Lone: The Wanderer

\'Well fuck. He does stretch his \'s\'s. Is it to do with the tongue shape? It surely can\'t be cultural since I suspect Swamp isn\'t even from Altros. He\'s also bipedal so it has nothing to do with Master Mezro\'nan biologically speaking,\' Lone pondered.

The idea of Swamp not being from this planet was a lingering one he had toyed around with, but Devil\'s inclusion to the Conclave of Seekers gave Lone the strong impression that his ignorant lizard friend was likely from a different plane of existence that was linked to Altros, much like the hells.

\'Or another continent. None of the writing here suggests another one exists, but that\'s on account of the seas being extraordinarily dangerous,\' Lone thought, his eyes not leaving Master Mezro\'nan.

Guildmaster Brux chose to silently watch Yulia and Cuardaigh of the Tower. As soon as they were close enough, the small fairy with orange skin, yellow hair, and glowing red wings, flew right into the guildmaster\'s face with her hands on her hips and a pout on her face.

"How dare you, sir! I have no business with you, I wasn\'t being aggressive, I didn\'t attack any adventurers, and most of all, that was no way to treat a lady! I may have to call you a lord when addressing you since you\'re all brawn and no brain, but I sure as heck don\'t need to respect you!" Cuardaigh of the Tower exclaiming before sharply inhaling as she had quickly lost here breath from her outburst.

"And you?" Guildmaster Brux asked, his eyes locked onto Yulia.

"Uh, well, I didn\'t like being suppressed but I assume you had your reasons, Lord Brux. Hi Lady Vladimirovich, hi Lord Immortus, hi Little Redtail. Um, not the best of circumstances, but it is truly delightful to see you both again," she greeting, only barely acknowledging Breena\'s existence which was fair enough given how weak she was.

"Well, with the complaints out of the way, all three of you will now explain why you are after my close friends here. Publicly. Be honest as well. Refuse to speak, and we shall fight. I will suppress myself as best as I am able for both youCuardaigh of the Tower, and you, Princessling Yulia. Master Mezro\'nan, an X-ranker you may be, but my lesser you still are. Choose wisely and swiftly. I do not have all day," the guildmaster demanded.

Lone felt chills. \'What a truly authoritative tone. This man has seen centuries of war, maybe millennia. If his voice when he\'s serious can get me spooked, what would his aura do when it\'s on full display? I kinda wanna see it... does it look as fucked up as my fox?\'

"I can\'t lie anyway. You know that, Lord Brux," Cuardaigh of the Tower huffed, her upset more than plain to see. "The old fogies back at the enclave \'expressed their regret\' that they couldn\'t find a chance to visit the mana sun that walking into the city less than a moon ago. Pah! They were too scared, more likely. They decided to send this lamb to slaughter instead. Hi, by the way, Mana Sun. You\'re very pretty."

"T-Thank you?" Soph replied questioningly. "Uh, so are you."

"I know," Cuardaigh of the Tower snorted, a haughty and very pleased smile on her lips.

Yulia cleared her throat and said, "Um, I\'m an acquint-"

"A friend I would happily consider a companion," Lone interrupted.

Yulia looked pleasantly surprised by the unprompted admission. "Thank you. That means a lot. I am friends with Lord Immortus and Lady Vladimirovich..." getting a nod of reassurance from the Slavic princess, the princessling continued, "and so I wanted to chat with them. You may not know, busy as you are Lord Brux, and hesitant to leave the palace as I am, but magical research is my life. Lord Immortus has a refreshing mind with which to discuss my research and Lady Vladimirovich\'s entire being is fascinating as a whole."

The guildmaster nodded. "Okay. You, leave, you stay. You\'ve already expressed the regret of your masters, so you have no further purpose being here," he said, the last part being entirely directed at the fairy-like being.

Cuardaigh of the Tower stuck her tongue out. "I\'m never leaving the stinking enclave again. Those losers can do their own work in the future."

And with that, she flew straight out of the guild and was gone from view within seconds.

All eyes fell to the silent Master Mezro\'nan. His slitted pupils narrowed to stare at Soph. "The Continental Alchemical Assssociation hasss busssinessss with her."

"Well, you\'re not in the C.A.A. right now, you\'re in The Adventurer\'s Guild. We guildmasters of Golden Pass City have judged her actions against that fool Olberic to be wholly justified. If you still insist on dragging her into some ridiculous unearned mess, do it outside of the guild," Brux ordered.

Master Mezro\'nan didn\'t flinch nor did he back down from his bipedal position. He just narrowed his eyes even further, both intensely focused on the guildmaster as if searching for something.

A few moments of tense silence passed while Lone\'s mind worked away as always. \'Am I about to see two X-rankers duke it out? Would that be a moment worthy of Historical and Cultural Appreciation?\'

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Guildmaster Brux sniffed casually and exhaled a grumble. "Master Mezro\'nan... did you know that half of a human\'s bones, half of them, are in their hands and feet? Wouldn\'t you know it, the same is true for most tetrapod too. Now, ya only need one to kill, really. Break the skull the right way and, well, you know. You only need one for crippling too. As you\'ve guessed, haha, it\'s the spine. Well, quite a few can cripple. After all, just look at me with my leg, but the feeling of being unable to move even slightly... It\'s like no other, I tell ya. Now... when someone says \'I\'m going to break every bone in your body\'... I just can\'t understand... why. More than double the work for the same effect? One bone for death, one for crippling, and just some silly little limbs for extensive torture. Makes no sense to me. Every bone? Unrealistic and completely unnecessary."

Lone swallowed a whole lot of fear in one big gulp.

Congratulations! The host\'s passive skill [Fear Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Advanced Level 10.

Master Mezro\'nan\'s eyes flickered hesitantly, or perhaps fearfully. Lone couldn\'t tell. "You are ssseriousss. V-Very well. I ssshall leave thisss matter for now."

Guildmaster Brux smiling and patted the magical Restodian Iglaform\'s shoulder. "Smart man. Be seein\' ya."

Not paying his fellow X-ranker any attention, not even for just a second more, the crippled guildmaster addressed the terrified Lone, Soph, and Breena. "Come now, break is only getting shorter. We\'ve some fun to be had."

"... I have to learn how to threaten like that," Lone murmured as he willed the shake in his hands to go away.

Soph squeezed one of his tails tightly. "This was a bad idea. He\'s more than crazy... He... he\'s something else."

Breena was, much like Yulia, simply trying her best to fight off the unrelenting terror that hearing such a cold yet warm and entirely too realistic threat had planted into their hearts. Most of the adventurers in the first floor lobby were the same as those two.

"That was a skill," Lone said as he walked alongside the guildmaster with Soph still attached to one of his tails. "It had to be, right? Not much scares me these days, let alone words not even directed at me."

Guildmaster Brux grinned. "Strong of you to admit your fear. But no, I didn\'t use any skills there, only stated the truth. If thinking it was a skill is a crutch for you, then believe what ya want, pal. Ain\'t gonna back out of fightin\' me either way, right?"

Lone furrowed his brow. "No, of course not... That wasn\'t a skill? Fuck... Thousands of years of experience gives a lot of gravitas to a person, huh?"

"Tens of thousands, pal, tens of thousands. I am old. Not everyone can be as talented as the prince," Guildmaster Brux laughed.

Lone mulled over that as their group walked through the building, quickly finding themselves in a private but very spacious underground training area specialised to be a fighting ring.

"I don\'t recall this room being available for use when I was tutoring," Lone commented.

Guildmaster Brux replied as he took off his shirt, throwing it aside, "Don\'t want to ruin my work clothes. It\'s a private room for my use only, though Thomas makes sure its primary goal is collecting dust."

He casually took off his shoes and then his trousers too, leaving him with only his underwear and socks. His body was riddled with scars and gouges, some of which glittered menacingly as if cursed.

"Any rules? Personally, I just wanna beat the heck outta ya while you do the same to me, but we\'re all a little different, eh?" the guildmaster asked, stretching as he did so.

\'Pick a part of the wall to glue yourself Breena, and Yulia too, to it, surround yourself and her in barriers, and teleport out if you think he or I might hurt you guys. I don\'t know how consciously he\'ll try to keep you guys free from collateral harm when we start fighting,\' Lone sent to Soph before responding, "Use your aura if you think I\'m too weak. It\'ll boost my stats by a lot. Try not to apply any stats. I can\'t do that and have no real practice dealing with applied stats from an X-ranker. How resistant are you to magic in general and soul damage, and can you easily arrange for soul damage to be fixed?"

"No aura, no applying stats. Simple enough," the guildmaster nodded. "Magic damage? I dunno. Got a couple dozens resistances but nothing particularly ground-breaking. Soul damage? Experienced it, fuckin\' hated it, lived to tell the tale. No real resistance to it. I\'m old and rich but not \'get a Soul Oracle on retainer to train my resistance to their offensive capabilities\' rich. Can afford a patch job or two though, sure."

"Well, maybe I can help. I can do this eight times a day. I\'ll use it once, you lemme know if it\'s fine to use in our spar for standard stuff like distracting and whatnot. You aren\'t in the instakill range so it shouldn\'t do too much damage," Lone said, earning him a raised eyebrow from the guildmaster who was stretching his arms over his chest. "Mental Destruction."

Guildmaster Brux froze and a slow, single drop of blood dripped out of his left eye. "Ouch. Fuck. Okay. Best guess? I can take four more of those before I automatically do something I don\'t want to. So avoid it, or if you\'re good at keeping track, only four more, got it?"

"Got it," Lone said while he kept a mental note of the incredibly different physical reaction Guildmaster Brux was having to a non-lethal, non-resisted, Mental Destruction. King Ralph Heidron the Third\'s body could barely handle two Mental Destructions. Granted, the skill was weaker then as was the king when compared to the guildmaster, but still, it was interesting.

"Good. Well, let\'s start. I\'ll try not to kill ya. Do me the courtesy of following suit," the guildmaster replied.

As was all too common when Lone fought those who massively outclassed him, before he knew what was going on, he felt himself flying through the room while sporting a brand new massive and normally life-threatening injury. This time, half of his head was missing, the left half, specifically.

Lone couldn\'t process it since his Basic Regeneration was busy keeping him alive and trying its best to restore his brain alongside the rest of the contents of his skull. His remaining ear and eye, however, could hear and see Soph interjecting into the duel which had only been ongoing for a second thus far, if that.

"Go for his head again, and you die," Soph declared as if any other outcome would be impossible were the guildmaster not to do as told.

Guildmaster Brux swished his clenched fist, cleaning it of most of the blood, brain matters, and oddly coloured skull fragments that littered it. "Weird. You\'re much weaker than him but my instincts tell me you\'re not bullshittin\' or bluffin\'. Man, this is fun. I promise. No more headshots. I admit, it was cheap, but he attacked the inside of my head first. Felt only right to return the favour."

Lone stumbled to his feet, most of his head now restored. He wasted no time creating two external fortress shields with some of his bits and pieces that were nearby. He even took the Blood Clone assigned to Soph which she usually hid in her hair to form a third spherical shield.

"As the lovely lady said, new rule: nothing above the neck," Lone said as he spat out what his Basic Regeneration was finished replacing. "Back to it?"

Guildmaster Brux grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Of course."