>>5269430Well, you needn’t have been, as it turns out. He was faking unconsciousness, long enough to coil a tail around your ankle and to pull you off-balance. The Pit-Guard roars as he rises, into an uppercut which you narrowly dodge. The next strike, a frantic-but-powerful haymaker to the gut, knocks the held breath from your lungs. Still, you evade the next knock-out punch aimed at your head, staggering back as you dodge blow after blow.
“Magic!” the Steeltalon spits. “I thought I asked for an end to trickery, Dragonborn?!”
“Yes,” you acknowledge, “but then you swept the leg.”
“It is entirely different!” he protests, thrusting a leg forward to catch your knee. You buckle, falling to the other, still-good knee. “I am using martial merit, honest and hard-won strength! Where is yours? Am I sparing the females here the shallow thrusts of a weakling?!”
A crowd has gathered, chuckling their croaking chuckles at the exchange of blows and banter. The thought of losing both galls you, even as you are impressed by your adversary…
>16…But the attention, unfamiliar to your enemy, distracts the pit-Guard more than you. He turns to survey them, and it is his undoing. You tackle him at the waist as you rise and, ignoring the pain in your knee, you rush him into the opposite wall. He roars in pain and frustration as you bowl him over, and then the blow to the face begin.
You do not stop until he relents.
The both of you draw ragged breaths, regaining your strength. He is worse for wear than you, but your knee still cries out for vengeance and retribution, even as your heart feels strangely gladdened at the victory over a worthy opponents.
“So,” the pit-Guard gasps, averting his eyes and bowing his head, “the glory is yours, after all… And the surface.”
The appreciative murmurs and favourable commentary of those in attendance is audible to you both, as are the critiques of the Pit-Guard’s failings. The area is rank with the raunchy odour of females in heat—females who, while you are barred to breed with them, now regard you with the instinctive attraction due a male who has won such a contest. Your own lust rises to meet them, as your ego swells anew, and something else swells also.
What do you do?
>Take breeding rights with the highest-status female here as your prize, Serpent Priests and Dragonborn project be damned>Take your leave, before you do something rash—you have what you wanted, by way of a release and a test f your mettle>Help the Pit-Guard up, and offer the formidable rival male a place in your retinue regardless of his loss>Humiliate and mutilate the Pit-Guard before the crowd—none shall challenge your right to rule ever again>Write-in 