On The Run

Having adjusted to his new body, Sven exited the wooden door and entered the hellish plane an hour ago he was so feverishly trying to escape. Walking out into the heat he felt like he was on holiday or something, soaking up the sun at some exotic beach - a far cry from the young white haired adventurer scraping by with **** almost knocking on his door that he had once been. Taking a deep breath in the fumes entered his body, but just as he had anticipated, he felt no pain, no discomfort at all. He could stay like this all day if he felt like it, not that he wanted to. After all, the girls would be worrying sick about him.

'I hope they're alright.' Sven thought, suddenly remembering that the tree that had knocked Igrasil down with him might have also done the same to Ignis and Alice. Now perhaps wasn't the best time to dally, picking up the pace Sven began to run towards an outcropping of rocks in the distance. Avoiding the occasional sulfuric vent and hopping over a couple red rivers he was there in no time, his stats having been increased perhaps tenfold all around the board. Being a classless adventure had be a rough go of things, now it was going to be easy sailing. No more relying on Ignis, no more having to micromanage every moment and utilize every tactic so as to not get hit.

Arriving at the rock face, Sven began to dig his fingers into the rock, finding ledges and crooks in the stone to place his hands and legs, climbing the sheer face cliff with relative ease - something that would have been impossible before the class change. Sven was climbing in leaps and strides like some kind of gorilla, hefting his body weight up and up until finally he came out of where he had fallen in. As he reached the summit, he could hear angry chatter, arguments and plenty of threats. Those voices talking were undoubtedly Ignis and Alice, but who was the third?

"He attacked us first! Why are you wasting time, do your job and save Sven! That animal is down there with him and... What if he's? What if he already got to him? Just... GO!" Alice screamed in frustration, not able to hide the emotion in her tone any longer.

"Now now, there must be some kind of mistake here, Igrasil was never on any of the coaches, what you're telling me is that with all of my aids here with me." Sven now understood it must be the minister speaking. "One man managed to RUN as fast as a horse for several hours, trailing us completely undetected for the sole purpose of killing Sven?" The minister said with a incredulous tone. "What is more likely, the situation I just described or that the two accomplices present are covering up for their third partner in crime who just killed one of his fellow students and crippled the other for life? Ring any bells? Of course it does, it's obvious." The man said in an authoritative tone, a tone that promised he had come to a conclusion and wasn't going to back down from it.

"That's not true at all! Ask our magic studies teacher, he witnessed SunBane and Markus ganging up on Sven before and it was the same this time! Only this time with lethal intent! How can you be so stupid?!" Ignis raged, her own tone sounding stressed and ready to give up. Sven peered over the edge to watch the situation. He spied around a dozen aids, a bakers dozen if you count the minister. The veteran institution members at the ministers side ranged in level and differed in class, but they were all very formidable. Looking around Sven planned an escape route if things were to go south.

"Stupid? Girl, you must know how your little story sounds right? If anyone is being stupid here it is you, for prolonging this charade even further. Call for Sven, if he doesn't come out of hiding then your lives will be forfeit." The minister declared, not even allowing the girls to protest, Sven lifted himself up on the cave floor and began to walk towards the group, attracting their attention immediately.

"Sven!" Both Ignis and Alice shouted at once, rushing to his side immediately, Ignis embraced his midsection with a tearful hug while Alice began to look over his body for wounds carefully with worry struck in her eyes, finding none she gave a questioning look at Sven. How could he have been down there for so long without sustaining any visible injury? And why did he feel so strong where she had poked and prodded?

"And as if by magic, the 'deathly wounded' Sven appears from the crevice as fit as a fiddle. So what was that yarn you were spinning my dear?" Ignis was just about to protest at having her accounting of the situation being brought up as falsehood but the minister had no more time for what he thought was yet more lies. "I don't want to hear it, there's no sense continuing this farce now that the tall tale has been demystified." The minister now looked upon Sven, pondering for a moment if the hero had always been that tall.

"You know the deal don't you Sven? The academy can look past a couple of 'accidents' happening in expeditions like these, but not for free." The minister rubbed his hands idly as he spoke, Sven's frown deepened as all that he had expected to happen was now happening. "If you were a normal person you'd be facing decades of prison time or worse, but because I'm your friend here, I can offer you a deal without any of this dirtying your record as an adventurer, all the while you never have to see the inside of a jail cell for even a single day." The minister's glasses shone as he spoke, obscuring his no doubt greed fueled eyes.

"Oh well aren't you generous, tell me 'friend', what do you get out of helping me? Something tells me it isn't a firm hand shake and an expression of deep gratitude." Sven asked mockingly, causing the faintest of a smile to appear on the aging mans face.

"I want you to become an indentured servant for 20 years of your life, the time you would have spent rusting away inside a prison cell would be wasted on a man as talented as yourself, it would be much better if you were put to use in securing our institutions interests. It's a fair deal Sven, you should consider the bright future you have ahead of you." Sven spat at the floor in distaste.

"You don't care that they were the ones to attack me first, all you care about is your stupid academy. If you have to lie, cheat and exploit others and trample over their lives to achieve that then you'll do so without so much as losing a wink of sleep. How can you say words like 'fair' unironically? Do you feel no shame or have you perhaps convinced yourself that you do all of this for some arbitrary sense of a greater good? Either way I refuse your deal, you can go and shove your 'fair deal' up your old shitty puckered asshole." The minister tutted and shook his head at the rude behavior.

"Now now young man, I've indulged enough nonsense for today, I don't need to hear how I'm such an evil man for upholding the law. You killed 2 students in cold blood and then tried to get your party members to cover up for you while you hid." Sven shook his head, that wasn't how it happened at all. "I'll offer you the same deal again Sven, but this time I will sweeten it ever so slightly. If you accept the deal now, I promise that Alice and Ignis will both be absolved of their crimes in aiding and abetting a murderer. I won't give you another chance Sven, what will it be?" The minister looked sternly at Sven as he gave the man his final ultimatum. Sven looked at the man for a time, then to Ignis and Alice who looked back at him - waiting for the signal to run or fight.

"Like a carrot on a stick, did you expect me to knuckle under just like that? You really are a foolish old man." Sven darted into his inventory and pulled out one of his three remaining fire bombs, igniting it quickly Sven threw it at the minister and his aids who swiftly jumped back to avoid the blast radius.

"Towards the tunnel, now!" Sven lead the two girls towards the escape tunnel he had noticed earlier, with the distance he had created from the first bomb they managed to make it into the tunnel with enough time left to allow Sven to throw the remaining bombs at the entrance of the tunnel to cave it in and seal off their escape route before any of the aids could stop them.

"They're in tunnel 5D, if we back track and follow tunnel 4C then we can block off their escape route to the surface entirely." One of the aids said as he showed the minister the map layout.

"Very well, lets catch the fool and make him dearly wish that he accepted my deal before we hand him over to the authorities, shall we?" The minister sighed in frustration, having Sven accept the deal would have been a fantastic way of securing a very valuable asset for the guild. Now that was all gone, and what better way to make up for such a loss than letting out frustrations with ****? The robed man scowled unhappily with the recent outcome as he and his aids quickly backtracked through to cave to block off Sven's only exit.

"What do we do now Sven?" Ignis asked as the group ran through the cave, their only light source was a burning ball Ignis had conjured that bobbed up and down as they ran, casting shadows chaotically across the tunnels walls. Sven had a plan, if he recalled properly then the room heading up should have a...

"The room ahead of us should have an open ceiling, we can climb up and out of here without having to go out through the main exit." It was a shot in the dark but it was all that he had, after all their pursuers would no doubt be routing to cut him off somewhere else in the cave, perhaps even more of them would be spreading out above ground to truly ensnare them, it wasn't a given that they would escape even now that he had bought them all so much time - but it was better than submitting to that kind of a man and his obvious motives, better to run and defy than to stay and serve.

It wasn't long until the group found themselves in the aforementioned open room, the room was barren of detail save for the stalagmites and stalactites that littered it, that and there was a group of students off in one corner finishing off a group of monsters. Sven thought about waiting for them to move along but decided against it for two reason: one was that time is of the essence right now, and two because they almost certainly wouldn't know that he and his companions were wanted by the academy.

Surveying the room Sven saw a part of the wall he could easily scale, the open roof let rays of sun shine through to the bottom - a faint breeze blew through the musky cave air and tickled his face lightly. Turning to face Ignis and Alice Sven knew what he must do.

"Both of you need to grab onto my back as tightly as you can, I'm gonna climb us all out of here but I need you to secure yourselves, I won't be able to help you if you fall." They both nodded, Sven approached the wall and propped himself ready to climb and waited for the girls to hop on. As they clutched onto him and when they found a comfortable spot he began to climb, had he been classless then this would have been a grueling task, maybe even impossible without their help, but now he was climbing as if he was weightless.

Reaching the top in no time at all, Sven made sure the coast was clear before setting them both down. There seemed to be no sight of any pursuers or patrols, which meant that they weren't prepared for this scenario. Sven internally sighed in relief as he decided upon which way they would run first. After all, it would be only a matter of time until they caught onto his trail once again.