By the time I make it to the Tower’s entrance, I’ve sufficiently worked myself into a frenetic frenzy. If Jimmy has been hurt, I’m ready to once again embody the reaper.

My blood sings with the anticipation of battle, but I push away the feeling. There’s another reason Jimmy might’ve been removed from my dependent list, one I learned of from Clarissa. But if he killed another Numbered, then there’s likely more going on.

So, considering I have no idea what’s happened to Jimmy, I need to hurry and find him… or what’s left of him. I consider stepping through the Tower and heading into the usual collection spot. Maybe he went to work on mining more iron and gathering herbs after not finding me and got swarmed by too many monkeys?

But in the same vein, I know the marketplace is just as dangerous. The images of Dorian and Lorain come to mind, but they have no reason to attack Jimmy. And if they have, I won’t spare them a second time.

I won’t find answers by standing around, that’s for sure. Won’t do me any good to skip past the marketplace, so I make my way through the long hallway with determined steps… and find Cori.

She sees me and looks uncertain, then waves anyway. “Was starting to wonder if you’d make an appearance at all today.”

A dismissive glare makes my feelings about her and her two flanking attendants apparent. “Don’t screw with me today. I’m busy.”

“So it seems,” she says, tapping her cheek. “Could it be that friend of yours? He seems to have gotten himself in quite the mess of a situation.”

Stopping in place, I orient towards her and pin her with my most damning stare. “Tell me what you know.”

“Only if you agree to forgive Dorian and Lorain for what happened yesterday,” Cori says, smiling innocently. “They get a bit passionate sometimes. I’m sure you understand.”

“Tell me,” I growl, my armor and greatsword appearing.

Her two stooges step in front of her, poised to receive any act of aggression in kind. Much to their distress, she steps past them and nods. “That’s a deal then. Follow me, and I’ll lead the way. Better be quick if you wanna get there in time.”

As much as I want to stop her and demand straight answers, I take her words seriously. If she says we don’t have time to talk and need to move, then we don’t have time to talk and need to move. Simple as that.

I trust she won’t try to screw me over either. She has vested interest in keeping me as happy as can be, seeing as I still possess [Living Shadow]. She’s proven her dedication to getting it, and if I have to forgive her twats to save Jimmy, then it’s a cheap price to pay.

Her speed is incredible, surpassing that of her followers by a fair degree. So fast is she, I have to constantly cast [Dash] to keep up.

We blaze through the marketplace, straight through the portal, and immediately bank left. [Perception] picks up on a couple of bodies, but I pay them no further attention, diligently following Cori.

I hope for all I’m worth Jimmy is okay by the time I reach him.

*

With dozens of Numberless at his back, Jimmy stares down the Numbered in front of him. They shouted insults at him, but he didn’t pay it any mind.

His breathing was strained, his body at its limits. He’d done well, his assault going better than he’d ever hoped for. But all good things must come to an end, such was the way of life.

Once these kidnappers realized he wasn’t targeting any of the Numberless, they had the bright idea of taking them hostage and using them as shields. They’d demanded he reveal himself, otherwise the Numberless would die in his stead.

Jimmy hadn’t believed them, but lo and behold, a woman that looked about forty lay dead behind him. Right next to her laid the one who’d stabbed her through the chest, an arrow embedded to the fletching deep in his eye socket.

Jimmy managed to save the second with a careful shot, but then he had no more arrows remaining. His hunting had been too successful, and now he had nothing but his two knives to stave off dozens of gangsters.

“Just give up, kid!” one shouted, throwing a hatchet.

Blocking it with two crossed daggers, Jimmy barely evaded another guy that charged him. He didn’t dodge the next one, a sword running through him with a burning intensity he’d never before experienced.

Shit.

“Got the bitch!” shouted the offender, but he didn’t have much longer to gloat.

One of Jimmy’s daggers wormed its way, hilt deep, into his attacker’s eye socket. He didn’t know what hit him. The dead weight wrenched Jimmy’s dagger away, leaving him with but a single dagger to face down the rest.

“Just leave him be. He’ll bleed out soon. Not like he can do anything else now,” one of the guys in the front, one Jimmy recognized as a leader, told the others. “That said, anybody who wants to try to take him down gets double pay.”

“Sign me up!” Another gangster charged Jimmy with a two-handed ax.

His form was sloppy and left countless openings Jimmy wanted to take advantage of but couldn’t, the sword in his gut shooting searing pain through him when he shifted his weight at all.

Shit.

Was this the end of his hunt? But he’d only just started. It couldn’t end like this, but as the ax descended, he found it near impossible to move.

The pain of taking a step forward helped him sober up, and the second step to evade jostled the sword. Screaming, Jimmy slipped into the man’s guard, dodging the blow, and embedded his dagger into the man’s throat with all his might.

Jimmy slumped back, the strength in his legs long since depleted. Only his single-minded devotion to hunting his prey kept him moving, only one thought on his mind.

Shit.

His wrist shook from weariness, betraying just how far past his limits he’d pushed. Gripping it with his other hand, he steadied himself as another challenger approached. Time dragged infinitesimally slow as the sword stabbed towards him.

In the moment before he was again impaled, he raised the dagger to slide the edge along the sword’s edge, taking a step forward and to the side. Then his dagger snaked forward, cutting open the man’s wrist.

Thick tendon gave way, and the man’s sword fell to the ground, abandoned. He wailed in pain and begged for help in the moment before Jimmy implanted his blade in the attacker’s eye socket. This time, though, he made sure to remove the dagger as to not lose it like the other.

Stepping back wracked Jimmy’s body with pain, and he couldn’t resist toppling with the body that fell and slammed into his leg.

Shit.

He didn’t want to die like this, but what more could he do? He’d given his all, and it only amounted to this much. Even if he wanted to, he didn’t have any way to push himself any more. No matter how much he demanded his body move, it wouldn’t. No matter how hard he tried to free himself of the man’s dead weight, he couldn’t.

Shit.

The gangsters approached, looming over him. Fluids he cared not think about wet his already sweat slickened skin and clothes, but he couldn’t care. He had no energy left. Already, it took everything in him to force his eyes to remain open, the heady rush of violence spewing his blood down the front of his shirt and out his back causing his eyes to flutter.

Lifelessness tinged at the ends of his fingers, his feet, legs, then hips going completely numb. Everything failed, one part at a time, in rapid succession.

Death came, and he, its victim.

Shit. Jack… take care, brother.

Darkness came, and with it, all sensation of life fluttered away.

*

“Cori!” I shout, bursting through the trees and landing by Jimmy’s fallen form. My greatsword becomes a scythe, wreathed in shadows, as I bisect all before me. “Keep them away from me!”

“Got it! Lorain, Dorian, you’re both free to go wild,” Cori shouts from my side.

I kneel beside Jimmy, wrenching the sword free from his stomach, ignoring the viscera, and dropping it to the side. The incantation is already spewing forward from my lips, a point of primessence expended to renew its cooldown, “Bid unto thee recovery, make thy wounds heal true. Embrace this breath, so tenderly, knit thy flesh anew. [Greater Restoration]!"

With bated breath, I watch as his wounds heal, knitting the hole in his stomach together. But his flesh remains cold and still underneath my hands, even when the effect comes to an end.

“No!” I roar, spending another point to renew the incantation.

I cast it again, the emerald healing energy coming to life under my hands. Despite what it may look like on the outside, the energy floods through him like a desert soaks up rainwater. Even after two whole casts, he’s still unmoving.

The ruckus behind me grows in volume, increasing to a dull roar that I completely ignore.

“Again!” Another point of primessence gone and another cast of [Greater Restoration].

A hand rests against my shoulder, Cori’s small, furred hand trying to comfort me. “He’s gone.”

“No! I promised I’d take care of him!”

The emerald energy continues flowing into Jimmy, and as it gets to the end of its cast, I start to believe her. But in the final moments before the spell fades away, Jimmy draws a deep breath.

“You actually did it…” Cori mutters by my side.

Jimmy’s eyes open, and he looks at me. “You… came…”

I nod, the wrath I’ve been subduing breaking free from the shackles of my control. “Keep him safe and get your people out of my way. Then we’ll be even.”

Concern flashes through Cori before she turns toward the chaos I’ve yet to lay my eyes on, whistling sharply. “To me!”

Lorain and Dorian do the reasonable thing and get out of my way. Uninhibited and incapable of holding myself back, I leap into the fray. [Battle Trance] comes alive, and my wrath manifests unto the world.

The people before me look little more than monsters, and I treat them as such. 

Slayer trait activated.

It activated when I first arrived and slew the group surrounding Jimmy, but it’s faded since. My new assault brings the trait alive, and power floods through me. I hold nothing back as the effect perpetuates my wrath.

“He’s a monster! Kill him!”

“No way, I’m getting out of here!”

Those that try running become fuel, easy pickings. “None of you will leave here alive!”

There’s a brief moment where I pause to relish in the fear oozing from them, but then the moment passes. I’m moving again, my greatsword an armament of death in my wake, bidding unto them my wrathful vengeance.

Here, I am judge, jury, and executioner. For what they have done, they deserve no mercy. [Living Shadow] dances among the shadows of the enemies, wreaking havoc amongst the enemies.

I lose myself to my rage, slaying every gangster down to the last man. Even those who attempt to surrender get nothing but the sharp end of my sword. Mercy to one’s enemy is cruelty to oneself, and I live by that principle.

Then I’m standing amidst the carnage, body brimming with energy. Blood soaks the ground beneath my feet, forming a river. In the wake of my carnage, viscera litters the ground. I ignore it and turn on my heels, making my way back to Jimmy’s side.

I lock eyes with him. “You, my friend, have some explaining to do.”