Salnys flies up as water makes contact with his face.

“Good MOORRRNNIIIINNNGGG!” Timothy yells, causing Salnys’s ears to ring.

“Huh??” Salnys says, groggily staring at Timothy, “Why are you waking me up so early???”

“What do you mean?” Timothy asks, grinning as he puts down a bowl, “The sun rose an hour ago, it’s the perfect time to wake up!”

Salnys rubs his eyes and stands up deciding it wouldn’t be wise to argue. Timothy nods and walks into a different room and comes out with a plate of fried eggs.

“They had some at the market yesterday, so I decided to cook some,” Timothy picks one up off the plate and eats it whole; with a full mouth he says, “Want some?”

Salnys nods and takes the eggs, scarfing them down. He hadn’t eaten anything in a while so he’s hungry. Timothy offers some more and Salnys devours them, Timothy curtly nods when Salnys is done with the last of his eggs and takes up the dishes.

After returning from the kitchen, he starts to talk, “Do you want to go straight back to the academy, or do you want to do something else first?” Timothy puts on some boots and slings a bag over his shoulder, “Also, make sure to do some training later, eggs have a lot of protein in them and you’re looking pretty wimpy.”

Salnys sighs, “Mhm thanks for the advice,” Salnys finishes putting on some shoes and getting his stuff, “I think I want to go straight back to the academy.” Salnys decided that delaying for too long was probably going to end badly in one way or another and make him second guess himself.

“Let’s get going then!” Timothy excitedly shouts, practically dragging Salnys through the door as he shouts.

Salnys blinks as his eyes adjust to the freshly risen sun. The town has more people out than there were last night. A lot of shop and restaurant owners are opening and switching around things sitting in front windows. Many shop owners and some random people they pass smile and wave, and Timothy greets them back by doing the same. After a bit, Salnys realizes that they aren’t heading in the direction of the gate as the surroundings are unfamiliar.

“So,” Salnys speaks, cutting the silence between him and Timothy, “Where exactly are we going? It doesn’t look like the way we went before.”

Timothy leans in before talking, “You aren’t a snitch, right? I mean you don’t act like you’d be one.” Timothy says, “I usually wouldn’t show anyone this, but you’d probably get curious and the guard’s pretty dumb, so you’d probably find out anyway.”

Salnys just responds, “I’m not a snitch.”

Timothy nods, stops, and turns to enter a pottery shop next to them and Salnys follows.

“Eyyyyyy, Timothy!” A guy at the desk yells out the moment they enter, “Weird day for you to show up, but it’s fine.”

Timothy nods curtly and responds, “I didn’t get to collect some bets I placed a couple days ago.”

“Alright then, head in.” He unlocks a gate to get behind the counter as he says this; then goes back to sitting.

Timothy goes ahead and walks behind the gate, opens a hidden hatch on the ground, and climbs in. Salnys follows albeit taking a much longer time than Timothy as he’s being careful getting in through the floor.

The moment he drops through, it feels like there’s a pop and it becomes loud as the sound of mugs slamming against tables, people yelling, and blades clashing. He gets a better view as he enters, though the room is fairly crowded. There’s a large counter in one of the corners with large amounts of alcohol piled behind a stout bartender. There is also a separate counter with large amounts of money piled on and behind it accompanied by two similar-looking people tending to and sorting different currencies and some additional materials behind it.

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“Wow, there sure are a lot of people here,” Salnys says loudly, making sure Timothy can hear him, “Do you come here often?”

“Yes, I often come here to scout people to join my church, or to teach them a lesson,” Timothy responds as he approaches the counter with large amounts of money piled on it. “It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to scout for a while though.” Timothy’s speech trails off as he stares off into space.

Salnys taps Timothy’s side, trying to snap him out of it, but he can't reach his shoulder.

“Oh, sorry about that.” Timothy responds, shaking his head, “I need to sort some things out, go watch the fights, and try not to talk to any shady figures.”

Timothy approaches the counter and begins to converse with the man there, the other man looks confused and begins to say something. It looks like this is going to take a while, so he walks off toward the center of the rooms where most of the commotion is coming from. There’s a large crowd of people gathered there, most of them heartily shouting and drinking, mostly drowning out the noises of battle coming from the center. Salnys pushes through the crowd, gets to the edge of a large ring, and takes a seat at an empty table.

There are two people in the center of the ring; the ring is composed of a short, physical barrier, and a mostly transparent dome. The two people in the center are wearing full sets of armor but are using different weapons, one of them handling an arming sword and a shield, and the other using a great sword. The sets of armor they were wearing were also vastly different.

One had ornately decorated armor with scratches and dents accompanying the decoration and was wearing a plain helmet, it looked out of place from the rest of the armor as it had no decoration. The breastplate and pants are covered in various crests and symbols on the front and has the scene of a man repelling a massive worm-like creature on the back, though Salnys is too far away to get too much more detail from the artwork.

The other man was wearing plain chain mail armor with nothing adorning it. He also isn’t wearing a helmet, showing his face. He looks fairly young but still old enough to have fully graduated from most schools and academies. The shield he wields is covered in various colors and looks fully made of metal.

Neither of them are talking, currently circling each other, the one man whose face he can see is extremely focused. They both lunge at each other, the man with the man wearing the leather armor trying to strike low, ducking as he strikes with his arming sword. The other man also swings, aiming for the other’s breastplate; the blow connects before the man in leather armor can get too close. The hit sends the other man flying backward and leaves a pretty nasty-looking cut on his arm, but he doesn’t relent, charging and putting his shield first. The man with the great sword tries swinging low, but the charging man simply leaps over the other’s blade and tries to connect with the other’s head. The man recovers from his swing and brings his blade up to block the hit. After blocking it he launches his foot out with the force of a mule and the kick sends the other man flying. It leaves noticeable damage on the man’s leather armor. The man in leather complains, but it’s too loud to tell what he’s saying.

The man in leather armor puts his arming sword away, Salnys assumes that he’s done fighting and is going to surrender, but the other man instead does some quick hand motions, which Salnys recognizes the motions as the casting for a spell of some kind, he tries to remember the hand motions for later, but he can’t remember it all as the man did the hand motions too fast. It forms a slender spear that looks like it’s made of pure energy. Immediately after casting it, he hefts it and there’s a resounding crack as it flies through the air. The other man in response drops his sword and ducks, the man lunges from the squatting position straight towards the other who tries to put up his shield, but he staggers as it looks like the last spell takes too much from him. The man in plate’s fist connects with the other man’s face, it knocks him over and he doesn’t get back up.

The crowd goes wild the moment the man collapses, some boo though, one even tries to leap into the ring, but he bounces off the magical barrier. Many others charge towards the money table, which Salnys now assumes is the betting table, and they start taking money from the man who’s shouting at the speed of an auctioneer to many different people before telling them to get back in line, the other attendant is still deep in discussion with Timothy though, Salnys almost feels bad for the attendant as he looks tired. Some others crowd around the man who had knocked the other out, cheering and offering to buy him drinks, he stayed mostly silent, still acknowledging some men in an attempt to stay polite, but he took some money already set aside on two separate tables and then started walking over towards Salnys.

…

Wait.

'Why’s he walking towards me?'