Duskbound

"Good match," Giller said a minute later after they'd both recovered. "Told you that you should have lost that mask though."

Considering that he hadn't even seen the blow that had scored her the last point, it was hard to argue with that logic. On the other hand, her stunt of deliberately putting her head in the way to force him to pull a blow seemed like the kind of thing that would have gotten her disqualified in an official duel.

"Spectacular," Blendstin said. "And you continue to impress, Captain Giller."

She snorted. "Wasn't much of a fair fight. He's obviously not used to fighting people in duels or otherwise."

"The coliseum doesn't do those kinds of fights anymore," Jensen said.

"Probably for the best," Blendstin murmured. "But enough. I take it by the fact that you're not denouncing him that you're convinced of his identity?"

Giller looked Velik over for a moment, then shrugged. "He's a good fighter, probably a lot better when he's using a weapon he's familiar with. Whether he's your mystery gladiator, well, I don't have anything to compare him to."

"I can assure you—" Jensen started to say, only to subside when Blendstin waved him off.

"I'm convinced. It was a spectacular performance, and nobody beats the captain anyway. That's the whole reason I pay her so much."

Velik wasn't convinced that she'd win in a real fight, but then again, she undoubtedly had all sorts of tricks and abilities she hadn't revealed either. They were close in level, but she was two to three decades older than him. There was no reason to assume that didn't give her the advantage in skills merged, practical experience, and gear.

So why am I so damn annoyed that I lost?@@novelbin@@

"There is one thing though," Blendstin added, almost like it was an afterthought. "The skill you used on that monster last night…"

Velik caught Jensen's eye while the portly lordling hedged his way through his request. You owe me big time for this.

"It's going to break something. Whatever you want me to hit shouldn't be anything you want to keep."

"Bring out one of the darkstone targeting dummies," Giller snapped. Two of the trainees rushed into the storage shed, then returned carrying what looked like a statue made of black, polished marble. Giller directed them to set it in the middle of the sparring arena and said, "These are commonly used by mages to practice spells without causing undue amounts of property damage. From what I heard, you shouldn't be able to break one with a single attack."

That sounds like a challenge to me.

Determined to win back some scrap of his pride after losing the duel, Velik hefted the bent and twisted practice spear in one hand. "You won't be getting this back," he warned.

"Irrelevant. It's just a bar of scrap iron some apprentice [Blacksmith] hammered into shape."

Velik approached the statue and considered it for a moment. It was person-shaped, but with no details. If they'd told him that some beginning sculptor had started carving out the excess stone on a statue they planned to make, then never finished beyond the initial shaping, he'd have believed them. More interesting was the material itself. The trainees had made it look heavy, and judging by the fact that it had already sunk three inches into the dirt, he was guessing that wasn't an act.

Can it really absorb magic, though? It seems like it would be far more widespread if it could. There has to be some sort of limit to it.

In truth, that wasn't his problem, nor was he feeling particularly charitable. If they wanted to see a [Dread Lance], he'd blow this statue up and the ground it was planted in, too. Standing eight feet away, he activated the skill. Energy started at his hand and flowed down the length of the spear as little arcs of light that jumped and skipped across the metal to gather in the tip.

When he'd first made the skill from [Kinetic Charge] and [Phalanx], he'd struggled to control it. It had such a wide area of damage that he'd gotten caught in the blast several times. Since then, however, he'd advanced [Dread Lance] to rank 3, and that gave him far more precision.

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Velik thrust the spear forward until the dull tip tapped on the black stone chest of the statue. Penetration wasn't necessary, which was good, because he doubted he could put the training spear through regular stone, let alone the fancy super-heavy magic-absorbing variety.

[Dread Lance] exploded outward, disintegrating the front half of the spear and completely engulfing the statue. Various shouts of surprise came from the spectators behind him, which Velik ignored to focus entirely on the statue. Come on. Break. Break, damn you.

The light faded, revealing a cloud of black dust drifting around and a much smaller statue. Surprisingly, the general shape of it was intact somehow. He chalked that up to it being a magic stone that allowed it to survive, but it had shrunk by three feet and was proportionally thinner. It wasn't what Velik had been going for, but it was something.

"Gods save us," one of the trainees whispered. "That's over half the statue."

"It'll take months to regrow," another one said.

Giller said nothing, but Velik could feel her eyes boring into him. She hadn't been all that impressed by their duel, but the demonstration must have changed her mind. He tilted his head slightly and locked eyes with her for a moment, then turned his attention to Jensen.

"If that will be all, I have other business to attend to today."

"I… think that should satisfy your curiosity, wouldn't you say, Lord Blendstin?"

"Quite so," the fat man agreed happily.

"Then I'll leave you to the counting of your coins," Velik told them. He paused beside Jensen and whispered, "I don't enjoy performing for an audience. You'd better make sure this expedition ends up in Slokara if you want me in it. Send me a message with the details once you've got them figured out."

* * *

Velik was still waiting for Aria an hour after the time she'd said to meet him, and when she did show up, it was in a set of freshly laundered clothes more suitable for a noble's garden party than for traveling on the road. Her face was also reddening to match her hair, and he could smell the wine on her breath.

And she's supposed to be evaluating me.

"Oh, good. You're here," Aria said, her voice slightly slurred.

"I've been here the whole time," he replied, trying to keep his patience intact. "You're the one who's late."

"That makes me smarter than you, then. This job is a punishment. Why would I be eager to start it?"

"Sooner we begin, sooner we end."

Aria snorted out a laugh. "Kid, you have no idea how miserable the next week or two of your life is going to be. You should have done what I did: take a nice relaxing bath, drink a bottle of expensive and potent wine, and gotten laid."

"I—" Velik froze, unsure how to even respond.

"Too late, now. Come on, our carriage should be here soon."

"Carriage?" he asked.

"What, did you think I was going to walk the whole way?"

"I figured we'd run for most of it."

"Please, spare me. No, we'll let a good, high-level pair of horses take us there, and in a carriage enchanted for comfort. Don't worry, you can pay me back for your half of the rental fee later."

Velik started to bristle at the presumption, but Aria just laughed and added, "I'm kidding. It's not that expensive, anyway."

"How much?" he asked, almost begrudgingly. He had no idea what a gold-ranked monster hunter considered to be an expense.

"A hundred decarmas, plus an extra thirty for each week we're out there."

He almost choked when she casually rattled off the sum. It wasn't even that he couldn't afford it—and easily—it was just the sheer waste. There'd been a time when gathering a hundred decarmas would have taken him a week or more of work. They weren't even going that far, barely two hundred miles. He could probably run it by dawn with a good road.

"Ah, there it comes now," Aria said, gesturing to a carriage drawn by two massive black horses that had a pair of spiraling rams' horns coming out of their skulls to curl down around their heads.

"Wait, aren't you going to bring any of your gear with you?" Velik asked, tearing his gaze away from the horses to take in Aria's outfit again. It was hardly fit for a casual stroll through the forest, let alone hydra hunting in a swamp.

"I've got everything I need," she told him. "Besides, it's not my job to kill the hydra. I'm just an observer. Now, come along."

The carriage stopped in front of the guild hall, and Aria stepped up to it to hand the driver a small leather bag, presumably filled with decarmas. The man opened it and placed a hand inside, then nodded and hopped down to pull open the carriage door. Aria ascended one step up, then paused and looked back.

"I said, 'come along.' Don't annoy me before we even get there. I am your evaluator, after all. You want to keep me in a good humor."

First Jensen's business partner. Now this. Why did I want to come here, again?