Library of Rain

Filibuster

Rain leaned against a wall for support as she hobbled down the street. People gave her looks, and she was sure to be remembered and recognized when the soldiers came, but she had no other ideas. Her ankle still hurt from jumping out the window, and she barely had the energy to stand anyway.

She tried again to warp to one of her coins. Nothing. She could feel them, but she couldn’t grab them. Next, she tried to make a portal to her library. No luck there, either. She couldn’t even flex her aura, and her whole body hurt.

Despite her fatigue, Rain kept a close watch on her surroundings, trying to figure out where she was. The buildings were smaller and unkempt, and little bronze could be seen. This was almost certainly the Low Ring, meaning Rain had traveled far from the brothel. She had maybe ten minutes before her pursuers caught up to her. She would need to find a way to delay them for another forty minutes after that and escape. 

And she had no idea how.

She spotted a building she remembered. It stood out from the buildings around it due to being well-kept and neat: the cobbler shop where she had purchased her first pair of shoes. The same shoes she was wearing now.

He had seemed friendly and offered to help her stay safe the first time she met him. Perhaps he would help her hide now? 

No. Giving shelter from the scum in the street who were looking to make a few vers by selling weak and easy targets was different from hiding someone who the Arch Lord’s soldiers wanted. Even if he wanted to, there was no way he could protect her. 

The cobbler shop was in the eastern part of the Low Ring. The eastern part…

If Mr. Markson was correct, then Hornet would be in this part of the city. The soldiers and guards had never been able to find him. Rain had a feeling she knew why, and she might be able to use it to escape, but did she dare to try? Hornet was almost certainly going to try to kill her.

[Curse of Tracking: time remaining 48 minutes.]

Rain would be caught if she didn’t take the risk. So she sent a silent plea to her cloak to transform into clothes a merchant might wear, including their signature hat.

“Hornet! I’m your merchant friend. I can give you another book.” Rain shouted as loud as she could, her voice still raspy from nearly drowning.

The people around her gave her looks as she limped down the street, repeating her call. But the attention dwindled as the crowds thinned. Soon, Rain was alone on a street that should be crowded right now, standing amongst the twisted spires of Tineak, the night completely silent. Fog began to drift down from the cracks in the buildings and pooled at ankle height, covering the street and glowing softly silver with the reflection of the moons.

Last time she met Hornet, he had pulled her and Lucus into a place where no one could see or hear them. It seemed like he had a skill that let him hide from others in an empty copy of the world, allowing him to kill without being caught. Rain was banking on that being the case. If she was right, she was now in another layer of reality, separate from the world where soldiers searched for her. It also meant that no one could save her here.

Step, clack, scrape. Step, clack, scrape. The lurching gait of the footsteps behind her alerted Rain to the presence of the other occupant in this isolated world. Rain turned to face her first intentional victim - the man who would likely kill her: Hornet. 

He stood twenty feet away, the mist at his feet agitated by his passage. Despite being no taller than an average man, his crooked stature seemed to loom taller than the spires, leaving him backlit by a large moon. 

“I know youuu.” 

That simple sentence, so normal yet full of madness, sent chills down Rain's back. She immediately changed her cloak to cover her face. If she survived the next forty minutes, the last thing she wanted was for him to have a way to search for her.

“Hello Hornet, I hear you’re looking for another one of my books.”

At the mention of books, Hornet’s face lit up, and an unnatural glow formed in his eyes.

“You had them! You lied to me and sent me to those people who had no books. No matter how many times I broke them, they refused to give me the books! They said they didn’t know what I was asking for, but you, you know where they are!”

Rain took an awkward step back as Hornet advanced on her with a gleam in his eyes. The mist at her ankles turned viscous, latching to her and constraining her movement. 

This had been a bad idea. She would have lived longer if she had let the soldiers find her. But she wasn’t about to give up now.

“Yes, I have them, but I sent you to that place so I could give you more!”

“I don't need that. I can just kill you and make you give them to me!”

“I can't give you them if I'm dead!”

For the first time, something Rain said seemed to faze Hornet, stopping him in his tracks. Hornet cocked his head, a befuddled look on his face.

“How else are you going to give them to me if you aren’t dead?”

What had the mental corruption done to this man? Everything he said was the color of purest truths. Yet he spoke of things that were impossible. Could she use his delusions?

“Simple, in order to get one of my books, you have to perform tasks. That's why you only got the first book after attacking the shipment.”

Rain had no idea where she was going with this, but if he wasn’t walking forward, he wasn’t killing her. How much longer did she need to stall?

[Curse of Tracking: time remaining 37 minutes.]

How was she supposed to keep a madman talking for thirty-seven minutes and then escape? She wasn’t sure, but she kept talking.

“That's why I had you attack that place, but because this is your second book, it will take more tasks to force a second book to appear.”  

Hornet stared intently at her. He was probably trying to figure out if she was lying, but with that insane smile dividing his face, it was hard to tell.

“People always talk when they die. I'm sure if I kill you, you’ll tell me the truth. Yes, you’re a liar, so the only way to get the truth is to kill you.”

Hornet took another step closer, and the street walls closed in, crowding out the sky. Hornet loomed above Rain, who felt very, very small.

“But if I die, all the books will disappear! Can't you feel it? Can’t you feel that the books and I are the same?”

“Hmmm, I do. Are you one of the books? What will happen if I open you up and read your insides?”

He was only a few steps from Rain now. She could smell a clawing, rotting stench. If she didn’t convince him now, she would die, her body left discarded in the ashes of the street. She would fail her past self.

“You can’t kill me because I'm already dead!”

It was a stupid thing to say, but it was all Rain had. 

Hornet once again stopped. 

“You’re dead? Hmm, yes, yes. I see; then that means that you’ve been telling me the truth!”

Wait, had that worked?

“Yes, I was telling you the truth. You can trust me because I’m dead.”

“Where, where are the books with the sweet, sweet secrets?”

“You can get another one from me, but first, you must tell me your secrets. If you can tell me the secrets you learned from the book, I can add to them.”

If Rain was going to stall this monster, she would need to understand his madness. She knew he had a thing for talking to dead people, but was that a skill or his insanity? How could she use it to keep him talking or to escape?

“The secret, the secret, fine,” Hornet looked around as if searching for anyone eavesdropping on their conversation. He leaned in; the stench of death almost had Rain gagging. “This world is fake. The only way to wake from the dream that is the world we live in is to die. The book chose me to spread the truth and save the people from the trap that is this life! I will set them all free.”

Hornet’s eyes shone brighter and brighter as he spoke until they glowed brighter than the moons overhead. The inky shimmer dripping off him mixed with the fog at their feet and formed faces screaming in eternal pain. Rain recognized one of the faces as the merchant she had seen him kill when she first met him. 

How much longer, Mr. Purple?

[Curse of Tracking: time remaining 29 minutes.]

Talking wasn’t using as much time as she needed; she had stalled for less than ten minutes, yet Rain felt cold and could see her skin turning a sickly gray. 

That's right; his first skill was death whispers. Maybe getting him to talk wasn’t such a good idea.

It was too late to change the past, but Rain might be able to survive. She wouldn’t give up.

“Thank you, Hornet. You passed the test. Now let me take you to where the book is hidden.”

“Finally! I will hear the words of the beyond again!”

He was crying as he spoke. Rain would feel bad for lying to him if she wasn't so terrified. 

“In order to find the next book on the path of the true world after death, you must start in the Dead Ring.”

It was the only place Rain could think of where Hornet wouldn’t be around people to vent his anger on when he realized he had been tricked. Its name also helped; it fit Hornet's personal narrative, which should help her distract him for longer. 

“Yes, yes. Let us go quickly, quickly!”

Like a bolt of lightning, Horrnet grabbed Rain and picked her up. Her skin went numb where he touched her. Rain barely had time to drop her coin into an ash bank before she was spirited away.