The gate at the other end of the arena creaked as it winched open, the metal grate disappearing somewhere upwards and away, revealing a dark void behind it. Behind Yaris, her own grate slowly lowered. There was no going back now.
And it was a void. The more Jump-touch stared at it, the more like the not-walls of her Heart it looked. Not the absence of light, but the absence of anything. It was something you weren't meant to look at for long.
Luckily, it didn't keep her attention for long either, as a moment later a monster stepped out of the space.
Her first thought was kobold, but it wasn't.
She had just never seen a real lizard before.
She knew what lizards were meant to look like, there was a kobold in the Village who looked very much like one, and she spent a lot of time painting with her tongue small paintings for trade. Jump-touch had never interacted with her much, she kept to herself, but the paintings were very beautiful.
This monster looked like her. Long and bright yellow, with scaled skin. It was close-set to the ground, and its eyes were bright.
Bright and angry.
As it looked placidly around the arena, she took in the size of it, gripping the railing. Next to her Eim was saying something, but she wasn't listening closely enough to care to translate.
The lizard was about as long from its nose to the tip of its tail as Yaris was tall, but it looked so much bigger, as it stood there in the doorway, smelling the air with its tongue.
It took a moment to notice Yaris, who was still bouncing from foot to foot on the other side of the aren- amphitheatre? Amphitheatre. She still wasn't quite sure what the difference was, but Shrike had been quite insistent.
Then it did spot her, and the roar it gave as it charged didn't seem quite… Right? There was something muted in the noise, the pitch too high. Something itched the back of her head.
She didn't have time to think about it though, still gripping the railing, watching to see what Yaris would do. She was still just bouncing from foot to foot, grinning widely, unarmed apart from her own two fists.
She has the sword hidden away. She'll be alright!
It was their last sword though. Both spears had been burnt up, if she lost that, then they would only have Eim's hammer left as a weapon.
Yaris had been confident going in, dismissing the other's fears. She was level two now, even if she hadn't made it official, and she had three brawn on her side. What could go wrong, this was a Tutorial Drop, right? It wouldn't throw anything at her that could kill her. Not on the first fight.
Jump-touch, as she watched the monster charge across the arena, wasn't so sure. What if this was a trick of some sort, what if the yellow scales of the lizard turned out to be made of gold, or what if it could only be killed with a sword? Or a spear?
"She'll be alright," Shrike said quietly. Jump-touch looked towards him, but he wasn't looking at her.
As she looked back, she realised she'd missed the moment of impact, only hearing a dull thud as the lizard had hit Yaris and sent her skidding back across the sandy stone.
Why do they always charge?
There was a moment of silence, and then it fell off her, the sword firmly embedded in its neck.
Shrike let out a breath. "See? She's fine."
Yaris glanced at the corpse, and then shook the orange blood off her sword, taking a step backwards until she was almost against the back wall of the oval. Her side was still locked, the metal grate barring her exit.
She can jump up into the stands to get away, right?
But the rules here were different, weren't they. There was probably another stupid invisible barrier in the way.
A sudden wind brushed across the surface of the arena, stirring the sand, and then another monster stepped out from the portal.
****
Two lizards, a goat which both looked and acted strangely normal, and then the final monster, a large, flightless bird much like the Peck Peck.
All of them charged the moment they spotted Yaris, and all died in the same way, to the summoned sword.
Only the bird, the final monster, was different. It had hesitated, just for a moment, and then tried to go around her, to attack from behind. But it had still charged eventually, and died like all the rest.
The grin never left Yaris's face, and by the time the bird fell, she looked happier than Jump-touch had ever seen her.
Back in the room behind the gate, the five of them met up.
"I told you it would be easy." Yaris boasted, inspecting her blood-flecked shirt. "I didn't even get scratched."
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"You almost lost a finger to a bird," Eim grumbled. "I can't fix missing body parts."
"But I didn't!" she was still bouncing a little, her shoulders and posture loose. "The rules said we can do a second round."
"We could also just leave," Eim countered.
"We can't leave." Ollie was leaning against one of the walls, staring back towards the exit. "The goat thing is still out there. It's not beating against the barrier anymore, but it is waiting."
"It should move on," Shrike sounded worried. "That's how monsters work, right? I can't think why it's still there. Eim?"
Eim shrugged. "Don't ask me, I don't know shit. I was meant to be safely ensconced in the guild at this point in my life, standing behind a desk, serving coffee and sandwiches."
"I think it's too late at night for that," Ollie looked thoughtful, "you'd probably be tucked up in bed right about now."
Eim stuck his tongue out at them, and they rolled their eyes at him in response.
"If we go further," Yaris broke in, "then we'll get a better reward. If we leave now, we'll probably get almost nothing."
Greed, something whispered in the back of her mind, but Jump-touch kept her mouth shut.
"That's greed." Shrike said, and she looked at him in surprise. "That's how you get yourself killed."
"Plus," Ollie finished for him, "the second round requires two fighters, and the third three. So how far do you realistically expect us to go? The kid can't fight, I don't have a weapon, so that's three rounds at best. You, Eim and Shrike."
"We could still do the later rounds if we-"
Shrike shook his head. "One more round, Yaris, no more than that. I'll come in with you."
"Hey, I can fight!" Eim protested.
"I know you can, but we need you as a healer, and you're already low."
Yaris looked annoyed, but accepting. Eim was frowning now, and Ollie had their arms crossed in a way that indicated they were upset.
"Look-" said Shrike, and Jump-touch decided she'd had enough. There was more to this area than the fighting pit, and she was going to explore it!
****
Ten minutes later, she was lost. She knew she was somewhere underneath the arena floor, but that was as far as it went. Staring at a complicated system of levers and counterweights, she decided she didn't mind. There were empty cages down here too, rusted almost to nothing, and all sorts of rooms and hiding places.
She was pretty sure that under this floor, there was another floor, but she hadn't found a way into it yet.
She had decided early on not to touch anything. The machinery all looked terribly ancient, their chains thick with rust and the wooden levers soft with rot.
It made her a little sad to see, what a waste of wood, to let it rot like that. Somebody could have used that wood, but now it was little more than shaped compost.
At least the ceiling above her was stable, the beams all solid stone, untouched by the ravages of time. Every now and again a grain or two of sand would slip through the gaps in the ceiling though, and she once heard the roar of a monster up there.
Hopefully Shrike and Yaris were doing alright.
She carried on exploring, even as there was another roar from above, eventually finding her way down to the next level, into what appeared to be bedrooms. After that, she found… Rooms she didn't know the names of. Big areas for chilling out after fights, areas for cooking, areas for resting and looking after the injured. More cages, more storage rooms. Rooms upon rooms upon rooms.
All of them picked clean, as if they'd been abandoned a thousand years.
Some of the doors crumbled as she opened them, falling to nothing in her hands; inside the rooms were clear of everything except dust and rust and splinters.
There was nothing here. Whoever had inhabited this place, however briefly, had left no personal effects behind. Its decline had been long and far, far in the past.
I wonder if this was a real place, once? The humans insisted that nothing in the dungeon had ever been real, but she wasn't so sure she believed that. Where had it come from, if not somewhere? Had somebody conjured all this up out of their own thoughts or memories? And if so, didn't that mean it was based on somewhere? Did that make it real?
She touched an intact-looking bedside cabinet and watched as the wood collapsed at her touch, the sides crumbling downwards and the top turning to dust beneath her fingers.
As she kicked through the remains with her toes, she spotted a glint of metal.
A button in gold or brass, with a symbol on it she didn't recognise. It was one of the few bits of metal she'd seen so far that wasn't eaten through by rot or rust. There had been some copper pans in the kitchen, green with time, and occasionally a cast iron knob or drawer pull which had survived the march of time, but they were few and far between.
This button was as bright as the day it had been cast, and she sent it to her Heart with a touch.
Odd, there was no jolt here. She glanced at her Heart, but all looked as it should, and the button was where she'd put it.
As a final roar broke the air, she found herself back in the stands, standing next to Eim and Ollie.
Ollie glanced at her briefly, and then their gaze flicked back to the Yaris, standing small down there on the sand. "We tried to find you. Shrike said you'd be fine, but… Where'd you go?"
"Just looking around. This place is big."
She looked down at the field. Yaris and Shrike were down here, along with the corpse of a monster. It looked almost human, with two arms, two legs, and pale skin, but it was too tall, its body too stocky. Maybe a giant? Or could humans grow that tall, if they picked the right jobs? The [Warrior] job had promised her height and muscle.
Either way, the corpse was coated with frost, and beside Yaris, Shrike was breathing hard, grinding his feet into the thin layer of sand, casting-arm hanging limply at his side.
He glanced up at the stands but didn't seem to see the three of them, his eyes skimming straight past them. Then he looked back to the void, as the body started to fade into glitter.
"That was the second monster, it looked the same as the first, but it was smarter," Eim said quietly.
She nodded as a new monster stepped out of the void. It was similar to the one she'd seen fading away, standing slightly taller than Yaris and wielding a tree trunk as a weapon. Its eyes were clouded with anger, but it hesitated as it saw the two fighters. Just for a moment.
Then it stepped forward, brandishing the club and screeching.
"FIGHT!" It said, in what was clear SCREECH, and Jump-touch put her hands over her ears reflexively. "FIGHT ME!"
These things could think- and talk? That was- But Yaris was already running toward it, sword held sideways in both hands. Behind her the magic was already leaving Shrike's hands, hurtling past her to hit the monster directly in the chest.
It took half of the impact of the magic with the tree trunk, and Jump-touch saw its hands freeze to the wood.
"WE'LL FIGHT!" it shouted again, "WE'LL FIGHT FOREVER!"
At least, that was what she thought it shouted, her Screech was poor at the best of times.
And then it was charging again, frozen hands gripping the log, swinging for Yaris-
Yaris, who dodged, slid underneath the swing and threw herself into the thing's legs. It tried to slam the trunk down onto her, but she was already rolling past it, slashing it across the shins with her sword as she moved.
It was a light cut, not enough to disable the monster, but enough to anger it, and then she was past, rolling and scrambling backwards to avoid another swing of the massive branch.
Then, as it turned to follow her, Shrike's second strike hit it in the back, and there was a dreadful moment of silence.
And then it toppled.