Champion of a Lost Cause

Effruin reaches the waking common room alone. Above, Sarah remains in the private room, while below, shutters open onto a pale road and the smell of damp earth.

The door opens before he reaches the bar. Livia steps in from the road with travel dust on her boots and a battered pack slung over one shoulder.

Livia crosses to a scarred table and spreads a crude map across it. Ink marks a broken road winding toward a black, unnamed hollow beyond the settled tracks.

She stands before Effruin and waits without lowering her gaze. The common room bustles around them, oblivious to her request, leaving Effruin the choice of answer.

Effruin circles Livia without touching her, watching how her boots meet the floor and how readily her weight shifts. His keen senses catch the faint scrape of leather, the uneven pressure in her stance, and the guarded tension in her shoulders.

He steps in abruptly, testing her response with a sudden feint toward her open side. He moves in one, clean motion. Despite his one arm creating an imbalance in his stature and silhouette, his poise remains exact.

Livia turns with the feint rather than retreating, though her rear foot drags half a finger’s breadth. Effruin notes the mistake immediately: her guard protects the center, but leaves her vulnerable during a change of direction.

He shifts his weight again, measuring her recovery, breath, and eyes. Nothing escapes his heightened perception: she is alert and determined, but her footing and guard is not yet reliable under pressure.

Effruin has his judgment. Livia can fight, and her guard is serviceable, but she is not ready for any real opponent who attacks anything more than her courage.

Effruin explains each judgment plainly, grounding it in the scrape of her boot, the pressure beneath her steps, and the tension visible in her shoulders. His keen senses separate resolve from reliable technique.

Livia absorbs the verdict without flinching. Her jaw tightens, looking down in a mild show of embarrassment. Then, she looks up, assured once more.

Effruin, despite himself, finda that he is enjoying this conversation with Livia. He provides her the correction in a compact sequence, pivoting and settling with exact balance. His keen senses track Livia’s ankle, heel, and shoulder together, catching each misalignment before it becomes a liability.

A harsher memory follows, carrying the image of Grahamin's lifeless body in a ruin realm of darkness. Effruin’s breath hitches, composure briefly disrupted, but he forces the recollection aside and keeps teaching.

Livia follows the instruction across the worn floor. Her rear foot plants beneath her instead of scraping wide; her recovery tightens, and her guard remains closed through the turn.

The lesson is complete. Livia now has a clear correction and a repeatable drill, while Effruin’s breathing settles and the memory of Grahamin recedes into the waking room.

Effruin recognizes the value of a smile offered before a blade is needed, and a clever answer before a door closes. He sincerely wants Livia to consider this herself.

Livia studies her map, then the room beyond it. Effruin’s judgment has found the adventurer beneath the fighter: someone who must learn to read people as carefully as she reads a battlefield.

Effruin nods once, then turns from the map and the scarred table. His recovered strength carries him easily across the common room toward the brothel’s door.

Livia gathers her map and battered pack as Effruin steps outside. Pale daylight rests over the road, and damp earth replaces the common room’s smoke and ale.

The brothel door closes behind him without ceremony. Effruin stands alone beneath the washed-out sky, his path open and his attention fixed on practical miles ahead.

He leaves the roadside establishment and follows the road toward the next settlement, moving at a steady pace while the morning gathers brightness around him.