The World Which Is

Chapter 65

The backhand I hit the guy who stabbed me with staggers him back.

I pull the knife out of my side. "Are you fucking kidding me?" My health bar is still glowing from the effects of the food bar, and the little I lost slowly returns. "I was going to leave you two alone."

"You're worth too much." The other's knife looks pitiful in his hand.

"I'm not worth anything," I correct. "The journal is." I throw the one I'm holding at his feet and he flinches.

"Give it to us and we'll let you leave," the one I hit says.

"Do either of you know magic?"

The worried look they exchange is answer enough.

"You really think that you two bookworms can keep me from leaving?"

"I'm not letting six thousand bucks slipping through my fingers," the one who stabbed me says.

I plant my fist in his face and look at the other. "How about you? How badly do you want that money? Better yet, how much pain do you want to feel before you decide you've had enough?"

He looks at his associate's blood covered lower face and raises his hands; the knife vanishing back into his inventory. I seriously consider accepting that to be enough. Then I punch him in the face too.

"I put it away," he whines, on his ass, hand over his bleeding nose.

"And I don't trust you not to pull it out as I'm leaving and stabbing me. Now you're too busy to try it. And before you whine. I was the nice one here. You're the ones who broke the agreement when your friend stabbed me in the back."

I'm out of the room before he comes up with a reply. I have to pull on the door, so once it's closed against I look for a way to make sure they aren't getting out anytime soon. The corridor is only lit by candles on metal stands, so if I could break the legs on one of them, I'd be able to put that through the handle. Since I don't have that kind of strength, I sacrifice a quiver's worth of arrows and jam that on the handle. It might not keep them stuck forever, but it should be long enough to let me get out of this place.

And it's ample time. The door at the end of the corridor opens onto a balcony with the bookshelves on the other side. I go around, then two floors up before I give up finding the table I sat at, and grab one in a corner and sit with my back to the wall.

The book I'd been reading is available, which means one of them put it back in inventory, and I go back to reading it.

It's a lot harder as I keep looking over it, expecting someone to approach. I manage to get back into reading, slowly, by positioning the book so I see over the edge. Means anytime there's movement I'm distracted, but I feel a lot more safe this way.

I fall into a rhythm that lets me read, but not learn anything useful about the Shawnee National Forest in relation to The Nox.

Then Brandon turns the corner and I'm fully distracted. His armor's cut in places and he's missing the lower part of the leg.

"Why did you move?" he asks, tone hard, before I can question his appearance.

"I got lost stretching my legs," I reply, because I don't think he's going to take it well that I was drugged and kidnapped, even if I got myself out of it without help. "What happened to you?"

He drops in the chair opposite me. "Had a disagreement with a few people." He smirks. "We resolved our differences. Find anything?"

"Nothing useful."

"Raise your research skill?" He looks surprised when I shake my head.

"I don't have it, so it's going to take a while to get the first level."