Escape

Escape

[Warning: You are in an antiskill barrier. You cannot use any active skills until the barrier is disabled or you leave the area of the barrier.]

With that simple message, all Rain's plans were crushed. No active skills meant no ‘door to the Library’ or ‘Path of Wealth.’ She needed to think fast before armed men with a key to the door came to capture her or Ariana broke her promise and lifted her blindfold.

Looking around the room, Rain found an oil lamp and a spark flicker. Using the spark flicker, she lit the lamp. There was noise outside the door as heavy footsteps approached, and a commanding voice told the servants to back away from the door.

Rain wasn’t sure if her plan would work, but for the girl's sake, she would have to make it. Her goal was the room she had seen at the end of the hall with the fancy decor and large windows overlooking the Low Ring.

When she heard a key in the lock, she cocked her arm back, ready to throw her lamp. The moment a gap large enough to fit the lamp appeared, she threw it, shattering it on the wall outside. The armored man who had been opening the door yelped as burning oil splashed him.

The wall the lamp broke on was made of stone and didn’t light up when the burning oil hit it, but the pine floor and fancy rug in the hallway, along with the drapes and paintings, those all caught fire quite nicely.

Rain used the distraction to bolt past the three armed men towards her escape. However, one of the armored men had the presence of mind to grab her by the arm as she tried to pass him.

“Got him.” the man said, coughing from the smoke. “Rog, Nath, put that out before the whole place burns down.”

The man's grip on her arm hurt; any harder might break something. Rain thrashed, trying to break away. She needed to get out of here before something happened to Ariana. Rain didn’t care what happened to herself; she deserved every bad thing that happened to her for what she had done, but Ariana wasn’t a monster. Rain didn’t think the man would be willing to touch her if he knew what she had done. She would have been able to escape then.

The moment he let go, Rain turned away from the men and slowly walked to her target room. She had to work hard not to run and ruin the image of a powerful denizen of Arkit. Once she reached the room, she walked up to the large window. Out the window, she could see a straight drop down the three stories of the manor and then another seven or so stories down a sheer cliff to the Low Ring. Turning around, she saw the men frozen in place, watching her as the hall behind them burned.

Rain spread her arms in a dramatic pose and threw herself backward through the window and into a freefall. Rain pivoted her body around as she fell and threw a coin at the ground. As she plummeted past the manor, she could feel the restrictive barrier disappear, and her skills react to her. She could feel the coin she had just thrown and warped to it when it hit the ground.

Rain appeared belly down on the ground right above the coin she had thrown. Somehow, she hadn’t killed herself. Looking around, she saw a regular Low Ring street covered in ash with its colorless buildings. Her aura had returned to normal; no strange sounds or shadows were present.

Getting to her feet, Rain ran as fast as she could to get somewhere out of sight of the Manor above, fire lighting up its windows like angry eyes.

The moment she felt safe to do so, Rain opened a door to the library, worried about what she would find. To her great relief, she saw Ariana sitting where she had left her, blindfold still on.

“Is that you?”

Ariana sounded a little worried. It was probably a bit frightening to sit in a strange place like this. Rain hadn’t realized that the whispering from the books was audible from here before.

“Yes, you’re almost home.”

With that, Rain led Ariana outside. She had done it. She had saved one person. With this one act, Rain could see. She was a monster, but she could become something better.