Tony woke to the feeling of a warm wet cloth being pressed against the side of his neck. His eyes snapped open and there was Vixie, but something was off… it was like someone turned down the saturation of his vision most of the way but turned up the contrast. A glance at his status bars told him that his Hamaskyr... problem... had worsened.
Hamaskyr Addiction: You are now addicted to the substance known as "Berserker's Brew" and will be subject to the effects of [Hamaskyr] Withdrawals unless you have the substance in your system.
Stage 1 - Positive Emotions Suppressed, Partial Colorblindness
Beyond that, something was wrong with Vixie. She'd been moving the cloth in the same spot for the whole time he'd been looking at his new debuff, she was out of it.
Tony sat up, "Vixie?" He announced.
She nearly jumped out of her skin, suddenly coming to, and reflexively hucked the wet cloth directly into Tony's face. His head hit the back of the pillow and his eyes stung with the impact on his nose. Vixie's talent for making any thrown item a weapon was always active.
"What the shit, Vixie?"
"Oh my god, Tony, I'm so sorry!"
Tony sat up completely and threw the towel away before he got to his feet and went to leave the infirmary. All he had wanted to do was lie down and rest but, of course, just like everything else, there had to be a snag, some inconvenient hiccup.
Tony was sick of it.
Vixie grabbed him by the back of his arm, but Tony snatched the limb back without breaking stride. It was time to end all of this... insipid… nonsense… gladiatorial display, lack of direction, and severe diversion from his primary goal of killing Ignacious. He stormed into the barracks of the Pits and scanned the crowd of fighters before he spotted Rania and pointed her out.
"You and I have unfinished business. Let's get it done," Tony challenged.
Rania stood, a halo of blades rose with and just behind her.
That’s new… Fucking Pahadron... Tony lamented.
"Yes... let's..." she answered, "the Pitmaster will make it so. I suggest you make yourself ready," her tone was off, somehow softened by confidence, it was as if all of the contempt she’d held for Tony had resolved itself.
Tony was already gone, in search of Jak, whom he encountered in the halls.
"You look like shit dude, have you eaten anything?"
Tony answered the question with a glare.
"Do you Ascendants even need to eat?"
Tony pondered the question before he dismissed it and asked another, "How many fighters did the 'visiting angel' talk to down here?"
"Just Akmor and Rania that I saw," Jak answered.
"What about the Champion?"
"Excuse me?" Jak asked.
Tony's already thin patience wore even more, "Did they talk to the Champion or not?"
"I don't think so."
"Good, I don't need whoever that is getting roided up before we fight too..." Tony observed out loud.
"I thought Akmor looked a little... different... to fight, and Rania didn't have all of those floating swords before... that doesn't look like it'll be fun, but I've seen something like it before..."
"If you're trying to help, either spit out whatever advice you have to offer or keep your mouth shut, I'm not in the mood," Tony growled.
"She's not gonna need to touch the swords to try and kill you with em, the last person I saw that did something like that, whenever they put their hands on one of the swords, the others turned all spectral. Probably won't hurt you, but... I'm not an expert," Jak admitted.
"Was that so hard?" Tony asked; the sarcasm hung heavy on his words.
"Look, Tony, I get it," Jak said.
Tony narrowed his eyes, annoyance plain to see in the expression.
"I mean, not the drugs part of it, but being down here... it wears on people, and Serketzi is doing whatever she can to put you through the wringer. I get that, I've seen it over and over again."
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"Is there a point to any of that?" Tony demanded.
"You've got to get out of here. This place isn't going to kill you... but it will ruin you if you don't."
"No shit," Tony answered.
He turned to walk away from the craggy man and realized there wasn't really anywhere to go. The barracks had the "red room," where everyone waited to be called into the Pits themselves, the infirmary, the champion's chambers, a few doors that he'd never seen opened, and the communal sleeping area. What Tony needed was some quiet, somewhere to get his head on straight before he fought Rania... again... there didn't seem to be anywhere quiet in the whole place.
”Follow me, Tony,” Jak said as he turned down a corridor that Tony had either never noticed or had just appeared.
“Why?”
”It’s for your own good, come on,” Jak answered.
Tony rolled his eyes, sighed, and followed the other combatant.
Jak led him down a widening hallway. If Tony didn’t know better, he would have guessed that Jak was bringing him to another arena, which wasn’t impossible, but seemed unlikely due to the grandiose display of attendants in the arena he had fought in.
“This is an extra-dimensional training space,” Jak explained, “time’s flow here is about half that outside of it, so if we’re gone for an hour, it’ll be like we were gone for thirty minutes.”
“So a much worse hyperbolic time chamber…” Tony mused.
“I don’t know what that is,” Jak answered, “but the point is, that since Serketzi doesn’t know about this place, the restrictions on you from that thing,” he said, pointing at the collar, “will be lifted for long enough for you to apply your level-ups before she notices.”
”How did you -“ Tony started.
”You think you were her first plaything?” Jak asked.
Tony furrowed his brow as his sheet pulled up in front of him, with a series of notifications.
Temporal Space Accessed - Essence Slave Collar Control: Interrupted
You have (4) Pending Level-Ups
You have (12) unspent Attribute Points
You have (24) unspent Ability Points
You have received an Essence Increase Quest [Blocked: Essence Slave Collar and Active Sub-Saga: Prisoner of War] Gain access to this quest by freeing yourself!
Additional Talent Selection Blocked: Active Sub-Saga: Prisoner of War - Free yourself to access more talents!
Legion’s Phylactery has Processed all Pending Souls
Legion has leveled up: Dreadblade LV 8
Maximus has leveled up: Familiar LV 15
As the notifications popped up in front of him, the small soccer ball made of eyes and wings popped into the corner of his vision, “You’re almost there! Just Rania and the Champ left, and after you beat Rania, you’ll have enacted just a little bit of vengeance against Ignacious. I can go to the Archon with that!”
Tony should have been happy. Should have been.
Instead, he wanted to scream, rip the damn collar off, or see what the consequences of killing Serketzi would be... if he could even get to her. Tony was so sick of all of the fucking limitations that this one person was able to inflict on him with one piece of equipment.
"You're only going to have a few minutes before she notices..." the soccer ball with wings, eyes, and rings, said.
Tony snapped out of the spiral and refocused on increasing his attributes. He dumped one point into Strength, three points into Dexterity, two points into both Endurance and Spirit, and four points into Luck.
At this point, why the hell not? he rationalized. Maybe his luck would do something for him in the coming fights. Jak bringing him back into this room where, miraculously, his collar's restrictions were interrupted could be a manifestation of his Luck attribute already. More instances like this would be welcome instead of the continuous worsening of his stay.
Tony moved onto his Ability points and a feeling of urgency swept over him, almost as though he could feel the window of access closing, so he slapped two points into each ability and called it "good enough."
Points spent and the lessening he'd experienced weeks ago somewhat corrected, Tony turned to leave the auxiliary fighting pit.
"Where are you going?" Jak asked.
Tony stopped short, agitated, and shrugged, "I dunno..."
"Seems like you're still pretty wound up. She won't send anyone looking for you for a little bit if she even does," Jak stated before he hopped from one for to the other and took up a loose boxing stance, "how about a spar?"
Tony almost scoffed. Jak had seen him fight in the Arena and he wanted to spar? Though... Tony had never seen Jak fight in the arena, and he had been in the combatants' Pit for longer than he had... if Jak had survived this long unarmed, there was a chance that Tony could take something valuable from the exchange.
Tony got up on his toes, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and mirrored Jak's stance. Jak quirked a brow.
"Ready when you are," Tony said.
Jak shuffled forward and threw out a series of jabs at blistering speed. Tony leaned into his recently increased Dexterity, Wits, and training; he weaved, sidestepped, and covered up to block the strikes he couldn't evade outright. Each impact of Jak's fist on his arms felt like a sledgehammer slamming into him. Jak threw a right hook, looking to punch through Tony's guard, overextended due to Tony's footwork.
Tony slipped under the crushing blow, intending to counterattack into Jak's body, but the torrent of air that followed Jak's strike took him completely by surprise, off of his feet and end over end. He landed heavily back on his feet and Jak was on him again, a fusillade of punches that Tony had to take head-on.
Dodging wasn't an option and slipping to the side would require more space than he had. Tony launched his own barrage, striking at Jak's forearms, wrists, and elbows to sap momentum from and redirect Jak's punches. Some of the dozens of punches thrown by the pair of combatants landed, and most were knocked aside one way or another.
In the same instant, both Tony and Jak broke away, sliding back onto their heels a few feet away from each other. Tony adjusted and readied himself to attack again when Jak held up his hands, panting.
"I think that's enough for now..." Jak admitted with a sheepish grin.
Tony exhaled and relaxed his muscles. He'd been enjoying the bout; it seemed that Jak and he were evenly matched without any gimmicks or bullshit interference from Serketzi or Ignacious. He wanted to keep fighting... to keep pitting his strength and skill against Jak's... to see who would win... if either of them would win or if they'd both fight to the point of exhaustion. Tony almost felt a sort of euphoria... maybe a fair fight was what he had needed all along.