“What did you pick?”

“A good class,” Markus said, staring directly past Drathok. “Something that would actually match my natural aptitudes AND my other existing abilities and also—”

“You picked Dark Knight, didn’t you?”

“...shut the fuck up.”

Markus had, in fact, picked Dark Knight. He panicked. Also, on a reread, it actually didn’t sound that bad. Like at all. Dark Knights’ abilities seemed to mainly be focussed on bolstering and amplifying magical attacks and utilising illusory magic…

Plus all the martial stuff, which Markus considered a lesser focus.

Still, at least he did it of his own volition. That was worth something, right?

Drathok, despite everything, finally found reason to crack his characteristic smug smile.

“Oh, go fuck yourself.”

“It’s almost as if I’m not the total and complete idiot you take me for,” Drathok said.

Suddnely, his tone darkened. “Speaking of which, I’m aware of your little friends that come to visit you so often.”

Markus raised to his feet by instinct, nerves in his sluggish body firing at full alert. “Is that a fucking threat or something?”

“Nothing like that,” Drathok said, still faintly grinning. “But if I can become aware of such a thing easily, others can too. You’d do well to remember as much.”

“That reminds me,” Markus said, tempers reignited, “where the fuck is Cyrus? He was gone when I woke up earlier. You move him away or something?”

“The orc had his first bout today.”

Shit.

“Well, is he okay? Did he get hurt?”

Drathok shrugged. “I know he won. I was more concerned with prepping for your fight.”

“You mean for my assassination attempt?”

“Yes. Anyways, if you’re that concerned, go check on him.” Before Markus could say anything, Drathok held his hand up.

“Hold on a minute.”

Markus paused, impatient. “What?”

“Take these,” Drathok said, reaching into his drawer and removing two small paper bags, which seemed to be filled with powder.

Markus held his hand out, allowing Drathok to deposit the small pouches. “What are they?”

“Cleansing powders. You can use them to wash your sodden robes and surely dishevelled sheets. No good keeping you alive here if you succumb to sickness and infection.”

“I…” Markus couldn’t think of anything smart to say. ‘Fuck you’ didn’t even feel as if it’d register with its usual degree of potency.

He felt stumped. He pocketed the powders, face twisting. “Thank you?”

“Go check on your friend. Read up about the monster. I’ll send Lexi for you later, you can use her to train. She’s a powerful mage, but physically, rather fragile.” His eyes became hard, brightening a little. “Be careful with her.”

With that, Markus was teleported back to his cell without another word, slumping onto his bed and almost crashing directly into Rika, who was still sound asleep, still using a book as an eye mask.

Markus skipped everything else and half ran, half limped over to Cyrus’ cell, banging on the bars as he saw the orc laid upon the bed, curled on his side, back turned from Markus.

“Hey…” Markus raised his voice. “Hey, you good?!”

“Still alive,” the orc grumbled back, refusing to move from his curled position. “I see we both are.”

“Yeah… how’d your fight go? Are you hurt at all?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Cyrus said plainly.

“I can heal you,” Markus said. “Or at least partially. I can help if you let me, just—”

“I said no!” Cyrus shouted, the hint of a bestial roar beneath his voice, a sound Markus had never even remotely heard before now.

Had he… ever heard Cyrus angry before? Not bitching and laughing about Maesha, but actually angry?

Markus slumped, leaning back against the bars. His body was tired.

“Okay, I hear you.” He tried to consider the position he was in, remembered the countless times he’d had people ask after him in a similar condition, alone in a dark room and turned away from the open door.

He thought about what he’d have wanted to hear in those situations, those situations that almost inevitably led to someone barging in.

“I’m here if you need me. I was worried about you, and I wanna help you, but if you need your space, then I totally understand.”

He was lying. He wanted to ensure Cyrus was okay and he didn’t understand his reluctance, despite how deeply he empathised. Being in the other position was strange, and a reluctant admission that when the shoe was on the other foot, he felt every urge to intervene, to control, to attempt to fix and help and prescribe solutions out of only an innate desire to make someone he cared about feel better.

But the rational side of him knew that wasn’t what Cyrus wanted right now. He’d said so. He needed space. And while sometimes that was difficult to give to another person that you were worried about, Markus had to try and honour that.

He stood to try and leave, but Cyrus turned before he could.

“I am fine.” He stood, walked to the edge of the cell, let Markus see him.

His face looked calm. His tunic was ripped. Beneath it, Markus could see both rippling muscle and a long, jagged cut running across the orc’s chest, alongside a collection of other scars against the waving torchlight.

“Are you sure?” Markus asked. “That cut looks gnarly.”

“I’m sure,” Cyrus said. “I’ll let it heal on its own.”

“It doesn’t hurt?”

“It does.”

Markus stared at Cyrus. He tilted his head. Attempted to understand the creature.

He gave up. It didn’t matter his reasons. He was a grown man. He knew the help was there if he wished for it. Markus didn’t want to force his solutions onto Cyrus; that wasn’t conducive to anything.

“What happened with you?” Cyrus asked.

“Drathok tried to kill me,” Markus answered. “He put me in a fight he thought I’d lose.”

Cyrus’ face twisted into a smile. “And yet you won anyway.”

Markus nodded.

A silence descended over the pair of them. Eventually, Markus sat.

“A lot on your mind?” Cyrus asked.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Markus admitted. “I wish I could figure it all out, that I could make sense of it. Everything down here is so…”

Cyrus didn’t offer him a word, as people always liked to when another person couldn’t find one. Just a face that told Markus he empathised.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“I feel… like I’m constantly stuck between trying to do what I have to do and trying not to go insane,” Markus admitted. He scratched the back of his head, grimy and caked in dried blood. “It’s hard not to give into shitty impulses in a place like this. I get angry, I get stressed, and—”

Markus trailed off. He didn’t really know what he was trying to say.

“Guess probably everyone feels like that down here.” He snickered. “That fucked up crazy imp you heard earlier? He told me before that Drathok made him scrub toilets for twenty years. Twenty years. Can you imagine that?”

Cyrus’ deep laughter echoed the absurdity of the sentiment. Markus laughed too.

“I… I mean, he might’ve been lying, or exaggerating, but fuck, man. Point is, everyone down here’s probably gone a bit fucking crazy.” He moved to shrug, but kinda gave up on the motion when his body protested. “Not saying that it excuses anything. That it makes it okay to act in the way these guys do, but still.”

“This is a cutthroat world,” Cyrus said. “Kill or be killed is often a reality for those of us strong enough to do so. Still it remains a choice.”

“What the fuck kind of choice is that, though? Kill or die?” Markus felt a scowl etching itself into him, his voice cracking as he raised it. “It’s not even about fairness, it’s about… I dunno, the principle. The prospect that if you wanna see another day, someone’s life has to end, what, because they decided that? Or because someone else decided you had to fight them? And if you refuse to play their sick games…”

Markus threw his hands up. The answer was obvious.

“And then there’s this place. How the fuck am I supposed to beat it? I’ve got a literal fucking god gunning for me, now, and apparently there’s creatures in here that can give even you a hard time, and you can knock me the fuck out without even touching me!”

“I had no trouble in my fight,” Cyrus stated.

“Look, I wasn’t trying to insult you, or anything. I know you’re strong.”

“No,” Cyrus shook his head, sitting on the other side of the bars. “I had no trouble.”

Markus squinted at him. “Okay, but there’s a big fucking cut on your chest. That seems like trouble to me. What would you call it?”

“...a meaningless gesture.”

“What does that mean?”

Markus stared at him. The shadows behind him twisted and morphed in the shifting torchlight, giving him an even more menacing appearance than usual. He poked at his chest, pointing at the cut.

“This wasn’t the cut of a monster. It was the cut of a gladiator.”

“A gladiator?” Markus repeated, eyes wide. “They have you fighting those?”

“Yes. I suppose you’re often pitted against monsters for the spectacle of it, plus the fact it wouldn’t bode well for the region’s rhetoric on Outworlders if one of them started tearing through Firrelian fighters.” He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “I’m not so special, however. I was put against a Fourth Rank gladiator, a Myrmidon. He was probably a little older than you.”

Markus tried to ask what happened. His voice came as an inaudible whisper. The man he was looking at right now didn’t resemble Cyrus, not entirely. Beneath that gentle nature, there was something else entirely. He’d always known it was there.

Witnessing it, however, was something else.

“I threw down my weapon and offered a battle of fists,” Cyrus began. “The crowd expected bloodshed, but there was no reason one of us had to die.” A beat. “A moment later, he was swinging his sword at me.”

“I let him strike me,” Cyrus said, his voice completely level. “He panicked when the blade didn’t sink deeper than my skin. I tried to snap his neck and be done with it, but he was fast. He struggled.”

“What did you—”

“I tore his spine halfway from his body,” Cyrus said. “There was a look of bitterness in his eyes after. He kept gasping as he laid there, spasming in place. He almost looked as if he believed he were still fighting, as if he’d been cheated.”

Markus felt his stomach beginning to turn. He’d witnessed and taken part in such horrible things since he came here, but this…

“I knew only one of us would leave the arena. I chose myself.” He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall, his voice carrying upon dead air and whispering of broken things. “I would make the same choice again. It’s a selfish choice, but one I live with.”

“It’s a human choice,” Markus said. “Laying your life down so some stranger can just murder you is no sacrifice worth making.”

“Maybe. But I’ve never really managed to save people. I’ve killed… enough people that I’ve stopped counting. Saved far fewer.”

“And of all those people you killed, just how many of them had it coming?”

Cyrus leaned forwards. Markus saw the collection of scars upon his chest.

“I do this to leave a part of them,” he said, his voice soft. “I carry the weight of their death and the stain upon my soul.” He grunted. “That’s just some pretentious bullshit I came up with to justify what I did to others, once I became too strong for many to challenge. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t do anything. They don’t live on through my scars. It’s just… moral grandstanding. A perverse reminder of my own weak heart.”

“Would you let someone you considered a threat have the first strike against you?” Markus asked.

“...I’m unsure of that. Depends on the person. Why we’re fighting.”

“If you have to think about it, then it’s not like what you said at all. It sounds more like you hate yourself.”

“Murdering fearful prey is no life I wished for,” Cyrus said. “Yet I’ve been reduced to it again and again. I hated the rush I felt in the moment. Now I feel so little. That’s why I do it.”

Markus considers his words for a moment. The visage of Cyrus from this angle was horrifying, like something from a nightmare.

But you could look closer and see the pain in his eyes, the frown upon his lips, hear the tremble in his voice, all of them in direct contrast with the man he claimed himself to be.

“I think you’re trying to save them.”

“How’s that work?”

“You only retaliate. It’s an opportunity to run, right? To realise you’re not worth the hassle and get the fuck out. Surely some people must’ve seen you and thought twice.”

“Wouldn’t matter if they did,” Cyrus said. “Maesha didn’t leave survivors when we fought. The bandit group I was with did, and killing them was a mercy compared to allowing them to become like me, or perhaps worse. I never really managed to save anyone.”

“You saved me,” Markus said.

“I didn’t. Maesha had no intention of killing you. At best, I saved you from a beating.” Cyrus’ voice dropped even lower. “The amount of times I attempted that grovelling shit and got nowhere…”

“It doesn’t matter if she’d have killed me. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Cyrus peered at him, brows furrowed, saying nothing. The question on his face was obvious.

“You didn’t have to literally save my life. The fact you put yourself on the line for me at all was…” Markus smiled. “You’re the first person I met here that felt like an actual good person, and an amazing one at that. You’ve been nothing but good to me.”

“I didn’t do it for you. I did it so I’d feel just a touch less guilt. To try and be honorable.”

“Well, it saved me,” Markus repeated. “I was just about going insane with all the shit going on down here, feeling like I’d never be able to escape, feeling as if every single person in this place was out to fucking get me… then I knew at least one person wasn’t. I had someone to talk to. It made me willing to go and try help people myself, and then…”

Markus trailed off. Something was missing there. What the fuck was it?

“Doesn’t matter. The point is, if it weren’t for you, I’d be going literally insane right now. So thank you. Thank you for everything that you do.”

“I… appreciate it.”

Good, Markus was glad. He knew there was nothing he could do or say to absolve the weight of Cyrus’ feelings all at once, and that such a thing probably would require an extremely long time to unpack, far longer than he had, but the fact he could be there for someone else and help them at a time like this helped to reassure him in his own way.

Markus felt somewhat better now. Sure, the walls were closing in around him, a god wanted to turn him into his personal plaything, and his brain was still wracked with guilt about the things he’d done in his own ignorance, but hearing the way that Cyrus spoke about what he considered to be his own transgressions, Markus began to realise…

Cyrus’ guilt stemmed from a desire to defend himself and do the things he needed to in order to stay alive. His method of coping was painful to even hear about. It was probably unhealthy, and not just in the physical sense.

And yet he’d confirmed within Markus what he needed to know without ever directly saying it. If such a gentle and kind soul as Cyrus could kill, survive, train, and go on with his life while keeping it together, even if he wasn’t entirely perfect, he was a good example to live by.

Cyrus was an indicator of morality within this hellscape. His code mattered to him. He cared.

Such a man being able to kill so efficiently, even if it took a heavy toll on him, told Markus all he needed to know about what he was doing and how he should endeavour to feel.

It wasn’t about excusing the things he had to do, but finding healthy ways to live with them. It was okay to feel guilt. Important, even. It was one of the main factors separating man from monster.

It wasn’t okay to let that guilt control you.

Even then, bearing so many scars, physical and emotional, Cyrus had yet to lose himself. Markus couldn’t allow himself to either. Too much was at stake.

Balance was important. It was what would keep him stable and level-headed from here on, and what might allow him to survive.

But more important than staying alive was having a reason to live. That was the whole reason he’d said no to so many offers, done so many things he’d wished he hadn’t had to. Not just to keep breathing, but for something beyond that.

People to save. Revenge unsatisfied. Things within this world to change, issues to resolve back home…

Markus went to find Lexi. He offered to treat Cyrus once more, but he refused.

It didn’t take him long to find her. All he had to do was find a single imp. They all knew her, and fetching her was as simple as teleporting to her.

She took the pair of them to the training halls, grinning all the while, her massive black eyes staring up at Markus.

“Sooo, what did you wanna learn first?”

He supposed asking her ‘how to kill a god’ probably wouldn’t get him anywhere, so Markus settled with the thing that’d been subtly playing on his mind ever since he first came here, ever since he’d met Drathok, ever since his first fight.

And now, with this Dark Knight class sitting within his repertoire, the time felt more fitting than ever.

“Teach me how to use lightning.”