Best three parts about Green Oasis:

1- The Bazaar

2- The People

3- Bash Lane

-Result of the most recent Green Oasis interest ranking

*=====*

Norta looked on as the skiff, the ‘Kharon,’ as Mori had called it, was continually gutted. Parts from within were taken out and placed off to the side by the three remaining ‘death knights’ and the numerous other undead left by the lich. From her perch atop the scaffolding beside the skiff, she could see an almost mechanical coordination present in the undead. It was almost to the point that it looked like a mechamancer somehow translated their mana sets into the necromantic arts.

‘They aren’t normal zombies,’ she reminded herself. The only undead she knew of were ancient sentries guarding their own tombs, raving monsters screeching madness, and lifeless puppets animated through the sheer will of a necromancer. She had never seen undead act so organized and she had never heard of a type of undead that bent to the will of a necromancer willingly. She was not, however, an expert. She could easily entertain the possibility that she had no idea about what other parts of the world considered normal, so she held her tongue.

Beyond the undead, she was impressed by Fara’s ability to command them. She split her focus between disassembling the parts of the skiff, ordering the undead around, and planning out new parts of the skiff all at once. Of the few things she was skilled at, understanding the skill of a mod dock operator was one of the few she was confident in, and she was equally confident in calling the young woman a prodigy.

She suddenly felt someone sit beside her and turned to see Mokan. He was staring at the group of undead, all obediently following the orders of Fara. He turned to her with sparkling eyes, “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s pretty cool. You’re the one closer to the lich than me; see if she’ll let you order them around.”

Mokan rolled his eyes, pointing to his throat and opening his mouth as if to sing.

“Oh, yeah. Maybe you can use placards?” Norta wondered aloud.

“That will require more testing,” a voice came from behind. Turning, they saw the shockingly attractive orc materialize out of thin air, “I am still trying to understand how others can give orders to undead.”

Norta furrowed her brow, “How so? It seems easy to understand.”

He shook his head, “That’s the thing. Can you understand the other death knights?” Norta immediately shook her head; she could only understand Desire and Aerolat, “From what I have guessed, I do not believe Fara has [Universal Soul Language]. Do you understand what I am trying to hint at?”

Norta reluctantly nodded, “You’re saying that, if you are given control over some of the undead, you’re able to understand them unconditionally? No matter what?”

“Exactly,” he said, his expression softening, “I don’t know how it works, but that’s something I want to study with the mistress’ help. In fact, there are a lot of things we don’t know.”

Norta leaned forward as Aerolat floated in front of them, “Oh? Like what?”

“Like,” he began, “How we are able to read, write, and speak an odd language that I presume is the mistress’. How we are so… normal compared to the stories of chaotic, single minded monsters we heard about undead. There is too much we don’t know, and I want to figure it out. I doubt as much as Crave, though.”

Norta nodded, “I get it, I really do,” she said. She had a few Traits that acted in weird ways whenever she explored it, so a lich having similar troubles with her main mana type was, while a bit surprising and a bit comedic, understandable.

Another set of footsteps came from behind her and Mokan. She turned once more, seeing Zubov walking up to them from behind with a big grin on his face, “You two remember when I invited you to Bash Lane?” he said with visible enthusiasm.

They nodded, “We do. It was something like half a day ago.”

“Good! Because we’re going tonight!” he said, still grinning.

“Tonight? I thought we would go another time.”

Zubov shrugged, “Sure, but, as you know, I am an orc of many talents. One of those talents is being able to hear some pretty interesting things. One of those things was that there’ll be a big fight between two interesting hunters. I thought it would be a good thing to show you guys, to let you know how Hunters work,” he explained, “So! You in?”

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The twins looked at each other, nodded, and turned back, “We’re in,” Norta said.

Aerolat coughed lightly from the side, grabbing their attention, “Do you mind if Crave, Avarice, and Desire follow you? I have a feeling they would enjoy the distraction.”

Zubov shrugged, “Sure, I don’t mind paying for more seats. Just make sure they really want to, alright?”

Aerolat nodded, fading into the air around them and reappearing next to the pyraustas. Norta looked at Zubov, who stood and began to walk down the scaffolding. The twins scrambled to catch up with him, “So, how does Bash Lane work? I only ever fought in back alleys, so I’ve never been.” Mokan nodded along, indicating that he had never been to Bash Lane either, in spite of his numerous untold exploits.

Zubov laughed, “Well, you can either pay to go into the fight clubs around, or you can wander the streets and find some tough-looking guy or guyette who might want to have a good fight. It’s what you make of it, and what you have the money for. Plenty of people just wander around and watch fights because they can’t fight or they have other things to do,” he explained as they descended the scaffolding.

Reaching the bottom, they were met by the three pyraustas, all three wearing interested expressions. The only one they could understand, Desire, stepped forward, “Are you guys going to bring us to a fight?” she asked.

Zubov chuckled, “To watch, though you can join in if you want. Just make sure the healing services actually work on you; I don’t want the little undead lady getting angry at me for-” Just then, a red blob fell onto Zubov’s head, sticking to his scalp with a wet slap. Confused, he picked the blob up and held it out in front of him, “Oh, it’s her puppy.”

“Unio…” Desire said, “Are you lonely?” The little slime blubbed in agreement, “Okay, fine, you can come too, but you have to stay with me. Okay?” Unio made more blubbering noises, leaping from Zubov’s arms and onto the side of the ship, climbing up with intense speed.

Norta snorted, “Since when could the thing do that?”

“I haven’t a clue,” Desire said, “But I think we should give the little guy more attention; he gets lonely without the mistress.” From the bottom, they saw the little slime crest the lip of the ship, something in his body. As it descended, Norta noticed that the two other small undead, the reanimated hilja bug shells, had been sucked in by Unio and were being carried down with him. Desire smiled, “Fine, you can bring your friends too…” The little slime blubbed in happiness and stuck to Desire’s head. With the two shells within him, the slime looked like a big, wide hat.

With a sigh, Avarice took the two shells from Unio and placed one atop his head, placing the other on Crave’s head. Making some incomprehensible noises, they nodded to Desire, who gestured for Zubov to lead on.

The orc did so, leading them out of the mod dock and into the dusk-painted city. As it turned out, Bash Lane occupied a few streets in the western portion of the city, meaning that they would have to travel through the bazaar to get there.

In spite of her expectations, the walk was almost boring in how few people approached. Most seemed creeped out by the presence of undead, but they tried their best to ignore their being there. Of course, that lasted until Desire began asking Zubov about the numerous machines they saw as they passed through the bazaar. Once her ability to speak was known, the attention hardly ceased. Some brave souls even dared to speak with Desire, obviously finding her much more pleasant to speak with than they were expecting. Their party became a cluster of gossip and oddity even after they left the bazaar; a trio of hunters had heard about the event in Bash Lane and had evidently decided to join them for viewing.

To Norta, the most comical part of the whole ordeal was the complete ignorance most people had to the three other undead present; none of them suspected Unio to be a separate undead and thought of him as a weird part of undead biology.

After a long walk through an area Norta was far from familiar with, they reached a wide gate with mana-fueled, glowing signs with the words ‘BASH LANE’ boldly written across the front, “Well, we’re here,” Zubov said as they walked through , “Here’s how it works: if you stay in this main square area, then no-one will come to fight you. If you go out back, through the two side streets and the many, many alleyways around there, then you’ll find the guys and guyettes I mentioned before. Now come on, let’s go see that fight!” he cheered, followed by the trio of hunters that had followed them.

In no time at all, Zubov led them to a large fight club called ‘The Drunken Fist’ and had them in within a minute; he was even nice enough to buy the seats for the trio of hunters. After a small wait, they got their seat numbers and were sent into the arena. The arena room was a large, well-lit, circular atrium with the ring in the center, blocked off by multiple layers of protective barriers. On each side of the ring, a sort of tunnel was present to let contestants enter.

They quickly found their seats, but Norta was surprised that they were seated near the back where the ‘non-standard’ seats were. Due to the pyraustas abnormal lower halves that made them look like mantises, they had to use the odd box-like seats that were placed in the back, “No wonder the seats were so cheap… Do you all have some way to see down there?”

They all nodded. While Norta was clueless about the hunters, she did know that she could use [Body Imbuement V] to strengthen her eyes. Mokan no doubt had some sort of sensing Trait while the undead never seemed to be bothered by distance in the first place. Seeing them all nod, Zubov relaxed.

By the time they were settled, the crowd had mostly filled the audience area and Norta could tell that the crowd’s excitement was reaching a fever pitch. Just in time, a loud voice played over the crowd, “Who’s re’dy ta see sum fightin’!” the announcer called out in the incomprehensible orcish accent, driving the crowd wild, “I see sum o’ ‘ou ‘re! Good! ‘E gots a gud figh’ tonigh’!” The crowd went wild once more, but the voice soon switched to a somehow even more masculine voice that nonetheless came from a woman.

“Alright! In the red corner, we’ve got a runeslinger all the way from Mount Averus! Give it up for Eurkan!” The standard amount of cheering came from the crowd, and Norta even found herself engaging as the man walked into the arena. He was a tall, gaunt man with absolutely black skin and blood red eyes. He must have also taken a Trait that made him cold-blooded, if he wanted to not die of heatstroke, Norta mused. “And in the blue corner, we’ve got a local hunter who’s ready for a scrap! Give it up for Euchia!” Again, the cheering was there and Norta took the opportunity to study the combatant. The woman was a harpy, with sharp talons, white wings, and a crown of horns adorning her head. She also wore a set of light leather armor light enough to fly with.

The two contestants approached each other and stared deeply into the other’s eyes. “And! Begin!” the announcer called.