After watching us deal with the Dark Anchor, Ezreba has kept pretty quiet, hanging back next to Gelur and Merry mostly looking terrified. Cultists have been doing a good job of wrecking things for people who were just living peaceful lives.

“Is this the road to Rawl’kha?” Ezreba asks.

“It’s the road to Thizzrini Arena,” I say. “I have an important errand I need to do there on the way. Also probably become arena champion so long as I’m there just because I can. Hopefully the road actually eventually gets to Rawl’kha because maps are hard and nobody puts up road signs.”

A book titled Dwemer Inquiries Volume II lays on the ground at a small camp in the crook of a big tree. No sign of its owner, living or dead, so I swipe it. (Summary: People don’t understand the Dwemer.)

A despondent Orc stands outside a mine entrance, bemoaning his poor babies. That is, his trained trolls who he was taking to fight in Thizzrini Arena, who went mad with bloodlust and charged into the mine and started killing miners. And after all that, he’s just hoping his trolls are alright. He never had these sorts of problems with wolves or any of the other beasts he has raised.

“So, what I’m taking away from this is that trolls are dumber than wolves?” I say.

“They don’t need to be smart if they’re bigger and tougher than most things they’d run into,” Eran points out. “Most normal animals aren’t going to mess with a troll.”

“In any case, it seems like your training methods need work,” I say. “And probably the ability to beat the shit out of a group of trolls if they cause problems.”

I’m surprised this Orc still has all his fingers, if this is the sort of thing he does for a living. Maybe he just spends most of his earnings on healing potions.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t have any trouble with some trolls,” the Orc says. “But I don’t suppose you’d be able to wrangle them without killing them all?”

“You were going to take them to fight in the arena and likely be killed anyway, weren’t you?” I ask. “Although it would be a shame to go in and kill all your trolls and not have an audience for it beyond the people who travel with me and are no longer impressed by my ability to kill trolls.”

“If you can get them out alive, I’ll give you the payment the arena promised me for the delivery of the trolls,” the Orc offers.

“We’ll see what we can do. Ezreba, stay out here where it’s safer and if you see trolls burst out of the mine, feel free to run away.”

“Ezreba is starting to wonder if traveling with you is actually safer…” Ezreba says, then nods. “She will hide and wait for you to return victorious.”

She doesn’t know me very well and doesn’t for a moment doubt my ability to wrangle trolls. I’m touched by her confidence. We head into the mine.

“Merry, do you think you can petrify trolls?” I ask as I swat away a flock of small giant bats.

“Their innate regeneration might make it difficult,” Merry muses. “I could probably manage it, though.”

A note just inside the door speaks of reduced break time, signed Kuna.

“Ilara-daro, Gelur, see if you can slip through while we have the trolls occupied and rescue and heal any survivors you can find. Eran, keep these goddamned bats off of me.”

“Sure thing,” Eran says.

Turning the trolls to stone turns out to be easier than expected. Merry has some theories that I don’t pay attention to.

A broken barrel containing a Skyshard sits tucked away behind some tents in one chamber. Also there’s a dissected corpse laying neatly on a table, and trolls definitely didn’t do that. My friends and I exchange a look and decide to ignore the… Bosmer dinner… and move swiftly on.

We manage to rescue a few surviving miners, and escort them to the entrance to the mine. A Bosmer miner says she’s heading home to Silvenar where it’s nice and safe.

“Yeah, it should be safe there now,” I say. “We killed most of the werewolves around there.”

“Werewolves?” the Bosmer says. “What has been going on in Valenwood lately?”

“Mostly a lot of stupid shit,” I say. “Werewolves, cultists, Daedra, undead, racist bandits, fucking Sea Elves… Well, at least I’ve never been short on things to hit.”

The Bosmer asks us to let her boss in Rawl’kha know that she quit, if we’re ever in town, and heads off in the direction of Greenhill. I turn to the Orc.

“We turned all the trolls to stone,” I say. “You’ll need to haul them to the arena in carts or something and have someone cancel the spell once they’re in the arena.”

“Well, they should be safe to transport that way, that’s for sure!” the Orc says. “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”

“You probably did not have a mage who was capable of turning trolls into stone,” Merry says.

“That’s true! Are you for hire?”

“I’m afraid that I am busy saving the world at the moment,” Merry says. “However, I will let you know if in the future I am interested in a job doing something less likely to get me mauled repeatedly.”

There’s brigands on the road to Thizzrini Arena, or at least I think it’s the road. I spend entirely too much time trying to figure out how to get up the cliff until Ezreba, hanging far behind me when I’m wildly swinging around a battle axe at bandits, points out a road I completely hadn’t noticed winding up through some rocks.

“They really need to mark these roads better,” I say. “Would it kill people to put up some signs? Guys, remind me when I get back to Dra’bul to tell my Orcs to put up roadsigns in our territory.”

Past some giant wasps, we finally come upon the arena. I ask my friends to try to find the guy whose name I’ve forgotten who had the thing for the Dominion that we were supposed to get from here. Ezreba probably thinks I’m just being vague to avoid giving away classified military information and not just because I forgot. (I mean, there’s a point to being unable to give up any state secrets that I don’t remember, right?)

A Khajiit near the gates speaks in third person by the name of Balag, who seems to be running short on combatants willing to engage in duels to the death.

“I would imagine so,” I say with a chuckle. “Well, I’d rather not kill people in the arena. Wouldn’t be fair when nobody can kill me either.”

“So confident are you?” Balag says.

“Also, that shipment of trolls you were expecting has been delayed,” I say. “You’ll need to send a cart up to Kuna’s Delve to collect them. They’re safe to handle now, just heavy. Also you’ll need a mage who can cancel a petrification spell when you get them in position.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Balag stares at me as if trying to parse what I’m telling him. “The trolls have been turned to stone?”

“They might be pretty angry when they’re de-stoned, too,” I say. “I had to wrestle them bare-handed while my mage friend petrified them because we didn’t want them to come out missing limbs in the arena. That would have been a shame.”

“… what did you say your name was again?”

“Neri gro-Drublog,” I say. “King of the Wood Orcs, where do I sign up for the arena? I want to put the fear of Mauloch into these whelps.”

“As you say, Your Majesty,” Balag says, glancing at my battle axe and clearly finding it not worth his pelt to question that. “You’ll need to speak with a division head to get a place in the arena, but I’m sure you won’t have any trouble meeting the credentials.” He gives me directions.

I head off into the arena area. (I can’t really say I’m going into the arena arena but is this entire area called Thizzrini Arena or is that just the arena itself? Whatever, you know what I mean.) There’s a Skyshard on the cliff behind the arena, which I absorb.

The head of the Swordmaster Division is a Khajiit named Zara. (Because there isn’t an Axemaster Division and I’m sure they’re not too picky or I’ll just have to use a sword. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know how to use one if need be, and I suppose using a weapon I’m not a master at would be one way to level the playing field.) In between shamelessly trying to flirt with me, she informs me that the one in charge of the arena set limits to how many contestants could come from each division and they’re full up so I’ll need to beat up one of the contestants to get their slot.

Their contestants are all Bosmer women. Not the Orc or the Nord man, not the Ashlander woman either. I challenge one of them to an unarmed spar, not exceptionally wanting to dismember them even if I could hit them with a battle axe. She’s crazy quick and it turns out arm-wrestling a troll was easier. By the end of the fight, (which I do eventually win), I’m laughing aloud.

“Well done,” I say. “Here I thought I wasn’t gonna find a challenge here at all. If you’re any indication, this might actually be fun. Good luck!”

After some more spars, I meet up with the person who runs the arena. She’s a Khajiit woman by the name of Faruni (or was it Feluni? whatever) who talks in the same smarmy sort of way Aelif does. And then she has the gall to try to pin me with the ridiculous stage name of “The Mysterious Stranger”.

“Seriously?” I growl. “I told you my name! Neri gro-Drublog, King of the Wood Orcs! I’m being myself, not a mysterious stranger!”

“The Wood Orcs do not have a king,” the Khajiit says. “But tch, fine. If you wish to call yourself that, far be it from this one to protest. This one has heard worse stage names, she supposes, and if any Wood Orcs seek to protest, they can challenge you themselves.”

I get into actual duels from there and not just sparring, and proceed to beat up quite a lot of people. The champions cheat and the main arena is full of traps. Fantastic!

“There you are, Neri,” Eran says, finding me after a match. “You look like you’ve been having fun.”

“Yep!” I reply. “How’s your thing been going?”

“Egolor was murdered,” Eran says. “We’ve been running all over the area trying to find that scroll case. It’s not here, but we’ve got a lead on where it went. Did you become Grand Champion yet?”

“Not yet,” I say. “Almost! You haven’t missed the big match.”

“Oh, goody,” Merry drawls. “This is a splendid followup to literally arm-wrestling trolls.”

“We’ll lead the cheers,” Ilara says, whiskers twitching in a grin.

“I just need to personally challenge the champion here, Ish… Isharga? Whatever her name was. That Khajiit woman in armor over there. I’m told she can set the terms of the challenge to whatever she wants and change them whenever so I’m gonna go see what she wants.”

Ishalga is unimpressed by me getting her name wrong even before I challenge her. And then she asks me for a gift of skooma.

“Okay,” I say, and pull a vial out of my bag.

“You… are just carrying illegal substances around?” Ishalga blinks as she takes the proffered skooma.

“I’m a king, so I say it’s legal,” I say with a shrug. “I don’t usually go in for skooma since I’m usually trying to calm myself down instead of wind myself up, but I’m sure to keep some on hand just in case. Is there anything else you want? I have quite a lot of drugs.”

“Just in case, he says,” Ishalga drawls, pocketing the skooma. “Alright then! The next thing Ishalga wants is a copy of Moon Worship among the Cat-Men. She believes Feluni–”

I reach into my bag and pull out a book. “You mean this one?”

Ishalga blinks. “Okay, Ishalga can believe you were carrying around skooma, but how did you just happen to have the book I asked for?”

“I have about three dozen books in here,” I say.

Ishalga sighs and tosses the book onto a table. “Fine, then there’s no way you have these. Ishalga wants a lute, an hourglass, and a quill pen. Feluni probably– wait, you have those, too?”

As I start pulling things out of my bag, Ishalga throws her paws in the air.

“Never mind!” Ishalga says. “Keep your junk. Ishalga wants you to sneak into Feluni’s office and bring me the arena records.”

“If you wanted me to sneak into Feluni’s office in the first place, why didn’t you just say so instead of asking for junk?” I wonder.

“Never mind the junk!”

“You just wanted me to demonstrate my cunning and bring back something to prove I was successful,” I say. “You didn’t actually want any of this. Well. Aside from maybe the skooma.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it!” Ishalga says. “So far you’ve only proven that you have an expensive magic bag and that you are Tamriel’s biggest pack rat.”

“Okay. I’ll be back in a moment, then.”

Fortunately, the office is unlocked, or maybe that’s unfortunate since now I don’t have to demonstrate any ability to pick locks or pickpocket keys or whatever. Nobody even seems to care much that I’m approaching it, so I just go inside. I hear voices from around the corner ahead.

“Do you think he’s actually coming?” says one voice.

“If he doesn’t show up by the time this hourglass runs down, let’s just take the skooma and leave,” says a second voice. “I don’t want to be caught here.”

“Shh!” says a third voice. “I think I heard the door open.”

I come around the corner to see three people badly trying to conceal themselves in curtains and side rooms. “Hello? Were you looking for me?”

“It’s him! Get him!” They jump out and attack me.

I roll my eyes as I dodge the poor ambush. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Ishalga promised us the skooma if we kill you!”

“… did she also mention that I defeated everyone else in the arena?” I ask, hurling one of them against a wall. “Even when they were blatantly cheating?”

“Okay, maybe this was a bad idea,” says one, backing up nervously.

“But the skooma!” says the other one (that’s still upright, the third one is rubbing his head sitting against a wall).

“I’m not exactly going to stop you from taking it,” I say. “It’s all yours. Run along now before I bother to bring out an axe and start cutting off pieces.”

“Let’s just get out of here,” says the one I’d thrown into a wall. “This was a stupid idea in the first place. We can grab that skooma and skip town before Ishalga even notices.”

One of them grabs the bottle of skooma from the office, and the three of them scarper. I may have overdone it on the intimidation, but it’s not like these whelps were any real threat to me even if they hadn’t completely flubbed their dumb ambush. I don’t really get much thrill out of swatting skeevers. I locate the arena records to prove my cunning and head back out.

“Here you go,” I say, handing her my prize.

“Oh, you’re back!” Ishalga says. “This one hopes it was not too much trouble.”

“Well, I’d recommend that anyone trying to get me killed ought to bribe a higher caliber of lowlife,” I say. “Not that anyone would want to do such a thing. Are we square?”

“… square?”

“It’s, ah, a Dwemer expression,” I say quickly. “In between killing people, I’m a Dwemer scholar. It means for something to be even on all sides.”

“Oh, that’s a clever one,” Ishalga says. “This one will have to remember that. After she has broken you in the arena. Ishalga accepts your challenge.”

It doesn’t take long to arrange the final match. You’d think people would send out advertisements to other settlements and let people portal in to see their favorite fights, but for the most part, the only ones who get to actually see anything are the people who spend all their time hanging around the arena. It’s a pity. Maybe I can take over the arena and make some suggestions for improvements.

For the moment, though, I need to focus on this fight for once. It’s not like she’s tougher than Manny the Worm, but I’m fighting her alone and not actually trying very hard to kill her. I’ve left most of the other competitors alive when I could, especially when they didn’t put up much of a fight and it would just be pathetic. Ishalga, though? Ishalga is serious and intent to bring me down by any means necessary. Did I really annoy her that much?

It’s still not enough for her to win, but I do wind up having to get serious myself. She notices the shift in my stance immediately, eyes widening briefly before a toothy grin spreads across her face.

“Yes, fight!” Ishalga says. “Don’t insult Ishalga by just playing with her!”

“As you wish,” I say lightly. “Enjoy your trip to wherever it is Khajiit go when they die.”

After another few minutes of fighting, Ishalga finally misses a dodge and falls to the ground, missing half a leg and quickly losing consciousness from blood loss from her various injuries.

“Ishalga is down! Thizzrini Arena has a new champion!” announces the announcer. “Neri gro-Drublog stands triumphant!”

I send a quick pulse of Restoring Light at her to make sure she doesn’t bleed out because apparently I’m feeling extra soft today.

Ishalga is not terribly happy about it when I see her later. “You! Why did you show this one mercy?”

I shrug. “Because I could.”

“Pfah,” Ishalga mutters. “This one can afford a prosthetic with all her arena winnings but it won’t be the same. At least she won’t need to defend her title anymore. Perhaps it was a good time to retire anyway. This one is not getting any younger. But she’s still annoyed at you.”