Broken

Chapter 13

In that brief second I was flooded with a confusing mix of emotions. I was relieves to be alive, horrified at what had just happened and the life that I had just snuffed out, and also resolute in my actions. Not that I was really given a chance to examine these complicated feelings.

I wasn't really given a chance to process much of anything. Just as the dead woman's screams faded to nothing but an echo in my own mind, I was rolling away from the edge of the lava pit. The other woman had decided to jump me now, taking advantage of my temporarily confused state and the fact that I was conveniently placed right next to a bubbling sea of molten rock. Having just watched a woman go up in flames and sink as a crispy husk into the vibrant orange substance, I really wanted to avoid that fate.

I spun to my feet, deciding to get as far from the edge of the obsidian island as I could, the aggressive woman hot on my heels as if she were magma in her own right. Rushing to the center of the island, hoping to loose the attacker amongst the other fighting raiders, I noted that there were significant less than there had been at the start.

It was as I jumped through a fighting party of four men, three of them casting various spells while the other man desperately tried to doge and get in close at the same time, that the message window appeared before my eyes, informing me that I had lost the wind base skill and had just been handed 'Sword Aura'.

The fact that I had just been given a very coveted sword based skill almost made me forget that the reason my skill had changed was because I had just killed a woman. Pushing that aside, I tried to figure out how to survive the current conflict. Then I remembered that, no matter how amazing Sword Aura was, it was absolutely useless in this instance where all weapons had been taken from us. I may as well have had no skill at all at this point.

Cursing and dodging a poorly aimed kick that came at me out of nowhere as two men wrestled near by, I looked back and saw that, between the various fighting groups, I could no longer see the woman. At least I had lost her.

Not that that meant much of anything in this current predicament. The thought had hardly crossed my mind when a stray fireball spell nearly singed the hair off my head and I had to duck away. I swear, if I had to hit the dirt one more time...

I looked around, hoping to doge any further spells, when I caught the eye of a bearded man several feet away. He was older and, unlike many others here, had a grim, resigned look on his face. He was a man on a mission that he took no pleasure in. However, no matter how upstand he may or may not have been, this Selection would not spare either of us willingly.

As a matter of fact, much like myself, this man was already coated in blood. I did see a few cuts on his toned arms, and another fairly deep on on his chest, but most of the blood seemed to belong to someone else. Taking a few steps forward, the man squared off with me, raising a sword between us.

It was as my eyes scanned, incredulous, the heavy short sword seemingly made of rock, that I remembered the German men. One of them had been making swords hadn't they?

Sure enough, glancing down at the older man's feet, I saw two marginally familiar forms. They were nearly unrecognizable, given their shattered bodies and the gore pooling around them and the bearded man. Amongst the bodies and blood were scattered stone weaponry, most of which were broken and worthless. It wasn't like weapons crafted from rock by a man with a untested skill could really be relied upon for very long.

My eyes bounced back to the man currently confronting me. I may not have been anything close to a sword expert, but I had seen plenty enough raiders using them to tell that this man was no master either. His grip was sloppy, as was his posture. Still, he had a clear upper hand over me. Not only did he have a weapon- no matter how lack either it or his competency with it was- but he also seemed to have a skill that could render at least two grown men into masses of mashed up flesh. I had no weapon and a skill that relied on one. Basically, I was unarmed at this point.