It was stunning how quickly they spread. I mean, all it took was a lingering touch, so I knew how easy it was to just reach out and touch someone. There was no sense of danger, no sense of being attacked. Just some people being a little overly friendly. And as soon as the first sailor had turned and was in the process of ‘recruiting,’ it was essentially over.

  Someone carried out a burlap sack from the ship, holding, in this case, a purple grain. I know this because as soon as it came off the dock and onto the street, it was torn open and poured out over the cobblestones.

  One thing stretched its arm waaaay too long, and then sort of opened its hand up. But not like its fingers so much as the skin sort of parted and took some of the grain into itself. The figure sucked its arm back in and went about looking mostly human again.

  A moment later, more sacks of grain came off the ship, and some of the not-humans conveyor-belted them directly into the city. A few not-people were on their hands and knees, scooping up the spilled grain and carrying handfuls of it off. I watched the things get to work unloading the ship, eschewing the dockside crane, or really any tools. It was the old-fashioned means, going into the hold and carrying stuff out by hand.

  Time to play follow the leader.

  Barrel and I headed toward the dock, still on Main Street, but staying to the edge and sticking to what shadows there were.

  Off to the west, I could see rain coming, a sheet of falling water spreading across the horizon. I knew it was going to be another splendiferous night. Which made me realize that I was going to need to sleep soon. I could probably make it through another night, but more than that would be dangerous. And stupid.

  Speaking of stupid, I waited for a group of not-people to head past me back up Main Street, and then I turned and followed them.

  They turned south, following a narrow side street for three blocks, then down a smaller street heading east, then into an alley. It was a rather small alley, to the point where I didn’t think I could pull off the barrel disguise there because they’d literally run into me. There was no way for someone to get around me if I went in there.

  But I did find a way to look down the alley: across the street, I could peer down the alley and watch from there.

  In the middle of the alley, I saw an open hole that looked like it had been dug rather recently. The not-people walked to the hole and just sort of fell into it. No qualms. No stopping to check what was down there.

  I sat in my barrel and watched at least fifty people head down the alley with sacks of grain, all jumping down into the hole.

  No one came back out of the hole though. It was a one-way trip.

  But the not-people had to come out at some point, right? They couldn’t just stay underground forever — otherwise there wouldn’t be anyone around town for me to be running away from. On top of that, I started to notice some of the same people, which means they had to have come above ground somewhere between this hole in the alley and the docks.

  I had to do something. I had to get out of my barrel and actually find something out. I didn’t have time for have a second night coming home with only more questions. While the fear of being discovered kept me in place, I knew I had to overcome it, and soon.

  It would also be prudent to test out a few things.

  I fired off an identification spell at a woman walking by in clothes that were not exactly on properly.

  She paused when the spell hit her, and slowly every other not-person also paused. Everyone started looking around.

  Troubling, the spell came back:

  Human

  Lvl 17 seamstress

  Just a regular, run of the mill human.

  How did that work?

  So did that mean she had to be under the control of something else> Or, I mean, I suppose she could just enjoy doing what it was she was doing, or she was going along with the flow, pretending to be one of the not-people things.

  More damn questions.

  I waited until the not-people grew tired of searching for the magic source and resumed carrying the goods pilfered from the ship. Then I picked a different person and fired off another identification spell.

  Human

  Lvl 12 butcher

  What the French?

  How did that work?

  Also, the same thing happened. All of the not-people on the street paused in a ripple sort of effect, centered on the man I identified.

  They began to search the street, and they were more insistent this time, going into buildings, even appearing at the second-floor windows in several buildings before giving up.

  So they were, at least in some measure, sensitive to magic. How sensitive though, that was the next question I needed answering.

  I cast a ball of light right next to one of the glowstone street lamps, doing my best to make it sort of blend in to the light.

  Nothing at first.

  But then one of the things noticed something. A slight pause, a shudder in their step, and then they all stopped.

  After another search, and I started to feel like I was going to die inside the barrel. My legs were in extreme pain, but I just bit my lip and tried to accept it as part of doing business.

  I had one more experiment I wanted to try, and that meant shooting a ball of light down the street, seeing if I could get the things to give chase.

  Time for science.

  As soon as the ball of light appeared, all the not-things focused their full attention on it. For a moment it seemed as if there was basically just confusion. They just watched in awe as the ball of light moved about.

  Then, they charged at it.

  I mean, ‘charge’ is probably a strong word for what they did. They still lacked coordination, so while the will to move fast and aggressive was there, the means wasn't exactly in place. So there was a quick-ish attempt to reach the ball of light, and the first not-person that got there reached out and tried to touch the ball.

  Naturally, their hand went right through the ball.

  And as one, all the not-things stopped.

  There were a few more attempts to grab the ball of light, including a few different individuals coming forward to try, but never two people at once. It was one person tries, then stops, then a second person tries, then stops. Very strange to watch.

  But they seemed to get to the understanding that nothing was actually there. It was just light, so even though the ball of light was still bopping along down the road, they ignored it and went back to work.

  I sent a second ball of light, a different color this time, going a different direction, up the street.

  The not-things watched it for a moment, then seemed to recognize it, and then ignored it.

  I frowned, not exactly excited they were so quick to pick out illusory magic. Especially because that only made it harder for me to get out of the city.

  Next up, I used minor illusion to make a version of me running down the street.

  The things watched the illusion run down the street, all stopping where they were and what they were doing. But notably, they did not chase him.

  I used minor illusion again, this time to make a noise inside a house.

  Again, the things looked at the house, but then continued on moving the sacks of grain.

  How were they both so stupid and so smart? I leaned back against the barrel in disbelief.

  Which caused the barrel to tip back. I overcorrected in pulling the barrel back down over me, causing it to clunk against the cobblestone street.

  Every one of the things stopped dead in their tracks and stared at the barrel. Right at the barrel.

  And, as one, they moved toward the barrel.

  Seemed like they knew where I was.

  It would have been an ideal time to blink the hell out of there, but I was already feeling shitty, and I worried if I could actually pull it off. I needed another means of escape.

  So I jumped up and threw the barrel into the crowd.

  But my legs cramped up.

  And I fell over.

  “Shit,” I eked out as the horde closed in on me.

  Had to do it.

  I blink-ed up and over on top of the building next door.

  54

  I landed with a thud on the roof, threw up on myself, and frantically pounded on my legs in an attempt to get them to work again. The cramping from being inside a barrel for hours was somehow not affected in the least by magicking myself up to the roof. I made a solemn oath to myself not to fold myself into small spaces for hours on end again when there were swarms of things that wanted me dead nearby.

  Without even a second’s hesitation, the not-people were swarming not just the building I was on top of, but the buildings on either side, as if they’d already figured out my old tactic.

  Hands appeared on the roof tiles as not-things struggled with the concept of climbing.

  Faces appeared in windows next door, staring at me, pounding on the glass.

  My legs were locked in place, and I screamed in frustration.

  The first of the windows broke under the not-people’s assault, and that seemed to open the floodgates, metaphorically speaking, whereupon windows broke all over the damn place. Glass showered down around me, and the first of the things jumped through the window and slammed down on the roof next to me.

  I lashed out and punched their foot, causing the foot to slip down the roof, and the not-person pitched over, and promptly slid down the tile and over the edge.

  There was a soft thud from below.

  My legs finally started to let me use them, and I stumbled to my feet as suddenly there were not-people everywhere.

  “Sorry to do this,” I said, but I dropped with my belly to the roof just as I cast major wind.

  A harsh gust of wind whipped down the roof, and the not-people, with precarious balance on smooth, flat surfaces, all struggled to remain upright, before one-by-one, they blew off the roof.

  I released the spell, the wind stopped, and I hopped up to my feet.

  There were already newcomers jumping from the buildings on either side.

  Plus, the first person figured out how to do a muscle-up over the edge of the roof. I was surrounded on three sides.

  I feinted like I was going to run right past one of the not-people, but then cast blink and popped up on a building across the street.

  Without missing a beat, the damn not-people swarmed the buildings on around my new position.

  Of course, I was in the midst of missing a damn beat, because the stupid motion sickness part of blink was so completely debilitating. I forced myself to my feet, wobbling a bit, and walked to the back of the building.

  There was a bit of a balcony below, looking out over a small patch of grass masquerading as a back yard.

  The not-people’s footsteps thundered as they ran up the stairs.

  I dropped onto the balcony, then hopped over and landed in the grass with a roll to running, then parkour’d up the wall and over into the next backyard, which was a mirror of the first.

  Relishing the whole leave-every-door-open aspect of Furtaxo, I sprinted through the house and out into the street, but skidded to a stop. There were already not-people there, like they were waiting for me.

  Only one answer for a group of people waiting.

  Fireball.

  The spell whooshed out of my hand, growing large and then exploding in the midst of the group.

  Not even waiting to see the effects, I ran directly after the fireball.

  As it exploded, I was already there, powering through, ignoring the heat and flailing bodies.

  On the other side, I kept going, knowing there would be pursuit.

  And pursuit there was, a quick glance over my shoulder told me the whole town was behind me.

  I cut through an alley to a side-street, where there were more people sort-of running up the street my way, and I had the sinking feeling that if I had to get all the way over to Main Street, I was going to run into a horde of these things. I put my head down and sprinted up the street, figuring my best bet was getting to the wall and blink-ing up and over.

  My breath came in ragged gasps as I put everything I had into my legs. My stamina was bottoming out much faster than it had in the past. Stupid new body not used to hard exertion. I could pump my stamina with magic, but doing that might not leave enough for anything other than a single blink, which could really hamper things if I had to, you know, get down from the wall, or stand and fight.

  And fighting was definitely looking like it was going to be more likely, given that I could see not-people in side streets and alleys ahead of me, already charging forward to block my progress.

  I was right in the middle of the street, and the not-people grabbed at me as I passed by. I was slowing, and they seemed to have no such thing as stamina, just using and abusing their bodies.

  Though, once again, I saw someone just sort of drop over, maybe from sheer exhaustion, who knows? I mean I did catch sight of blood leaking from their ears, but that could easily have been a result of the massive head wound you get when you dead-drop onto a stone street, clonk your noggin on a cobble and keep going.

  I was losing. the hands were getting closer. I could feel their fingers grabbing at my sleeves.

  I blink-ed as far as I could go, stumbled a bit, gritted my teeth against the cramps, and realized I didn't have enough mana to cast another blink. I managed to get a quick glimpse behind me, and saw the full horde still coming on, as if they knew exactly where I was and where I was going to be. They were already coming on full speed.

  It took me a few steps to get back up to mostly full speed, at least as fast as I could run with my stamina dropping in and out to zero. But at least I was far enough away from the horde that the not-people could no longer come in from the side.

  I jogged to the base of the wall and paused for a moment, exhausted. I could try for one of the towers, but I saw small hordes coming along the wall from either side. And looking over to the west, there was a group standing in the arched gateway. They were blocking the exit.

  One way left.

  Up.

  I recharged my stamina with essentially all the mana I had left, and then started to climb.

  A good group of the things arrived at the bottom of the wall and stared up at me. One of them started trying to climb, but they didn’t have any luck.

  I continued to scurry my way up as fast as I could.

  But it did not escape my notice that two large chunks of the horde split off and started toward the nearest towers on either side of me.

  I rolled over the top of the battlements and had a second to breathe before realizing there were already not-people coming down the wall at me.

  "Come on," I said, dragging myself to my feet. I just jumped off the wall.

  Twenty feet is not always a good jump. Most of the time it's basically guaranteed to break an ankle. But I'd done lots of jumping and moving in my old life, and a fair amount of running and jumping in the previous life. And now, on life three, I guess, I presumed those skills would transfer over.

  I hit the ground in a roll and felt a little twinge, but nothing snapped. Nothing broke, and nothing hurt so bad I couldn't get up.

  However, when one of the not-people followed my lead, they hit the ground feet first. Hard.

  The thing didn't seem to notice the issue, and tried to take a step, only for their legs to not work. They face-planted into the muddy grass.

  And then it was just like a Rice Krispie convention: snaps, crackles, and pops everywhere.

  I was already jogging away from the spot. I didn't need to watch the things try to figure out jumping, because, you know, the group in the gate was already in hot pursuit.

  I was on the southern side of the town, so I kept heading south, looking for a good spot to start losing my followers. I spotted a small cart path, much like I'd seen on the northern side, and I crossed over to that, keeping an easy pace where I was still moving reasonably fast, but not draining my stamina too quickly.

  As soon as I got deeper into the trees, though, the plan was to make a hard turn, weave through the trunks and lose these asshats.

  Problem was, as soon as I got into the trees and took my first cut, I ran into trouble.

  "Evening, lad," Raynor said, firing an arrow at point blank range into my leg.

  55

  I grabbed at my leg and hissed in pain.

  "Are you serious?" I asked.

  "Not the greeting I thought I might get," Raynor said, pulling an arrow from a thigh quiver and casually nocking it against the string. "Led me on a pretty chase, you did. Impressive to say the least. Annoying, though, if I'm being honest. And I do hope we are in a spot where we might be honest with each other."

  While he was talking, I gritted my teeth and pushed the arrow through my leg, nearly blacking out from the pain.

  I did fall over, and he gave me a smile.

  "Always quick to get the arrows out," he said. "But that's fine. I have more."

  He shot at me again, and I flicked out a quick minor wind that sent the arrow off course into the dirt next to me.

  "Oh that's new," he said. But he had another arrow in his bow and fired in the space the space of a blink.

  I repeated the trick, and it worked again, but barely.

  "Now that's just annoying," he said.

  "Stop trying to shoot me," I snapped.

  "It's a simple way to keep you from moving," Raynor replied. He pulled another arrow back, but also held.

  "It's going to get us killed."

  "Seems a bit dramatic, right? You have survived several arrows at this point. I am almost disappointed in—“

  "Can you take a peek at the horde of not-people coming this way?"

  "Oh, the draaaama. Come on, little elf. A horde? Really?"

  "I swear I won't move," I said. “Just go look down the damn trail."

 

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