“Borenger!” A blue skinned man twitched his ears under a straw hat with tepid excitement as he noticed him while walking along a bridge. Lalant Vorinasche was the famous ‘Blade Whisperer’ known also as the ‘Divine Piercer’ but not someone who was known to have students. “Hey, Borenger, can you hear me?!” He shouted at the only pupil he has taken and will ever take.

  Borenger Ala-Mak was an older boy, rather tall for his kind standing at five feet and ten inches and dressed in nothing but pants, his tanned red skin looking ripley cancerous, he turned around hearing someone yelling at him “Oh! Mas-” but before the words could get out a sandal had whacked him in the face, though he remained in place he awkwardly bent backwards.

  “Still too slow gahaha!” Lalant laughed at him, despite his noble visage he was a loud laugher. “Anyway! What are you doing down there? Come up!”

  Borenger sighed and began climbing the slope, though another sandal came for his face he caught it and sighed. “Borenger! Jump, don’t be a lazy bum.”

  “But-” Borenger gently snorted and slid down the slope. “Also don’t drop my sandals!” Lalant added as Borenger leaped over eighteen feet into the air, though he had to use his hands to help him over the bridge’s fence. “That’s more like it.” Lalant swiped the sandals from him as Borenger stabilized himself on the side of the bridge.

  “It’s been a few days, master. I think I am ready to show you what I learned from the Kyreneans.”

  “With live arms as well, and several - not even all swords. And you call yourself a swordsman?” Lalant smirks and pokes Borenger’s chest.

  “I am a vrilya, not just a swordsman.” Borenger pulls out a bulky blaster, carrying it like a pistol though it is more like a carbine. “This has been particularly useful.”

  “That’s good and all but let’s save the spar for later. Hungry?”

  “Not particularly, the bandits and mercenaries carry sufficient money.”

  “You haven’t been killing them, have you?” Lalant prepared to whack his apprentice in the back of his head but Borenger shook his head.

  “Nope, like you told me I started assisting their blood flow and getting them picked up by medics. I’ve even helped reattach a few arms.” After hearing this explanation Lalant whacked him in the back of his head. “W-wait I was kidding about the arms!”

  “I doubt that. Plus I didn’t say you should rob them either.” Lalant smacked him again “Though it’s better than killing them, the law wouldn’t forgive that.” Lalant continued smacking him and the pair continued bickering down the dirt path until they reached a small tavern with a convenient lodge. “Room for one.”

  “What about me?”

  Lalant turned around and looked at Borenger plainly. “Pay for yourself. Besides, haven’t you been sleeping somewhere?”

  “Under the bridge.”

  “Don’t do that, idiot. Also, split with me.”

  “I spent all my money on food and equipment.”

  “...” Lalant blankly stared at him and bought the room for two, going up to lie down immediately on the mattress nearest to the bathroom.

  “Master, why did you lead me here?”

  Lalant sighed and tipped a hat over his face. “Tonight we’re going to meet with someone. This is important for your career as a vrilya so don’t go running off too far.”

  “Understood.” Borenger plopped down and lied next to Lalant, stretching his sore body.

  “I forgot how much dwarfs stink when they get sweaty.” Lalant commented, squirting hand sanitizer under his nose. “Go clean up and after my nap I will explain, ‘kay?”

  “On it sir.” Borenger rolled out of the room as Lalant stretched and yawned, getting comfortable on the bed. As he was doing so, Borenger went to first wash his clothes and take a shower. A process of eight minutes and then went to take a nap on the bed next to Lalant. However, there was no way he was going to sleep from only three to nine or ten so he woke up after around thirty minutes of rest and looked out the window.

  This was in a relatively outskirt city within the Ibintil Empire on Mafakas called Feir, existing in a temperate plain with a population of around twenty thousand residents. Unlike Agadi, the capital city of Ibintil which is perhaps the largest city in the Outrim. It is said to have ziggurat like buildings for residential living covered like they are nature reserves and plenty of farmland within it’s walls that almost entirely exist to feed the city itself.

  Borenger wondered if he would ever get to see Agadi, perhaps the only city of grandeur in the Outrim but it is not exactly like the Ibintil Empire really needs such warriors except in ventures against the smaller Mafakan states and special missions that are usually afforded to special cadres of the Imperial armories.

  He sighed as he watched out the window, then went off to wander outside. It didn’t take long for him to become occupied. As aforementioned, such warriors as vril users like him. They had many rivals throughout the entire galaxy, though no one would guess Borenger was a vrilya and those he had fought before knew it definitely.

  Five men stood before him, armed and one wore kyrene armor which was the one that Borenger recognized standing in front of them. “Listen, this doesn’t have to get messy. Just give us our money back.”

  “You sure-”

  “Don’t try to wiggle yourself out of this. I appreciate that you didn’t let me lose my arm but I am not going to forgive thievery.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I understand, but you see. I had to feed myself.”

  “And I imagine none is left?!” The kyrenean sounded angry. “You know, thieves usually go to jail or prison here on Mafakas but on Kyrene we take their fingers!” The man pulled out a sword and his off-hand dagger. The other men with the kyrenean were also men Borenger recognized though one he did not. A gigan with a club, two thuggish dwarves and a furry merwoman stood slightly behind the kyrenean.

  “I’m willing to negotiate, whatever your terms are.”

  “Let me get all ten fingers, but the others will take what they’re owed too.”

  Borenger sighed and backed up, he had only brought an axe with him on his venture outside. “I can’t do anything to the kyrenean with this.” He looked around for an escape route and unfortunately it would take quite a bit of effort but he could use their current position to his advantage.

  So, he lunged forward with his axe wildly, scooping dirt into one hand to toss in the face of the Kyrenean. “Pathetic, you should know that wouldn’t work with my helm-” He realized his mistake in his assumption as Borenger gripped the top of the helmet and launched himself into a handstand and tossed himself onto the gigan’s shoulders.

  “Isos, you didn’t say he was a vrilya!” The merwoman said she immediately transformed into something resembling a chimpanzee, a wolf and a cheetah and had obviously seen where Borenger intended to escape to. Which was the roof of the nearby inn, but he didn’t have time to correct his course and leaped from the gigan’s shoulders before he could be grabbed and use the axe like a hook to help himself up. He began to run on the rooftop as the merwoman chased after him. Naturally, even without utilizing vril techniques she was very fast which forced Borenger to exert a strenuous amount of energy into his legs.

  “Agh-” He tried to speak as he ran. “Can’t we make our own deal? I didn’t rob you!”

  The beast only kept chasing after him, and had considerably made distance and nipped his ankle. “Ow!” He performed a backflip over the beast who slid to a stop and faced him. Now that Borenger saw her clearly, he noticed a specially tightened belt with gear on it and the beast turned back into a woman albeit taller and more ferocious looking.

  “Damn shifter, I ought to have brought my blaster to put a dog like you down!” Borenger tightened his stance and rested the axe on his shoulder.

  “Aren’t vrilya swordsmen?”

  “I hear that one quite often. Vrilya aren’t usually dwarves either.”

  “You’re quite tall for a dwarf, but far too ugly to even be a quarter fay.”

  “Whatever, I bet that weakling kyrenean is the only type of guy who’d screw a pooch like you!” Borenger stepped him and took the initiative, which the merwoman was unprepared for, though she could have blocked it with a dagger she aimed too low and the blade of the axe lopped off her hand. “Urgh!” She briefly grunted and swiped at Borenger with her free hand and the claws tore through his chest while he dodged.

  “Ouch!-” Borenger chided himself a bit internally as he should have realized she could do something like that, even though this was his first time fighting a shifter, a part mer and part fay warrior that could use vril but only focused on pure animalistic abilities. Doing anything else would be a waste of their mer blood. “If you run away now with your hand, you can reattach it. Otherwise I will kill you.” Borenger threatened her with his axe but she just snorted and her muscles rippled, making her much taller than she already was. There was no chance she was a gigan, but she was as tall as one right now.

  “What the…” Borenger had no time to analyze as the beast approached, sprinting towards him and attempted to shatter his skull with a swipe of the paw. So he dug in, tightly swinging for the air before him and switching the blad around at the end of the arc into the beasts’ neck. It worked, but he was forced to abandon the axe as it embedded itself into the fur of the neck.

  Borenger was knocked off the roof and though he rolled he was in pain from the fall, but he wasted no time in picking himself back up. Running into an alley between two buildings, unfortunately the other people after him were closer and the beast leaped down, breathing heavily and taking heavy steps while transforming into the smaller more beastlike form she was in earlier, the axe dropping from her neck as she shrunk.

  “That didn’t do anything?” Despite the thought he kept running through the alley but the beast caught him by his ass. “Ouch! Owowow!” He briefly charged a large load of energy into his hand and smacked the beast, though this was fatiguing the beast let go and he leaped to grab onto whatever he could. In this case, he grabbed an electrical wire and though he was being shocked he put his hand on a window and began climbing.

  The merwoman transformed back into a normal woman and groaned as the pain for her lost hand settled in more. The two dwarf thugs found her in the alley. “Did you get him?”

  “No, he’s climbing right now. We’d probably be too late if we tried to follow.” She balled up her fist. “I have to go get my hand reattached. We can probably find him in town again, I know how he smells.” She limped back to the building where she lost her hand and the group went on their way.

  Borenger sighed in relief as he spied the group going to the hospital. “Note, to defeat a shifter I probably need something for stabbing.” He touched his chest and realized something was gone. “She ripped my nipple off?” He searched around in his shirt but found nothing, he figures it is probably on the roof where they fought but it was too risky to grab it when he needed more immediate treatment. He noticed discoloration in his blood. “Poison too? This’d be enough to kill a man… lucky me.” He didn’t bother purging the poison as it wouldn’t be an issue for him.

  In a few hours Lalant woke up and saw Borenger getting dressed. “You got into a fight?”

  “I did. It was a shifter, don’t worry I cleaned myself off and ditched the clothes I was wearing so they wouldn’t follow me here.”

  “They, huh? Well you always were smart.”

  “Y-yeah.”

  “You’ll be able to get your revenge, even if your vril control will never be as acute as other Vrilya, you’ve got the talent to defeat most well trained warriors. The shifter must have been quite powerful to injure you.”

  “She was, I couldn’t even get my axe through her fur when she became really large and beastly.”

  “You encountered a war form shifter? That’s my pupil for you.”

  “I suppose that is a good thing?”

  “Definitely. Shifters can’t go into that form for too long or too often without going insane.”

  “I did chop her hand off.”

  “A natural talent I see.” Lalant sounded a bit irritated but he also couldn’t hide how impressed he was. “Anyway, we’re going to meet with someone important, so be polite.”

  “Understood.” Borenger stated firmly.

  Lalant sat up and stretched, groaning a bit “I’m a creaking sack of bones.” Though he said this, his skin tightly clung to his muscles, unlike other races the fay looked extremely lean all the time due to their innate ability to manipulate their bodies all the time, of course training to get the physique of a vrilya always took time.

  The pair got ready to go to their meeting, and once there Borenger could only note that it was well guarded. Several high grade warriors were around the area, watching them as they entered an apartment room where two veiled ladies sat comfortably in a surprisingly fancy room.