Prologue
Arsalan managed a few hours of sleep before the acrid scent of alcohol roused him from slumber. It was midnight, he noticed, looking out the window from within his blanket cocoon.
The sounds of slurred shouting and drunken arguments could be heard from beneath the floor of his room in the inn he was staying at. He shut his eyes and attempted to go back to sleep.
It eventually escalated into the crackle of shattering glass and the solid sounds of thrown punches, muffled by the floorboards. Having had enough, Arsalan forced his eyes open, and slowly unfurled from his blanket cocoon.
“Idiots.” he muttered drowsily as he pulled on a grey waistcoat over his shirt.
Slipping on the harness for his wooden sword, and sparks of slash magic energy popping into life and extinguishing, he dragged a hand over his face irritably as he continued out the door that would lead him downstairs.
A collection of brawny men, all a little too red faced from beer, save for the Innkeeper, were engaged in a fight. There were already several of them unconscious on the floor. Arsalan caught a beer keg thrown at him as a bearded blond-haired man came running up the stairs towards him, they looked drunk, but they also had a knife, and they definitely knew how to use it, Arsalan noted as he narrowly avoided a lunging strike that almost gutted him. He stepped to the side casually and slammed his foot into the man’s back with a roundhouse kick that launched him through the open door of Arsalan’s room to sprawl onto the floor, winded.
Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, he threw the beer keg at an unconscious drunk’s head with a small chuckle as he made his way over to the Innkeeper behind the bar to ask how they were feeling about the occurring brawl. Noticing someone behind him, he dodged a second attack by the same blond-haired drunk and knocked them unconscious with a swiftly planted side kick that launched them into several tables with a resounding impact, and he did so with all the guise of casual indifference.
Even after arriving at the bar, which was on the opposite side of the brawl on the bottom floor, he had to shout for his voice to be heard over the chaos, “So you’re fine with this?”
The Innkeeper stared at him with a grim smirk, “It’s become almost routine for brawls like this to be held here.” They sighed, a sad sound filled with the knowledge that this had happened several times, “But I’d rather they chose a different inn to bring chaos to, it’s hard enough cleaning up even when there’s no brawl to witness.”
They both ducked as another stray mug of beer was flung at the bar to land with a clang on the floorboards.
“Is there anything you can do?” Arsalan asked.
“Nothing that I’ve tried already, moreover, is there anything you can do?”
A small smile played onto his face. “Nothing that doesn’t involve evoking more violence."
The Innkeeper’s eyebrow rose.
“Mainly dished out by me.” Arsalan pointed a thumb towards himself as the same smile sat on his face, despite his tired eyes.
“And you are?”
He leaned over the bar, careful not to prick his hands on any of the shattered glass shards that littered the surface, “Arsalan Crest, masterful coffee brewer, decent swordsman, and Magius’s one and only slash magic user." He caught another stray beer keg just inches from the Innkeepers face, and held out his hand, "Nice to meet you.”