“Mafia?”
“I’m not surprised you didn’t know, it was long ago,” the old man nodded sagely. “Many current-day Heroic Families and cultivation sects were founded by outlaws during the feudal era when most lethal weapons and forms of martial arts - let alone cultivation - were outlawed. If you find a sect older than three centuries, chances are they still have some traditions rooted in their outlaw origins.”
“Uh-huh. I take it you pay to get in?” Zel asked.
“Just a couple coins, but yes. More if you want a private bath or salts or what have you. I believe they recently restored the option to have an entire section to yourself,” he nodded once more. With a brief thanks the beast-slayer retreated back inside the barrier and, while Zefaris was busy reloading her gun with more practice loads, she picked the smaller building on the left-hand side, finding it to be a greenhouse. Built of stone and just as opulent as the main structure though it was, it was filled with violet light from elongated lightgems suspended in ornamental brass-coloured wire fixtures. They shone upon two tall multicolored flower bushes taking up most of the interior, which had clearly been untended for a while, seeing as just two bushes took up the space of eight clearly delineated planting spaces. Nevertheless, there was room enough to access the irrigation channel, and thus wash herself of sweat and aid in cooling down.
The beast-slayer stripped down to just her undergarments - which really wasn’t saying much, as she removed only her boots, trousers, and arm-harness. She unbound her hair as to let it shield her back from the seething sun, using the linens to wrap her feet in the absence of boots, then placing nearly everything but what she wore and her cleaver into Fog Storage.
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Zefaris had kept track of Zel’s every movement, even if she didn’t really try to. She just couldn’t help looking every once in a while - between reloads, target resets, whenever she happened to come into view. Every time, the markswoman found her attention diverted, in no small part because of the show that the living bronze statue of a woman was putting on.
Every time she thought she had gotten used to something, that absolute unit of a woman just pulled out some new trick. Some new feat of pure physicality to grab her attention with. Whether it was punching craters into a cold-iron target block or spending an hour casually lifting weights most people used for a couple reps at a time. Even the unnerving way her muscles writhed and slithered beneath her skin in struggle against the weight was entrancing.
How did she make something as mundane as sweating look so good? Getting sweaty was an affair that one tolerated at the best of times, but somehow Zelsys sweating looked like immaculate mistings of morning dew upon an ancient statue, each droplet of liquid refracting the sunlight and emphasizing the sculptor’s craftsmanship.
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She was certain she’d never get tired of such views, short as their relationship had been up until this point. She was also entirely aware of the fact that it had begun as little more than a spontaneous release of tension, but it was… Different. Between that night at Quincy’s and the moment they finally got out of that dungeon, Zefaris had come to view Zelsys as something more than a lover. Regardless of what made her who she was, Zel exuded a completely different personal aura to all others she had been with in the past, or even considered courting - small in number though her previous partners were.
To Zefaris, Zelsys was almost like a lighthouse, an anchor to hold onto in turbulent times. Whenever she had doubted her path, whenever she had considered just returning to a safer line of work were she to survive the dungeon at all, Zelsys was always there, walking ever onward, an icebreaker on the frozen ocean of uncertainty. From their first meeting in the Exclusion Zone - no, not quite. It was the rot-bear attack.
At this very moment, Zefaris was utterly certain of the path she intended to walk, and she was utterly certain that she would be walking a different one had she not met Zelsys - nay, had she not given into base lust back in that inn. A small part of her - a part that liked to read pulp novels - found it entertaining. A tale of two warrior women falling in love and filling in for one another’s shortcomings - one a trained career soldier crippled by uncertainty of the future, the other a self-assured paragon of raw physicality but lacking in refinement and experience.
It wasn’t until Zel vanished from her sight into one of the side buildings that Zef realized she’d been sitting there idly smiling, Pentacle half-reloaded in her lap. She finished loading the last two target practice loads. Unable to bear the high noon heat much longer, she rolled up her sleeves and unbuttoned her shirt partway. Temperatures above thirty Cs always did cloud her mind…
...A state which was not at all alleviated when Zel walked out of that building damn-near naked and glistening with water droplets, cleaver in one hand and tablet in the other. That Sage-damned tease even went out of her way to stretch all over again, as if she hadn’t been lifting for the last hour. She even shot Zef a smug little glance, the showoff.
Without any immediate pressure or danger, she was perfectly willing to let the off-ticklish flame in her stomach spread unimpeded, holstering Pentacle and not just overtly invoking Homunculus Eye but also opening the Philosopher’s Eye. How amusing it would be if this purpose would be what made it easier for her to push the latter’s limits.
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Whether clothed fully or just barely, it didn’t make much difference to Zelsys. She enjoyed teasing Zef all the same either way, and she continued training as if nothing had happened. There was no real need for her to stretch - even less so for as long as she did - but she still did it before she returned to training.