Check out the arena.

Morning comes. To not eat Niki's family out of house and home, you munch on a very light breakfast mostly of travel rations, and the anticipation of the oncoming festivities proves to be too much of a temptress for any of you to resist. Though the fights don't start until tomorrow, you're curious to see what this is even going to look like. However, you can't just all leave Niki's parents behind either, and taking them outside would be a risky play.

Thomas crosses his arms and sighs. "I couldn't call myself a man if I left these people unprotected just to look at an arena."

"Damn. You're right, and I can't let you out-man me. You bet your ass I'm staying here, at least for now."

"We'll figure out what to do during the fights tomorrow. It's only ever a one-on-one, so we'll luckily always have most of us there to protect them," Hedi says. "Don't worry, you two. You're my parents. I'll die before I let them touch you."

"Are you sure?" you ask. "We can stay here too."

Hedi shakes his head. "You both go. We need people looking around town too."

"If that's really what you want. Hey, Niki--Huh? Where is she?"

"She left while you were talking." He snickers.

You turn to see the front door opened. "God damn it!" You hurry out after her.

Quickly, you catch up with her speed-walking down the road.

"Slow down!" you call out.

"You hurry up," Niki replies. "I wanna see if other fighters are there already."

The two of you move quickly through the town. It isn't even afternoon yet by the time you near the northern exit, and that's when you start to see the crowd thicken. There's something set up ahead. Upon closer inspection, there are bleachers build all around a large ring, though nobody has been allowed to sit in them yet. The ring itself looks to be a bit over twenty meters in diameter. The border is marked by a rope laying in a circle all around the arena, which you assume is the point you don't want to pass--the ring-out defeat. Strategies race through your mind.

You don't need to overpower your opponent. You can just get them to step out of the ring. If only I had Amara's wind spell. This is good though. My skill set seems to be more about quick swordsmanship mixed with magic than raw strength.

As you try to make your way through the crowd, you look at everyone around you. Anyone could be the spy. Multiple could be. You also can't quite tell who might be a competitor or just a traveller that's come to watch.

"I don't think they're done setting up yet," Niki says.

"I imagine now. It's still a day away. It's still a pretty impressive arena so far."

"Did that have anything like this back where you're from?"

"Well, not for fighting exactly. There are a lot of massive stadiums for sports. There's boxing and wresting I guess. Though back a long time ago, there was the Colosseum, which was similar to this. Way bigger, and gladiators would fight there for sport, among other things. That's ancient history though."

"That sounds kick ass!"

"It probably wasn't for most people... and they didn't exactly have healing magic."

You look to see a distressed woman in the crowd. She looks around frantically, and when she sees you, she approaches right away. It's the woman from the Desert Lily--the one dressed in white with the pearl necklace. Though she is wearing the same garb, her hair is down, showing just how long it really is.

"E-Excuse me," she says softly. "You were one of the competitors from the other day, yes?"

"What's the matter?" Niki asks.

"Ah. You friend came to the Lily yesterday, and he was sweet. I gave him a dance, and--"

"Of course you did!" She turns to you. "You pervert."

"Please." She tries to steal back your attention. "It's my little sister. She's missing. No matter how much I told her no, she insisted that she wanted to go explore the caves north of here, and I think she slipped away when I wasn't looking. I'm just trying to find somebody to find her. I'll find some way to reward you."

"I can only imagine how you'd reward him..." Niki mutters.

"Why are you getting angry?" you ask.

"I'm not!"

"Please, I--" The woman starts to panic.

"All right, all right." Niki shakes her head. "You may have deflowered poor Kyle, but your sister is still someone in need."

Excuse me?

"Oh bless you." She wraps her arms around Niki and hugs her tight. "Please be careful. They're a distance out of town, and that's where monsters like to lurk."

"We're experts at this kind of thing. Calm your tits. Me and Kyle will go rescue your sister. We didn't really have much going on before tomorrow anyway. Come on. We need to be quick about this! Every moment we wait is another moment she could be eaten by a giant scorpion!"

"What?" The woman gasps.

"You can't say that," you mutter. "All right. We'll be back as soon as we can, miss. And uh, thanks again for yester--"

Niki yanks on your arm. "Off we go!"