“Excuse me?” Bel said. She drummed her fingers angrily against the window’s counter top. “Challengers? Fights to the death?”

The man nodded. “Yes – it’s much better to get them over with here in the Pillar where you can’t do any real harm. We don’t want you boiling any seas or freezing some heirloom forest, do we?”

“Or summoning down one of the less-desirable gods,” his woman half shouted over their shoulders.

The man nodded emphatically. “Oh yes, that wouldn’t do. We want to preserve the god-crafted ecosystems of Olympos, so that would be a real failure on our part.”

He made a noise of disgust. “Cleaning up after an event like that has gotta be heartbreaking.”

Bel’s snakes curled around her head, flicking their tongues with agitation. “You don’t believe in, I don’t know… mediation?” Bel asked, dumbfounded.

The man – and his woman half – both scoffed. “If Lempo told you to do something, you’d do it right? And if someone else asked you to stop, who would you listen to?”

Bel’s snakes curled in frustration. “Okay, I see your point.”

Bel heard the sound of hurried footsteps and the sudden presence of a heartbeat when previously there had been none. She spun to see that a featureless section of wall had split open, revealing a stern woman in martial attire. She wore a stern expression as she strode through the entrance, her boots making a loud, hollow sound against the metal floor. Her closely cropped silver hair streamed in the wind of her passage.

Like nearly everyone in the Underworld, she was prepared for any of Bel’s gorgonic powers with a pair of tinted glasses.

I’m getting pretty tired of everyone hiding their eyes from me, Bel sighed. I can understand why Cress wants to get out of here.

The woman paused to inspect Bel from a few strides away. Bel tried to resist the feeling of intimidation, but it was difficult when confronted with a woman who was three strides tall. The woman’s imposing countenance was accentuated by skin as deep blue as the early morning sky and a pair of sharp yellow horns curling from her skull. She turned to the man-woman and raised her silver eyebrows.

“Is this her?” she asked.

The pair nodded and the blue woman turned back to Bel. She smiled warmly and gestured for Bel to follow back through the new opening. “Greetings,” she said cheerfully, “I’m Tracy from the divine relations department. I understand that you are on an expedited quest to pass through the Pillar, is that right?”

Bel gawked at woman for a moment before nodding. “Uh, yes. My name is Bel.”

Tracy smiled. “Good. We’ve been waiting for you. Are you ready to face the objectors?”

Bel scowled. “Well, I don’t really feel like fighting people for no reason. Couldn’t I just go around them?”

The woman paused and frowned in Bel’s direction. “Settling these things as early as possible is in all of our best interests. We are going to have to insist that you resolve the situation now.”

Bel’s eye narrowed when she saw the woman’s hand drift towards whatever weapons were strapped to her waist.

“Sounds like I don’t really have a choice,” Bel remarked bitterly.

The woman shrugged. “Such is the fate of those who are caught up in the games of the gods.”

She gestured Bel forward and continued. She kept her stride slow so that Bel could keep up.

Bel snorted as she hurried after the imposing woman. “It’s not really a game though.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way to you. For any outsiders, though, the machinations of the divine rarely have any impacts.”

She waved her hand through the air. “You are like birds migrating through. Not that some people don’t pay attention.”

She smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry to admit that some of my colleagues will be pumping me for information about you so they know which way to place their bets.”

Bel stopped short. “You’re betting on whether I live or die?” she hissed through clenched teeth.

The woman neatly pivoted on her heel. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t – I’m a professional. But other people do.”

She pointed to a brightly lit room that branched off of the hallway. “Wait in there, please. I will fetch the objectors.”

Bel snapped her fingers. “Hey, wait a second. Can I bet on myself?”

The woman’s eyebrows quirked. “Bet what?”

Bel hefted her bag. “A bunch of tokens that may or may not be counterfeit.”

“Oh, interesting.”

The woman considered it for a moment, rubbing a finger along one of her horns like she was testing its edge. “Sure, why not?”

Bel handed over her bag, went into the large, empty room and looked around. Aside from the door she’d come through, the walls were bare and perfectly smooth. The room was round as well, so there weren’t even any corners. As far as Bel could see, she was in a featureless cylinder a few hundred strides across and a hundred strides tall, constructed completely from the Pillar’s impervious metal.

She scanned the floor, wondering if she would see bloodstains or any other hint to the chamber’s purpose. There was nothing.

“I guess it’s impervious to dirt and blood too,” she muttered to herself.

Bel paced around the chamber, trailing her hand along the wall as she searched for any features in the featureless space. She cast a glower towards the entranceway from time to time, but her mind quickly wandered.

This is really stupid, she thought, her snakes writhing with agitation. Why do I have to fight people to the death just to climb the Pillar?

She thought about simply sneaking out, but then she remembered how long it had taken for her to descend through the layers of Olympos.

Climbing would be so much harder, she admitted to herself. Maybe if we all had wings…

That reminded Bel’s wandering mind that she had spare capacity in her cores. If I knew who I was going to fight, I could pick an ability to counter them.

Cress had been explaining their gorgonic abilities as they travelled. The gorgons considered flight secondary to gaze, but Bel had seen too many people prepared for that method of attack. Maybe against wildlife it would be useful, but Bel would rather have wings. She even had enough space in her core to begin the process by growing a pair of small training wings. They wouldn’t be likely to help her in a fight though, especially if she wasn’t used to flying yet.

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She also wanted to leave strokes free to provide resistance to attacks from other people’s abilities. After ripping the essence straight out of Clark’s birds, Bel had a new appreciation for the importance of free strokes as a defensive measure.

Luckily for her, and unlike other gorgons, she had plenty of abilities to choose from.

Her Disorder Core had some interesting options: an ability to create lightning, something to move like the wind – more specifically, the ability to turn into wind and then move – and another ability to swim through soil and rock. Lightning was interesting, but she wasn’t sure that the ability would allow her to control it. She couldn’t see it being better than her current methods of attack anyway.

That left her Upheaval Core, which Bel really didn’t want to fill up. She was sure that Lempo would offer her abilities to counteract Technis’ strengths, but she hadn’t figured out which ability would be best, or if she needed more capacity to find a good one. Her problem was that Lempo was offering Bel too many abilities. She closed her eyes and felt out the constellation of abilities that hung over the shifting, restless core. They felt endless.

It was a real problem because she knew too little about her nemesis. Was becoming magnetic useful? Would it do something to Technis?

What about corrupting the essence that permeated Olympos? Essence was the power source flowing through every core, so the ability could be powerful. But essence was also managed by the gods. From what Bel understood, divine beings depended upon essence just as much as any mortal. Would messing with it anger the pantheon?

Maybe hastening or slowing time in an area would be a safer choice? Bel imagined swinging a sling, taking out an army of people who seemed to be moving in slow-motion. If she used a ranged weapon, hastening herself could be good.

But if she was trading blows with another person at close range, the ability would accelerate both of their movements. Unfortunately, that was how Bel was used to fighting. Beth had attempted to train her to throw daggers, but at the time Bel’s coordination and eyesight had been lacking. The only target she had ever hit was her brother, and he’d been standing behind her at the time.

Bel clenched her jaw. I guess that messing with a new ability at the last moment isn’t a good idea. I’ll just have to trust that I’m good enough as I am now.

Her decision made, Bel continued to trail around the chamber. Her thoughts wandered until she was wondering if she could make her nails indestructible by eating some of the Pillar’s metal. She was pondering how to try to bite the wall when Tracy returned.

A new opening appeared in the chamber, and Bel instantly became aware of the tall woman and several newcomers. Five figures trailed behind her. Once they were all in the room, Tracy gestured and the walls sealed, blocking off any chance to escape.

One of the figures immediately stepped forward and began ranting in a slightly crazed voice. Bel was around thirty strides away, but she could still see the veil he wore over his face puffing in an out with his frenzied shouting. He wore clawed knuckles on each hand and slashed the air violently as he raged, giving him an unstable, will-explode-at-any-moment vibe.

Tracy waited for ranting to slowly lose steam before interrupting. “She doesn’t speak that language. Unless you can speak with the divine tongue, there won’t be any opportunity for any of you to express your grievances through anything but violence.”

Tracy looked over the five objectors before turning back to Bel. “Let me explain how this works. We will simulate an environment that should allow all participants to use their abilities to the fullest. The exact details are randomized for fairness.”

She raised her silver eyebrows. “Any questions?”

Bel glanced at the five people who wanted to kill her. Other than the man who had driven himself apoplectic, they all stood calm and emotionless. The angry man with the veil appeared humanoid, but his ears were longer than a typical human. Maybe an elf? Bel thought. If what James and Beth had told her was true, then he would probably be able to manipulate dirt and plants and would have an incredible ability to heal himself.

The person next to him was one of the dhvaras that Bel had seen on the third level, easily recognized by her tall, stick-like build and the dark armor that covered her body. Bel guessed at her gender from the contours of the metal plates that concealed her form, but for all she knew they fire-loving cannibals reproduced by spitting or ripping off their limbs or some other nonsense. The dhvaras wielded a long, wicked spear, but Bel counted herself lucky that the woman didn’t have any giant spirit beast in tow.

Next to her was a person who was wrapped in a dark cloak that may as well have been made of shadows. From the bulging outline, Bel guessed that they weren’t human. Anything more than that was hidden from her sight, but Bel could also feel a multitude of heartbeats coming from what looked like a single person: one large, heavy beat and a few tens of small, rapid thumps.

The next to last person had the upper body of a man and the lower body of some hairy, cloven hoofed creature. He was fit and proud of it, showing off his physique with only a short leather kilt for clothes. Bel guessed that he fought with swords since the hoofed man carried a sword and dagger at opposite sides of his waist. Another short sword was strapped to the back of his waist, its hilt and the tip of its sheath just sticking out from behind him. A small dagger on his right calf and a larger sword slung over his back completed his visible armament, although Bel supposed that he could be hiding something small under his kilt.

Far more interesting was the fact that his eyes were unguarded. When Bel looked at his bearded face he blinked in surprise before looking back and forth to the other objectors. His eyes danced nervously as he refused to meet Bel’s gaze.

Well, I guess he didn’t know who he would be up against. That’s refreshing.

The final person was an unremarkable old man with a band of brilliant red cloth wrapped around his eyes. His back was mostly straight, although Bel could detect a small bend to his spine, the unavoidable mark of time upon his skeleton. Baggy black pants extended to his ankles, but his feet were as bare and wrinkled as his bald head. A bright red shirt of a glossy, silken material with golden filigree around its wooden buttons completed his outfit, but the formless shirt was tight enough that it couldn’t disguise the lack of muscles upon his body. He had a dagger strapped to his side, and that was it. Bel guessed that his age was somewhere in the late fifties. That obviously didn’t mean much with all of the possible abilities in Olympos, but Bel couldn’t identify anything in particular about the old man.

So, she thought, an angry elf, a dhvaras with a spear, a shadowy person with extra heartbeats, a swordsman who didn’t know that I was a gorgon, and an old, blind guy. Given my luck, he’s probably some ancient master of incredible skill.

“Do I fight them all at once?” Bel asked.

Tracy smiled. “That’s up to you. I can guarantee that none of you will begin in the same place, but that’s it.”

Bel’s snakes flicked their tails with frustration at the vague answer. “So how does this work?”

Tracy lifted her hands to the ceiling. “Like this,” she declared, clicking her fingers.

Bel stumbled as the metal floor buckled and writhed like a living thing. The previously smooth walls opened up, admitting streams of water, sand, and lava into the room. Bel looked up, wary of her opponents taking advantage of her momentary distraction, but she saw that their side of the room was going through the same changes as her own.

Most of the combatants seemed off-balance from the shifting terrain, although Bel noted that the old man moved in rhythm with the changing surface, sliding his feet over it like a performer over a dance floor. The person with the veil simply… dissolved in the mist.

The other three had more difficulty, but quickly found their footing. The robed person and the dhvaras were content to wait the changes out, but the moment he wasn’t at risk of falling over the kilted man charged. His athleticism kept him upright as he began a blind dash towards Bel’s position.

Walls rose up from the floor and jutted from the walls, first dividing Bel’s opposition from one another and then sectioning the space into chambers. Bel caught glimpses of rooms filling with lava or snow, and twisting passageways that formed from the warping metal of the Pillar. Steam clouded the air as the elements met and clashed, and the air rumbled with the mass of materials being transported into the forming arena.

Bel looked back and forth, admiring the efficiency of the process. Then her eye widened as the kilted man leaped over a large wave of metal; he had crossed nearly half the space between them in a few heartbeats. As he fell towards the floor Bel saw a dome of metal rise above him. She breathed a sigh of relief as the partition put an end to his rapid progress.

Then the ceiling drooped to the rising floor around her and Bel found herself sealed off. Water welled up through a crack in the floor, creating a small puddle in the corner. Sand slipped in through a small opening on the opposite side, creating an instant approximation of the sandy dunes of the Golden Plains. The water met the sand bound herself standing next to a small beach, complete with very confused fish.

Their small heartbeats reminded Bel that she had some advantages. The Pillar’s substance blocked her abilities, but as long as she didn’t squeeze herself into too small a space she wasn’t going to be surprised by any of her opponents.

Fighting them all together would be a problem though, so seeking them out first would be to her advantage. She looked around, evaluating her options. A rocky cave yawned wide to her left and the water flowed into a narrow channel to her right. She hadn’t seen anyone who looked like an expert in controlling water, but Bel wasn’t going to take any chances. She turned towards the more terrestrial option and proceeded at a light jog.