Sylas winced slightly, but the result was still within expectations. He had even used his other arm just in case, so the damage wasn’t bad.
Without missing a beat, he rushed through the rest of the village, splitting off a 100 Will Astral Will to make sure that he didn’t miss anything. It was overkill considering the fact his visualization now had 30 meters of range and could envelop an entire third of the village’s diameter, but he felt that it was precisely in this sort of situation that he shouldn’t let his guard down.
Just like this, he systematically wiped out the remainder of the pig demons. In fact, the chaos was so great that most didn’t even realize what was happening until it was far too late.
However, when it was finished, Sylas realized that he had put himself on his own ticking timer. Without the numbers to fight the fire, things were quickly getting out of hand.
Without the time to waste, he rushed to the center of the village and ripped his way into the City Lord’s abode. He was cautious, just in case there was a trap lying in wait. This was the one place he hadn’t scouted out fully because he was worried about the pig demon elite having more than 200 Will.
But there was luckily nothing of the sort. The heat was getting to be overbearing, so he shielded himself in a layer of Aether skin. Then, he blanketed the region and quickly found the City Stele. However, he knew what kind of commotion it would cause to conquer this city, so he didn’t start immediately, looking through everything else in the region to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything.
But in the end, the City Stele was all there was. Unlike the gnoll village, there didn’t seem to be anything special lying in wait.
Suddenly, Sylas’ head snapped in a certain direction. He walked forward and then slammed a leg down.
With a BANG! a floorboard shattered to pieces. Sylas reached down and grabbed, pulling what was down below up.
All the while, his expression continued to flicker. He had actually not managed to see this before and had almost been out of luck entirely. The only reason he had was because his senses picked up the sound of breathing that was asymmetrical to his own. The moment he locked onto it, he realized there was a hollow spot in the floor.
—
[Archibald Flowning (FFF-)]
[Level: 3]
[Profession: Master Tinker (Silver)]
[Special Talent: Scrapyard (Upgradeable)]
[One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. This ability allows a Tinkerer to find the value in cast-off items and make more with less.]
[Favorability: N/A]
—
Sylas’ expression flickered. This information… should have been hidden. It shouldn’t be possible, as far as he knew, to even see the Profession of someone else, let alone see the details of said Profession.
The only explanation seemed to be that this man wasn’t actually a part of the city at all. Now that Sylas thought about it, ever since he came here, he had had to deal with a lot of treasures, more than usual. Every pig demon was outfitted with crossbows, then there was the ballista that had almost taken his life.
Could all of this be related to this man?
“Pray thee, spare my life! I am of service!” Sylas was taken aback again. This man wasn’t like Azrael, or maybe he was smarter than Azrael. He was speaking in the universal language of Earth, but it sounded… old?
It was almost like he was listening to someone from 50 years ago speak to him. This was the kind of dialect he would only hear in an advanced English Lit class.
“Who are you?” Sylas suddenly asked. “How did you end up here?”
“I’m the engineer of this city!”
“You aren’t a pig demon, though. So how did you end up here?”
“I—uh.” The man looked out of sorts.
The more Sylas looked at him, the more he felt that this man was simply too… stereotypical. He had a head of sparse greying hair, he wore large framed glasses, one of the lenses of which was cracked, and he wore a dirty grey lab coat that looked like it had seen far better days.
“… I beg your pardon, sir. I truly cannot recollect. My memories stretch back only so far as this.”
“Who brought you here?”
“Ah, this… I too cannot recall.”
Sylas looked into the man’s eyes, still holding him up by his collar, but not quite understanding what to do.
An FFF- Profession, and especially of this sort of Profession in particular, was extremely useful. In fact, it could be said that what he wanted Professor Fembroise to be able to do in the future, this man was already capable of.
The issue was that this problem was too troublesome.
They were on the Aether Plane now, where would he put this man? He couldn’t return to Paradise or Lonestar without going through the Paradise Portal, but how could he sneak a person into such a place?
Could he put the man into the Madness Key? He certainly had enough space, but he had no idea if there was air or not in there. If there was no air, that would be fine enough. But if it was a vacuum like that of space, the man would probably die from worse things than suffocation. At least suffocation wouldn’t be immediate and Sylas would still have time to save him.
“What was your plan if you managed to escape detection here?”
“Plan?” The man looked more confused. “I was instructed merely to conceal myself here in the event of battle, sir. Escaping was never my intention; I am far too feeble.”
Sylas slowly nodded. It seemed that he wouldn’t have any fate with this person. There were only two options laid out before him. Either he gives this man over to Lucius to benefit from, or he leaves the man here where he would certainly die.
In the end, Sylas had no choice but to choose the former. At least in this case, he might have a chance to reverse the situation in the future.
