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[indent][color=lightgray] It was good to see Ixtaro and the Castigator talking like ordinary people. Ordinary in the context of Kanth-Aremek, but perhaps in the context of Earth humans as well. Honestly, Shirik didn’t understand the concept of normal anymore, and they hadn’t for a millennium. Still, drinks and food were slung, but insults were not. That was enough. Thus, Shirik turned their full attention to Esedel.

[color=d68300]”Ah, yes. Damage. I am quite familiar with the theory of such a game. I have never lost.”[/color] Shirik was being dead honest. Shirik’s mind was a raging inferno of war, pain, loss and regrets. Being burned alive on the Day of Black Clouds was but the earliest spark of those memories. 600 years mediating in a cave were necessary to measure the true depths of it all, and explore places not touched by it. In all that, Shirik walked through pain like a monk walked along a bed of glowing hot coals- Literally and figuratively, untouched by the fire. Like a hardened sailor on a path through a storm, they were unbothered.

In a way, Shirik had the ultimate advantage in the game of Damage- No one could make them feel worse than they already felt in the darkest days.

[color=d68300]”A S’tor scholar wagered an archaic book from the Kolodon Empire on the game. I wagered a useless piece of glass that I convinced her was a fragment of a dead star. I would have won, were it not for you and your soldiers. Dur’hella, I believe was her name. She found me in a town called Krakellios weeks later, and simply… Traded me the book for my star fragment. I believe she feared my mysterious strategy.”[/color]

Shirik paused, noting that Kerchek was running for bushes and… Distorting. Life mage problems, they concluded.

[color=d68300]”The book was… Dreadfully boring.”[/color]

Perhaps anyone else present would never in a thousand years admit that they played such a forbidden game, with mages that could manipulate their consciousness how they saw fit. Shirik didn’t care, though. They made no attempt to keep their story confined to a hushed tone. They simply said it out loud. Shirik refocused their attention on the Warden. [color=d68300]”Interested in a match, are you?”[/color]

That was… Probably a joke. [i]Probably.[/i]

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