The roads are lain upon a grassy hill just outside of Oatbarton, and the breeze plays with the trees to the left and right, causing all traces of whats passed to fall from their slender, jagged branches, and preserves the deep forest color of the canopy roofs and walls. It isn't too long up the road, the so far had-been peaceful road, that the next trial awaits Stitches. As the hill dipped down and the little hamlet of Oatbarton was left far behind and out of sight, the road straightened and leveled out, and three broad fellows would wait at the very bottom dip. Stitches held tight to Bread's reigns, and at first didn't notice them, regardless of their leather straps and scantily strewn about pieces of rusty armor. It seems event heir drawn weapons wouldn't dissuade him from trying to pass through them. The converge on the road, causing Bread to stop, which breaks Stitches from his determined and yet troubled state. He had gifted himself a healthy breakfast before cresting the hill, for not giving into the impulse of stealing unnecessarily, and at the moment he was wide awake. Out of the three on the road, a bigger one with an axe, and two smaller, one with sword and one with club, the bloke with the axe boomed at him.
"Mornin' traveler."
Stitches is joined nearly instantly by a black smog that forms in the wind and sticks to one spot, collecting until it shapes into his ghastly and haunting companion, the one that urges his selfish deeds. He speaks to Stitches as the others begin talking, but his voice is louder, more important than those of which who had stopped him.
At the same time, the voices address him, the highwaymen, "This here's a toll road...we'll be needing you to pay, or we're gonn' make it diff'cult on ye." And the cloaked hallucination, "How unfortunate. We've already hit our first roadblock."
Stitches clears his throat to himself and nearly interrupts the tail end of the bandit's extortion, "Unfortunate." He echoes.
The brigands wait for his response, in very lax stances as he seems to ponder what he is to do. The bigger of the three of them waves his hand in a beckon to Stitches, as if asking for his money. Stitches notes this, but seems a little caught up in conversation as the smoky apparition speaks to him again, "Well? Get off your horse and deal with it."
Curious at this, Stitches looks at the figure only he can see with a frown, "You don't think they'll attack if I do that?"
The shorter bandit, carrying the sword, squints his eyes and whispers to the big man in the center, "Who's 'e talkin' to?"
The axe man shrugs and grumbles, "Dunno...'e's takin' a long ass time...." He takes a lopsided step towards Stitches, his boot clopping against the stones that construct the road, "Hey! I said pay up!"
As the bandit gets closer to try and heckle some coin out of him, at the point of which he gets close enough to observe Stitches's face he recoils with a curse and calls over his shoulder, "Get over 'ere, you two...this'un's a strange'un."
Stitches looks towards them, his head conjuring up possible scenarios for a moment as he tries to work through it and stall until he comes to a decision, "My coins are in my bag at the back..." He excuses himself, "If you let me off my horse, I can get them for you. How much is the toll, my good man?"
The outlaws all seem repulsed when he speaks, their eyes glued to his face, and the axeman speaks up for the three of them, "Ye, ye, what'er it be, jes' stop talkin' already." He calls to Stitches before turning to the man with the club, "Freaks, I tell ye, didn't i? Road's gettin' stranger todays."
Stitches dismounted Bread with a little pat, even though Bread himself protests at the idea of being left at the front of the confrontation with a whimpering neigh. Stitches reaches for his coinpurse, even though it wasn't where he had specified. Before he can ask the shade what to do next, it hisses in his left ear, "Hey! What is going on in that straw filled head of yours? What are you doing?"
Stitches turns to the parasite looming over his shoulder, "Paying the toll."
He is reprimanded and nearly yelled at again, "No, stupid! Get your sword and force them to let you through!"
Stitches looks at the handle of the estoc and shakes his head as he thinks to himself, his gaze looking towards his trusty farm scythe, "No...I haven't practiced with it nearly enough...if I pull a weapon on them it's life or death at that moment. I'm better with this..." He says, reaching for the strap attaching his old weapon and tool.
The shade doesn't even have to hold him back physically, he just leans forth into Stitches's ear and gurgles a plea, "Psh. Life or death. That is practice, this IS practice...c'mon. Draw your sword."
Despite every fiber of his being telling him otherwise, his hand deviates and moves towards the handle of his estoc, and his fingers wrap around it. His ear boosts and he can hear the voice louder than ever, "I knew you'd see things my way..." It teases.
Through Stitches's eyes he watches helplessly as his smoky companion begins to literally seep into his body. His arm does not feel his own and he lets out a grunt, at first trying to control himself. He can feel his fingers clinging to the sword hilt for dear life, and his feet get heavy in preparation to take on a stance. Unable to regain his own actions he cries out to the three men, Bread, anyone, "H-Help me..." He requests quietly at first.
His mind sets off every red flag, this is wrong. This is all wrong. His body begins to feel numb, and before he can completely lose himself he cries out again, louder this time, nearly screaming in terror, "Help! Help me!"
The roadway robbers stare at Stitches, frozen in place. Nothing is happening to him. The man with the sword leans to his right to address his boss, "Uh...somethin' ain' right."
The axeman rolls his eyes and takes three large strides towards Stitches in mere dismissal of his partner's concern. He booms at Stitches, whose hand has wrapped firmly around the sword, "Don'chu be gettin' smart fella." He warns, raising his axe.
Stitches uses the what he perceives to be the last of his free will to grab onto Bread's short haunch hairs, anything complete and solid he could feel as the laughing and boasting of the cloaked figure gets louder in his head, and he closes his eyes. However, when he opens them, it's still him seeing, but everything is cold and darker, duller somehow. It all feels so unimportant at first, but this even disappears too. His movements don't feel like he owns them, and yet how could he not? He steps his right leg out and lunges to the side, yanking the estoc with him out of the sheathe as he brings it in a slash towards the approaching axeman.
The brigand lets out a yelp as the man had attacked, and the blade cut straight through the wooden handle of his battleaxe. He steps back, caught off guard, and Stitches turns the backhanded slash up and inward as he brings his feet together. He follows through by flourishing the blade in a great circle that runs perpendicular to the ground, closing the gap between him and his opponent by spacing his feet out once again, leading with his right boot and thrusting the tip of the blade at the robber. The blade zings with the swift movement, and like cutting through warm cake, the point sticks between two leather straps on the man's chest, bypassing the clothing beneath with no effort and sinking deep into his chest, puncturing his left lung and heart. So surprised, and only hit with the pain a few milliseconds after the first impact, the man grunts before letting out a howl of discomfort, agony, and horror.
The man with the club calls out as he watches the bloody blade run through the back his criminal friend, "Boss!" He manages to call out.
There's hardly a moment for this, as Stitches again brings his feet to snap together and pivots his left foot for a turn, tucking behind and swinging his right foot under the axeman's legs to bring him to the ground, which he uses as propulsion to pull the blade from the man's chest, and drag his own body in a sharp turn almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees, stepping out wide to place himself closer to the two. As he again lunges with a stab, his face painfully still except for the effort in which each movement takes, causing him to breathe out sharply between his clenched teeth.
His thrust is avoided by the man with the club stepping back in a panic. The sword man raises his long sword above his head with both hands and produces a battle cry as he moves in towards Stitches, the club man having been the man to the left. After he falls short with the stab, Stitches simply brings his sword to his right, and propels himself backwards with his leading foot as he does, his estoc having the range advantage on the brigand with the long sword. The tip of the sword tears a clean line across the sword man's exposed stomach as he had lifted both hands and his weapon, which makes him back up and grab at his lower torso with a yipe, but it isn't enough.
The man with the club sees it before it occurs, as Stitch turns his focus to the now weakest link, and poises his sword for a stab. The club wielding ruffian rushes forward, but he isn't fast enough, watching as Stitches's estoc pierces the sword user's stomach and pushes him to the ground. Stitches whirls around, but the bandit is already bringing his club down. Stitches retaliates with a block, which the estoc is not made to do. The vibrations of the hit sends his hand into spasm and he drops his sword, the club following through and bashing into his shoulder. Stitches is brought to his knees with a unsatisfied groan, then promptly kicked in his chest to be knocked onto his side. He grunts and growls, crawling onto his stomach to try and get up. The club wielder raises his weapon again, ready to strike again, but from his right a brave neigh pierces the air. With a clopping of horseshoes and the force of a much bigger animal, Bread charges at him and rams his head valiantly into the attacker's torso, knocking him to the ground. Stitches has by now, had ample time to recover, and crawls along the road until his hands pull him on top of the clubbing man. Stitches's fingers make their way from his shoulders to his neck. Winded and out of breathe, the club wielder can do nothing by faintly struggle as he cannot regain said wind from the horse knocking him by his chest to the ground.
The bandit's desperate eyes gaze up upon Stitches as he grabs at the hands on his throat. The stitch mouthed traveler has hate in his own eyes, disdain, as though he's seeing someone else, someone who wronged him worse. Despite this, his face is hauntingly cold and stoic. The brigand's fingers begin to soften, unable to even beg for his life as his vision darkens and he tries to move his mouth to reason with his soon to be killer. Within a few moments, it's too late.
Stitches pants softly and runs a hand over his slightly wounded and inconvenienced shoulder, his face remaining a neutral and emotionless state after his work on the club man is done. Within a moment he rises, and approaches the sword man, writhing on the ground in pain and clutching his stomach. The injured man breathes heavily and rapidly, panicked and devastated by his wounds. As Stitches steps up to him he puts a hand out in front of him as if for defense and whimpers, "Please...no...!"
Stitches isn't himself. He can't feel a thing as he takes the knife hidden in his glove and begins to slowly drive it into the defenseless highwayman's neck. He watches the metal pierce through the skin, seeming almost fascinated as it descends into flesh and crimson begins to surround all of its edges and drapes itself in small rivers along the pale skin. His gaze lifts to watch as the light leaves another set of eyes, and the edge of his own lip twitches. Nothing about this bothers him at the moment, in fact his mind is dark, not blank, but dark.
With a blink it's over, and Stitches looks down at his hand, gripping a knife lightly, impaled within the neck of a corpse, a corpse whose hand hands on his shoulder as if requesting something of him. Stitches didn't need to piece it together, he watched it all happen. His muscles did this, his hands did this, and he didn't stop himself. He looks up, looking around for the shade, the one who had him do this. The one he can blame. His mind races, but only with itself.
'Why? It's not...I didn't mean to...I...it's not fair...I didn't want...this...not me...no.'
In a few moments he realizes the absence of the shade, and looking about at the three corpses, in a climax to the deathly duel, he himself lets out a wailing scream of horror as his eyes fill with water.
