Something was pounding at the inside of Ashinaro’s head.
He wondered if he had a parasite.
That would be interesting.
There was something around him, wrapping him in a tight hug.
“Go away, Akaris. We’re not friends anymore.”
She laughed and hugged him tighter.
“Not — friend!” a voice shouted in his head.
He knew that. She’d betrayed him. Not to mention lured him into the sewer.
He was launched out of his body and skittered painfully across the ground.
He stared bleary eyed at himself from a distance. Had Akaris killed him with her hug?
That would be mean of her.
His vision began darkening.
His relics were screaming at him.
No, that made no sense. Relics couldn’t talk.
Although, maybe they could. He thought he had heard one do it before.
“—get out of here!”
It was that same voice, pounding the inside of his skull.
Akaris shredded his body to pieces and he felt his blood drain away as it desperately tried to recover.
That wasn’t how his Renewal trait worked.
“Arnaphen!”
Arnaphen? In the city? That was—
Ashinaro’s mind snapped into focus for the briefest instant, a singular moment of clarity.
But that was all he needed.
He instantly shifted back to his humanform, keeping his breath held, which he’d already been doing unconsciously.
He was lying on the ground in the Festering Fen, two arnaphen assaulting the spot his flesh golem had been a moment before.
It had disappeared upon reverting to humanform, his relics deactivating.
But it also meant the effect of the gas was no longer affecting him.
He scrambled to his feet as Zanas shouted in his head for him to run.
He did. But in humanform, he wasn’t fast.
“Fast enough to outrun them,” Zanas said, blowing past him with a gelatinous mass of flesh in his skeletal arms as they broke free of the cloud of gas.
“Left, left!” he shouted as the skeleton began to verge to the right.
“I knew that! Just making sure you’re of sound mind.”
Ashinaro glanced back, the arnaphen in close pursuit.
They were slow, but he wasn’t so sure he was actually fast enough to outrun them in his humanform.
Then he remembered the storm sash he wore and whose boon would enhance his speed even in humanform, and kept going.
Slowly, the distance between them grew.
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For all he knew, they’d follow him all the way back to the city.
In his humanform, he wasn’t certain he could run for that long. The sash did nothing for his endurance.
Zanas reached the road and again turned in the wrong direction.
“Other way! That will take you to Vesalis!”
“Glad to see your faculties are about you.”
The arnaphen were still pursuing, though they slowed and recoiled when they hit the road. At least they were still affected by its power. But, they didn’t need to be on the road to follow him.
Lungs burning, Ashinaro pushed his humanform harder than he ever had. As a whelp, they’d made them train in their humanform for just situations like this.
Like with his breathwork, it was another thing he’d let lapse.
He dedicated himself to never letting it lapse again.
The guards gave Ashinaro and Zanas confused looks as the two ran past the gates into the city.
He thought they might attack the skeleton, but they simply watched them run by.
Then they saw what was pursuing them and confusion turned to panic.
“Arnaphen!” they called out, shouting over each other and scrambling inside the gates.
Ashinaro didn’t stop, running deeper into the city.
A moment later an alarm went up, ringing out through the housing district.
“Right right!” he shouted at Zanas, who was once again going the wrong way.
The skeleton corrected course, tentacles from the arnaphen corpse in his arms slapping wetly against the ground with every boney step.
Ashinaro glanced back and saw the guards rushing to close the gates as the two arnaphen who’d pursued them from the Festering Fen floated toward it.
As strong as the guards were, they couldn’t deal with arnaphen. Or rather they could, but it was too dangerous to risk.
“Ahh!” Zanas cried out as a giant machine of metal and spinning gears stomped past him, rushing toward the gate.
The Ripper. A mechanical suit of empowered gold armor which amplified the strength of anyone wearing it. And which was also sealed thoroughly enough to work underwater, which would prevent the delirium gas from reaching its inhabitant.
Whether it would protect from the arnaphen barbs, Ashinaro didn’t know.
It took immense strength to be able to pilot it, so it was either Basorik or Ersivik, the only two Hero guards.
A Hero should easily be able to take out the arnaphen with the aid of the Ripper, even if their barbs could puncture it.
Not that Ashinaro was hanging around to watch. He’d already been poisoned in his battleform with their gas, he wasn’t about to get poisoned in his humanform after all that effort to avoid it.
At first, he’d thought he and Zanas had been clear of the arnaphen when they’d made it outside the Festering Fen.
Only to see, a few hundred breaths later, the two floating blob monsters bobbing unsteadily beside the road after them.
They’d had to run and stop and run again, unable to shake the monsters and, with Ashinaro not being able to shift back to his battleform, unable to outpace them. They always caught up when he was resting.
Even going as fast as he was able and resting as little as possible, they’d only barely stayed ahead of the arnaphen.
And if Zanas got too far away from Ashinaro, he was yanked to a halt. Which they’d discovered not because Zanas stayed behind to protect Ashinaro, but because he’d gotten too far ahead of him.
Now, dashing through the city, Ashinaro felt like his legs would simply give out, his lungs unable to get enough air, but he didn’t slow down until they made it into the industrial district.
“Left!” he gasped, and Zanas skidded on the dirt road, then changed course.
“Stairs!” he called a few moments later as Zanas ran past the set on the back of the blacksmith’s leading to his rented room.
The skeleton took them three at a time, but Ashinaro was having trouble with one.
Zanas stood at the top of the landing, skeletal tail lazily swinging back and forth, watching him slowly make his way up.
In the distance, something sounded like it crashed through the gate, followed by a scream, then another massive noise.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Zanas panted, looking in the direction of the gates. Not that he’d be able to see them from there.
Ashinaro ascended the final step, his vision narrowed to a pinprick, then his legs had enough and gave out.
“You don’t even need to breathe,” he gasped, sprawled on his back. He wanted to throw up, but worried he’d pass out if he did that.
The skeleton stopped panting. “Huh, would you look at that. I think that’s the first thing you’ve been right about. You think the guards are okay?”
Ashinaro was too out of breath to answer. But from the sounds of it, the tentacles had pierced the Ripper. The barbs wouldn’t be long enough to inject the poison into its inhabitant, but it would allow the delirium gas to get inside.
That boded poorly for the safety of those in the housing district—luckily Ashinaro was too poor to afford living there—but boded well for his plan to take out High Priest Vershik.
If, that was, there were any intact sacs on the blob in Zanas’s arms.
He’d have to examine it—very carefully—to find out. It was only part of the corpse, since the shade’s collision with it had blown it into several pieces, but it was a large chunk, and there was a good chance there was at least one unruptured sac.
He gestured at the door. “Table. Put corpse.”
“You want me to bring it inside?”
“Any gas…” He took several heaving breaths. Then several more.
Zanas stared at him, monster corpse dripping goo in his arms, the frowning side of his mask regarding Ashinaro with what looked like concern.
“Any gas from a punctured sac would have leaked out by now.” Ashinaro’s breath began to steady and his narrowed vision began to clear. “We just have to hope at least one of them is intact.”
Zanas shrugged, then kicked open the door and strode inside.
Ashinaro stared at the shattered lock on his door. Then sighed, pushed himself to his feet, and followed the skeleton inside.
