At the top of the stairs, I leaned on my knees and gasped, back heaving. The flow of blood in my ears thundered and drowned out all other sounds. The flashes of announcement had thinned out during my mad dash up the stairs and had now died out completely. I’d been too late. I’d been down to the cellar and back, and while I’d been stumbling about down there, the fight for the sword had been fought, and won. Only fools relied on the roll of the dice, but I hadn’t gotten the chance to even roll it. I needed to collect my breath before charging out into the next room. I saw no red dots out there, but that meant nothing. I needed to open the door and have the enemy in my field of vision before they lit up in red.

More worrisome, though. I heard no sounds from the other side of the door.

I stood up, wiped the sweat from my face – from my idiot face. God I was annoyed with myself, just ran past that sword in the pond. I was still nourishing the faint hope that the sword hadn’t been in the pond after all, and that the other contestants had piled up in there, fighting the bandits, and then each other until no one was left. I hoped, but I didn’t really believe it.

I opened the door and the light from the hall stabbed my eyes. It looked like a slaughterhouse, bodies pilled upon bodies, streaks of blood sullying the celestial pond, making the divine light a sickly maroon, the swirling lights in it like clots of blood. All this mayhem was filed back by my subconscious as irrelevant. What was relevant was the man standing by the pond, staggering back and forth, as ready to tumble into the pool of water, blood seeping from a wound in his stomach, starring at a sword in his limp hand.

Liquid fire floated over the blade like water, reflecting in the mans transfixed eyes.

Orak’s Wrath.

There was a swirl of light around the man and he seemed to get better control over his body. He had downed a health potion. He stood a little taller, a little prouder, still staring at that liquid, fiery sheen.

Blood spattered over the blade as I planted an arrow in the back of his head. He collapsed, dropping the sword.

275 000 XP

My level bar went crazy, filling up faster than I could see, before starting over and gradually slowing down and grinding to a halt just before reaching level 16.

I hardly noticed.

My eyes were fixed on the blade that hit the ground with a clean metallic sound, nothing like the dull and unimaginative sound of iron, or the abrasive and aggressive sound of steel, it was like a finely tuned instrument, its resonance shivering like death in the air. It bounced once before coming to a still at the edge of the pond.

I darted for it, having an unreasonable fear that it would vanish before my eyes if I didn’t claim it right away.

There was a surge of power within me when I grabbed the sword, a staunch feeling that made me feel like made of stone and steel, fire coursing through my body. It was an intoxicating feeling and a pulled a deep breath, feeling like I breathed out fire like a human dragon.

“Oh-ho-ho,” I said grinning, before bursting out in a subdued laughter that sounded quite mad even to myself. “This power, Cloak… If you only could feel it…”

“Kra-kra-aa-aah!” Cloak said doing circles to the big boulder at the far door, seeming agitated.

“What?”

The double doors slammed open. I raised the sword to my shoulder.

Tristan Toth emerged behind the big boulder, leisurely strolling down the curving foot path on his heels.

“Well, braaavo,” he said, smirking while gently clapping his hands. “I was hoping you fools would do the job for me.”

He was dressed in a knee length padded arms coat with a chest harness of what looked like silver steel, and a bright green cloak. Bracers and gauntlets of finely crafted steel and on his back, a long double handed sword. I recognized it as the epic sword of breaking from the weapons selection, granting 20 % extra physical damage; a truly fearsome weapon but nothing more than a Wall Marts toy compared to my mythical, on-of-a-kind sword. And yet, Tristan approached without fear. Wasn’t there even a trace of mockery in his face?

Whatever you do, stay away from Tristan.

That fancy padded robe, the greaves and gauntlets. He hadn’t won them in the Clash. He had brought those with him. He had offered up his sword as we all did, but where we had brought firewood and food, potions and the odd scroll in our inventories, he had stocked up with stuff given to him by his two older brothers. What could the Alpha Prime of Breaker City bestow upon his beloved baby brother to ensure him victory in his first clash? I didn’t dare think about it, but I feared I would get to know sooner rather than later.

“Vinger told me to take my time with you, so I will.”

Tristan had reached levelled ground and reached back for the hilt of his sword. I had time to wonder how he expected to pull a five-foot sword out of the scabbard on his back, but it detached like if it had been stuck on there with magnets.

Nifty.

I expected him to sink down into a battle stance and, full of bravado, shout a “come on!” or something, but he just stood there, the tip of his sword hovering just above the cave floor. His eyes had been blue when I’d seen him at the town square, but they looked darker now. His blonde shoulder length hair looked, lighter? Yes, I though it did, almost white now. What the hell was going on here?

“You’re holding my sword, friend,” he said in a perfectly calm voice. “It’s the first and the last time you will lay your eyes on such an exquisite object and for that reason alone, I will indulge you. Letting you get a lick of divinity, so that you can for the rest of your life will know what you will never have again.”

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“Get off your fucking soap box,” I snarled through. “Are we fighting or are we debating?”

He chuckled and made a large lazy arc with the longsword, rotating his wrist, demonstrating his strength. He was level 19, now.

“Oh, we’ll fight. Don’t you worry about that, friend.”

A crimson swirl suddenly bloomed up around him, streaked with strands of oily black. He had downed some potion. His fair hair lifted from his shoulders and floated up as if he was submerged beneath water. His eyes turned black and his face, now a as white as his hair, cracked up in an impossible wide grin, as if he was a snake ready to unhinge his jaws. His sword glowed with a dull red, looking like blood reflecting in fire.

“Well,” he said with a voice deep and demonic. “You wanted to plaaay?”

Holy fuck…

A shiver of raw fear went through me. My eyes darted towards the footpath behind him. There was no way to squeeze past him. I needed to fight him. The sword and the power it gave strengthened me and I tried to get that sense of power to override the primal fear of Tristan’s demonic appearance.

It’s nothing but theatre make-up, all right?

Tristan rushed across the floor, like a storm surge and his blade came down in a brutal arc, powered by the dark gods.

I stumbled backwards in sheer surprise. I got my sword up to fend of the attack.

The blades crashed together. My right wrist snapped like a broken twig – exploding pain all the way up to my elbow.

The next strike came from the side and struck the sword out of my hand. Shivering and turning in the air, the sword struck the far wall.

I stared at it, then at Tristan, my heart pounding like it was trying to hammer itself out of my chest. My wrist screamed in agony but I was too deep in shock to even think about downing a health potion.

“Oh, you puuuny creatures.” Tristan said with that beefy demonic voice, gliding over into a laughter that sounded almost sorrowful.

He raised his sword and brought it back to the side, lining up the killing blow. My sense of self-preservation kick in. I ducked.

The blade whooshed past above me.

I finally downed a health potion and rolled to the side. The blade crashed down next to my head, slapping my face with an explosion of pulverized stone.

I was back up one my feet, running for the sword.

I drank down a potion of Enhanced Attack Speed which also boosted my sprint ability. I snatched the sword from the ground, with my left hand, and spun around. My right wrist was still broken, despite the health potion, and throbbed and ached. The timer until I could take the next potion was at 21 seconds.

Tristan stood where he was, looking almost bored.

“What’s up with your face? You weren’t pretty before but this is downright nasty,” I said, keeping my voice surprisingly even.

I needed to stall him until I could drink another health potion.

17 seconds.

Tristan grunted a rumbling subdued laugh.

“Trying to stall? Trying to gain some valuable seconds, are we? Your right hand looks a bit… floppy.”

8 seconds.

“Well, this will end soon enough so I will give you those seconds, for what it’s worth.”

“Such a gentleman. Or is it gentledemon at this point?”

My mouth just kept running, spouting nonsense.

3…2…1

I tore the Bow of Slow Speed from my inventory, grabbing one of the three poisoned arrows in the quick slot. The first arrow was on the string before I even realized it.

I pulled the string and let the arrow fly.

If I could strike him with an arrow, take his speed and strength away, I could finish him of with my mythical sword.

The arrow hissed through the air. I had another one on the string before the first one struck – which it didn’t. Tristan swatted it away with the back of his hand, an annoyed frown on his face.

The next arrow was in the air.

Tristan fanned out in the room. That’s the only way I can describe it. It was like he multiplied out to the left and to the right, and suddenly all the copies of him came rushing at me.

I dove headfirst in between two of them, and once again I felt his blade pass right above me.

The passage to the door.

Tristan was behind me.

It was free.

I ran for it.

A bright pain lanced up through my right leg. I gritted my teeth and hobbled on. A dark splinter, looking like a sliver of black glass protruded from my thigh.

What the…? Panic and desperation was mounting.

Another shard of glass shattered against the wall to my right. The splinters hitting my face like a fistful of razor blades.

Don’t stop. Get up there. Get through the door. Get through the –

I stumbled forward, felt the pressure against the small of my back before the pain exploded. One of those fucking glass shards was sticking out through my stomach. It had passed almost right through and I pulled the sticky shard out of my body as I hobbled on, blood spilling down my pants.

Oh, God. I wouldn’t live through this.

I heard him behind me, walking unhurriedly, taking his time just as promised.

“Why don’t you just lie down and die? This is pitiful,” he rumbled behind me.

“Fuck you,” I said but it came out almost like a sob.

There was blood on my lips. My legs had started to go cold and numb. I heard Cloak krah-krah-krah. Don’t attack, buddy, I was trying to say but it stayed a thought. He will kill you. He will kill both of us.

I shouldered open the door to the skeleton room. They were all dead and reduced to heaps of bones. I shuffled trough them, dragging my limp leg behind me.

It couldn’t end like this.

Once again, I saw Vinger for my inner eye, but now he wasn’t fuming and throwing his glass of expensive wine to the wall. He was standing, jubilant, toasting with his friends, receiving backslaps.

Fuck no.

Hell no.

I downed a health potion, grabbed the splinter in my leg and pulled that one out as well. There was a gush of hot blood running down my leg, pooling in my boot, but the pain subsided, and the flow of blood stopped.

I took one running step before zigging right. The piece of glass smashed into the floor.

I zigged right again, and the shard of glass hit me in the back of the shoulder making me stumble forward, droplets of blood flying past my face.

The pain was excruciating.

Blood ran down my arm and dripped from my hand.

I had the sword in my hand, I realized. Hadn’t been aware that I had drawn it.

I spun around, swinging, hitting nothing more than air.

Tristan was maybe two strides behind me, walking at a safe distance like he was out walking the dog.

He raised his right hand.

The palm opened like a black toothless mouth. Another one of those shards of glass shot out of it.

I twisted out of the way and it smacked into the door at the other end of the room. I turned and ran for it.

Another glass javelin shattered against the wood when I got my hand on the iron ring of the door. Shrapnel of glass hit me in the eye, turning the world into a red blur.

I got the door open and darted at the step stairs leading back up into the fort.

I could make this. I stared up at the rectangle of grey light at the top of the stairs.

Then I heard Tristan’s steps behind me.

The timer for the health potion was up and I downed another one, followed by a stamina potion, topping up with a reduce damage potion, and then my last speed potion.

I bounded up the stairs.

I could make this.

The corridor lit up in an amber glow. A big fluttering whoosh grew behind me and I knew what was coming.

I shut my eyes and kept running.

The fire ball caught up with me, engulfed me and for the briefest of moments its caress felt fuzzy and pleasantly warm, then the pain stabbed down into me, my skin shrinking over my bones, blistering, and cracking open.

I screamed, and stumbled out into the fort, arms flailing. My mind reduced to nothing but pain and panic.

I ran, blindly, screaming, dying.

Then I was in the air.

Falling.