[Bet accepted, Ascender 79. One year has been placed into the BattleBox pool. All antes are in. Prize pool is five years. Battle begins in five seconds.]
“Yip-yip, that's you Joe. Now go-go!”
What’s with all the poker terms? Joe’s thoughts flickered before the jungle around him shimmered, twisting into a heatwave mirage. He blinked the blur from his eyes as a red boundary line sketched in the air, roughly the size of a basketball court, if the court had too many sides.
The ten-sided storage unit hummed against his thigh like an angry hornet. Like a lightning strike, three orbs fazed through the windows of the decagon, bobbing at shoulder height. They sported relaxed, cartoonish faces, lazily circling Joe like cheeky balloons daring to be popped. It all felt a bit like a Mario Kart battle round, except nobody had thrown a banana peel yet.
[MadOrbz are set.]
[BattleBox Tutorial Round. Time Remaining: 3’ Prize Pool: 5 Years. Begin!]
“What. Wait!” Joe thrust out his hand, fingers splayed in a desperate stop signal.
His eyes bulged as an orb, its surface flickering with intense flames, hurtled toward him. With a quick side dive, Joe narrowly avoided the fiery projectile, which rocketed past him toward the elf.
The elf let out a yelp, his face twisting in alarm, as he lobbed a pale orb skyward and scrambled behind a tree trunk. Peering out from behind a curtain of purple ferns, he let out a shaky chuckle. “Ever feel like the wind could just sweep you away, changeling? And you lose all control?” His voice wavered, betraying a lack of the confidence he had shown earlier.
The changeling’s copper and gold hair flashed like a comet through the foliage as she charged forward. “Lose control? Hardly. When I was a wee rat-ling, water terrified me, but it never stopped me. Now, watching a whimpering elf beg for mercy? That might just do it,” she said with a dark chuckle, her voice dripping with scorn. Her pace quickened, leaves and ferns billowing in her wake as she closed in on the elf's elusive first orb.
Joe took a few steps back, retreating to the relative safety of TJ and Brian. "She's not here to play patty-cake." He watched the scene with a mix of awe and a hint of relief that he wasn’t on the receiving end.
With a flash and a bang, the orb’s blazing fury smacked into the emo elf’s paste blue orb, knocking it clear into the boundary with a dramatic poof of white smoke.
Brian’s eyes widened. "That was quite the show, Miss..."
"Whoa, she makes a kobold’s firework look like a sparkler," TJ said, his voice laced with amusement as he summoned his first MadOrbz. It looked like a ball of mud. Eyeing the elf, he mischievously grinned. "Let's see if the bard’s as soft as his orb. Should be like tipping over a sleeping cow."
A sharp whistle cut through their talking. "Boys, save your grins, I’ll be winning this game. No need to be so polite either, you can call me Dawn," came her crisp, commanding voice from across the arena. The two sleek, shiny MadOrbz that remained, floated around her like gravity defying cue balls.
Dawn wound her arm back like she was throwing a baseball, launching her first, crimson red orb towards TJ and Brian. A fiery tail marked its path, cutting through the air as TJ's first orb, lobbed with less finesse, splattered mud across the foliage and smashed against a tree.
"Son of a muck-spawned mage! Damn well lost twenty Health Points already!" The muddy orb snapped back into TJ’s hand. Still cursing like a sailor, he flung it again, this time targeting Dawn's incoming fiery orb as it headed straight for the giant's metallic orb. "I’m coming for you, ya fiery hell-spawn!"
Brian’s swift thumbs up made TJ’s eyes light up.
The ‘bro-mantic’ moment was short-lived. TJ’s muddy orb overshot the mark. It missed Dawn’s orb and shot straight towards the emo elf instead. In a blind panic, the emo elf tossed his second cloud-like orb skyward, then threw up his hands and sprinted for cover behind a fern, barely dodging TJ’s orb, which narrowly avoided crashing into the flashing red barrier. Dawn's flaming orb collided with Brian's metallic orb, making it disappear in an orange haze, then it swerved in a fiery arc toward the emo elf's cloudy orb, marking it as its next target.
“Aw no!” Brian sighed. “That was my favorite one.”
“Chin up big guy, you’ve two more and it ain’t over til it’s over,” Joe called out to poor Brian, who looked like his pet had just died.
[Warning! Ascender 79. Five seconds remain until you surpass the penalty for withholding.]
“Shit! That's me!” Joe's chest tightened. He cursed under his breath, realizing almost too late there was a time limit to deploy his orb. Taking his eyes off TJ’s muddy orb, Joe summoned the Drooler orb into his palm. Its goofy mouth gaped open, a long string of saliva dangling and dripping onto the ground. "Gawrsh! Don't mind the puddle... it's just my way of saying hello."
Is the system having a laugh? My MadOrbz sounds exactly like Goofy?
A thirty second timer appeared on its rubber forehead, ticking down like a bomb.
Joe grimaced as a pool of foamy water began to form beneath his extended palm. “I don’t think a tissue will be enough to soak this up. Anyone got a sponge?” He did his best to ignore the orb's slobbering pink tongue. With a flick of his wrist, he launched the goofball orb towards the changeling Dawn and the elf's MadOrbz, which zipped away at breakneck speed from the changeling’s fiery assault.
Joe watched, amused, as the elf’s cloudy orb took a whimsical detour in the air. It spun around with a joyful "Wheee!" sound, all fluffy and cute, yet surprisingly speedy due to its wind affinity. He didn’t know what type of orb it was but one thing was for sure, his little sister would've absolutely adored it.
The cloud orb’s merry chase looped after Joe’s Drooler orb, with Dawn’s blazing red fire orb blazing a trail not too far behind. The Drooler, true to its name, left a trail of slobbery drool whipping in waves through the air. In a slick defensive maneuver, Joe's orb screeched to a halt, ducked under the playful assault of the fluffy orb, and retaliated by dousing it in a generous shower of saliva.
The cloudy orb flickered, turning transparent for a moment.
[Drooler +5 damage buff against Huff-a-Puff.]
Joe raised a brow. “Seriously, your orb is named Huff-a-Puff.”
Before Drooler darted away, the emo elf peeked out from his hiding place and glared at Joe. “I didn’t name it that, drool-boy.”
The distraction caused Joe’s orb to slow down. It was a costly mistake.
Dawn’s blazing fury orb smashed into Joe’s orb, the intense heat evaporated the loose drool and propelled it towards TJ’s mudball orb. The countdown timer on her orb flashed red and it suddenly disappeared.
Guess that means it’s returned to her decagon.
Joe checked Drooler’s stats to see only 5 HP points gone. Releasing a slow breath, he was so relieved that it wasn’t 20 HP gone, like TJ had experienced earlier. Had it been because TJ’s MadOrbz was an attack orb rather than a defensive one, like Drooler? He shelved those thoughts as he watched Drooler slow down again, this time drenching TJ’s mud orb that had ricocheted from Dawn’s surprise attack.
Joe's fist pumped the air in excitement, but his motions quickly turned frantic as he tried to steer the Drooler orb. His desperate waving only seemed to draw the fiery orb in, leading to another inevitable collision with his Drooler. Another 5 HP vanished in the fiery impact.
Joe faced a tactical dilemma. He could summon the orb with ease, but accurately directing it was another story. If he couldn't retrieve it swiftly enough to his own hands, how was he supposed to effectively aim it at a target? The challenge lay in mastering the timing and control of the orb's return.
Zing!
“Coming through.” Brian flashed an apologetic smile as his second metallic orb zipped past him like a comet, clashing into Drooler as they crossed paths in their bid to chase down the elf’s orb before its timer ran out.
In a chaotic explosion of foamy water, Joe’s orb saturated Brian’s metallic orb sending them both spiraling out of control. Both orbs crumbled and burnt to a crisp at the flashing red boundary line, leaving behind only a wisp of orangish-blue smoke.
Joe glanced at his and Brian’s decagons. Both orbs had returned to their storage units and were now banging against the small windows like caged animals.
Joe had struggled to control the trajectory of his MadOrbz. His hand gestures, meant to steer them, were useless, making him feel like he was fumbling with the flippers of a broken pinball machine.
So much for defenses and hacking time to consider a strategy.
[Drooler MadOrbz no longer summonable for the BattleBox Tutorial.]
[Activate a MadOrbz on deck.]
“Shit.” Joe cursed, looking at the two other orbs that floated around him. He'd need a better strategy, if he could only use his attack orb, Frostbite, and the disrupt orb, Slimer, once during the tutorial. He looked around, relieved to see the only orb visible was the elf’s second orb, the seemingly harmless fluffy cloud one.
Wheee!
It looped around the group with all the menace of a gentle breeze. “Come on, get your act together while there’s only that Huff-a-Puff orb to watch out for.”
Joe frowned. “Where’s TJ?”
A rustling in the nearby foliage gave his new pal’s location away. By the time Joe mentally closed his notification, Dawn had eyes narrowed on her second MadOrbz. It pulsed with fire lit embers. She twisted around and launched the ember lit orb past Brian, who stood with a hand on his hip with an awed expression as he eyed his remaining metallic orbs. With a casual wave, the big guy unleashed his next orb.
Instead of targeting the Huff-a-Puff orb, Dawn let her fiery orb fly straight at the elf, who had emerged from hiding. Joe watched, unsure what would happen if someone were actually hit by a MadOrbz flyby. By the look of panic on the elf's face as he ducked beneath the shower of fiery embers, it was clear he didn’t want to find out the hard way either.
Thewk, thewk, thewk.
Joe reeled on the balls of his feet, his heart racing as he dodged the fallen greenery and purple foliage that fell to the ground. Liquid metal surged past the jungle canopy, punching holes through the fronds like a nail gun shooting through paper. Joe's eyebrows shot up at the sight of Brian's metallic orb, which sped after the elf's cloudy wind orb like a silver bullet.
“Time!” Joe yelled, hoping to stall and strategize his orbs in play. It didn’t work. Brian and Dawn’s orbs continued their attempts to melee attack Huff-a-Puff but the crafty little cloud remained out of reach.
Wheeeee!
This time Huff-a-Puff’s joyful outburst seemed to confuse the other orbs who began attacking each other. The whole melee battle plunged into absolute chaos—much like the frantic button-mashing that always happened, much to Joe’s amusement, every time he played Pokémon Tag Team with his little sister.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
[Time Remaining: 2’ 16” MP: 91]
Joe checked his summoning stats. In less than a minute he’d used 5 MP to summon a MadOrbz only to lose access to it after three direct hits.
Branches cracked behind them as TJ reappeared, sprinting with his arm raised, white knuckled fingers gripping a hardened volcanic orb. “Did ya miss me? Needed somewhere safe to check my last two orb stats. This one's feral as a rabid rock hound. I bet it'll rage and destroy any orb it clashes with.” TJ opened his hand, and the volcanic rock orb flew off, zig-zagging across the arena.
Joe cringed as TJ’s orb slammed into Brian’s metallic orb, sending silver sparks flying everywhere. A red debuff icon—a dust cloud—appeared, pulsing above Brian’s orb, signaling a decrease in attack power. It wildly skidded into the elf’s Huff-a-Puff orb next, wrapping it in a veil of dust that slowed Huff-a-Puff’s response. Above it a curious icon appeared, that looked a lot like the spinning pinwheel of death. TJ’s orb flew on erratically until it finally smashed into the flashing red boundary, disintegrating in a dramatic plume of orange smoke.
Brian clapped TJ on the shoulder, a smirk playing on his lips. “Points for style, TJ, but you might want to work on that aim,” he teased. His tone was light but pointed, like a coach gently correcting a promising yet undisciplined player.
A sharp groan turned them around as Dawn launched her fire orb that flared into the sky. “See what you can do with that!”
Liquid metal orb formed in the giant's hand as he thumbed his chest. “Leave it to Brian to take care of this.”
“Hey King Brian, I didn’t know we were in the presence of royalty?” TJ gave an exaggerated bow. “Wait. Wer’re fucking not, so cut the third-person crap!”
Joe cut in before a fist fight broke out. “I’ll cover you.”
Dawn's flare orb danced on the air currents with surprising agility for a Fire affinity orb. Tugging on his hoodie’s string, he considered the four elements available to their races. If his Water affinity Rogue class enhanced the elemental water MadOrbz, then maybe he'd gain an edge against the competition.
With a brief summoning of its core, sticky snot-like ooze coated his palm as the floating Slimer orb rolled over to reveal a large schnoz covered in green goo. “Snot my problem…unless you want to boogie.” This time the orb’s voice was all muffled like it had a mouth stuffed with cotton balls.
A 30 second timer appeared on its slime covered forehead.
[Frostbite Chill remains on deck.]
A soft halo radiated below the frosty MadOrbz in waiting. It’d be his last option if Slimer failed him.
“Time!” Calling this out wouldn’t pause the gameplay for him to strategize but knowing the remaining time left in the tutorial round allowed him to optimize any strategy he’d consider.
[Time Remaining: 1’ 37” MP: 86]
Joe shuddered, even when he was a kid, he’d never liked the sensation of slime oozing between his fingers. He did his best to ignore it as he timed his next launch. Activating Quick Wit, he scanned the other ascenders, searching for the perfect moment for a stealth attack.
The elf whistled, and his cloudy orb, building in intensity, dove towards Brian. As it approached, TJ leapt forward, trying to intercept it with his earth orb, but it slipped from his muddy grasp. "Not on my watch."
Joe took a deep breath as four orbs hurtled through the jungle canopy above. He couldn't predict which would survive the impending collision. Suddenly, debris rained down around him. In the midst of the chaos, he released his Slimer orb, which plunged into the cloudy mass. Slime spewed into the air, but only the elf's orb remained unfazed. The other three orbs spun in confusion, with five second countdown timers appearing above them.
[Disrupted! Slimer 5” time debuff.]
Despite its childish name, the elf’s summoned orb, Huff-a-Puff, had a very effective disrupt ability. Somehow, it quickly recovered from the four orb collision and landed an attack on Joe’s Slimer orb. Slimer returned to Joe's hand, now with five stars hovering above like a knockout indicator, each slowly disappearing with the timed countdown.
The elf's laughter cut short when Dawn's flare orb smashed his Huff-a-Puff orb into the boundary line. "I don’t take sides with those who are weak and unworthy of giving their name," Dawn said with a smug expression as her orb returned to her.
The elf lowered his head, seeming discouraged, and withdrew a mini-flute to play a sad tune.
"Blasted!" Brian cursed, slamming his fist against his thigh. "I’d have saved that one for last if I’d known she had an orb like that."
Joe shook his head, lost in his thoughts while the elf’s haunting tune played softly in the background. It reminded him of the melody accompanying that French song about no regrets that his grandad used to play on vinyl. Glancing around, there seemed to be a common thread among the orbs in play—everyone seemed to have the same set of orbs, aligned with their elemental affinities. When making his own choice, the options given to him were all Water affinity orbs, fitting best with his Rogue class.
As humans, Brian and TJ both had to have Earth affinity. If he remembered right, alchemists were an Earth aligned class—it seemed to fit with the metallic orbs Brian held. TJ’s orbs seemed to be all Earth aligned which meant his choice was less clear-cut as his orb decision could have been either race or class. Dawn, on the other hand, held Fire affinity orbs which had to be based on her class and not her race, as changeling’s had Wind affinity. The elf used Wind based orbs and that meant it was most likely due to the fact he was a bard.
“Urrgghh!” Dawn’s yell of frustration brought him back to the battlebox arena. “You’ll have regrets if you don’t shut the hell up!”
The elf’s melody stopped as a MadOrbz appeared. He twirled the sky-blue, crystalline orb between his slender fingers, like Bowie in Labyrinth.
Activating Quick Wit Joe noticed cloud-like whisps moving slowly inside the orb. It definitely seemed to match a wind affinity orb.
Dawn launched her flare orb directly at the emo elf's. As it soared, he blew a note into his mini-flute, sending his orb soaring high into the air. Her orb followed in a wide arc, but his plummeted like lead, forcing hers to ricochet off into the boundary line. A puff of crimson smoke erupted, mirroring the flush of anger on her face, as her part in the battle abruptly ended.
Joe looked over at TJ and Brian, hoping they might understand what happened. Their shocked expressions and blank stares told him they were just as confused. Frowning, Joe realized how crucial the elemental affinities were if they matched each player’s class or race. He remembered his friend Tao once explaining the elemental cycle of destruction, but the affinities at play here were different.
"Poppy, is there an order of power with the four elemental affinities? If so, show me the order."
The notification popped up in his HUD:
[Elemental Insult Cycle: Water > Fire > Earth > Wind > Water]
“Make a note of this for later.”
"No go, Joe." Poppy's voice came through, softer than usual. "There’s not a place here for notes, but you can buy a virtual notebook in the common room."
“Thanks, I’ll do that as soon as I get one.” He mulled over the cycle. It made sense now why the emo elf would likely lose to TJ or Brian—Wind is weak against Earth. The fact that the emo elf had lost so quickly to Dawn’s fire orb earlier meant she must have had a particularly strong orb too.
Suddenly, a chill spread over his hand. Joe looked down to see his Slimer orb fading away, now locked within his decagon.
[Slimer MadOrbz no longer summonable for the BattleBox Tutorial.]
Realizing the thirty-second in-game timer had expired, Joe’s shoulders tensed. He had only one more orb left to summon, and he needed to make it count.
The elf pranced around with a cocky swagger as the swirling cloud orb danced on his fingertips. “Sorry to disappoint you Dawn, my radiant flower, but that won’t be happening in my lifetime. Bards do not have such regrets if others don’t enjoy their music.”
“I’m not your fucking flower, you dickbag.” Eyes bulging, Dawn dropped her chin and charged toward the elf.
“Time.” Joe knew better than to rush in and ‘rescue’ her in this situation. He was in no doubt that she’d go through him for a short-cut, if he tried to intervene. Not a good idea, plus she was tough as nails and could handle herself. Taking advantage of the distraction, Joe waved TJ and Brian closer into a huddle.
[Time Remaining: 54”, MP: 86]
“I don’t trust that elf.” TJ’s eyes narrowed.
“He is all shades of shifty.” Brian’s expression darkened.
Joe nodded and glanced back to the clash between Dawn and the elf, which had quickly escalated. The elf dodged with agility, his movements fluid and mocking, as he weaved through her strikes, his counterattacks swift but less forceful.
Joe watched, weighing their strengths and weaknesses.“Dawn is strong, but she’s now out of the battlebox game. If we work together, we can take out that elf before the end of the tutorial. I’ve got a water affinity attack orb. Brian, I assume you and TJ both have earth orbs. We can beat the emo elf with consecutive strikes.”
Brian shook his head. “I’ve summoned all my orbs for the Battlebox.”
A siren blared, and TJ covered his ears, still gripping his granite earth orb in one hand.
The ceiling pulsed in red waves as an announcement echoed. “Fight Tax. Tutorial mode deducts one percent of time currency from each ascender that is involved in the confrontation. Crystalline Jackpot grows by 4.25 years.”
Dawn wiped the blood from her knuckles. “You just cost me time, but every year I lost was worth it to wipe that smirk off your face.”
Emo elf licked the blood from his lips. “That tax was a mere slap on the hand for those with my ascender status of hundreds of years.”
The elf’s eyes darkened as he rolled his shoulders back, appearing much taller and menacing than before. Pressing his thin lips to his mini-flute, he exhaled a long breath. Joe’s breath caught as the damn sneaky elf’s swirling orb inflated like a balloon.
“What the hell.” TJ growled. “It’s damn near doubled in size compared to our orbs.”
Joe shook off his surprise. “I’ll weaken his orb. Wait to strike, then knock him out.” Joe glanced from TJ to the final orb circling him. He summoned the halo lit orb, Frostbite Chill. The orb released a chilly breath, frosting up the air around it.
“Let’s break the ice…with your face.”
The threat in those words sliced through Joe, sharp and jagged as broken glass.
“I hope that’s aimed for the other orb.” Joe glanced up from the frigid blue face of his last orb and launched Frostbite Chill with a flick of his wrist. His aim was dead-on, catching the elf off-guard.
The elf scrambled, catching his oversized orb with two hands and slinging it back into Joe’s like a ping-pong match. The impact forced Frostbite Chill to expel a frosty cough, dropping its HP by 20.
“Shit.” Joe sidestepped to rescue his orb from the oblivion of the boundary line.
Meanwhile, TJ’s granite orb tore through the air, clipping the elf’s orb and sending it into a dizzying spin. Even with a graze, the elf’s grimace made it clear TJ’s Earth affinity orb had landed a direct insult against the elf’s Wind affinity orb.
The elf sprinted away as if fleeing but Joe knew it was a ruse to put some distance between them and buy him time to regain control. Joe wasn’t about to let that happen. He lobbed Frostbite Chill again, aiming to give TJ a window for another strike.
The frosty orb smashed into the elf’s, knocking it further away.
Joe shot TJ a look and he took that as his cue to send his granite orb, hammering into the opposite side, forcing the elf into a desperate leap to catch his inflated orb.
With frightening speed, the elf spun around and returned fire, his orb colliding into Joes and sending it crashing against the boundary line where it disappeared in a poof of blue smoke.
Joe’s face fell.
NO!
[Frostbite Chill MadOrbz no longer summonable for the BattleBox Tutorial.]
Joe shrugged off his bitter disappointment to spur on his pals before it was too late.
“It’s up to you to finish him, TJ!” Joe yelled, now an observer of the final battle.
TJ gave him a sharp nod, his eyes blazing with a fierce hunger for victory.
A blur of granite shot past Joe, its jagged edges whirring like a buzzsaw. The orb, spinning with the ferocity of a Sonic the Hedgehog attack, drove the elf’s unusually large cloud orb toward the boundary.
Joe held his breath, while Brian and Dawn crowded him from both sides, their bodies tense with anticipation.
“Let’s go!” Brian cheered, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if the vibrations could propel TJ's orb faster.
Dawn clenched her fist and shook it in the air. “Go for it, Wonderboy! You have him by the short and curlies!”
For a breathless moment, everything seemed to slow down. TJ’s granite orb spun with a powerful thrust, pressing the much larger, bloated cloud orb ever closer to the boundary. The wind orb held ground within a whisker of the boundary. It was annoyingly resilient to insult by Earth.
“Come on, come on, TJ” Joe muttered through clenched teeth, “just a little further…” his eyes locked on the swirling confrontation.
The deadlock shifted abruptly as the wind orb, gathering a sudden burst of speed, dipped and swerved, escaping the granite orb's final push.
The elf’s laughter took them all by surprise. Joe gasped as TJ’s orb vaporized into a puff of orange against the boundary, signaling the end of their chances.
The elf shook his head, tsking, his MadOrbz jolting back inside his decagon. Party horns blared and confetti rained down on the elf.
“There’s no way that inflated thing was still a starter orb.” Joe twisted the string of his hoodie, trying to hide his annoyance.
“No?” The emo elf flicked confetti off his shoulder with a smug grin. “It's a starter orb called Zephyr.”
An announcement echoed in the arena.
[Battlebox Winner: Ascender 297, granted the prize pool of 5 years, now known as Ascender 302. Fifty mana particles awarded. One more step closer to the Crystalline Jackpot of immortality.]
The battlebox boundary line flickered out, revealing the dense jungle once again.
Dawn brushed past the still-smiling elf, her irritation clear. "I don’t have time to waste watching a no-name show off."
The elf, all charm and smirk, took a theatrical bow. "My apologies. Allow me to properly introduce myself. I’m Andras Lyranth, former heir of the Etheria Empire, at your service with only the finest in battlebox drama where the winner, yours truly, takes it all."
"What in the world was that?" Brian stood there, stroking his goatee.
TJ crossed his arms, muscles bulging with barely suppressed fury. "We’ve been played."
Joe leaned in, lowering his voice for only his pals to hear. "Yeah. Played like a cheap kazoo, sure, but mark my words, that’s the last time he tunes us up. Next time, we crank up our own music, and it’ll be metal as fuck."