Two spear-like strikes was all it took for him to extract the soul shards housed in the [Briarbane Squire]'s body. He plunged his hands, all the way to his shoulders, between its ribs, taking one and crushing the other right there in its spot. The familiar sensation of a trickle of power entering his soul and being added to his already amassed sum cleared his mind just a little. He pulled his arms out with a wet schlorp. The intact shard glowed dimly in his hand through the blood covering it. Gwin ran his thumb over its smooth surface cutting a trail in the blood before bringing it to his mouth, lifting up his helmet, sticking out his tongue and swallowing it.
'I should have brought a bag…'
He relented internally as the shard glided down his throat before entering a separate sac in his throat made by his aspect with the [Black Locust]. He coughed once and turned back to the sleepers. He got a better look at them now. The two who had done the carrying had armor memories while Dorin was dressed in rags.
'Outer settlement sleepers…idiots getting overconfident because of Changing Star. They couldn't even handle a golden goose like this.'
Gwin walked towards them with the boar's red blood still dripping from his arms and summoned a memory. An ink pen carved completely from marble with a sharp tip and inlaid with a single red gem formed in his hands and he began writing in the air. He sluggishly wrote in the air and as he did bright lines of yellow light formed in his path.
{Go back, rain soon}
Those words hung in the air before them reflecting in their eyes. They looked from the words to him.
"Oh, right. I'm Hans and this is Doran and Luis. Thanks for helping us out, we'd be dead without you! Thank you Ms Wolf!"
The sleeper Gwin had smacked earlier introduced the rest of them. He still had a trace amount of viscera still on his cheek and it was already red and swelling. He had brown hair and light skin with a bit of stubble on his chin. His friend Luis, the fainting sleeper, nodded in agreement but he still looked scared for some reason. Well it wasn't like someone needed a reason to be scared here, it was a natural part of life. Doran was standing on his own now and smiling. Luis spoke up.
"I know this is a lot to ask…but could you escort us back?"
Gwin looked him up and down and blew air between his teeth. His temples still pounded and his eyes felt like they wanted to eject from his skull, it was all he had to just stand right now.
He wrote again, this time a little sloppier.
{No}
He wasn't in any mood to baby sit the weak right now, he had had his fair share of that recently and look how that turned out.
An ache formed in his throat creating an awful trifecta in his temples, eyes, and throat.
Gwin lingered in silence there as they read, they must have taken that as something else because they began whispering to one another.
"Do we need to pay you?"
Hans asked.
{Go.}
Gwin wrote feeling his already extinct patience becoming even more extinct. With that he flexed his legs and jumped. He landed on the side of a building and clawed holes in the bricks with jagged black fingers to kick off again reaching the rooftops.
He landed on the flat roof of the building, fell on his ass, and looked to the horizon. He could already see the storm clouds in the distance, it wouldn't be long until they got here.
'They should be alright, just a little wet….nothing's gonna spot them in the downpour.'
He rationed in his head. His already unbearable armor was now stretched and too big for him. It would clatter obnoxiously with every movement if it weren't for the [Moonlight Sonata]. He dismissed his armor and summoned the [Mantle Of The Drowned] which was just as ragged. Something's large claws had ripped out a portion of the chest. Other parts only consisted of frayed leather as if a saw had attacked him. The cool wind of the coming storm licked his face and played with his dirty hair. He leaned back on his palms and closed his eyes.
Just before he did he saw a shadowy silhouette of a human standing right next to him.
He tensed and jumped to action. Black claws burst from his already tattered gauntlets and scraped on the roof with his retreat. He was ready to pounce however there was nothing there. Not a single speck of dust had been displaced and there was no smell to indicate something had been there.
'…'
He rubbed his eyes and pulled himself together. There was less than a tenth of the city between him and the castle. He could literally see the handmaidens going about their task of covering every window of the bright castle and setting out containers for rainwater.
'A bath would be nice…'
He rubbed his watering eyes and used his aspect to literally remove his eyelids and replace them with black carapace. His wings came back and began humming behind him.
A single drop of water fell on his head.
*BRRR*
His feet left the ground as two more droplets of water graced his cheeks. He steered himself straight ahead but went right instead. He shot straight towards a protruding spire. At the last second he veered forward and missed it. He flew through the air bumping into buildings and bouncing off of them. Despite the chaos it was dead silent with naught but the pattering of rain and the whistle of the growing wind filling the city.
A dozen heavy droplets soaked him further as a prelude of the deluge to come.
Thunder shook the sky and lit up the looming horizon. He could see its gargantuan electric crackle lighting up the clouds. Gwin thought they looked like they were smiling.
He was already at the hill of the castle.
His eyes begged to be closed and Gwin listened and dismissed his changed eyelids. When he opened them he saw a wave blurriness approaching him.
*SWAAAAAAAAAAAA*
The sky ruptured, flooding down on him. His wings struggled under the weight of the pouring rain.
He was level with the castle's gates now.
The guards out front had closed the main gate already and the outer settlement was devoid of movement. His eyes turned to the bright castles East wings and searched for a specific balcony. It got harder and harder to see with each second. A second later and he couldn't even see the castle anymore. He flew alone in the sky surrounded by water and darkness on all sides. The winds tossed him around blowing water into his eyes and his cloak whipped in his face annoyingly. A muffled groan drowned in the violence of the storming sky.
*KA-BOOM*
Lightning struck the Black Sea just outside of the walls and illuminated the entire city in its radiance. The residual thunder shook Gwin's ears. He dropped in altitude unintentionally and that's when he saw it. A half circle balcony squished between two of the smaller wings of the castle. It had several wooden tubs set next to each other already filling with rain water. A faint smirk tugged at his lips.
He fell in that direction.