Sepeti scoffed as an irritated itch crawled up the back of his neck. He slapped himself and spat irritably. Sand adhered to the wad before it was quickly absorbed by the parched land.

“You brought me out here for this?” The irritation made his usually placid face twitch. His jaw ached as he ground his teeth.

“You don’t know what that is, do ya?” Gran rubbed his bald head with a gnarled hand. He either didn’t notice Sepeti’s tone or he just didn’t care. Whichever it was, it annoyed Sepeti even more.

Sweat dribbled down his back and face. The hot wind whipped his loose clothes about but did little to cool his mood or his body. He was down right cantankerous. Irascible. All the words that could convey just how annoyed he currently was.

“It’s a fuckin’ flask,” Sepeti spat. “‘Course I know what it is.”

Gran tutted as he began to walk toward the group of people. He said over his shoulder “That’s as valuable as gold out here, son. Plus, it’s trouble.”

Sepeti clenched his fists as he fought the urge to swing on the giant. He struggled against the irrational anger that stemmed from something completely unrelated. It was getting harder and harder to control his emotions. Sure, he was juggling deeply rooted grudges against faceless deities but who wouldn’t if they were in his shoes? This emotional instability had to be attributed to the host body. It just had to be. There was no way he was this unstable, mentally or emotionally. No way.

He took a couple deep breaths, flexed his clenched fists, then began to skid after Gran. The giant held out a hand to stop him.

“Stay there, boy. The Elefani aren’t the most welcoming to people they don’t know. They’re barely welcoming to people they do know.”

A piercing whistle shook the air. It ululated and made Sepeti’s head spin. He covered his ears as his empty eye socket ached under the leather eyepatch the healers had gifted him. The sound lasted for a few seconds but it felt much longer before it died off. An answering whistle immediately filled the dead air, this one much deeper and sonorous.

Sepeti watched as the giant, with his long, lumbering strides, raised his hand and made an odd sign at the group as he neared them. The hot wind carried the voices, one seeming to belong to the leader and the other to Gran. Or maybe it was some magical effect amplifying the voices. Not that it mattered to him, he couldn’t understand a lick of what was being said.

Lowering himself onto his haunches, Sepeti squatted. Or rather, he tried to but the threat of the shooting pain forced him to stand up straight. He felt much more limber than before but, what felt like, some sort of mental block kept his body from fully committing to certain actions. He knew that nothing physically was wrong as he’d been given a full rundown on the healing services the Congregation had provided. But something in his head kept him from doing certain things, like squatting or walking without a limp or exercising his full range of motion. Whatever it was, he probably wouldn’t figure it out at the moment. It currently served as a minor point of annoyance but there was the chance it would hold him back if he found himself in a physically demanding situation.

Sharp metal scraped against his throat as his wrist was caught in a vice grip. Before he could react, his arm was bent backward. Pain shot up his shoulder as his assailant yanked his wrist up by his near shoulder blade. Hot breath tickled his ear as a quiet voice spoke heavily accented Common.

“Outsider’s ain’t welcome around here.”

A trickle of hot blood rolled down Sepeti’s throat as the knife, pressed hard against his windpipe, broke skin. The urge to resist made his body twitch but experience told him to remain calm. Immediately reacting could make things worse. He needed to bide his time.

“What ya doin’ here, Outtie?”

His wrist ached, beating right along to the rapid thumps of his heart. It felt like his assailant's iron grip was going to squeeze his hand right off his arm.

“I came with Gran,” he croaked, adam’s apple bobbing and pushing against the knife. He carefully moved his free arm so he could point in the direction of the giant, unable to see due to his head being tilted backward.

His captor grunted and dug the knife harder into his throat, edge biting deeper. Pain spiked as one of his skills passively activated, sharpening his senses while desensitizing him to the pain.

“That don’t help you at all, Outtie.”

The pressure on his throat let up for a moment. Just a singular moment that seemed to stretch out into infinity as he activated |Time Dilation|. His mind worked overtime as his body began to react to precise instructions born from years and years of experience.

Sepeti slipped his free hand under his assailants knife hand, locked the wrist in his own grip, twisted the sharpened edge up and away from his throat, tucked his chin around the blade while dropping his center of gravity, and began rolling forward as he thrust his hips back into the faceless assailants groin.

The pain in his captive wrist and shoulder doubled for a moment before the attackers grip loosened as they were caught by surprise. They let out a yelp as Sepeti slipped one foot between theirs, tied his ankle around theirs, and began to fall head first toward the sand.

Just like how it had been drilled into him, Sepeti lifted his leg that had split the attackers legs and pulled with the hand that held the attackers knife hand. Somehow, very awkwardly, he was able to break free and perform a half-assed throw that swept both him and his assailant off their feet. Before he hit the ground, he was able to swing his good eye around and catch a glimpse of his own shadow. He hadn’t had time to test it before but he felt he had little choice now.

He activated |Shadow Step| and chose his own shadow. His consciousness was pulled back into the murky shadow realm for a split second before he hit something that felt like a wall. Then something spat him out and he was back on his feet right where he’d been standing. His attacker, a squat man swaddled in loose flowing clothes, fell through where he had been and was now underfoot. The man skidded forward, kicking up dust and debris as they sprawled out on the sand.

Sepeti wasn’t sure what the hell had happened. All he knew was they had basically switched places. He quickly fell on the man’s exposed back and began choking him out, arm snaking around what he thought was their throat in a smooth motion. The adrenaline pumped in his ears as he saw red. Cold anger, the need to survive, coursed through his veins as he tightened his chokehold, wrapping his legs around the man’s waist and trapping him.

The assailant flailed and fought, scratching at Sepeti’s forearm in a vain attempt to loosen his desperate grip. They gurgled as he continued to flex his arm, pushing the flimsy host body’s muscles to their limit.

Sepeti hissed through his teeth as he yanked the arm wrapped around the man’s throat as hard as he could, increasing the deadly torsion bit by bit. He did the same with his legs, squeezing with his thighs as he continued to flatten the attacker out.

Seconds that felt like hours passed as the pair struggled. Sepeti was so focused on defeating his attacker that he didn’t notice the hurried feet approaching them.

“Let ‘em go, son,” Gran rumbled as he ran up and easily disentangled Sepeti from the nearly lifeless body of his assailant. “Let ‘em go! Easy, easy! Come on, let ‘em go.”

The giant lifted Sepeti up off the ground with one hand and pulled him away from his foe. The group they’d come to meet circled the immobile man and began checking on him. Gran set Sepeti down, much like how a parent would set aside a child after deescalating a sibling row, some feet away from the gathered group. He used his large body as a barrier, cutting off Sepeti’s line of sight.

Sepeti wasn’t mad. He didn’t kick and flail. The tension quickly flowed out of his body, leaving him shaky and tired but ready to go again if need be. His body was amped up but his mind was cool, calm, and collected.

“Easy, boy. Take some deep breaths.” Gran squatted before him, still able to shield the group from Sepeti’s gaze, and pantomimed the act of deep breathing. “Yer fine now. Let me check on that.”

Sepeti was already focusing on controlling his breathing before he’d been instructed. Had he been mentally riled up he would have snapped at the amiable giant. But that wasn’t the case, obviously. The body was amped up, not his mind. He wanted to point this out to Gran but decided against it.

“I’m fine,” Sepeti said between gasps. His heart was still thumping away, filling his ears with its accelerated beating. “I’m fine.”

He mopped the sweat from his brow, blowing beads off his upper lip as his breath rushed out. Blood flowed down his throat and drenched his shirt, mixing with his sweat and plastering the loose fabric to his chest. Sepeti lamented the fact that he hadn’t picked up any healing magic from his time spent with the healers as he used his hand to staunch the flow. He considered going back to them and putting up with their idiosyncrasies so he could leech some of their skills and magic. Only for a moment.

“Lemme take a look, sonny,” Gran said, reaching out and gingerly lifting his hand off of the wound. The giant’s brows creased as he murmured incomprehensible words. Sepeti felt a large finger drag across his throat before a dark warmth spread through him. His vision tightened as his pupils shrunk.

Whatever language the giant was speaking was beyond Sepeti’s current understanding. It was guttural and arcane. He could feel the words in his chest. While understanding of the individual words eluded him, a primal comprehension tickled his mind. He felt like he wasn’t supposed to hear these words. At least, not in his current state.

“We’ll get ya another shirt before we go back to the city,” Gran said as his chanting ended. “Can’t have ya going in covered in blood. Ya good to stand?”

The giant held out a hand. Sepeti took it and was pulled to his feet. He covered his throat as he rocked back and forth on his feet, blood rushing to his head. He found himself face to face with wary eyes and drawn blades. Gran was speaking to them in their odd language, palms held out in supplicance. The one who attacked him was still sitting on the ground, head in his hands as his shoulders rose and fell.

The leader of the group stepped forward, leather flask swinging on their hip as they slid their blade into a holster concealed within the folds of their gray clothes. They pointed at Sepeti and said something in a rapid burst. Then they pulled their face covering off and flung it on the ground.

Sepeti frowned as he studied the leader’s face. She was strikingly handsome in a rough and tumble way. Something in the host body stirred but he tamped it down. This most definitely wasn’t the time for such adolescent emotion. How his body found time to be aroused when he’d just been fighting for his life, he didn’t know.

“Young Delijia challenges you to a duel.” Gran worked his jaw and tugged on his beard. “The Elefani have a strict custom, ya see. If one of their own is assaulted then the leader of their gathering has to challenge the aggressor to a duel.”

Sepeti wasn’t surprised at the declaration. He’d inferred as much with the angry head wrap throwing and all. What surprised, and annoyed, him was them branding him the aggressor.

“How am I the aggressor? He attacked me.” Sepeti was still rubbing his throat.

“That’s not what Guilin says,” Gran lowered his voice. “The one ya were choking claims he came to greet ya and ya attacked him. Ya don’t have to accept the duel. Just decline and we’ll retreat.”

Sepeti massaged the still sore spot where the knife had dug into his skin as anger flared in his gut. This wasn’t the body’s anger. This was cold and calculated and annoyed. Ever since arriving on this planet all he’d done was get beat on and he was sick of it. Maybe this was the perfect opportunity for him to release some pent up aggression while also seeing about forcing some close combat skills.

“I’ll fight ‘em,” he said, voice a cold hush. The sound of the ethereal tumblers unlocking filled his head.

“Ya sure now? Ya don’t have to. I can get us both outta here, no problem. Again, ya don’t have to accept the duel.” Gran twisted his beard nervously, beady black eyes locked on to the Elefani. Sepeti couldn’t tell what the giant was thinking but he could feel the nervous air surrounding the man. What was it about these mysterious people that made him uneasy?

“Just tell them I’ll fight. When I win, I get to kill that lying little shit.”

Gran turned and looked at him. The large man frowned, heavy brows furrowing deeply and making his eyes disappear. Sepeti couldn’t tell but the giant's mouth was working under his thick mustache, lips squirming as if he were fighting the urge to protest.

“Son, that’s not smart,” Gran said through clenched teeth. “These folks live a hard life. They earn everything through spilling their blood, sweat, and tears. I don’t think you have what it takes to take one of them on, least of all their leader. Please, just drop I—“

Sepeti stepped around Gran, pulled the headwrap Mo-Ka’ilo had given him out of his inventory, and flung it at the woman’s feet. He pointed at the cloth, finger stiff with anger as he stared her down with his one good eye.

“I accept,” he yelled at her and the rest of her group. “I know you folks understand Common. I’ll fight you. And when I win, I’m gonna kill that lying little bitch.”

Sepeti pointed right at his assailant and gave him the coldest look he could manage with one eye. The slimy bastard avoided his gaze, still rubbing his neck and mumbling under his breath.

“Son,” Gran said as he laid a hand on Sepeti’s shoulder. “This really ain’t smart at all. Reconsider, please.”

Sepeti shrugged the giant off and jutted a chin at the woman. He knew she understood. If the shithead who attacked him could speak it then they all could.

“You should listen to the big one,” the woman drawled, accent thick and syrupy. “At the least, you’ll get hurt. At the most, you lose your life.”

“Then why accuse me and challenge me if you don’t expect me to accept?”

“Principle.” She glanced scornfully at his head wrap at her feet. “You Outsiders wouldn’t understand.”

Sepeti squinted and scanned the woman.

Character Screen

Name:

Delijia

Level:

12

Class:

Nomad Leader

Title:

As usual, the screen told him little. He still wasn’t sure how much stock he could put into them. He had enough trouble trusting sapient beings, he couldn’t possibly bring himself to trust a system made by deities he hated. Her level wasn’t much higher than his as far as the screen was concerned. But he still wasn’t sure how much weight levels held in this world.

There was only one thing he was absolutely sure of. She couldn’t possibly have more combat experience than he did. His current body was soft and effete compared to hers but he knew much, much more. He had to. It was the only thing he had going for him other than his ability to learn and assimilate skills and magic. He wasn’t going to fall into the trap of being overconfident but he was sure he could hold his own. Maybe more than that.

The only thing he had yet to account for was fighting with one eye. He was slowly getting used to the change in his depth perception for everyday navigation. Now he just needed to accelerate that and apply it to a fighting scenario. Taking a few hits was bound to happen, so why not do so now and get it out of the way?

“I still accept,” Sepeti said after an uncomfortable silence. “Only if you agree to my terms.”

Gran let out an exasperated breath but Sepeti ignored him. The anthropologist was already getting on his nerves and he was only making things worse.

The woman gave him another hard stare before swooping her face wrap up with a smooth motion and turning on her heels. “Follow me.”

Sepeti bounced on his haunches, phantom pain nowhere to be found. The woman had led them to a pit not far from where he’d been attacked. It was circular, large enough to fit five or six grown men standing shoulder to shoulder, and sunken into the ground. The floor of the pit was hard packed clay, smoothed over after years of use.

He could tell this place saw much use. Whatever these strange people might be, they were definitely ready for action. Whether they were training to fight monsters or other humanoids, he wasn’t sure. But they weren’t soft and defenseless like most of the Extuano he’d observed.

The woman had told him to stay put and wait for her. Gran grumbled under his breath all the while, going on about the progress in his studies coming to a grinding halt and whatnot due to Sepeti accepting the duel. The old giant hadn’t spoken a coherent word to him since he and the leader had come to an agreement to fight.

Sepeti ignored the large man’s mumbles. He was thankful that the woman had given him time to prepare. This fight was going to hurt, most of all for him. His host body hadn’t seen much use before he was stuffed in it, let alone any rigorous combat use. He was going to have to outthink and outsmart the woman. He’d quietly sized her up, studying the way she walked and carried herself in an attempt to glean as much information as possible. It was neither useful nor useless. All he was able to get was that she was capable and could hold her own.

None of the other Elefani had spoken to him let alone acknowledged him. They stood at attention, various staves and staffs in hand as they stood around their liar comrade.

Sepeti stripped down to his bare essentials. If he was going to fight in a duel, he’d do so comfortably and in a state that benefited him. His bloodstained shirt lay in a heap at his feet as he slipped out of his sandals. The skidders had been damaged and tossed aside during his scuffle with the snake-tongued Elefani. He rolled his loose fitting pants up as far as they could go, tucking loose bits in until it looked like he was wearing a large diaper. It may have looked ridiculous but it gave him more range to move his legs.

The leader came padding back, also having changed into an outfit that would allow her to fight more comfortably. She wore a tight top that held everything in place and tight bottoms that also held everything where it was supposed to be. She looked lithe and dangerous and a little thread of doubt wheedled its way into Sepeti’s subconscious.

What if he lost? What if he wasn’t able to overcome the handicap that was the host body’s lack of physical training? What did Gran know about these people that he didn’t?

He shook the doubts away, shaking the nerves out of his limbs as he readied himself. It was irksome that his body wiggled much more than he was used to. He made a mental note to focus on physical fitness when he had some time off. He’d languished under the care of the Congregation and had managed to put on some weight. Embarrassment tickled the edge of his consciousness but he pushed it away. This wasn’t the time for juvenile misgivings.

The leader jumped down into the pit and motioned for Sepeti to join her. He saw no hint of judgment in her eyes and his guard rose a few more notches. He slid down opposite of her, slapping sand and grit off his body as he straightened himself out.

“There are few rules in The Pit. One, duels are to surrender or death. Two, weapons are agreed upon between the fighters. Three, interference is forbidden.”