Chapter 41: Not Quite the Answer to Life (Patreon)

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As he watched Niall stumble backwards, clutching a bleeding ear, Edwin winced slightly. His blow hadn’t been great, missing the alchemist’s temple enough to avoid an easy knockout. He had almost used the blade of his knife instead of the hilt for the strike, and he doubted that the man would have managed to survive a six-inch-long bar of steel a six-inch-long bar of steel shoved through his brain, but… Edwin wasn’t sure that he wanted to just outright kill the man that quickly. If it came down to it? He wouldn’t hesitate, he told himself, but he wasn’t going to just stab a guy through the head with no warning. That wasn’t who he wanted to be.

Fortunately, the stumble wasn’t so much that he would be able to get away, but Edwin still quickly closed the distance so as not to take that chance. The alchemist recovered slightly, trying to stabilize his footing. However, the weaker man was knocked fully off his feet by Edwin’s shoulder colliding with the alchemist’s chest and tackling him to the ground.

Edwin moved quickly. If Niall managed to get off a shout to his minions, Edwin would find himself swiftly outnumbered and then he’d stand no chance. No, he’d need to finish this fight quickly.

While he had managed to mostly avoid looking at Niall’s expression so far, Edwin caught a glimpse of the man’s face, and saw it as one holding equal parts surprise and pain. He drew breath to shout, but Edwin drove a knee into the man’s gut to force all the air in his lungs out, and what would have been a cry became a wheeze, “Why?”

“Because.” Edwin shifted slightly as he kept the alchemist pinned below his knees, leaving only a single hand free, “You ground people up and put them in bottles,” he didn’t raise his voice, but still did his best to infuse his declaration with as much disgust as possible.

That didn’t seem to be the response Niall was anticipating, and his visage contorted into one of rage, “People?” he spat, though Edwin’s position on his torso meant there wasn’t much volume or force behind it, “You call them people? Would people throw away anyone different with no thought for the person behind it? Would people willingly give their friend, their son, their entire lives up at the whims of a feather-brained bureaucrat who decided I wasn’t worth living?”

Edwin struggled to keep the flailing alchemist pinned, “How is what you’re doing any different? Deciding that some people aren’t worth their life and should be used for your experiments?” He maneuvered to keep one leg on an elbow, negating its leverage, and drove his other knee deeper into the man’s gut. Meanwhile, his hands were occupied at Niall’s left hand, keeping the flailing limb against the wood while he worked with a knife, carefully as to not cut himself or the bandit…

Niall tried to get up, but a firm knee put a stop to that. In response, he gasped out his response, “Because they had a choice!” Edwin was quite content with him monologuing, as he mostly stopped struggling when he started ranting, “They could have seen the evils of those that surround them and acted against it, but did they? No! They let a child get thrown through a wall and go about their lives, muttering that he deserved it for the ‘crime’ of not being able to get a Skill! Are those the actions of a- whoof!”

Edwin finished his work, and a strip of cloth, cut at last from the flowing sleeves of Niall’s robe by Edwin’s knife, was shoved into the conveniently open mouth of the ranting villain, then held in place by a second strip of cloth. The alchemist offered little resistance as Edwin rolled him over onto his front, though he did attempt a muffled protest. Edwin was having none of it, though, and strained to try and hold his hands behind his back. While he was absolutely stronger than the middle-aged bandit, it wasn’t by much, and Niall was flailing like a madman to try and get loose, now that he wasn’t talking. A stray arm knocked Edwin’s grip on his knife loose, and it was sent skittering across the roof, where it fell into an open hole and clattered onto the wooden floor some ten feet below them.

Edwin, deprived of his weapon and having successfully gagged the alchemist, changed tactics slightly, trying to get Niall into a chokehold, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to do so. He tried to get an elbow around the bandit’s neck and began to squeeze, but it didn’t appear to actually be cutting off the wind flow down his throat. So, with what little leverage he could manage, he lifted both of them up from the ground, twisted around, and slammed Niall’s face into the wooden boards beneath them, over and over again.

It was a race to see which gave up faster: Edwin’s grip, or Niall’s consciousness. It would be close, and even as the struggles of the bandit grew more frantic yet weaker, Edwin’s hands scrambled to try and maintain their grip as Edwin willingly forced his arms and hands time and time again into the wooden floor they were upon. Blow after blow struck, desperately trying to maintain some semblance of control as their contest closed in on the finish line… As it turned out, neither beat out the other. Instead, with a creak and a groan, the board beneath them gave out under the abuse, sending them both cascading down to the floor below in a hail of splinters and dust.

The moments of weightlessness drove a spike into Edwin’s thoughts, his throat closing up and his awareness beginning to dim. His breath grew ragged and the death-grip he had on his foe weakened, the two of them separating from one another. The only thing keeping Edwin awake as the absolute terror of falling kicked into gear was a single-minded pursuit of trying desperately to get some semblance of support, and he made darn well sure he stayed above Niall as they went tumbling.

Then gravity reasserted itself as they both crashed into the floor below, pulling both figures into a limp pile.

At first, as Edwin tenderly extracted himself from above and around the broken body of Niall, he thought he might have killed the alchemist, but for better or worse, broken bones began to set themselves and bloody cuts on the man’s face slowly started to heal.

No fair, Edwin groaned to himself, I want a healing factor.

Still, while Niall’s body may have been on the mend, it was still fairly helpless, which gave Edwin plenty of time to shackle the mad alchemist in the same chains he likely had imprisoned many of his victims in over time. It was… appropriate, he supposed.

They’d made a fair bit of commotion, all told, and Edwin considered himself fortunate that apparently the minions were either too used to or too oblivious towards (or maybe both) loud crashes to come investigate. Or, perhaps they were just instructed to never come upstairs no matter what? Ah, no matter. What was important was that Edwin had a chance to catch his breath as Niall slowly regenerated, stuck inside his manacles. A passing thought also got him to modify his level-up template slightly, to help his sense of progress until he’d have enough for all his Paths to be completed. Was it the best timing? Eh, not really. But it wasn’t hard, either.

Level Up!

Skill Points 399→404

Progress to Tier 2: 628/1590

Athletics Level 27→30

Flexibility Level 23→25

Perfect. He couldn’t help but groan at seeing just how far he was away from his goal, though. At least, given how high-level some of his second-tier Skills were, it should be a lot easier next time. Still, even with all of his already-advanced Skills counted, he was only a third of the way to his goal, meaning he’d need to raise most of his current Skills to level 90… he wasn’t looking forward to it, but that was a worry for later.

A bit more digging around revealed three more sets of chains and shackles, which would be… a problem. He wasn’t sure what to do once all the minions were incapacitated, though maybe he’d be able to chain them together in some way? A problem for future-Edwin, once he had actually subdued the bandits. Hmmm.

A bit of digging around the two floors helped Edwin find several coils of rope (incredibly useful, though without knowing how strong the minions were, he couldn’t count on it actually functioning as binding), an iron ball with a hole through the middle, a few steel bars of varying lengths and thicknesses, and gloves! They didn’t seem to be made of tanned human skin, so he could use them without guilt. A couple extra sets of black robes, some tinder, flint, and steel, not to mention a huge variety of glassware also turned up, though it all was of debatable usefulness to Edwin. There were tons of potions and… ingredients of arguable sourcing, but the mere thought of making something out of dismembered people sent shivers down Edwin’s spine. Even if he had time, there was no way he’d be making something with this lab setup. The notes might be worth saving, as a memorial to those who gave their lives for research, but would they really? Edwin wouldn’t touch them, and he wouldn’t entrust them to anyone else. No, as much as it pained him in principle, the notes would burn as well.

He also found the second balcony! It was on the opposite side of the tower as the first one, and on the dissection floor, but it was nice to put that mystery to rest. Looking out from it had no strange mental or optical effects in so much as Edwin could tell, but it was a medium-sized outcropping, protruding about five feet from the outer wall, about ten feet from one end to the other. The supports on the stone handrailing seemed vaguely… ah, if Edwin had ever bothered to pay attention in his arts classes he might remember what style they reminded him of, but why would he? His grade in that class had gone up slightly after he stopped paying attention, bless open-book tests and quizzes. But that was neither here nor there. It did give him an idea how to take care of Minsix, or whoever was on watch at the moment, though.

He considered using one of the iron bars in place of his stick (and a more combat-ready dagger he uncovered in his search) as his weapon, but decided against it. No, that would be too lethal, and he wasn’t there quite yet. Actually.... He did have a use for one of the bars. He grabbed one of medium-length and thickness, tying a knot at a right angle to the bar around its center, then tied the other end to one shackle in a manacle.

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Shush. Disable.

A bit of testing showed the knot should hold. Okay, if that worked, that would take care of one minion, and would use one shackle. Then, he’d have to subdue four more with two manacles. His primary advantages would be surprise and that he was armed, while the bandits tended to leave their weapons on the first floor when in the tower. Didn’t seem that smart to him, but hey, what did he know? Maybe their brawls got out of hand when they were armed or something.

A peek downstairs showed that the minions had finished cleaning up from dinner and had returned downstairs to their quarters. A bit of straining had him hear some fairly loud discussion, perhaps as they quarreled over something. Still, it was quiet enough, and he crept down the stairs, trying to balance not being heard with not seeming like he was trying not to be heard.

As he ventured to the balcony, his rope and chain contraption in hand, he breathed a sigh of relief to see Minsix leaning against the side of the outer wall, eyes closed and rhythmically breathing. It would make this next part a lot easier, though he’d still need to- Oh shoot, he was waking up.

Edwin hastily closed the shackle around Minsix’s ankle, connecting the minion to a literal weight around his foot, as the Bandit Club-Wielder finished waking up, “Huh? What’cha doin there?”

Edwin froze, a thousand clever quips instantly fleeing as soon as he had the chance for an amazing one-liner. Instead, he just tried tackling the hulking minion (though in truth Edwin was about the same height, possibly even taller than the bandit, it didn’t feel like it), his shoulder digging into the man’s chest and… doing nothing against the unyielding strength of the man’s torso.

As a meaty hand reached out to try and grab Edwin’s arm, only a single thought flitted through his head.

Well, shoot.