“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“Yes. I was quite literally betting my life on it.”

“Why?”

“Will my answer change what is to come?”

“No.”

“Then I will take my reasons to the grave.”

“As you wish.”

- Excerpt from ‘The End of an Era – the life of the Dread Prophet’, recovered from the 3rd Ashkanian grand-library to be exhumed by the Desolate Empire following the 3rd Cleansing

----------------------------------------

I drove my forehead into his nose, feeling a crunch even as I brought my right hand up to protect my face and fell forwards with the movement.

My raised arm caught the punch from the grey-haired man and it rocked through my shoulder with his power. I staggered to the side with the blow and used the momentum to slip past him and grab the first man behind him - the one tht had tried to get his attention only moments prior.

I watched his eyes widen in alarm as he raised his arms and took a step backwards, but by then my superior stats showed their worth, and I was on him. Gripping him underneath the arms, I locked my hands around his back, pivoted on the spot and heaved.

His feet left the floor as if he was weightless, and he slammed sideways into the older man who had turned to pursue me. It was a surprisingly good throw, and a silly thought popped into my head – did my Improvised Weapons sub-skill help? And if so…did that mean the well-dressed thug count as a weapon for me in that moment?

I shook off the musing as I stepped towards the two remaining lackeys. A brief flurry of strikes put one on his ass, and the way he clutched at his side made it unlikely he would be rising quickly. The second man managed to use that moment to tackle me to the floor though, and I barely managed to twist in the air so that we landed side by side, rather than with him on top.

Most of my fighting experience was in the form of ‘weapons-work’ as Jorge had called it, and while I had some rudimentary wrestling and grappling training, it was likely dwarfed by the experience of the brawler in front of me. What I did have in abundance though, was strength and agility.

He managed to wrap his legs around my chest, clearly going for some sort of triangle choke, but my superior attributes again showed their worth. I managed to simply sit up and pound him down onto his back. Once, twice…the third slam was enough for him to release his hold, and a quick jab to his face put him down for the moment. I rolled to my feet again and took my bearings.

Despite the rapid nature of the exchange, I had still taken far longer than I’d planned. Not that I’d come up with much of a plan to begin with. Either way, I had turned my back on the real danger and even worse, I had been taken to the ground while doing so. I should have been stomped to unconsciousness before I’d had a chance to finish my second opponent, and I would have been if not for Nathlan.

This I suppose was according to my ‘plan’, if you could call it that. I knew my aura skill was special – ‘pathbound’ they’d called it – and that normally, an aura skill took either significant concentration or high amounts of mana to keep active. Vera’s was mana-intensive, although somewhat offset by the nature of her other skills, and Nathlan’s was similar to a spell; requiring active concentration and not something he could keep running while fighting. I had no clue how Jorge’s aura skill worked, if he even had one, although I suspected his calming presence was due to more than just sheer charisma.

The point was though, that this older man was keeping Nathlan suppressed via his aura skill, and he likely wouldn’t be able to continue to do so for long, either running out of mana, or hopefully, losing concentration due to my attack. And while it certainly was one hell of a shitty plan to have when getting into a violent street fight with unknown criminals in a strange city, it did actually survive contact with the enemy.

I saw Nathlan locked in a whirlwind exchange of strikes with the leader of the group, and I couldn’t tell who had the upper hand. I had felt the power of our opponent, albeit only in a single punch that I managed to deflect, but even so it was enough to determine he had a strength attribute similar to my own. Watching him fight now, I could see he lacked some of my agility, and it was too early to tell how his endurance stacked up.

That meant Nathlan was at a fairly significant attribute disadvantage, being so early in his new class, but he managed to bridge the gap through sheer skill. Much like when he fought with a blade, his footwork was impeccable, and he kept the distance between them even as he dodged and weaved away from the vicious looping kicks and straight punches thrown by the old man.

I knew Nathlan could stand and trade blows with those who should sit far above him, due to his longer-than-average reach and clinical approach that baited out an opponent and punished them when they made the smallest mistake. I had been on the receiving end of one of his cleverly disguised fake-outs on more than one occasion.

Despite this, he was not a well-rounded fighter. Given that his primary weapon was a straight double-edged blade, he did not need to worry about his reach being negated, as he could use the weapon even in tight quarters. As such, while he trained without weapons for the sake of completeness - and because Jorge demanded at least modest competence in all areas of fighting from those he trained - he was not a particularly proficient unarmed fighter when all was considered.

Nathlan lacked a passion and talent for grappling and wrestling, and as such tried to keep the older man at a distance, punishing his attempts at closing the ground between them with heavy, accurate strikes. The older man in turn was clearly a competent fighter, and seemed to sense this strategy for what it was – an attempt to conceal a weakness. Even as I moved towards them, I watched as the grey-haired man shot in for Nathlan’s legs. He was rebuffed both times, but had used the second attempt to land a nasty over the head elbow strike that landed cleanly and left Nathlan reeling.

I disregarded my attempt to find a good opportunity to end the fight cleanly, and instead launched forwards in a bullrush, wrapping my arms around the shorter man and allowing him to throw me to the ground. I needed him away from Nathlan, where their uneven attributes could spell disaster for my friend, just as I had so swiftly taken out the others.

I did not trust the compassion of this man with his arrogant smirk and domineering aura, and would rather take a few blows from him myself than let Nathlan suffer the same. My endurance was impressive, and I had faith that I’d survived worse.

It made sense in the moment when I’d made the decision to become a human shield, but as soon as I felt the hammer blows of his fists against my back, I had to reconsider. I felt something in my ribcage give with his fourth or fifth blow, all delivered within a few heartbeats, and knew my initial estimates were off. Perhaps I was wrong about his strength attribute, or perhaps he had some skill active to enhance the effect of his punches. All I really knew was that I couldn’t take many more of them, especially not in a sensitive area.

Resisting the natural urge to turtle up, I instead stretched my body out in a straight line and then crunched up like a shrimp. The move allowed me to twist to the side, pushing myself out from underneath his body.

Again relying on the training I’d received from Jorge, I used the space created by that move to spring off the ground and wrap around his back, letting my full weight drive him into the floor and trying to worm my arms around his chest and under his neck. He tucked his chin and fought me the whole way, trying to buck me off and roll away.

It only sealed his fate though, as now that my back was to the floor, I could keep him in the air where he would struggle to get any purchase to push off. I wrapped my heels around his abdomen and straightened him out, going for a choke.

It was a desperate, painful struggle, as opposed to the clean motions I had practiced while sparring with the others. He managed to crack his head into my nose at one point and I felt my own blood being smeared around my face by his near-silver hair.

Bruises formed on my ribs from where he hammered at me, trying to weaken my grip, but luckily he couldn’t get a good angle and could only spare a single arm, his other still desperately clawing at my forearm where it squeezed his neck.

Like a fish stranded on land, he flopped and wriggled for a surprising amount of time in my grip, but in the end, his battle for air was just as unwinnable. His endurance couldn’t match up to mine, and once this became clear, he overextended in his panic, allowing my grip to firm. A quick crank of my arm and the arteries in his neck were pressured, and a few moments later his head hung limp at my shoulder.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

I waited a few heartbeats onger before rolling over and staggering to my feet. Blood dripped from my chin, my shoulders heaved as I drew in great lungfuls of air, and sweat and dirt had smeared across my arms and face.

Nathlan looked across at me; calm, composed and clean. He had the three men we’d dispatched earlier face down on the floor, hands behind their backs in a clear display of submission. He raised one delicate eyebrow at me, not a hair out of place, and I barked out a laugh.

“If I wasn’t so tired, I’d punch you right in the face.” I said, spitting blood to the side.

He cracked a grin at me and gestured to the men lying on the ground, who all simultaneously cringed back at the movement. He leaned down towards the most coherent of them as he spoke, carefully enunciating his words in that typical scholar’s dialect I’d come to expect from him.

“Get your leader, take him back to wherever you came from, and tell whoever is in charge to leave whatever issue they have in the dust. We’ll be reporting this to the guards, so if we bump into you again, we’ll be using our weapons, not our fists.”

He paused for a beat; “You don’t want that.”

It was surprisingly intimidating if I was being honest, and the man on the receiving end seemed to agree. A frantic nod and then he was carefully up and corralling his companions into dragging away the older man.

As the thoroughly beaten group beat a hasty retreat, I was tempted to grab that beautiful spear as the spoils of battle but thought better of it quickly. Jorge would already be frustrated – we were supposed to be keeping a low profile after all, and while Nathlan had so confidently proclaimed our intention to alert the guards, I was pretty sure he had no idea how that would work or if they’d even care.

I wiped my face down with the outside of the rag I was using to sheath my spear-tip and turned back to the store, just in time to see Sally scurrying away down an alleyway. Nathlan made to shout after her, but I waved him off.

We might be confident in defending ourselves from retaliation, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be associated with us as anything more than random customers. If these men returned and saw us treating with her so soon, they may try and extract revenge on her. It was often the way of petty men to strike out at those weaker than them, especially once they had been humiliated by those stronger.

“We’ll come back tomorrow, let her have a day off.” I said, as we turned and began the short stroll back to the inn. “I’d like to iron out my plan for the spear upgrade, see if I can alter the shield at all to match. Maybe you can waggle your eyebrows and get us some extra cheese tonight, hey?”

I dodged to the side before I’d finished speaking, aiming to avoid a playful jab from Nathlan that I knew would still be coming. He remained the master of distance management though, and his fist managed to find my arm anyway.

----------------------------------------

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

Nathlan was pacing back and forth in our small room, alternately retying his long hair – an action I’d long since recognised as a nervous tick of his – and staring at the scroll in his hands. I leaned back against the headboard of my bed, the plush pillows providing precious little support. The subtle smell of roses they released whenever pressed did help with calming my racing mind though.

“Okay. I concede it was a little…rash maybe. But I still think we did the right thing. Why are you so worried?” I tried to push out a feeling a calm towards the irate scholar, training my aura to act as something other than the ‘precocious child’ that Jorge liked to refer to it as. It didn’t work.

A yellowed scroll, bound with burnished copper at the top and bottom was thrust toward my face with all the deadly intent of a jousting spear. “Why am I worried!? Oh no reason. No reason at all! Just maybe the fact that the entire roots-damned Council of Brothers seems to be intimately connected to the people we just assaulted!”

Clearly, he was working himself into a frenzy. He got like this sometimes. Mostly it was curiosity and interest that hooked Nathlan by the brain and threw him into a whirlwind of research that would leave me comatose, but that same ability to follow a thought down a million rabbit holes also worked against him at times like these.

He had worried we had done something stupid, and so had spent most of the previous night steadfastly refusing to sleep and instead hunting through the mini library he’d acquired from the guard quartermaster for evidence of our folly. Now, convinced that he’d found it, he brandished that evidence like a weapon and demanded I join him in his panic.

I nodded slowly and tried again to weave tranquillity and peace into my tone as I answered. “Could you explain that a bit more please?”

“Oh shut up you patronising little weasel!”

So that was not a success then. Man, this aura manipulation was hard. I was also a little taken aback by the venom in his tone, and some of that must have shown on my face as he seemed to deflate after looking over at me.

“Sorry Lamb, I didn’t get much sleep last night and-“

“Clearly”

I couldn’t help it. I snorted and the word had left my mouth before I could stop it. I looked up in time to see the venom return and Nathlan’s eyes grow hard. I quickly raised my hands above my head in submission. There was a tense standoff between us; a hissing snake on one side, coiled and ready to strike, and a red panda on the other, hands raised above its head in dumb supplication.

Nathlan sighed dramatically before smirking slightly at me. “That’s so stupid. Why do you always do that? It makes you look like a blood-bear.”

“It’s a sign of peace! Like saying ‘I’m harmless don’t hurt me’.” Nathlan rolled his eyes before I spoke again. “What’s a blood-bear?”

“It’s a large mammal native to the Iskan Peninsula, near my homeland. One of the few species of mega-fauna that poses no real threat to sentients. They’re massive, bigger than the cave bears you sometimes see in the Wandering States – remember that time Jorge had us backtrack for most of a day? That was apparently to avoid crossing the territory of an ancient one.

“Regardless, they’re massive and one of the apex predators in the region, on land at least, but are very docile and not aggressive in the slightest. They wave their arms about above their heads when locals get too close, and just stand there like silly statues until the locals leave. I’ve read reports of them maintaining the posture for bells at a time, although that seems to be rare. Unsurprisingly, a 6-meter-tall ball of muscle standing upright and staring in your direction is enough for most people to back away quickly.”

I smiled as Nathlan entered his ‘lecture-mode’ and watched his heart rate slow in real-time. While I had asked the question mostly as a distraction to calm him down, I had to say I was growing invested. The more I heard about the wider world, the more I wanted to explore.

But not yet. As amazing as seeing the world was, I couldn’t safely traverse even a fraction of it as I currently was. I wanted to get stronger, faster, more self-sufficient. I wanted to be able to see all that this world offered. The wild places, the lost planes and the mountains and valleys hidden for millennia. And there was no point doing all of it alone. I wanted to share the experiences with companions I could trust.

So reluctantly I dragged the conversation back to the present. “So, what is in that scroll that’s got you so worried? The Council of Brothers are the lower chamber of this city’s governing council, right? They can’t all be in league with criminal elements, surely? And definitely not the same ones if so.”

Nathlan sighed again but replied nonetheless. “The ‘criminal elements’ as you so eloquently put it, are nothing special. But that spear-wielding one that you choked unconscious carried a very finely detailed weapon – far better than somebody that weak should be able to afford to keep, let alone purchase. Its apparently a symbol of office for high-level enforcers in a mercenary company that works across Colchet and a few of the city states at the edge of the Wandering States. The ‘Wielders of Azlan’ they call themselves, not a great reputation as you might imagine and tend to be involved in low-level crime mostly. Protection rackets and the like. They are linked to some of the Council of Brothers members rather directly by all accounts, but those could just be rumours.”

I nodded and swirled my hand at him, asking him to continue.

“No, the issue is that the Wielders of Azlan shouldn’t be working with random local thugs, as they were in this case. That’s only happened three times in the past. In each case, the Wielders of Azlan were employed alongside local criminal elements to destabilize the city and generally cause a bit of chaos. They would embolden criminal elements within cities and disrupt the local balance of power by bringing in over-powered individuals. As we saw, none of the non-combat classers in that area would have been able to stand against that man, and none of the higher-tiered members of guilds would have time to interfere given everything else going on.”

“I can see you’re building to something Nathlan, but I’m having a hard time figuring out why we shouldn’t have interfered.” I stated.

“There’s clearly something bigger going on. If this was a random group of street thugs trying to drum up a few more tarrots then we wouldn’t have to worry about any backlash. But this-”. He shook the scroll at me again. “This is a historical account of the Blood-Wind Coup. And before you ask, it was a successful coup that led to a lot of chaos and was only resolved around 40 years ago. The point is that things are clearly progressing in a similar way here. You remember Jorge saying that there’s something going on down in the lower levels, and much of the guard presence is down there dealing with it?”

“An incursion or something wasn’t it?” I asked, and he bobbed his head happily as he continued babbling. He always seemed to love when his ‘students’ actually listened.

“Well, it seems like some bigger players are making the most of the chaos to try something. Before you ask, I have no idea who or what they hope to achieve, but my gut is telling me that there is some sort of conspiracy here, and that means consequences. Street thugs might scuttle away if we scare them off, but if there are bigger players involved, then somebody might come investigating soon.”

I had always tended to be a fairly laid-back person as far as I could remember. I could definitely work myself into a panic, but most things tended to work out, and I generally took the stance that I’ll do what I can now, or deal with it later. That laid back attitude was helped by the fact that I’d yet to meet anyone in this city that could pose much of a challenge to Jorge and Vera. Anyone in this world in fact.

As soon as the thought entered my mind, I remembered cold, black pits in a massive craggy face. My legs shaking with the rumble of a voice so alien I could not even relate, let alone understand. I shivered, doing my best to put the memory out of my mind. ‘The Al-Sazine are on the move’. The mystery rose again unbidden despite my best efforts.

Wrenching my thoughts back into place, I considered anew. I had been so relaxed about our actions partly because I had the support of two of the most powerful people I’d yet met in the city. No low-level street thig could compare to the battle-hardened Vera after all, and if the law got involved and dragged the true powerhouses into things, we were in the right and our enemies were notorious – if unimportant - criminals. That wouldn’t matter anymore though, if Nathlan was right at least. And how often was he wrong?

No. We could very likely have people of a similar level as our companions and teachers coming after us now, or at least investigating the incident. Maybe they’d look into it, come to the conclusion that their over-eager grunts had simply pissed off the wrong people and leave it at that. But it seemed like a flimsy thread on which to hang your life.

“Shit.”

Nathlan looked up, seeming relieved more than anything. “At least you’re finally taking this seriously” he said.