As Ashur walked along the path, he entered another patch of darkness. Reaching the next pole, he felt an immediate sense of danger to his right. Turning, his eyes open in shock with a blade right in front of his face. A hooded figure from the shadows spoke out to him in a plain, calm, voice.
"State your purpose here, Highlander."
Of course, his outfit gave him away easily, his eyes attempted to find a face in the hood but he was unsuccessful. Staring at the sharp sword, he responds nervously. "I'm here looking for a member of the Assassination Sect named Davis."
"We have no member going by that name, go back the way you came."
"Fine. Tell him that we need to talk again for me." And with that I made my way out of the Acrobatic large tent, disappointed that I still had no clear plan for the future. Headed towards the Highlander's group.
Suddenly I freeze as alarms begin blaring throughout the entire training area.
"ALL RUINS' EXPLORERS GATHER IN FRONT OF THE MONOLITH ELEVATOR!" The distinctive voice of Govero is heard yelling on the mic.
'Don't tell me... deployment?'
The sudden realization dawned upon him and his heart began beating faster, he had only two weeks of beginner-level swordsmanship training, how could he possibly survive? If he cannot survive by himself he can only wait for Davis to reveal himself. He positions himself outside of the Acrobatics groups' area and waits for members to exit.
Droves of people begin to come out wearing hoods, about halfway through the line one of the members steps out and approaches him.
"Davis...?"
"Knew you couldn't stay away. The plan is still in motion, just follow me and join my group when the time arises. We don't have much time to talk."
We begin walking in the line of hooded figures toward the elevators, and groups from all around begin spewing out streams of their members.
As his line of members collides with another the area is filled with noise that surrounds the area and nearly deafens Ashur. He manages to spot his group of Highlanders and he slowly moves over to them, deciding that he would find and regroup with Davis later. Arriving in front of the gate of the giant Monolith Elevator a floating platform from above in the ceiling drops down.
Now within his faction's ranks, he sees swords being given out to the members. He heads over in the hopes of still receiving a decent weapon for survival but is not hopeful of his chances. Approaching Isaac who was giving them out a weapon was suddenly thrust into his hands.
"Here lad, this is the best I can do for you. At least you will have a weapon compared to most of these poor saps."
Glossing over the weapon I can see it's rusted all over, much of the edge is dull and chipped. But I can't blame Isaac, a two-week disciple was nothing compared to the Bunker-born residents and they all knew it. Hiding the disappointment on his face he gives him a small smile. "Thank you for everything Isaac."
"Good luck kid, don't die."
I wave farewell as I continue walking to the encirclement of people now in the thousands, out of nowhere Bogdan suddenly appears in front of me with an arrogant grin. "Look at that piece of shit you call a sword!" Laughing he points directly at me. "I've seen you fight many times before, how can you survive if you cannot even hold a blade?" He holds a sneer on his face towards me.
Yet he doesn't react in time as I pull my arm back and punch his nose, directly breaking it and blood pours down his nose.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" He practically screams as I dash into the crowd, avoiding any retaliation from the other disciples.
I gain some distance and observe the situation now from afar, Bogar still looking for me throughout the crowd but I'm long gone, my face is rather panicked but I manage to hide it after a few moments.
His blood was boiling and he was quite excited that he had finally scored some revenge against the arrogant bunker brat. 'Hopefully, we never meet again, but knowing the circumstances, his next fight against Bogdan would most likely be one to the death. With my current sword skills I could still kill him if needed, but now that I've angered the faction he'll most likely report this and I'll be kicked out... but I suppose there's no real point since I won't be returning down here anyway.' Continuing to blend in within the crowd, now mixed full of different factions it was quite hard to differentiate between the outfits which helped him a lot, while many people begin looking around suddenly the platform finally descended to a level that could be observed.
Govero can be easily recognized atop the platform as it now lies at their eyesight level with his extremely broad face and fine contoured lines which made him look above average but was mostly covered by his red bushy beard. The whole area is extremely silent.
"You're all probably wondering why I've brought you here today while some may already know. Some nice people have decided to gift you items out of the "goodness" of their hearts so you have a lower chance of dying." he continues, "Here I will send them down now. Try to take another person's sponsor and you will be killed." He finishes as he presses the button located on the terminal in front of him, many drones are observing the whole ordeal as many panels in the ceiling up above begin to fall slowly before items are pushed off the edge and slowly levitate down.
Many people soon began to receive their gifts, Ashur observed people sometimes got messages as well bags, weapons, luxurious meals, or ammo. Some people shouted in surprise while others were a little disappointed. Ashur was perplexed about the reason for these items to be given, after all, wouldn't they be killed after a while anyway?
Silently he had a slight belief that he could be sponsored as well, but as the gifts slowly stopped dropping he feared that along with his attribute he would be without any significant item for survival. He knew he would have to rely on Davis at the very least if he wanted to survive a minute outside.
But to his surprise, one gift managed to squeeze through just before the panel closed. The gift was relatively small but as it came down he saw it had intricate red colors covering it all over. Unbelievably the gift was headed in his direction, and just as he thought it would be snatched by someone else it drifted into his hands, prepared to be opened, with a petite purple bow on the top.
He managed to not attract too much attention as others were still opening up their gifts and people were observing enviously as he began unwrapping slowly.
"What is this?!"