[[Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9nFdkJ3JTU]]
In the far reaches of Regisfall, where the winds gnash their teeth upon basalt cliffs and the sun seems a stranger to the land, there broods a place called Thorncrag. A land of briar and bone, where even the air is sharp and bitter, and only the iron-willed dare call it home. The mountain shelf juts like a broken fang into the sky, and upon its blackened stones, Hill Elves forge not only steel, but themselves.
No bard sings of Thorncrag’s beauty, for there is none. Yet every song of valor has its root here, in bloodied knuckles and boot-scarred earth. It is a crucible of stone and scorn, where warriors are not born but beaten into shape, and shieldbearers train until sinew screams and lungs tear like paper. There, pain is not the price - it is the path.
*
Within the bowels of Thorncrag, beneath any lawful gaze, a hidden arena pulses with heat and fury. There, in a circle of blackstone and torchlight, two fighters clash to the roar of a hundred voices. Amid the din stands Ettrian Ffiebi: a living avalanche, broad-shouldered and grim, his helm crowned with curling horns. The crowd chants with rising hunger: “Ram! Ram! Ram!”
Ettrian’s fists are twin hammers, each blow displacing the air around as he moves. His opponent, sturdy but slow, struggles to keep up. Until Ettrian feints, then charges, head first: his signature headbutt.
CRACK!
The helm strikes true. The Ram’s horns find bone. The other elf crumples like a felled tree.
“RAM! RAM! RAM!”
The chant echoes as Ettrian lifts his horned helm in salute, blood dripping from the curve of one ram’s spiral. He does not smile. He huffs, seeming disappointed the fight ended so soon.
*
The wind howls outside as Ettrian trudges home, coins clinking in his fist like brittle promises. The door creaks open to a dim stone chamber, lit by embers and the wheezing breath of a woman upon a cot.
His mother, once called Irvna The Stormborne, a legend in Thorncrag’s ancient battles, now curled like spent parchment beneath a woolen shroud. Her Lyrandel fataly damaged in her last expedition, a few years back.
She coughs. “Another fight, Ettri?”
He kneels beside her, giant hands gentled by grief. “We eat another week. I win again.”
“You better win. You're my son”, she murmurs. "But I worry. You're risking your life out there for me."
"Stop, mama..."
She turns her glassy eyes to him. “Leave this place, child. Thorncrag grinds dreams into dust.”
His fists clench. “I won’t leave you.”
She smiles, but it is a sad smile.
*
Years pass. Ettrian stays with his mother as her light dims, until it fades. Grief seeps into the stone. The Stormborne is no more; ashes returned to the cliff winds. Ettrian, unmoored, drinks heavily to fight the pain of her loss. His reputation prevents him from joining the shieldbearers of Thorncrag. And drowned in liquor, he fights poorly in the arenas. The Ram is now a beast in debt.
On a night thick with storm, he rummages through her things: torn gloves, old letters, and at last, a leather-bound tome. Its title is etched in calligraphy faded by time:
"The Fist of Water", by Eoneleth Gallardo.
Ettrian squints at the diagrams. Dancers made of ink, slipping past spears, folding like waves, striking like floods. It is a style foreign to Thorncrag’s bruising school - a river in a land of stone. Eoneleth was arandorian, after all.
He is intrigued. This is all very interesting, to discover now that his mother studied martial arts, something she kept for herself, all these years. However...
However pages are torn. Whole chapters missing. He sees her notes in the margins, years old, incomplete.
She had tried. And failed.
He understands what he must do.
*
Beneath a rusted sky, Ettrian packs what little he owns. His horned helm. The book. A satchel of coin earned and owed. At the docks, wind lashes waves into frenzy. He boards a creaking vessel bound for Arandor, land of green pastures and golden meadows.
He looks back once at the cliffs of Thorncrag, where ghosts whisper in basalt. He spits. Then, turning, looks ahead, into the distant unknown. The waves crashing against the vessel almost sound like the crowds in the arena: "Ram! Ram! Ram!".
Ettrian "The Ram" Ffiebi sets forth, away from his past, with two goals in mind. First, upon arrival, he would seek the Order of The Valiant Shield. Maybe he can join them and carve a name for himself in the new land. Second, to find the monk Eoneleth and learn the dance of water, to finish what his mother started, and become more than what Thorncrag allowed.
“For you, mother,” he murmurs, as the ship cleaves the dark waters.
The Ram
Re: The Ram
The ship creaked like an old man in prayer as it neared the harbor, cutting through the gentle surf like a blade through silk. Ettrian stood upon the prow, ram-helmed and ragged, a mountain of grey stone amidst a sea of golden light. Arandor bloomed before him, radiant and strange.
Unlike the basalt bones of Thorncrag, Arandor rose from the land like a dream given form: terraces of warm sandstone crowned with hanging gardens, trees woven into walls and rooftops, and bridges of living ivy dancing across streams that glittered like sun-kissed glass. The air here did not bite; it kissed.
Ettrian scowled instinctively. Beauty was a foreign tongue.
He stepped off the ship and into a world where no one bore bruises like medals. He walked the winding streets with a warrior’s gait, heavy-footed, eyes suspicious. Elves passed him like streams around a stone, graceful and distant. Their robes whispered. Their eyes lingered.
“Eoneleth,” he asked, at merchant stalls and garden gates. “Monk. Wrote The Fist of Water.”
Some furrowed brows. Some smiled politely. None had answers. Ettrian kept asking, though he maintained his distance; a habit forged by a lifetime among thorns.
*
After a rather uneventful first day, Ettrian ran into a group arming up and getting ready to leave. He didn't know who they were or where they were going, but he followed anyways, mounted on his faithful swamp dragon, Kiko.
And so Ettrian joined the Arandorian expedition against the demon Azamul; a name whispered even among Thorncrag's more blasphemous drunkards.
They marched beneath banners of sun and silver, formation like poetry, moving as one. Ettrian kept to the back, eyes sharp, watching how they stepped and turned, how blades moved in arcs of thought rather than brute instinct.
Azamul Fortress loomed like a wound in the world, dark and bleeding profane magics. Inside, horrors twisted corridors, mazes devoured minds. Ettrian broke teeth and bone with fists alone, joining the Arandorian formation once he understood their movements.
Then, the final clash.
Azamul rose from the blood pools and arbiters chanted around him. The elves fought like a storm sung into flesh. Ettrian charged headlong, horns catching an arbiter mid-lunge. And after a fierce battle that felt like an eternity... Azamul was defeated, cast back into the abyss. But then...
Then Brynloris fell. The magistrate who had seen the Age of Chaos, her spirit older than songs, collapsed. Ettrian watched as Cin’aed cradled her, whispering prayers, to no avail. She was dead.
The demon was defeated, but victory was hollow.
They fled the fortress, ash and grief in their wake, taking her back under the Valar's sight.
In Arandor, Queen Ninvere appeared before the mourners like an avatar of the Valar, bright and wise. “We shall close our gates during this period of mourning. Brynloris will receive a fitting funeral", she said. "And you, Elion Miradove, shall rise in her stead as the new magistrate of Arandor.”
*
Elion’s chamber was bright, papers splayed across desks like feathers. Ettrian stood, massive and uncertain, the book clutched in his fists.
“This belonged to my mother,” he said. “She tried to learn from it. Pages are missing. She said the author lived here. Eoneleth Gallardo.”
Elion’s face softened. “Eon... was a monk of quiet brilliance. He died before he could finish his work.”
Ettrian looked down at the book, his expression unreadable behind the horned helm. “Then this was all for nothing.”
He held the book out. “Here. You’re the magistrate. Make sure it doesn’t get lost.”
Elion took it. Held it. Then handed it back.
“No. Finish it.”
Ettrian blinked. “What?”
“You’ve strength, yes. But to follow in his steps, you must also train your mind and be able to notice things most wouldn’t. Start by the book. Learn from him, then finish what he began. For your mother. For him.”
Ettrian said nothing. Then, slowly, he nodded. For the first time since Thorncrag, his shoulders seemed to carry purpose, not just weight.
*
Candlelight flickered like breath. Pages rustled. Ettrian hunched over a table not made for giants. His gauntlets lay discarded; his knuckles ink-stained.
Diagrams danced on the paper. Notes were scribbled in his clumsy hand. Arrows, footwork, rhythm. He was no scholar. But his fists remembered. His body knew. He was building a bridge between what was written and what was felt.
He yawned, blinked, shook off sleep like rain.
“No quitting,” he muttered.
Ettrian “The Ram” Ffiebi, bruiser of Thorncrag, battled now not against demons, but doubt. And in this quiet war, he resolved to endure.
"For her. For him."
Unlike the basalt bones of Thorncrag, Arandor rose from the land like a dream given form: terraces of warm sandstone crowned with hanging gardens, trees woven into walls and rooftops, and bridges of living ivy dancing across streams that glittered like sun-kissed glass. The air here did not bite; it kissed.
Ettrian scowled instinctively. Beauty was a foreign tongue.
He stepped off the ship and into a world where no one bore bruises like medals. He walked the winding streets with a warrior’s gait, heavy-footed, eyes suspicious. Elves passed him like streams around a stone, graceful and distant. Their robes whispered. Their eyes lingered.
“Eoneleth,” he asked, at merchant stalls and garden gates. “Monk. Wrote The Fist of Water.”
Some furrowed brows. Some smiled politely. None had answers. Ettrian kept asking, though he maintained his distance; a habit forged by a lifetime among thorns.
*
After a rather uneventful first day, Ettrian ran into a group arming up and getting ready to leave. He didn't know who they were or where they were going, but he followed anyways, mounted on his faithful swamp dragon, Kiko.
And so Ettrian joined the Arandorian expedition against the demon Azamul; a name whispered even among Thorncrag's more blasphemous drunkards.
They marched beneath banners of sun and silver, formation like poetry, moving as one. Ettrian kept to the back, eyes sharp, watching how they stepped and turned, how blades moved in arcs of thought rather than brute instinct.
Azamul Fortress loomed like a wound in the world, dark and bleeding profane magics. Inside, horrors twisted corridors, mazes devoured minds. Ettrian broke teeth and bone with fists alone, joining the Arandorian formation once he understood their movements.
Then, the final clash.
Azamul rose from the blood pools and arbiters chanted around him. The elves fought like a storm sung into flesh. Ettrian charged headlong, horns catching an arbiter mid-lunge. And after a fierce battle that felt like an eternity... Azamul was defeated, cast back into the abyss. But then...
Then Brynloris fell. The magistrate who had seen the Age of Chaos, her spirit older than songs, collapsed. Ettrian watched as Cin’aed cradled her, whispering prayers, to no avail. She was dead.
The demon was defeated, but victory was hollow.
They fled the fortress, ash and grief in their wake, taking her back under the Valar's sight.
In Arandor, Queen Ninvere appeared before the mourners like an avatar of the Valar, bright and wise. “We shall close our gates during this period of mourning. Brynloris will receive a fitting funeral", she said. "And you, Elion Miradove, shall rise in her stead as the new magistrate of Arandor.”
*
Elion’s chamber was bright, papers splayed across desks like feathers. Ettrian stood, massive and uncertain, the book clutched in his fists.
“This belonged to my mother,” he said. “She tried to learn from it. Pages are missing. She said the author lived here. Eoneleth Gallardo.”
Elion’s face softened. “Eon... was a monk of quiet brilliance. He died before he could finish his work.”
Ettrian looked down at the book, his expression unreadable behind the horned helm. “Then this was all for nothing.”
He held the book out. “Here. You’re the magistrate. Make sure it doesn’t get lost.”
Elion took it. Held it. Then handed it back.
“No. Finish it.”
Ettrian blinked. “What?”
“You’ve strength, yes. But to follow in his steps, you must also train your mind and be able to notice things most wouldn’t. Start by the book. Learn from him, then finish what he began. For your mother. For him.”
Ettrian said nothing. Then, slowly, he nodded. For the first time since Thorncrag, his shoulders seemed to carry purpose, not just weight.
*
Candlelight flickered like breath. Pages rustled. Ettrian hunched over a table not made for giants. His gauntlets lay discarded; his knuckles ink-stained.
Diagrams danced on the paper. Notes were scribbled in his clumsy hand. Arrows, footwork, rhythm. He was no scholar. But his fists remembered. His body knew. He was building a bridge between what was written and what was felt.
He yawned, blinked, shook off sleep like rain.
“No quitting,” he muttered.
Ettrian “The Ram” Ffiebi, bruiser of Thorncrag, battled now not against demons, but doubt. And in this quiet war, he resolved to endure.
"For her. For him."
Re: The Ram
The sun in Arandor was kinder than any Ettrian had ever known, but it still made him squint.
He had traded the clamor of arenas for the quiet rhythm of daily life: hauling stone in the mines, lending weight and muscle to fortify the gates, standing guard beneath blooming terraces where children ran barefoot and unafraid. And when the call went out — for a hunt, a patrol, or the defense of a trade route — he answered.
Not out of duty. Not yet. But because it taught him.
Ettrian studied the Arandorians as they moved — a ballet of steel and light. Their footwork flowed like reeds in river current, their strikes crisp, their defense reactive and full of grace. Here and there, between arrow volleys and ambushes, he glimpsed the echo of Eoneleth’s art.
The Fist of Water had not come from nothing. It had grown from this land, this people. And Ettrian was beginning to see the roots.
*
On the winding trail back from a wild hunt, he found himself riding beside Arcia, a blademaster with a voice like clean wind and a stare that weighed truths.
“The book still gives you trouble?” he asked.
Ettrian grunted. “Pages missing. Techniques unclear. Like trying to follow shadows.”
Arcia considered this. “Then stop chasing shadows.”
Ettrian blinked and turned to his companion.
Arcia continued: “Why mimic what’s broken? You’re not Eoneleth. You’re not even Arandorian. Use what you know. Finish the book with your own hands.”
Ettrian frowned, but the thought didn’t leave him. It echoed like hammer-strikes in a forge. Was he trying to resurrect something dead? Or could he build something new?
He looked down at his fists. Built for crushing. Yet they had learned to draw, to write, to create.
A seed was planted...
*
Arandor had thorns, yes — but far fewer than he was used to. It was strange, walking streets without tension. Being greeted with nods. He had become... familiar. A presence. Even, at times, welcome.
But he kept his distance. Or tried to.
The tavern doors breathed warmth into the evening air. Ettrian wasn’t planning on stopping, but laughter drifted out — unguarded, intimate, homely — and something in him, old and sore, answered.
He entered. The hearth glowed. Music played softly in the corner, and three strangers were mid-toast at a table: two elves and a human. They spotted him lingering and waved him over. He hesitated, but joined them.
They introduced themselves. The human was Matilda and the elves, Thalyn and Denarra. Rangers, the three of them, protectors of nature and of Arandor. Near them, he felt without a purpose. Lost, even. But, as usual, he pushed the thought aside. The brute wasn't much for thinking - he preferred action.
Or drinking. And drink he did.
They spoke of the mountains, of beasts driven mad by the season’s shift, of old legends and distant lands. Ettrian listened at first. Then joined. The liquour loosened his tongue, and soon Thorncrag spilled out of him — its rocks, its grit, the life he’d left behind.
The book came up and his struggle to finish it. His doubt.
Denarra tilted her head. “You write in honor of the dead?”
“Yes.”
“But what of the living?” she asked.
Ettrian frowned.
“The future,” she continued. “The ones who’ll hold a sword or a bow long after we’re dust. Elves believe in carrying wisdom forward. We look behind to walk ahead.”
Ettrian fell quiet. He looked down at the bottle in his hand. His scars. His calluses.
A warmth bloomed in his chest, part memory, part something new.
He raised his bottle then, with his usual smirk.
“To those who have passed", he said. "And to those who are still to come."
The seed Arcia had planted was watered by Denarra. And an idea sparked in his head, not to copy The Fist of Water, but to create his own style out of Eon's. To leave it for the future generations, for those who were still to come. That was the elven way, after all. His technique was earthbound, rough, sturdy like granite. Eoneleth’s was water — flowing, evasive, adaptative. And together, water and granite formed... clay.
The Fist of Clay...
*
She fought like a storm of blades — clean, fast, graceful. Oralil.
Ettrian had seen her in the hunts, always a sword’s length away, always wordless. They fought well together, holding the frontline, taking turns, and even tending to each other's wounds. All in silence.
After a long expedition into the hellish caves beneath Jyn-Pal, they brought down a hulking demon of blood and bone — a terror known as The Dark Father. Its collapse shook the earth beneath their feet. Spirits were high. The party was weary, but victorious.
Ettrian exhaled and smirked. “Anyone carrying liquor?”
Oralil handed him a waterskin instead. “Drink this.”
He took it and nodded. But when she looked away, he poured it out in a corner and pretended to drink. She turned back too quickly. Her eyes narrowed.
A few minutes later, as they collected themselves and prepared to leave, Ettrian was eating to regain his strength. He bit into a sausage far too fast. It lodged deep. He staggered, clutching his throat. Panic flickered. Arcia was the one who acted, slamming his back until the chunk of meat shot out. Ettrian gasped, cursed and coughed.
Oralil crossed her arms. “If you hadn't wasted the water, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Ettrian couldn’t argue. She turned and walked off without another word.
Later, back in Arandor, as they entered the city, Ettrian asked for a word. Reluctant, Oralil accepted and followed him into the tavern. He walked up to the counter and whispered to the bartender. She sat at a table and watched as Ettrian returned holding a pitcher in each hand.
“Drink?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“It's water,” he added.
A long pause. Then she took one.
They sat in silence. She sipped the refreshing liquid. Ettrian drank his in one swig, as was usual of him.
Then, he held out a hand.
“Peace?” he asked. "Friends?"
Oralil looked at him, seeming taken aback.
"You want to be my friend?", she asked.
"Yes", he replied. "I do. Few people have shown concern for me the way you did."
After a moment of hesitation, she reached over and shook his hand, hers seeming almost too tiny in his grip.
“Friends,” she said, then.
Forgiveness, like trust, had its weight. She accepted his apology. And became the first friend Ettrian made in this strange land.
*
The arena in Arandor was not like Thorncrag’s bloodpits. No cheering crowds, no gamblers. Just a circle of grass beneath ancient pillars, where skill was tested and strength prevailed.
Ettrian stood tall. Fighters came one by one. He countered, pivoted, crashed down like an avalanche. No weapons. Just fists and instinct.
Then came Cin’aed.
The Luminary Warden wielded a blade that crackled like lightning. Their first match, Ettrian lost — caught off-guard by powerful healing spells he couldn't outdamage and a sword that singed and smited. The second duel, Ettrian won, but barely — by unleashing a barrage of punches that, perhaps in a strike of luck, stopped the Lumary's spellcasting. The third fight - which lasted what felt like an eternity, as fist and blade clashed and the two danced between the pillars like a flash of light colliding with a living boulder - Ettrian lost again, unable to breach his opponent's unbreakable defense.
Ettrian was impressed, but it left a sour taste. The small giant wasn't used to losing.
He sat alone afterward, still sweating, still sore. The Fist of Clay had potential, yes. But holes. Edges unfinished. He could feel them in every bruise.
He left the arena fully aware of his limitations. But how to surpass them?
He needed to think. He needed to write...
*
Days passed like falling leaves.
Ettrian wrote. Then wrote more. Pages became stacks. Stacks became volumes.
The Fist of Clay was no longer a patchwork — it was a form. A philosophy. Something that could be passed down. For fighters like his mother and Eon. And most of all: for fighters like himself, when he was young and needed a path.
Arandor changed him and he let it. Quietly. Unknowingly.
He convinced himself he was just staying long enough to finish the work. But days continued passing. The leaves continued falling. Flowers would bloom and close, and still he stayed.
So long as he didn't finish the book - or books now - he had reason to remain. But as the pages filled, Thorncrag loomed in the horizon more and more. He forced himself to look away, unable to say aloud what his heart had already decided for him.
He had traded the clamor of arenas for the quiet rhythm of daily life: hauling stone in the mines, lending weight and muscle to fortify the gates, standing guard beneath blooming terraces where children ran barefoot and unafraid. And when the call went out — for a hunt, a patrol, or the defense of a trade route — he answered.
Not out of duty. Not yet. But because it taught him.
Ettrian studied the Arandorians as they moved — a ballet of steel and light. Their footwork flowed like reeds in river current, their strikes crisp, their defense reactive and full of grace. Here and there, between arrow volleys and ambushes, he glimpsed the echo of Eoneleth’s art.
The Fist of Water had not come from nothing. It had grown from this land, this people. And Ettrian was beginning to see the roots.
*
On the winding trail back from a wild hunt, he found himself riding beside Arcia, a blademaster with a voice like clean wind and a stare that weighed truths.
“The book still gives you trouble?” he asked.
Ettrian grunted. “Pages missing. Techniques unclear. Like trying to follow shadows.”
Arcia considered this. “Then stop chasing shadows.”
Ettrian blinked and turned to his companion.
Arcia continued: “Why mimic what’s broken? You’re not Eoneleth. You’re not even Arandorian. Use what you know. Finish the book with your own hands.”
Ettrian frowned, but the thought didn’t leave him. It echoed like hammer-strikes in a forge. Was he trying to resurrect something dead? Or could he build something new?
He looked down at his fists. Built for crushing. Yet they had learned to draw, to write, to create.
A seed was planted...
*
Arandor had thorns, yes — but far fewer than he was used to. It was strange, walking streets without tension. Being greeted with nods. He had become... familiar. A presence. Even, at times, welcome.
But he kept his distance. Or tried to.
The tavern doors breathed warmth into the evening air. Ettrian wasn’t planning on stopping, but laughter drifted out — unguarded, intimate, homely — and something in him, old and sore, answered.
He entered. The hearth glowed. Music played softly in the corner, and three strangers were mid-toast at a table: two elves and a human. They spotted him lingering and waved him over. He hesitated, but joined them.
They introduced themselves. The human was Matilda and the elves, Thalyn and Denarra. Rangers, the three of them, protectors of nature and of Arandor. Near them, he felt without a purpose. Lost, even. But, as usual, he pushed the thought aside. The brute wasn't much for thinking - he preferred action.
Or drinking. And drink he did.
They spoke of the mountains, of beasts driven mad by the season’s shift, of old legends and distant lands. Ettrian listened at first. Then joined. The liquour loosened his tongue, and soon Thorncrag spilled out of him — its rocks, its grit, the life he’d left behind.
The book came up and his struggle to finish it. His doubt.
Denarra tilted her head. “You write in honor of the dead?”
“Yes.”
“But what of the living?” she asked.
Ettrian frowned.
“The future,” she continued. “The ones who’ll hold a sword or a bow long after we’re dust. Elves believe in carrying wisdom forward. We look behind to walk ahead.”
Ettrian fell quiet. He looked down at the bottle in his hand. His scars. His calluses.
A warmth bloomed in his chest, part memory, part something new.
He raised his bottle then, with his usual smirk.
“To those who have passed", he said. "And to those who are still to come."
The seed Arcia had planted was watered by Denarra. And an idea sparked in his head, not to copy The Fist of Water, but to create his own style out of Eon's. To leave it for the future generations, for those who were still to come. That was the elven way, after all. His technique was earthbound, rough, sturdy like granite. Eoneleth’s was water — flowing, evasive, adaptative. And together, water and granite formed... clay.
The Fist of Clay...
*
She fought like a storm of blades — clean, fast, graceful. Oralil.
Ettrian had seen her in the hunts, always a sword’s length away, always wordless. They fought well together, holding the frontline, taking turns, and even tending to each other's wounds. All in silence.
After a long expedition into the hellish caves beneath Jyn-Pal, they brought down a hulking demon of blood and bone — a terror known as The Dark Father. Its collapse shook the earth beneath their feet. Spirits were high. The party was weary, but victorious.
Ettrian exhaled and smirked. “Anyone carrying liquor?”
Oralil handed him a waterskin instead. “Drink this.”
He took it and nodded. But when she looked away, he poured it out in a corner and pretended to drink. She turned back too quickly. Her eyes narrowed.
A few minutes later, as they collected themselves and prepared to leave, Ettrian was eating to regain his strength. He bit into a sausage far too fast. It lodged deep. He staggered, clutching his throat. Panic flickered. Arcia was the one who acted, slamming his back until the chunk of meat shot out. Ettrian gasped, cursed and coughed.
Oralil crossed her arms. “If you hadn't wasted the water, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Ettrian couldn’t argue. She turned and walked off without another word.
Later, back in Arandor, as they entered the city, Ettrian asked for a word. Reluctant, Oralil accepted and followed him into the tavern. He walked up to the counter and whispered to the bartender. She sat at a table and watched as Ettrian returned holding a pitcher in each hand.
“Drink?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“It's water,” he added.
A long pause. Then she took one.
They sat in silence. She sipped the refreshing liquid. Ettrian drank his in one swig, as was usual of him.
Then, he held out a hand.
“Peace?” he asked. "Friends?"
Oralil looked at him, seeming taken aback.
"You want to be my friend?", she asked.
"Yes", he replied. "I do. Few people have shown concern for me the way you did."
After a moment of hesitation, she reached over and shook his hand, hers seeming almost too tiny in his grip.
“Friends,” she said, then.
Forgiveness, like trust, had its weight. She accepted his apology. And became the first friend Ettrian made in this strange land.
*
The arena in Arandor was not like Thorncrag’s bloodpits. No cheering crowds, no gamblers. Just a circle of grass beneath ancient pillars, where skill was tested and strength prevailed.
Ettrian stood tall. Fighters came one by one. He countered, pivoted, crashed down like an avalanche. No weapons. Just fists and instinct.
Then came Cin’aed.
The Luminary Warden wielded a blade that crackled like lightning. Their first match, Ettrian lost — caught off-guard by powerful healing spells he couldn't outdamage and a sword that singed and smited. The second duel, Ettrian won, but barely — by unleashing a barrage of punches that, perhaps in a strike of luck, stopped the Lumary's spellcasting. The third fight - which lasted what felt like an eternity, as fist and blade clashed and the two danced between the pillars like a flash of light colliding with a living boulder - Ettrian lost again, unable to breach his opponent's unbreakable defense.
Ettrian was impressed, but it left a sour taste. The small giant wasn't used to losing.
He sat alone afterward, still sweating, still sore. The Fist of Clay had potential, yes. But holes. Edges unfinished. He could feel them in every bruise.
He left the arena fully aware of his limitations. But how to surpass them?
He needed to think. He needed to write...
*
Days passed like falling leaves.
Ettrian wrote. Then wrote more. Pages became stacks. Stacks became volumes.
The Fist of Clay was no longer a patchwork — it was a form. A philosophy. Something that could be passed down. For fighters like his mother and Eon. And most of all: for fighters like himself, when he was young and needed a path.
Arandor changed him and he let it. Quietly. Unknowingly.
He convinced himself he was just staying long enough to finish the work. But days continued passing. The leaves continued falling. Flowers would bloom and close, and still he stayed.
So long as he didn't finish the book - or books now - he had reason to remain. But as the pages filled, Thorncrag loomed in the horizon more and more. He forced himself to look away, unable to say aloud what his heart had already decided for him.