Ravens of Eternity

138 The Flow of Coin, Pt Eva inhaled deeply as she ground her foot into the sand, then with a long and even exhale, she leapt forward with explosive power. She dove in blade-first at her opponent, and slashed at him mercilessly.

Her dance was powerful, but flowed like water. Her graceful movements kept her Drogar opponent unbalanced and uneasy. He simply had never fought anyone like her before, and had no idea how to deal with it.

He stumbled backwards as he fended off each of her constant attacks. Though she pressured him greatly, he still sought for ways to reverse the situation.

If he didn’t, he was as good as dead.

Why in heavens did I challenge the human?!

Cheers swept across the stands as Eva continually pushed back her opponent. Her fans had grown considerably over the course of a dozen fights, the current one included. Her unique position as the only human duelist in the empire gained her a great deal of attention.

At least within Lacroseth City.

And along with her fans came her detractors. Loud, boorish anti-human Drogar also filled the stands in whole sections. They too found some newfound growth thanks to her. And their highly inflammatory signs became more and more creatively offensive with every match.

Although the slurs didn’t bother her in the slightest, it did bug her to see their numbers grow, but all she could do was shrug it off. They were part of the audience, and she had no control over who they were or what they did.

.....

Well, okay, maybe a little bit. Just enough to get them to bet against her. Without them, her numbers wouldn’t have been anywhere close to insane.

Up above, each of the duelists’ profiles were shown among the screens. Eva’s odds had finally fallen down to something far more reasonable at 5 to 1. The victory she scored against Orsethii cemented the spectators’ confidence in her skills and abilities.

More importantly, they turned to questions.

“How did that human beat a Reborn?”

“Are you even sure it actually is human?”

“What if she’s a Reborn human?!”

As her victories stacked up, so too did the people’s curiosity for her. Not that she even noticed most of it. She was focused solely on her duels and her dancing.

Her opponent was at the end of his rope: multiple cuts on his armor, breaths heavy and hard, movements sloppy and wasteful. He was pretty much done.

She spun into his side and thrust up into his chest. With him on the verge of exhaustion, there was nothing he could do to defend himself. Her sword penetrated cleanly through his heart, and after she pulled it out, blood spilled out of his cut.

He grasped at his chest as he fell face first on the sand, dead.

“Duelist Ra’ventrii is the winner! She has confirmed the 69th Seed of the Fourth Tier! Amazing! Who knew she would be able to climb this high?! Definitely not the ones holding all those colorfully-worded signs, that’s for sure!”

~

Some time later, Eva stepped out into the streets beyond the Viper Pit. She didn’t bother to take off her armor, but instead threw a black robe loosely over her body, and kept her helmet retracted.

She took a good long inhale, then breathed it back out happily.

“I love this smell,” she said.

“You hated it not long ago,” replied Alevos.

He, along with the rest of Team Ra’ventrii walked up beside her. They too wore jovial smiles. They had earned a great deal and had a ton of fun doing it all, too.

“Yeah, well I just needed to acquire a taste for it,” Eva said.

“That’s a seriously poor choice of words considering what goes on down here,” Szereth interjected. “Anyway, before we part ways for the cycle, there’s stuff we ought to discuss... Contract stuff.”

“Uh oh,” said Eva. “Serious business! Something wrong with the updated version? ‘Coz it’s too late to go back now.”

Szereth shook his head, then looked at her with a sly grin.

“Nothing of the sort,” he said. “Rather, we might need to append it. Alevos and I have been getting an overwhelming amount of offers lately. Businesses all over the city have been reaching out and asking for you.”

“Yeah, it’s a little out of hand,” added Alevos. “You ought to see my message box – there’s as many requests for you as I have for beltknives. It’s utterly absurd.”

Eva was greatly unbalanced by what the two of them said. Her throat immediately locked up, and her head throbbed in anxiety. She would rather have been hit by Orsethii a second time than deal with this.

In fact, she was so stunned she barely know how to respond.

“Why?” she asked.

“You’re simply the next big thing right now,” said Szereth. “Lots of Drogar here in the city are talking about you. You’ve won a dozen fights and reached the Fourth Tier. So you should consider accepting a few of those OmniCast interviews.”

“Interviews?” asked Eva.

“Also, a bunch offered to make Ra’ventrii merchandise,” added Alevos. “Robe charms and toy beltknives and little action figures. That would be pretty swell. I suggest doing the action figures. It’s like pressing coins.”

“Action figures?”

“And it’s really good for Alevos and I as well,” said Szereth. “Imagine holos and posters of you all over the place, clad in my armor, wielding his blade. People will go crazy. Imagine how many contracts we’d get from the exposure alone.”

“Oh, that’s true,” added Alevos, “we’re gonna see an uptick in business. And that’s always a good thing.”

“Wasn’t there an OmniCast drama producer, too?”

“Two of them!”

Eva begun to get dizzy from their back-and-forth attacks. Szereth and Alevos were relentless with their barrage. It really was as though she had gotten hit in the head a second time.

She closed her eyes, shut out everything, and breathed deep. But they were unstoppable, breached her tranquil bubble, and forced her to yield.

“Stop!” she yelled.

Both Alevos and Szereth stopped in their tracks. It was only moments later that Eva spoke again and broke the silence.

“Uh, sorry,” she said. “It’s all a bit too much right now... Can you two slow down a bit? I’m really not used to any of this.”

“Yes, well, apologies,” said Alevos. “We got a little bit carried away there. This doesn’t happen very often with duelists, simply because of the attrition rate. But you being you kind of makes things a bit different, you know?”

“What we’re doing is sitting on a mountain of Coin,” added Szereth. “And we should consider capitalizing on at least some of these offers. I suggest the more lucrative ones of the bunch.”

“Sure, but why me?” asked Eva. “There’s better duelists out there that got to the top with the same amount of duels as I have.”

“Oh, they’ve got their own deals, trust me on that,” said Alevos. “But not a single one of them’s like you. And that uniqueness brings its own kind of draw.”

“Human, you mean. And yeah because of that, I’ve noticed I’ve got a lot more fans lately. And a lot more haters, too. Gotta love the haters.”

Szereth laughed at her statement. Sometimes, there was nothing truer than that.

“Oh, they’ll probably end up buying a good chunk of your merch, too,” he said.

“What? So they can burn it?” Eva scoffed.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Szereth’s response was so nonchalant that she was taken aback. She wondered if people would really be so stupid as to buy things just so they could destroy them.

From Szereth’s attitude, the answer was yes.

~

They soon split up after they planned to discuss things in greater detail later on. For now, Eva and Miko decided to go do a bit of shopping. Mostly so Eva could relax a little. She had been pushing herself extremely hard for too long without a break, and her friend was worried for her.

So she forced the issue.

And the Justicars were all too happy to indulge them, even with Eva’s protestations.

“Severas and Doleth have better things to do than cart us around,” she told Miko.

“Have you perhaps thought that they enjoy spending time with us?” Miko retorted. “And that their duties would disallow them from doing so freely?”

“These are the only breaks we get, honestly,” said Doleth. “Except the basics, you know. Sleeping, eating. The usual.”

“Soooo, these few hours we have with you two are pretty exceptional,” added Severas. “Yeah, we like it. We don’t have to kill anyone while we’re with you, which is a seriously nice change of pace.”

With Eva soundly defeated, they marched on to the nearest clothing store and immediately indulged in their hunger for fabrics.

Miko walked down one of the aisles and inspected the various robes that hung suspended inside of antigrav mannequins. Though they were shaped like they were being worn, there was nothing underneath but air.

Even better, when she stood in front of one, a scanner up above would take her measurements and transmit them to the antigrav mannequin. The mannequin would then adjust itself to take on her shape.

It gave shoppers the perfect impression of what it would look like on their bodies in particular.

On top of that, there were an insane assortment of fabrics, colors and styles.

Many of the simple ones had rough fabrics and were dyed with muted tones. They also wrapped around their wearers with plain, standard folds. In contrast, some of the more colorful robes used much smoother fabrics, and were wrapped in more exotic and unique ways.

On the opposite side of the aisle was Eva, who was poring over the robe accessories generously displayed all along a long table. She was utterly captivated by all the shiny, glittering objects strewn about in cute little containers.

The entire table was covered in small boxes with slightly different sizes and designs. Some were angular, others spherical, as though they were just a random assortment of little boxes. But boxes with similar colors were placed next to each other, which made the whole table seem like it was a gradient of rainbow colors.

As for the beads themselves... usually, most Drogar wore a handful of simple beads made of wood, stone, or dull metals on the cords that hung from their robes.

But before her was a smattering of all different kinds.

There was a whole section with predatory and aggressive decorations, like carved bone, polished fangs, and curved talons. There was another section whose beads were more beautiful – lustrous gemstones, brilliant metals, and polished glass.

She was particularly attracted to the milled or carved beads, ones that seemed to have some symbolic meaning. One of them was a silhouette of a Ventrii Stalker in mid-flight, with its wings wide open.

Eva grabbed one, along with a few different kinds, and paid for them through her DI.

“Are you not interested in the robes?” asked Miko. “There are many you might enjoy.”

.....

“Nah, I’ll stick to black,” said Eva. “Not like I wear much besides my armor anyway. The robe’s just there to cover that up.”

“How boring! At least change things up for your fans. If you don’t, they will complain.”

Eva was about to object – she wasn’t exactly a fashion maven. She was always a jeans and tshirt kind of girl, usually black. But then she realized the truth in Miko’s words. She glanced over at their EyeCasts and realized she needed to branch out a bit more. They weren’t just out here to have fun – they were here to help humans better understand the Drogar.

It’s not like she had to wear crazy crap all the time. Only for the ‘Cast.

“Wanna try on a bunch of robes and outfits for the cameras?” asked Eva. “That should be interesting, right?”

“Oooh! Yes!” exclaimed Miko. “Our channel requires at least one fashion montage! Yes! With five outfits each! Justicars as well! Be our fashion models!”

Miko quickly began to snag a few robes from off the shelves in utter delight as Severas and Doleth glanced at each other with surprised looks.

“Us?” asked Doleth.

“Models?” asked Severas.