Noah ran through the knee-high grass, dodging around the waist-high bushes, and leaping over a broken branch. He headed straight for the action, leaving RED behind as he ran.

“Tactics, fleshloaf!” RED called from behind him. “Don’t just rush in, for reason’s sake! You’re a deckbearer and chosen of Mechos, you ingrate!”

Noah didn’t slow, but he did remember to touch his chest and pull out his deck.

He got three cards—his usual fourth slot was empty, he presumed since RED was already out.

Two Scavenged Battle Bots and the Human Scavenger.

He hit one of the Scavenged Battle Bots as he ran up. It appeared next to him, running toward the enemies as well.

Scavenged Battle Bot

Tier-1 Common Golem [Cyber, Scavenged]

1 Golem Power

Health: 9

Attack: 4

Magical Attack: 0

Defense: 4

Magical Defense: 4

Special: Recyclable: When this creature dies it becomes a Scrap Token

“This most basic of the Cyber Golems can be repurposed to something greater”—acolyte of Mechos.

Arrows rose again, from about eight hundred feet ahead, and rained down a couple hundred feet closer to Noah. Screams came, as well as shouting in two obviously different languages that Noah didn’t know, one musical, and one that seemed entirely grunts and whistles. But one feminine voice rose in English. “You’ll not take us, elven scum! This is the day you die!”

Noah stopped next to a low-lying log. He could make out figures ahead of him in the distance, running his way. He pulled his backpack around and ripped his Springfield off, tossing the backpack to the side and rapidly loading the first bullet. He ignored the tripod for a moment, laying the gun across the log. He carefully took aim, sighting down the barrel.

And almost dropped the rifle in shock. Running toward him were what were unmistakably goblins. Each was about four-and-a-half feet tall, with green skin and giant, pointed ears. They had extra wide mouths with needle teeth and large eyes as well. Most of them were dressed in sandals and leather skirts, even the men, with numerous pouches on bandoliers around their chests, but a few wore trousers, and the women had crude linen shirts on.

They were being chased by what could only be elves—graceful, lithe humans with metallic-colored hair and long, thin ears, dressed in fancier clothing and armor. They all carried metal swords at their hips and compound bows in their hands. The elves occasionally stopped to fire arrows, sometimes in a direct line when a goblin head popped up, but usually as a volley at where they thought the goblins were.

Noah hesitated—elves were typically portrayed as the good guys in the media he had seen, and goblins the bad guys. He had no idea where the notions had come from, but he wondered if there was a truth to it.

On the other hand, the goblins were just running for their lives, mostly, despite what the one had shouted.

Noah stood up, his gun pointed down, and waved his hand. “Stand down, elves!”—god I sound like an idiot—“Stand down! No more fighting!”

I need to figure out what’s going on before I shoot someone.

One of the elves, now close to four hundred feet away, touched his chest and pulled out cards that floated around him.

“Drop to your knees and surrender, Deckbearer, and I may let you live!” the elf shouted in English, his voice the height of pompousness. “Humans may be slaves to the Ashtae Elves, and I will allow you that privilege.”

“I’m not going to—” Noah began, and the elf, not even waiting for him to finish, touched a card in front of him and then pulled his bow back. He fired, and the arrow grazed across Noah’s arm, throwing him to the side and down before a crack suddenly sounded.

Burning pain shot through him, and Noah looked down to see that the outside of his left arm was scoured along the side.

Noah was shocked, briefly reviewing what had just happened. He fired that arrow faster than the speed of sound!

A goblin popped up next to him. “You should get moving, human! Prince Ayrlic isn’t gonna let you live if he catches you, and we can’t fight him with his royal guard there.”

The goblin was female, with a lock of white hair down her back and a leather vest over her linen shirt—a leather vest filled with odd vials and tools. She had a small, strange crossbow strapped to her right arm. Magic cards, all gray or red colored, floated around her. Additionally, a small card facing outward floated in front of her chest. On it was a small grail and the words “Ashtae Forest Zone card three.”

Her face was already cut, a slash across one eyebrow and cheek that looked like it had been too shallow to catch her eye—barely. One of her feet was in a leather moccasin, and the other was a lump in a leather bag, the leg above it twisted and scarred.

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“The hell I can’t fight him,” Noah said, enraged from both the pain and the injustice of the attack. He grabbed the log and pulled himself to his knees, mostly behind it, and rested his gun on the dry wood.

The female goblin didn’t run, staring at him curiously from a crouch, her eyes missing the fear that the other panicked goblins displayed.

Noah took careful aim at the elf who had shot him. Prince Ayrlic—Noah assumed it was Prince Ayrlic—was trotting forward haughtily, not bothering to dodge, weave, or take cover, his bow held in his hands. He turned to the side, to another elf, and said something before laughing.

Noah had never killed someone before, but he had trained for thousands of hours to do so. It was, in the moment, surprisingly easy as his training took over. He depressed the trigger, and the gun bucked in his hand.

The goblin next to him threw herself to the ground at the sudden noise.

Prince Ayrlic’s head exploded, and he dropped, a meat puppet with its strings cut. Noah received an experience notification.

The goblin bounced back up, almost stumbling on her bad leg. She took one look down range, and then screeched out a “Yeah!” and beat her fists on Noah’s back. “Take that you murdering bastards!”

RED-7 came to a halt next to Noah, his own fiery knife out.

Noah quickly ejected the bullet and put another in.

The elf that had been talking to the prince stared for a moment, then tried to reach down to take the cards.

Bang!

That elf dropped as well. Another experience notification.

The remaining elves must have figured out they were being picked apart at range. Or perhaps they were just stupidly brave. Whatever the reason, most drew swords and charged as fast as they could, moving quickly and easily across the land.

Two didn’t charge, just firing arrows, but Noah ended both of them with his bolt-action rifle.

By then, the remaining fourteen were a mere hundred feet away.

Noah stood, abandoning his rifle and pulling the Glock.

“I got this, you beautiful human!” the female goblin next to him screamed out. She hesitated another second, then screamed, “Now!”

A metal golem, much more of a true golem than the droid cards Noah had, raised itself out of the grass just as the elves were running. The ones closest tried to turn, but the goblin touched one of her cards, a gray one.

The card flashed into existence as the golem blew apart in a ball of fire.

Self-Destruct

Common Tier-1 Golem Immediate

1 Any Power

Target one controlled Golem-type creature and sacrifice it. The sacrificed golem explodes, making a Magical Attack against all targets within 30’. The strength of the Magical Attack is the highest of the Attack or Magical Attack of the sacrificed golem, or 7. The Magical Attack is of the type of energy used to play the card.

“Mechos always wants his creations to make an impact, one way or another.”—Tiantha, Adeptus of Mechos

The blast burned the six elves nearest it, but didn’t kill them.

Against most humans, at least, any attack would have to have a base rating of ten or higher to one-hit kill them. Noah assumed the golem hadn’t had it.

Regardless, the little goblin cheered. About ten more goblins came out of the grass and bushes around them, most brandishing wooden spears with bone tips or bone knives with handles wrapped in scaled reptile skin.

Even with the damage inflicted, Noah was pretty sure the goblins would be toast without him. The difference in height, reach, and weapon quality would be too much of a gulf for the plucky little fighters to overcome.

But he started servicing targets with his Glock. Two bullets toward each. Four more went down to his gun as they rushed in. Another went down to a crossbow bolt that exploded on impact, fired from the goblin girl with the club foot and potion vest, who was still screaming abuse at the elves.

An elf with a sword rushed Noah, swinging. Without abandoning his gun, he leapt back, landing on the balls of his feet as he dodged. He went into MMA mode, bouncing on his feet, keeping mobile. Can’t get solidly tagged by this one or I’m gonna be fucked.

“Human maggot,” the elf hissed with malice, then stabbed at Noah as hard as he could a second time, moving forward fluidly.

Noah managed to move laterally and back, getting around the sword while reloading his gun. He extended his arm while backing and shot the elf twice in the chest—but the elf had been mid attack, and the blade still sliced Noah’s forearm.

He cussed, batting the sword away and inadvertently switching his cards at the same time. His arm was gushing blood, and his notification said he had a bleed that would do significantly more damage over time.

Between that and the arrow, I’m down to ten Health.

Goblins screamed and died around him, and one elf blew backwards from an explosion that opened his chest in a spray of red. Another had massive burns across his face and chest, from RED-7, but wasn’t quite dead yet.

Noah saw that his Scavenged Battle Bot had died, leaving a Scrap Token behind, as well as returning its power, which meant that Noah had six power.

The goblins were dying fast.

He quickly hit the card in front of him—his Goliath Scrap Bot.

A twenty-foot-tall golem appeared in the clearing. It appeared to have been constructed from spare parts lying around a junkyard, with the late morning light highlighting every bizarre chunk of metal or electronics that had been slapped on it.

If it had been smaller, it would have looked silly. But it towered over Noah and the elves, dominating the battlefield with its massive bulk.

Goliath Scrap Bot

Common Tier-1 Golem [Cyber, Scavenged]

2 Golem, 4 Any Power

Health: 60

Attack: 15

Magical Attack: 0

Defense: 9

Magical Defense: 9

“If it’s big enough, it can beat them.”—Zhang, Adeptus of Mechos

The elves and goblins all stuttered to a stop except for the vest-wearing one, who took the opportunity of the pause to shoot another elf with her crossbow—a normal bolt that sank into her target’s chest to the fletching.

Everyone stopped except the vest-wearing goblin… and Noah, who rapid fired at everything he could with the Glock. Two more went down and another was wounded before Noah clicked on empty a second time.

His golem raised its giant mechanical foot to over eight feet high. The elves scattered, but one was too slow, and the golem stomped it, killing it with a gross crackle of bones and a spurt of viscera from beneath the foot.

Noah winced. Eight directly, more through cards.

The last couple elves didn’t flee, grimacing but killing another few goblins before they went down from a combination of RED, the Goliath Scrap Bot, the female goblin, and in one case, a snap-kick to the head from Noah followed up by a heel stomp to the neck.

There was a brief pause. The bushes of the area they were in was splashed with blood, and the grass was burning a couple hundred feet off, near where the golem had self-destructed.

Only two goblins remained besides vest. One was barely alive, thanks to a hideous slash across his chest. The lady goblin took a glass vial from her vest, opened it, and slathered the contents on the goblin’s chest. It stopped bleeding.

The standing goblin asked something, and motioned to Noah—who was staring at the healing goblin.

Some things about this world might be way better.

The goblin girl stood to her full four-and-a-half-foot height, her hands on her hips as she stared at Noah, her weight on her good leg. “So, do we fight each other now, human?”

“What?” Noah asked, shocked back to attention. “Why would we fight? Are you crazy? Is everyone on this world of Arena crazy?”

He motioned to the bodies around him. “I just killed, like, ten guys. I don’t want to kill anyone else.”

“Bold of you to assume that you would kill me, human.”

“I want to kill her,” RED said in his synthesized voice. “We should kill her.”

The goblin tensed at that statement, her arm coming up, crossbow pointed at Noah.