Walter leaned backwards, just barely keeping Kylus's fist from turning his face into a plate, and kept going until he felt his back hit the fence behind him. With one kick Walter rolled over the fence, onto his knees facing the half-goliath, and then dove to the side in a roll through the mud to prevent Kylus's follow-up from obliterating him along with the fence that had turned shrapnel. "You're gonna get disqualified!" Walter yelled as he quickly backed away a few steps from the rampaging half-goliath.

Kylus stopped and stared intently at Walter. "You, bastard." He called Walter. "Why talk shit?"

"If you can't handle the truth then maybe you shouldn't have left the brothel's backrooms." Walter shot back with a grin.

"Hey!" The old man from earlier, Mark, screeched as he hobbled towards them as quickly as he could. "Save it fer arena!"

"The arena needs fixed now." Walter gestured towards the obliterated section of fence. "We'll have to wait until it can be fixed."

Mark's face went through half a dozen different variations of rage and shock before he settled on just being red. "You planned this." He accused Walter with a pointing figure that was shaking with rage.

Kylus seemed to calm down slightly as he processed what Mark had just revealed. After a moment, he realized that he had been played. Kylus's glare gained a hint of respect that was mostly overshadowed by shock and betrayal. "I liked you." Kylus told Walter as if the elf had just stabbed him in the back. "Why you no fight me?"

"I have places to go, people to see, and I don't want to be brought back from the brink, again, because of one of those battering rams you call fists." Walter told him. "So go fist fight a bull or something." He waved him off. Walter turned to leave and looked over at Isaac and Lenna. He nodded towards Gypsy and his saddlebags. The two started to follow him as he left. "Find someone else to fight, kid! Like an iron golem or something!" Walter called, not even bothering to look back over his shoulder at Kylus as he did so.

When the trio arrived back at where Gypsy had been waiting, Walter gave Isaac and Lenna a questioning look. "What?" Isaac asked.

"You aren't gonna ask why I crushed the kid's spirits so bad?" Walter questioned.

Isaac shrugged. "I don't really care." He replied honestly.

"It is none of my business." Lenna added.

Walter shrugged. "Fair enough, I guess." He said more to himself than to the other two. He reached into his saddlebags and pulled out an overcoat. He flipped it around himself as he stuffed his arms into the arm holes. The overcoat fell down to his mid calf and was the same brownish tan as dead grass. He then pulled out a round brimmed hat and flipped it twice in his hands before he put it on his head. He then pulled a small pouch of coins out and handed it to Gypsy.

Gypsy looked at him as if she was awaiting her next annoying order. Something about the fox's stance made it look as though she was always reluctant to agree to whatever task Walter gave her. Almost like she would've rather been sleeping in the sun instead of doing his bidding.

"Take this to Joan's and grab Copper." He told her. "This should cover my outstanding bill and then some. Make sure you bring back the change and have them saddle her." Gypsy grabbed the pouch carefully between her teeth. "Meet us by the north gate." Gypsy nodded and started gracefully trotting away.

"She understood all of that?" Isaac asked Walter.

Walter nodded. "Yeah. She's really smart, most of the time." He added the second part like he had just had an experience to bring that statement into question, recently. "I'll meet you two at the north gate in an hour."

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Isaac nodded. "Okay, see you there."

"How many and how old are your horses? Copper is used to the road but it can get kinda sketchy." Walter questioned.

"We don't have any." Isaac told him. "We usually just walk or run. My magic keeps either of us from getting tired or our muscles from getting sore."

"Will that work for me? Or Copper?" Walter asked immediately.

Isaac shook his head. "No. It works on me because, well, I'm me. It works on Lenna because she is a dark elf." Isaac explained.

Walter frowned as he thought about what Isaac had just revealed. "Why?" He wondered aloud.

"Another time." Isaac replied. "Don't you have stuff to get ready?"

"Oh, yeah." Walter said and shook his head to clear it. He grabbed his saddlebags and threw them over his shoulder. It was then that Isaac realized that they still looked just as half full as when Gypsy had first arrived with them.

As Walter left, Isaac turned to Lenna. "Do you think?" He asked her.

"Oh definitely." Lenna agreed. His saddlebags were definitely Bottomless. Who knew how much stuff a wandering artificer had packed inside a pair of Bottomless Bags. It was now incredibly obvious why Gypsy had never let them out of her sight until Walter had taken them.

"Well, we don't exactly have anything left to get." Isaac commented. "I need to get changed first but do you want to get something warm to eat before we get back on the road?"

Lenna nodded. "Definitely." She instantly replied. "I am not looking forward to weeks on end of traveling food."

"We should probably also get his payment from the bank." Isaac realized. "The elven city-"

"Material de la Celestia." Lenna reminded him.

"-might not have access to our records through the Adventurers' Guild like they do here in Altia." Isaac finished.

Lenna nodded. "Agreed." She said. "It would not surprise me if they were too pretentious to work with human banks. They probably store their money in topiary fields of stacked coinage."

Isaac chuckled at the mental image. "That would be kind of ridiculous." He commented.

"Less ridiculous than naming your city 'Fragment of the Heavens'." She countered.

Isaac laughed. "That is fair. You have to be a certain level of both delusional and pretentious to do that with a straight face."

An hour later, Isaac and Lenna were waiting by the north gate for Walter and his animal companions. It only took another few minutes for Walter to arrive looking almost exactly the same as he had when they had parted ways. The biggest thing was that he looked noticeably refreshed like he had just taken a nice bath before hitting the road.

"Been waiting long?" Walter questioned the duo.

Isaac shook his head. "A few minutes."

Walter nodded. "Good, good." He said and then looked around. "Now… where is that sly fox and my horse?"

Isaac shrugged. "I haven't seen them."

Walter waved him off. "You wouldn't see Gypsy if she didn't want to be seen. In fact, you probably won't be seeing much of her while we are traveling. She can also take care of herself. It's Copper that I'm worried about." He explained.

"She's that stealthy?" Lenna wondered.

Walter nodded. "If you walk into a clearing and she is there, you won't notice her." He told Lenna like it was simply a statement of fact. "She can hunt birds in an open field."

"How strong is she?" Isaac wondered. "It's hard for me to get a read on her." He confessed.

Walter smirked. "You aren't alone. Most people can't get a read on her at all." He said proudly. "Gypsy is something that you need to see in order to believe, I'll just leave it at that."

A few minutes later, Gypsy arrived with Copper's reins in her mouth. She was casually leading the horse on a walk through the city towards them. No one had dared to accost them as doing so would've ended very badly for any dumb enough to try. Everyone in Nualt knew about the Engineer and not a single person wanted to find themselves in his sights, especially for a horse and maybe some pocket change.

"You sure took your sweet time." Walter commented as he took the reins from Gypsy. "Did you stop for a snack or something? You know Copper'll get fat if you let her snack too much."

Gypsy shook her head.

"Where is my change?" Walter asked.

Gypsy nodded up towards Copper's saddle horn where the pouch had been left upside-down. As Walter was frowning at the empty pouch, withdrawing it, stuffing it into his saddlebags, and then tossing the saddlebags into place behind the saddle, Gypsy started scraping the ground. Once he was done, Walter turned to look at what Gypsy had been doing. On the gravel road, Gypsy had written 'IV' on the ground and the number four above it.

"I'm short four platinum?!" Walter exclaimed. "That's some bullshit." He turned to regard Copper, who was, in fact, a copper colored horse with a dirt brown mane. "Just what celestial dew, wonder feed, magic grain were they feeding you?" Copper just neighed and shook her mane. "Well, I'm glad you're happy. Joan's gonna have to wait until we get back. She knows I'm good for a few platinums at least."

Gypsy started to laugh at him in a way that only an all too aware fox could. Her quick and sharp kee's made Walter narrow his eyes on her.

"I am not broke." He argued with the fox. "That's why we are doing this job in the first place." She just kept laughing at him. "Oh whatever!" He spat and hopped up onto Copper's back. He looked down at Isaac and Lenna who had just been watching the show of the elf getting ganged up on by his fox and horse. "Let's go. No point in waiting any longer." He told them shifted his weight in his saddle slightly. His feet were in the stirrups but he hadn't made a move to nudge Copper, she just started casually walking forward as if she understood the words that he had spoken.

Isaac gave Lenna a questioning look.

Lenna shook her head. She had no idea why the elf and his animals could carry on very normal mortal conversations, and she had no idea what kind of circus they had just signed on for. His double platinum rank had to count for something, right?

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