Chapter Forty

Xorvos’ mind was awash with thoughts and emotions. Here he was, in a den of thieves and criminals, half guest and half prisoner. He should have hated it and hated everyone around him too. Evil surrounded him and yet… he felt safe. Asheli had been a bully with little honour, but Xorvos saw how she played and talked with her little sister. She cared, and Xorvos just couldn’t bring himself to believe it wasn’t genuine. And she was helping them too, for payment yes, she had even said so herself, but she wasn’t cruel in the help she gave. And that witch too, Melia. A prankster and a trickster, and Xorvos could guess a thief too, but she felt like a mischievous child rather than a malicious witch. Why didn’t the bad people feel bad, and for that matter, why didn’t the good people feel good? Validus had tried to kill him on multiple occasions, and Aurulin, a well-loved high priestess, was filled with venom and lies. It was getting harder to tell good from evil, everyone was just starting to look like people. All these thoughts were getting him confused, so Xorvos tried to focus on something else. Training. Training had always kept his mind off things, and he felt like he was getting close to figuring out how to use ki like Arlom taught him. He felt like he had the concept of what he was taught down, there was just something that was missing and Xorvos couldn’t figure it out. He was diligent though, so he kept at it. The Quanso closed his eyes and sensed the mana, or ki, inside him, and started to move it. First to his arms, which felt the most natural, then to his legs, and eventually to his entire body. It was all there, spread out mostly evenly, but it just wasn’t… doing anything. And he had to concentrate to even keep the mana spread out, so until he could figure out how to make it work, it was just a detriment in a fight. It had been like this for a week. The mana was there, the ki was flowing just like how Arlom taught him, it just didn’t work. Xorvos was starting to get frustrated.

Why? Why isn’t it working? Why can’t I do this, am I not good enough? Am I not strong enough? Why can people like Validus do this but not me? And why isn’t Validus as good as he’s meant to be? Why is Asheli not as bad as she’s meant to be? Why is it all so complicated? Why did Ralisdor betray us, and why didn’t I see past his lies? I should have been better, but I can’t be. I can’t use magic, and the ki won’t listen to me. Mayryam has always gotten herself into trouble, and Shuka is being forced to associate with criminals for protection, I need to be stronger to protect them. No one else will, not without asking something in return. Even Ralisdor doesn’t have her back, how is that fair? He’s her teacher, he should always be there for her, but instead, he just exploited her like everyone else. I couldn’t stop him from tricking her, I couldn’t stop Validus from hunting us, I couldn’t stop Visia from giving us a bad deal, I couldn’t stop the gnolls from sending us wherever they wanted, and I couldn’t stop Asheli from making Shuka go on a dangerous mission. I couldn’t stop anything. I just want to be strong enough to protect her.

The frustration turned into anger. Xorvos was mad both at the injustices of the world, and at himself. He had long since forgotten about his training with the emotions he was trying to forget bubbling up once more. But the ki was still flowing, and it heard him. It heard his anger, it heard his despair, but most of all, it heard his desire to be strong. The dormant ki in Xorvos’ body began to churn inside him, fuelled by his emotions. And finally, Xorvos was strong.

*

A hand smacked into the hard wood of a table and cheers erupted from a small crowd that had been watching the arm wrestling match. And why wouldn’t they cheer? Other than the few who lost a bit of coin in bets, who didn’t like seeing an underdog win? And an underdog the winner surely was between the two participants. You could tell just by looking, one was a seven-foot tall, grey-skinned quanso with arms like a rhino. The other was a girl who was well over a foot shorter with toned, but hardly bulky arms. Who wouldn’t expect the quanso to lose? He was so obviously out of his depth here. After all, the girl was using magic. She wasn’t cheating though, oh no of course not. In fact, the Quanso himself had asked her to cast the spell, and not hold back. It was why everyone was cheering for the quanso’s victory, when you pitted might against magic, magic tended to win. Xorvos was proud. He had challenged Maryam half expecting her spell to overpower him even when he was circulating his ki. It was still a close match, but one he was clearly the victor of. Maryam looked proud of him too, not looking the least put out by her loss. Although maybe Xorvos misread that because she still wasn’t done yet.

“Hey, congrats Xorvos, ya beat me. Wanna see how your ki stuff holds up in a fight? I want a rematch.”

“A rematch? Alright, the practice would be nice.”

When the onlookers in the thieves guild heard there was going to be a fight there were a lot of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ before they started to move tables and chairs out of the way to make a small arena. Xorvos wasn’t happy about having an audience for this, especially with the kind of people filling the audience, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He was sure that at least some of these people were specifically told to keep an eye on him, so asking them to leave probably wasn’t going to work. Xorvos and Maryam took their places on opposite ends of the arena and prepared for the fight. Maryam still had her strength spell on her, but she at least had the courtesy to not add any other spells onto herself before the match started.

I need to go in fast when the match starts and not give her any time to cast any more spells. I used my greaves to close the distance last time, but she going to be expecting that now. Still, I can’t afford to run to her slowly. My ki circulation increases my speed, but not enough to make a difference here. Ah, I think I know what I’m going to do.

One of the onlookers, the one handling the bets, raised his hand into the air. Everyone quieted down, sensing the match was about to begin. The hand came down, and Xorvos moved, activating his greaves at the earliest possible moment. Instead of going towards Maryam head on though, he angled himself slightly. He found himself to Maryams right and a bit behind her. It was the right move too, because as Xorvos turned to face his opponent he saw that she had just released a purple wave of force in front of her that would have surely hit Xorvos if he opted for a more straightforward approach. Not wasting his opportunity, Xorvos quickly grabbed at Maryam, catching her wrist before she could move away from him. Finding herself unable to free her arm from the ki empowered Xorvos, Maryam brought her other arm up and placed the palm of her hand directly onto Xorvos’ breastplate. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she was going to cast a spell, so in a bit of a panic Xorvos grabbed her other hand too and moved it away from his body. Just in time too, as another force blast was launched from her hand, missing its intended target by a mile.

I control both her arms, and I know I’m a much better grappler than her. Now that I’m stronger than her, I just have to watch out for spells, and she shouldn’t be able to escape.

Xorvos was just about to bring Maryam to the ground and put her into a chokehold when she did something he didn’t expect. She headbutted him. She was too short to headbutt him normally, so instead she jumped. Xorvos was looking down to see her, so the top of his friend’s head impacted solidly against his snout. It hurt and surprised Xorvos, but not enough to make him let go. It did cause him to lose his concentration on his ki. He didn’t even notice he was weaker, not until Maryam threw him hard onto the floor at least. She landed on his chest a moment later and threw a punch that stopped an inch from his face. He had lost. Again. Cheers erupted from the crowd, with only a handful of disappointed betters booing. Xorvos knew most of them betted against him though. Underdogs were underdogs because they lost after all.

“Well shit, you almost got me Xorvos. Now I’m getting worried about round two. The moment you can keep your ki up through a hit I’m screwed.”

Maryam was standing and extended an arm to help Xorvos off the ground. She had scales all the way up to her shoulders by this point. It was still a bit odd to see the scales, but Xorvos was starting to get used to it. He took the hand.

“Round two?”

“Well yeah. You still need to practice don’t you? Don’t want your ki going out while you’re fighting Validus do you? Besides, neither of us took much damage that time so a few more rounds should be fine.”

Xorvos wasn’t as eager as she was, but he did need the practice.

“Alright, but I won’t lose next time.”

“You better not.”

*

Xorvos lost the next time. And the time after that too. In fact, this was their fifth duel and he had lost the four before it. This was going to be the last fight though. Xorvos was battered and sore, not to mention very tired. Someone had diluted a bit of healing potion in some water and given it to him and Maryam after the third match, but all it did was keep him in fighting shape. He was still sore, and the potion did nothing for his fatigue. Maryam was running out of mana too. She had dropped her strength spell last match and only had a protection spell on her now. She hardly needed a spell to match Xorvos’ strength now though. The more she transformed the stronger her body got, even without a spell. And she had transformed far more than Xorvos had ever seen her transform before, she didn’t even look human anymore. Scales covered every part of her body he could see, and her legs looked like they got an extra joint in them that made them bend backwards. Her head had changed too. Before Xorvos had only ever seen small nubs of horns that just barely peeked out from under her hair. Now she had six long spikes of black keratin, three on each side of her head. Even the shape of her head had changed, getting more angular and protruding a bit like a muzzle. It was also, of course, covered in scales, making her look almost entirely alien to Xorvos. The only thing that told Xorvos this was still his friend he was fighting and not some malformed Drakkin was her hair. The long red and purple locks stayed where everything else had turned into something else. She had even grown a tail in their last fight. Xorvos didn’t have time to process her new look though, he was in a fight, and he had to concentrate.

Maryam was crouched down low, her new legs bending like a cat ready to pounce. And pounce she did, right into a gauntleted fist. She blocked the punch with her arms, her protection spell doing half the work and her tough scales doing the other half, but he could tell it hurt and it still stopped her momentum. Getting down even lower, outside the reach of Xorvos’ arms, Maryam launched a kick that Xorvos just barely dodged. He tried grabbing her leg, but she swiped at his hand with her, now clawed, foot. It might have drawn blood if not for his gauntlets. She was fighting more like an animal than a human at this point and Xorvos was having a hard time adapting to her odd fighting style. Not wanting to lean down to reach her with his fists, Xorvos decided to try a wide sweeping kick. Seeing the kick coming, Maryam jumped straight up, letting it pass by underneath her. As she jumped, far higher than normal reaching head height. She also twisted as she jumped, letting herself rotate mid-air. Xorvos was confused as to why until he saw her tail whip straight at his head in what must have been the most unorthodox attack Xorvos had ever seen. He brought his arm to block and just barely made it in time, but it landed on the exposed skin of his arm, and not the armour of his gauntlet. Quanso had tails too, but rarely were they used to attack, they simply weren’t strong enough to do any real damage. But this was a dragon’s tail, and it hurt. Xorvos gritted his teeth. Every other time he had gotten hit he lost focus on his ki. This time would be different. After blocking the attack, Xorvos wrapped his arm around the tail and then grabbed it. Keeping the ki flowing through his body, Xorvos turned his body, spun for half a rotation, and then threw Maryam as hard as he could. The dragon girl went flying across the arena and crashed into a table, causing the crowd in that area to scatter. Immediately had a moment of panic, worried he had gone too far. He rushed over to her only to find her smiling like a madman in the debris of the now broken table. Her eyes were unfocused and there was some sort of purple liquid pooling around her head. It took a moment for him to realize it was blood, even that had transformed. Xorvos quickly reached for his healing potion, but one of the bystanders stopped him. It was the same guy who was managing all of the bets and started each match. He was a middle-aged man in a nice suit with a top hat and a bushy moustache that curled at the ends. He went over to Maryam, who was already shakily getting up and handed her a potion himself. She looked at it confused for a second before realizing what it was and downing the whole thing in one gulp. Then the man went back to Xorvos, grabbed his hand and held it up high in the air. Or at least as high as he could reach, he was about a foot shorter than Xorvos.

“And we have a winner! After four consecutive losses, this plucky quanso finally got himself a win and made five lucky betters very rich. Two of them had even been betting on him from the start, now that’s what I call loyalty. And how is loyalty rewarded around here? That’s right, handsomely!”

The crowd was going wild, truthfully they had been since Xorvos threw Maryam. But this man clearly knew how to get them excited. He had been running commentary between each match, but Xorvos tried not to pay much attention to what he said. Now he was going back to his makeshift desk to distribute the winnings. Xorvos just let him be and went over to Maryam who was still recovering.

“Are you alright?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m good. You ready to go again?”

While she had stopped bleeding, and Xorvos was sure she was fine physically, he could see her shaking slightly.

She must be so tired. And I’m pretty sure I broke her protection spell when I threw her and she doesn’t have enough mana to reapply it. If I hurt her that bad when she still had it up, how bad would it be if I hit her without it?

“No, I think we’re done. You should probably drink that potion that turns you back to normal.”

“What? But I can still fight. Mostly. I don’t mind if I lose I just want to continue.”

“But I mind if you lose. What if you get seriously hurt?”

“Well then just throw the matches, I don’t care.”

“Maryam! I don’t want to continue, please go back to normal.”

Xorvos spoke sternly, nearly shouting, but it finally seemed to get through to Maryam. She scowled, or at least tried to with her unnatural face, and then took out a potion and drank it. Immediately afterwards she vomited onto the floor, much to the displeasure of everyone who saw it. Their shouting stopped though when they saw Maryam, in the span of seconds, shift from a half draconic monstrosity, back to a normal human woman. Then, once they got over their shock, they started shouting again.

“Alright, alright, I’ll clean it up, geez. I don’t see you complaining about all of my blood staining the floor, how is this any different? Or the broken table for that matter.”

Looking over to the aforementioned broken table Xorvos found that there was already someone cleaning it up. He was even soaking up the blood with small sponges before putting them in jars. Maryam’s purple, draconic blood that was probably worth a fortune to the right buyer. Maryam just sighed in exasperation and went to get a bucket and mop. This seemed to be something she had done before. In the mean time, the bet keeper had come back, this time carrying two full bags of coins. Although one seemed to be bigger than the other.

“Hey, where’d that dragon lass go? Ah, no matter, you seem an honourable enough fellow, give her her winnings for me will ya? And here’s yours too, the smaller one.”

Xorvos took the bags, slightly confused.

“Winnings? But we were just sparring with each other, it was nothing official.”

“Sure, but it was a mighty fine show. If you don’t want to see it as payment, then just consider it a gift, from me to you. Well, you and her.”

“Well, alright. Thanks then, for the gift. How much is it?”

“Hundred for you, two hundred for her.”

“Silver or copper?”

“Hah! It’s gold, you yokel.”

Xorvos stared at the two pouches in his hands, stunned. Gold? For a sparring match? It was hard to believe but he opened up a pouch and confirmed it really was gold inside. Then he looked at the ruined table and had a thought.

Maybe I’m strong after all.