Un Riisa Domine

((Closed to The Mongrel. Follows events from The Gnarled Roots of Osiris II))

"Does it always rain this heavily in Raiaera?" Shinsou muttered, shaking his soaked brown hair as he scrambled into the doorway of a crudely constructed tent. The afternoon was made dark by heavy and cumbersome rain clouds that had rolled over the outskirts of the tainted forests of Linqualme, ones that hung there for what seemed like an eternity. The rain fell in sheets, bombarding the ground and kicking up spats of mud.

Bane Stark, who had stood guard at their campsite on the fringes of Lindqualme for most of the day, shook his head silently. A single scarred hand remained gripped around the hilt of his double bladed swallow, as always, in habit alone. His navy green ranger’s gear, smeared with mud and streaks of rusty dried blood from slain fiends, flashed momentarily from underneath a black greatcoat as it was rushed by the constant, chilling torrents of rain that swept through them.

“Not long ago, Shinsou, The Forgotten One, Pode, tainted this already terrible place with a maelstrom of dark magic. There are undoubtedly fiends waiting not far from here that are the stuff of nightmares for stronger men than us. Yet,” Bane queried, shooting a quizzical glance at his client, “you are concerning yourself with the weather?”

Shinsou shrugged. “Pode is dead, and I have all the protection I need from anything that Lindqualme throws at us. I’ve got more chance of catching pneumonia than being killed here. We’ll be fine.”

Bane sighed, shaking his head in frustration. Whether the Telgradian realised it or not, Shinsou was never far from conflict. The scent of it was always there, enveloping him, almost as powerful as the stench of the dead of the corpse war. Being relatively new to Raiaera, and despite Bane’s warnings to the contrary, the ranger feared Shinsou had still not grasped the enormity of what the Corpse War and Xem’Zund’s armies had done to life in this once beautiful region. For the most part, Raiaera had ground to a resounding halt. What few cities remained were now empty husks or besieged, and the majority of Raiaera’s citizens were living mostly in the northern forests under the protection of various hidden sanctuaries. There was fear and desolation at every turn. At the hands of the Corpse Horde and their mighty archlich, Bane knew that some of these cities had suffered fates much worse than destruction.

This time, he knew better than his client.

Shinsou, however, was characteristically calm. His soft, golden eyes veered through the rain and across the rugged tree line edges not so far away as he remembered his mission in Raiaera. They were here to investigate a suspected Jal Shey portal site north of Lindqualme, a place that the texts in The Cartographer had indicated had been built in the midst of the Corpse War. With everyday life thrown into turmoil by the fallout of Pode’s handiwork, Shinsou knew that the rare opportunity for his bitter enemies to construct such a gateway, completely unhindered and unchallenged, was going to be too good for them to miss. He could see the gateway in his mind, pieces of broken stone pillars placed in formation on an obsidian pedestal. Then they would come in their hordes, shadowed by their evil creation; Temperance. There would be that familiar horrible, rotting stench of flesh, the kind that would heave the stomachs of even the steeliest of men, as they cut through the broken remnants of Raiaera before turning their attention to the rest of Althanas.

By the time anyone had figured out what was happening, it would already be too late.

“The fact is, Shinsou,” The gruff and irritated Bane started, turning to face the soaked Telgradian. “You don’t have all the fucking protection you need. We are here to track down a Jal Shey portal in a region that has had its heart savagely torn out. This place has become a lawless free-for-all, for the most part, and we are about to blindly march into the middle of it all. If we are to do this, we need someone who knows Raiaera, and, to be honest, I’ve already made the fucking arrangements for you anyway. So, my friend, you might as well learn to deal with it.”

Bane had endured more than a decade of fighting for everybody else’s causes, and was damned if he was going to be killed needlessly for another one. He had served armies, fought for bandits and rogues, fought for any bastard who would pay him enough gold to do their dirty work. But the main attractions of doing this sort of work relied heavily upon him staying alive long enough to enjoy the benefits.

“Oh?” The Telgradian asked whilst he shook the rain from his own white greatcoat. “And whom, may I ask, is it that the mighty Bane Stark turns to when faced with overwhelming odds?”

Bane stroked his beard irritably, holding back the urge to throw a right hook at the glass chin of the young, cocksure Telgradian.

“Her name is Illara.”

The rainstorm beat at the already weathered skin of the ranger’s face, with monstrous droplets shattering into white pearls against his jagged visage, but the ranger barely flinched. He just watched silently as Shinsou’s expression morphed from one of complete disinterest to one of a sudden, burning curiosity.

“Illara the half elf? The vanquisher of Pode?” The Telgradian’s golden eyes lit up. “How does a shabby, two bit, worn out ranger from Corone like you know her?”

Bane smirked at the retort from the man he was coming to call a friend. “Shabby, two bit rangers like me still have some reach in the world, Shinsou. Did you think I would agree to travel to Lindqualme, into the heart of Raiaera, and not have a bit of insurance? She is to meet us here, at this campsite, tomorrow at dawn and will take us as far as the portal. She’s getting a cut of my pay, so be fucking grateful.”

Shinsou raised an eyebrow and wiped his brow with a dirty sleeve, smearing a streak of mud across his glistening forehead. “Good thinking! Bring her back to a place like Lindqualme, where she can be reminded every minute about Pode. Nothing like getting off on the right foot, eh?”

With that, Shinsou picked up a nearby water tankard and took a swig, throwing it casually to Bane before disappearing inside his tent. "See you in the morning, friend. Let's hope our guest doesn't take the choice of rendezvous personally."

As he took a swig for himself, Bane noted how much Shinsou reminded him of his younger days as an arrogant young ranger. In those formative years, there was that fire in his belly, steel in his eyes and power in his bones that made him a real warrior, even if a slightly foolish one.

I was so sure of myself back then, and I knew nothing could get in my fucking way. We crushed rebellions with our fists of iron. We broke clans and we smashed gangs into oblivion. We were invincible.

As with the uncertainty of the journey ahead, there was the same uncertainty again about the violence of this storm. Just when he thought the rain had done its worst, another two or three downpours would come in sudden bursts, the silver sheets driven by the wind to spatter against the landscape of the red forest’s perimeter like grapeshot. With one final glance from the outside of his own marquee, Bane carefully secured the ropes that held his refuge together in order to prevent the harsh winds from tearing it apart. It was time for rest now.

They needed to be up early to meet Illara.

Ten thousand drumbeats pounded their staccato patters on the roof of the inn. Second by second, new beats joined them, turning single, meaningless droplets into a never-ending cascade that washed over roads and down windows. Safe inside a warm building, the melody of the rain was soothing. Having walked the last hundred miles in the relentless downpour, however, I had a rather more dismal view of this storm.

Whenever I was caught in a heavy downpour, I considered what it must be like to be human, with their limited senses. The dark and mist obscured objects and people from my sight after a mere mile, the chill dimmed heat signatures, and the insistent rush of water subdued all other sounds until they were almost inaudible. If this blindness and deafness was a taste of humanity, the humans could keep it. How they'd survived long enough to form a society was unfathomable, if their entire existence was spent in this dearth of sensory experiences.

The shelter of the inn gave me warmth and returned my senses to me, thankfully. While a year ago, I wouldn't have been good enough to be granted a relatively dry spot beneath the eaves to curl up in, now the owner greeted me by name. Upstairs, a comfortable room awaited me for the night, free of charge. My oilskin had been hung by the fire to dry, and I'd been seated deferentially at a honey-blond oak table by the crackling blaze.

I'd been offered a bottle of wine, but had declined in favor of a hot kettle of herbal tea. The innkeeper had probably brought me the stuff he kept back for his own family; before I even took my first sip, I could feel the tantalizing tingle in the back of my sinuses. Fresh rolls and a generous bowl of leek and turnip soup joined me without a need to request them, and an odd mix of gratitude and resentment roiled in my gut. Before the Day of Burning, I couldn’t have shown them my gold before being turned away, but after killing one fifth of one Forgotten One, I was suddenly a real, honest, actual elf.

I managed a courteous nod to the innkeeper’s son, a raven-haired, azure-eyed male about my age, even if I wanted to tell him where he could shove his hypocritical hospitality. I had more important things to think about, in any event. I’d been hired as a mercenary by one Bane Stark, a former Coronian Ranger who had been cast out of the order about a decade ago. I’d clashed with his unit once or twice, and we’d never parted on friendly terms. I doubted he knew it was me he’d hired; he’d contacted me through a chain of mercenary friends, instead of going through Unfounded. He wanted me to take him and his employer through part of the Lindequalme to some portal or fortress or other such foolishness.

I didn’t really care; I wasn’t being paid enough to hang around if things got too dangerous, and I’d only accepted the job because it wasn’t far off my original course toward Melenahil. I’d get some gold and be on my way.

Only if they’re competent enough to survive… I’d taken a couple of raw and reckless quasi-humans into the forest almost immediately after killing Pode. While they’d both survived, they’d nearly been the death of us all on multiple occasions. Journeying with them had not been wise. Stark could probably handle himself; Concordia isn’t a casual stroll itself, and it’s the primary base of the Rangers. His mysterious employer, on the other hand, was so obscure as to be anonymous.

I barely tasted the food, considering my future and my choices. I had yet to be paid, so I could always walk away. But the man might be competent. I had to see for myself. I was due to meet them at dawn, presuming the sun rose.

~*~*~

Twenty miles and ten hours had separated me from the agreed-upon meeting when I laid down. That distance had taken an entire day the last time I made the trek, with Remedy Blue and Rehtul Orlouge. On my own, in good conditions, it was barely more than an hour’s walk.

In the cold, torrential rain that had persisted through the night, I figured on an hour and a half. I left two hours before dawn, just to ensure timeliness. While I had no desire to be employed by complete fools, even a fool despises a tardy mercenary.

The ground was even sloppier after an additional eight hours of relentless drenching, and even when I walked on grass and ferns, the mud rose up to suck at my boots and hinder my progress. Every now and again, I’d accidentally step into a puddle and have to endure an icy rush running down my leg and around my feet. It wasn’t five miles before I was cursing the humans for deciding to venture out in this weather. It wasn’t ten before I was cursing myself for not blowing them off and going my own way when the skies cleared. By mile fifteen, I was cursing the millions of raindrops that batted snare beats on my hood, even though they were my only company on the dark trek.

Hints of weak light were trying to struggle over the horizon when I reached the camp I assumed was the one Stark meant. It was a shabby affair; haphazardly constructed canvas tents with a stone-rimmed puddle between them. I could hear them breathing in their tents, a man to each, and I considered how unfair it would have been if I’d been hired as an assassin. The poor bastards would have never known I was there before arrows pierced their heads.

Instead, I arranged my own waterproof cloak securely around my shoulders and stood about five paces from the pathetic excuse for a fire pit. I didn’t speak or announce my presence; I wanted to see how long they thought they were going to keep me waiting.

There was no creature alive in Lindqualme that was awake at this early time in the morning. Only a hint of dawn, a single shred of light, appeared in the inky, cloud smudged sky. Dead leaves, dropped by their tainted millions from the imposing tangle of the Red Forest, formed more of the campsite's floor than sodden earth. The bitter odours of the rotting foliage mixed with the scents of the forest soil further added to the unnatural atmosphere.

As the breeze of the storm made Illara's cloak flap in the wind like the sail of a ship, a man emerged from behind her. The Telgradian had glided over the leaves and through a weave of branches once he spotted her, like a viper hunting down a mouse. He was light footed despite his weight and rarely allowed a single twig to break underneath his soaked leather boots.

In a single smooth stroke, the sharp edge of a Damascus-forged blade sliced through the hundreds of falling droplets and stopped mere millimetres away from the clean, wet skin of elven-hybrid’s throat. Shinsou’s brown, dishevelled hair tumbled about the wind in heavy, saturated strands. Despite the force of the gust and the beating of the rain, his golden eyes barely blinked; they remained locked on to Pode’s vanquisher with keen intent as the Telgradian held the blade of Enpera straight and true to her neck.

“You are perhaps wondering why you were able to simply walk into this ramshackle campsite unchallenged?” Shinsou asked, his voice steely and cold. “I am here. Rest assured, there is no better security than that.”

It took Shinsou a few moments for it to dawn upon him he wasn't dreaming about the sharp point digging subtly into his waist. As he tried to right his balance, he glanced down to his right to see the blade of a menacing looking dagger pressing against his white coat, expertly placed and ready to strike. Thin, wiry forks of lighting bolted across the early morning sky, accompanied by a crack of thunder that ripped through the cold air.

“It seems we are at an impasse…”

Shinsou knew that they weren’t at an impasse at all, and cursed his utterance of such a ridiculous statement. In the time it would take for him to draw the razor sharp edge of Enpera across the elven-hybrid’s throat, he knew he would already be dead, or dying. He slowly lowered his blade, turning slightly away from Ilara to alleviate the hostilities, and allowed his boots to press into the soaked camp floor. As he pivoted carefully, Shinsou felt his soles mashing the fragile leaves into a watery mixture underneath him. The pounding rain and the awfully loud claps of thunder accompanying each glowing streak of electricity only added to the tension of the moment.

It was now, in a private and silent moment of anger, Shinsou cursed his relative toothlessness on Althanas. Years ago, he would have had someone even of Illara's ilk prostrate at his feet, crushed under the sheer weight of the original Enpera’s power. It would perhaps have taken his Senkai Enpera Hitsugi, or Emperor’s Coffin, to get the job done, admittidely, but the result would have been the same and there would have been no need to use the awesome power of his Senkai Shinjitsu. Now, with this re-forged version of Enpera, Shinsou had no idea how long it would take to once again scale those heights of greatness, with his Senkai and Senkai Shinjitsu long lost to him.

In front of them, Bane Stark had already risen from his bed and leaned pensively by his tent in silence. He was studying the expressions of the Telgradian and the elven-hybrid as they conducted their business, watching as Shinsou withdrew Enpera from beside Ilara’s throat.

Smart move, kid.

Bane knew that – if they could learn to get along - having someone of Illara's skills on board along with himself and the confident, if not naïve Telgradian, would help to create a fighting force analogous with his own former ranger unit. They had been a squad of elite soldiers with a no-nonsense approach to crisis management and combat, unlike those around them who had openly described their own units as a reason to get slammed in the local bar during social hours, bed the finest whores and a great way to rot into a tedious schedule of endless guard detail with plenty of unpaid overtime to go around. Shinsou had already proven himself to be an adept warrior, even without his so-called “Senkai power” that he kept banging on about day and night, but he needed to learn to be able to fight and think as part of a unit. He also needed to accept his power was gone, and the only way to be able to get back to where he used to be was with hard work and tough love.

If there is one thing for sure, Bane thought, Illara will soon put paid to the idea that Shinsou is who he used to be…

Skish. Skish. Skish-skish-snap-skish. Skosh. Sklorch. Footsteps on mud and musty leaves, a human thinking he was being silent, the slowing steps at the end of his charge speaking of a desire to intimidate, not attack.

Ksssshhhhh. Damascus on wood, a sword being drawn.

Ping-ping-pa-ping-pa-da-ping! Rain, relentless in its barrage, finding a new object on which to play at percussion.

I had my knife to his gut as soon as he closed the distance, cursing each cold drop of water that the gesture allowed to seep through the joints in my armor. Of course I'd seen him lurking, eager and warm-blooded, just beyond the tree line. Compared to the cold foliage around him, he glowed like a beacon. I'd allowed him to act as he would, just to see if he'd try anything adorably stupid. He wanted to throw me off balance and put himself immediately in power, even the smooth boastfulness of his tone was crafted to make a being he thought inferior quail and cower where she stood.

I could have gutted him twice before he'd finished speaking, and twice again before he decided to walk away.

"No better security?" I let my taunt fly at his turned back while he splash-stomped away from me. When I'd awakened far too early to face the far too soggy morning, I'd merely intended to ask Stark what manner of fool wished to buy my services as a guide through Death Song Forest. But if it was a challenge he wanted, I could force a challenge. I've seen rampant ego kill better men than this scraggly whelp, and if that was the case, I could do him the kindness of ending him here, rather than letting him suffer all the horrors that the merciless trees would throw at him.

"Quite some words from a boy who laid in wait two steps from a pair of ruilserk vines. You're lucky they weren't hungry, or my trek from my comfortably dry inn room would have been for absolutely nothing." White light and a loud crack punctuated my statement. I twirled my dagger, which gleamed with the same soft silver light that had permeated all of my weapons since shortly before my encounter with Pode.

"But you know that, don't you, human? I can see the heat of your shame rising off your head, I can hear the beat of your heart and the tension in your limbs. Such violence. Such uncertainty." Of course I couldn't hear his heartbeat; that was a lie. With the overwhelming white noise of the rain, he'd have had to be in arm's reach for me to hear that. But I could see the veins in his neck pulsing with each beat.

He turned, the human clad in bright, visible white, and I finally lowered my hood, letting the haughty gold of his eyes meet the cold silver of mine. The acrid rain, contaminated by sheer proximity to the forest, ceased its hollow drumming around my head and started running through the tightly-wound braid around my skull. Occasionally, a drop would miss its mark and slide awkwardly down the new scar on my right cheek to fall from my nose.

"I am Illara of Nosse Alfheim. Perhaps you've heard of me. Perhaps not. I really don't care either way. What you probably have heard is that I'm here to consider a job, namely to take the two of you through this forest to some temple or portal or castle. What you probably have not heard is that I haven't accepted the job yet. I haven't decided if it's worth my time. If I decide that babysitting you, nameless one, will form the bulk of my duties, I'll be on my way right now, and you will never catch up."

My dagger found its sheath. "I was simply going to ask what sort of idiot you were, but you've shown that already. The question remains, however... just how much of you is stupid, and just how much of you is capable." I tossed my head, flicking some water out of my eyes.

"So show me, edan. Do you have it in you to survive the next five decades?" I took a silent step back, and the sky rumbled its anticipation.

"Will you die in the next five days, unable to survive the cursed forest?" I pulled up my hood, taking another step back. I saw both Stark's face and the man I so far had no name for change expressions. They'd been looking right at me, but they'd lost me in the dark, in the mist, in the deluge. I took advantage of their blindness to walk around them, stealthily, silently, and more quickly than they could run. I stopped when I stood directly behind the brash man who had tried to assert dominance over me.

"Or will I kill you within five minutes of meeting you?"

Kill me within five minutes, you say? Hmph. So, this is a test is it? Don’t use such strong words, Illara. It will only make your weakness look more-

Shinsou’s train of thought was cut immediately short. Bewilderment was a word that could only begin to explain the look that crossed his and Bane’s faces as Illara’s cloaked form dissolved into the mist right in front of their eyes, fading into the black of the night like a shadow retracting from the edges of sunlight. The Telgradian’s eyes hurriedly tried to follow the hidden form of this enigmatic woman as she danced around the back of him like a phantom, not a noise emanating from her trained feet.

She was so quick that not even Shinsou could trace her movements.

Sweat sprung from his pores and mixed with the pounding rain as he began to experience another emotion that was rarely provoked from the former Emperor of Telgradia; the emotion of fear. Enpera, now firmly locked within Shinsou’s right fist, trembled slightly as the Telgradian struggled to balance its weight in his anxiety.

What is this…feeling?

Suddenly his ears picked up a slight noise over the rattling of the precipitation; one that sounded like a sharp intake of breath before one undertakes a laborious movement.

There!

Shinsou spun, digging his heel into the soft mud beneath him, and used the earth’s sodden, slick surface to give him the traction to guide his blade towards Illara, who was stood inches away from his neck. As the Damascus blade sliced through the air in a deft arc, missing her, Shinsou felt his movements to be slow and mechanical and all the while the vanquisher of Pode had such fluidity, was painfully quick and quite obviously expertly trained.

What is this?! Why am I so slow?!

In the Telgradian’s mind, as he forced Enpera with all his might and connected with nothing but air, it was utterly ridiculous that anyone could make him feel inferior. Yet, within ten seconds of this trial, the once-powerful Telgradian was left hoping that this absurdity Illara was inflicting upon him was some sort of illusion. The growing number of audible grunts from this throat, mixed with the hissing of his breath, was telling both Bane and Illara that there was no element of fantasy about the chasm in skill that had opened up between them.

Shinsou's mind raced as Enpera’s edge failed to prevail, but instead forced space to open up between Illara and himself. It wasn’t enough, though, so the Telgradian used the tiny window of opportunity the parry had created to put even more distance between them, spinning on a sixpence and shimmying a hasty retreat backwards a couple of feet. Shinsou knew he had mere seconds to decide what to do next, but he could only see one option open to him to narrow the speed gap between them. It would not be an easy feat, of that he was sure. But he had decided what to do, and he had to do it now.


“Senkai: Enpera Hitsugi”

Heavy rain pelted Shinsou’s face as he dipped his head and raised Enpera ninety degrees to his shoulders, streaks of water travelling down his face and chin. Enpera’s blade began to radiate a weak silver light, and the Telgradian found himself savouring the familiar sensation of his fingers tingling with the power of a Kurai sword’s Senkai once again. Flicking strands of brown matted hair out of his face, the Telgradian snapped his head up and smiled slightly as the silver light that had manifested from his sword formed a cloud of grey vapour that his skin absorbed on contact.

As the light illuminated Bane’s perch by the tent, the Telgradian’s right hand man looked up with an expression of intrigue etched upon his visage. He no longer saw a man, or an Emperor. Instead, Shinsou had the look of a demon looming above the world, his eyes ablaze with righteous fury, wielding Enpera menacingly. The Corone ranger had never seen him like this before.

His eyes…they have steel in them.

The black void of night returned, wiping away the remnants of the Senkai’s light, and Shinsou felt the caressing power of his Enpera Hitsugi envelop his body. Now, with his Kurai sword released, his agility would be double that of a normal human.

Now, let us see if this ‘test’ can be put to bed, shall we?!

Shinsou wasted no more time, starting his blurry kamikaze sprint over the leaves and across the clearing, the smooth surface of Enpera held straight and true to his side. Dancing upon the murky foliage of the clearing with a fresh new fluidity he was lacking before, the Telgradian closed in on Illara, feigning a thrust with his deadly sword forward before spinning at the last second, attempting to catch his impressive foe on the backswing.

---

Found you.

Fifty feet overhead, the frame of a giant man, decked out in the distinctive clothing of a Captain of the Council of Five and cloaked entirely from view by high-level Telgradian magic, stood on an invisible platform of solid matter of his own design.

His name was Riisa Endymeon. He was an impressive looking warrior, the tallest and physically the strongest Captain of the Council of Five. He was adorned with a huge, muscular chassis that was framed with flowing dark hair and bright blue eyes. The eyes, like glowing orbs, shone from underneath a white, thinly drawn clay-like mask that had two oval openings and small tubular grooves on either cheek.

He wore a loose fitting black garb with a plain white haori placed over the top. On either side of his uniform, two huge Kurai swords remained stoic in their massive ivory sheaths. Despite their size, the man looked barely weighed down by them at all.

He gazed down at the infamous Shinsou, his vision partially obscured by the edges of the eye-slits of his mask, and observed quietly as events unfolded. Riisa’s mission was to kill Telgradia’s greatest threat, but even with all the power at his disposal it would be rash to charge in before knowing the extent of the Shinsou’s abilities. Even a stint in the seventh level of Kokushi had not been effective enough to erase Shinsou’s entire power, so it was just as plausible that the former Emperor might have already recovered the majority of his horrific strength.

For now, the Captain hung in the air, out of sight, and continued the reconnaissance.

You can grunt and growl all you want, kid. This was a losing battle from the moment you thought you could intimidate me.

The golden-eyed human aristocrat was as slow as the rest of his race, so I felt no need to push the limits of my speed. In the frigid muck of an early winter rain, maintaining control was more important than showing off, anyway. It did concern me, however, that he'd switched immediately from his snarky superiority to a panicked all-out attack. Someone confident in his abilities - someone secure enough to hold a blade to my throat - ought to be taking this fight as a joke.

Yes, I'd vanished while he thought he was looking at me. Yes, I was skating and dancing through the slog that he trudged through. But if he was so threatened by me after only a few breaths to start fighting so hard so fast, he couldn't afford me to take it seriously enough to so much as draw a knife. If I started actually meeting his attacks instead of simply evading them, he was going to die. Contrary to my taunts, I had no interest in killing this arrogant man. It might have been merciful to do so, but mercy isn't really a quality I value. The world is cruel; let him learn that.

Too impatient and prone to rage. Makes him clumsy. Still, his form and strikes are clean, if lacking a certain elegance. He has fire and determination, he just doesn't know how and when to use it. At... it's so hard to tell with humans, they live so fast. Somewhere between two and a half and three and a half decades? There is so much he hasn't learned. I purposely wove into and out of my would-be employer's strike radius, crushing leaves and mud together into a vermilion pulp. His swipes and slashes came timely, but reactively. He attacked where I was coming from, not where I would be, and his aggression was more defensive.

Well, I won't see what he's made of if I don't give him a chance to show me. I allowed a particularly strong, painfully broad slash to drive me back a few steps, giving him just a little space to do as he would. That he turned his back on an opponent he knew was faster didn't impress me, nor did the fact that he took an entire five seconds to pose dramatically, chant, and wait for his incantation to take effect.

That's five times you ought to be dead, maybe six. But I stood there, in the red-tinged rain, waiting to see what he was doing. Well, not just waiting. Sometimes you have to slap a fool, and you need to know they felt it. I wasn't going to risk slicing or stabbing him with an actual weapon, but I have other tools.

Specifically, I have a pair of climbing gloves. They're fairly simple things, just leather with ridges etched into the palm and fingers, but they have iron claws at the end, for gripping tiny nooks in rock or bark. I'd just have to be careful to not slash at his throat. It's harder to open up the big blood vessels in the neck than most boastful, beer-soaked brawlers in bars will admit to, but even a decent nick can be problematic if there's not a medic around.

Finally, the ostentatious display ended, and the human charged into combat once more. Confidence gleamed in his eyes and he'd picked up a little bit of speed, but he was still making the same mistakes. Actually, he was making worse ones. He thought he'd more than evened the field and probably assumed I was in awe of his power, when in fact he was still a child playing at being a warrior.

That's actually terribly cute. Stupid, but cute.

I flexed my feet to get less traction out of my boots and let him come to me. I saw the power in his lunge, but I also saw him tensing up for a feint.

I'll play along.

I jinked predictably to the side to avoid his stab, then kicked hard on the mud, propelling myself out of range for his follow-up attack. Another kick sent mud splashing in my wake as I charged through the space his blade had cleared. Just as he registered my presence, I slammed my knee into his gut, grunting with the momentum. I followed up with a sharp elbow to his temple and turned to swipe my claws across his cheek.

"You might want to yield before I stop playing." I took a couple of steps back, just to get out of his threat range before unleashing another taunt. "You might also want to learn how to use that sword."

Shinsou receives 310 EXP and 35 GP

The Mongrel receives 330 EXP and 35 GP

All rewards added!