As Noah's eyes opened, he was greeted by the sound of cloth being ripped. Sitting up, he scanned the room for the source of the noise, his eyes eventually landing on his arm. It took him a second to realize what was happening, but when it clicked, his eyes widened in panic.
He immediately shot out of bed, looking for an exit. The cloth started to rip under the pressure of the gas beneath; seeing this, Noah made a split-second decision and threw himself out the window. He then ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the house and outskirts.
Once a sufficient distance away, Noah grabbed his destroyed arm and raised it to about shoulder level. He then took a deep breath in and dismissed the part of the cloth that was covering his hand, causing the gas to shoot out like a fire hose.
It covered the entire area around Noah with a noxious gas. Once the pressure had been released, Noah resummoned the cloth on his arm and, still holding his breath, made his way out of the gas cloud he had created.
He then tiredly trudged up the hill back to Effie's house and, once there, slowly knocked on the door. The door opened to see that he had woken up the entire group; he awkwardly smiled and apologized for the interruption.
Effie, who was still half asleep, rubbed her eye and asked, "What happened?"
Noah explained, "Well, the gas apparently doesn't stop once the wrap is on, so the pressure builds up." He then grabbed his limp arm and shook it slightly. "And the wrap was about to rip at the seams."
An awkward smile appeared on his face. "So I kind of had to jump through a window to avoid turning the house into a gas chamber… again."
Leandro rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Thank you for doing that, but next time," he paused for a second, taking a deep breath in, "just open the window."
Noah put his hand up and saluted Leandro in a joking manner. "Will do, boss."
Leandro sighed and walked away, mumbling about how "it was too early for this shit."
Noah then turned to Effie and asked, "Can you take me to the castle to meet the king today? I have no idea how to get to him."
"Me? Why can't you ask Lean…" Effie's mind flashed to Leandro's current mood. "Actually, yeah, I'll take you. What time do you think you're leaving?"
Noah thought about it for a second. "Whenever you're ready to go."
"Sweet, give me like an hour or two."
He then walked back into the house but stopped, remembering something. He walked over to Savannah and summoned his pouch. He then took out a soul shard and handed it to Savannah. "This is for the window… and sorry again for breaking it."
Savannah responded with a small smile and walked away. Noah then walked over to the couch on the other side of the room and waited for Effie to be ready.
In about an hour or two, Noah and Effie were out the door and currently making their way towards the wall. They made light conversation on the way, Noah finding out that he could buy memories from the market as a Pathfinder, but they stopped once they made it to the gate. They paid their toll to get into the Inner City and entered the gates.
Effie then guided Noah through the city till they made it to the gate of the castle. Effie then walked up to the guard's station at this gate and whispered something to them that he could not make out.
The guard then turned to Noah and motioned him to follow. He then got a short goodbye from Effie and entered the castle with the guards.
The guards led him through the castle, going through many halls and flights of stairs. Noah was eventually brought to a small door. He was led in and was met with a small room. To his right was a nicely built table, and around the table there were a large number of chairs.
The place looked a lot like the meeting room that he was sometimes called to when on his electrician job in the real world.
Noah was guided to the chair and was told to wait for someone to arrive.
He did what he was told and sat in the empty seat and waited for someone to arrive. Soon after, a man walked into the room. He wore a friendly smile on his face and was slightly taller than Noah. He had short black hair and wore a thick leather armor that covered his torso, and upon his back sat a bow.
Noah watched as he walked into the room; his steps were measured but not rigid. He walked right up to Noah and stuck out his hand. Noah took his hand, accepting the handshake, Gemma began,
"Hello, I'm Gemma, I'm also the leader of the Pathfinder." He paused for a second, expecting Noah to talk, then continued. "And you're?"
Noah responded quickly, "Oh, uh, I'm Noah… sir."
Gemma paused for a second. "Yeah, just Gemma is fine." He then pointed at Noah and said in a professional tone, "Now I'm here to oversee your induction into the Pathfinder." He then summoned a small book and took a small pencil out of his pocket. "Now to assign you a mission, I'll have to know what you're good at, so…"
He gestured towards his book. "Oh, well, uhh… I'm good at stealth." Noah then thought for a second. "If I had to say, I'm better at one-on-one combat rather than me against a group… uhh, yeah, that's about all I can think of."
Gemma gave him a dull stare. "Yeeaah, that's not enough." He scratched his chin. "Do you have any skill in negotiation or information extraction?"
Noah thought for a moment, then briefly glanced down at his arm. "I mean, I could be good at information extraction in a sense."
"What do ya mean?"
He then gestured to his arm. "I mean, this could be used to coerce people into giving information."
Gemma looked a little puzzled. "Like in a reading their mind type of way?"
Noah cringed. "No, not exactly, it's more of an oh god I'll tell you anything, just make it stop type of way."
"Ahh, I see… well, that works as well." He then thought for a second. "Do you think you work well in a group or alone?"
Noah thought for a moment. "Either or… just please don't make me the leader."
Gemma nodded and started to flip through the pages of his book. He then turned the book around to face Noah. "Alright, well, you wanna join this squad here?"
Noah looked at the group and asked, "Can I just join Leandro's group instead?"
Gemma's face changed slightly at the suggestion. It was a small twitch, but he caught it. Noah couldn't tell if it was annoyance, anger, or a mixture of both, but he did know Gemma didn't like the thought of it.
"I mean, you could."
Noah looked puzzled. "Yeah, uh, I'll do that." Noah thought for a second. "Wait, hang on a second, is there something wrong with them?"
Gemma looked at the door. "Yeah, I don't think I'm at liberty to tell you about that."
Gemma returned to his laid-back attitude. "Alright, so you're joining them, right?" He then wrote something down and continued. "Then just sit tight, the king will be here to see you."
Noah stuck out his hand. "Ok, thank you si… Gemma, I'll try not to disappoint."
Gemma shook his hand. "You're welcome." He walked over to the door. "Oh yeah, forgot to say, when a mission is assigned, you will report to me." He then opened the door and walked out. "Be seeing you around."
'Huh... he seemed nice, but what's wrong with Leandro's group?'
Noah was once again left alone in the room. Soon after, a bigger-than-average man who seemed to be made of gold walked in. He took a few steps and looked around and let the gold substance flow down from his head like liquid.
Underneath the gilded shell was a pretty handsome man compared to Noah. He had a golden blonde beard with hair to match. To Noah, he seemed to be his age if not older.
He walked up to Noah as if he was looking down at him, then started, "You must be Noah."
"Uhh, hello?" Noah stuttered, uncertain of how to address the king. "... Your uhh kinglyness?"
He looked at Noah, slightly annoyed. "Sir will do."
Noah nodded in response, then Gunlaug continued, "I've heard a lot about you from Leandro, but I have learned something more interesting about you from Gemma."
Noah raised an eyebrow. "And what was that?"
"Well, when I had my little chat with Leandro, he simply mentioned that you lost an arm and some simple things he observed about your aspect." He paused, then smiled a bit. "But to omit such useful information was quite a shame."
Noah tensed up as he watched as the king slowly sat down across the table. The king settled into a relaxed posture. "Now I'd like to learn a little more about that special arm you have."
Noah breathed a small sigh of relief. 'Thank god he's not talking about the lamp.'
"Ohh well, sir, the arm is pretty new to me, so I don't have much to tell you. All I know is that it releases a gas or gas-like substance that causes pain." Noah started to sweat, and his explanation became a little more rushed. "I don't know if it causes bodily harm or not, all I know is that whenever someone breathes it in, it causes a large amount of pain."
Gunlaug put a hand on his chin. "Did it change your arm physically in any way?"
"Kind of, but it just made the arm look like charcoal."
The smile that Gunlaug was wearing grew even larger, unsettling Noah. "Interesting, very interesting." Gunlaug eyes landed on Noah. "Have you heard of the Host?"
"The Host?"
Gunlaug 's face switched to a charismatic smile. "Yes, the Host. It's the faction that backs me in the Blight Castle, but recently we have been having a few troubles as of late, and I think you could be of help."
Noah, not having much of a choice, answered, "I'll do what I can."
The king's crazed smile returned as the molten gold armor he wore covered his head once more. He then got up from his seat.
Noah followed the king out of the room and down the hallway. As they reached the stairs, the king began, "Recently we have been having problems with insurrectionists, if you will."
Noah scanned the hallways as they kept walking; he had noticed that halls that had once been illuminated by light from the sun were now being illuminated by torches and lamps. "We have been able to capture a small group of them, but they refuse to tell us anything."
Gunlaug was silent for a while till the stairs leveled off. "That's where I think you could be useful." As the stairs leveled off, the wooden door could be seen, and on either side of the door stood a guard.
From behind the door, Noah could hear the faint, agonized screams of a person. Gunlaug gestured towards the guards, and they opened the door, causing the screams to become even louder.
As soon as Noah entered the doorway, his stomach churned as he was hit with the strong smell of blood. His fingers started to fidget as he looked around. To his left and right were prison cells, some with people, some with none. Gunlaug just kept walking forward, desensitized to the horrible displays of cruelty.
Noah steeled himself and continued to follow. Eventually, at the source of the screaming, was a large cell with a man tied down to a table. Next to him was a man with strangely pale skin and a bony face. His eyes were emotionless, and his figure seemed hungover and weak, but he was anything but. This man was holding pliers and slowly peeling the skin off the arm of his victim.
Noah felt a little dizzy at the sight and averted his eyes.
As soon as they made it to the door, Gunlaug spoke in a commanding tone. "Harus."
The man now known as Harus immediately stopped what he was doing, placed the pliers down on the table next to him, and walked up to Gunlaug . "Did you get any names?"
Harus shook his head. Noah felt Gunlaug 's gaze move to him. "Prove your loyalty."
Noah hesitantly made his way into the room. Looking around, he could see what he assumed was the rest of the group that had been captured, cuffed to the wall by metal chains.
They too had been tortured; they'd been cut, burned, and bruised but were breathing. As Noah arrived at the center table, he looked over the body. The skin had been peeled off from his wrist to about halfway up the forearm. The fingernails were torn off, and some of the teeth were missing. His face was bruised as if someone had punched the shit out of him. Noah's eyes drifted to Harus.
'Damn, really?' But it did not slip his mind that he too would be a participant in this war crime.
Noah looked at the guy strapped to the table. "This is kind of a strange question, but what's your name?"
The man on the table stared back into Noah's dirty black helmet with a puzzled expression, and with a labored breath, he spoke, "Why are you asking?"
"Just curious."
The man's face changed; a small glimmer of hope trickled into his eyes. "It's Theo, Theo Mercer."
"Well, Theo, I'm Noah. Is there any way I could buy the information out of you? I'll get you anything you want." He whispered the next part. "I really don't wanna hurt you man."
Theo smirked. "Why don't you let me out, then I'll give you any amount of information you want while I'm killing the king."
"Sorry, Theo, can't do that."
Theo clicked his tongue. "Why are you helping this guy? He rules this place with an iron fist, kills everyone that opposes him, and refuses to lead the charge and get us out of this godforsaken city."
Theo paused for a second to catch his breath. "He's the reason we're stuck here in the fucking city, can't you see that? Because of his cowardice, we will never see the real world again."
Noah sighed and melancholy responded, "You see, Theo, that might be true, but—"
Noah pointed at Gunlaug and Harus. "Right now, I might die if I don't do this, and as selfish as it may seem to you, I want to live."
Then, with conviction, he continued, "No matter who I fuck over, I will survive." Noah's face went dark under his helmet. "So I'm gonna need a name."
The small glimmer of hope was replaced by anger. "Go fuck yourself, you're just like the rest of these dirtbags."
Noah looked back at Harus and Gunlaug , who seemed to be watching Noah with excited anticipation. Noah took a deep breath, then looked back at Theo and whispered, "I'm sorry."
Noah raised his corrupted limb and placed it near Theo's mouth, setting it down. He then moved his good limb over Theo's neck. He pressed down, cutting off his airway. Theo lay there jerking around, trying to get Noah's hand off his neck.
Noah then counted to thirty, each second feeling like a century. Once at thirty, he let go, causing the oxygen-deprived Theo to gasp for air, but as soon as that happened, Noah dismissed the ending portion of his wrap, causing a large amount of gas to fill Theo's lungs.
Noah held his breath as the noxious gas covered the area. Then screaming loud, unimaginable screaming,a wail so full of agony, so full of terror it didn't even sound human. Then, after a few seconds, the screams vanished.
As the mist dissipated, Noah could be seen standing next to a lifeless husk of a person. Noah, using his working hand, placed it on the man's neck, checking for a pulse. He found none. Noah's blood ran cold.
'I didn't mean to kill him. Shit.'
Noah's breath came in short, shallow bursts. His fingers trembled as he pressed them to Theo's neck, but he still felt nothing. His world tilted, and his heartbeat echoed through his skull. He had never killed a person before.
Not to mention he was an important prisoner of the king's there was a reason they hadn't killed him before. His mind raced for a solution, then, like a switch, it clicked. His head spun around to the four prisoners that were still on the wall.
He slowly made his way towards them, his lamp swaying rhythmically with his footsteps, and with the calmest voice he could muster, he asked, "Name. Now!"
They all remained quiet, so Noah began to summon one of his weapons. After ten seconds, his knife materialized in front of him.
Noah tunneled his vision on his task, one goal burning deep within his psyche: survive. The blue string-like tendril appeared once more, slowly flowing out of the slit of his helmet. He channeled the umbral energy into his dagger and cut one of the prisoners free.
He then dragged him to the middle of the room and pinned him to the ground by the neck, and then asked again, "Name?" The second victim did not respond, and Noah released his arm once more.
And again, the scream rang out, and again, the screams vanished. Noah then Shakely walked back and grabbed the next one by the collar of his dirty shirt. the next man was visibly shaken which led to Noah finally getting an answer. "Issac... Issac Drayton." Noah let go of his collar and walked over towards Gunlaug .
In a shaky voice, Noah said, "Th-eir, I got your name." He then walked past Gunlaug .
Gunlaug's laughter echoed off the walls of the dungeon. "Well Noah, welcome to the Host"
Noah swiftly exited the dungeon, his heart pounding like a drum. He kept walking till out of sight from the guards. He then leaned against the wall outside, trembling as the memories replayed in his mind. He stared at his trembling hands and suppressed a dry gag. He then whispered to himself, "What the hell have I done?"