Despite its sparse reputation and assumed existence in the criminal sphere, the City of Passage was like anything else to most new stagnante: a big question mark in a face of "barrenhood". Forming communities and tribes like the City of Passage was hard enough as-is, yet the Claw Tribe did so near the very shores that new recruits arrived in. Most of its residents were comprised of the criminals who made it off the beach but couldn't cut it deeper inside the Land of Stagnation, inevitably falling under one of the lower-ranking but populous tribes.

And beneath the Claw Tribe, stagnante were separated by castes: slaves, loners, and Claw Tribe.

To their name, the simplest were the slaves; along the outskirts as Ronin entered the City of Passage, they comprised the overwhelming majority of those dwelling in piles of rubble and ruin. Although not specifically owned by any one member of the City, every slave had committed an offense against the Claw Tribe's sole law and bonded for life. They scrounged and grew little amounts of food under the eye of slingers and guards patrolling the paths, all waiting for work of any variety to be offered in exchange for food or drink. None of them owned anything as any loner or tribe member would take it the moment they found out.

The deeper he pressed, however, he entered the space newcomers and long-time residents of the City all occupied inevitably during their stay: Tent Town.

Tent Town made up the overwhelming majority of the City of Passage and lived up to its name: over half of the housing was made of hung pelts, stitched-together scraps of cloth, and even barriers of homes fashioned into lean-tos. Most of the smaller tents belonged to loners like Ronin who simply took or borrowed it from the most-recently dead stagnante, but the larger tents and few standing buildings housed the "wealthy" and elite Loners who turned their trade her. Anyone walking the streets could see harems tending to hulking thugs, business between scoundrels, and even the occasional tamed beast disciplining an unruly slave.

But all of the loners paled in comparison to the Claw Tribe's members. Even their lowest ranked had reconstructed stone hovels. They had clothes and posted orders depicting the current news arriving at the City of Passage. More importantly, they had the true businesses in the town. Like the bar ahead of Ronin, luring in desperate dogs like him with the scent of cooked meats.

Ronin barged through the rotating doorway, the sullen glare affixed to his face staying focused ahead despite one of the regulars cursing him for nearly busting his face open with the opening swing. Smell had led him here but now it was the bright lights of candles and fat-oiled lanterns overloading his vision. Ronin teetered through the blinding view directly against a wooden counter, feeling all the energy remaining him sapped from the minor collision and collapsing down to his knees.

He couldn't see them but an older woman's voice immediately follows an exasperated sigh.

"Another straggler!? Fucking slaves and vagabonds! Get him out, Toe!"

A grunt answered her and a heavy hand plants on Ronin's shoulder. He squints and turns his head, grabbing the hilt of his sword and pulling his weapon before he even saw the outline of the giant towering over him.

Toe's name was apt; the meathead had a neck so thick he might as well have been a foot and its big toe. Humans rarely picked up a physique like his, but the few who did certainly didn't fail to carry that size well, especially maintaining it inside the Land of Stagnation. Toe most likely hunted or provided enough power that locals kept him fed.

But in the moment Ronin's blade flashed, the goliath rapidly fell away from him. Ronin depended on the bar for support, but even hunched over with his sword on the last legs of his life he could intimidate someone like this. Londelia raised swordsmen of legend and the ones who organized it had to be just as vicious. His red eyes may have been dark before thanks to his curse, but now they caught every speck of light in the large room with a rubied glow. Words didn't come but his threat was conveyed well enough to earn silence, quickly turning his attention back to the voice as his eyes finished adjusting.

The woman who had ordered the big slab of meat to toss him out was older than him but still well within the last vestiges of youth: a dusker. Her ears had small points akin to an elf, but her black-backed golden eyes were the tell-tale sign of those cursed by Faceless Red centuries ago for betraying her commandment of monsters not taking human partners. Although she was leaner in the waist like most of the Land's residents, her shoulder-length low-set ponytail of blonde hair was clean.

She was upper class in a place like this... or well-connected enough that no one got in her way if she wanted a simple luxury.

"Food," Ronin husked. The word carried enough weight that it was almost to heavy for him to bear, feeling his sword slip for a moment.

Her gaze caught it, quickly pulling free a knife and setting its tip near his right eye before his grip reset.

"Food for some nameless stagnante?" Her voice's depth betrayed her older ended age more than the smallest lines beneath her eyes, yet it made her words aptly cold. "And what do I get? Another pencil dick nobody who'll be dead in a week?"

A few chuckles broke out and Toe seemed to relax, but Ronin wasn't looking at him anymore to see it. Instead, he kept focused on the woman within an inch of killing him.

"Ronin... Londer."

Those chuckles buried his name to the others, but not her; the dusker woman's lips curled into a twisted smile at hearing his last name, growing by the moment. It was borderline horrifying just how elated that made her.

"The ones who hunted my kind," she reminisces, taking a long and slow breath. "You mean the Londer family that's dead now because one of their worm seeded purebloods slaughtered the only other heir?"

It's my fault.

Ronin fought his addled mind for control, fearing what losing himself in his thoughts may do right now.

"Cutt...er. Is me."

The dusker's blade finally lowers, laughing with the crowd for her own sadistic reasons rather than merely at someone invading their space. Toe bellows along with her, too, in spite of the exhausted man in front of him suffering. All of them had no doubt seen plenty of liars and con artists in the City of Passage so it was no surprise they didn't believe him. Even if the reputation of his family preceded him, using magic to disguise yourself as someone else was more than possible even with the barriers in-place against greater magics.

The only thing they couldn't replicate, however, was something Ronin knew he could show them. It was the sole piece of information that could prove his identity.

"Food. For. Kill."

His words stopped all the laughs, bringing even the woman's attention back on him with a dead seriousness to her borderline madness. She lets go of the knife and leans down, smiling one of the cleanest grins there likely would ever be inside the Land of Stagnation.

"Oh, now that's the right idea. So assuming you're that Londer dog... let's make a pact."

Toe moves quicker than Ronin expects, quickly pinning him facedown against the counter and clasping those massive hands around his sword hand to stop any possible attacks. Ronin knows better than to fight, however, and keeps eye-contact with the woman despite his pinned posture bringing him pain.

"Magic. Contract." His words growing softer don't stop him from gritting through it and firing off his own grin. "Blood. Sign."

It's only now that the woman hesitates, flinching so visibly that most of the customers watching gasp or whisper. She quickly scowls and gestures to Toe, getting the large man to set Ronin's free hand on the counter.

"Deal," she hisses, turning her knife over and driving it right down through his hand.

Three emptied plates and many emptied mugs littered the small booth near the front right corner of the room. Toe kept an eye on the customers and formed a natural barrier to keep anyone from entering it, but it was the two inside who were truly the focus of everyone else.

Ronin had to get multiple meals because his unfettered hunger had made him lose himself once or twice in consumption madness making him physically ill. But now that he had been able to keep most of one plate down, his attention was on the contract she had made him drench in blood.

So she was part of the Claw Tribe... and she wants me to kill this person named-

"Hazard," she reiterates almost too-perfectly in-line with his reading. "As I mentioned him before and you didn't react, it's obvious you didn't even do much research about the Land of Stagnation before you turned into a Cutter, right?"

The lone stagnante shakes his head without looking up from the contract. "I had no reason to. I didn't earn my title because I wanted it like most or all of you."

The dusker quickly leans back into her booth's cushion, accenting her modest chest thanks to her corseted dress.

"You'll address me like everyone else, newbie: I'm Gleam."

Gleam's name wasn't unheard of for a dusker but it did at least explain a lot. It was one of the names of survivors that had been marked from the duskers' extermination order posted by his grandfather and maintained to this day under the rule of his father in Londelia. It was one of the few atrocities his people had carried out and even now was something none of them apologized for.

"You're twice my age but just as immature," he replies, ignoring the immediate venomous glare from her to eat another mouthful of bread. This time, thankfully, he keeps it down and sets the contract down a moment later. "Trying to make me feel bad because of what my grandfather and father did won't work: I never met a dusker, much less had any reason to think of you. As far as I care, Gleam, you're just like any other person I've ever met."

The two stared one another down in their hateful manners, but it was quick to end when Ronin shifted his attention back to the food.

"I am a man of my word: if you want Hazard dead, I don't care who or what he did. I'll kill him in exchange for your hospitality. Seldom anyone from this land has a past that isn't sinful, so I'd bet he did something to earn that name. Just tell me where and when, then I-"

Gleam slides her hand forward and grabs the edge of his plate, making Ronin quickly grasp it in return. The instinct to keep eating to survive had already burned its way back into the swordsman, making it easy for her to get his attention.

But despite how he talked down toward her for seemingly trying to bludgeon him with her past, Ronin now held his tongue at just how serious the woman's features looked. Her eyes burned holes through his with how intense the staring alone was, quickly releasing the plate with but a final chuckle.

"Yeah, Londer, I get it. You keep your word, though, and I might just end up fucking you I'd be so happy. So eat and then rest. You're going to either kill him or he'll kill you. Either way I win, especially if you're some liar dirt bag just trying to use that name: if you're real, I'll be the first one to have made you a deal."

She lets him sit in silence before Ronin starts eating again, giggling and looking over at the door leading into her place.

"Of course, this is probably another mistake in a long line of failed hits on him. We'll just have to see, won't we?"