Chapter 27 - Grabbin' Pills

Current Location: Ponderous Peat

“Run!” Brent hissed. He and Reisa took off at full speed, splashing through the swamp, trying to put as much distance between them and their pursuer as possible. The rest of Adrian’s group might be on them at any moment.

Even in wet and muddy ground, Reisa was faster than him. Brent felt like more of a target as he was the closer one.

Fwip!

He winced, but there was no pain in his back.

In front of him, Reisa wasn’t hit either, so it seemed like it had just missed.

There also weren’t any gunshots, so it was likely that they only had the one pursuer at the moment.

Splish, splash. In another few moments they arrived back at the slope they had rested on before. The top looked unoccupied, but then a friendly bearded face popped out from behind some shrubbery. It was Harry!

“Oi, it’s Reisa, and Brent!” Harry whispered excitedly.

“Shhhh!!” a shush came from somewhere behind Harry.

“Sorry. Get up here, you two!” he motioned to them.

Reisa and Brent dashed up the hill, where they found Ray and Karisma similarly concealed, each watching a different direction.

“Brent! What were you thinking?” Karisma hissed. “You could’ve gotten killed rushing out like that!”

“I-” Brent started, but Reisa cut him off.

“We have little time. Someone is chasing us, and will be here soon.“

“Same way you came?” Ray had his gray rifle out and was already shifting over. “Do you know how many?”

“Just one,” Brent said.

“Great. Holmes, get back in the bush. Everyone else get down. If it’s just one guy, I’ll try to pick him off as he comes out of cover.”

Brent knelt behind a nearby bush. It was on the small side and had lots of gaps, but that was fine as it was more for making sure he saw the enemy first and less for actual protection from bullets. Besides, Ray would probably take them out anyway.

Wait, maybe he should also mention Adrian’s group, just in case they were on the way too and he hadn’t heard them.

“Uh-”

Too late. A brief rustling precluded their pursuer emerging from the woods.

It was a young woman with the reddish-brown ears and tail of a fox. Brent squinted, as she looked a little familiar.

Right, it was Cassie Nevarine, the girl he’d met on the plane! Or aircraft, whatever it was that dropped them onto the island.

Her sailor uniform looked a bit worse for wear, and she now bore a bow and a quiver of arrows. Her head swiveled, looking about in a slow and stiff manner with that tell-tale red tint in her eyes.

“Wait!” Brent whispered. “Don’t shoot, she’s being mind controlled.”

Ray sighed, taking his eye off the sights. “Here we go again.”

“That is the beast-kin woman I was traveling with before,” Reisa confirmed, “She definitely would not be hunting us down of her own volition.”

“Okay, and? How many times are we going to do this?” Ray asked. “Until you get killed? This time we even know she’s been ordered to kill us.”

“Oi, if we’re gonna be talking, let’s back off a bit,” Harry said. “She might hear us.”

They retreated out of sight to the base of the hill, on the opposite side to where the fox-eared girl had emerged. The five of them crouched down in the middle of a rough circle of shrubbery and fallen branches, making it hard to see through but not impossible much like the brush Brent had hidden in before. It wasn’t ideal as a hiding spot, but hopefully their conversation wouldn’t take too long.

Brent and Reisa quickly explained how they had encountered the man behind the mind control, and how he’d sent out three people to hunt them down.

“He is a foul lech,” Reisa reported, “He keeps only the fairest maidens by his side while either killing the rest or sending them to their deaths. The ones I saw when I first escaped his grasp were already in a state of debasement.”

Brent was afraid to ask what that meant, and it seemed everyone else was too.

“So it’s not her fault she’s attacking us,” Karisma said, “Good thing you didn’t shoot her. I don’t want any more innocent people to die because of this stupid game.”

Brent agreed wholeheartedly. He never wanted to repeat that episode with Snello again.

Ray was bewildered. “Then why didn’t you guys say anything when I said I was going to take her down earlier? You’re giving me mixed signals here.”

“We didn’t know for sure that was the case,” Brent shot back, “We didn’t exactly have the luxury of looking back until now.”

“Actually, had we known, we needn’t have been so afraid,” Reisa said. “She still has the bow she insisted on using when we were traveling together, and her skills are lacking. Very lacking.”

“So what you’re saying is, we could beat her easily,” Ray said, and the elf nodded.

“We don’t have to though,” Karisma protested, “Let’s just try to steer clear of her and anyone else he sent out.”

“Like hell we will!” Harry said, pounding a fist, “That Adrian bloke is bad news. We have to stop him and free those poor girls from his control.”

Harry came across as uncharacteristically fierce given his typically easygoing nature up until now, but was that really that surprising? Brent was thinking much of the same thing. He just didn’t have the confidence that they could pull it off.

“We don’t have to,” Karisma said, “Like, I’m all for helping people, but I really thought we were gonna die during the thing with the zombies. I don’t know if I can do that again.”

“Better to live a coward than die a hero…” Reisa muttered under her breath.

“Hm. I’m actually with Holmes on this one,” Ray declared. “Let’s take this dude out.”

Now this Brent did find surprising. “What?” he asked, “I thought you were all about staying out of danger, saving your own skin. What happened to that?”

“Well for one, he’s apparently already sent people out to kill us. Two, if you think about it, we’re probably going to have to fight him anyway. Unless someone has some even more bullshit ability than mind controlling someone just by looking at them, he’s just going to kill or enslave everyone else and survive to the end where the circle thing is going to force us together. I’d rather face him now than later when he’s got even more people under his control.”

“But like, how are we going to ‘face’ him though?” Karisma prodded. “You said it yourself, it’s a BS ability.”

“Well I don’t know that for sure. Maybe these two haven’t told us everything they know about it yet.” Ray indicated Reisa and Brent.

Brent shrugged. He didn’t have anything else. He hadn’t even seen the guy!

“What about you, Miss ‘I’m resistant to his charm’?” Ray pointed at Reisa. “Yeah, I haven’t forgotten about that. How did you manage to not get controlled?”

It was something Brent was wondering too.

There was some hesitation before she answered: “Elves are naturally resistant to magic that subverts the mind.”

Ray scoffed. “Naturally resistant, huh? That’s convenient.”

“It is, actually,” Brent spoke up. “It means she can fight him on even terms. Well, if his minions aren’t around.” He turned to Reisa. “Do you think you can resist it again?”

She nodded. “As these spells go, his is far from the strongest. However-”

She stopped mid-sentence, looking behind her. Brent followed her gaze to see that the fox-eared girl had ascended the hill.

“Oh crap,” Karisma gulped. “Should we-”

Reisa held up a hand. “Wait. She has not seen us yet.”

Everyone grew still and quiet as they watched Cassie slowly and mechanically turned about like a turret, searching for someone.

Though Brent’s heart pounded, he kept his breathing under control. He liked to think all his experience playing rogue characters with stealth skills were paying off here.

What to do? Well, they were still all crouched down, which was kind of awkward.

“Alright, uh, let’s stand back up real slow,” he whispered, “Try not to brush against anything.”

The five of them rose back up to a standing position without incident. So far, so good.

He continued. “Now we’ll just sort of inch away, still slow.”

Brent took one step, then another towards the edge of the shrubbery. He glanced back to see how the others were doing and check on Cassie when-

Crack.

He looked down to see a small twig had snapped under his feet.

Cassie’s ears perked up and she immediately swiveled in their direction. With wooden motions she nocked an arrow to the bow in her hand.

“Run!” Karisma shouted, ducking out of the way and covering her head.

Brent was about to do the same when he caught Cassie’s eyes. There was the red tint, yes, but also something else. Maybe he was just imagining it, but there seemed like a hint of recognition.

“Wait, Cassie, it’s me!” he blurted out suddenly. “Remember me?”

Cassie froze as she drew the bowstring, but after a moment she unfroze, completed the draw and fired.

Fwip!

Brent flinched, but the arrow flew over his head. As Cassie slowly drew another arrow, he decided to join the rest of his companions in beating a hasty retreat down into the woods.

Ray growled with displeasure as he jogged alongside them.

“You know, this wouldn’t be happening if we just killed her. It’s not too late to change your minds.”

“No!” Brent and Karisma shouted at the same time.

“There has to be,” Karisma panted as she jogged along,”-another way.”

Brent was feeling pretty winded himself from all the running he’d just done, but his mind was still going at full speed.

Had he just been imagining it, or did his words have some effect on Cassie? That pause… the missed point blank shot… if there was some way to reverse or break the mind control, he wanted to find it.

Well, there was no time like the present to try. It was either that or keep running after all.

Fwip! Another arrow flew but no one was hit.

“Uh, Ray, could you-” he paused to gulp in some air, “Shoot to wound instead of kill? Like in the leg or something?”

Ray chuckled, not seeming winded at all. “Sure. But just so you know, shooting someone anywhere could still kill them.”

That was true, they didn’t know how much health she had left.

It also wouldn’t accomplish much. Pain hadn’t done much to stop Snello.

There had to be something that could be said or done that could work. Though they’d have a tough time trying to figure that out when she was actively trying to hunt them down.

They needed crowd control: Taunts, stuns, paralysis… there were a variety of ways to disable a foe without dealing damage to them.

But they didn’t have any special abilities or skills to do this.

Fortunately they didn’t have to run for long. The fox girl’s movements were all stiff and slow, so the five of them were able to lose her and reconvene.

“So, do you guys have a plan yet?” Ray said. “Besides just running?”

Brent wanted to turn that question around on him and ask if he had any kind of plan, but if he did it would probably involve killing Cassie which Brent did not want.

Instead he said, “Yeah, I want to try breaking the mind control spell on her. When I called out to her just now she stopped for a moment, like the control was wavering.”

“No fooling?” Harry rubbed the back of his head. “I didn’t see that, but I suppose I was too busy running to notice.”

Brent nodded. “I’m not sure how it works, but I think if we can keep doing stuff like that enough times it might break the spell.”

He was just spit-balling about magic he knew nothing about. But maybe someone else did. “Reisa, do you think that would work?”

She looked away. “I am not sure. I have little experience with these spells.”

Crap, that wasn’t vote of confidence he was looking for.

“I see no reason why it wouldn’t work, though,” she quickly added.

Brent sighed, leaning against a tree. “Uh, okay, so the plan is, we lure her into an ambush and then take her bow so she can’t shoot us. Then, if that works we can tie her up, and…” his mind blanked on how to describe what they were going to do next, instead imagining Cassie tied up in a certain way.

“Try to snap her out of it?” Harry finished helpfully.

“...Yeah. If we can do that she might join us and tell us more information on that Adrian Donis guy.”

“And what if we can’t?” Ray asked.

Brent gulped. “We can figure that out if we get to that point.”

He looked around, feeling uncertain of the odds of any of this working. He was certain though that they had to do something. “This is kind of risky so if you don’t want to do it I understand.”

“Well, it’s not that I don’t want to,” Karisma began, “I just don’t know if I can help out with it.”

“Sounds like you don’t want to,” Ray quipped.

Karisma waved her hands. “No! I mean like, I can’t really fight, so…”

“It’s fine, I don’t want to either,” Ray said.

What. Why did he ask for a plan when he had no intention of participating?

Brent wanted to blow up at him, but held his tongue as it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Ray continued. “Alright, Karisma can come with me then. She’ll be safe with me. We’ll stay close by while the rest of you do your ambush thing, watch your backs in case someone else shows up or you need backup.”

Oh, that was actually helpful. He hadn’t thought of Karisma being alone. Brent was glad he hadn’t said anything.

“Unless anyone else wants to join me?” Ray added.

Brent felt a little nervous there, but as it turned out, there wasn’t anyone else. Harry and Reisa were committed.

Saving Cassie could be their first step towards defeating Adrian, and getting Brent’s case back. He never even found out what that other reward was.

“Oh yeah, what was the special prize you got?” he asked Ray.

“Good question, I haven’t checked.”

Ray took out his case and opened it. Inside were the usual stacks upon stacks of cash, but there was a separate compartment to one side filled with a black foam insert.

Seated neatly in the middle of the insert was a small white plastic bottle, like the kind used to hold medicine. It had a yellow and blue label sticker on the side, but instead of any brand name there was simply the word “PILLS” printed on the yellow half and “HERE” on the blue half.

Harry peered over. “Huh. Is this some kind of joke?”

The bottle looked really cheap, out of place among smooth foam and crisp dollar bills (well, D-Bucks, anyhow). Ray quickly extracted it from its surroundings and gave it a shake. The resulting rattle indicated that it was quite full.

“It looks like aspirin,” Karisma remarked.

“Dollar tree aspirin to cure your headache from dealing with all this. Now that’s a good one.” Harry chuckled.

“No, I think I know what this,” Ray said. He opened the supposedly childproof lid and poured out a half white half black pill. “Yeah, I’ve seen these pills before. They’re pretty weird.”

He passed the pill around so everyone could view the information window:

Pill Category Consumable, Healing Rarity Rare Uses 1/1 Increases Adrenaline by 50%

If Brent recalled correctly, Adrenaline was that stat that granted the user a gradual regeneration buff. He still had one of those energy drinks from before.

Energy Drink

Category Consumable, Healing Rarity Uncommon Uses 1/1 Increases Adrenaline by 25%

So the pill gave double the amount. Brent handed it off to Reisa.

Ray looked into the bottle. “Shit, that’s a lot. According to the info thing, there’s fifty of them in total.”

Fifty! And if each one had the same effect… suddenly the bottle didn’t look so cheap anymore.

Brent’s mind moved quickly. That many could maintain a constant regeneration buff on one person for a long time. Or multiple people for a short time.

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share?” he asked.

Ray shrugged. “Maybe. Why?”

Brent explained. He was feeling a lot better about their chances.