Dorian kept piling on. Even he felt it was getting a bit much.

“…I so admire—“

“Stop that!” Kuruk growled, his fists clenched. “Why are you talking like that? You are mocking me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare!” Dorian’s hands fled to his chest. “Lowly scum like me, mocking the son of the head hunter? I’d have to have a death wish!”

“Exactly,” grunted Kuruk.

“Look at your arms!” said Dorian. “They’re so big! I bet you could crush my skull with one hand. I wish I had arms like those.”

Kuruk just looked at him funny. He wore a look somewhere between flattered and constipated. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you being so weird?” His forehead creased like a folded towel. “Don’t make me beat you up again…”

Dorian spreads his arms. “Do as you please! Compared to you, I’m but a humble ant.”

The big man kept staring, his bottom lip puckering a little. Dorian peered back, fully earnest. For a second he thought he could see through Kuruk’s eyes, down to his soul: a very small man trapped in a very big body.

“…Feh. Whatever,” Kuruk snapped. He looked around at his boys, who all seemed equally befuddled. They’d come expecting a fight, not a surrender.

All except for one. A lean, sallow teen strode up, his face a cruel mask. He’d been the most enthusiastic of the gravediggers; now he jabbed out a finger. “No, no, no. I don’t believe it.”

“Hmm?” said Dorian.

“You say you know your place now, do you? Then prove it.” He pointed to the elixir-shaped hump bag. “I saw you comin’ from the alchemist’s shop. If you admire Big Ku so much…” he leaned in, smirking. “Why don’tcha gift him that?”

It was important, in these moments, not to freeze. No eyes widening. No short breaths. Keep a wide smile, fluid movements.

He’d thought this might happen. There were two main ways, really, this encounter could’ve gone down.

The first way, the original Io’s way: he started off hostile, matched their aggression, and got into a good ol’ brawl. He put his odds of victory in this form at less than one in five. He put his odds of leaving with his ingredients in hand, and undamaged, at nil. He threw this out immediately; you had to pick your battles.

The second way: he started off conciliatory, played nice. And maybe, just maybe, he’d end up with one less group of enemies and with his stuff untouched.

Wishful thinking. He needed to pivot. A little gamble.

First, he made a big show of unholstering his bag. “Of course! If Kuruk wishes, who am I to refuse?” he shrugged. Then, just as he was about to throw it—

“Ah,” he scratched his head, sheepish, like he’d remembered something. “I would… but it’s for my sister, see.”

“Kaya?” Kuruk’s eyes narrowed and his eyes snapped up. His voice was a low, angry rumble. Her shooting him down two days ago was the main reason Dorian’s ribs still ached.

Inwardly, Dorian grinned at Kuruk’s reaction. He had a hook.

“She’s asked me to get her ol’ Hu’s Spirit wines,” he sighed. “She’s… she’s heartbroken. Two days ago, she was bawling ‘cause she was forced to, ah, turn down someone she really fancied.”

He’d admit—this was laying it on a little thick. Then again, it was about as thick as Kuruk’s skull. It’d even out, he hoped.

“Huh?” Kuruk’s frown softened. Dorian could practically hear the gears clicking… “Who?”

“She wouldn’t say,” said Dorian, shaking his head. Kuruk’s breath quickened.

Then he frowned, like it took a second for Dorian’s words to fully process. “Wait. She was… forced? Why?”

Dorian winced. “After—after our parents died…” his breath caught a little. “They left us with so much debt! Debt to Chief Rust and his son.” He paused. This part, at least, was all true. “And Hento Rust… you know how he is.”

“Hento…” breathed Kuruk like an enraged bull. The Young Master of the Rust tribe did as he pleased. He was handsome, rich, practically untouchable, and spent most of his time high on mind-altering elixirs or between girls’ legs.

“He wants my sis for himself, and—and every time she has a suitor, he forces her to turn them away.” He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “We—she’s in so much debt, she has to obey. It’s awful.”

It was the best kind of lie; the kind that was mostly true. They did owe Hento’s family a great deal of money, and Hento—along with half the men in Rust tribe—was smitten with her.

But in truth Hento couldn’t order Kaya around if he tried. And of course she didn’t care a whit about Kuruk either. But Kuruk didn’t need to know that.

“I knew it,” he breathed, his teeth bared. His mood flip-flopped in an instant; his face lit up like a child’s. “I knew that wench was hot for me all along. Ha!”

Then fire filled his eyes and his hands balled to fists. “Hento, the demon! I’ll pound him to mush!”

“Um. Ey, Big Ku?” said the sallow teen with a frown. He bit his lip. “Something’s rotten. I think he’s lying. He’s playin’ you! That whole thing with his sister, it’s wyrm dung!”

Dorian gritted his teeth. This rat…

“Huh?” Kuruk’s happy grin was turning upside-down, and fast. He didn’t want to believe it, Dorian saw. He was the sort of man who thought the whole world spun around his big frame; he was the hero of his own epic tale. Dorian just needed to push a few more buttons.

“What are you saying?” interjected Dorian with a frown of his own. “That Kuruk’s not good enough for my sister? That she could never really fancy him, so I must be lying about it?”

Kuruk’s face changed colors. “Are you, Pu?!” he roared, whirling on the sallow teen. Pu cringed.

“O-of course not! I misspoke, Big Ku. I misspoke, is all. Hehe,” he stammered.

When his eyes turned back to Dorian, they were venomous.

Ignoring him, Dorian forged on. “Oh! It’ll be a pity when she hears Kuruk stopped her from drowning her sorrows in her favorite Spirit wines…”

“No!” roared Kuruk with enough force to scare a few nearby birds into flight. He cleared his throat. “Ah, that is to say—forget the drinks. Keep them. It was not my idea to take them.” He glared at Pu, who cowered further, before turning back to Dorian.

“You will tell Kaya about me? You will put in a good word?” It was strange, seeing such a big man swoon. “Tell her that I shall save her. I shall beat Hento Rust’s insides to powder if she wishes it. He is no threat to me.” He lifted his chin. “Take what’s mine, will he? Ha!”

Puffing out his chest, he turned and waved to his crew. “Come, brothers! We have a fop to [discipline!]”

Which was how Dorian was left without a scratch. With all his possessions intact.

He blinked. Even he didn’t think it’d go this well.

He scratched his chin. Did he feel guilty about throwing Kaya under the chariot? He felt like he should, but he didn’t.

Shrugging, he turned to go back on his merry way—

—but before he could take so even a step, he saw one figure break out from the rest of the gang.

Pu. His look was vicious.

Dorian sighed. Drat. This rat wouldn’t go away, would he? He’d earned his boss’s ire and been humiliated to boot—no doubt he wished to get even.

He strode toward Dorian with purpose.

Dorian, for his part, kept walking like he’d seen nothing. Very well. Let’s play. He altered his trajectory just a little, quickened his pace a notch.

If there was to be a confrontation, he had just the place in mind…

***

Dorian went, Pu followed. He went far out, past his tent and farther, and still Pu kept tracking him at a distance; Dorian kept pretending not to notice. He rounded a familiar dune, unloaded his knapsack, and waited.

When Pu came over the top of the dune, he pretended he was fussing with the sack’s strings. Dorian didn’t look up until the boy’s shadow fell over him.

Then he affected a shocked look, and smiled. “Pu! Fancy seeing you here—“

It was all he got out before the boy shoved him to the ground.

“Cut the wyrm dung,” Pu hissed. “Whaddaya think you’re playing at?”

A swift kick to the ribs—right in the tender parts—had Dorian rolling over and wheezing.

“You tryna embarrass me, you little zorespawn bastard?”

Dorian stood shakily as another kick, aimed at his midsection, met sand. A cloud of it drifted into the wind.

“Not so mouthy now, are you?” Pu spat, reddening. He shoved Dorian again.

Dorian sighed. A long, drawn-out sigh.

Then he stood upright, shoulders back, and lifted his head. His entire demeanor shifted in an instant.

“I tried to avoid this, you know,” he said, a whimsical quirk on his lips. “But you’re like a hellhound. Smell blood and you won’t stop barking. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

He pursed his lips. His eyes shifted to the sky. “Do you know how hard it is to dispose of a body?”

Pu frowned. “Huh?”

“A body. Human. Dead.” Dorian cocked his head and glanced at Pu. “Not the way your lot did to me, of course. That left all sorts of evidence. Anybody with half a brain could’ve guessed it was you. I mean the sort that leaves no trace, that draws no suspicion.”

He paused. “How many people will miss you, do you think? I’d guess not many. There are ten urchins just like you in your little gang. How many will search for you? Even fewer. Maybe no-one. People go missing all the time in this desert…”

He shrugged. “What do you think? Am I in the clear? Any powerful relatives I should know about? Any life-saving treasures?”

“Wait,” said Pu. “Are you threatening to kill me?” He laughed, a full-body affair. “You?”

“Of course not,” grinned Dorian. “I’m simply telling you a story.”

He took a step in. Right up in Pu’s face.

By instinct Pu swung for him hard. What happened next went very fast.

One hand grabbing Pu’s wrist, the other cupping the tricep, a full-body pull and step out. All of a sudden Pu was stumbling forward with a yelp.

Just as one arm snaked around his throat, crushing into his windpipe. Stifling any shouts.

“A boy wanders out into the desert,” whispered Dorian. He kicked out Pu’s knees from behind him and the boy fell, frothing at the mouth. “Too far out, behind a dune where nobody would think to look. Falls into a scorpion den, breaks his legs…” The chokehold tightened. Pu tugged at Dorian’s arms but the grip was locked tight as steel.

“Can’t climb out in time. They find his withered body in the morning all puffed-up, purple, dead from the poison.”

Pu kept clawing, frantic. His legs kicked out, spasming, at nothing.

Dorian leaned in. “What else could’ve killed him? There are, of course, no bruises. A stroke of bad luck, they’ll say.”

By now Pu’s face was going white. “A pity.”

Then qi boiled at Pu’s fingertips. A pittance of it, barely a technique, but it still shone a raging sun-yellow. It’d still burn if it hit.

Before he even finished Dorian hooked a leg over the arm, drawing it away and locking it in place; the technique sprayed into the sand. All the while, Dorian’s chokehold tightened…

Now things were desperate. Pu tried clawing, elbowing, but Dorian still kept the grip tight. Pu’s last few tries were to flail his fingers up, trying to poke out Dorian’s eyes. He flailed like a crippled insect.

Predictable. Dorian kept his eyes tucked in. One poke sliced a gash in his temple, another bounced straight off. They were getting weaker and weaker…

At last the arm slumped and the head lolled.

Now was the risky window. The next few steps had to happen quickly and with precision.

Dorian kept his ears sharp, searching for the sound of footsteps. At the same time he lightened the pressure on the choke—releasing the windpipe but keeping enough force to cut off the carotid arteries. To stop blood-flow to Pu’s brain.

For five tense minutes he held the chokehold. Then he let it go, and Pu’s body dropped like a sack of figs. The first thing he checked was the neck; no bruises. He opened Pu’s eyes with two fingers and held him up to the light. Turned the head. No reaction. He stuck a finger into the eye’s surface. No movement. Stuck a finger down Pu’s throat. Nothing.

Brain-death. Perfect. Then he set to work on the legs. Two quick inside heel-hooks, done in a minute, ruptured the knees and the ankles.

The last step was to drag the corpse over to the grave he’d dug himself. The grave Dorian had dug himself out of a mere night before. He dropped the body in.

Its heart was still beating—it’d seem alive; indeed, the family of Leaping Scorpions took to his broken legs with a fury.

A few last touches. Shoveling in some sand, positioning the hands in places that looked natural, and done.

The whole affair took less than a quarter of an hour.

Dorian looked Pu in his dead fish-eyes, gave him a mock salute, and turned back along the path he’d come, whistling cheerily. Behind him the winds were his accomplice, mussing his footsteps, covering his tracks.

For now his foes were neutralized, the most annoying of them picked off, and it was barely past noon of the first day.

Dorian didn’t intend to rest. There was still a poison to cure, techniques to learn, levels to gain, worlds to conquer.

He smiled. With any luck, he’d get three of them done before the day’s end.

Time Elapsed: 10 hrs.