On his forehead, right between the eyes, he had a metal inlay seemingly embedded into the very skin, perhaps even bone - it was a circular symbol, comprising a circle in the middle, from which pointed outwards eight tridents with curved prongs and three lines each across the shaft.

The man had a similar symbol drawn on his chest in blood, though the smell of cooking chicken made it clear this wasn’t human blood - at a glance, Zel saw that each prong was more elaborate, but this could’ve very well been a difference born purely from the difference in size between the sigil. For all she knew, the sigils could mean the same thing, or be purely ornamental or ritualistic in nature. No… When she looked at that symbol on his forehead, it felt like his presence multiplied threefold. Perhaps it was some magical form of psychological warfare, a rune of intimidation.

“And on the doorside, a stand-in for our local champion, a total newcomer… Beast-slayer and locust exterminator, Zelsys Newman!” resounded the voice again. She, too, looked up to the edge of the pit, but only had eyes for the one-eyed blonde now standing where she had previously stood. There among them Zelsys noticed quite a few people that had previously just blended into the background for the unremarkability, excepting uncommonly sharp-looking eyes. Perhaps these were the aforementioned pithands?

“You look… Different. You are neither of this land, nor of those to the East or West,” stated the northman, pulling her attention to him.

“In some ways I am of this land, in others I am not. What’s it matter to you?” she grinned back.

He took up a wide-legged fighting stance, raising his fists before he briefly looked at her stump and, putting his own left arm behind his back, called out: “Pithand! Tie my arm behind my back!”

A brief silence swept over the gambling parlor before one of the pithands jumped down with a long coil of bloodstained leather cord and wordlessly did the deed, seemingly used to such things. Her murmured something to Jorfr about paying for the cord if he breaks it. Whilst the comparatively diminutive man toiled away at Jorfr’s handicap, the tower of man-meat asked another question: “ I would meet you on your own ground, but I also have a question. If you were not born here, then why come to this place? Why risk life and limb for what is doubtlessly less money than what you could make guarding some caravan?”

“I am not inclined to the hurry-up-and-wait lifestyle of a caravan guard,” said the homunculus. “I butcher beasts wherever they are found, for coin or any other payment I deem worthy, and regardless of how many legs they walk on or whatever honeyed words they speak… Especially if they happen to be at the beck and call of some Pateirian sycophant. Then, I come to places like this and beat the shit out of foreigners like you or me for fun.”

A smile of glaring-white teeth spread over Jorfr’s face.

“You would be greatly honored where I come from, perhaps a chieftain,” he said. “True warriors are scarcely found in these ravaged lands, these ravaged times. It is sad to see our brothers so beaten down that they would rather live beneath a weakling’s heel than die in defence of their freedom.”

“Who knows. Maybe you’ll yet find yourself a chieftain here,” she said to him as the pithand tightened up the final knot, his arm now tied to his waist by a many-layered belt of leather. The spectators were getting unruly, but not… Impatient. It was as if they recognized that a mutual respect and understanding between fighters led to more entertaining bouts. Before he could vocalize the look of befuddlement which showed in his face she added, “I intend to found something akin to a clan in this very city, almost like this very place, just on a far grander scale. Enough to prove a thorn in the occupiers’ side. If you intend to stay here I’d be glad to stand with you in the shield wall when the locust-men inevitably descend upon us. And… I must answer you the same thing you asked me. Why come here? Why not stay in your homeland, or travel with the caravans?”

He gave a sharp nod, exhaling ice-cold air from his nostrils and holding out his free hand in offer of a handshake.

“My answer to both of your questions depends on whether you prove worthy to be my superior. Come, stranger. Prove that your lack of awe in the face of my visage is justified.”

Zelsys shook it willingly, feeling her instincts kick in. With a stone-like grip he crushed her hand, and with her own she returned the favor. They exchanged nods of acknowledgment as both of them drew in deep breaths and both let go of the handshake, pulling back their fists. She had decided to go through her entire lung capacity using Lover’s Breath to both test it out in this new context since she hadn’t used it since long before the storm incident, and to get a feel for her opponent’s fighting style. Sure, she wanted to win, but she wanted to be entertained just as much. The breathing technique’s initiation hyperfocused her on the moment, but simultaneously, her mind’s eye flooded with lecherous thoughts about Zefaris, mental images both remembered and imagined. A continuous-release breathing method was nice, but not one that disrupted focus like this. The moment she used it, she also decided that Lover’s Breath would be relegated to a use befitting its name.

He feinted.

So did she.

They were both tripped by their own momentum and both spun around into an assault in earnest, colliding in a cross-counter. She broke the stalemate by sending a side kick into his head, one he had no choice but to block - and he did, by headbutting her shin with such force it sent her leg crashing right back down and pain shooting upwards through it.