Solomon's Crucible 94. The Unlawful Entry (Patreon)

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It was dark. More than that. With the clouds overhead blocking out the moon and stars, the night was a pitch black that Solomon had only experienced before far out in the countryside. Even with everything else going on, the simple fact that no street lights were on for miles around still felt unsettling.

Solomon stood and took a careful few steps, taking another peek at the guard post. It was lit with what looked like the glowstones on sale from the dungeon stores. That would be enough for the guards to see anybody trying to come in through their gate, but anybody moving around beyond that small circle of light would be more or less invisible.

Solomon set out along the street moving parallel to the campus, aiming to get some distance between himself and the guards. It was slow going in the dark, with the constant rain. His eyes had adjusted just about enough to make out the outline of the sidewalk in front of him, but it was a tenuous thing. He took each step slowly and carefully.

After he'd covered a few blocks, he made the turn to approach the campus. The state university was surrounded by a mixture of walls and fencing that were ordinarily used for traffic control and decoration more than security. Since the system's arrival, somebody had wrangled up an awful lot of barbed wire and used it to make the university fence into a real obstacle. Whether they had purchased it from the dungeon shop or found it in a storage room somewhere, Solomon didn't know, but either way, he didn't want to leave any pieces of himself behind on his way over.

He drew close and kept one hand on the wall as he kept moving away from the guard post. When he was well out of their line of sight and found a spot where the wall wasn't too much higher than his head, he stopped. On an ordinary night he might have to worry about making noise, or worry about being spotted from a higher vantage point. Thanks to the pouring rain, though, he probably had more to fear from hypothermia than from the guards.

Solomon was a little curious how the system would handle diseases, but he didn't want to be the first test subject.

He shook himself to dislodge some of the water pooling up on him, pointlessly, then pulled a piece of alligator leather out of his inventory. He hadn't sold his share along with the rest since he didn't have a pressing need for dungeon coins. Material that had been bulletproof in life might not be quite as impressive without the monster backing it up, but he still figured it was tough enough to be used for some interesting projects. Someday he'd make something more sophisticated out of it, but for today all that he needed was a tough blanket.

He tossed the leading edge of the leather up and over the top of the wall, holding on to the back end to make sure that it didn't just fly away. It fell, half over the wall, and pressed down on the razor wire. He jumped up and brought his hand down on the leather just to make sure. He could vaguely feel the shape of the wire underneath, but the cutting edge didn't have a chance at breaking through. For a moment he thought he'd be able to get a grip and pull himself up, but his hand slid free of the rain slick leather.

He took a step back and squinted to see what he could in the dark. The piece of leather was a few feet wide. Solomon would have liked to have a little more space to work with, but he could make do. He first tossed his backpack up and over the wall, manhandling the weight with an ease that would have been completely impossible before he'd started putting attribute points into strength.

He went ahead and took the fake glove off and tucked it in his pocket. Then he crouched down, took a breath, and took a step forward before exploding into a jump. Even with all the physical gifts he'd been given by the system, leaping the wall in a single bound was still beyond him. He was, though, able to get most of his body up and over. He used the hook on his left hand to dig in on the other side of the wall and act as a solid pivot point while he scrambled up and over.

He had to contort himself to stay over the alligator leather. Once he got his center of gravity shifted to the other side he found himself sliding off the leather. He couldn't grip anything to arrest his momentum and ended up tumbling off the wall to land flat on his back. He laid there for a moment before the rain falling into his face roused him into motion.

Solomon stood and tugged the leather down off of the fence before tucking it into his inventory. He stood still for a moment, listening. He had made some noise pulling down the razor wire and going over the wall, but if there had been any reaction by the guards, he couldn't hear it over the rain. He hoped the same noise had masked the sound of his own movements.

He was in one of the areas of decorative greenery that dotted the campus. In this case, it was small rolling hills and the occasional tree. Solomon was able to navigate the hills well enough, but avoiding the trees was hit or miss in the dark. Literally. He counted himself lucky to have the system to heal bumps and bruises.

He wouldn't have been able to navigate half so well without the minimap, which was a great help. He kept Kanmi's X in front of him and kept moving forward. He'd added his father to the party before he left, giving him another X that would lead him back home. It was reassuring to look at, somehow. 

Walking cross-country was a hassle, but if there was no path, at least it meant there wouldn't be anybody waiting to ambush him either. At the thought, Solomon paused for a moment to take his hatchet out of his inventory and hang it on his belt. If he did get pressed into sudden combat, he didn't want to have to alert the whole campus to his presence with gunfire.

The only problem with the minimap was that it didn't give any indication of how far away the X was. Solomon tried moving diagonally back and forth a bit so that he could triangulate the distance, but the mini map didn't let him measure with enough precision to get any useful information out of the exercise.

If he kept moving towards his destination, he'd get there eventually. Solomon kept walking, one hand near his weapon. He did his best to ignore the discomfort caused by the rain, and didn't pay any attention to the voice in the back of his head telling him that this was the easy bit. 

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