Nothing... The bad kind of nothing.

Liam reached beneath his padded armor and into his tunic, and produced another magical sundry, just like the band that had kicked off all of the events. This time, it was a velvet pouch containing a small quantity of fine, sparkling sand. He pulled the drawstring and let it open as a pile on the cloth on the floor of the arena, then began sprinkling pinches of it onto the head of the defeated Dustaine.

"Are you feeling sleepy, Harley...?" he spoke in a quiet tone, although tinged with his usual inappropriately saccharine sweetness. "This pixie dust is a cheap way to make someone drift off, although you have to have them sit still for a while to make it work. You ought to sleep well, though... as it turns out, I decided I'd rather not bother punishing you after all."

"You are lucky, Dustaine," Ralli muttered from where she stood nearby. "It seems this lecherous worm will be content with only me."

"That's right," Liam cooed, continuing to sprinkle dust over Harley's hair. Her teeth were clenched in defiance, but gradually grew slack as her eyes dulled. "I'll be content with Teach alone. Well... her and any other fun people I meet in town. Did I tell you? I'm going to take your beloved Ms. Ralli into town and see what all those knights and nuns are up to. While I'm there, I'll swing by some healer who either knows or cares less about my character than you, so I can free myself from being bound to your whims as to whether I should have a functioning neck. And then..."

He leaned in close to her ear as her eyes began to shut and whispered to her. "... I'm gonna find some really, really fun way to fuck our teacher, Harley. Good night...~"

The knight trainee was still frowning, but she had fallen into a slumber, breathing quietly as a thin trickle of drool began to form at one side of her mouth.

"Oh dear. I hope she's not having a nightmare," the young man spoke softly, standing up and dusting himself off meticulously once more. "It'd be nice if she was having a nice dream about you, wouldn't it, Teach? Tell me what you think. In your own words."

"I hope she's having... a very filthy dream about me," Ralli muttered, glancing down at Harley and frowning. "I hope she does the things to me in that dream... that you plan to do to me in real life."

"That's the spirit, Teach! Let's get ready for our night on the town!" Liam said with a grin. "Oh... that's right. Your class is still here. I'm kind of picturing this as a private date, Teach..."

The sergeant grit her teeth in frustration, then faced back to the class. "All of you maggots! I see you cannot be bothered to involve yourselves! None of you has an ounce of the ambition... or devilish good looks... of Liam Baldwin. Clean up this mess before I get back... from my... hot night on the town...!" she shouted, staring at the dirt in spite of the energy in her voice.

With that, Liam dragged Ralli along in good spirits. If there was some divine punishment from Geod or disciplinary action from the knights waiting for him, it seemed it must be in the town of Merridan itself...