((No seriously, I'd really appreciate some help here))
There was a very short list of possible explanations as to what had happened to him, but they were so strange and ill-fitting that it took him a minute to run through all of them. He might have gone totally and utterly mad, but there was no point in entertaining that idea because if he was imagining all this then he was far too crazy to do anything about it. One of his pursuers might have made a clean kill after all, and thrust him into some sort of afterlife, but Robby didn't believe in an afterlife and this didn't really fit any of the descriptions he'd heard of anyway.
He couldn't have simply run here. He'd never even heard of a city like this, and something this size could hardly remain a secret... unless some powerful magic, well beyond the capabilities of even the Ksol Empire, protected it. But then if it were so well protected he wouldn't have been able to just stumble in.
Some strange power, maybe some mage of the empire had lost control of some powerful spell directed against him, could have whisked him across the world, but even that didn't add up. The Ksol Empire had drawn up maps and charts that covered most of the world, they had yet to explore every corner of every jungle and tiny island, but if they'd ever come anywhere near a society capable of building this city they'd at least have heard of it.
He could have been taken to somewhere on a different world, but the other worlds were the places things like infernals came from. They were alien places that lay in directions mortals could not even perceive, with environments where a mortal mind would not be able to survive, let alone a mortal body. This place was odd, sure enough, but it's alien nature didn't seem to be rending through his thoughts.
With no ready explanation to hand, Robby decided that it wouldn't do to waste his stroke of luck in evading the soldier golems by standing around and waiting to see if they would be able to follow him to this strange city. He dashed across the park and vaulted the iron fence that bordered it. The problem of the streets being full of strange, fast-moving vehicles quickly presented itself, but there seemed to be a system by which the vehicles and people on foot took turns using the street. The system wasn't immediately clear but it was easy enough to take his cue from the people on foot around him, who seemed unwilling to make eye contact, and use the street at the same time they did.
Robby focused on moving in a more or less straight line, away from where he'd first arrived in the city for a few minutes, just putting some distance between himself and where any pursuers would likely turn up. After a few miles he started hoping fences, darting from alley to alley, traveling a little bit erratically so he wouldn't be so easy to follow. He lost track of time, his mind totally set in the next instant and keeping himself moving, but he did finally start to notice the fear that permeated this place.
It wasn't an immediate, gut-clenching terror that forced people to fight or flee. It was old fear, one these people lived with on a regular basis. It was the sort of fear that had been there so long that people hardly realized it existed anymore, but it still kept their eyes downcast and their steps quick. It was the fear of something that would always be out there somewhere, something they could never escape and never defeat, so they just went about their business and hoped it didn't come for them.
Robby also noticed a few people exactly opposite the rest of the citizens of the city. They were brightly dressed, so as to attract attention instead of deflecting it. They were supremely confident, they looked at the streets and buildings like they owned them, usually turned uncomfortable scrutiny towards him, and were certainly not afraid. And then they flew away. Or dashed down a busy street far faster than Robby could ever run, weaving around the cars so easily they might not have been there. Or they gathered themselves and made a leap that carried them past the skyline. Or they disappeared in the same flash of light they had appeared in.
At first Robby thought that these people might be what the rest of the city was afraid of, but he realized they didn't cause this fear, they banished it. People only walked with their heads held high when one of the brightly clad champions was in sight. At one point an attractive woman in an outfit that left little to the imagination even received scattered cheers and applause.
In one of the alleys he ducked through Robby met something people were afraid of. The far end of the alley was suddenly occupied by the shapes of a half dozen men, with the sun setting behind them, he could not see them clearly. With no interest in learning more about the details of their presumably hostile intentions Robby turned around hoping they wouldn't be prepared to deal with how fast he could run away. He wasn't really surprised to see two more figures at the other end of the alley, boxing him in. He glanced around for some alternate means of egress and noted that not only was there no other way out, but the overlapping roofs of the two buildings that formed the alley blocked his view of the sky, and so presumably blocked the view from the sky for any brightly clad champions who might happen to look down toward the alleyway. It occurred to him that that was probably not a coincidence.
Two detached themselves from the larger group and moved toward him. Robby's nostrils were suddenly assailed by the smells of decay and of sewage. As they got closer he saw that they were wearing some sort of armor composed of, or maybe just decorated with, what looked to be human bones that had been not quite cleaned and still had old bits of meat hanging from them. Both of their faces were broadcasting almost inhuman anticipation and glee. Both of them also had small crossbows.
Robby held up his hands in a placating gesture, and realized somewhere in the back of his mind that he completely expected them to understand his language. He also realized he didn't expect them to be sane enough for it to matter, but he tried anyway. "Alright I really don't know what's happening here. New to the city any everything, okay? I don't want any trouble. Didn't mean to trespass on your turf or anything, okay? I'm sorry, didn't know."
They stopped and considered him for a moment without saying anything. "Okay, we're okay then?" Robby asked hopefully, "I'll just go back the way I came, sorry to bother you guys." In response the pointed and fired their crossbows.
Robby had been ready for that outcome. He put judged the size of the weapons, their arcs of fire, and lined up forces that would oppose the bolts at they struck his body... and missed. He'd been expecting medium-weight bolts with wide metal heads and the kind of power behind them that tore flesh and split bone. Instead he got a couple of tiny darts with literally needle-thin heads and just enough force behind them to bury the needle-head. The wildly inappropriate counter-force slipped around the darts and they sunk into his torso and abdomen.
The thin, inch-and-a-half heads didn't exactly hurt. It was more like they were fantastically uncomfortable. Robby picked out the one out of his chest and let it drop, then pulled out the one in his abdomen and considered it. The two men who shot him watched him expectantly. Robby raised the dart to his nose and exhaled slowly, trying to purge the overwhelming physical stench from his senses and pick up on any scent of magic contained in the dart. If there was any it was either already expended or too weak for him to detect. He focused his concentration inward to where the local ley energies anchored in his body and followed them outward. He could sense no change, no curse or enchantment wearing away at him in some non-physical place. He had no idea why this would seem a valid weapon. He looked at the two crossbow wielding men in confusion. They started back with equal confusion. Whatever they had been expecting, it wasn't for him to pick the dart out and smell it.
They fired two more darts. This time Robby gauged their physics more accurately and the needles didn't penetrate his skin deeply enough to anchor. He pulled the darts out of his clothes so they wouldn't stab him the next time he moved.
"You're immune to the tranquilizer," One of the men with crossbows said, "I wonder why."
"Maybe he metabolizes it as quickly as it spreads," said the other, "or maybe his nervous system operates independently from ATP production."
"Either way," said the first one, "That must have fascinating consequences for strength and stamina. And he's quite young. What a lucky find."
At this point Robby began to feel intensely uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking and interjected, "Okay, so your darts don't work on me. Who knows what other weirdness I've got going on. Maybe by blood is poison to you or something, I don't know. Anything's possible and this juncture. Best for everyone if we just go our separate ways."
The two men ignored him, "Unfortunate for him that he'll have to be collected without the benefit of an anesthetic, but we all have sacrifices to make."
Both the men let their crossbows drop and drew heavy cleavers with blades stained with old blood and worse. As they closed the remaining distance to Robby he couldn't help but notice a shift in their stances and a certain easy way they held the heavy blades that told him they were competent with those weapons.
((I have an idea for a character I'd like to introduce here, but I can really only write his backstory as far as when he turns up in Paragon city, and which point interacting with other player characters really becomes necessary, so I'm putting this thread here in the hopes a few people will help me out with that. There character is fairly low-powered but he is decidedly superhuman.))
It wasn't a matter of exhaustion, Robby wasn't even breathing hard. It would take more than a simple activity like running to tax his endurance, but he wasn't running fast enough. No sudden burst of terror or determination could aid him, he couldn't run any faster than this. Every step, every movement had the entirety of his strength behind it.
He'd developed a great deal of control over his physical prowess over the last few years and one of the things he had discovered was his perfect pace. He was short, but stronger than he should have been. Long, efficient strides that left him in the air more than he was on the ground and capitalized on that strength to mass ratio, every step was a leap forward, the stride of a much taller man. No merely human athlete could have matched that pace. And he could maintain it for days, forever really, if he wanted to.
And it wasn't fast enough. The golems still pursuing him were from the Empire's current generation of soldiers. The old, large, lumbering monstrosities were no real threat, he had evaded those almost immediately, but these were intelligent, possessed keen senses, and were vastly stronger than Robby. They might not have the same perfect efficiency of stride that he did, but they made up for the difference in raw physical power.
Trees blurred around him. It was impossible to avoid the thinnest branches and shoots, and they lashed against him, rapidly turning his clothing to rags, sometimes drawing blood he struck them so fast. Robby could hear pursuers to either side of him as well as behind him, now, they were closing the noose. His best chance would be to turn on them. He could cripple or destroy a soldier golem if he hit it hard and fast enough. If he surprised them and fought through their line quickly enough he might be able to lose them before their flanks realized he'd reversed direction.
But he couldn't, the idea was accompanied by such feelings of fear and disgust that he would never be able to follow through with it. So instead he kept running, not quite as fast as his pursuers. They didn't make any more effort to avoid the scattering of thin tree limbs than he did, and he could hear them getting closer. A desperate fear seized him. They would show no mercy, the first strike would be at his legs, making him easier to catch. They would close in rapidly from there, attacks would suddenly come from every direction with much more than human strength behind them. He would avoid the first few, but they would be too many and too fast. They would take the opportunity for a clean kill if he presented it, something brutal and effective like crushing his heart or decapitating him, but they would strike wherever they could if not, cut him apart piece by piece, until they had shed enough blood, broken enough bones, torn enough muscle, that he could not lift a hand to defend himself. And they would keep on, when he fell helpless they would continue the assault until he was literally rent limb from limb and bits of him were scattered through the forest.
They were almost within striking distance now, Robby caught the sun glinting from their armor here and there, there was one almost directly behind him, ready to maim one of his legs any second. A savage, bloody death would quickly follow from there.
The fear broke through some barrier in his mind. He resolved to turn every ounce of strength and violence he possessed against his pursuers and maim them as horribly as they would him. A half a second and the closest one would strike, a scenario played through his mind by which he would knock the weapon wide and could move into any one of several devastating attacks. But the sound of pursuit dropped away with a suddenness that was shocking. Robby could not hear a golem immediately behind him. He glanced back in an effort to determine its position and couldn't see it. Those nearby to either side were suddenly very far away.
Surprised and confused shouts echoed around him, but as if they came from a very great distance. Suddenly he could make no sign of his pursuers at all. Then then the forest ended in an abrupt and unnatural fashion. He stepped from a wall of trees into an open, sunny field of neatly clipped grass. Without stopping Robby glanced back to the trees he had come from and noticed they were of a different sort than those that had made up the forest he was fleeing through. A second later he realized it was a tiny copse of trees that would hardly take him a heartbeat to cross. Still no sign of his pursuers. The terror of the chase had only just begun to fade. He stopped, but only for a fear of running toward them instead of away.
Taking in the broader sights only added to his confusion. He was standing in a modestly sized park or greenspace in the middle of a city. Strangely dressed people moved through it. Beyond the park were stonework streets and buildings on a scale that seemed impossible. Something too fast and too large to be a bird zipped through the air overhead.
To the people in the park Robby didn't really look strange, he looked familiar, but in an uncomfortable way. A young man, almost a kid really, five nothing, vaguely foreign features, dressed in tattered rags and covered in old cuts and abrasions. Best case scenario he was a street person who would beg for spare change if they made the mistake of making eye-contact. Then again he might be recruitment fodder for the gangs, carrying a switchblade somewhere, desperate enough to kill for a few dollars in a wallet or purse, he just hadn't be low enough long enough to start wearing the colors of one of the city's organized gangs yet. Or maybe he was Lost, he really fit the bill for that one. Nothing they hadn't seen before, in any case, but something best avoided.