25 Persuasive Deal Part 2

"I have come to bargain with you! See this? That's what you came here for right?"

Michael was shocked slightly when he saw Sieg waving around with that book. It was really his only objective coming here. He couldn't care about these children otherwise.

"What about the key? Where is that?"

Sieg pulled out a golden key from his pocket.

"You have my attention now child. But why do you think I should bother speaking with you instead of just taking away what is rightfully mine?!"

"It's up to you to act how you see fit. I can't change that. But, I promise you that I will personally tear every single page apart from this book if anything happens with my friends!", Sieg threatened him with a shuddering voice. It was hard speaking clearly when being confronted with an otherworldy creature that barely looked human.

But this was his bargaining chip. The one and only he had. If this person valued the book high enough then he speculated that he could make some sort of deal with him. Sieg didn't know what this book was about, where it came from and what made it so valuable to someone like this abomination before him.

However, this wasn't important right now. What was important was that they could gain more time even if only a couple of minutes more to escape safely.

Yet, if this book was totally worthless or less important than the key then nothing mattered anymore and he would have just forfeited his live for nothing.

Michael swallowed his saliva for the first time now. The objects he desired were right there for the taking, in the hands of an ignorant child not knowing what kind of power and might he was holding onto in this moment!

His body was itching to just rip this young boy to shreds, do the same to his friends and then return with his artifacts. But the human rationality he was left with after his transformation made him hesitate and reconsider his course of actions.

How fast could he reach that child? In one second? Two? Five? How many pages could he destroy during that time? How many valuable information and future fortune could he lose because of his reckless decisions now? Especially since the book was quite old and already in a bad condition ...

It didn't matter how many of them he would kill in the end, the lost pages might never return and he would forever lose access to the grand wealth that was yet to be discovered in the ancient ruins.

Michael didn't dare to be rash so close to his goals now.

"Hmpf, what could a puny human child possibly achieve anyway, let's play a little longer then.", he thought in his mind and decided to be more cautious. Unknowingly, he had started seeing himself less as a human and more as a superior foreign being,

"OK, I respect your courage and boldness. Your willingness to stand up for your little friends. I respect you and recognize your determination. So, what do you want?", he told Sieg with a weird smiling grimace.

The next step was even more important now for Sieg:

"First you call back your, your dog servant over there!"

"Sure, Tiberius fall back! I am more than enough to handle ... this situation. What else?"

Tiberius gave a low unwilling growl but left and did as it was told. After Sieg made sure that the three headed was out of sight he said:

"We both walk into the forest, you are always walking before with a distance of at least 10 meters! If I lose you out of my sight, I destroy the book! If you start walking backwards or in my direction, I destroy the book! If we are a certain distance away from this place I ... will hand over the book and the key. Deal?"

There were some holes in his plan. But at least he could confirm that this monster still hold his book dear enough to negotiate. They didn't have any value to him so it shouldn't be a problem to exchange his classmates safety against the book. Another problem could be the dogish monster. It might not listen to its master's orders and just return later on. But it was important for him to just keep it as far away as possible for now. And Sieg was also sure that there were other people, the rest of the bandits, on the look out for them. It could be just a matter of time until they arrived at this place so he needed to hurry.

"Oh, hrahrahrah, I see, you have already accepted your fate then!", Michael felt amused inside,

"then I accept your terms."

He knew that Sieg was just buying time so that his friends could get a bit farther away from this field. Who knows, they might really escape his bandits grasp but he couldn't care less now.

When Michael arrived at the edge of the field, Sieg knew it was time for him to move as well. He just walked and didn't turn back to look at his friends. It was easier that way to swallow his fear and sadness.

Everyone else had begun gathering and they watched as Sieg's back disappeared into the swallowing darkness. Jafar's face was covered with tears and Jean and Tony had troubles keeping him at bay. They all felt conflicting feelings. The strongest amongst which was powerlessness. If they were stronger or had more power Sieg wouldn't need to sacrifice himself so that they could get away.

Nobody else tried to stop him, they were just too overwhelmed with the situations. Some only realized now that he was basically delivering himself to his death as there was no way that that monster would let him go. He might even torture him to let out his fury and frustration.

"You, you really want to just let him go like that?", Jafar cried in agony,

"this is the end for him!"

"Shut up!", Anastasia shouted furiously at him with bloodshot eyes. She was already closing in on her limit to what she was capable of enduring. She wasn't a block of ice or a piece of stone. She blamed herself even more that she didn't stand up together with him and shouldered the burden with Sieg. She felt useless, because when it was time to actually do something she didn't have the same strength as him to act. And now her uselessness got a classmate of hers killed.

"He, he did it for us! He did it for us because we were, because we are too weak!", she swallowed hardly and tried to regain a little composure with little success,

"We couldn't do it ourselves so he did it for us. If we try to follow him now, what do you think will happen? His sacrifice will have been in vain? And even if he survives, can you say that the same will hold true for everyone else here? You saw 'him' or 'it' clearly how it threw Gorst so easily as if throwing a stupid baseball! What can we achieve when we aren't even half as strong as one Gorst? That's like, like ...", she tried finding the right words.

"Digging your own grave?", Jafar ended her sentence with a sad and ironic tone. He didn't deny anything that she had said. She was right but. But why did it still hurt? He just wanted to scream and shout and let out his emotions. He didn't care if they were unreasonable. He just couldn't cope with the situation otherwise. He actually let his best friend throw himself into his death, and his inability to help him out ate at his consciousness.

"Let's, let's move out *sob", Anastasia said under her tears,

"We can't keep staying here forever or else the other people might find us. We need to keep moving *sob*"

The others felt dejected inside but also understood the situation they were in. They were still in serious danger and needed to break out from it first.

They picked up the couple of glowing Gemini Stones they had left from the ground again and began moving further into the east but away from where Sieg and the monster walked into.

While on the move, Claire approached Anastasia and pulled on her sleeves.

"What is it?", Anastasia asked weakly.

"It's about the book, he didn't ...", she began speaking carefully.

"What?"

..............