“Dammit, what the hell is going on?” Mel yelled. I barely heard the words as I had immediately pulled up remote telemetry on them, hoping to see what was wrong. Strangely other than a slightly elevated heart rate, they were apparently fine.
“As far as I can tell, they’re physically fine, but if anyone has better healing magic than me, now would be the time to use it.” I looked at Elody as I said this, remembering how she had healed me after the attack.
“There’s something happening in their mana channels. Somehow, they’re being redirected, and a new cavity is being filled with fresh mana directly from their cores, a mix of both.” Surprisingly, the voice came from Corey and not Elody, who was still staring silently at the twins.
“It’s the twin souls. So few people in the Spiral have them that there is no standard way of predicting how any orb will interact with their unique physiology. I should have realized the potential issue with class orbs, though. I’ve never heard of a class orb where synchronization was available from the start, but these two need their classes not to interfere with each other, and despite the fact that they have two cores, their mana channels are still somewhat interlinked. I believe their cores are working out a method for the classes to interact somehow, much earlier than we would expect to be possible,” Elody explained.
“Uh, for those of us that only somewhat understand any of this class stuff, do you think they’re in any danger?” I asked.
“No. Although, this is all guesswork on my part,” Elody answered. Had Elicec managed to pick a class before this started, or did this happen the moment Cecile had made his choice, locking them both into this path?
“Well, looks like it’s a real good thing you bumped into ‘em, Dave. If this had happened in the damned Arena lobby, they’d’ve been shoved into the fight whether they were outta this state or not,” Mel said with a bigger frown than usual. The more he explained about the Arena, the less I liked the whole way it worked. Had it started off as something similar to our Olympics before becoming this monstrosity of a bloodbath? Both twinogs began to cough as their eyes opened.
“I hope you’re all happy with my class choice of Elemental Sniper. It was likely my first choice, but before I could really decide, it was locked in by what Cecile picked,” Elicec said, sounding incredibly annoyed by whatever their experience had just been.
“It’s fine. Are you two okay, though?” I asked concern etched across my face.
“Yeah, somehow socketing my class caused us to form a special third class in between our cores. It’s called Soul of the Twinog,” Cecile answered.
“Oh, interesting, you’ve developed a species-based class. That sometimes happens to the first representatives of a species to get an unlocked class orb. I’ve never heard of it forming like yours did, but the name itself is likely just the answer to why it did. What kind of abilities does it have?” Elody asked, suddenly sounding extremely interested.
“Just one, and it requires we invest one hundred levels to unlock it: Path of the Twin Soul. So for now, it stays locked,” Elicec said. I understood why. I wouldn’t even want to spend that many levels on improving my class orb yet, and I had better access to getting the levels back than they did.
“Hrm, honestly, I think ya prolly got something pretty nice there. Now y’all just need to live long enough to use it,” Mel said, less grumpy than usual. He may try to hide it, but every so often, the fact that he cared about us did shine through.
“Speaking of living long enough, can you give us a full rundown on the Arena levels?” I asked. I knew he had talked a bit about some of them and possibly even entirely covered the first floor, but I wanted as much information about what we had to face as possible.
“Good, glad yer ready for that talk 'cause it had to happen very soon. Normally, I’d make one of ya the squad leader, but that ain’t happening yet. None of ya except maybe Rabyn are ready for that, and he sure as hell ain’t getting it. So for now, I want y’all to just stick together as best ya can and defer to the person who sounds the most right, which is likely gonna be Elody or Elicec most of the time, but even if it’s Rabyn, listen to him. Now, as for the floors themselves, I already told ya just about everything there is for the first floor, but as I said, make sure you find at least two people to join up. The eighth floor is gonna be a disaster if ya don’t. So the second floor is just a monster fight, nothing special, but no matter what the creature might look like, understand it is gonna be powerful,” Mel said.
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“Dungeon core type monster or just something else?” I asked, wondering if I could claim another dungeon core this way.
“Regular beasts they either bred or found somewhere, honestly don’t know a lot there. Cored monsters won’t show up for a very long time in yer climb. Floor three is going to be a capture-the-flag scenario with five squads. Ya won’t be able to kill anyone during it, but ya can let loose as much as you want, and they’ll just end up getting removed for the level if it was strong enough for a killing blow. That’ll basically be the same thing anytime you’re competing against another squad until floor ten. First and Second place move to floor four, which is another monster fight, this time fifteen monsters. Floor five is going to take y’all and three other squads and toss ya into random starting locations. The squads with the most members at the victory zone in two hours wins. If no one is there, the squads with the most members still active on the floor wins. Top two squads move on. This all making sense so far?” Mel asked as he turned from side to side, scanning the room. His question was answered by a chorus of yeses and head nods.
“Good. Floor six oughtta be real fun, as it’s a race, and y’all ain't got a pilot member and likely won’t find one, so yer gonna need to focus on taking out the other seven factions, or at the very least stay in the top four. No idea what kind of vehicle it will be, but the good news is most factions don’t bother fielding pilots that low anyway, not worth the wasted spot. Seven is gonna be yer first multi-faction monster fight, and unlike every other floor so far, you’ll get penalized for hurting any member of a rival faction. It’ll range from two to nine possible extra squads. Basically, yer all gonna get ranked based on who did the most damage, healing, etc, and that’s how they decide who moves up,” Mel said, pausing for a moment again, ready to take questions. This time, I did have one.
“Is there a standard pattern to the floors that repeat?” I asked, curious if this was just how all floors were set up in a series of ten.
“No, and the further you climb, the more random they’ll get. The first twenty-five have the most set-in-stone rules, in theory, to give the newbies a chance, but since they almost always enter with zero knowledge of those rules, it basically does the opposite. Now, floor eight is the one I’ve referenced several times in it being critical that ya find at least two more people. The reason is yer gonna be separated again, each into yer own maze. There are six paths, and if ya manage to get more than two people recruited, ya’ll’ll get doubled up, which ain’t a bad thing. Cecile and Elicec already will be, and it’ll make their run that much easier, but to win this one, ya need every member of yer squad to get to the end with the item in the starting zone. The end is a hub, so y’all can try to go back and rescue someone if ya need to, but it’s very unlikely you’ll have time to get back to their starts, get the item, and get all the way to the hub, which is why the recruiting needs to happen,” Mel said, again stopping to look for questions.
“Sanquar famously did this alone, did he not?” Elody asked. I had heard the same thing. Maybe from her? I couldn’t actually remember where I had heard it.
“I was both a lot stronger and a lot faster than I am now and far beyond any of you. If I remember correctly, I just destroyed all the walls in my way, collected all the items, and flew them into the hub,” Sanquar answered.
“And y’all best hope there ain’t anyone or anything like him going up against ya, or this is over before it even really started. So once ya manage all that, then we’ve got floor nine, yer first randomizer. It could be anything, so all I can say there is good luck, and we’ve already talked about floor ten,” Mel said, finishing his rundown on the levels.
“Now come on, I want all of us outside seeing just what Cecile and Elicec can do with their new classes. Once that’s done, yer gonna all eat a good dinner and get some sleep. I want y’all well rested tomorrow,” Mel said just as the door burst open, revealing Pryte for the second time today, only this time looking in a lot more distress.
“They screwed us,” he said the moment he was through the door. Why did nothing ever work as planned?
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An Elemental Sniper is in his, pardon the pun, element when surrounded by a team. Using a combination of their knowledge, skills, and magic, they can quickly assess the enemy's strengths and weaknesses and move themselves into the best position to exploit them. If you want to stop an enemy combatant in their tracks, an Elemental Sniper is what you need in your squad.
Arena Build Outs by Bjorn Madhen