As soon as I gave the sign, Nimma and Jugan exploded into motion, rushing at each other with weapons drawn. Nimma was wielding a shortsword and a shield while Jugan was carrying a flail with him. They clashed mere moments after the fight began, Nimma trying her best to defend herself from the flail with her shield while looking for an opening to strike. Jugan was swinging his weapon around at lightning speed and Nimma had trouble keeping up.

Jugan activated a skill, causing his weapon to glow red, the impact on Nimma’s shield sending out a massive shockwave and almost knocking Nimma off her feet. Trying to capitalize on the opening, Jugan followed it up with another swing of his weapon, aiming straight for Nimma’s head. He seemed sure of himself, but then her sword flashed upwards at a speed that I almost couldn’t follow, leaving behind a glowing afterimage in its wake, as well as spraying some of Jugan's blood where he got hit.

Asphon blood was green, apparently.

The rest of their squads weren’t just standing around either while their leaders clashed. On Nimma’s side, one of the Asphons disappeared from view while holding two daggers. One moment he was there, and the next there was no trace of him. Must be some sort of assassin. Another one, I think his name was Andrius, jumped back to create more distance for himself, a wooden staff in his hand that emitted a magical glow. I could see a spell matrix forming, although his casting speed felt painfully slow to me. The last one of Nimma’s team stood close to the mage, a giant bow in his hands, pulling back an equally big arrow.

The arrow started glowing blue before he aimed at the sky and let loose. I followed the glowing projectile with my eyes as it passed over the fighting pair in the center of the groups, reached its apex, and suddenly split apart into hundreds of arrows raining down on the opposition. A golden dome appeared above the other squad defending them from the hail of arrows, the caster being an Asphon that had decked himself out in armor. He was wielding two shields, one in each hand, and both of them had the same golden glow as the dome above them.

Jugan’s team also had a mage that was constructing a spell matrix, the two casters competing to see who would complete their spell first. The last member of Jugan’s team was the only one that hadn’t pulled out any equipment. She let out a high-pitched scream, her body being engulfed in an ominous red glow before her claws grew to three times their normal size. She dashed toward the mage and archer with a crazy speed, intending to rip the two apart with her bare hands, but she suddenly stumbled and faceplanted.

The dude who vanished earlier appeared again, apparently having tripped the charging warrior. He was stabbing at the prone Asphon, but she continued the evade with movements that didn’t look possible with her physique. Soon after, her claws flashed out and the two got locked into one-on-one combat, metallic clangs ringing out every time dagger and claws met. I looked back toward the two mages, attempting to figure out what they were casting by looking at their forming spells. Sadly, I was too far away to properly make out the individual runes, meaning the only thing I could do was wait and see.

I was reminded of the ability to cancel my opponent's spells that I’d eventually earn once I progressed further in my skill tree. I should probably look into enhancing my eyes so that I could properly see the runes even if I was far away. Otherwise, my attempts at using this ability would fail unless I stood right in front of my opponent. Snapping out of my momentary distraction I refocused on the fight. The mages had completed their spells at the same time, their matrix flashing once before their spells were unleashed.

From Nimma’s side, the mage produced two massive pillars of water that he controlled, snaking toward the enemy mage and the tank still defending against the constant onslaught of the archer. Jugan’s mage on the other hand had cast a spell that sent long spikes of compacted stone sailing toward each of the enemy combatants. The assassin dodged the projectile effortlessly while Nimma somehow managed to shove Jugan into the projectile's path. The archer barely managed to snipe the oncoming projectile, causing it to split apart into hundreds of smaller rocks that pelted him, while the mage stood there dumbfounded as he was too busy concentrating on his own spell.

The spike hit him dead center, causing him to fly backward, the pillars of water collapsing as he lost control. The tank could finally breathe after struggling to defend against both the archer and the water spell, clanging his shields together before running into the fray. He left behind their mage that was already busy casting another spell. This one completed a lot faster than the previous one, and the mage began to pelt Nimma’s group with simple rock projectiles. The berserking Asphon that was locked in combat with the assassin suddenly let out an unearthly screech that caused everybody to freeze in their place for a second.

Everyone except her own teammates, that is. It would appear that her scream only affected enemies, or they had taken countermeasures against their friend's ability. I too felt myself freeze up momentarily, but as soon as the feeling came it went away. If I had to guess, this was most likely some sort of mental attack, against which I had defenses in place. It wasn’t looking too good for Nimma’s group as they were getting overwhelmed. Their mage was frozen while he was trying to stand up after being hit by the rock spike, while the rest of the team couldn’t move, which the other team capitalized on.

Something flashed high above and I looked to see what it was. It looked like one of the archer's arrows, emitting a blue glow that grew more intense as it continued to fall. It accelerated to a crazy speed, eventually slamming into the ground, causing an earthquake. I hardly had any problems with this, since I was essentially lying on the ground due to my slug anatomy. For everyone else, it wasn’t that easy. They were bipedal and the shaking ground was messing with their balance, causing all of their attacks to miss their targets. The mage even fell over from the violent shakes.

The attack had bought Nimma’s team enough time to recover from the mental attack and soon enough the scuffle was in full swing again. The armored Asphon clanged his shield together again, but this time it seemed to be a skill, unlike when he did it before. Nimma’s team almost immediately focused their attention on him and I was caught by the effect as well. For a second I almost intervened in the fight by casting a spell before my mind protection once again stepped in. The skill had provoked everybody to target him and a whole bunch of attacks started pouring toward the guy that he expertly defended against.

The others used the opening created by their friend to deal some substantial damage to Nimma’s team. It seemed like Jugan’s team was pretty well-tuned, their skills supporting each other to create openings that the others could exploit. Maybe Jugans bragging wasn’t entirely unfounded, as they more or less dominated the battlefield. Nimma’s team wasn’t about to give up, though, and they started their counterattack soon enough. Everybody except the mages was now gathered in the center, spread around the tank. It was pure chaos as skills were exchanged between six people on a tiny battlefield, all the while being bombarded by the mages from the side.

At this point, tactics went out the window and the fight devolved into a free for all.

I almost didn’t notice, but in all the chaos the assassin vanished once more, shortly after reappearing behind the enemy mage, impaling him on his twin daggers. A frustrated shout of pain could be heard from his victim, followed by him lifting his arms into the air and shouting “OUT!”. The assassin vanished once more, while the mage sat down and continued watching the fight without intervening, clearly annoyed.

The pressure was back on for Jugan’s team, especially since the mage on Nimma’s team could now concentrate on casting another big spell without being disturbed. The first to realize this was surprisingly the berserker, rushing at the mage mid-cast. The archer, who had somehow also ended up in the melee, turned to fire three arrows in rapid succession. The first two were deftly dodged by the berserker, but the third one slammed into the ground before her, exploding shortly after and sending her flying back toward the scuffle where Nimma managed to get a clean hit on her.

Having turned his back, the archer was quickly eliminated from the fight by Jugan. His flail came from seemingly nowhere, scoring a nasty hit against the archer's head. Nimma tried to get revenge for her fallen teammate, which left her open for a devastating shield bash from the armored Asphon, causing her to get eliminated as well. At this point, it was Jugan and the tank versus Nimma’s mage and the assassin, the latter of which was still invisible somewhere.

Having only one viable target, both of them rushed at the mage, hoping to stop him from casting his spell that was almost finished. Taking advantage of their tunnel vision, the assassin once again appeared from thin air, this time stabbing Jugan several times. He seemed to have expected that he would be the target and somehow managed to swing his flail in such a way that it managed to hit the assassin at the same time, both of them shouting “OUT!” at almost the same time. Meanwhile, the tank uncaringly continued his charge at the mage, knowing that if he could reach the caster before he completed his spell, he would have the advantage and win easily.

Unfortunately for him, the mage was faster. The spell matrix flashed and the mage slammed his staff into the ground, causing a massive wave of water to burst forth and sweep away the tank. After a moment, the water formed a whirlpool with the tank at the center, slowly forming into a big ball that completely encased the poor guy. The ball of water hovered in the air and the tank within struggled hard against the spell, using skills in an attempt to destroy his watery prison, flailing around wildly. Eventually, he seemed to realize that he had no way out and calmly raised both of his hands, giving up.

The spell dissipated immediately, drenching everyone close to it with water as the surroundings were flooded. The teams gathered themselves pulling what looked like health potions out of their inventory before approaching me again, lining up in their respective teams once they were about two meters away.

“You might have squeezed out a victory, but we clearly had the better teamwork. I’m sure the traveler was able to see that we’re still better than you guys.” Jugan declared loudly, clearly pissed at losing.

“Yeah, yeah, keep talking. Just be happy that Gary changed the deal, or you would have already lost any chance at associating with him.” Nimma rebuked. “I’m sure he realizes how shallow your fighting style is.”

“Tssk, how dare you call our fighting shallow? You wanna go again, huh?” Jugan had clearly lost his cool. “We’ll wipe the floor with you guys in the second round.”

“I don’t think a second round will be necessary,” I intervened before things got out of hand.

The attention of everybody snapped to me, awaiting my judgment. As far as the fight went, both sides had shown me many new skills and spells that I’d never seen before. It was interesting to observe a fight between conscious people, as opposed to mindless monsters, and I felt like I had learned a lot just from watching. Jugan’s team indeed seemed to have a lot more cohesion between them, while Nimma’s team's abilities naturally complimented each other. Regardless of their combat abilities, I was getting some bad vibes from Jugan and just plain didn’t like the dude.

Nimma had been very nice from the start, and if her words were to be believed, the leader of Jugan’s settlement was a bit of an asshole as well. Of course, this could all be an act, but I felt inclined to follow Nimma for now. I needed to put forth some trust here if I wanted to get any quests, and I might as well follow my gut on this one. If worst came to worst, I should probably be able to fight my way out.

“I’ll go with Nimma,” I spoke, leaving no room for argument.

Jugan looked like he wanted to start complaining but seemingly remembered that he was honor-bound by their odd rules. He threw up his hands in annoyance and commanded his troupe to retreat, of course, not without spewing some more insults as he did so.

“Thank you for choosing us,” Nimma said, doing a little bow toward me which was mirrored by the rest of her team. “Now, if you would follow us, I’d like to show you our city. I can answer any of your questions as we walk if you’d like.”

“I would like that a lot, thanks,” I replied while hopping over to the group, using a tentacle to motion for them to lead the way. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have a lot of them.”

“Of course, not,” Nimma laughed. “Feel free to ask anything.”