Orou returned back to the gambling house a few hours after he had left and found that the door hadn’t been locked, most likely for Orou to get in. Several patrons were sleeping, passed out on the table and heavily snoring. The barkeep did nothing to throw them out, most likely peacefully sleeping in his own room by now. No one noticed his arrival, not even Grizz when he opened to door to their room. He was sleeping heavier than Orou had ever seen him sleep, recovering from whatever exhausting thing he had done today.

The hours passed like the wind as Orou didn’t sleep and instead got to combining his two spells, the water serpent and the blood ribbon. He wasn’t sure if it was even possible to change the formation so that it would still activate, but be in a shape of a serpent, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Orou stared at his reflection in the mirror as he tried to make the ribbon as serpent-like as possible and he felt like he was on the verge of completion. He forced the formation to bend to his will, giving it one last push.

He saw the spirits surrounding his eyes and looking up above him through the mirror, an incredibly detailed serpent made entirely out of blood. It was a splitting image of Orou as one could make out every individual scale on his body. The blood serpent started floating around and without any extra practice, Orou felt like he could make it do whatever he wanted. He was already incredibly proficient in controlling the blood-ribbon and once he completed the formation, he could control the serpent just like his own body.

The serpent flew around everywhere, doing various tricks and stunts in mid-air. Although he didn’t know how effective it would be in combat, he wouldn’t return back to his blood ribbon spell even if it was less effective. After being able to freely manipulate the serpent, returning back would feel like taking a step backwards, not to mention he liked the sight and the feeling of his identical replica flying in the air.

After messing around for a few more minutes, Orou noticed something weird about the serpent. In the middle of the serpent, through the various spirits that made up the serpent, was a single black line. It was barely noticeable and it didn’t seem to impact the formation in any way, but Orou felt a sense of familiarity from the black line and he was sure that he had seen it somewhere, though he couldn’t remember where.

The two new discoveries he had made today made Orou excited for what was going to occur in now two days. If Grizz was telling the truth, they were going to be fighting someone or something, so he would get to observe his new spell in action and find out what the black line does and after the battle, he could ask Izz where he could find the big spirit, or more likely, Grizz would be the one asking for him.

Speaking of Grizz, Orou saw Grizz stirring and looking like he was about to wake up, so Orou did the only natural thing imaginable, which was making the serpent float as close as possible to Grizz’s face and making it stare directly into his eyes. Grizz stirred awake and slowly opened his eyes. He was greeted by Orou’s face, only blood-red and devoid of pupils. He jumped a little before closing his eyes and opening them for the second time, only for the serpent to not disappear like a bad dream.

The two of them had a staredown with Grizz’s gaze being as serious as it can get, which was not the reaction that Orou expected from Grizz. He made the serpent fly in the air and make a perfect circle before returning back to Orou and disappearing all of the sudden. Grizz stood up and blinked several times at Grizz, asking him: “Am I in another one of those strange and twisted dreams of mine?”

Grizz stared at Orou almost as if he was expecting him to talk, but Orou did nothing more than slither up to him and questioningly stare at him, wondering what Grizz was talking about. Grizz’s eyes cleared up a bit and he mumbled: “Maybe not,” before walking next to Orou and putting his hand on Orou’s head. Grizz was a bit nervous about something as he stared at Orou, but Orou didn’t do anything out of the usual, allowing Grizz free reign over his head.

After several more tests Grizz finally let out a sigh of relief and said to Orou: “Don’t do that to me again, I’ve been having weird dreams since I left the village and I thought I was in another one of those,” to which Orou simply responded by flickering his tongue. He didn’t have dreams, only the single dream he had when he got drunk off of dream-wine, so Orou truly wondered what it must be like to regularly dream. If he could dream of honey and nectar every night, he would do so without hesitating.

Grizz got properly dressed while Orou was thinking about dreams. He was interrupted by a wooden dagger flying at him and Grizz sprinting towards him. It seemed like Grizz wasn’t done with sparring and wanted another match, though he stood no chance of beating Orou. Just as yesterday, Grizz went out to do something and Orou stayed inside, preferring to practice the few spells that he knew.

Two days practically ran by as Orou continued his spell practices and his sparring with Grizz. He didn’t see either Izz or Kris during these days and each day. Grizz seemed to be growing more and more exhausted. Although there seemed to be nothing wrong with his body, he was constantly sighing and grumbling about something, never in a good mood when he came back to the room they were staying at. Before Grizz went to sleep, he had a faint smile on his face

Orou tried extra hard to practice his spells during the night, healing himself and conjuring both ribbons and serpents to try and improve himself before a fight. He was rusty and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. The sparring that he did every day was little more than entertainment for Orou, if he wasn’t fighting with his life on the line, it wasn’t a proper fight at all.

Grizz woke up practically rearing to go. He jumped out of bed and walked around the room with a spring in his step, all of his previous exhaustion seemingly gone. He spent several minutes making sure that his daggers were razor sharp and properly hidden, he donned his leather armor and took care that there were not going to be any problems with it before the battle. He poured some brown powder into his pocket and prepared a dart coated in some sort of viscous substance. All sorts of gear went in and out of his backpack, including lockpicking tools, some cosmetic and more powder and a change of clothes, things he had seen Grizz use at one point or another.

Orou wondered if Grizz would be more deadly with a few magical items, and he wondered why he hadn’t seen any so far. Even a monkey would be deadly with a magical dagger and armor, not to mention Grizz, who was an ape. Grizz tapped Orou on his head when he was ready to go, an hour had already passed since he woke up. The two of them exited the room and Orou looked over to the bar, only to find no one there. He heard clamoring outside of the gambling house, people questioning about why they were supposed to go to the city centre and what the governor wanted. Grizz pushed open the door and confidently walked out into the city before him.