The caravan was… boring.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what I was expecting, but I was hoping for something beyond the basics. After seeing the magical street lights and enchanted marketplace in Perch, I had thought that the caravan would turn out to be capable of flight or something.

  When I asked the caravan leader, an older gentleman that turned out to be Brian Bran himself, he just scoffed and said: “You want fancy? Go get a train,” with more venom than I thought was reasonable. He even muttered something about the ‘youth of today’ as I walked off, so he clearly had some kind of problem. I didn’t even know what a ‘train’ was.

  Regardless of his attitude, the caravan was just a load of wagons tied together, lead by horses. She didn’t say anything, but I Cassie was clearly disappointed too. She toured the entire caravan in the hopes of something mystical jumping out to surprise her, to no avail.

  She was right that we didn’t get a wagon to ourselves, too. We thought we did, but right before the caravan left a younger man clad in light armour hopped into our wagon, greeted us like old friends and immediately pulled out a bestiary. He didn’t even take his sheathed sword off first, which I refused to believe was intentional.

  The man’s vitae was… interesting. He didn’t have too much, but it was still more than usual. It reminded me of that sense in the air right before it rained, when the sun was still out but slowly getting covered by clouds and you could smell the weather. It was interesting, to say the least.

  “Hey. Guy,” Cassie tried, which did get the man to look up from his guide. “Are you an adventurer?”

  The guy had the biggest grin on his face as he answered. “Yep. How’d you know?”

  Cassie and I shared a look before turning back to the most stereotypically dressed adventurer this side of the capital. “Call it a lucky guess,” Cassie answered.

  The adventurer slammed his bestiary shut. “Sorry, just a game I like to play while I’m travelling. You’d be surprised at how many people never ask. Name’s Neil”

  “...Neil,” Cassie eventually responded.

  Yeah, not the most ‘adventurer’ name out there, is it?

  “Yeah yeah, I know. Go on, who are you?”

  “Cassie and Julie,” Cassie answered for us both, pointing to us in sequence to make it clear who was who. “We’re on our way to join up with the Guild ourselves.”

  Neil looked rather pleased with that for some reason. “Really? What made you want to be adventurers? And why doesn’t she talk?”

  “The promise of adventure, probably. And she talks, just not to strangers. Unless we met you at swordpoint, then you get to skip that step.”

  Yeah, alright Cass. Two can play at that game.

  I then proceeded to not say anything, because apparently only one can play at that game after all. I just looked down a little and failed to think of something appropriate to say to the loudest person in any room.

  “Huh,” Neil replied. “How about a spar?”

  “What?” Cassie asked. “Why?”

  “Well, they’re going to test you before they let you into the Guild anyway. Plus it sounds like it will help Julie here too. Also, I am desperately bored. Say yes, please.” I couldn’t fault Neil’s reasoning, and he had a strange kind of enthusiasm going on.

  “Yes,” I finally said.

  “Wh- wait, what?” Cassie turned to me. “You agreed?”

  I just nodded, before turning back to Neil. “Two things. First, you don’t talk about what you see when we spar. Second, we do it when the caravan stops for the night, and we move away from everyone else. Got it?"

  Neil nodded excitedly. “Yes! Finally, something’s going to happen on this trip.”

  --------------------------------------

  Night rolled around quickly, to the benefit of all of us. The caravan set up a rough circle of wagons around a large fire, which meant that everybody would be around there. With that in mind, the three of us found a spot out of sight and set up a rough circle that Neil and I would need to stay inside.

  As it turned out, I had something of an advantage during the night. I had planned to work on some kind of night vision based on some nocturnal predators during the ride, but once again my body beat me to it. I was going to need to up my game if I wanted to do some proper experimentation.

  As it was, I just took the advantage and ignored the weird looks Neil was giving me. It may have been foolish to potentially give the game away, but I didn’t want to trip on a root or something.

  That decision didn’t turn out to matter much anyway, because Cassie just planted some sticks in the ground and set them on fire to use as torches. Not the longest term light source, but we wouldn’t be here for too long anyway.

  “So,” I began. “You’re the adventurer. What are the rules?”

  Neil was practically vibrating with excitement at this point. He’d barely kept still all day, and he wasn’t losing any motivation now. “Basic stuff. A strike only counts if it draws blood. First to three strikes wins. No broken bones, no purposeful head wounds. No leaving the ring. Oh, and nothing below the belt. Good?”

  I nodded and turned to Cassie, who was acting as our invigilator. “Got that?” I asked.

  “Yep. Take your positions, contestants!” Okay, maybe she was getting into it too.

  Neil and I stood opposite each other, both about a quarter of the way into the circle.

  “Three!” Cassie announced. We both drew our swords. His was longer than mine, which could be tricky.

  “Two!” Neil adjusted his grip. I readied my surprise.

  “One!” Our gazes met across the circle. For all his excitement over the spar, Neil was all focus now. I grinned.

  “Begin!”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Neil moved instantly, crossing the distance faster than I expected and bringing his sword around in a wide arc from the right. It was well executed. I could already tell he was a better swordsman than me, but that was fine. I had other advantages.

  I brought my sword up to clash with his, sliding my blade down his to the hilt in an attempt to reach his hand. He twisted his sword free of mine and jabbed, quick and piercing. I hopped backwards to avoid the blow, but I could already see where this was going. He had the momentum, and he was using it to push me back.

  I took advantage of my lighter blade and slightly inhuman speed to dance around his sword, striking quickly at his side, away from where his sword was held. He was clearly taken by surprise by my speed, but reacted well and went on the defensive. Our swords met again, his longsword once more giving him the advantage of reach.

  He knocked my sword away and lunged, and this time there was nothing I could do to avoid the blow. So I cheated. I quickly shifted my arm back to its more insectoid form, the thick chitin allowing me to slide the blow off my arm without truly taking the hit before I was even done shifting.

  Neil whooped. “One!”

  “Nope!” Cassie called out gleefully.

  Neil looked strangely at her, before looking at me again. He looked closer at my torn sleeve and saw the chitin, scarred but not pierced. “Huh?”

  I just shook my head. “Remember, no talking about what you saw here.”

  Neil seemed torn for a moment, but resolve came into focus behind his eyes. Rather than talk he just widened his stance, bringing his sword in front of him.

  My grin was wolfish as I lunged, cutting toward his shoulder with my blade. He deflected it and struck back, faster than I had expected from the longer sword. I ducked and came up at his side only to see him already there, swinging for my neck. I brought my sword up, fortified with both arms now chitinous, but it wasn’t enough.

  His blade screeched off my own and slid, finding the crossguard of my sword even as he pushed me back a little with the force of his blow. With a lunge and a twist he cut a small, measured cut directly across my collarbone.

  “One!” He cried again, glancing at Cassie as though he was daring her to question his success. She just gave him a thumbs up.

  I grinned further. He was good. My sword training had typically been more about self-defence and floating interest than a true passion, but being trained by an elf who’d dedicated more time to the weapon than a lot of people had been alive tended to help you learn. Still, Neil was significantly better than I was.

  I decided not to heal anything until after the match. It was more fun that way. I waited for Neil to return to form before lunging again. I needed to keep the momentum this time. He caught me off guard before, and I couldn’t let that happen again.

  He raised his sword in a defensive stance, more than ready to avoid my own blade cutting directly for his throat. So I threw my sword at him.

  Neil easily sidestepped the discarded weapon. He was taken so off-guard by what would normally be a stupid move that he only barely reacted to my continued lunge, now lead not by my sword but two pairs of chitinous talons.

  He tried to manoeuvre his sword between us, but now I had two vectors of attack. He must have realised the same, because he tried to strike me before I could land a blow. The sword that had been lending him a reach advantage the entire fight worked against him now, proving unwieldy in close quarters.

  It wasn’t long before my faster movement and many potential angles from which to strike offered me the perfect opportunity. When he was distracted fending off my right hand, I brought my left down and scored a set of gouges down his right arm.

  I was momentarily distracted from the fight by how satisfying it was to cut flesh with these things. There was definitely an awakening here, purely from the visceral joy of cutting into meat with part of my own body. This was definitely not a human kind of joy, yet it didn’t feel all that foreign either. It was me, or at least a part of me, that was revelling in this after all.

  I snapped out of it when I saw the amount of blood that was pouring out of Neil’s arm. It was a lot. He’d also dropped that arm’s grip on his longsword. I winced when I saw the gashes I’d left all the way down his forearm, ending at his wrist. They were deep. Far more so than I’d intended.

  Maybe I went a bit too far.

  As if in defiance of my concern, Neil just grunted and planted his longsword in the ground, pulling a carving knife from his belt. When he read the question in my expression he just grinned, which definitely came off a bit more feral than it had at the beginning of the fight.

  “One for you,” he announced. “You drop your weapon, I’ll drop mine. You’re lucky I’m left handed.”

  I tilted my head and glanced at Cassie. “We good?”

  “You didn’t break a rule, so if he wants to keep going then he gets to keep going.” She answered simply.

  I shot a final questioning look at Neil, who had already moved back into position, and just shrugged.

  He’s tougher than he looks.

  I strolled back into position and readied myself, talons wide. I had a feeling that the next few clashes were going to be good.

  --------------------------------------

  I was in pain.

  Neil was impossible. Somehow, despite being injured, tired and physically outclassed he still won. I literally had nine more sharp objects than him and he beat me handily.

  Worse than that, I think he must have been holding back before. I had already thought that he was my objective superior in a fight, but he upped his game with that carving knife of all things. Apparently he decided that if I was going to wound him deep, he would wound me deeper.

  The next two clashes saw Neil flow around around my wild strikes like water. He ended up giving me two cuts to match his own, one on each arm. By the end of it was almost embarrassed. It turns out that there’s only so much swordsmanship can be applied to… clawmanship? Whatever, I was pretty wild with every attack. It felt right to go all in on every strike, which he punished relentlessly.

  I pushed myself off the floor where I had collapsed in defeat, groaning at the sharp pain in my arms. I flooded each one with vitae, allowing each wound to seal up like new and reform as human arms again in the process. I spared a little vitae for the cut on my collarbone too.

  I glanced up to see Neil staring with his mouth wide open and grinned. I’d won the psychological battle, that’s for sure.

  Cassie saw his expression and laughed, which had him looking offended. “How many tricks do you need?”

  I saw an opportunity and took it, manifesting an illusion of his knife in my hand and covering his an illusory veil. It was harder than I’d expected, but the dim firelight meant I didn’t have to be perfect.

  “Mine now,” I said, before nodding to his belt. When he failed to see the invisible knife he grabbed at it reflexively, which broke the illusion. He was even more confused when the knife appeared back in its sheath.

  Neil looked at me with stars in his eyes. “Illusions too? What are you? Actually, don’t tell me. I want to figure it out myself.”

  I shrugged, before waving at his arm. “You want me to fix that?”

  He looked surprised. “You can do other people too?” He shook his head as he wandered over. “I won’t say no to free healing, I guess. You’re gonna be credit to whatever team you’re on, that’s for sure. Combat healers are rare.”

  I grabbed his arm and swept my vitae through it, examining the damage. I’d cut a few blood vessels, but nothing major. The worst damage was where I’d cut through some muscle, which was why he’d needed to drop his longsword. Since it wasn’t anything too complicated it didn’t take too long to heal, maybe ten seconds of concerted effort.

  It was still markedly harder to heal other people, since most peoples’ bodies had a way that they wanted to handle things, which I then had to work around. My body was willing to consider ‘be fixed’ an order and sort itself out, so long as it had the resources.

  Neil waved his arm a little once I was done. “That was really good! Not the quickest healing ever, but you were definitely thorough.”

  Cassie wandered over, having extinguished the ‘torches’ that had been mostly consumed by the fires. “We should probably get back. I don’t know about you guys but I want to sleep at some point tonight.”

  In response Neil just turned to me and stage whispered. “If you’re so weird, what can she do?”

  I grinned. “Oh, she’s just moral support.”

  “Hey!”

  Extract from 'A Dullard's Guide to Etiquette: Combat'.

  "Throughout our fine society, there are many people who want to hurt each other. Now this sounds bad, but in truth it has spawned a number of different cultures which are fascinating to those capable of appreciating them.

  Take the fighting rings of Cheron, the City of Blades. Running alongside the official nation wide duelling events, Cheron hosts a series of brutal fights at the very same time. Unlike the officially sanctioned duels, which end upon serious injury and typically only last a few minutes at most per duel, Cheron not only fights to the death but also permits magic of almost any kind, just so long as it doesn't affect the audience.

  This has spawned a culture of violence that spreads throughout the city during duelling season, yet there is very little violent crime in Cheron. After all, the events are so popular and pay so well that anyone with even remotely violent urges just fights in the ring instead. It's a fascinating subversion of official duelling culture, which has been known to cause at least one vengeful assassination attempt per year on the higher ranked contestants.

  Of course, just because it is a fight to the death with few rules doesn't mean there is no etiquette. However, this etiquette is based less on fairness and more on entertainment value. Any magics that affect the mind are frowned upon by the audience for trivialising the combat, leading to many being banned entirely from the tournament. The same goes for magic or tools that obscure the fight from the audience.

  On the other side of the popularity spectrum are those who are capable of overcoming their challenges through pure physicality. This is almost always rewarded by the crowd with fame, although more than one star has winked out after becoming repetitive.

  This contrasts the highly sanitised culture that surrounds the official duelling tournament that the Cheron events mirror. Official duelling etiquette prioritises fairness over entertainment. Due to several past incidents where contestants with considerable social influence pressured the tournament adjudicators into bias, scoring must take place anonymously via divination spells. Simultaneously, every match is vetting to avoid any magic that can effect the opponent, any substance abuse and any form of sabotage.

  However, many say that the official duels prioritise vanity over entertainment, taking place exclusively in major population centres and having weathered multiple accusations of allegedly staging matches. This markedly different social environment is ruled primarily by form over function, creating a dichotomy between two events that happen at the same time."

  Extract End