Throwing back the hood to let her hair shine, she would stride through the streets with confidence. Though she came to realize Tullaris was giving her momentary absolution from the rules of Har Garath more than anything, as she got jumped by a group of six younglings looking for some fame and fortune. Feeling magnanimous after her ascension, she left them alive and carried on back to the Coven. Getting into her room, she threw off the disguise and opened the inventory to grab her Bride uniform and weaponry. Though it was here she got a new set of traits from the System and the token shops were glowing.

Born Of Blood - Khaine is the God of Blood, and as such it is his to command. No child of his will ever suffer from his aspect, as long as his hand is on their shoulder. Gain immunity to bleeding damage.

Womb Of War - Warfare, fought with a thousand different weapons, is Khaine’s domain. And he grants this domain to his child, so they might sow beautiful carnage in his name. Gain level 4 Proficiency in all weapons.

Headripper Uppercut - a tremendous blow take the man clean off his feet, and maybe even his head clean off his body, should the user put in enough strength. Spend Cool to deal 200% damage to the head and knock them off their feet. (Requires Unarmed Proficency 4)

Two new Traits - Power Child seemed inherent rather than bought so didn’t refund - was always nice, and the Proficency Talent from her unarmed weapons was pretty awesome to boot. The other trait was a poorly described ‘divine mode’ which explained nothing, but she was optimistic. So she scrolled a little and found two that really played into her passionate desire to not be stabbed to death for a fourth time.

Steel Skin (Replaces Sturdy Skin) -  A breast for a breastplate, you can reflect attacks that would fell a lesser man. Gain 20% armour that stacks with worn armour.

Gromril Skin (Replaces Sturdy Skin) - Skin as hard as Meteoric Iron, the enemy would be hard-pressed to strike you down even were you to spring wet and naked from a bathtub. Gain 30% armour that stacks with worn armour.

Throwing on the dress as well, she had a very hearty armour rating that would hopefully mitigate aforementioned being stabbed. But that was not all, because the token shop was still glowing, so it got opened and browsed. Scrolling down to the red-backed option that she had seen a long time ago, it was now unlocked. However, she felt it staring back at her with a deep and foreboding glare. Even the name, “Orphaned Child” was not something she wanted to mess with, but tapped it anyway.

Orphaned Child - A woman makes a Widow, but children make Orphans. While young, Khaine still smiles upon this blade, and it shall take it’s owner through many a bloody battle

The stats were incredible, and while she wasn’t exactly hurting for a weapon these days, she saw no reason not to get such an aspected thing. And so she definitely bought that for 150 tokens. Extracting it from her inventory, it took the form of a pair of small spikes on her bridal gloves, and had a few tricks. Bleeding was always helpful for the extra DPS, and “Rivers Of Blood” special effect that would half the time taken for bleeding to proc damage. Along with her special ability from her Exalted blessing, things were going to bleed to death pretty quickly. It was underwhelming from the looks but amazing in stats, a conundrum she felt was far more common than the one she was having here. Like it was the classic problem of any item-gathering system. To favour ability over appearance…

Still, this weird tangent was snapped out of because she was keeping Tullaris waiting. So, she would flick out of the Vigor shop and into the Sharpshooter shop, repeating the motions to get down to the bottom and see the super item there. 

Khaine’s Talon - None are beyond the reach of the bloody-handed God Of War, and this weapon ensures such. All beings, no matter how close or how far, will fall to the ever changing nature of this projectile weapon.

Another Red weapon, this was a ranged weapon that had the ‘Mutable’ ability, being able to shit into any ranged weapon that she so wished it to be. After so long, she’d have firearms back in her hands. Was she still attached to them? Or had she moved on from them into her own two fists? She’d have to find that out in a dungeon later. For now, she took a breath, and then exhaled. She was about to fight the Captain Of The Executioners. To prove to him that she was touched by His God. Or rather, at this point to show him how much? Ehh, that too would be figured out later. She was always good at winging it.

Striding out into the streets, she did not get jumped this time. Apparently it really was the clothes that made the woman. She wouldn’t want to jump someone dressed like this, there was just something intimidatingly confident about the outfit. It was revealing, but also domineering at the same time. Left alone as she strode to the arena, thoughts drifted to where it was she was going. She didn’t remember much fighting here, because the majority of it was in that blurry week she fought under thrall. And before that….was…that one impulse join where she caught the eye of Hellebron in the first place. 

Stepping into the abutting training area, getting quickly ushered into the waiting room by the clerk, she could hear that now would be different. The sounds on the other side of the door was thunderous, humming with the cries of thousands of people. It seemed the cold war did not cool anyone’s desire to watch a fight of a lifetime. Nobody was so uncouth as to break the sanctity of the Arena, anyway.

Eventually, the doors were thrown open by Arena Serfs, and she stepped out into view of the thousands. Screaming, cheering, chanting…it was truly intoxicating to be the source of even half of these people’s exuberance. The man fifty foot away from her on the other end of this great arena was the other half. His armour was beautiful, his skull-helmet absolutely iconic, and his blade…well, it hummed to her in all it’s wild glory.

“Quite the sight, no?!” Estaria shouted over the crowd, raising her arms and gesturing to them.

“I rarely fight with such a crowd. It will be a new experience for me indeed” Tullaris replied. He had a voice that was smooth, cool, and somehow cutting through the crowd like that blade would cut through a person. She was so excited for this fight, she almost missed the crossbow bolt flying from the stands, chipping a bit of her luck off. 

A glance that way saw another half dozen bolts heading her way, so she flipped, spinning in a display of acrobatic excellence to avoid them. The crowd’s cheers turned then, into shrieks and wails. Knives were drawn, Crossbow wielding members stabbed and stabbing. From the doors at the back, heavily armoured men bust through, and started cutting through the crowd to support the unrobed Druchii that were leaping over the side into the sands. 

Estaria was frozen, amazed by the gall of these people. The sheer fucking hubris of it all. Tullaris, was less so, and he closed the gap between him and the Dreadswords on the right like an surging wave of death. Three men were dead before they realized he was in range, and then a fourth as he tried to cry out in surprise. Still, no time to ogle him, as she was brought out of her shock by a blade coming her way. She deflected it with his glove, snapped her hand downwards to grab his wrist and wildly twisted it. The crunch of bone was nearly silent in the tumult the crowd was making, but he definitely felt it. Spinning and using him as a projectile to smash his friend into the ground, she would give an irritated sigh. Ruining her fuckin’ fun with a brilliant guy she’d probably not be able to get back into the Arena after all this.

“I’m going to fuckin’ kill the lot of you” she grumbled, taking a third man’s jaw off with a kick and finding amusement in the face of his friend going from savage bloodthirst to wild disgust as he was smacked in the face with said jaw. This wasn’t going to end here, the cold war had finally turned hot. And as was foretold, the streets would run red with blood.