Freedom is never free

There, he did not find the exit but another thing entirely, it was something else he was looking for. Looking at the room the shadowy staircase led him to, he saw two men, guards of some description he assumed, who were guarding the sleeping and very obviously injured body of the purple-haired spy that had brought him there.

A part of John’s mind told him to abandon Ember there, but that same part was furiously beaten down as soon as it appeared. There would be no more horrors today. As cliche as it was, he had a damsel to rescue. John now proceeded to look across the room, his attention focused not solely on the spy. The room was quite dark, as it was lit by only a few torches that were hanging loosely from the wall. It gave the entire room a certain darkness to it that John was halfway convinced was supposed to be creepy. Perhaps in order to give the two men guarding the cell in the back of the room a mystery stronger than they otherwise would have. The lack of light in the room gave him an idea, and so he proceeded to plan.

He had three main options on how to rescue her. Two of which were dismissed quite quickly due to their impracticality with his abilities. One, he could convince the two guards to allow him to take Ember, a feat which seemed to be quite impossible to achieve after a cursory glance at both their sheets. They were loyal and hardworking men, not the type to fall to bribery or trickery. Perhaps if he had a disguise of some sort, but this was not the time for such sad attempts. Second, he could sneak behind them and take Ember unnoticed, hoping she is conscious enough to use her own abilities to help them escape. That was also dismissed after looking thoroughly at Ember’s current situation. Even if he was able to wake her up, the various blunt injuries and cuts on her body indicated she would be in no condition to use her abilities without further injuring herself, if how exhausting it was earlier was of any indication. The third was the one he decided to go with in the end, he could fight his way in. Both the men were fairly high leveled compared to him, one was level seven and the other ten, but if he kept his distance and used the staff, he might have a chance even in a straight fight. The two men were both equipped with P90 rifles just like the men he saw earlier, and now that he was this close to them he could also see their clothing, military-like garb with an insignia he couldn’t recognize. All he really needed to do was disable or knock them out, a thing he might just be able to do with the element of surprise in his favor. Luckily, the plan needed to accomplish that had already formed in his head.

It was a long shot, but it was also the only option he had that would not likely end in either his or the two men’s ****. With that acknowledgment, willing to take that risk to life and limb to rescue Ember and get out of the sorry state he was in, he began moving as quickly as his legs could take him.

As John moved into the room, a sudden light formed behind his head, where it could not interrupt his own vision. It didn’t do the two soldiers the same kindness, however, and their entire field of vision turned to light within mere moments. The young man then threw two rounds of Arcane Bolts into each of the men’s weapons, hoping to knock them out of their hands, succeeding only barely with the second round. Scratching one of the rifles enough to thank whatever gods were real that he didn’t use the bolts on the men themselves in the process. He dismissed the ball of light quickly and resummoned it, hoping to blind the men again. Thankfully, it worked.

Thinking slightly ahead, he decided to use the only part of his plan that was even riskier than becoming a human flashbang, he wanted to attempt to tie up the men with the various articles of clothing he had in his inventory. However, the men were already recovering from the second flashbang. John doubted a third would work, and he needed some way to knock the two out. Panicking for a moment, he noticed a small object on the belt of one of the men. A taser. Quickly, his hand went to grab it, as it would make his job much easier. The still half stunned man noticed what the Gamer was doing, and swiftly sent his hand towards his taser as well. They both grabbed at it simultaneously, struggling over it for a moment. John managed to pull it off the man's belt seconds later, his grip on the taser being strong enough that it was able to end the conflict. He positioned the taser back into the man's body in a blink of an eye, and in the next the man was knocked out on the floor. After doing the same to the other man as well, John went about tying up both of them with the spare clothes he had. John ripped apart the pieces of his apparel that were now somewhat useless and made them into the best ropes he could manage. They were flimsy, sure, but they would function just as well as a deterrent, because any attempt to rip them would be quite loud. He was now wearing some loose-fitting clothes that he had probably been dressed in when he was captured. Those would serve, for now, so it was a small cost for some level of insurance. While they were still stunned, he looked through their pockets, finding the key to Ember’s cell quickly.

Eventually, when John saw the two men recovering their vision, he began to speak in the most authoritative voice he could muster.

“Sit tight and nothing will happen to you. I’m only here for Ember,” John said as calmly as he could, his body attempting to shake with all its might as he was doing so while his mind tried preventing it. He eventually gathered the will necessary to steadily and slowly walk over to the cell she was still in.

Opening the door was easy, the hard part was getting Ember out of there while still attempting to have any semblance of control over the actions of the two men that he had supposedly captured.

John proceeded to get Ember out of the cell. She was lying in there, ****, and was very obviously in a sorry state. Sadly, the young man had no way to heal her, and none of his magic would help at the moment. Because of that, he took his only remaining option, he hoisted her up upon his shoulder with whatever **** he could muster and began heading up the stairway once again as quickly as he could. She was quite a bit heavier than he thought he could manage, but the amount of adrenaline in his system said otherwise, so he was able to muddle through carrying her, for now at least. He let the bolts fade away as soon as he was in the stairway. It would not matter regardless, as he couldn’t see the guards anymore. As quickly as his legs would take him, with another humans’ weight pressing down on his shoulders, he ran up the stairs. When he reached the top, he came out not into yet another room but into an open courtyard. The sun had long since gone down, it seemed, as the entire area was covered with pitch-black darkness. The only thing that was completely visible was a group of men sitting around a similar looking campfire to before. He guessed they were there to guard the building he had just exited.

Luckily, they had not noticed him yet, and John was planning to keep it that way. Casting Arcane Barrier for some insurance, he quickly headed around the small concrete outcropping that was the stairway that led into the building and began his escape. Except for the open fields he could see surrounding him from every side, he only noticed a single piece of light from far away. As that was his only real alternative to wandering around in the darkness hoping to not be noticed, the young man headed there.

He forged onwards, the weight of Ember only increasing as the adrenaline in his body decreased, but he had **** but to keep moving. Slowly, as he strayed further from the campfire and the underground building, darkness began to envelop him. It was not a sinister darkness, as in Graham’s mindscape, but simply a benign darkness that lurked, being held at bay only by the light he was chasing. As he became more strained, Ember’s body became ever less stable on his shoulders, and it seemed that with every movement her shaky breath became ever more unsteady.

His arms and legs eventually gave in, the ever growing stress on them too much to bear, and he fell down, Ember falling from his back and onto the ground. One thing was heard as a small pool of blood soon surrounded her. Two solitary words.