Author's Nightmare: Chapter 134 (Patreon)

Solitaire POV: Day 104

Current Wealth: 222 gold 0 silver 37 copper

Shango had flashed me a look there, for just a second. Too fast for anyone but us to know, but just long enough to convey its meaning. As limited as communication done with facial twitches alone was, I was fairly sure I’d gotten the meaning too. It was a secret “go on an insane psychotic rampage and kill as many people as you can” look. 

I couldn’t know that for sure, of course, so I decided to play things safe and assume that it was. After all, in the worst case scenario I was still too useful to kill. Good thing about being imprisoned for vital information is you’re the most important person present. 

My three escorts- who I had nicknamed Grongle, Dumbo and Chungus on account of their sub-brick intelligence- were relaxed slightly after my lack of violent insanity at Shango’s presence. That had been deliberate, of course, as had been the rest of my performance over the day. Laxing up slightly when they hit me, flinching, letting them think I could be deterred with a pinch of pain. 

Ridiculous. My mum hit harder than these dumb cunts, and more regularly too. Say one thing for mother-dearest, say she was good at preparing you for the worst. 

We turned a corner and started heading down, walls losing their paper and wood yielding to hard stone. A few more steps and we were in the dungeons, the most secure part of the building.

That was, of course, the perfect time to strike. Because I didn’t think I could physically get out no matter what, which meant the benefit of extra-tough walls around me was no benefit at all to my enemies. And if they relaxed thinking it was, then it was actually my weapon. I did give these things a bit of thought, you know. If you thought I just improvised it all then I can only apologize for spoiling the magic. 

My shackles were thick, heavy things. But they were bigger than they were solid. I focused on building ice around the locking mechanism, shielding it from sight so my enemies wouldn’t notice.

Oh, I wasn’t freezing the metal. That would’ve been pointless. Iron this thick? I’d need to be able to bench a hundred of myself to even have a chance of snapping it, and even bringing steel into the negative hundreds celsius left it with an appreciable fraction of its strength. No, the ice was protection. Because once its shell had thickened to about an inch, I got to work on the nitro.

Every step taken as I flooded the hollow interior of my shackles with the stuff felt like it’d detonate the liquid prematurely. Even with ice now covering the shackles and as much of my hands and arms as I could manage without giving up the game, it wasn’t wholly pleasant. But it took me only a few seconds to completely fill it. Then I turned around and swung the shackles up for Dumbo’s face. 

BOOM. Nothing like the sound of a nice explosion to wake you up in the morning, better than caffeine! Not for Dumbo though, it did the opposite to him. I’d made most of my icy wards on the wearer’s side, so much of the blast got deflected directly into poor Dumbo’s face. He dropped like a sack of shit, and I whirled to see Grongle and Chungus were reeling. 

Honestly, some people. Set off a tiny, piddly nitro bomb next to them and they go completely witless. 

Well, witless was what happened to Grongle next. I snatched a particularly big bit of mangled iron out of the air and jabbed it into his neck as hard as I could. It wasn’t that sharp, or big, and I don’t think I hit any arteries, but the moron was clutching at himself to stem the bleeding anyway. A fair precaution, but unfortunately one which occupied both of his hands. I grabbed his temples and started headbutting, once, twice, five times. By the time I stopped my forehead had finished testing his jawbone, and found it wanting. He fellt with a chin that was rather lumpier than before. Two down. 

Of course Grongle had a baton, and he was almost as big as me. But he also wanted me alive. Doubtless Byror- who seemed desperate to control everything- had made a stupidly vicious threat to anyone about what would happen if they killed me. Grongle was probably thinking of that now, which meant my neck and head were safe from bludgeoning. The baton was affixed at his left hip, and he was to my right, so it’d be whipping to me roughly from behind as I was facing to Grongle’s left.

I darted back, turning and catching the bludgeon in my shoulder. It was a few inches lower than I’d have guessed, but I was right enough to blunt its impact. I’d caught the weapon halfway through its acceleration, and for my next trick I caught Grongle and started leaning in.

He’d seen me bite someone, so he panicked instantly, and I used that moment to break contact, twist the baton from his wrist and start swinging. Heavy thing, maybe a kilogram in total and running about the length of my forearm. It came down hard on the back of his neck, shoulders and skull. Grongle went down shortly. Three for three. 

But I wasn’t out of the fire yet, because when you start your escape attempt with an IED it tends to gather attention. I knew for a fact there were seven guards lower in the dungeons, where I’d been held, and if the ones I’d seen on my way up were still where they’d been, there were four more who were closer. I turned down the hall, and started sprinting up out of thd dungeon and into the mansion proper.

Sure enough, the four guards were ahead of me soon enough, gathered up, armed and shaking as they awaited my approach. I did hate being right sometimes, as a paranoid it rarely brings good news. My baton was better than fists, but each of them was armed with a spear now. And they wore chainmail. Better equipped than some street toughs, these were Byror’s personal guards. 

Well no pain no gain. 

I came on as fast as I could, then leapt right before we crashed into each other. Their spears were outstretched, which would’ve made me the loser of that. I darteed to one side, kicked off the wall and turned as much of my sprinting speed into flying speed as I could. And it worked pretty well, if I say so myself, sending me well over their heads to land behind. I was swinging before any moved, cracking the baton into someone’s chest and feeling bones give beneath it. A spear flashed for me, and I twisted aside into the path of another which barely glanced off my own weapon. The third chased me back. 

All their motions were slow, like watching men moving through water. Which was the only reason I hadn’t been stabbed to death already. They advanced as I retreated, then the sounds of footsteps reached me from behind. More enemies, a good few, and less than twenty paces away. I threw myself at the spears again. 

With another baton swing I snapped one’s head off, but the other two were too steady and too long to close. I hissed as this time one of them opened a cut on my cheek. A splash of nitro eviscerated one of them, then the newcomers closed. They went to restrain me, not kill me. Which meant fists and grappling. I dropped the baton as arms closed on my body, knowing it’d be useless at this range, and got fighting. 

All told, I did a bit of damage. One man lost an eye to a headbutt, another’s head hit the wall so hard I heard either brick or bone break apart. But there were a lot of them. Fists came down like rain, and though I was a great deal sturdier than back on earth damage like that adds up impossibly fast. Soon enough I was buried under several burly men, limbs held in vice-grips and body pinned fast. I struggled anyway, and actually shifted them a few inches.

Then the fist came down on my temple, and I decided that being taken easily was the better part of valour. 

Well, I’d had a good run, and I’d hospitalized a few of the enemy at least. Now it was out of my hands. Whatever Shango had needed me rampaging for would either work or it wouldn’t. 

I considered, as they hauled me off, the idea of trying another nitro blast. No. Knowing my luck lately, I’d end up killing myself. 

And the world had been doing a fine enough job of that already without my help thrown in.