"That's Colisburg!" exclaimed Delilah with relief.

Their first destination came into view as soon as they got on top of a small hill. The city of Colisburg.

As the sun was setting and the sky got darker, the myriads of lights from the city shone like diamonds. Many, many diamonds.

It made it very easy to spot the numerous arenas scattered all around.

One of the six bear beastfolk that accompanied them to that point grunted. “It seems you arrived safe and sound. We'll make our way back, it's better for us not to get too close to the city”.

After a quick goodbye, the beastfolks parted ways with the group.

“And to think I was starting to get used to having those piles of fur around”. Nez leaned over the side of the cart.

“They were afraid to even look at you” Bortheus reminded him.

“Yeah, that's true” Nez said. He rolled on his back. “But they were kind of adorable... in a weird way”.

They went through cultivated fields and animal farms until they reached the town proper.

Colisburg streets were bursting with life. There, evenings were the time when everybody got out and fun, and the vendors that didn't work in the morning stayed open to attract customers.

Quite the difference from Yronburg's slums.

The group left cart and horses in a stable, and looked for an inn to stay. They found a modest but nice looking one.

“I think I'll try to find my contact” Delilah said after checking in.

“Who is it?” Nez asked out of curiosity.

“The local lord”.

Nez made a dazzled face. “Oh... Yeah, that makes sense”.

Of course the princess knew the city's ruler.

“I will accompany you, my lady” Bortheus said with a small bow, shuffling in his cloak.

They had to do something about the royal emblem he had on his armor...

Phisena grabbed Nez's wrist and pulled him in another direction. “In that case, we have something to do”.

“Do we?” Nez asked. It was news to him.

Delilah waved at them. “Let's meet back here!”.

The animated doll dragged Nez around while looking frantically for something, attracting the attention of everyone around them.

“Can you tell me where you're taking me?” Nez asked, letting her do as she pleased.

Phisena didn't answer. She instead stopped at a food stall and called the owner's attention. “I need to know where the best forge in town is. Better if it has an arcane laboratory”.

The food seller looked at them in disbelief, then pointed to his right. “Keep going that way. You'll find Old Kerg's place. Now bring that Devil Touched away, he's scaring the customers”.

“Much obliged” Nez replied tilting his head, while Phisena resumed her march.

They finally reached a beautiful forge, with many items in display. Half of it was a shop, the other was where the goods were created.

Phisena went right for the counter, behind of which a short but bulky man was standing. “Hi. I need to make this”. She slammed the blueprints for Nez's gun in front of him.

The man – Old Kerg, presumably – took a long look at both of them, then lowered his gaze on the blueprints. “An animated doll and a Devil Touched come into my forge to make an impossible item” he said skeptically.

Nez had to admit he took it well.

“It's not impossible. I can make it” Phisena said. “Let me use your forge”.

Old Kerg laughed loudly. “Little girl, you tell the best jokes”.

She groaned in frustration. After rummaging in her backpack, she produced two metal ingots of a greenish color. “Let me do it, an these are yours”.

The blacksmith's eyes went wide. “That's orichalcum... It's rare around these parts”.

Phisena stayed silent and kept looking right at him.

“Alright” Old Kerg agreed while stroking his light stubble. “My forge is yours for the evening. But I won't reprogram my golem to listen to you”.

“You have a golem? That's perfect!” Phisena said, almost jumping in place. She hurried to the workshop.

“Didn't you listen? He won't obey you!”.

Phisena pointed her hand towards the golem, a small humanoid construct with a rounded body made of clay. “He will”.

In front of her palm appeared a gear shaped magic circle with rotating parts and sliding sections.

After a few seconds, the resting golem straightened up and walked forward to her.

“Don't worry, he'll be back to normal once I'm done” Phisena reassured the blacksmith before getting to work.

Old Kerg didn't seem to believe to his eyes. “You can use magitech?”

But Phisena was too absorbed in what she was doing, she probably didn't even hear him.

Nez took the opportunity to sit in a corner and observe in silence. Old Kerg was distracted by Phisena, so he didn't pay mind to him.

The animated doll worked nonstop, giving precise orders to the golem under her control. While she shaped and refined the metal using both tools and magic, the construct smelted the ores and carried the finished parts.

It was all very complicated, and Nez had no idea what was going on, but he found himself surprisingly amused at the scene. There was something in Phisena's face, an absolute focus and passion that kept his eyes glued to her.

She took apart Nez's gun and slowly rebuilt it, using a union of ritualism magic and engineering.

After over two uninterrupted hours of work, Phisena finally set everything down. “I finished”.

Both Nez and Old Kerg got closer.

Phisena gave Nez his gun back. The weapon looked very different.

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The wooden grip and the trigger were the same, but everything else was different. The flintlock mechanism was gone, replaced by a cylinder with four holes that could slide to the side, and the barrel was slightly shorter and larger with a front and rear sight on top of it.

It was beautiful. An exquisite weapon.

“I...”. Nez struggled to say something. “This is the nicest thing somebody ever did for me”.

“It can hold only four shots, but it's more than before” Phisena said, trying to hide her blushing face. “And I managed to increase its firepower. If I could work on it for a few days I could improve it even more and make it...”

“It's fine” Nez stopped her rambling. “Actually, it's more than that. It's kinda awesome. It's crazy to think your master doesn't want you to use this incredible talent”.

Phisena's jaw dropped a little and she finally looked up at him.

“Can I see?”. Old Kerg leaned in between them, making her take a step back.

Nez glanced at him. “Aren't you afraid I'm gonna curse you?”.

“I don't care” the blacksmith quickly replied, completely captivated by the gun. “Marvelous... What will you do about the bullets?”. He quickly turned to Phisena like she was his teacher.

“Well, I can make them anytime”.

“Fascinating”.

They finally got out of the forge, in the streets still full of people. They could hear the distant cheering from an arena.

Nez felt incredibly excited, like never before.

Once they reached the inn, they found Delilah and Bortheus waiting for them in the hall. She seemed very upset.

“What happened?” Phisena asked.

Delilah crossed her arms and pouted. “The audacity of certain people! They didn't let us see lord Orzhio!”.

“They said he was really busy, and didn't take appointments from commoners anyway” Bortheus explained.

Nez scratched his head. “Maybe it's a dumb question, but... did you tell them who you are?”.

“Of course not!” Delilah replied. “I can't let it known that I'm the Kingdom of Enerya's princess” she added in a lower voice, looking around suspiciously.

Unbelievable...

“Basically, you went there without a plan”.

“No, I...” Delilah said to defend herself, but then stopped. “Okay, maybe I did”.

“But we have good news” Bortheus interjected to back her up. “We found a way to meet lord Orzhio”.

Something in the way he said it alarmed Nez. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

“I'm not gonna like this idea, am I right?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“You aren't going to like it, no” Delilah confirmed.

Nez took a deep breath.

How did the saying go? In for a copper coin, in for a silver one.

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

“This is so stupid... I can't believe you are making me do this” Nez grumpily said.

The only advantage of standing in a line for him, was that everybody else left him plenty of space.

“It was our only option” Delilah said, stretching her neck to look over the group in front of them. “And besides, I think it's gonna be fun”.

“Fun? A fighting tournament?”. Nez couldn't believe his ears. Did she have any idea how loud and obnoxious it could be? “You could have at least told me about it”.

“We didn't have time”. Bortheus looked at Nez with squinting eyes. “If we didn't sign up last evening, we would have lost our only chance to take part in the last preliminary trials. Now shut up” he told him scornfully.

Nez wondered who decided to have the finalists of that tournament take part in a grand ball in lord Orzhio's mansion. Were people so desperate to get a taste of high class life? Or did many adventurers seek connection with rich and powerful people?

“It'll be okay”. Phisena didn't seem thrilled either, but tried to stay positive. “It's only three matches. And we don't even need to win the whole thing to meet lord Orzhio. We just have to get to the finals”.

That meant at least three days of agony.

Nez had a better time living in the slums.

“Fine. But I want to get this over with as quickly as possible” he said. “That means I won't hold back during the fights. And I don't want to hear any complaints”. He gave Delilah an eloquent look.

“Fair enough” she approved.

It was a shame that none of the other participants there would move to the first round of the tournament with them. Only one group would qualify.

I could have started working on a scare tactic...

“Next!” called a voice in front of them.

Finally it was their turn.

The group got to a desk. Behind it was a woman with many papers stacked in front of her. “I need your names”. She kept her eyes on a sheet of paper.

“Delilah”.

“Bortheus”.

“PH153NA”.

“Nezefaril. But I go by Nez”.

The woman raised her eyes and went pale after seeing Nez. “Wait... what's a Devil Touched doing here?”.

Nez leaned over the desk. “Why, is there a problem?” he asked slowly.

“No! Not at all!” the woman immediately said. “I've got your names right here! And your group name was...”.

“The King's Brigade” Delilah said.

“Ah, yes. Here it is”. The woman nervously tapped on her sheet. She gave a numbered badge to each of them and pointed to a board behind her. “You can chose the trial you want to take part in over there. You'll get a score based on your performance”.

The group moved over.

“The King's Brigade?” Nez asked under his breath, snickering.

“It's the first thing that came to mind” Delilah said, unfazed.

They checked the board. There were a few different competitions, and they all specialized on a particular skill set.

“Look. We have some newbies over here” said a girl with a bow strapped to her back.

She was accompanied by three other girls, all with different heights but similar faces and light blue hair. They also had a mark on the side of the neck.

They were three animated dolls.

“Pfft” said one of them, the tallest one, after looking at Delilah and the rest of the group. “Poor things. They had the bad luck of being in the same preliminary group with us”.

Nez fixed his gaze on her. “So you're veterans? Good”.

The three automated dolls all took a step back behind their master.

The girl in charge made a disgusted face, the looked at Phisena. “Does your master hate you so much that they make you work with a Devil Touched?”.

“My master isn't here. It doesn't matter what he wants me to do” Phisena replied. “And I think Nez is very nice, and a pleasant person to have around”.

Nez wasn't accustomed to get compliments.

Before the girl could reply Delilah stepped in front of her. “It relieves me to know that you take interest in newcomers like us... But I would feel guilty if you were too distracted during your competitions because of it”.

The girl and her animated dolls turn around with a scoff and walked away.

“Only the weak feel the need to assert their dominance with cheap talk like that”. Delilah flipped her red braid over her shoulder. “Come on. Let's pick our trials”.

Bortheus had a dreamy look on his face.

Each member of the group chose a different competition, obviously. No sense in going against each other. They all went for something that suited them.

Delilah chose a fencing contest, practically shredding all of her opponents with unparalleled elegance.

Bortheus took part in an endurance test, where participants had increasing weights attached to their bodies. He kept going way past the point where he was the only one standing.

Phisena competed in a spell target shooting challenge. Her spells were simple but she didn't miss a single shot, hitting three targets at once sometimes.

As for Nez...

He chose a game of 'kill the carrier' where the players had to get a ball and avoid being touched by the others to keep it as long as they could to get points. Five minutes time limit, no weapons or spells allowed.

That's perfect.

The tall animated doll from before also participated, which made it even more exhilarating for him.

The players all lined up at the edge of a small field with short walls, railings, and other obstacles and covers; at the center of it, on a pedestal, was the ball.

As soon as the game started, Nez tapped in his Devil Touched blood and sprinted forward faster than everybody else. He moved like a wisp of wind over and between obstacles and got to the ball.

Once he took it, he simply sat down on the pedestal and waited for the others with a dreadful smile that let out a glimpse of his frightful nature.

He held the ball on the palm of one hand. “What are you waiting for? You have to come closer to get the ball” he taunted his adversaries in a light tone that contrasted with his veiled menacing expression.

Nobody dared to take a step forward. The other players spent their time trembling, waiting for someone else to make the first move. The light blue haired animated doll was the most scared of them all.

Where did your hubris go?

Five minutes flew by, and Nez had the ball the entire time. A perfect score.

Nobody performed as well as the members of the King's Brigade. Their combined score was one of the highest for a four people group.

“We're good enough to take part in the tournament” Nez said after the announcement. “Who would have thought...”.

Delilah smiled proudly. “Let's do our best. We can't afford to lose. My kingdom depends on me”.

Thinking about it made Nez realize the stakes. But it was nothing that could ruin a good evening with his new friends.

Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.