He did begrudge the treatment of the cudgelists. He didn’t do it often-not enough to attract official attention-but the reputation was well-earned enough that cudgelists in the know avoided his cantina.ĭemir didn’t begrudge the foul play. Rumor had it he was in the business of drugging cudgelists before fights to get the result he wanted. Morlius did not have a pleasant reputation. Had he made a mistake? Or was Morlius tipped off? “I’m not sure what you’re implying,” Demir said, huffing loudly. He was very careful about losing almost as much as he won. “Good luck follows bad, I suppose.”ĭemir let his smile fade into faux confusion, cursing himself silently. “And I lost the three days prior,” Demir replied, keeping that smile fixed on his face. “Lucky afternoon.” He pushed the receipt across the bar. “Sure did.” Demir gave him his most charming smile. “You won, huh?” Morlius asked, gazing at him sullenly. Give me a half pint of Ereptia’s best, and put it on this tab.” He tapped the bookie’s receipt once more. His last piece had run out of resonance three nights ago, and he’d had a hard time sleeping without it since Holikan. “Shit.” The calming sorcery of skyglass wasn’t going to save Demir’s life, but it certainly would make it easier. Supply just isn’t coming in from Ossa and what little I could get last month was bought up by the vineyard managers.” “Can’t get skyglass at all right now,” he said. Demir wouldn’t normally order godglass at a bar, but this far out in the provinces it was the only place a stranger could get their hands on a luxury commodity. He had a harried look in his eyes but moved slowly as he rinsed out mugs in a barrel of water underneath the bar. The bartender and bookie was a middle-aged man named Morlius. “I need a new piece of skyglass,” Demir said, adjusting the gloves that hid his dual silic sigils. Demir slid onto a stool at the bar, set down his betting receipt, and gave it a tap with one finger. When he was certain that their performance had been accepted, he sauntered down the steps, out the front of the arena, and across the street, where a slummy little cantina held one of Ereptia’s many bookies. He watched and listened, making sure that no one so much as suspected that the fight was fixed. It needed to be a good match, with little doubt that the two fighters wanted nothing more than to kill each other.īy the time Overin fell to the ground beneath Slatina’s cudgel, weakly raising a hand to forfeit before she could administer a final blow, Demir knew that everyone had bought it: neither the judges, the audience, nor the bookies had any idea that the pair were well-paid for the inevitable conclusion.ĭemir loitered until the last of the audience trickled out of the arena and the cudgelists themselves had long since been given cureglass and escorted away. Demir himself was paying close attention to how they fought, rather than who was actually winning. They were well-matched-brawn versus speed-and the crowd was absolutely loving it as strikes fell, skin cracked, and blood spattered the sandy floor of the arena. The man’s name was Overin, and he was shorter but faster, with a bald head, bushy black beard, and the light olive skin of an eastern provincial. She had the milk-white complexion of a Purnian with short blond hair, and was six feet of solid muscle. He clutched a bookie’s receipt in one hand, watching the two fighters go back and forth across the arena as the sparse crowd shouted curses and encouragement. Someday he would write a philosophical treatise on the subject. It was a visceral sport, and Demir felt that it defined the entire Ossan experience wonderfully-the way contestants broke their bodies for the chance at glory while everyone else cheered them on. The two contestants in the arena wore powerful forgeglass earrings to make them stronger and faster, and then beat the shit out of each other with weighted sticks until one of them forfeited. The only arena in Ereptia sat a few hundred people, and just a third of the seats were full for an afternoon exhibition match.Ĭudgeling was the national sport of the Empire-bigger and more popular than horse racing, cockfighting, hunting, and boxing combined. Even by provincial standards Ereptia was a backwater a little city in the heart of wine-making country with less than ten thousand people, most of them employed as laborers on the vast vineyards owned by distant wealthy Ossan guild-families. Demir Grappo stood in the back row of an amphitheater, a small cudgeling arena in the provincial city of Ereptia. 2.74.beta.įSXP3DP3D2Topcat274BetaCracked has 953 downloads as of ![]() G’day GM8, MS, C&J, and everyone else.Dangling Truths Ltd.FSXFoto tekst e ordenan caótica de sistemas j) sistema.$ Your flight log file may be found in the “C:\Documents\ThisBuild\ *. Create a folder named “ThisBuild” in the “Documents” .
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