Jen’s shift appeared in the distance, taking a break. My enchanted steed didn’t exactly need watering or rest, but the same wasn’t true for me – galloping was a literal pain in the ass. We had to keep it short but long enough to exchange pleasantries, a smoke and the latest gossip. Jen told me someone had been dumb enough to test how survivable a snaptrap was and the verdict came in at ‘quite’, apparel damage notwithstanding.

Of course, the person testing had somewhere in the range of a few hundred physical endurance, which might have influenced the outcome a little. She was always picking up on the latest and greatest, another way to manage our perpetual lack of entertainment. They’d travelled straight as an arrow and cleared the muddy trail of all hazards, which let me ride hard in the dark, arriving barely in time for the show.

I stood near the floored square in the middle of town, next to the government complex. Usually it functioned as a loading and offloading point, open air storage and occasional marketplace. Now it was a podium lit by torchlight. At least the ambient smell of squalor had mostly dissipated. Or I’d gotten used to it, might’ve been all the smoking too. Behold, the big guns.

Eight figures stood crowded by a few dozen others. The spotlight belonged to Kristen and her upgraded weapon, shiny blue edge on the axe side and all. She wore new gear too and overlapping plates of bonemetal covered her chest, back and stomach. The new look hadn’t been contained to the breastplate either - her arms, upper and lower, were equally armored and the same was true for her legs. If she’d worn a helmet she’d have been an excellent imitation of a medieval knight who’d been too cheap to shell out for full-plate and settled for the next best thing instead.

The rest weren’t quite as noticeable due to the slight elevation and they weren’t giants, but it was easy to spot glimpses. I simply had to scan for the people wearing way better stuff than everyone else. It was hard to pinpoint exactly why and there were no visible changes, yet repeatedly reforged and post-processed equipment stood out to the senses, fresh car smell and all. Jerry was there, he’d augmented his twin magic swords with a pair of physical ones and a full body set of fancy leather.

Then the crowd dispersed and everyone got a serious expression on their face. Pay attention now kids, the adults are going to start talking. Midnight neared. Kristen stepped forward while the others cleared space as if she had something interesting to say. She stood there in a cross of four long shadows like a soccer player alone in the middle of a stadium, or an ancient warlord making some grand proclamation.

“We only have a minute before our window closes, so wish us happy hunting.”

Not one for long speeches then. It didn’t really matter either as the crowd acquiesced. The frontrunners huddled up and a moment later they simply disappeared.

I stared at the now empty excuse for a podium. “They were supposed to be the ascension games, right? Have to admit, I was banking on more spectacle.”

Breathless, who’d been suffering my presence so far since my entire social circle was either out of town or otherwise occupied, turned to me. “I don’t… why would you expect that?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Why not? Everything’s been through quite a few changes. At this point I’m not really surprised by anything. Got the whole medieval theme going on, thought we’d get a coliseum type thing.”

His reply was half-question and half-indignation. “You were hoping they’d end up in death matches so you could watch? Also that’s from antiquity and there’s no medieval theme, it’s merely a result of… ah forget it.”

“Obviously I’m hoping they do well and stay safe, except for Jerry - screw him. But some entertainment wouldn’t hurt. In case you haven’t noticed, things are a little bland around here.”

“Right, I believe you wholeheartedly. What’s your deal with Jerry anyway?”

“He’s just a prick, is all.”

“I don’t know, he seems nice and polite. He calls me by my name.”

“It’s affectionate, and I wouldn’t know. Never talked to the guy ‘cause he’s a prick.”

“You never… Of course you haven’t. You do know you’re a prick, right?”

“Naturally, ‘tis one of my many redeeming qualities. It’s all annoyance and outrage until you need someone to throw at someone else you don’t like. Used to make a living off it.”

“What are you on about? You brought it up so I’ll ask. What did you do before all this?”

“Sales, even got promoted to management a couple of years back.”

“Never mind, that explains everything.”

Now there was nothing to do but wait. I gently asked for my pen back and borrowed a chair, then gave up on my plan of constant readiness a couple of hours later. Townsfolk were caught in a similar grip of anticipation, the guesses came and went. Five hours, ten hours, fifteen hours. Day followed night, then vice versa. It ended up taking 30. We made for quite the audience, with the entire village in attendance beneath starry skies amongst the dancing shadows of flickering flames. The frontrunners returned as suddenly as they’d been whisked away.

I wanted to ask them all about what had happened while they were away, but held off on it. Satisfying my curiosity probably ranked pretty low on their priority list right now. The first thing that tipped me off was one of the returnees missing an arm, which probably needed immediate medical attention. The second thing was that two others, Kristen and Jerry, were fairly roughed up as well. Half of Kristen’s armor and half her overgrown millimeter cut, along with an ear, was gone and replaced by bloody pulp while Jerry had no swords left at all, only blast marks and tears on his remaining gear. The third was that no one else had come back. Shocked gasps and worried cries punctuated my observations.

Nonetheless, disaster tourism called, disguised as an offer to close wounds. I had to fix Jerry’s threads and then point at the arm to get it across quickly, but Kristen shook her head and shushed me away. Closer inspection revealed a makeshift tourniquet tied around his arm, all the massive bloodstains were flaky and crusted instead of fresh. Suit yourself. He’d be out of commission for a while. People habitually lost fingertips and such while practicing old school industry with no safety lessons or precautions whatsoever, not to mention the combat injuries. At least the parts grew back, if somewhat slowly – which was still better than never. I took the hint and backed off.

Stolen story; please report.

Some folks cried, others crowded around the survivors, Mel included, who shared an embrace with Kris, whispering something. One thing they all had in common besides injuries was a look of brutal dejection. It didn’t take much to set someone off if they’d been hanging on by a thread to begin with. The fact our strongest had been nearly annihilated didn’t do morale any favors. I quietly returned my pen to Mel’s desk and set off to get some sleep.

It was only the following afternoon at the pub when Breathless started spilling the details. It was secondhand but the nerds could probably be trusted to relay an accurate account. Wasn’t only me here either, the boys were back and ready to apply pressure. Everyone had to know and many more tables reflected ours. Fortunately, our resident storyteller had been told to be liberal with answers, this was something that potentially impacted everyone. The drinks arrived and we all downed our shots, then he started talking. For some reason, this topic escaped the System’s information ban. I lit up.

“First things first, we don’t know if it’s the same for everyone, four are still unaccounted for.” He glanced at me and sighed. Vik’s face went hard, like he was working up to something. Breathless continued, “Once they pressed the ‘participate’ button on their interface, which they could only do from one minute before midnight onwards, they were transported to a see-through cylinder with a staircase leading down to a sliding one-way gate. From their perspective they were on the top of the stands of a coliseum.”

I interjected immediately, “Called it.”

“Shut up Gabe, let the man talk,” Barry said.

Breathless gave him an appreciative nod. “Thanks Barry. As I was saying, as far as they could tell there were ten ‘starting locations’ in total. Our best guess is there were multiple instances of the ascension games, as the number of participants wouldn’t add up otherwise.”

Vik interrupted, “Others are gone?” He’d been trying his luck with whatshername…

“Most likely, yes.” Viktor downed his second drink, and third, but didn’t say anything. “The games had a set ending after twenty-five hours. We don’t know what happens if someone waits out the clock but considering the brutality of it all… It’s probably best not to try and find out. Kris, Wulf and Jerry got out through portals at the arena stage. They said the outside layers of the coliseum crumbled in intervals, but the stage remained.”

Jill hadn’t been very talkative after her near-death experience, but cutting her hair short had helped her open up a bit more lately. “Portals?”

“Blue oval shaped swirling ones, yes. Five of them appeared near the end when the last floor collapsed, spaced about two thirds of a mile, or a kilometer, apart.”

“Very big coliseum, exactly like I said.”

Breathless gave me a stare. “No, you didn’t…? Anyway, there’s also a larger staircase in the middle, leading down to some kind of champion or challenge fight. More on that later. Everyone’s experiences match up, so we’re taking this for granted. After you head down the first staircase and past the portcullis, you’ll enter a room, it splits up three ways: To the sides or further down. From there onwards it varies.

Some rooms have Errant in them, Solo’s power-level, while others have traps, puzzles, nothing or combinations thereof. There’s always the option of going back a room and picking a different route. There are also various types of crates, pots, chests, cabinets and other out of place furniture. These contain, among other things, condensed energy crystals or high quality materials, although destroying them might spawn Errant.”

“We are being toyed with,” Walt said. No shit.

“I have to agree Valtteri, it’s all ridiculously contrived and hard not to consider malicious. The rooms aren’t particularly large and sometimes extremely dangerous. Especially the ones with challenges. Those close the exits upon entering. Kristen survived one and she said it was hard-fought, even for her. They were marked at least.”

Most of us whistled. Kris was easily the best fighter in town. Not just because of her levels either, sparring sessions were extremely practical as one could simply will all their stats off except for physical endurance and have all out MMA matches or weapon fights with sticks without leaving a scratch behind. Thus she’d demonstrated her ability to easily kick anyone’s ass and perhaps give a few lessons while enjoying her time away from the party. Rumor, courtesy of Jen, had it she was even better with powers involved – the star player of her team. Kris certainly figured something out, mandatory militia practice made for quite the spectacle these days, maybe even verging into competence soon.

That got Jeb interested. “What’d she get? High cotton or a hill o’ beans?” Any new stuff to work?

Breathless couldn’t catch a break today. “What?” He downed his cup and was treated to a refill. “It teleported her deeper into the coliseum without warning. At least it was into an empty room. The teleport traps were worse, Nick barely survived being dumped face to face with an Errant.”

Barry clearly enjoyed my distress. “What’s wrong Gabe, you’re lookin’ a lil’ pale.”

“Like a long-tailed cat in a room o’ rockin’ chairs,” Jeb hillbillied.

“T-teleport traps?” I didn’t usually stutter - ever, really. Every trap I’d gleefully set off flashed through my mind. “How did they work?”

“By setting them off,” Breathless deadpanned. “Doesn’t really matter how, everyone had trap kits with them but Nick’s didn’t help him. Using it caused the trap to trigger. They were relatively rare, as the others liberally used their kits.”

Trap kits were a fancy way of saying everyone had random trash to throw. I unlearned the habit in a heartbeat. How did you defend against bullshit? My most important lesson-learned resurfaced. Life wasn’t fair. “Sorry, do go on.”

“We’ll be making an inventory of all things encountered inside later, maybe. Wulf and Jerry are in bad shape mentally and Kris isn’t doing well either. To continue, the paths and teleports funneled everyone together, with all of them ultimately leading into the central arena, which served as a point of no return, they couldn’t exit it. Everything went wrong for our group there. The others inside – aliens and anthropomorphs-”

“Saywhatnow?”

“Animal people, geez B., ya never opened a book?”

My eyebrows rose at that. “Jeb, you read?” Bullshit he did.

“I do, what’cha throwin’ a fit ‘bout?”

“Name one classical author.”

“I like’s the modern stuff. Anyway let the man say his piece.” Stop asking questions you won’t like the answers to. Smut? Trashy romance?

“The aliens and… animal people are by far the greatest danger. They skirted our people at first, at least we think so, until Kris, Jerry, Nick and Wulf started fighting the champion or whatever it was. They interrupted the fight and used the chaos to kill Nick while Wulf lost his arm to the Errant there. Kris’ team was already losing and the ensuing battle left them drained, wounded and the strangers dead. The frontrunners had no choice but to flee back to the arena floor and wait until the five portals appeared.”

“The strangers, anything else about them?” I asked. Know thy enemy.

“I was getting to it, there were three of them and they were definitely using System powers. Worse, they were equipped to a far higher standard and had items that produced effects we haven’t the slightest clue how to replicate. Everything happened quickly and equipment covered their features, no one managed a good look beyond, and I quote: ‘two animal people and a humanoid alien.’ Kris said they only made it out alive because the strangers fought each other as well.”

So the stick was death, and the carrot? “Damn. So what was it all for? To increase a level cap?”

“Yes, and more. The System congratulated them on becoming an ‘Ascendant’ after entering a portal. Then they went through something similar as the induction sequence and received a hefty power-up during the five hour gap, although they experienced time differently during the process.” My eyes followed his around the table. Jeb seemed like he knew something we didn’t. Been searching for new materials then, got something planned? “It was somewhat complicated but we’ll note down the details when they’ve recovered. That’s all I have for now.”

We all downed our drinks toasting the fallen and called a moment of silence thereafter, spoiled in spirit.

I was sure of it as my gaze wandered across everyone present at our table.

Walt was the only exception, yet he knew; for how could he not as a man of the cloth?

A glint of greed in every eye, wondering what kind of power their life might buy.

I was no different.