There was a brief break in the singing after that, his strange eye-ornament’s glow dimming as he muttered some sort of prayer. Another breath. Another roar-sung verse. The foreign soldiers were becoming visibly upset, as were some of the other audience members. In the former case, they were visibly angry and yelling, while in the latter, they seemed merely shocked by the raw intensity of the performance, or perhaps the performer’s sheer audacity.

He wasn’t saying it outright, but they all knew what he was really singing about, and who the song was for.

“Oh you go out there, and bow to none! And cause a stir, as if it were the last one. Curse them into hiding, these thieves who won’t believe the way we’re riding!”

Another brief pause. Another breath. Another repeat of the first verse, a part of the audience now joining in on the chant. The chorus of voices grew as the singer repeated that very verse, three times, four times, five times. By the time the noise died down, his chest was heaving with heavy breaths and his shirt was soaked through with sweat. The glow faded from the brass ornament, he recited that same prayer again, and in a moment…

The intensity was gone. He had calmed himself in an instant, as if taking off a mask. The breathing technique, the strange prayer… Something told Zel that he was using some sort of technique to entrance himself into such a performative state. But she wouldn’t have time to contemplate or question, for the foreign soldiers had had enough.

“This is ridiculous! Bold-faced political provocateur!” the yellow-skinned soldiers yelled in anger, their words crystal-clear and surprisingly devoid of accent. A few of the people in the crowd gave them dirty looks, but none dared intervene - at least, none of the Ikesians. Surprisingly, one of the Grekurians did, a musclebound, immaculately-dressed mountain of a bronze-skinned man.

“Shut your mouth, cat-eater,” he growled. “Willowdale is a sovereign city-state under Grekurian protection, and unlike your feudalistic hellhole, we don’t persecute artists here.”

The soldier that spoke out loudest spat at the Grekurian’s feet, uttering an insult in that sing-song language of his. The Grekurian stepped up, towering over him by a full head. He said something in the very same language as the foreign soldiers, grinning as they shrank back at the realization that he understood their insults.

“Try something,” he continued, courtesy dripping from his words like poisoned honey as he bent down to stare the soldier in the eyes at point-blank. “I’d love to see you locust-men give us political justification to liberate some of those tribes you’ve been using for slave labor.”

One of the three barked something in their native language, and though she would have otherwise been more than happy to participate in such commotion were she directly involved, Zel chose to slink away before she could be made to involve herself. A brisk walk towards the town gate quickly took her out of earshot of the argument, and to the gate. There weren’t any guards on this side, and so she just approached the small door and tried to pull it open. It wouldn’t budge. A couple good bangs made the eye slot slide open, a pair of pale blue eyes squinting from the other side. 

“Haven’t seen you before, mind explainin’ yerself?” the man on the other side questioned, but his counterpart quickly shut him up with nothing more than a hushed whisper.

“She’s the one that beat the daylights outta the governor’s son!” the other one muttered, half excited and half fearful. They shut the slot and opened the door, nervously waving her on through. If she remembered the briefing correctly, she’d have to walk a few dozen meters down the road, and then step onto one of the dirt roads that connected the fields…

Uncertain, Zel took out her Tablet and used the record function to refresh her memory. She had, indeed, remembered correctly. Whilst she walked, she took the time to check the other category of techniques. This one held more than the Fog-breathing category - three in total. These too were unnamed, and their names too flickered in.

Staggering Shot

Beheading Saw

Heartbreaker

She didn’t even bother trying to check the techniques’ details, as the names alone were enough to infer their moments of creation, though she did wonder how exactly destroying the Necrobeast’s heart would translate to creatures whose hearts weren’t inside tempered alchemic flasks.

In fact, she was just curious how using techniques would work in general, how it would be any different from doing whatever action created them. Zel’s mind continued to wander in this direction for a short while as she herself wandered down the road, only broken out of this trekking trance by the realization that she had nearly passed the dirt path she was supposed to take.

Through the fields she walked, her path flanked on either side by dried-up canals - now full of poppy flowers and the scraps of war, from discarded shot-through helmets to war knives too damaged to have been salvaged. The thought of bringing a few poppies back for Zef crossed her mind, to see the cyclops’ reaction. She wasn’t even sure if such a thing would get a rise out of her, after last night. Then again, even if it didn’t, she would be able to use the poppies as a jumping-off point for something.

Daydreaming about all the ways she could tease the markswoman turned out to be a rather easy pastime to get lost in. Zel shook her head to banish this train of thought, as she was nearing the field where the beast was supposedly seen most often. At first glance, the field looked completely normal - a solid perimeter of maize, stretching so tall as to tower even above her head.

Stepping into the field, though, revealed a far different image. She found herself in a small, near-perfectly circular clearing of stomped down stalks, reddish-brown splotches of dried blood staining the dessicated yellow.