely all they had to work with. What they really needed at this point was a way to avoid them completely without alerting them. It would be bad enough trying to get out with an entire guild of cut throats chasing them, let alone pissing off the town guard.

Could always open the door and ask them if they’d like to purchase some cookies. Thin mints could definitely qualify as a worthwhile bribe…maybe a subscription to a holozine or to discuss switching to the newest long range carrier wave with special introductory rates.

Taking a moment to empty his mind of unproductive thoughts Runner checked the top of the fourth floor stairwell. Movement was audible from above but no one was visible.

Working his way through a few thoughts Runner ascended to the next floor and scanned the layout.

Empty of all interior decoration and adornment, save a few training dummies, the room was dominated by large circles painted onto the stones themselves. Throwing a guess out he assumed it was for practice duels. To that end, they probably had anti lethality wards placed on them to protect combatants.

One lonely guard was busy going through offensive motions with his blade. Firmly connecting to a dummy after each attack he would reset himself and attack again. Struck by a thought on how they could cheese the guard, Runner ducked back down.

Descending the stairs he found Hannah systematically casing each table to see if there was anything worth taking. Motioning her over he took up position behind the door, his back to the corner. Pulling her in close to himself he leaned forward and pitched his voice as low as possible.

“Guard upstairs, let’s take turns using Distract to draw him to the door, I’ll put a Distract under the door itself, and hopefully he’ll open the door to look. Once outside, we use Distract on the top part of the wall to the right, jump the left corner, make for the middle point between towers.”

Plan explained, he let her go to watch her reaction. Internalizing it Hannah nodded her head once and then pointed to him and then tilted her head to the stairs.

Me first, I suppose. With just a smidgen of luck, we’ll get this door open shortly.

Taking the stairs Runner confirmed the guards position. Angling his Distract to hit the wall between the guard and the stairwell railing Runner activated the ability. Head whipping around at the sound, the guard was immediately on alert. Closing in on the noise his gaze remained locked on the area. Walking backwards down the steps Runner kept his eyes fixed on the city defender. Extending his left hand he held up five fingers and began counting them down in an effort to signal when Hannah should act.

As the guardsman stood on the spot the ability had activated on, Runner reached the last finger. Hannah’s Distract went off almost directly behind his head as he turned and stepped off the landing smoothly. Stooping low, he tucked his head down and shuffled along. Taking up a corner, he squirmed himself into the spot. It’d be out of the guard’s field of vision, yet give Runner the best chance to target the door.

Concentrating on the door itself he tried to wedge his Distract casting indicator underneath it. Hopefully it would go off just beyond the door’s coordinates so that the guard, while obeying the rules of the game itself, would be forced to open the door. Finding himself unable to push it any further under without it actually targeting the door, he waited. He’d need to time this perfect. Hannah needed time for her Distract ability to refresh, otherwise it would be pointless to get the guard to open the door. He’d open the door, stand there, then close the door and return to his original position.

Engrossed in his thoughts Runner’s heart leapt out of his chest as the intended target started to turn back. Desperately activating Distract Runner could only hope he hadn’t missed his window. Looking over his shoulder the guard stared at the door for a second. Finally he turned around and approached the door.

Runner let out an inaudible sigh as the man’s hand came up and grasped the door handle. As the door swung outward on squealing hinges Hannah pressed in close, nearly standing on the mans heels, and used her Distract. While he couldn’t see what was going on, he was sure the two guards on the wall, and the one here in the room, were now fixated on the top of a merlon.

Sliding forward, keeping his steps as light as possible, Runner crept up on Hannah, his hands coming forward to rest on her shoulders. Hannah leading the way they matched the guard step for step, closer to him than his coin purse. Which Hannah took.

Gloom and darkness covered all that he could see, the interior of the tower being brightly light had night blinded him. Opening his eyes wide he tried to assess the wall and everyone on it. They really had only seen it from rooftop across the way up to this point and guessed at some of it. He couldn’t see the details but all three guards were focused on that one spot on the wall, and each was closing in on it. There was no going back from here as Runner’s Distract wasn’t ready yet. They were left with proceeding forward.

Breathing quietly Runner leaned in close and peered over Hannah’s shoulder to get an eye of the layout. One of the guards was now at the location and would be turning back after perhaps three more seconds. They had no time to lose but the distance appeared like a chasm between them and the wall junction. Jumping diagonally was going to be a bit harder than he’d anticipated. It looked too far to jump to the planned corner yet fate would give them no other choice. Patting Hannah on the back he took a few steps back to give her room.

Hannah more than likely came to the exact conclusion he did, but probably faster. Taking two steps back Hannah dashed forward and leapt from the small walkway. Her arms and legs out stretched to the wall’s ledge, willing them closer to her. Not able to give her time to see if she’d make the jump Runner followed right behind her, their window was just too short. A flash of yellow on the right side of his vision indicated he had been noticed.

Right in front of him Hannah hit the lip of the wall and tumbled once, her back slamming into the stones. The hollow clunk of her head hitting the masonry was audible and sickening. Sliding across the blocks she fetched up against the wall itself and lay still, unmoving.

Runner crashed into the wall itself, his armpits and chest slapping into the blocks as his palms hit the walkway. His fingers dug into the cracks of the stonework while the toes of his boots scrabbled at the stones to find purchase. Panicked he looked to the right, all three guards were staring at where Runner
had
been but a second ago. Apparently the near stealth reveal took precedence over an audio cue. For the moment Runner felt like he could hold himself in place, having wedged the toes of his boots into a minuscule crevice. Confirming he was actively in stealth Runner held still and tried to be one with the ledge.

Looking up he saw Hannah still remained in stealth, though she had a status debuff he didn’t know the icon for. She was doing a fair interpretation of the wall she was against though and blended in well. Unable to see her face he could only assume she was okay for the time being.

Not trusting himself to watch the guards without reacting Runner locked his eyes to Hannah and waited. They were in the clear if the guards resumed their normal patterns. Assuming there were no deviations that is. Or that they were caught.

As the seconds ticked by he took a moment to confirm the location of the rest of the group. They were still where he last saw them and for all intents and purposes it appeared like they were doing fine. Appreciating how badly things could have gone if they’d been unable to get out, on top of everything else, he promised to actually go to a church and place a donation for the gods of this world.

Be grateful for all the things that go without a hitch.
Shaking himself out of his melancholic and unproductive mood Runner found Hannah crouched in front of him and gazing at him. Whatever her debuff was, it was gone now, and she was watching him like a bug under a cup.

“Welcome back from your wool gathering. You have no idea how creepy a bastard you are when you do that. Stare at people, through them practically. Come on, let’s get you off that ledge, they seem to have…you know what, I don’t even know. It’s strange. They’re just standing there,” Hannah explained, offering him her hand.

Clasping her hand with his own he used her strength to pull himself up to the wall and checked the guards.

“They’re NPCs Hannah. What you’re seeing there,” Runner said, nodding his head in the direction of the guards. “That is normal combat NPC behavior when confronted with a player. Me. A man puppet. They’re hard coded to respond in certain ways based on the actions I take. In this case, the actions you took as well. At the start, you were no different, except you were flagged as a quest NPC. Your settings were different from theirs and allowed you more free will, but you had the same underlying rules in place. Enough, let’s go. A truly idiotic plan awaits.” Runner gave himself a quick once over, confirming all things were in their place.

Traveling along the wall they reached the midpoint without any further complications. Runner stuck his head out over the edge of the crenelation and peered down to the ground below. Using the maximum range of his Distract ability against the wall, he gauged the distance to the ground at about thirty feet. Certainly a goodly distance but it seemed a reasonable enough drop that could be survived.

“I mark it at perhaps thirty feet down. I wager it’s survivable but that you’d end up with a few broken bits. Maybe a bleeding status effect on top of it all for flair. When we hit the ground, I’ll get us up and moving as fast as possible,” Runner said. Patting the cold stones he glanced to the moon in the distance and checked the time. They had a little bit before a patrol made it’s way over, but it’d be best to get it over with.

“Right. Last comments then. This’ll sound absolutely stupid, and probably insane at the same time, but try to run against the wall on the way down. In fact, jump as you’re falling. Just spam the commands in your head, run, jump, run, jump, run jump. With any luck you’ll catch something where it will register the movement and reset the Z axis counter,” Runner advised. Looking to Hannah he motioned to the gap between the merlons. “Ladies first?”

Hannah was scowling at him intensely. Taking a deep breath she started to open her mouth. Speaking hurriedly Runner interrupted her before she could even begin.

“Please, just trust me. It’s called wall-running and it’s a common enough video game glitch for breaking geometry. It’s better than just jumping and hoping for the best isn’t it? Now go, before we waste more time arguing.”

Glaring murder at him and a promise of pain, Hannah collected herself long enough to pray. It caught him off guard in truth, he never figured Hannah for the religious type. It was spoken softly and nothing more than a simple hand gesture. It only lasted a moment and Runner didn’t catch any of the words, let alone who she was praying to, but she then stepped out beyond the merlons and fell. Moving himself to the edge Runner looked down to watch.

Strangely enough Hannah looked to be running in air as she fell. Twice she bumped into the wall, her momentum arrested before she began to fall again. Smirking he pulled himself back from the edge, realizing she was fine. She’d done it perfectly and Runner doubted she’d even take damage from it.

Through sheer chance Runner saw a silhouette in the roadway below staring up at him. Taking two steps to the side to ascertain if the man was watching him, Runner confirmed the individual’s head didn’t turn, yet they were still looking up to where he had just been. To where Hannah had just been actually. Frowning Runner went to select the person he assumed to be a player but before he could they turned and melded into the pedestrian traffic.