Etan Za'Darmondiel.

***

These human children were oddly well-behaved. So too were they strangely without fear. Like Amun, they looked upon the Faerie Flame-limned walls of Nydorden's Second Hall with more fascination than they did the first. They made cooing sounds at the vibrant pulses of the divine roots spread throughout the ceiling and floors. Worst of all, they discussed exploring the Sunken Ring as if it were a playground. And the small one. Iris. She smiled. She smiled and waved at almost every drow and slave she saw as if they were her friends.

It was… unsettling. At least to me.

"Under normal circumstances," the Abbot said in the common tongue, bringing my attention back to the central pit. "We would start your training with meditation and conditioning before moving on with drills and weapons training with fighting in between. In your case." She smiled at the half-breed. "I've concluded it would be best to operate in reverse. You will fight until you can fight no more. If that means you are on the brink of death, so be it.

"As for these." The Abbot looked to the girls. "They will join me in my Hall. If they are truly to be your... companions, they will learn more than just fighting from the likes of me."

Amun said nothing. But he stared at the Abbot in a way that echoed a million warnings throughout the labyrinth. Then he ruffled the smallest one's hair before saying, "Remember what I told you."

They didn't look back as they left. Due entirely to, I assumed, the white wolf and one of the owls accompanying them. I waited until they disappeared up the well leading towards the Abbot's wing before turning to the Champion, the black wolf, and the remaining owl, holding back a sneer as I pointed to the shelves. "Strip."

Those white, draconic eyes darted between the dozens of approaching monks before he turned to strip down to his trousers and hand wrappings, then faced about once more to show the Great Tree of darkness sprawled across his chest.

Gasps and curious murmurs bounced off the cave walls like a steady dripping of water, but Amun paid them no mind. He paid our stares no mind. He only stared at us as we stared at the opalescent half-circle looping behind the Great Tree of Void, watching it shift from silver to gold. Then, his eyes began to wander, and I remembered. The many high priestesses and their lessors, hiding along the walls and ceilings. Waiting. Watching. Plotting, I could already imagine, to add him to the breeding stock. I shuddered at the thought. However, I also felt relief that such leering eyes were turned away from me.

For the most part.

<<"You will wear nothing more than that until you are told otherwise. You are to use no magic or sorcery in these halls. You will use no weapons other than the ones you are given. Breaking these rules warrants punishment.">>

<<"Understood.">> He quickly sang, again in that all-too-familiar dialect.

<<"As the Abbot told you, your brutal training will soon commence. But we will, as the humans say, fell two goblins with one spell. We will assess your weapons proficiency and physical attributes,">> I said calmly, motioning for the slaves to position themselves. <<"This and all training will be accomplished through mortal combat. As per your class, we will not stop until you are… almost dead."

<<"Understood,">> he said again whilst bowing, but in a tone I now recognized as anticipation. Eagerness.

With a quick hand signal, his eagerness was put to the test. The slaves rushed him in a crazed frenzy and he reacted accordingly. I darted to the walls to watch his motions carefully while tossing the occasional weapon into the fray. As time went on, my deduction turned to a theory, and that theory soon bore the fruit of an undeniable truth. Amun had indeed trained hellishly throughout his childhood just as I had. Perhaps even more than I. And yet, there were suggestions that he was trained far beyond his years would suggest. His motions were un-telegraphed, precise, and, quite curiously, seemed to be a mix of various styles and forms, most of which were undocumented in our records. However, he had no ki and his movements were unrefined. Thus his attacks were severely lacking in power and his defense was rendered useless in the face of heavy blows. As such, he relied on speed and agility to deal as much damage as possible before dodging out of harm's way.

Satisfied with his aptitude, I moved over to the racks to begin the weapons training, wherein I was somewhat disappointed. Not by his ineptitude. Not entirely. As his physicality suggested, Amun’s proficiency with the required weapons used by members of our class was… acceptable. As mentioned before, his movements were unrefined in ways that suggested he'd received no proper instruction. A certain level of expertise was shown in both the traditional and the jointed variety of spears and staffs, however. Something that seemed to impress the priestesses above more than it did us monks. The spear was a powerful tool in the underground tunnels, after all. But that was not even remotely disappointing.

The disappointment came from his reluctance to even hold a sword or scimitar, despite being capable of using them, if not horrendously untrained. It was almost sacrilege, to view the scimitar, the weapon of drow in such a way. It was blasphemy if one took the word of the high priestesses seriously, who even went as far as to assume he felt the same way about hand crossbows. Their silent whispers were cut short when I tossed a rapier into the fray, however. More even than scimitars, even the most uncoordinated drow were proficient with rapiers. Their silence turned to gasps when Amun snatched the weapon from the air and spun into a flourish, lashing around to take up a strange stance.

With his trailing arm poised around his hip and the other raised to the shoulder, he pointed the slim blade at the nearest human slave and lunged, shouting strange words while attacking unceasingly, pedaling forward to thrust and whirl the thin blade in a dizzying motion that left the man scarred across his chest and face. However...

<<"Hold!">> I commanded, ceasing all motion on the floor at once. Well, almost all of it. <<"One hour has elapsed.">> I answered Amun's silent inquiry. <<"We will proceed with four hours of conditioning.">>

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Again, he said little other than a mumble coupled with a bow. His face betrayed no emotion or feeling other than indifference. But… something within me knew he was… annoyed. He wanted to continue fighting until he was broken, I realized.

I would not let him, I quickly decided. For there were many habits that needed beating out of him still. And so, I watched him run through the ring and listened to the priestesses speak praises of his high conditioning. I had no such praises to offer, however. Only an unbiased eye that I would use to ascertain his flaws and weaknesses and exploit them. As well as, of course, his inner strengths. Conditioning was indeed among them. I had to admit that to myself, at least. Such a thing was an anomaly for any elf; even a monk, but not for the Nox. He lasted the full four hours with hardly a lapse in focus or determination. But, like anyone, he eventually began to slow.

The stair jumps exhausted him completely. A simple exercise, it was, where one had to crawl on hands and knees down a hundred steps- face first, and do squatting jumps to return to the top. Only, the incline was steep and the steps were many. However, the flexibility conditioning gave him some respite. An oddity in itself, for even I screamed and cried during the excruciating stretching sessions back then. Instead, many of us became morbidly fascinated by the echoes of pops and satisfied groans that came from the strange being as he stretched his joints and limbs beyond their limits. Not I. I only made a mental note of his spine and organs forcibly realigning from his stretches and breathing exercises while he ignored the excruciating pain I went through to see it finished. I watched stoically as his stamina drained throughout the second round of combat, and therein I witnessed the most impressive aspect of the Eternal Champion. Or perhaps a being of the Nox.

Tenacity.

It was a famed trait in humans in the eyes of drow. Their tenacity could be seen in all things from their arts to their cities, but not as clearly as it could be seen in combat. Lost limbs. Impalement. Utter decimation to their forces or bodies. Such things only birthed a righteous fury in humans that was unseen in any other species. A rage that could make the wrath of an orc seem like a dying ember. A rage that demanded they take as many down with them as they could, or keep fighting until death forced itself on them. This was a tenacity unlike any other, however. It was a relentlessness seen only in the undead. It was not a primal scream of righteous fury, it was a ghastly wail of silent malice. A wail that echoed the promise of ending.

When Amun's arms were too debilitated to move, the momentum of his body was used to swing them in the stead of his muscles. When his legs failed him, he fought on the ground. When blood poured from his mouth, he aimed the ichor at eyes and feet to blind and trip. No matter how much he was beaten or bruised, he crawled forward until the hour ended. Then crawled forward some more to struggle through four hours of drills. Then crawled forward some more for another hour of 'combat.' Then crawled forward yet again for four hours of weapons training. Then…

Then he lay there. Struggling against a downpour of fists and feet for every second of the hour while I watched, waiting for the signal from my brother, the Heart Keeper, to call the match.

In the end, I was the one to call the match. When the crowd dispersed, he was almost unrecognizable. Just a bloated, rib-punctured body soiled in blood, urine, and feces. The only identifying cues were, of course, his mark, and the only open eye staring emptily into the distance.

<<"You may use healing magic if you need.">> I found myself saying; after how long, I knew not, but I could not have a Bodhi Tree student, much less the Champion dying on his first night. To my surprise, however.

"N...o."

It was as if the words had been spoken by a zombie. For that was what my mind demanded I believe as I watched him push off the ground to come to a seated position; and, without being told, begin meditating.

It had to be some sorcerous trick of the Nox, for he seemed… better, once the four hours were up. He was still haggard. Still beaten and bloodied and bruised. But… stable, somehow. Still, he was struck a lot more throughout the second day. Beaten more. Bruised and bloodied more. Then suffered more as he drilled in every known unarmed form and fighting style documented over the countless ages by our kind. Even then, however, he turned his eyes and ears closely to me whenever I instructed him on the principles of monastic defense and movement.

He was debilitated more as he moved past becoming proficient with our simple weapons to gaining practice in the wide variety of martial weapons. He became emaciated and dirtied from finding ways to maneuver around the environment with broken limbs and battered organs. He ran himself far past Death's Door from where I could see, conditioning his body to autonomously adapt to his injuries, if not ignore them. Day after day after day after day. Altering his martial forms, his mind, and his body to stand before that threshold with ease.

When he awoke from his meditation and began fighting on the seventh day, I thought he used some sort of healing that went undetected. The labored movements and haggard breathing had ceased entirely, paving the way for the return of the graceful movements born from our blood. Then, I noticed the changes.

There was no more flair or flashiness to his movements. Or rather, it diminished. Strikes were dodged, parried, and countered, but only some of them. Only the highly lethal ones. The rest were ignored yet were returned with a brutal source of power that was not there before. The strength limitations imposed by the brain since released, it was. A power that could crack skulls just as they did his fists, but not Ki. Thus his training continued.

It was not until his intermediate conditioning began that I noticed two things. The first was the emptiness in his eyes. The emptiness and the burning green-blue fires within gave me a hint. But when I saw his training for his chosen unarmed style: the Adamantine Finger, it became obvious.

He had been doing it for nearly three hours- stabbing his fingers into a bowl of adamantine shavings. After all that time and so many strikes, most of the flesh had been sheared or torn off of his hands in a rather unclean manner. The loss of so many nerves, muscles, tendons, and blood should have rendered his hand immobile. Yet I could clearly see the bony protrusions stiffening into the proper form before they plummeted into the bowls, then rising to repeat the action, guided by the black and blue-green sorcery formed around them of its own volition.

It was amazing to see the limitations imposed on the body by the brain being removed in real time. After a few days, however, staring into those unblinking eyes grew eerie. Hearing the pops and cracks that came from his body performing leagues beyond its limits grew unsettling. Seeing him swing his weapons at unnatural angles, punch with bone-shattering strength, suffer blows that should have brought him to his knees, and yet remain standing for days on end grew to be sickening.

On the ninth day, the drow monks began operating in other parts of the Hall. Thus endless waves of slaves were thrown to their deaths. That birthed a surge in attendance from the priestesses below. They watched the carnage with glee until the eleventh day, when they either grew bored or in some cases had witnessed enough death, leaving me to be the only one to look into those eldritch eyes for eight more days.

As unsettling as it was, it was also a testament to his tenacity and devotion to the Way to Death's Door. I still had no concrete idea as to what the Champion was- no one did, other than perhaps his drow parent, but I was certain that it had little to do with him being faced with the final initiation phase in a mere nineteen days. That was an accomplishment for us, who'd been practicing these arts for eons. If not anything else, it was a testament to the inherent tenacity of a sorcerous necromancer. A Living Lich of the Nox.

I, however, could not help but think that even that was the wrong conclusion.