Edge Cases

146 - Book 3: Chapter 11: Interlude - Xothok - Dissent

"We did what."

Talking to himself was still... uncomfortable. Xothok saw in this other version of him all the things he could have been, and something about that was deeply uncomfortable. It didn't help that Kothos as they had decided to call him, since it was slightly easier than saying 'other-Xothok' every single time was so much more composed.

He didn't flinch, even when Xothok got angry at him, swore at him. He watched him with kind, understanding eyes.

Eyes that made Xothok want to punch him into a wall.

"We used catapults," Kothos supplied calmly, though there was a cheeky sort of grin hiding behind his serene smile; Xothok had hated that, too, the joy Kothos seemed to be able to take in life though he was slowly starting to recognize that hatred as envy. "And an uncommon skill, [Improved Target Selection]. Turns out there's no distance limitations on the skill, and the improved version protects the ammunition until it reaches the target."

"I can't decide if I should be angry about that," Xothok muttered.

His bandits his men were all standing in one of the fields outside the Guild, a pile of raw wood piled up beside them. That was what Kothos had told him they would need, though he hadn't known why they would need it until now. There wasn't much of a point for Kothos to tell him everything. He couldn't retain information between their chats, besides the vaguest possible memory of what he needed to do.

Which made it all the more difficult to explain to his men why they needed to gather all this wood. Fortunately, most of them trusted him.

Most of them.

Byrrhon... continued to be a problem. He was starting fights more and more frequently, to the point where even his own men had started to distance themselves from him, afraid of what he would try to do to them; he would snap at the smallest things, ranting about how 'weak' they had become. How they weren't fighting monsters like they should have been, how they weren't growing in experience and levels like they had when they were out there by themselves.

One or two of his men had even listened to that ranting and sided with him, up until Xothok pointed out that experience and levels had never been the point. The amount they got from banditry was minimal, and the monsters they actually fought were few and far between. If anything, they earned more experience whenever they picked up and completed a Guild quest.

That fact did nothing to quell Byrrhon's anger. He seemed convinced that fighting monsters in the wild was the only real way to progress, and no amount of reasoning got through to him. When all other arguments were exhausted, he would simply claim that they would eventually have gotten more experience out of the old ways, which was... patently false.

Xothok didn't know how to deal with him. He'd asked the Guild to leave dealing with Byrrhon up to him, but he was starting to regret that decision. Kothos was no help he mostly seemed sad whenever he looked at Byrrhon, and had no suggestions.

By now, they had done a few of those; mostly the low-level Nucleus quests, since those were the ones the Guild needed done most. The Guildmaster seemed grateful every time they returned with a new haul of shards, though it seemed strange that she was the one to personally handle processing their quest rewards. Each time they would sit down with one of the Guild's clerks to discuss their strategies and what had eventually forced them to retreat from the Nucleus ways to optimise their builds, their skills.

They were growing stronger. All except for Byrrhon, who insisted on doing it all by himself. He told no one what his build was, and threatened to kill anyone that asked.

Xothok knew this was coming to a head. He knew if he didn't find a solution for Byrrhon, the man would do something that would get some or all of them killed. He just hadn't found any other solutions, and all of the Guild's normal strategies didn't seem to work with him.

"Uh, boss?" Morkar gestured to the pile of wood, pulling Xothok abruptly out of his thoughts. "What're we s'pposed to do with those?"

"We have to build a catapult," Xothok replied without thinking, and glared at his men when they all stared at him in confusion. "Don't just look at me. Get building!"

"There a chance I can ask why?" Morkar stared at him skeptically.

"No," Xothok answered shortly.

It was something they'd all come to accept from him he couldn't always explain what he asked them to do. In the time leading up to this he'd asked a number of his men to pick up new classes, losing their skills and several levels in the process; the Guild had a high-quality Fountain, but even it couldn't make status changes free.

It was leading up to something, he promised, and the Guildmaster backed him up. It was... surprising, to him, they all trusted him.

He wasn't planning on letting them down.

"Oh, come the fuck on." There was Byrrhon again, almost right on cue. Xothok glanced at him with disinterest at first but a second look told him Byrrhon had acquired a new scar on his face from who knows where, and something about it felt strange. A feeling of deep discomfort that started to grow in his stomach. "Are you guys really going to follow him? He's obviously gone nuts. He's building a fucking catapult. What the fuck are we going to do with a catapult?"

"It's hard to explain," Xothok said.

"Because you can't fuckin' explain it." Byrrhon got right up into his face, here, foul-smelling breath only inches away; Xothok didn't flinch. He blinked once, slowly.

"Step back, Byrrhon."

"Maybe I don't fuckin' want to."

Xothok wasn't blind. He saw both Two and Morkar moving in the back, his second- and third-in-command respectively. Byrrhon's hand was hidden from him, angled cleverly so he wouldn't be able to see if the man was reaching for anything which meant that he was, obviously.

"You're a shit leader and we're getting weak under you," Byrrhon growled.

To his credit, he didn't mince any more words. Xothok was half-expecting him to continue to say some half-baked line about how it was time for new leadership, or something like that. Instead, one hand flashed forward, blindingly fast.

Several thoughts went through Xothok's head all at once.

One was that Byrrhon's level was not what he said it was. The man was moving with the sort of speed he expected from a Silver ranked adventurer, or a Bronze ranker that had invested every point into dexterity. There was every chance that he was employing a Skill, but if he was, then it wasn't anything he'd known Byrrhon had.

The second thought was that he had prepared himself for this exact situation, but he hadn't quite prepared for Byrrhon to have grown. The man refused to participate in any of the quests they'd done; his assumption was that Byrrhon hadn't grown at all, and that had clearly been a false assumption. The better question was perhaps how Byrrhon had been able to grow without participating in a single battle.

The third thought was about Byrrhon's eyes. The man's gaze held absolute hatred in them; there was not an ounce of empathy, or of the Byrrhon he'd known before all of this had started. He wondered, in an abstract sort of way, exactly when he'd lost the man he'd once thought of as a brother.

[Martial Navigation] kicked in.

He didn't have enough speed to completey dodge Byrrhon's stab; the best he could do was twist out of the way, and though the blade only grazed him, Xothok was stunned at the amount of pain that flashed through his body. He felt his health drain out of him almost completely from that single grazed hit, and knew with certainty that if he hadn't reacted that quickly if he hadn't led so many missions himself, if he hadn't had [Martial Navigation], if he hadn't listened to Kothos whenever the other him taught him something new about his skills he would have died.

Xothok caught a glimpse of the blade, and the pulse of his heart quickened; the feeling of discomfort expanded, and became a dread. The dagger was like nothing he'd seen before. The metal looked like hunger, given form. It was a bitter red that moved and shifted in his gaze, almost painful to look at.

A memory came to mind, unbidden.

There are dark secrets hidden in the stars, too. History does not discriminate; it contains everything, good and bad. Terrible dangers hide within the beauty of the past. Do not be blinded by the light.

But if Byrrhon had uncovered one of those secrets

He didn't have time to think.

Byrrhon twisted powerfully as both Two and Morkar reached him, trying to restrain him; his strength alone was enough to fling both of them in opposite directions. Xothok didn't need to look at the system to know that that move alone had cut down most of their health.

Shit.

"Archer team!" he called out. "Formation two! Fire at will!"

He didn't check to see if they obeyed. He dove backwards, reaching into his Skills; he hadn't yet changed his own class, and thank the fucking gods for that.

[Steal], he commanded. If he could grab the dagger from Byrrhon

The skill failed. Xothok didn't have time to look at the plethora of system windows that spilled out. Byrrhon closed in, and Xothok barely dodged; the dagger was a blur of red in his vision. [Martial Navigation] helped him here.

He just needed to calm down.

"Just like navigating the stars," Kothos muttered next to him. Something about his other self's voice was soothing, calming; it helped him focus his mind. "You know how he's going to move. You don't need to react. You know where he's going to be."

He did.

He calmed himself, and let the skill take over. He let it plot the future like it was a course in the sky, marking moments in time instead of space.

Step to the left to dodge a fist. Duck low next, to avoid the swing of a blade. Two arrows will distract him, here. Step backward, and draw him forward. One arrow will strike him in the shoulder, the other in his neck.

He will survive. He will be angry.

Two more blows. One straight to your face, bottom left to top right; lean backward, and feint to the left, before he can recover. Step him into the path of another arrow. The pain will distract him.

He will try to hook you across the face, right to left. Transfer your dagger to your right hand. Grab a hold of his wrist with your left as it swings past.

Let his own strength carry your blade into his heart. Twist. It will not do enough damage if you do not.

Xothok could have stopped himself. He realized what was about to happen before he did it, despite the state the skill lulled him into; he could have pulled out. He could have stopped himself from twisting the blade.

He didn't.

"Sorry, old friend," he said. "I tried."

He had. He'd given Byrrhon more chances than he should have, perhaps. It shouldn't have come to this at all; he should have done something different. Tried to talk to him more, maybe. Locked him up somewhere until he came to his senses.

Xothok was vaguely aware that his blade was sticky with blood, of the life fading from Byrrhon's eyes. Part of him wanted to look away, but he forced himself to watch.

The hatred didn't fade from Byrrhon's eyes until his very last breath.

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