Zel drew in deep breath as she ceased Engine Breathing, uttering into the knight captain’s ear with a long exhalation of Fog: “Good.”

Rising to her feet, she rolled her shoulders and basked in the divided mixture of cheers and jeers that poured down on her alongside a downpour of small-denomination coinage. Even now, she turned her attention to her opponent as he struggled to get up.

Another deep breath, this time spent to efficiently synthesize Fulgur and funnel it into the Broken Butcher to have it act as a particularly powerful magnet. A swirling mass of coppers flew towards the weapon, Zel looking down on the knight captain throughout. His chestplate shuddered in place, but it was too heavy to be moved.

She still had something to say, to break him down even more.

“A point of consolation, if you will: Once I and my companions leave, you will once again be the strongest man in Arches,” she remarked, feigning goodwill to twist the knife of his defeat. “But that won’t remain the case for long if you let yourself stagnate, relying only on raw power. Oh, and do avoid alcohol-based recovery elixirs, it’ll be like begging for total liver failure in your state.”

After shaking the hunk of coins off of her weapon into her Tablet’s storage vortex, not bothering to collect the non-magnetic coins that had been thrown into the pit. She then jumped out and returned to her companions, intentionally disregarding her opponent as the pit attendants helped him out of the pit. She took note of the spectators who seemed incensed about what had just transpired, burning their faces into memory just in case.

The party celebrated her victory for a short while so as to not appear suspicious, drinking and laughing together, but Zef and Jorfr both knew that the plan was to obtain the passphrase, leave the amphitheater as soon as possible, attend the auction, and then disappear altogether from Scarlet Silk Road. It was hard not to notice the amount of attention directed to their table, especially the amount of death glares from the self-same people who had jeered Zelsys in the pit. The concern was not to do with their own safety, but rather the covertness of the operation; What she’d just done would attract attention to begin with, an outright battle against the Dragon Knights would go too far for comfort.

“We’re leaving,” she said, rising from her seat. Zef and Jorfr followed suit, with Reiner taking a moment to catch up, while Victor seemed a bit confused, asking, “Huh? Why?”

“We have other business to attend to,” Zefaris explained as the four of them began walking off, tacitly pressuring Victor to follow them. To none of the trio’s surprise, they were being followed by one of the displeased faces from the crowd; and he was keeping up a little too well to just be an angry fan of the knight captain. After creating a short distance from the amphitheater, Zel whispered to Zef: “Think we can lose him in the illusion corridor?”

The blonde nodded, the twin pupils of her emerald-green eye already dilating as she prepared to lead Jorfr and the two youngsters through the illusion, as, unlike her or Zelsys, they didn’t have foreknowledge of it.

Jorfr intentionally fell behind a bit, acting to herd Reiner and Victor from behind by flatly telling them: “We are being followed. Confronting the pursuer would draw too much attention. We will lose him in this alleyway. Follow Zefaris or you will become lost.”

Though confused, the two obeyed without question.

Squinting and rubbing his temple as he walked through the illusion-warded alleyway, Victor stopped for a few moments once they were through, closing his eyes as he leaned against a wall.

“Something wrong?” Zefaris asked.

“No, just… Made my eyes ache a bit,” he excused, blinking a few times and shaking his head before looking up at her. “Was that an architectural illusion? Why’s Arches have one of those, and here of all places?”

“Don’t know,” the blonde shrugged.

The party used the tangle of back alleys to return to one of the more significant offshoots of Scarlet Silk Road’s main causeway, this one seemingly dedicated to peddlers of more often than not illegally imported clothing and jewelry. Once the three cultivators were certain they were no longer being trailed, Zel tasked Jorfr with getting the two youngsters back to their homes or some other safe, out of the way place, since he wouldn’t be able to get into the 2AM auction to begin with. While Reiner had taken the hint, leaving in Jorfr’s custody, Victor wasn’t at all eager to follow suit, stubbornly insisting that he had been to Scarlet Silk Road before, and that he wanted to spend some of the money Zel had given him while he was here. Short of tying him up somewhere out of the way, Zel couldn’t exactly think of a way to get rid of him for now. It seemed that, for all the good it had clearly done him, the young man’s newly-ignited sense of drive had also dulled his sense of danger.

It was a self-solving issue by her reckoning; he would inevitably get shocked into a more balanced state of mind the next time he found himself in a life-or-death situation. However, that solution wasn’t exactly in the cards right this moment; short of a convenient back alley mugger to offer up their life to help adjust Victor’s mental state, Zelsys couldn’t think of an easy way to adjust his attitude that wouldn’t risk alienating the youth before he could be set on a better path.

“You understand that there’s a very real chance Von Wickten might have a thug or even a Dragon Knight in disguise come after you because of your association with us, yes? The man tailing us might’ve very well seen your face,” Zefaris asked in an effort to indirectly coerce him into leaving, but it was obvious that he just wasn’t in a mental place for logical considerations of danger.

He began wandering around while Zel and Zef considered just dragging him out of here, but as Zel watched him, she saw him heading towards a tent of Kargarian design, the elaborately-decorated fabric being a cover for solid internal walls. It was… Conspicuously familiar, so she decided to head closer to get a look inside. Just as a familiar counter came into view, Victor’s eyes magnetized towards a particular garment hanging amidst the discordant gallery of one-of-a-kind pieces behind the counter.

Despite the fact she couldn’t see the proprietor anywhere, the blackstone sewing machine at the back was unmistakable: It was the Needle Empress.

There was no doubt in her mind: This had to be the Craftsman’s tent.

“...Why’s he here?” Zel wondered aloud.

Furrowing her brow, Zef added: “Can’t be because of us, can it?”

“I want to believe it’s just a coincidence, but she doesn’t deal in coincidences…” Zel sighed as the two walked into the tent. She certainly appreciated what seemed a good way to simultaneously set up her would-be-protegé with something to wear that could withstand what she planned to put him through and bribe him into leaving Scarlet Silk Road, but… It was a little soured by the possibility that the Craftsman had been sent here by the Krishorn Matriarch to keep an eye on the three of them.

The old man was in the top-right corner of the tent, fiddling with one of the displays, not having paid any real attention to Victor. However, the moment Zel and Zef crossed the precipice, he perked up, glancing in their direction as he finished correcting the display and making his way behind the counter with a speed entirely unbefitting his elderly appearance.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Zel questioned, putting a hand on the counter. The Craftsman idly scanned her arm up and down, muttering to himself: “I’ll need to keep re-measuring the circumference if y’keep getting more muscular, just in case…”

She raised an eyebrow to him, “Did I stutter?”

“Whaddyamean… Ah, that!” he seemed to jump off of whatever secondary train of thought he’d boarded. “Are you joking? A bustling underworld in a town far away from the occupied shitholes, and one with a surviving cultivator-nobility at that! By Karga’s light, the duke has brought in nearly as much money during my stay here as I had made all winter. Now, let me take a look at you; you haven't mistreated my babies, have you?”

He leaned over the counter, putting a bespectacled eye to her pants, then looked up at her, squinting.

“You’ve been oiling them properly, yes?” he questioned with a feigned sense of accusation. “You know, the fact they mend themselves doesn’t mean they won’t degrade if you abuse them.”

Being absolutely certain that the old man was just screwing with her, she answered in kind: “Yes, yes, I got a bulk order of snake oil from that peddler that had set up right next to you, don’t you remember?”

Grinning at her in response, the Craftsman’s attention shifted to Victor, who was now just outright staring at a particular item. It was a ridiculous thing, mimicking a somewhat familiar style, but still recognizably Kargarian, reminding her of the tiny vests and translucent blouses she’d seen members of the great caravan wearing. A loose-sleeved, hooded shirt of sorts, only it wasn’t a shirt at all. It was just sleeves, a hood, a small portion that went halfway down the back, with only enough fabric in between to hold the getup together.

Indeed, it was a ridiculous thing, a garment obviously designed for one who wished to display their physique for all to see, perhaps to be layered with something else; it was the exact sort of thing Zelsys could see herself wearing. The price tag was well over three hundred gelt, and no wonder, given that the Craftsman only displayed one-of-a-kind customs behind the counter.

Despite holding resentment for the tasteless, overdetailed kitsch of high nobility, vanity was something Zelsys understood very well, and even as he was now, it was clear Victor cared deeply about his appearance. Though they were of the mass-produced variety his garments were tailored, and he had adorned himself with the same type of makeup as Kargarian nobility. It certainly helped that he was naturally very pretty to begin with - not handsome, like Jorfr or even the bookie in his own artificial way, but pretty.

She’d decided, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Alright, I see where this is going. How about this: I’ll foot the bill to get you dressed in something proper, not this mass-produced shit. In exchange you get the fuck out of dodge, lay low and train hard until I get back to you about that next mission.”

“Huh? Why do you think-” Victor began, intending to question why Zelsys was talking as if he meant to come along with them on their insane journey, but he stopped himself, realizing that she’d read him like a book before he had even figured out what he wanted next. Of course he wanted to come with them. Even something half as interesting as the pulps was preferable to eking out a living in Arches. He sighed, tacitly conceding the point.

Instead, he pointed to Zel’s thigh, specifically the bright red and yellow stripe running down it.

“What about something like your pants? I can’t see myself killing a snake that big, but…”

“I’ve never killed a snake, to be honest. This is scalebark from his stock,” she admitted, pointing a thumb to the Craftsman. She turned to him, asking: “So, how about it? Got any scalebark left?”

“Nope. I’ve some nice sturmgandr leather left that I could use for the inner lining, but no scalebark.”

“How about a deal, then: I’ve got the hide of a False Drake, so how about you make the kid something out of it and I let you keep what’s left over as payment? Pants, maybe?”

She turned to Victor.

“You’ll be the one wearing it, the choice is on you.”