When the darkness receded, I almost couldn't tell it was still so dark. I had to blink a few times to allow my eyes to adjust.
Once I did, I blinked in surprise to find myself in a cell with iron bars, a stone floor, straw strewn on the ground, and a man against the wall in iron manacles and a hood over his head.
Before I could even get my bearings, the loud noise of a banging door caught my attention and I whipped my head around as heavy feet stomped across the floor towards this direction.
Next thing I knew, a heavy set bearded man with bulging arms, looking rather unkempt and with an extremely sour disposition approached the door. He shoved the keys into the lock, before halting as he blinked upon seeing me.
"Oy. Who are you?" the man asked, his voice rough and sounding distinctly English.
"Matthew." I answered, nonplussed. "Where am I?"
The man didn't answer. Instead, he pulled the keys out of the door and headed away, shouting about getting the guard.
"Well crap," I muttered to myself.
Turning around, I regarded the man with me in the cell, and I stepped over and grasped the hood covering his head. Pulling it off, I tossed it aside.
The man, for his part, just tilted his head curiously after he blinked and focused on me. "Well now, are you the rescue, mate?"
"Oh bloody hell," I muttered, recognizing the man. I quickly made and tossed ideas in my head for what to do. Short term goal, get the heck outta here.
"Might as well be," I answered, pulling my pistol from its holster in my suit. I grabbed his chains and pulled it forward, before firing a shot into the chain. I then turned to the door and fired a shot into the latch holding the door closed and shoved it open, before gesturing to the man, "After you, Captain Sparrow."
"Much obliged," the man said, before heading out. I did my best to follow, and I couldn't help but feel stunned by some of the acrobatic crap he pulled that I only just barely kept up with by sticking to his tail as best I could, all the while getting shot at.
Unfortunately, the captain, pirate that he is, couldn't get away with me, and I ended up getting left behind, leaving me to figure out how to get the heck away from my pursuers. It was at this point I really wish that I had some ability in parkour, but I'm unfortunately much more built towards shooting my way through an area and sneaking up on a group if I'm not already spotted. Losing a group without mowing them down is not a part of my repertoire unfortunately. I made a mental note to change that at my earliest convenience, provided I'm still alive later.
With no other recourse, I played to my strengths. Every single redcoat I saw, I shot at, and with my weapons being much more accurate and deadly, they were dropping like flies. By this point I was fairly numb. Up until this point most everything I'd done would be considered training at best. Now I'm in a live fire situation on my own, mowing down those I can and doing my best to keep moving. So long as I keep moving, I should be ok, and thankfully the suit does double as a weak type of power armor, so my stamina isn't flagging as bad as it might have. Still, I have to be careful since the batteries only have so much juice in them before I'll need to stop using the sprint assist and let them recharge, which will take a while.
Unfortunately, a bad situation is made worse by the fact that I have no way of hiding here. My armor would actually be less conspicuous than my odd brown trench coat would be. And the stupid red coats have started showing up on horseback.
Wait. On second thought, maybe I've caught a break. Taking aim, I wait until they're somewhat close and brandishing their swords, before taking the two down. One of the horses was injured unfortunately, but the other wasn't.
Quickly grabbing the reigns before the uninjured one can bolt, I sooth it down as best I can in the short amount of time I have, then awkwardly try to climb up on its back. It takes a moment of scrambling, during which the horse canters a bit, nearly causing me to fall off. Finally my foot catches the stirrup, and I gain some leverage to swing my other leg over, and I wince. No wonder first time riders are shown bowlegged and wincing. This is so not comfortable.
The sound of gunfire drives the pain in my legs out of my mind though, and I partially stand in the stirrups and snap the reigns, leaning into the horse's stride and urge it to start eating the distance.
Now on horseback, I started making good time, at least until I started making it to crowds of people who hadn't completely cleared the streets from the massacre I was causing earlier. Riding fast, I stuck to a single direction, keeping an eye over the buildings and on the horizon when passing streets to figure out which way to go. I'd rather not get pinned between the Redcoats and the water after all.
I kept riding. I rode hard. I eventually reached what seemed to be the outskirts of London, but I wasn't out of the woods yet. I still had riders on my tail, and they were still taking pot shots at me.
My luck was starting to prove really crappy, since one of the musket shots hit my horse and caused it to skid before falling, throwing me from my saddle. Groaning, I flipped around and raised my trusty pistol, snapping off shots until I'd taken down my pursuit. The horses ran off.
Looking down at my own steed, I grimaced. "Crap."
I spared a quick look over what I could see of London. The whole city seems to be in an uproar. There's smoke, and alarm bells clanging, and the sounds of people shouting everywhere, and some seem to be getting closer.
I'm not out of the woods yet then. Grimacing, I start running up the road, looking to get out of London properly before I cut off the road.
I end up overhearing more hoofbeats and spin around and take my time lining up shots. That's another couple of horseriders down. I turn around and keep going. Gotta get out of London. If I can get out of the city and into the country, it'll be a lot easier to hunker down and keep a low profile. I don't fancy killing any more people, but I don't want to get caught either. Nothing good'll come of that.
Finally, finally I reach my goal. I'm now seeing more land than buildings, and I decide to cut cross country.
At least half a day has come and gone and night is starting to fall before I finally stop for some rest. I've cut across fields and hills and gotten myself into a wooded area. Luckily my computer has a built in compass and mapping system so it's decently easy enough to keep from getting lost and keep going in a straight line.
I eventually come across a river and decide to wade through it for a while to try and throw off pursuit. It's night time by the time I come out a good chunk of miles downstream. By this point I'm exhausted, though thankfully not thirsty or hungry thanks to the suit's inbuilt purifier giving me water to drink straight from the river I'm walking through, plus the food I'd stored away as surplus from the underwater hydroponic gardens Nathan and I had grown. I could last maybe a month and a half, maybe two if I stretch it, on food alone. So long as I'm in water, saltwater or otherwise, I would have no end of water to drink.
It's while I'm deciding where to get out so I can finally rest and catch some much needed Z's that I wonder if I shouldn't just stay in the water. If I find an area deep enough, I can just lay down, cover myself in mud, and sleep camouflaged while getting air through the rebreather.
Figuring there's no way anyone would suspect anyone of sleeping on the riverbed, I resolved to do just that. Finding a decently deep enough spot in the water, I dug up the silt and covered myself with plenty of it, and used rocks and a few water plants to act as camouflage. In the end, all that was visible would be my helmet, and it would just appear to be another rock.
Finally feeling safe enough, I finally let my exhaustion carry me off to sleep.
O
After the general excitement of my initial appearance in this world, the rest of my weeklong stay was... pretty much boring. I pretty much followed the river, careful to keep out of sight if I so much as suspected of seeing someone nearby. Considering I kept myself camouflaged with mud and plants on my armor and floated slowly as best I could down the river, it wasn't too hard. I'm pretty sure no one saw me, though if they did, I'm pretty sure I'd just become a local legend to be told at the local taverns.
When I said it was boring though, I wasn't kidding. I was bored to tears floating down a river for a week, but no way in heck was I going to try and alleviate that boredom. What was I going to do anyway? Try and meet with the locals? Sample the local quisine? This is England in what I think is the mid 1800 to 1900's. I doubt I'll get anything better than what I already have, and I'm not sure I want to make any splashes on the social scene anyway. Most of my time was whittled away playing the few games I had on my piptool, napping, meditating, skipping rocks, observing wildlife, and seeing if I could learn to catch a fish barehanded. That actually took nearly the whole week before I even pulled that off, and I'm pretty sure that one off was just a fluke.
Either way, it was almost a welcome relief when the darkness came up to whisk me away to a new world. I can only hope it's a place I can blend in more easily and just relax. Or barring that, at least someplace I could get something useful within a week's time.