Olga Godzuik.
***
“So, it’s like this every day?”
“Every night!” Ritrix corrected Zeff with a wagging finger and a charming smile. She’s been like a repository of honest information. Something I was immensely grateful for. And something that caused further bemusement with each passing minute.
Ritrix Mildbluff told us of the training they went through by openly joking about being stabbed and beaten bloody at the start of every other morning. She laughed at running herself to exhaustion and sleeping as much as she could in the hours after, then teased and toyed with us about the topics of the many courses and studies Amun put them through. It was a bit much. So much so, that it made Zeff more than a bit concerned for the girl, but I knew it was part of her act. Comedy.
Comedy turned dark by the darkest devil to exist.
When her jokes ran dry, though, we were reunited with Doyle and treated to a dinner that was exquisitely delicious, though I dared not ask who made it or where it came from. Ritrix’s teasing questions only exacerbated such feelings, but her lengthy demonstrations of the various brass and stringed instruments of Amun’s creation served as quite the distraction.
Eventually, though, I couldn’t help but ask. “Where is everyone?”
“The club.” Ritrix cheekily retorted.
“Is this not the club?” Zeff looked at the plush area around us and laughed before I could.
“They're in the fight club, Miss Godzuik.”
“The what?” The two battle mages perked up from their seats at once. “Can you show us?”
“Sure!” Ritrix beamed and went on to double over at the waist. “Hey!” She called to the floor. “Can you give them a lift?”
“Yeah, yeah. I heard ‘em,” came her voice, but from the floor. And then came her umbral clone coalescing from a pool at her feet that remained even after the doppelganger was summoned.
With naught another word, the Ritrix clone opened a window of darkness with a sweep of her hand before shoving us through, inviting a pervasively cold wave to sweep over me before everything seemed to twist, become inverted, and suddenly right itself. Dismissing the cold and returning the warmth of a vast dome to my senses. One of featureless stone rather than the plush sofas of the… other club.
As with every room in this place, I came to learn, a mote of moonlight illuminated the space from above. This one was tinted a vibrant red that seemed to stir unwanted feelings into my emotional cauldron. Even then, however, there was the same golden radiance lining the walls of the empty compound. Providing a strange image to the eyes, even with the daylight streaming inside through those strange holes in the walls and ceilings.
Besides us, the only objects of note within the space- a room as high and wide as every other oversized structure within the tower- were tunnels of curiously smooth stone sitting adjacent to the foyer. We, however, had already stepped inside and took a look around, seeing alcoves and nooks and niches set into the walls. It was then I realized the general layout of the area and sought to enter the staging or common area or whatever it was at the center of those chambers; then I heard a thump.
Like a drum against my back, it startled my heart still. And not just me. A dense something banged against the stone behind us, halting the three of us in place.
Slowly. Cautiously. We turned to see a rotten man covered in tattered armor. Pulled tight against his yellowed bones was a leathery skin patched in blues and yellows from sole to scalp, peeling his lips into an eternally open sneer of otherworldly malice. Like glacial winds, his ragged groans rolled over me. Forcing me to stand and stare in horror at the abyssal fire burning in his eyes.
It was a Draugr. Amun’s Draugr. Zaraxus.
And he was stomping right towards us.
“Out of the ring, unless you want to fight!”
For once, there was no reluctance in me following the nasal voice of the strifling. Instead, there was an overbearing presence looming over me that forced a skip in my step. It was an object of amusement for them all, I frustratingly learned upon entering a common room that was much taller than it was long or wide. It was tiered like a tower made of blocks that had been inverted to stand on its top to make a five-by-five-meter base floor filled with weapons racks, looked down on by rings of chairs and couches that stretched on and on until the ridiculously high top.
As we were told, many of the unseen faces from before were gleaming with excitement from those floors and perches above. The Amazonian Warriors were present. As were the Goliaths. Every Marulean was present also. And so too were many Nonusians. There were a few dwarves and even the half-high orc, Elurial. And, of course, Zarzok was here.
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“Welcome to the Fight Club!” He gave us a gracious bow as we entered.
“The fight club, huh?” I chortled. “Is this for training?”
“Purely recreation, I’m afraid.” Zarzok huffed apologetically.
Then Zeff stepped forward. “How does it work?”
“Well.” He shrugged. “Bets can be made, both individually and as a collective. But there are three games. Well.” He snorted out a laugh. “The first is an ordinary duel between our peers or our Doppelgangers. As for the other two…” He trailed off, tapping at his chin until his eyes drifted above. Then he shouted. “Anyone wish to show the newbies how it’s done?”
“Newbies?” I recoiled, but then another thunderous boom and a gentle voice pulled my attention to Zarzok’s side.
“I will.”
The gentleness of such a voice threw me for a loop when my eyes fell upon Ale Nicchi. He was overbearingly large in stature, so much so that I could only help but think there was some giant in his blood whenever I saw him. But deep down I knew he, and his sisters, were of pure Amazonian blood. That much was made apparent by their absurd strength. That, and their rare magic.
“Black Tide!” Ale bellowed as he entered the ring, and the ring seemed to respond with a pool of darkness that appeared on the floor before the Amazonian.
It took the form of a man, young and covered in scars that glowed a soft blue-green as he reeled back in a silent scream and charged.
A pulse of mana slapped against my face in the next moment. The sound of cracked stone reverberated throughout the hall and then, Ale was seen before the shadow, recovering from a lariat that severed the undead in two.
“That was easy.” Zeff chuckled, and the irony of his words seemed to fly over Zarzok’s head entirely.
“The shadows are weak, for now.” He shrugged. “The lack of strong things to kill keeps them so. However.” He pointed to the ring, where Ale stood with his jade-encrusted guard still raised high.
Like before, the ground coalesced into a pool of darkness- a pit dissimilar to the reaching tendrils of the severed undead reattaching itself. This pool formed into an older woman. A different woman from the one Amun seemed to keep at his side.
Though she too was pulverized just as easily, she quickly reformed and was joined by another shadow. And when they died, a third joined them. So on and so on, until dozens were crowded in the chamber, flinging spells and umbral fists with wild abandon until Ale Nicchi succumbed to his wounds.
He remained on the ground for a while. Cackling madly while his body began to glow in the gentle white pale light of the moon.
“So it’s a challenge of attrition.” Doyle needlessly concluded. “And a damned good one.”
“I’ll go next.” Came another voice. Then Teofila dropped down and entered the ring in the same fashion as Ale. But she said nothing. She only drew twin short swords and held her gaze up until Zaraxus dropped from above like before.
Though I saw it before, it took being within the confines of this chamber to notice the strange weapon impaled in his chest. He didn’t draw it. He only clasped his fist below his rotted gut and lowered his head in the weird form of prayer they all did. Then began stomping his way toward her.
“We call it the Boss Battle.” Zarzok cheekily explained. “Only a few of us can hold up to him. But only because he doesn’t use his war scythe.”
“War… scythe?” Zeff incredulously asked.
“It’s for killing only.” Zarzok nodded. “Like my sword. But for stealing life.”
I knew asking was a lost cause. But still, as always, Doyle did.
Or rather, he started to.
“While this is fun and all, fighting isn’t really my thing.”
“Well, you’re an alchemist?” Zarzok asked in a way that was more an affirmation. So I affirmed. “In that case, you can check out the alchemical labs on the second floor or you can explore the workshops in the basement. That said, the Artificers-to-be may be grumpy about you spoiling their creations. In that case, you can head to the grove up top and see the Druids and Rangers. Here.” He flicked his arm upward and, like Ritrix, summoned his Doppelganger. “Kozraz will show you the way.”
“Kozraz?” I stammered in disbelief.
“My name-”
“In reverse.” I groaned, doing my best to toss the negative feelings aside. “Thank you for the offer. I’ll go up to the grove if that’s alright.”
“Certainly!” They beamed simultaneously. But his doppelganger was the one to move, spawning a cloud of darkness to envelop me in a disorienting sphere until it dissipated to reveal a flowered meadow rimmed by a dense forest suffused in the same gentle, bluish-white light as before.
There was one here too. A glowing globe of dirt and stone that Amun referred to as… a moon. Whether that was a play on his name or not was still unknown, but it was a fact that everyone and seemingly everything seemed to flock to it.
The grove, as it was called, was not only populated by the shadow beasts Amun was able to create but an army of silkworms and moths that undoubtedly came from Scarlett. The field of grasses in which I sat was covered in a film of silk that glistened like the ocean in the pale light above. Most of it was being gathered into spools by the undead to no doubt be made into tapestries and clothes for this Legion they all were so proud to be a part of.
“Hello.” Came a soft whisper before a nearly inaudible thump sounded behind me.
I wheeled around at once and let out a sigh of relief upon seeing the gentle Felipian leaning in close to me. The entity that crept behind her, however, forced the panic within me to rise again.
“Twig.” I giggled nervously and pointed to the shadow panther rubbing against her leg. “I see you’ve made a new friend.”
“Many.” She nodded her big head. Then rubbed the head of the panther. “This is Tao. Together, in Twilight, we hunt. We have hunted many things.” She crept closer, reached behind her, and held out a surprising item in her hands. “With this.”
In her pawed hands was a fine bow made of two or three bands of pitch-black wood, twisted and bent into a recurve shape before being emblazoned and inlaid with golden streaks and spheres to make the resemblance of a night sky. On the contrary, the string seemed to glow with the divine radiance of the moon itself. If that wasn’t enough, the grip was encapsulated with a knuckle duster while twin blades were affixed to the string grooves for the not-so-rare close-quarters engagements.
“Amun gifted me this. Jeager Bow is what he calls it.”
“It’s amazing.” I gasped. “But, it won’t count for your grade you know.”
“I do.” She quickly nodded. “Amun has given me something to help me in that regard too. Inspiration. I will create something that will let me do something I never could before.”
“Oh?” I begrudgingly began to ask.” What’s that?”
“Soon.” She leaned her bulbous eyes as close as she could to mine. “I will be able to smash things.”