Chapter narrated by Fin:
15/14/95
I feel sleepy.
I want to close my eyes and rest for a bit.
With the wound on the stomach, it would probably be more than a bit.
"Sera, the door!" Balyn shouted.
The doors shut closed, but I know that won't do more than delay them.
Bang.
Haha.
Looks like I was right.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
This is it.
The last sound I will hear? A bang?
God, the blood loss must really be taking its toll on me. I feel my head lighter than ever.
If only she was here to see me like this.
She would say something like...
"This is how you die? Being unable to move, losing blood in the southern part of Vareth. Serves a pipsqueak like you right."
Yeah.
That is exactly how she would sound...
I looked up.
There she was.
Her long black hair and those sickening yellow eyes filled with hate.
HAHAHAHAHA.
For all the gods. The blood loss really is taking its toll on me.
I looked at the door. Balyn was doing all he could to keep it shut. The blind girl of the guild is also here. And lastly, there was...
"How does it feel? Looking at them and knowing they will all die because you needed to investigate this. You couldn't just report the missing soldiers and move on, could you?"
That struck something.
'That is not true. We will get—'
"Out of here? Come on, Fin. You are a weakling but not an idiot. Look at them. Hear how the door sounds."
Bang.
"Does it sound like they are going to be able to hold them off? Look at the iron bolt. Already breaking apart at the minimum pressure. Reminds me a bit of you."
'Shut up.'
"Oh? The little brat grew a tongue while I was gone? Say whatever you want. I will just be here watching as they tear your friends apart."
'They won't be—'
"Oh yes, they will. Your little orc friend. The blind waste of space. And also the other girl. The one that left you. What was she called? Oh yeah, it was—"
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Vareth alley. 12/11/95.
We almost died. If Holt hadn't appeared, we would be goblin food by now. The worst part was that we were managing the situation. I was convinced that we could have gotten out of it if she had just pulled back. It was the obvious decision, and she decided to push forward. Our position broke because of it. We almost died because of it.
"Sera!" I was running after her.
She was moving fast in the streets of Vareth, finally stopping in an empty alley near the guild.
"What, Fin?"
She was mad. I heard it in her voice.
I knew that the right choice was staying quiet, but I was also mad.
"I want to talk about what happened."
"What do you want to say, Fin? We have been rank 1 adventurers for the past five months, and the first chance of getting to rank two we had just ended up in total disaster. What do you want to talk about?"
"Don't be like that, Sera. You know the contract was not classified correctly. It is not our fault."
She stopped walking and turned around.
"I know that, Fin."
"Then why are you so mad? We are safe now. Holt was there. We are okay."
"It is because you didn't trust in me," she said.
I was the one who didn't trust her?
She wanted me to follow her reckless move and be okay with it?
"I didn't trust you?" The words came out sharper than I meant. "Sera, you almost pushed into a formation of eight goblins. Eight. I wasn't asking you to retreat because I didn't trust you. I was asking you to retreat because the odds didn't work."
"The odds?!" She let out a fake laugh. "You and your odds."
"What is wrong with my odds?"
"Nothing's wrong with it, Fin, it's just..." She stopped, pressed her finger to the bridge of her nose, and let out a sigh. "You weren't reading the situation. The rear two were already breaking off. If I had hit the center with enough force, the formation would have collapsed on itself."
"You don't know that."
"I was right there. I could see it."
"You could see what you wanted to see," I said quieter than I expected to. "That's different."
She went still after that.
I shouldn't have said it. My hands were still shaking slightly, I noticed. Probably they had been since the camp. We both almost died, and it had gotten into our heads and words.
"I've never gotten us in any trouble," she finally said.
"I know that."
"Five months of contracts, Fin."
"I know, Sera."
"So why is it so hard for you to trust me?" She said it with frustration, anger, sadness. "Why can't you, for once, trust that I know what I'm doing? Even when you disagree with it."
I looked at her. The anger had already abandoned me. I tried to tell her that she was wrong, that I trusted her, but the look on her face... It was not anger now. It had changed into something far more complicated, something I did not know how to answer.
She just stared at me, waiting for me to say something.
I wanted to. I wanted to tell her she was wrong, but nothing came out of my mouth.
Her face changed. She just turned around and said something that hurts even today.
"We should go back to the guild. I think the best thing is that we dissolve our party."
I wish I could say that I stopped her there and told her that I didn't want that, that she had been a great partner for me.
But that is not what I did.
What I did was nothing.
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The sound of the door took me out of my head.
Bang.
I looked at the door. The three of them are holding it down. I don't think it will be enough.
"This is how you die, Fin. Serves you right. You don't deserve much else with all of what you have done."
'You are right. I don't deserve much else.'
I looked at those cursed yellow eyes, and for the first time in a long while, I saw surprise in them.
"...Haha, look at that. You have grown up without me. What a surprise. At least you know how pathetic you are after what you did to me."
'Maybe... but I won't go like this.'
"Sera." Speaking was painful, but I need to say this. "I'm sorry about what I said that day."
Bang.
"Not the moment, Fin," she said.
Bang.
"This might be the only moment." I knew we were not getting out of here.
Bang.
"I'm also sorry for that day. I shouldn't have told you those things."
Bang.
"I forgave you a long time ago."
Bang.
"I have also forgiven you, Fin. Now stop talking. We will be alright." Sera finally said.
Bang.
The iron bolt broke.
Bang.
The door broke down.
The bodies of Sera, Balyn, and the blind girl went flying to the floor.
"This is it, Fin. You already amended things with your friend. Hopefully that does not make you comfortable with your death. I would hate that you don't remember what you did before you take your last breath."
The dark figures entered slowly into the room, surrounding us all, and when the last of them had entered the building, the two that didn't have a blindfold took a step forward and looked at Sera's partner.
'Shut up.'
Those two looked at each other and then back at the blind elf.
"And why should I shut up, you bastard?"
"Kill everyone except this girl." The two figures said.
'Because you aren't here. You are just a product of my mind and the blood loss.'
The figures raised their blades and took a step forward.
"And why is that, Fin? Tell me why I'm not there."
A sword pierced the face of one of the two figures in the center.
'You know why.'
The figures turned towards the now dead cloaked figure.
"Maybe I know, maybe I don't. You know, it gets complicated remembering after, well, you know."
A circle of fire appeared around us, separating us from the cloaked figures.
'After you died.'
Someone entered. A man moving fast. The cloaked figures tried to react, but the speed of the man was something I hadn't seen before.
"Oh, so you remember. Yes, things tend to be hard to remember after you killed me, Fin."
The man was pulling weapons from thin air. One moment one of the assassins was jumping towards him while he was unarmed; the next, he had a spear in his hand, piercing the now dead attacker.
'I did not kill you.'
The figures were walking backwards. Clearly, they had fear of this man. One of the ones with a blindfold, spoke to the one that had their eyes uncovered.
"That's what you say to yourself, pipsqueak? You know exactly what you did."
"Captain, didn't she tell us he would be occupied in the northern district?" The blindfolded attacker said, panic in their voice as more of their partners were being cut, pierced, and crushed under the arsenal the man was pulling out of thin air.
'I was not the one that killed you.'
"That is what she told us..." The voice of the so called "Captain" said. Less and less of the assassins remained. The man seemed to be moving without difficulty through all of them, as if it was easy.
"You know what you did, Fin."
"Then why is he here? What is the oracle of Reval doing here?" That was the voice of the girl who originally attacked us. The figures were becoming fewer and fewer. The bodies of the dead assassins were all over the floor.
'I didn't do it. I didn't kill you. I know I'm not responsible for your death.'
The oracle moved with incredible precision. He had almost killed all of the blindfolded attackers.
"Say whatever you want, you waste of time. I'm just a voice in your dying mind, here to torment you until you take your last breath. Everything I say is something you have thought. You feel responsible for it, yet you also feel something else. You are so pathetic that you feel happy I'm gone. Me, the woman that gave you everything. You truly are pathetic, Fin." She began to laugh.
The oracle clashed with the remaining figures. One swing of a sword cutting one of them in two, an arrow into the head of another, a small knife piercing the heart of one that tried a sneak attack. There were less than five of them remaining.
'Shut up. Shut up right now.'
The five tried a coordinated attack, trying to attack him from all directions to overwhelm the oracle. His eyes moved fast, analyzing the situation, and then with a simple movement of his hands, a burst of flames erupted from him in a three-meter radius. The assassins went flying; they had burn marks all over their skin.
She just laughed harder.
The oracle moved fast. He did not give any of them the chance of getting up from the floor, piercing them with a variety of weapons until they didn't move an inch.
'Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!'
The flames that surrounded us slowly dissipated, and he stood before us.
We were safe.
Wait...
We were safe?
I stopped thinking. She had disappeared, and now all of my attention was on the man standing before us.
He was tall, short blond hair, and he was looking tired. Not physically tired, more like the thought of the whole situation made him tired.
"Let's go. You all need medical attention. After I take you to the hospital and you are cleared, I will need to ask some questions. Please don't try to leave Vareth until that happens. It would put you all in a lot of unnecessary trouble, and this whole fiasco is already enough of a headache for me."
My eyes were closing themselves.
The last thing I heard was Sera's voice.
"Fin, don't give up now. Just a little more. Stay with us."