"Down the alley!" Jeann shouted

"Incoming, from above!" Albert cried

"I see them, keep moving." Alder said. "Oridi, keep up!"

"Easier said than done here." She spat through gritted teeth. She was back in her feminine form and resembling the person he'd met at the start. The major difference now was that she held her arms out to block countless snaps of Arc bolts. 

Jeann, help her The voice of Nadea called out within their heads. Alder felt the voice ring around his head and tried to shake the sense of a skin just over his own. 

"We'll need to talk about this possession you're doing." Alder said

Once we're done, then we can talk. Theres a likelyhood we may not survive. 

"Got her," Jeann pushed Oridi into the alley as Albert pressed through the trash clogging their exit. 

"Where are we going?" She asked 

"Out of town." Albert called

"We're in Old Town, right?" 

"We don't have time for this!" Jeann shouted 

"I may have a way out for us, but we need to get to a tavern near the gate."

"Good enough for me." 

"There they are! Down the alley!" a snap drove Alders head down as a pair of soldiers turned towards the Alley holding pistols and torches. 

"Lords they're persistent," Jeann said. A large blow at her back forced her to catch herself from the fall, and Alder turned to track the round. A new man, a Hiander with four arms, held a cannon and aimed it down the alley. 

Unless Alders knowledge is mistaken, that weapon can pierce your armor.

"You don't say."

"Jeann, Alder!" Oridi and Albert stood at the end of the alley, waving at the pair for falling behind. 

They pressed themselves through the gap and out onto the streets of Old Town proper. The sloping aged roofs and dipping wooden doors gave it away more than the chipped paint and sleeping poor. Alder glanced around as another crack of the cannon sent the group darting forward. They ran blind through the streets until they smacked into a group of guards on patrol. 

Oridi clearly made to speak, but the trio from the alley had cleared it and were chasing to catch up. The patrolling guards noticed the path and, suprisingly, put two and two together. They readied their spears and held the group at a distance. 

"Fuck, come on!" Alder hissed

"Duck" Oridi said, the group fell flat and Oridi swung her now enlarged fist into the first mans side. To Alders great surprise, she carried the blow through and into the next man. Then, spears still in their grasps and shocked looks on their faces, she flung them towards the approaching trio. 

"Up, now." Jeann wasted no time and pulled the others to their feet as she rose. 

Alder heard the crunch of metal moments later as the guards impacted and rolled across the uneven stones. He shuddered to think of the mess they'd made in the process, but found that where his mind would normally focus on the despair, it was instead focusing on the task. That was productive, a welcome productive. Magic, is this magic?

Hardly, Nadea made a scoffing sound, a task Alder felt was difficult without an actual skeletal structure I'm helping run your thoughts. We're sharing the body for the moment.

"What? Why?!" 

Because you refused to give me control.

"Why the body damn it!"

Because we made a deal, Alder, Power for Power. Blood for Blood. 

"Alder!" 

He ran straight into Jeanns back, turning to respond to the call moments too late. Instead he found a face full of metal and a firm gauntlet gripping his back. They were in one of the central plazas now, one of the few in Old Town that still had a fountain. It didn't run, but it remained in place as a sign of those before. 

The strangest part wasn't the two dozen soldiers and guards standing along and watching the group turn the corner, the strangest part, Alder found, was that the fountain was beginning to run as if someone had just turned a switch and set it to function. 

"Give it up." A mardan man if full plate stood at the head of the precession and looked ever pleased with himself. He scrunched his face as his eyes cast over the group, stopping on Oridi. "Young lady, I believe I told you to stay out of trouble."

"Was that before or after you let your man try to rape me?"

He straightened and the mans face grew a bright crimson. Oridi smirked and folded her arms. Jeann stepped forward and raised a hand for the assembled soldiers to listen. 

"Let us walk. You've no need to follow the orders of a man using the name of his daughter for murder."

The soldiers and guards mumbled responses amongst themselves, but their leader smirked and shook his head. 

"You don't get it, do you? The Count is working to bring peace back to the Empire."

"Peace through torture?" Oridi snapped "I've seen that before, It didn't work then and it won't work now."

Hold them a moment and I'll try and find a way out.

"You're foolish." The man smiled "But moldable, like yet hardened clay." 

Alder raised his spear to the man and tried to summon more strength than he felt. 

"Are you here to fight or capture us?"

"I suppose you'll choose the first option if I say we're here to capture you."

"Its not exactly a certainty, but most likely." 

The man sighed and waved his hand for the guards to move forward. "I'll let this answer the question, you damned fools." 

Central left path, that leads towards the outer gates. 

"The Drunken Mountain," Oridi said "That's where we need to go."

"Why?" Albert asked, "Why your drinking haunt?"

"Apparently a friend visits. I could have sworn I'd seen him there but I was too drunk."

"Soldiers," Jeann swung her sword wild before her to drive back a few of the points being aimed their way.

Drunken Mountain is three streets over

"Can we lose them?" Alder asked

"Lose us? You all have become infected with insanity, you should let us help." The Lead guard said. 

Magic.

"Like what?"

Jeann, do you use a smoke Gewel?

"I'd assumed you'd know the suit has one." She said, back to the group as she stared down three new victims to the horrible violence that was Jeann. 

Use it, then run down the central left path. I'll conceal the escape with the smoke.

"How?" Alder asked

Jeann made a fist and slammed a section of her breastplate. Thin lines of white smoke began to bellow from the back of her armor and the surrounding plaza adopted a look similar to the misty sights of nighttime. 

Four of the guards charged as the smoke began, but the response from Jeann to counter and press the few back managed to spread more of the smoke, until they were well and truly surrounded in the cloud. 

Move now, and not a word. Jeann you go first, then Albert. Good. Now Oridi. Finally us, Alder. 

Nadea directed the group through the streets and down the narrow alleys. Eventually the smoke stopped and their escape cloud dwindled, but they had managed to slip through the sights of the guards for the moment and were nearly to the tavern. 

"Are you sure hes there?" Albert whispered 

"No," Oridi responded "But I'm pretty sure we can find out where he's gone."

"What makes you think he'll be okay with us all just dropping by?" Jeann asked. 

They all pressed themselves against a wall as a set of guards rushed by a few alleys over. It was unlikely they'd be seen, but there wasn't a need to risk it. None of them wanted to press further into a fight. 

Alders mind, normally racing in danger, was calm and steady. He took in the surroundings quickly and found that the information was processed and plans were devised much faster. Nadea, second mind atop his own, was hard at work trying to keep them alive. It was a far cry from the monster that had been trying to murder him before. 

I'm different now.

"Different how?" Alder asked, surprised at her hearing of his thoughts, only to remember their current arrangement. "Not trying to become a giant ooze monster different?"

In a manner of speaking, yes. Merging with a mind and body alters you, you're never truly who you put in. You become something new.

"Is this really the time for this conversation?" Oridi asked 

"Sorry, just confused." Alder said 

"I can't fault you," Jeann said "But we do need to focus on the escaping part. The counts sent the entire city guard out for us." 

"We're close, I promise." Oridi said "I just hope that he's there."

"Chances?" Albert asked

"It won't be a miracle," Oridi said, "But very lucky for us." 

The Drunken Huntsman was, for all tense and purposes, a rather bland tavern set along the inner wall of the Old Town defenses. It was old, nearly as old as Old Town itself, back when it had just been "Town" and those of the Desert Kingdoms walked the streets. There was still life in the roads and streets, still words in the paint and stories in the dirt. Domicorta hadn't always been such a monsterous place. 

That was why Hargis had chosen the land. He was a criminal, but that only meant that he could recognize beauty and worth of items far better than the average person. There was no reason why, ill-gotten or otherwise, he shouldn't spend his money in the city. He was building history in his home as well, but that was different, more personal and less grand. 

When he walked the streets of Domicorta on the nights he brought trades, he would often stop and stare at the wonders of the civilizations that had passed by before the Empire had eroded them away. 

He stood before the fountain just outside the tavern, flatbed and animals hitched and waiting to return home. Yet something in him had made it clear that the fountain was of interest. It wasn't, it hadn't worked since before he'd arrived even. It needed magic of some sort, some sort that the Desert Kings were good with but that the Empire never seemed to grasp. 

Of course the Consortium would know what the magic would be, but that was a lost cause. Those were the elitist of their society, the worst of the worst. The ones whom wrote the rules of how magic may or may not be studied and safely used. Hargis wasn't a caster, and was more and more thankful each day for that fact. No need to get involved in that whole mess, especially now. 

He thought of the crop waiting for him at home, and of the other barrels waiting in the cellar. He considered the fields and compared the greenery of the vines encompassing the fountain to the green vices he'd grown so fond of at home. There was a shameful resemblence. 

"You there!" A pair of guards on patrol made their way over to him, pointing and making gestures of warning. 

Hargis laced a hand silently over the pistol grip on his left hip and turned to meet the two with a wide smile. To all present, he looked merely like an old man standing with a hand on his hip. 

"Ev'ng folks. How can I help ye?" He did his best to act as casual as possible

"Have you seen a group of criminals come this way? Four in total."

Hargis shook his head "No, I ain't seen notin. Just te fountain here. Why? And criminals ye say... well dats sometin ain't it."

"You haven't then?" The older guard asked, when Hargis shook his head again the man clicked his tongue and walked away. 

"Good evening." The younger guard said, following after their compatriat 

Think Its probably time I go. Hargis gripped his collar and pulled the cloth up cover his neck, then made for the nearby stable behind the Tavern. His wagon/flatbed would be waiting and hitched. Creature of habit that he was, he'd never lost that trait from his years as a thief. Always be ready with a hasty exit if need be. 

That was something Oridi had mentioned more than once in their time together. Suddenly a wave of sadness hit him and he felt the regrets of years past boil up to the surface again. She was gone from what he knew, maybe not for good, it was hard to kill that one, but gone to him. Seperation had been an accident drawn by terrible circumstances, but he'd never looked for her. 

He should have, he knew he should have, but he never did. He went on to leave the life behind. Hargis didn't want to lose another one to the path they'd chosen, and Oridi had been the final straw. She had been a daughter to him, a light in the darkness that he'd have never assumed he'd have had. Yet he let her go. He let the whole life go, just like that. 

He was about to crack the reins and settle in to wallow in pity, but a noise to his side drew his attention. It was the guards on patrol that he'd seen mere minutes before, only they looked different now. One clung to the side of a building, and the other lay supine on the ground with his weapon knocked away. 

Hargis stood in surprise and caught sight of one of the attackers. It was a short mardan man with darker skin and salt like freckles across his body. The second was a woman in massive armor that he could have sworn he'd seen before, but the final two drove him into a questioning of his own sanity. 

Alder, the skinny Pere who'd talked the group out of attacking some weeks ago, was standing next to a woman that looked remarkably like Oridis' form of a Sharp faced mardan. He paused, thinking that they were merely figments of his mind, until they turned and spotted him perched atop his flatbed. 

"Ho there!" Alder called. "We need your help," 

They waved and ran up to him, each looking to all as if they'd seen the hell of combat itself. Alder was missing his left arm from the elbow down and the rest wore cuts and bruises like overdone decorations. 

"Alder?" Hargis asked

"It is you!" the woman cried. She jumped up and slung her arms around his neck. "Hargis its me! Its Oridi!"

"The Reunion is wonderful," The armored woman said, "But we need to go. Can you help get us out of the city?"

"Hargis, things are going bad right now." Alder said. "We're wanted by the Count and-"

"Say no more, climb in the back."

They made to do so, but as they clambered into the empty flat of the tun wagon, Oridi paused and dropped back down. 

"Wait." 

"What?" Alder asked "We need to go."

We really do Oridi, this isn't the time-

"The others," She said "The others are still in the house, they need to know." 

"Shit, i'd forgotten about that." Jeann said 

"You're our planner," Albert said "Go and let them know, they should listen." 

"If ye can manage it, get em te my keep." Hargis added "Inside, they'll help ye." 

"Right," She nodded and made to run, but stopped and turned to Hargis. "Keep them alive, please."

"On my honor."