EliteCommander

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Ri'vashi chuckled. "Yes, well, father always said this one had a keen eye, even for a Khajiit. He always had a lot of good things to say about her, really. Well, when he wasn't berating her for her failures. No matter how much he cared about Ri'vashi, he never went easy on her. He treated this one like a soldier, probably because he never expected to be a father. This one still remembers his surprise when he started to realize that Ri'vashi was growing bigger than him. He probably did not know that Khajiit could grow so large before he found her."

Kaleeth grinned, then walked over to the weapon racks to put away her practice blade. She set aside the cloak she had been wearing, leaving her with a simple loincloth. Stepping back into the pit, she stood close to Janius and spoke up a bit more quietly than before. "So, um, how...rough should we be?" She asked. In order to really sate her more violent tendencies, she needed fights that did not involve pulling punches as much as in normal sparring matches. Though they had been rather brutal, the fights back on the ship that had taken them out of Senchal had been perfect in that regard.

---

"Don't worry." Ma'tanza said reassuringly. "As long as you don't damage the organs, it should be fine. The ribs are tough to get out, as they well should be. They're there to protect some of our most important organs, so this one would be worried if they were easy to rip out."

It took a good deal of effort to rip out each of the ribs, but eventually, they had full access to the chest cavity. Most of the organs it contained Tzirret was likely already familiar with on a basic level, so she could get into more detail. First, she cut out both the lungs and heart and set them aside, then showed him the exact path of the major arteries once they were out of the way. Afterwards, she took the heart and one of the lungs, then carefully cut them in half in such a way as to provide him a cross section of each.

"Okay, the heart is, obviously, one of the most important organs in the body for a healer. There are a lot of organs that people need to live, but if the heart stops beating, the person is as good as dead unless it can be restarted very quickly. So, you need to know how it works. As you can see, the heart has four chambers that the blood pumps through. That's the same for Khajiit, Humans, and Elves alike. Argonians are a bit different, since their hearts only have three chambers. Still, they both do the same thing."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Goodnight.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Ri'vashi shook her head. "There is nothing special about this one, not like that. She cannot see inside your heads. Ri'vashi just has good training and experience. She has been conditioned to fight her whole life by a master swordsman. This one's father was better than her, but she has learned from him." She explained.

Ri'vashi too put aside her weapon and stepped aside to allow the others to use the sand pit. She stood near to Gallus as they watched the next pair start to ready for their duel, though the focus on her had made her somewhat uncomfortable. "What is it that you think must be different about Ri'vashi's training?"

Kaleeth walked into the pit with Janius, though did not immediately go for a weapon. "Do you want to use swords, or just spar with our hands?" She asked.

---

Ma'tanza rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. "Um, well...it might. It doesn't look like there has been enough time for it to start rotting, but it might have a certain smell to it. Nothing different from butchering an animal, probably." She explained.

Without further delay, Ma'tanza began cutting through the muscle and fat to expose the organs underneath. She wanted to give Tzirret the best view possible, so she cut out the muscles obstructing the way entirely, then set them aside to be stored and preserved later. Once she was finished, the pair had a clear view of the outer layer of all of the organs in her torso

"Okay, there's a lot to explain, so Ma'tanza thinks she will start from the top. Help her get the ribs out so we can get at the heart and lungs." She requested.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"Oh...just this one's training...is all." Ri'vashi answered, somewhat nervously. She seemed almost as surprised as Lorag at his loss, slowly lowering her blade as she looked to the others. Lorag, in contrast to what the others might have expected, was not immediately issuing another challenge. Instead, he appeared as if he were in shock. His eyes were widened briefly, before he regained most of his composure.

Kaleeth, in all of her time knowing him, had never actually seen Lorag lose a fight. In terms of martial prowess, he was always the mentor, the one that she, and many others, looked to for advice. It felt strange knowing he could be beaten. "Are you going to fight again, Lorag?" She asked him.

"Huh, what? No, um...you can have it." He answered, ignoring the fact that there was another sand pit they could have been using the entire time as he pushed the tip of his blade into the sand and walked to the sidelines.

---

Ma'tanza grimaced at the thought of an execution. "Well...we really can't know what exactly happened, Ma'tanza supposes. Let's just get started."

Slowly and carefully, Ma'tanza made an incision near the collarbone, just below the corpse's neck, then pushed the blade down to make a cut all the way down her torso and to her groin. After a few more cuts, she was able to peel back the skin, exposing everything directly underneath. They could see the upper layers of muscle and fat, though most organs were still obscured underneath, apart from the inside of the breasts. There was not as much blood as she would have expected from a fresh kill, so she guessed that the Khajiit must have been dead for most of the night, allowing much of her blood to sink to her legs and feet. After giving Tzirret a moment to observe, she started pointing out the muscles she recognized and explaining their exact function, and what they connected to.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

The bout between Ri'vashi and Lorag was starting to go on for longer than was normal for any duel. In general, someone's strike would find its mark in less than half a minute, but the pair was well-matched. After his initial failure to best her quickly, Lorag started taking their fight much more seriously. For a simple training duel, Lorag's expression was far more serious than any in the room had likely seen him outside of actual combat.

Ri'vashi, given her reach advantage, wanted to stay back slightly, while Lorag had to stay close to nullify that potential advantage. This gave the appearance that Lorag was applying enough pressure to keep her on the defensive, but for one trained in swordsmanship, it was easy to see that she had just as much of an advantage as he.

Lorag wanted to bring the fight to its end, before he made any mistakes, so he decided to attempt something of an unusual attack. He stepped forward for a standard slash at her torso, which she of course parried. However, while he was stepping back into position, he made another, quick swing towards her neck. Due to the awkwardness of the swing, it did not have a particularly great amount of force behind it compared to what he was capable of, but in absolute terms, it was enough to cut through her flesh were it a sharp sword. Normally, the tip of his blade would have slid across her neck, but somehow, she manage to react to this strange attack. Not only did she lean her upper body back just enough that his blade passed in front of her, but she made her own swing as well. With her blade's length, she was able to land a solid hit straight across his chest. In an actual fight, it would have opened up a sizable gash.

---

This time, Ma'tanza did not actually go through and list everything Tzirret missed, or did not get exactly right. There was quite a lot she could say, but it would probably be difficult for him to remember it all without being able to see it himself. "You know a lot more than Ma'tanza was expecting. That is good. All that's left are the limbs, but you probably know what's in there. Bones, arteries, muscles, ligaments, tendons. We'll cut them open later so you can see the details, but first, we might as well get started with the torso. Do you have your own knife? If not, you might want to go get one. Some things can be hard to cut with just claws. This one will get us started."

With a simple flick of her wrist, Ma'tanza conjured up a bound dagger, then pressed its tip against the corpse's collarbone, right below the neck. Although, she paused for a moment as she looked at the marks on her throat. She reached out with her free hand and moves some of the fur aside to get a better look at the skin underneath. "Hmm, by the looks of things, it seems like she was strangled to death. See the markings here? It looks like there was a chain around her neck. Ma'tanza wonders how it happened?"

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Ri'vashi was the next to attack, and she did so in a flurry. She performed a widely varied mix of slashes, thrusts, and feints to different parts of his body. Lorag was used to fighting aggressive foes just as he was defensive ones, and he would usually be able to find some opening to exploit between their attacks. However, Ri'vashi's defense was solid. With every attack, she seemed to predict his possible counters, and leave herself a way to avoid them. Moving himself to attack, Lorag pushed his blade against hers to catch and control it with his crossguard, then charged forward to use his mass to throw her off balance while attempting to sweep her leg with a kick. With her size, and the strength that came with being a werebear, the attempt was not as successful as he would have liked. Not only did he fail to unbalance her, but she was able to push back against him. The fight was not going as easily for Lorag as he had predicted. Some of his strikes had been close, and he was certainly keeping Ri'vashi on her toes, but Lorag was struggling, and in his duels, that was far from normal.

Stepping into the training room, Peiter and Sabine saw the fight in progress. There was still plenty of space in the room to train on their own, but they would need to do their stretched first regardless, so Peiter was content watching the battle for the moment.

---

Ma'tanza chuckled. "Foodpipe isn't quite the name, but that's what it does. It's actually the same pipe as the windpipe up to a point, then it splits off, with a little flap separating them. In these areas, there's the obvious things, like her lungs, ribs, heart, windpipe, and such, but there's a lot of things in those areas. Arteries and veins are important ones. The largest one in the body comes directly off the heart, and splits into the arms and throat. Those are some of the most dangerous arteries in the body to have cut, so a healer needs to be especially careful of wounds there. I'll show you once we cut her open. There's also a dome-shaped muscle under the lungs that let them expand and contract, and near the side of the neck, there are actually some glands you might not have known about. It won't kill someone immediately if they are damages, but they are something that needs to be healed for the long term."

Moving on, Ma'tanza waves her hand over the corpse's abdomen and groin. There were quite a lot of organs there, and she did not expect him to get close to naming them all, but she was curious to know what he was familiar with.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

No problem. I'll respond when I'm able. Been leveling ares in smite.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Lorag laughed with Gallus comment. "Ha! You know it. When it comes to fighting, I'm like some 'great teacher' for our entire clan. Boring work, honestly, but I know you'd all be flailin' over yourselves tryin' to figure out how to hold a sword without me, so I do what I've got to do. Guess now you can learn how to take on a bigger opponent."

Lorag took his position in the sand pit, directly across from Ri'vashi. They had both picked practice longswords proportional to their size, so Ri'vashi would have the reach advantage in that regard. She did not make any comment on Lorag or his confident statements, as she certainly was not going to doubt one of the Champion's companions. She did not expect she could win this duel, but she might learn something regardless.

As their bout began, the pair approached one another slowly, allowing the very tips of their blades to touch just enough that they could feel the other's movements. Lorag was the first to strike, taking a large step forward to bring himself into range, while pushing his blade diagonally towards her neck to both attack, and keep himself protected from her sword. Her response, however, was instant. She slid her blade along his closer to the tip and used her sword's guard to catch his blade, while turning hers to swing towards his head. He was forced to jump back to avoid the strike, and bring himself back out of her range. "Oh, this'll be interesting." He commented.

Nearby, Kaleeth watched the fight as it began, and gave a quick nod to Janius. "Maybe we should stretch first and do some drills. Last time I didn't I was way more sore than I should've been."

Peiter shook his head as they walked towards the training room. "Not with Tzirret, no. It's been hard to get to training with all the traveling we've been doing. It has all been too exhausting. I do feel like I need to get some practice with Gallus or Lorag. What do you think you want to do? We could spar, if you want, or just exercise and watch the others."

---

Ma'tanza nodded. "Good, good. Most people know about the head. It's not really right to say that any one part of the body is the most important. Kind of like how food and water are both important, but not having water will kill you faster. The brain is like water, in that damage to it can kill faster than most other things. It's scary, really. Some people who survive damage to the brain become entirely different people, and sometimes can barely even take care of themselves. In a fight, the head is usually what people will target first, so it's something healers have to deal with a lot."

Moving on from the head, Ma'tanza pointed first to the corpse's neck, then to her chest. Looking closely, one could see the imprint of the chain that had strangled her around her neck.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

After a minute or so, most of the group got up and started to head for the training room. Peiter and Sabine would be a minute or two behind, but Peiter knew roughly were they could find the training room, based on the walks around the stronghold he had taken. For the others, it was a mostly silent walk to the training room, apart from some small talk between Kaleeth and Janius.

Just as Ri'vashi had said, the training room was far from crowded. The only others present were two of the clan's warriors exercising in the far corner of the room. The rest was perfectly open for their use. Given that he was the one to suggest it, Lorag wasted no time in walking straight to the back to grab a training sword. He held it casually over his shoulder as he looked over the others. Eventually, his eyes settled on Ri'vashi, who was finding a place to set aside her blade, pouches, and other belongings. "Hey, clan leader, you up to spar first? Always nice to fight someone new.

"Ri'vashi is not opposed, just give her one moment." She answered as she discarded her cloak and headed to the weapon racks. There were two sandpits in the room, so if any of the others felt like training instead of watching, the option was open to them.

As she was no longer needed, Meesei headed on to the next matter of business that required her attention, while Ma'tanza and Tzirret followed the soldiers to the kitchen. It took a brief explanation from the soldiers as to what was happening, but the kitchen staff granted them the use of a storage room nearby for their experiments. It was likely the place where the meat was to be stored anyway, so they would not need to move it once it came time to butcher the corpse.

The room itself was somewhat cramped with crated and barrels, but there was enough room in the center for them to lay down the body, and leave them with enough space to sit reasonably comfortably. The soldiers left as soon as their task was completed, leaving Ma'tanza and Tzirret alone with the body.

"Okay, so...how about we start with what you do know. Ma'tanza will point to parts of the body, and you tell her whatever you can think of that's at that spot." Ma'tanza instructed. She started off easily, as she simply pointed to the corpse's head.

Blood Act I~ Ghosts of the Past

Ssarak Dyreackthanose - Catacombs

---

From the thoughts Ssarak could hear behind him, Grey was not quite clear on the plan. The doppelganger was meant to bring the Naga behind the shapeshifter, which would guarantee that it would be the Naga’s first target. However, Grey seemed to think he would be fighting it. ”Wait, the the Naga will flank the shapeshifter. My illusion will bring it…” He began telepathically, but it was already too late. A quick glance back revealed Grey beheading the malice Naga, eliminating the possibility of using it as a distraction.

Fortunately, Ssarak was not without options. There was significantly reduced pressure from the ridge hounds. Their numbers had been thinned considerably, and the ones remaining were not focusing on the Naga. As of the moment, the shapeshifter behind them was a more present threat. The Naga were trained warriors in a position to flank the remainder of the ridge hounds, so Ssarak was free to finally provide more direct aid to Grey.

Ssarak sent a telepathic message to the Matriarch, in response to some thoughts he had picked up from her mind. ”Of course, Matriarch. But first, this fight needs to end.”

At the same time as Ssarak brought his doppelganger to the front to distract any ridge hounds that might attack the Naga, Ssarak sprinted back towards their flank. Raising his shield, he slammed into the side of the shapeshifter, adding his own considerable strength, and perhaps more importantly, the momentum behind him to the struggle. With both he and Grey together, they would likely be able to overtake even a copy of Tyrael for the force they could produce. Although, Ssarak did not intend to stay at the shapeshifter’s front. Instead, he moved around behind and began to aggressively cut and thrust towards their opponent’s head, neck, and spine. He wanted to end it as quickly as possible, and if the shapeshifter turned to focus on him, he would go on the defensive and allow Grey to take advantage instead.