The inside of the Chaotic Wombat was...weird. I'd seen a lot of places, and even lived in a pretty unusual location myself. The orange dyed house we had up in Rajak proper was strange to look at the first time. Still, the Wombat took the cake, or rather...it was made of it.

Which is to say, the whole place was covered in what looked like candy. The chairs were made of peppermint sticks, the tables slabs of chocolate, the chandeliers were rock candy, and the various doorknobs and other things were all individual types of sweets. Despite her worry over an attack, Callie went ramrod stiff when we walked inside, her wide eyes raking over the bounty of delicious treats.

Abel, noticing her expression, snickered slightly. "Yeah, I was wondering how you would all react. The OWNER of the Wombat has Intermediate Candy Making Skill. Most of this stuff is higher ranked food, like H-rank maybe. Even two points of Impact can make a serious durability difference, and it makes this kind of thing much more viable. Of course, any of us could smash through this with zero difficulty, but then again, we'd be just as able to smash through normal mortal wood or even some metals. Plus I'm sure you can figure out the other benefit."

"Renown." I said without blinking. "This would definitely generate plenty of buzz. It's kind of weird, but in an interesting way..." I looked over at my drooling girlfriend, with a worried frown. "If we eat some of this will we get attacked or something?" This place was clearly crazy, the last thing we needed was for Callie to break off a piece of rock candy from a wall sconce and get us mobbed or something.

Hearing my question, Callie snapped out of her stupor and looked at me sheepishly. "What?" She said with an unconvincing laugh. "That's crazy. What kind of moron would just randomly start taking bites out of furniture." Her eyes locked on a nearby chocolate fountain made of what looked like waffle cone. "No matter how delicious it looks."

With an amused snort Mel patted her on the shoulder. "Best to avoid that stuff. This is the CHAOTIC Wombat, remember. They lace the candy with psychedelics and other strange things. You never know what eating it will do. The food you buy is fine, or else no one would buy it, but the rest of this stuff is eater beware. It's not a bad gimmick all things considered. But since we're here for a dinner, there's no need to invite trouble."

Callie looked much less interested after hearing that, shying away from one of the nearby pieces of furniture. As we walked further in, Wren noticed something off in the corner of his eye and turned to wave over at a table. "Oh, hey, Lestri! Vec, there they are, come on." He hurried off in the direction he'd been staring, leaving the rest of us to follow. Sloane, Beric, and Croll, were all sticking close to Abel and Mel, which seemed wise, so I followed after.

We'd decided not to bring the others, having them head back to the Robin, because if things did get crazy, mediocre combatants would be most likely to be picked off around the edges. Keeping our group to only real elites would make it more likely for us all to remain safe.

As we reached the table, Wren clasped hands with a short, red haired man with sides of his head shaved. He waved us over. "Hey guys, come meet my brother Lestri. He's on our team too." Looking closer, I could see that the two of them had the same amber eyes.

It was easy to see the similarities, from the olive skin tone to the red hair, but the most shocking difference was their size. Wren was a massive towering man, but Lestri looked like he was only a few inches taller than Callie. Five foot four or five maybe? Still, he was corded with muscle in a sinuous way that made me think of a coiled snake. I had a feeling he would be pretty damn fast.

One thing I had picked up over time was that being small wasn't necessarily a disadvantage for Ascendants. One point of Might translated into a thousand pounds of lifting force, but that was a static value. Someone with a hand the size of a coaster would be able to concentrate that force more effectively than someone with a hand the size of a dinner plate. With the same physical parameters, smaller people tended to hit harder. Of course, they had to sacrifice range to do it, so it wasn't like bigger combatants didn't have their advantages, but it just went to show not to underestimate anyone.

Lestri raised an eyebrow. "Oh, these are the locals that kicked your ass earlier huh? Interesting to see you met up with them again." He scrunched his nose. "Also why in the gods names do you smell like fish? It's faint, but pretty unpleasant." He sniffed a bit, realizing that Wren's hands were the culprit, then pulled out some sort of sanitizing hand rub from the pouch at his waist and handed it to his much larger brother.

Rolling his eyes, Wren took the bottle and rubbed the contents on his hands, holding them up so his brother could smell them before the smaller man nodded. Lestri shot us a small grin. "Sorry, my brother can get a bit focused and forget things so I tend to mother him a bit. Would you believe he's the younger one?" He shot Wren an annoyed glare. "I have no clue what our mother fed him to make him get so big, or why it didn't work on me. Anyway, do all of you want any?" He held out the bottle.

Seeing as his brother had just used it in front of us none of us were worried about poison or anything, and our hands DID smell bad (the impact spots on our armor had been washed clean by the water pressure, but our hands were soaked in small amounts of fish blood and smashed into the things for hours) so we decided to take him up on it. There was a pleasant tingle from the liquid and it smelled sort of pine fresh. I liked it. It also cleaned our hands INCREDIBLY quickly.

Once that was done we handed the mostly empty bottle back, and turned back to the table. There were two more people there. A small, quiet looking girl with platinum blonde hair, dark eyes, and pale skin, and a tall man with bulging biceps wearing a carved wooden mask that looked like a grinning skull. Wren gestured to them. "That's Lament, and that's our handler Master Saiten. Lament is our top contender for the tournament."

The E-ranked handler was as intimidating as I'd expected. He reminded me a bit of Abel, but his aura of violence was much more condensed. Every move he made was dangerous and it almost felt like he was constantly resonating with his Spear Mastery Skill. I swallowed hard at the realization the title Wren had just used might not be a formal political title. It might be literal. Abel, of course, just outright asked. "Wait, when you say Master..."

Saiten chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound from behind his mask. "Indeed. I have achieved the Master rank with my Spear Skill. Or course, the Skill is now simply, Master of the Spear. Master Spear Mastery would be nonsense. Once you reach the Master rank the naming conventions for Skills tend to change. Weapon masteries tend to just be called 'Master of' whatever weapon you specialize in. Though for more utility based Skills the names can differ."

I swallowed hard. Master level. I had no clue what that would require, but it was damn impressive. It also implied that Saiten might be close to ranking up to D-rank if his Spear Skill was the only one synergized with his ability. The sole requirement for an ability to rank up, aside from stats, was for all component Skills to reach that level first.

Of course, whether he was a peak E-ranker or not was mostly irrelevant to us. Any level of E-ranker could swat all of us like a fly. We all gave him our most formal greetings and he nodded courteously before summarily ignoring us completely to focus on eating. The wooden skull mask lacked a jaw so he wasn't impeded by it as he dug into the food. Judging by the gusto he ate with it must be good.

A waiter approached the table, wearing a crazy candy hat and suit, and passed out menus. I winced a bit at the prices, but Wren just told us to order whatever we wanted within reason. They had a discretionary fund from the Legion for the tournament, and anything they didn't spend would be confiscated on their return.

Since Mel had mentioned that they held the purchased food to a standard (probably how they justified the absurd prices on the menus) I wasn't too worried about getting something poisoned or that kind of thing. I scanned the menu before picking out a really delicious looking sausage gumbo. Callie got a pot pie, Abel a steak, Mel lasagna, and Sloane and her two friends all ordered clam chowder for some reason. I mean, I liked clam chowder, but it seemed weird for them to get it as a group. Maybe it was some kind of solidarity thing?

As they left, Lament finally focused her gaze on one of us. Specifically, Abel. She raised an eyebrow in challenge. "So, you're one of the local elites. The rest of them don't give me much of a feeling of pressure, but I can tell you and red mask there are different." She chucked her chin at Mel, but never took her eyes off our mentor. "I take it I'll be facing you in the big tournament?"

I saw her hand clench around the edge of the table reflexively, like she was gripping a spear haft. Abel grinned back. "I'm happy to oblige you any time. Tournament or not. Feel free to attack me right where we sit." His tone was relaxed, almost bored as he spoke, but I could see a manic glint in his eye that mirrored that frenzy I'd seen from him when he smashed the F-ranker from Sanctuary Hall.

Lament started to stand in anticipation, but a crushing weight smashed down on all of us, driving her back down into her seat and the rest of us harder into ours. With a lackadaisical smile, Saiten clicked his tongue. "Now children. No need to get so excited. We'll have plenty of time to battle when the tournament begins. For the moment I think we should all just relax and enjoy our dinners. Don't you?"

I'd felt worse, of course. The metaphysical weight Zeke had dropped on us the one time he decided to show off still made me shudder in remembered helplessness. This weight, in contrast, was much more...condensed. It wasn't nearly as strong, even in a much smaller area (the waiters and nearby diners seemed unaffected) but there was intent here. Saiten was TRYING to restrain us, while Zeke had just been...existing nearby. I was pretty sure based on this Zeke hadn't even fully unleashed his Impact, because a concentrated effort like this from him would probably have killed us.

He eased up and we all just sat there, panting slightly. We could have moved but it would have been a massive effort. Callie smiled. "Th-thank you, Master Saiten. No need for us to let things become unpleasant. This is just a nice, relaxing dinner among friends." Which, of course, was when all the lights went out at the same time. In the darkness, points of green light flared up all around the room as stamps began to glow. Well...almost all the stamps were green. I followed the red glow to the illuminated and frightened face of a young looking girl wearing a pair of rabbit ears at the next table. The sacrifice had begun, and it wasn't one of us, but we would still need to help. Damn it. This was going to suck.