-Kuang Rat- 2.5-
As you rounded the last guard tower, you could see the main buildings of the airbase ahead, you had almost completed a full circuit of the field and your legs were singing with the burn of exertion.
It felt good.
Each breath of air tasted sweeter, your vision seemed clearer. The fog that had clouded over your thoughts since landing was gone. The world around you was alive with sights and sounds. Birds chirping to each other in the distant trees, the wind rustling the weeds and gently rocking the wire fence back and forth a distant engine being spun over, the sound of your own feet repeatedly crunching on the gravel. You drank it all in.
On impulse you decided against running back to the hanger, turned left on the access road, and towards the town itself. The barrier at the main gate was down, preventing vehicles from driving in without stopping at the checkpoint. A group of guards lounged around a hut, one resting his arm easily on a heavy machine gun mounted in a sandbag emplacement.
You ducked around the barrier and kept running. Behind you one of the guards shouted after you angrily in Yastari, but you ignored them, and they did not seem bothered enough to chase you. Most of the land around the airbase was unused, but a few peddlars had set up stalls selling everything from street food to hand crafted trinkets. Some called out, in broken Wessian, trying to hawk their wares. You ignored them too. Each time your foot fit the ground sent a small cloud of dust rising up from the road. You kept going.
Ahead of you was the bridge to the old town itself, it was a large construction of heavy stone blocks. The sides were intricately carved with depictions of flowers and animals, though most heavily weathered and cracked. It had probably been built hundreds of years ago.
After crossing you turned again and began following the crumbling line of the old city walls, left over from a long ago era when the 'Rat had been the capital of some petty kingdom. Below you in the canal that encircled the old town, a few children played with a mangy looking dog, throwing a stick across for it to splash through the brackish water and retrieve.
Eventually you came to a section where the wall had crumbled away entirely, leaving a gap where you could cross into the town itself. Ahead you could hear shouting and the sharp crack of wood hitting wood. As you reached the gap you saw an amphitheatre like area where weathered stone steps lead down to an arena that was sunk into the earth. A crowd of locals were gathered, some standing, others sitting, most seemed to be yelling words of encouragement to two men who were trading blows in the arena itself.
The men were bare chested and barefoot, both wearing only a simple pair black trousers adorned with coloured sashes one yellow, the other blue. They were fighting with pairs of sticks using them to both block attacks, and make strikes of their own.
The yellow sash appeared to have the upper hand, his movements were fluid and fast. His strikes seemed to flicker out and catch his opponent off guard, before any defence could be mounted. You recognized this, it was Mogok, a martial art popular around the Tienna sea region. You had trained in it when your mother had spent two seasons contracted to the Angyikan National Republic. The old fightmaster who had been your teacher had praised you for learning the forms quickly, as if you you could have done any less. Your mother had trained you in several martial arts, and in every new country that she had taken you to, you had learned the local styles.
You slowed down and came to a stop, watching the martial display.
For all the skill on display, the opponents are not well matched. Blue kept falling for Yellow's feints and seemed to be constantly out of position. Every mis-step seemed to only make him more eager to land a strike in the next opening.
Blue sash lunged low, trying to hit Yellow's leg which appeared to have been left exposed. instantly you knew that it was a mistake. Yellow had baited the attack, twisted out of the way effortlessly and letting the the stick in his right hand sweep smoothly into blue's shoulder with an audible thwack. Blue stumbled forward, and tried to turn. From your vantage point you saw Yellow purposefully angle his foot in just the right place to trip his opponent. This was technically an illegal move in formalised Mogok bouts, and was considered extremely poor form. No one else seemed to notice.
Blue landed roughly in the dirt, before rolling over. Yellow pointed a stick at his his face and barked a word in a language you did not recognise. Blue accepted his defeat and dropped his sticks.
The crowd cheered. Yellow helped blue up and clapped the other man on the back. Both seemed to be smiling.
You noticed several old men sitting on the upper steps who were exchanging money. Several people from the crowd went up to them and came away looking pleased, others lingered nearby looking less so.
A bored looking local police officer stood near the top, eating a piece of fried chicken on a stick
As the defeated man left the arena, helped away by a young woman who seemed to be fussing over him, the man in the Yellow sash remained. He had a lean physique that drew your eye to the muscles of his chest and arms as they moved. An intricate serpent tattoo coiled around his torso and up onto his neck. He had a sharp jaw face, and close cropped back hair that was shaved at the sides. He thrust the stick in his right hand up into the air and called out to the crowd his bright eyes scanning over the people as he did so.
You didn't understand the words, but you knew he was calling for a new challenger.
The adrenaline in you still sang, and you itched to do something to keep it going, anything.
[] Bet on the next fight
[] Enter the arena as a challenger
[] Call the victor out as a cheat.
-1 Stress
You failed the vice roll, and so now have to complete a dare.
