Sunai grins, looking back over his shoulder despite the chaos around them. The hollowed husk of his face and the pitless eyes staring back are all that can be made out... until a grin cuts the darkness.

"No matter how many times they cut you down, you just won't quit, will you?"

The ominous figure darkens and grows, a silhouette cutting out of place in a sea of black with a terrifying reach forward.

"Get up again, brother-"

Both of Ronin's eyes open, staring up at the tent above in silence. Many wouldn't have been able to stomach that sort of scene, but such memories plagued him constantly; ever since Sunai was struck down, Ronin felt haunted with every moment his eyes shut and tried to rest. Nightmares are weighed in severity for measuring his sleep, and the shortness of this one told him more than the dimmed light of the camp and the sound of the nearby fire of the camp burning away. Death like this isn't the same as death to wounds.

I slept for a few hours. It looks like killing myself with the spell is even starting to take less time to heal. My curse is adapting.

He sits upright, coaxing his hand up his forehead and back through his dirtied-and-shortened hair. The blood from the ones he slaughtered still caked some of it but it was apparent that he had been at least washed down to some capacity.

Those two cleaned me up and left me here. That's probably for the best. Getting involved with them wouldn't be smart.

The swordsman had hardly anything remaining from his attire, yet this felt the most refreshing out of all his recent adventures. Death wasn't the same but the threat it posed for him made his luck in this exchange better than expected: had the wolfman and that whelp decided to keep him hostage, they'd have been able to cheat death as many times as they wanted under cruelty and torture. Most likely the blonde-haired one lacked the resolve due to his affiliation with the Child Gods, but the wolfman's grit would be ample enough to keep him on the precipice of breaking to always make Ronin heal them.

Someone being able to revive that kid, regardless of his sponsor, was the more vexing concern in the Londelian's perspective. Magic like that shouldn't be possible due to the Land of Stagnation's influences... but the fact it happened meant there was a lot more at play here than even the system created by the gods could explain. Errors — or bugs, depending on the terms spoken by the gods' chosen — didn't happen often, much less in a place where the system had been enforced and agreed on by both the residents of the world and any of the gods via a pact. Sovereign domain had the least amount of all, yet an unexplained lapse to this degree happened?

He gets up and walks free of the tent, looking around the still-abandoned camp whilst setting his hand atop his sword's pommel.

All the gear I gathered was left with me, but it still amounts to little; controlling this camp by myself isn't doable nor is it sustainable if I'm attacked by a large enough group of monsters or people. My body hasn't sufficiently healed despite the week's worth of rest, and whilst my curse healed me a little more...

Ronin brings his hand up and away from his weapon, resting it over his leather-guarded chest.

I didn't intend on using my magic again, but the curse made it. My physical body is strong for my current lack of nutrition regardless, yet the bigger problem is the faintness I have; my stamina is almost non-existent in my current state, so even a single strike could exhaust me.

Swordsmen like him wouldn't have it any easier trying to feed themselves in this sorry of a state. Even though the two had spared him, it was likely a choice by the wolf knowing just how close to getting stuck in perpetual death Ronin could become with even one wrong step.

It was kind way to tell someone you hope they'll die in a place like this.

Sunai would have used a technique like this.

His eyes turn to the gate, trying to retrace his thoughts and where he'd come from. The mental picture and mapping of his current travels weren't very clear in his current state but it was enough to tell him which way he had come from and which ways not to go to circle back to the beaches. It was the best thing to a compass his current abilities allowed, yet even that wasn't too grand in a place as wide and featureless as it was in the plains.

But, given his current condition, he just needed to keep going. The time spent in the Land of Stagnation greatly influenced your survival depending on how far you got relative to it; currently, Ronin had made it as far as the average three-year survivor did whilst only being killed in battle once. The likelihood of him being killed again was drastically low in comparison to the known-facts of the stagnante, but not impossible. If he wanted to greatly improve his chance of survival, he needed to reach a very specific landmark just to the northwest of the beach landing he was dropped at. A place that marked a critical moment to those not taken by the Blood Tribe. Even on foot with how weak he felt, he should be able to make it within a day, just before his body truly begins to fail under the weight of his nutritional and hydrational lacking.

The lazy drifting sun coaxed across Brogdar's sky no differently than it always did, yet the air of the plains had been changing. The screams of the new survivors died out as the beasts had their fill, bandits made their hauls, and many were scooped up for whatever nefarious person's desires may have for them.

Some, however, followed one of the scarce rumors and legends told about the island despite the warning of the Blood Hazing unfolding before their very eyes. Legends told of a place where the plains relented slightly and the first fragments of some civilization leaked back into existence despite its oppressive hold. It was here that most tales of the stagnante were romanticized, yet all believed as fairy tales told by criminals wanting something better than their hell awaiting them.

Ronin trudged with heavier footfalls than a man is ought to, feeling the weight of his clothes as an oppression but refusing to yield them beneath their protective potential. The plains beneath him were lifeless and plain in their hue, but slowly the grasses fell uniform in height and scattered with overgrown stone bricks. Ground hardened above the ruins of past fortresses erected by ancient denizens of the Land of Stagnation felt and sounded different than the dirt of the plains, some of it even giving way to jutting ruins and pillars.

And littered among them were cold eyes, each pair affixing on the various stragglers shuffling or making their way toward the ruins. The "guards" here were no different than some of them, but their armor and less gaunt faces told the story of those who had eeked out some idea of a life here beneath one of criminal land's oldest powers. Strapped to their back were banners of fur stained and spotted a myriad of colors, each one streaking four vicious rending claw-lines across their shoddy decorative dyes.

Ronin ignored one of the few stagnante behind him charging at one of the guards with a broken grin, all but reaching him before a stone slings through the crowd and breaks his skull open around his eye. A clean and efficient kill carried out by one of the few guards positioned atop the ruin piles holding nothing more than string and leather in one of the oldest weapons known to man: a sling. It wasn't uncommon for a few of the new arrivals to bring trouble to the first of possible settlements in the Land of Stagnation given the circumstances of what they go through, but it was a cold reminder of how little they would tolerate here.

As the Londelian walks, the guards begin splitting up and approaching the new arrivals in teams; each grouping outnumbers whichever ones they approach two-to-one, with a slinger watching each one.

The two who approach him are both older men, one of them even having greyed hairs in his stubbled beard. It's that same one who halts him, almost making Ronin collapse with the change of momentum wracking his malnourished body.

"Name and crime," his voice cuts like a knife on skin, graveled after the first moment of precise punctuation.

I could lie, but what point is there?

In his state it would be difficult to talk, yet Ronin ushers his voice out for the first time in almost two days just as broken as the man's voice in front of him.

"Ronin. Cutter."

The T's in his criminal description make him wince in pain, hopefully not making him appear to beat up or weak-spirited at what he did. Although the other guard momentarily pales, a quick jostle from the more experienced of the stagnante quickly sets him right. Despite his age, it's obvious that the older of the two not only had been on the island longer but had likely been smart enough to end up in this situation.

Despite his looks, Ronin wondered just how easy it'd be to actual fight a man like him even if he wasn't on death's door. Based on the read of all the other new arrivals, no one here posed as much threat as the two of them.

It was a calculated choice for him to approach Ronin amongst all the new arrivals. He not only arrived alone, but arrived still armed and in one piece; no one else who arrived on their own had all three, but here he stood in defiance of the norm.

"I see," the guard once again cuts out, shifting a hand to the shaft of a hatchet bound in his belt. "And are you planning to cut anyone here while inside Claw Tribe's domain?"

The question had many meanings but the literal one is what painfully stuck out to Ronin now more than anything else.

"Only if they warrant it."

The two stare at each other whilst the younger of the Claw Tribe's members quickly looks back at the slinger nearby. Despite the presence of a veteran stagnante, it was obvious just how much Ronin intimidated the younger human. Londelians, much less a member of the Londer family, had a reputation... and anyone who donned a title of Cutter could easily kill him before he made a move. But much to his surprise, it's the younger of the duo who actually waves the slinger at ease. He turns back just as the older man's hand falls from his axe to his belt.

"We understand. The only law here is to respect all Claw Tribe decisions: any violence between you and other stagnante doesn't matter so long as we don't forbid it. No handouts. Got it?"

Ronin didn't have the energy to argue even if he would've. It was enough. He merely nods and steps forward, pushing between and past the two. To both their credit neither one does or says anything else, merely moving on to the next straggler coming along. A few fights breaking out are quickly put down by the cold guards and the slingers, yet none of that concerns Ronin.

Ahead of him, tents and ruins are huddled into the mess of Claw Tribe's City of Passage. Although it paled in comparison to any true city thanks to its smells, sights, and lack of noise, it was a place where he could try to leave the beaches and his old life behind.

It was a place with food, water, and shelter. It's heaven in their hells.