[Suzerain of Sheol]

Finally making her way back home -- more of a hideout, really, until she can find something more comfortable -- Tsaerri is ready to put the miserable events of her failed mission behind her. She didn't really need the money anyway, and this was one less burden on her conscience at least.

Checking out of habit to make sure she hasn't been followed, she unlocks the front door and steps inside.

Someone is waiting for her, a woman sitting legs-crossed in the only chair in the house. Almost faster than her brain can even register the detail, Tsae has her pistol out and trained on the intruder. Who does not seem particularly impressed.

Voice shaking a lot more than she'd like -- this is her safehouse, damn it. No one should know she even lives here. -- Tsae confronts her. "You have once chance to talk before I kill you: how did you find me and who sent you?"

Her threat is met with an unconcerned eye-roll. "Oh come now, dear, cut the theatrics if you will." And then the image of the woman vanishes, replaced by the point of something sharp pressing into Tsae's neck from behind. "We both know it's not going to get you anywhere."

The one time I forget my fucking blindfold! Godsdamned mesmers!

Reacting on pure instinct, Tsae whirls, ducking the knife and coming up with her pistol leveled, firing at point-blank... only for her arm to be knocked aside faster than she can even pull the trigger. She really should have seen the ensuing kick to the stomach coming. It sends her careening back, nearly falling over the chair her enemy's phantasm had been occupying.

Letting out a pained grunt that ends in a disbelieving laugh, Tsaerri meets the woman's eye and tosses her gun away, letting it dissolve before it hits the floor.

"Hope you're ready to die, I'm done underestimating you." Tsae snaps for both of her swords and falls into a fighting crouch.

"Good," comes the other mesmer's voice in her ear after a seamless blink. "You'll at least know you tried your hardest." The heel of her fist comes hammering at Tsae's ear -- she must want her alive, whoever she is -- but she's more than ready for it at this point, blinking away herself and splintering out three sword-wielding phantasms which immediately lunge at her attacker.

Except she isn't there -- of course she isn't -- and they vivisect the empty air. Tsae shatters them for a brief distortion -- transferring the force of the incoming injury harmlessly to her illusions -- just as the assailant's newly-conjured greatsword would have severed her spine.

What ensues is a flaring melee of countercuts and counterspells, teleports and invisibility bursts, and more than a few strategic portals, all thoroughly trashing her living space.

Yet it ends almost anticlimactically as Tsae's left-hand sword slips through her opponent's defenses, past the illusory blurring, and cuts the tendon of her sword-hand.

"I'll admit," she says, taking the leisure to slice through the tendon on her other hand, and then her ankles, "you're really fucking good. I don't recognize you from the academy, so gods know where you came from, but you and I are going to have a nice, informative chat on what you're doing bleeding all over my floor." She flicks her wrists and opens a pair of superficial cuts on the woman's face, just because.

To her credit, she's keeping the whimpering to a minimum. Thank Lys it's hard to do magic through shock and agonizing pain, otherwise she'd probably try to escape.

Tsae grabs her blindfold just to be safe.