She didn't want to say the name. Names drew lines. Names invited comparisons. Comparisons invited mistakes.
"The Fist King?" The creature said it anyway, and she felt her jaw tighten in reflex.
"Yeah, I've only seen him once at the second floor. Well, this floor, a couple years back…" She said.
The memory wasn't clear in details, but it was clear in feeling: pressure like a mountain sitting on your spine, the kind of presence that made your instincts shut up and obey before your brain caught up.
"Well, you managed to survive thanks to that man," the creature said.
She didn't correct it. Survival had many definitions in this tower. Sometimes it meant living. Sometimes it meant not dying today. And sometimes it meant a stranger killing your enemy then walking away without ever paying attention to you.
"It was simply a coincidence that he was there that time, but to be honest, if those people from the Golden Palace didn't antagonize him, I would have been captured."
