Cass gave me the lowdown on the fighting ring.
Allegedly, when a large number of Federation troops moved into the city to protect it from attack, a lot of them started betting on fights in the camps. After it was banned by their superiors it moved underground with help from the local criminal element. Soon enough even civilians were joining in. The city had a long-standing martial tradition of bare-knuckle boxing, and many experienced pugilists set out to prove the amateur soldiers who was boss.
Cass had pointed me in the direction of a man named William, who of all things, ran a gym in a nearby residential area. It took me a while to find it, since it wasn't exactly illuminated with glowing lights and a welcoming atmosphere. The basement in question was through a pair of cellar doors, hidden down a dark alleyway.
The only way I could tell it was the right place were the sounds coming from inside.
I pulled open the doors and descended a small set of rickety wooden steps. The basement was surprisingly well lit, with above ground windows allowing natural light to flow into the space. Sturdy wooden pillars held the ceiling above. On the left side of the room a small, dirt covered boxing ring had been made by tying ropes to whatever wall surface was available.
"Tell Vincent that I'm not biting."
Sat on a bench near the stairs was a man in his fifties. He had short, white hair and a voice like he gargled gravel on the regular. Judging from the bandages wrapped around his bloodied knuckles, I could only assume that he was the owner of the house. It took me a second to realise that he was speaking to me, "Vincent? Who's Vincent?"
His eyes bore through me seeking a lie. He wasn't going to find one. I didn't have the slightest idea who Vincent was.
"I heard that there's a gym here, from a close friend."
Happy that I wasn't trying to extort him, he relented; "That it is. I'm William."
There were two other people in the gym, but both of them were occupied. One pummelled a pig-leather bag that hung from the ceiling, while another did a set of pushups at the back. The punching bag had seen a lot of use. The brown colouration was starting to fade where it had been hit repeatedly. The force of each blow was significant. I could feel a draft coming my way just from the blowback of his arms moving.
William sized me up, "I already know what you're here for."
"You do?"
"It's what everyone around here's obsessed with. They wouldn't come to a run-down 'gym' like this if there wasn't money involved."
"I'm not strapped for cash. I was just curious. I'm staying in town for a while and wanted to get a hold on what's keeping people's attention."
"Well, you found it. Bare-knuckle boxing. Back in the golden days it was the biggest sport around. It died off, then all these soldiers moved in and started betting huge amounts of copper on their fights. Everybody wants a slice of the pie."
"I don't suppose there's a major criminal element to the whole thing?"
"Pft. Is there ever… Why? You're too morally upstanding to give it a shot knowing that?"
I hoisted up my belt of thieving tools to make my point, "Do I look like a snitch to you?"
"Ah, I see. You're a rogue then."
"Supposedly, I haven't done much of that recently."
"Going on the straight and narrow was the best thing that I ever did. Of course, getting there's a lot harder than just wanting it."
I had no plans of stopping. I'd never considered not being a rogue for a moment truthfully. I only did what I did to secure my 'continued existence.' If I somehow managed to accumulate a few decades of life, I'd be happy with that much.
William pointed at me, "But you can't just walk up and expect to get a fight, you know? You need someone already within the circle to introduce you."
"And how do I get an introduction?"
"Whatever it takes. Beat 'em, blow 'em, be a personal friend of theirs." He barked out a harsh laugh.
I wasn't going to suck a dick just to satisfy my curiosity. I followed him through the gym and to the edge of the ring, "I like to reckon that I'm pretty though. Are you saying that you're in this 'circle?'"
He cracked his knuckles, "Listen kid – I'm a level fifteen pugilist. Course' I'm in the damn circle, and do you really think you can beat me in a fight?"
Full of faux confidence and overpowered stats, I nodded eagerly. After all, I had beaten Marcus and a squad of armed goons single-handedly. How bad could one old man be? William stood from the stool and invited me to step between the ropes. I unclipped my armour and left it on the apron before accepting. Didn't want to break the guy's hand if he tried to body blow me.
"Alright. So if I beat you, you tell me where the party is happening?"
"If being the operative word here. You won't beat me."
Having dressed myself down to my shirt and pants, I moved into the middle of the ring and squared up with William. I could tell from his stance that he was every bit as experienced as he'd let on during our conversation, but again I continued to believe that I could defeat him through brute strength.
That turned out to be a mistake.
He waited for me to make the first attack. I tried to copy everything I remembered about boxing from watching the odd match on TV back home. I held firm and let loose with my left arm. William floated around me with a pep-filled dance, and battered my cheek and jaw with a one-two combo. I staggered back and fell against the ropes.
I wasn't going to stand for that though. I dived in again, only to see the same result repeated in painful fashion. No matter how fast I moved or how hard I swung, William was always in the right place at the right time. I couldn't land a hit on the guy and his own punches were like shots out of a sniper rifle. He dismantled me with an efficiency that defied belief. I didn't even know I'd lost until I woke up on the dirty mound a few seconds after getting my shit rocked. I could taste copper in my mouth and my face felt like one big bruise.
I didn't even last one minute. Like a drunk in a bar fight. "Holy shit, what just happened?"
William knelt beside me and sighed, "Stats aren't everything. The bigger the gap in skill between fighters, the less the difference matters. You can have a hard head, iron jaw and huge HP number – but that doesn't stop your brain from shutting down if it gets hit too hard. You can't hit me, but I can hit you without a problem."
That was embarrassing to say the least.
William had run rings around me – knocked me flat on my ass without even breaking a sweat. I knew a little about weapon skills, but not how much of a difference they made when the only thing that matters is raw strength. I wasn't the type of person to stamp his foot and call bullshit though. William had trounced me for a reason. I'd gotten overconfident.
I wiped the blood from my mouth and climbed back onto my feet. "Guess I'm not getting that invite to the ring then?"
William shrugged, "I won't say that you can't. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, most of the guys who go into the pit don't have a lick of darn experience either. Why do you think an old man like me can win the whole thing five times over?"
"Because you're a good fighter?"
"That's true, but even a good fighter can have bad days. I can see how strong you are, unrefined, but strong. If I teach you to plant your feet and throw a half-decent punch, you could have a good run at it."
I shook my head, "Nah. There's going to be a catch. You're not offering to train me out of the goodness of your heart."
"I never offered to train you."
"Don't bullshit me, that's where you were trying to steer this conversation. What's your angle?"
"It's nothing insidious, just a little spat that's broken out between some of the old dogs and the gangs who run around the place. Fixing fights, getting into trouble – me and some of the others took issue with it. I think if I taught you some basics, you could crash your way through the bracket and make life harder for them."
That sounded very insidious to me. Fights over money tended to develop into ones where someone gets stabbed in a dark alleyway, just like the one that his gym was located in. He needed to be careful pushing his luck like that. These weren't mafioso or anything of the sort, they were gangs of desperate, impoverished people who didn't give a shit about honour or respect.
But it's not like I had anything better to do while Cali and Tahar were out so…
"Fine. Teach me to not get bowled over in a minute, and I'll see what I can do."
Getting some combat experience out of it was just an added bonus.
---------
The sickness that had wracked Cali La'Corvan's body had dissipated just as quickly as it had arrived.
Her eyes fluttered as she reached out to clutch the sheets between her fingers. She was in a new place, a new bed, staring at a new ceiling. How had she gotten here, and where was Ren? She sat up and scanned the room. Tahar was snoring away next to her, though Cali's movement had stirred the slumbering beast to wakefulness.
Cali felt naked. She wasn't naked, but she felt like she was. She wasn't wearing her coat or hat, nor did she have her catalyst halberd in hand. The first thought through her mind was an instinctual one, a need to find it before anything bad happened. And so she leapt from the bed and down onto the wooden floor, ripping open the doors of the single wardrobe within the room.
Leaning up against the backboard was the object of her obsession. Her normal clothes had been removed and nearly folded in a pile next to them. Cali reached out and took them without refraining. A minute later she was fully dressed and ready to weather whatever came her way. Cali had never thought too much about how comforting she found holding her signature weapon in hand.
A flood of extremely embarrassing memories echoed in her mind. Being trapped in that house, acting like a love-struck housewife, living out some kind of twisted domestic fantasy with Ren. While her feelings towards her bold companion were positive, she wasn't so far gone as to subject herself to the humiliating torture of becoming an Ashmorn homemaker. It was a fate she only wished upon her worst enemies; of which there were very few.
Most of them were dead.
Ren had left them in a hotel room to recover and dashed away to occupy himself. She shivered. Their escape from the town seemed to be nothing more than a stroke of luck. If the strange fellow dressed in yellow hadn't dropped by – they may have been trapped there forever. Suddenly their stay in the sleepy suburb had a much more exciting edge to it. Cali detested the thought of being kept away from danger forever, that in itself was an incredible risk that set her mind alight with feverish possibility.
"…Cali?"
The lumbering giant had risen fully. Feather covered forearms tried to protect her waking eyes from the harsh sun beaming through the window.
Jealousy.
The word sat in the front of Cali's mind. She was jealous of Tahar for being 'mated' with Ren. Did it still count when Ren had rebuffed all of Tahar's advances? And how did she feel about it? Cali didn't know what to do or say. She had never been placed into a situation where her feelings mattered. Faced with such a scenario Cali did as she always does, she stared straight ahead and made her plans for the day.
"Good morning Tahar. Would you like to come with me?"