Mibbet and Rosalind were both stunned silent at that, but tried their best to gesture a multiverse annihilating megasqwoomph, (none of the tactical hand signals or any other sign language in the world really covers multiverse ending threats, it’s a grave problem really, the closest any of them have to that is signs for oh bugger, which isn’t really a suitable alternative for many reasons. But mainly the two big ones 1. even if you’re making it with that context it is already the mother of all understatements, and 2. if you aren’t a witness to said megasqwoomph directly then you’ve probably got slightly more pressing issues on your plate, like the rapidly approaching oblivion of everything, rather than proper hand signs.) Of course it took til they got their words back to really point out the gravity of the situation it was already too late as Gidea had taken their silence as assent, and the torture (sorry, training) began anew.

It took the best part of three days on the road before they hit the trail to Ravynmardi, Mibbet peered out of the window at the famous waterfall city. The entire city had been built in a cliff face partially occupied with what would be on good days a gigantic set of three waterfalls. Of course lacking hydration as it was at this point the view was not quite as mind blowing. A muddy trickle just doesn’t command the same respect. Especially when what looked like half an army of people were fishing round in the much slower than usual plunge pools.

“People throw coins in there for luck in the arena” Rosalind explained. “normally nobody goes in there because millions of gallons an hour hit those pools. At the minute it’s probably about Errol’s drinking limit a week.”

“so half a pint of shandy then” Mibbet replied,

“pretty much, but there’s bound to be a few gold coins in there, and do you really think any human is going to pass that up?”

“Nope.”

True to their word at that moment a man in his forties stood up from the slop, and started examining his find. Which would have been fine had he not in doing so taken his eyes off the others. He was knocked over on his backside in the sludge, as the scrum began in earnest. Rapidly devolving from roughhousing, to a struggle, to a full on scrum as they fought over a single gold coin which had probably rejoined its comrades deep in the slop after the first flying tackle. Then after about ten minutes of non stop fighting another figure stood up and the whole rigmarole started again.

This city was rather unique in style in that it wasn’t built per se, so much as excavated using water pressure, then the water channeled where it needed. They had hired a bunch of old miners familiar with the technique to do it, and then paid them all hush money. So nobody really knew the full workings of the city. Resulting in a city full of backstabbing, lying, cheating, and stealing on a gigantic scale, and a corrupt system run by petty bureaucrats so spiteful it reminded Rosalind of home.

Usually the city was navigated by a complex series of water powered lifts, counterweights, oversized basins, and a plumbers worst nightmares worth of complicated pipelines. At the minute though the methods of navigation consisted of 2 options 1. jump and 2. climb. The mud always broke your fall, and was squishy enough to cross with minimal boot loss. Every once in a while somebody who was climbing would find themselves a floor down with a splat, then sort of half walk swim to shore.

Some of the braver or more foolhardy adventurers cam here for a different reason though, the place had a reputation as a hub for the trade of the best quality slow-fall charms in the kingdom. However it also had really really good counterfeiters, so that left the adventurer customers with something of a dilemma. Slow-fall charms took a nine foot drop to activate, and that was the kind of thing you really wanted to be sure would work before finding out the hard way that you had wasted twenty gold. That meant that at the moment a lot of people were taking advantage of the comparatively soft landing, and since humans are well... humans egging each other on to greater, and greater heights of ridiculousness, and of fall. Usually if you hear somebody screaming from the edge of a cliff you call for help, round these parts right now the default response was to scream “shut up do you know what bloody hour it is?”

They were now approaching the main entrance to the city, a gate that didn’t really have a closed position, with carved water serpents coiling around the pillars, their expression carved as a permanent hissing scowl. Between them stood a carved naked human holding a three pronged fork. What the hell this particular hero had thought he would do facing off against two gigantic serpents with a bloody fork, besides convincing them that their meals now came with their own cutlery was beyond Mibbet. (Than she looked at the naked figure again, and figured out that maybe the dragons just weren’t that fond of giblets.

A bit further ahead a screaming sound could be heard from the largest building, a huge stone edifice which looked like a team of sculptors had just gotten drunk and got to work trying to outdo each other. It was the only explanation for the sheer number of overly fancy decorations added here. That or there was a gorgon around here, and they had bumped into a few angels, a few devils, some assorted monsters, a few fighters who seemed to think it was clothing optional, oh and of course more fig leaves than your average fig farm. (They never use anything but them for this purpose, probably because a prickly pear or poison ivy, or a nettle loincloth would not be ideal.

“Well,” said Gidea, “it has been quite a while since you were here last sweetie, but welcome to Ravynmardi. Up ahead you’ll see the arena."