Rain-slicked mud oozes between Aster’s boots as he watches Rohan straighten, fists shaking, gauntlets glinting dimly under the drizzle. The boy’s hands tremble from exhaustion. Each breath rises in misty puffs, white in the grey drizzle, the rhythm ragged yet stubborn.

  Varric, ever the picture of cultivated superiority, leans lazily against the edge of the pit. The smile is still there, smug, polished, infuriating. He gestures with one hand, sharp and theatrical. “Go on, Aster. Finish him. Maybe the dirt’ll remind him where he belongs.”

  Aster twirls his staff once, letting the momentum slide through his wrists. Mud spits from the staff’s tip, black slurry hissing on impact. His gaze flicks from Rohan’s shaking hands to the gauntlets, slick with mud and light. The boy’s stance is fragile, yet resolute. Aster notes the subtle curl of Rohan’s fingers, half-expecting him to flinch, half-preparing to strike again. The familiarity of a fighter’s posture—broken, mud-stained, angry—ignites a pulse of recognition he hasn’t felt in the pit before.

  Then, almost imperceptibly, his will shifts to the spider artifact. Bronze, eight-legged, limbs etched with runes that pulse faintly in harmony with whatever it’s synced to. Its anticipation matches his own, subtle and alive.

  He mutters, voice low, half to himself: “Yeah… let’s finish this.”

  He pulls the artifact from his Dantean, feeling it alive in his hand, awake.

  Tiny runes flicker along its brass limbs, the faintest pulse of stored Faith moving through it like a heartbeat.

  Varric’s smirk returns, smooth and brittle, like glass pretending to be gold. “Well?” he calls, lazy amusement curving his tone. “You going to finish the job or wait for him to start groveling first?”

  Aster stares at him. The staff hangs loose in his left hand. Rohan is still kneeling, one arm wrapped around his ribs, breath hitching with each inhale.

  Something cold and certain clicks into place in Aster’s mind.

  He has seen this pattern a thousand times. Back home. In alleys. In classrooms.

  Power isn’t about strength; it’s about audience.

  And the only way to beat cruelty in public is to make it ridiculous.

  He turns slightly, as if readying for another swing. The crowd leans forward.

  Rohan tenses, confusion flickering in his eyes.

  Varric smiles wider, sensing victory. “That’s it. Show him what a real cultivator looks like.”

  Aster exhales and quietly opens his Faith valve again.

  Faith flares through his veins, light bleeding under his skin like lightning under glass. His eyes sting. The world sharpens.

  “Alright,” he says, softly enough that only Rhoan hears him. “Let’s teach someone a lesson.”

  He moves.

  The staff hits the ground, tether flaring, launching him forward in a burst of impossible acceleration.

  Not toward Rohan.

  Toward the edge of the pit.

  Toward Varric.

  The air shifts. The drizzle seems to hesitate mid-drop, the mud pauses underfoot, the collective breath of the watchers caught in a pregnant moment between anticipation and disbelief.

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  Varric’s grin falters, just slightly, the first crack in his carefully curated arrogance.

  The spider spins midair, propelled by the stored recoil and Aster’s precise launch. Rain slides off its bronze body in thin rivulets. The runes crackle, veins of pale light arcing along its surface as it rotates, elegant, precise, yet monstrous.

  Then the spider screeches to life.

  Its limbs extend midair, metallic legs snapping open, runes flaring orange as it latches onto Varric’s perfectly sculpted face with a sound like a cork pulled from hell.

  The effect is immediate.

  Varric’s composure shatters. He screams, a high, undignified sound that rips through the silence, clawing at his face as the spider’s limbs clamp down and begin to hum, sealing themselves with an ear-splitting hiss.

  The crowd’s gasp breaks into stuttering, disbelieving laughter.

  Varric staggers backward, hands flailing, spinning in a circle as the artifact clicks and twitches, little sparks shooting from its joints like fireworks. “Get it off! GET IT OFF ME!”

  From the corner of his vision, Rohan’s expression changes, from tension and guarded anger to bewildered awe. The boy’s chest heaves, laughter threatening to escape but contained behind clenched teeth. The Wanderer’s respect comes slowly, just enough to register that Aster hasn’t humiliated him but has intervened on principle.

  Varric flails again, slipping backward in the mud, shrieking in high-pitched, incongruous panic.

  The audience erupts, tears streaming down faces as Varric scrambles, bronze limbs clamped across his jaw, mud smeared across his uniform, Earth-Aether flaring in unplanned bursts. The polished Legacy, the pinnacle of Galamad elitism, is reduced to a writhing, shrieking heap.

  Aster exhales slowly, the storm in his chest settling. His grip on the staff loosens, tether energy dimming to a gentle pulse.

  He straightens slowly, dusting off his sleeve with mock politeness. “You said it’d add some needed entertainment,” he says, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Guess you were right.”

  Rohan finally laughs, a short, harsh bark of incredulity.

  The students nearest Varric scramble out of his way as he stumbles blindly, the spider’s legs twitching across his cheeks like a carnival mask from a nightmare. He trips over a training dummy, face-planting into the mud with a wet thud.

  Aster sighs, tone heavy with feigned concern. “Careful, ground’s unpredictable.”

  Aster lowers the staff, the tether’s hum fading to nothing. He doesn’t rush toward the boy. No need. The balance has shifted; the audience knows it. The smug hierarchy has been upended by a single act of refusal to play the game as designed.

  Rohan’s chest heaves, shoulders trembling with exhaustion, fists still curled in mud-slick gauntlets. A bruise blooms across his cheek, angry purple against pale skin, streaked with black mud. His hair clings to his forehead, plastered wet, eyes bright with a mix of fury and disbelief. The suspicion has dimmed, replaced by something reluctant and fragile.

  Respect, maybe.

  Or disbelief.

  “You… threw it at him?” Rohan asks, voice half a croak.

  Aster shrugs, storing his staff back in his Dantean. “You looked busy. Figured I’d multitask.”

  They both glance back at Varric.

  The Earth Legacy is still running in circles, the bronze spider clamped to his face, mud dripping down his uniform, shouting, muffled screams warping into unintelligible fury. The pit—once tense with expectation and hierarchy—now vibrates with genuine amusement.

  Rohan wipes a smear of mud across his cheek. “Guess you Legacies aren’t all the same,” he says, tone half-joking, half-sincere.

  Aster extends a hand, deliberately slow this time. No reflex, no pretense. Just the hand, flat and steady, like a bridge. The gesture hangs in the air, suspended between instinct and pride, heavy with unspoken acknowledgment.

  Rohan's eyes flick to the hand, then back to the pit, to the laughing watchers. For a heartbeat, he hesitates, claws of pride digging at the edges of his resolve. Then he takes it.

  Their hands meet, the gauntlet still cracked and faintly smoking.

  Mud oozes between their fingers, smeared across palms, caked along Faith residue that hasn’t fully dissipated yet. Warm, wet, heavy.

  Varric, still sputtering, finally yanks the spider free with a combination of curses and brute effort. Mud plasters' across his face, his uniform ruined, Earth-Aether faintly smoking off him from overexertion.

  With freely bleeding claw marks across his forehead, the artifact has also removed all his eyebrows and left him with a haircut that screams mental asylum. He staggers upright, dripping mud, his perfect hair now an abstract sculpture of mania.

  He glares at Aster, venom, embarrassment, and disbelief mingling, but there’s nothing left to do. The audience has already decided the victor of this particular theater.

  “This isn’t over,” he spits, voice shaking.

  “Oh, I sincerely hope it isn’t,” Aster says. “I’ve got so many lessons left to teach.”

  Varric’s mouth opens, closes, then opens again, but no words come. Whatever threat he means to make dissolves under the weight of the laughter closing in around him.

  He turns and storms out, boots squelching, pride bleeding out behind him like oil.

  Aster watches him go as the room’s laughter fades into murmurs, some amused, some wary.