Brum was steeped in the history of its people, a city-sized monument to their grandest accomplishments, a metropolitan cultural gyre of every journey that led to the crown jewel of az achievement. By contrast, the coliseum seemed more like a tribute to their origins; rich wood paneling lacquered to leave the natural patterns of the fiber exposed, hand-woven rugs and tapestries dyed in the locally favored brilliant colors, and ornamental décor carved from various indigenous trees and minerals. The largest piece dominated the center of the front room; a sculpture of a gargantuan serpent in a peaceful but poised stance in dark, warm wood with a smooth finish that made it almost look alive. It obscured a pair of curved staircases that ascended to an upper level where a concession stand and doors leading to the upper level of stadium seating were poised. In between them on the ground floor was a larger open tunnel that lead to the lower levels, and two registration desks on either side; one for spectators and the other for competitors. It was the right one Red and I approached with Grajo and Wysteria in tow.
“Uhm,” I cleared my throat, somehow at the same time thick with phlegm and drier than I expected. “I’m Glenn Anura. This is Red. We have a… fight? Scheduled today? We do, I mean.” I gestured to the espers behind me.
“Ja, I have your name here. Red Company?” She responded after a brief delay to search through her records.
“Yes,” I nodded. “That’s us.”
“You’re a bit early, and Alexsandr is tending to some of his other affairs at the moment. If you follow the door to your right there are a few training facilities and a waiting room with free catering, if you wish.”
“I do wish,” I said with no small amount of delight. Breakfast sounded too much at odds with the butterflies that had taken up residence in my stomach overnight, but it had been long enough since then that the insistent growling outmatched the nerves.
The four of us made our way into a short, angled hall that opened into a wider corridor with six doors on one side and a pair of cased openings on the other. The openings led to a literal training room with minor exercise equipment, some mundane and obvious like weights for lifting and suspended rings for practicing flexibility routines, as well as some contraptions I was far less familiar with, being a pokey little flab biscuit from another dimension who hadn’t set foot inside a gym since high school. Following that truth about myself, I set to making a plate from the many breads, meats, and cheeses on offer at a long table adorned with warming trays and serving dishes full of delicious odds and ends. There were a lot of tantalizing desserts and casseroles and pies, but I didn’t want to overload and feel sluggish for the contest. The first bite immediately took off some of the pressure my anxiety was applying, and the more I put on my stomach the less antsy I felt. Toward the end of my meal, I took a long, deep breath in preparation to cram in a few more rounds of last-minute strategy with Red.
“So… any other advice you may have forgotten to give me in the last few days?”
“If I forgot to give it to you, how would I know unless I remembered?”
“Fair enough,” I tried to reorganize my thoughts, but ultimately couldn’t find much to sort through. “I guess it’s pretty much all been said. Focus on the strengths of our team, don’t get overwhelmed, and don’t be afraid to throw in the towel.”
“Pretty much,” Red nodded. “They’re both in good shape, for the limitations of their species. Nobody’s got it all, of course, but Wysteria’s sturdy an’ Grajo’s quick. They both hit about as hard as you’d expect.” They could hit harder; the grimoire implied as much. But if Red considered their abilities within standard parameters, I wasn’t about to question him.
“Do you think he’s gonna use the big snake like in the lobby?”
“He is absolutely gonna use the big snake.”
My mother had a long-standing phobia of serpents that never transferred to me, but I’d spent enough time around them to be wary of their speed. Maybe snakes from the Esperwild were renowned for their slowness, but I doubted it. The statue was intimidatingly large and as I understood it the inspiration behind the art was even bigger; a creature known as midgarsormr that served as Alexsandr’s signature esper. His presence and any unexpected variables were the biggest concerns I had about the fight. Red had scrounged up valuable intel on every other established esper that might serve as the midgarsormr’s partner, and none of them seemed too much for either of the members of our team to handle. Everything should be fine. It wasn’t a battle to the death; like Grajo said, it was a soft pitch to make sure we were serious about our pursuits. A gear check, to use video game terminology. Academically, I believed we could make it through, but those butterflies were coming back and fluttering around the recent meal making its way through my system. Grajo seemed content to perch quietly, and Wysteria was helping herself to a snack from the catering table, neither showing the signs of stress and worry that I was sure were written all over my face.
“Take it easy, chief.” Red laid his hand on my shoulder, standing on the chair next to the one where I was seated. “Breathe in, breathe out. It’s just a fight. If we lose this one, we train for the next one. No big deal.”
“No big deal,” I repeated, steadying my breath.
“Red Company?” The desk clerk poked her head around the corner of the opposite end of the hall, and I stood up almost reflexively. “Alexsandr is ready for you.”
Alexsandr was an unfairly impressive name, with so many syllables to roll the tongue around and hard consonants to clap. I could hear droning horns of the looming challenge in my head, melodies that once pumped out of a tiny speaker as I challenged my way through different championships in the digital worlds of my youth. The hall gave way to a circular arena, rows upon rows of curved benches in an auditorium at the center of which was an expanse of soft, blue-green grass. Snow trickled down from above, most likely the result of magic since the roof of the coliseum was closed and it refused to stick. There were a few people in the stands idly waiting for the contest to begin, but nothing in the way of the cheering crowds one might expect. One az was even casually reading a newspaper, only glancing up to peer at us as we made our entry. Perhaps it was to be expected for a slow Trojur mid-day, as opposed to a weekend event or an evening battle. The most prominent member of the crowd was seated in an elevated box at the rear of the arena was a wizened nezumi, white fur and pince-nez glasses perched before his eyes. Despite the distance between us, I could tell his robes were even more high-quality than the purple and black ones I was currently wearing. He traced his fingers before his throat and suddenly his voice boomed as though it were being transmitted through the more technological sound system you’d find in an Earthen sports venue.
“Entering the Brum Coliseum, the chainer Glenn Anura, Red Company, and their coach, the grimalkin, Red!” A throaty hoot cut through the silence and directed my eyes to Tanis seated in the crowd. I don’t know why I hadn’t expected to see her there, clapping and cheering us on, but it made me smile and calmed a few of the insects in my gut. “They present challenge to Gladiator Alexsandr in an entry-level contest under standard League rules; two espers from each team will challenge in single elimination format until the esper is unable to continue combat or the chainer concedes defeat. Chainers can choose to withdraw and exchange their espers at any time during the fight by announcing their intentions, and the opponent is compelled to grant the competing esper egress until their replacement enters the arena.”
These were the rules I’d been made familiar with by both Red and Grajo over many conversations both before we’d arrived in Brum and over the last few days. I kept asking both of them to repeat the whole shebang and provide greater clarification on edge cases, so concerned was I that I might accidentally break them. Either team had a predictable three strikes before they were disqualified, and while I had no plans of pressing this advantage like a wrestling heel, it was a concerning little squiggle in the back of my head that kept chanting at me I would screw everything up by not having the in-born familiarity with them of a Barbavian native. This recitation also identified the nezumi speaker as the judge; an arcanist who oversaw the combat to make sure there was no magical chicanery and also enforced adherence to the rules for all parties involved. I stopped before my toes touched the clear stone lining around the edges of the pitch. Magic resonated just a few inches in front of me; a wall of force that kept the chainers and observers safe from the chaos that might happen over the course of the fight.
“This is your first time?” Alexsandr was an imposing figure in a well-tailored black coat and trousers, long white hair and a trimmed goatee framing the lavender hues of his complexion.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I will let you choose.” His voice was rich and his accent thick as he gestured broadly to the fight area in front of us. “As you may know, each coliseum is permitted one hazard for their field of battle under standard League rules. My preferred two are the cover of darkness and the rolling hills of my hometown. I will let you choose which of these our espers will compete in.”
Trying to direct combat while I couldn’t see my espers sounded like a hell of a challenge, and both options were tailored toward obfuscating the field. The coliseum was already dark; a false field of stars high above us in what was outside a sunny afternoon, though I was concerned he might make it darker somehow. At the moment, the terrain beyond the bricks was flat, save for a few longer tufts of grass. The addition of hills brought my mind back to the moors of Teren Balt where I’d first made my arrival into this world, though the vegetation was thicker, and its color more vibrant. That might cause vision problems, but it seemed better to have conditions where I might not be able to see Wysteria and Grajo if they ducked behind a mound rather than a complete saturation of shadows. It would probably be better for the espers, as well, especially since Grajo had the advantage of flight. I looked to Red for his opinion, but he shrugged and gestured to me.
“Hills,” I nodded.
“Hills it is,” he agreed, and swept his hands about like the conductor of an orchestra. The flat grass bubbled to life, curving in waves before settling into the expected terraformation. One arm he thrust upright, wiggling his fingers and closing his eyes to focus on his craft. A ribbon of aurora wove through the sky above, bathing the coliseum in cyan, pink, and blue light. It was certainly lighter than before, but I still wondered if that darkness wouldn’t be deeper and more occluding if I had chosen the latter. Alexsandr relaxed, returning to his full height and rigid posture. “I wish you luck, Red Company. Send forth your first competitor!”
I gestured for Grajo to go forward and he obliged, hopping into a small glide that took him to the center of the battlefield with a near-silent flutter of wings. Alexsandr made an underhanded toss of what appeared to be a small bit of stone, but as it rolled forward, popping up over hillocks and bouncing with intent between the valleys, it grew. Finally, it stopped atop the highest mound, arms and legs bursting out of its form. It remained mostly round, with three digits at the end of each limb, eyes that shone like amethysts, and a large, ovular nose in the center of its face. A tuft of green hair that matched the grass on which it stood sprung up from its head, and its mouth had a single tooth protruding from an underbite. The whole thing looked to be made of rocks, or carved from raw limestone. I wanted to glance at the grimoire for information, but I’d left it locked safely in our room. Thankfully, Red spoke up at my side.
“That’s the moss troll,” he spoke loud enough for me to hear, but quietly so as to keep our conversation confidential. “I think his name’s Ingvar.”
“So it’s extra good we didn’t send in Wysteria, then, right? He’s supposed to be immune to her Venomous Vapors?”
“Near as I could figure. Still gonna be a tough bout, but Grajo’s a veteran. He’s got this.” I wish his voice sounded half as sure as his choice of words.
“BEGIN!” commanded the judge’s voice, echoing through the coliseum. And so, it had.
Grajo began by using his speed to his advantage; not focused on greater initiative in landing the first blow but trusting his superior reaction time. Ingvar the moss troll hopped a few feet off the ground, curling once again into a uniform stone ball about two feet in diameter. He rolled quickly toward Grajo, looking to crash into the bird with full force, but the nachtkrapp nimbly flitted out of the way. Ingvar skidded to a stop and popped back out of his spherical form to assess the situation, a few seconds too late to do anything about Grajo’s claws raking him across the nose. No blood came from the wound, but a wince from the opponent showed it clearly did something more than I was worried it might, small chips of whatever stony substance Ingvar was made of flaking off from the wound. Gripping a handful of grass-hair with the other talon, the troll soon found his face meeting the cold earth blow as Grajo slammed him downward. I pumped my fist enthusiastically, letting myself get perhaps a bit too caught up in the momentum of the fight. In my defense, it was hard not to; I’d been a fan of pro wrestling for as long as I could remember, and the spectacle of seeing two fantastic creatures do battle even through what amounted to plain fisticuffs was exciting. Ingvar was no push-over, snapping his hands upward and catching both of Grajo’s legs, getting to his feet as the nachtkrapp struggled to escape. He held firm, swinging the bird in a wide circle to disorient him before releasing and sending him colliding with one of the taller nearby hills. The avian spread his wings just before impact, allowing more of his surface area to take the blow and lessen its impact somewhat. I hoped it would be enough.
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“Your nachtkrapp fights well,” intoned Alexsandr. “You’re sure you’re new at this?”
“I am. He’s not.”
“Ah! How very unusual. In a way your team has two esper mentors, then.”
He seemed amused by the situation before him, even as Ingvar rolled forward, he and Grajo engaging in a rapid trade of punches and pecks. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t, and the air was filled with the thud of the troll’s tennis ball-sized fists against Grajo’s body, of the scratching scrapes of the bird pecking at Ingvar’s face, and of Tanis’ unabashed support from the stands. The moss troll moved to shield his face from Grajo’s continued assault, and in doing so gave the nachtkrapp the opening he was looking for to grip Ingvar by the hair once again, this time with both talons. Spreading his wings wide, he beat with all his might, lifting the pair of them off the ground. There was a plan shining in Grajo’s good eye, and I wondered if he’d done battle with a moss troll before. After some additional effort the two of them were a good thirty feet in the air. Ingvar had been beating fists against the meatier parts of the nachtkrapp’s legs to try and provoke a release, but those efforts grew fewer as their height increased. Now, he held fast at both of Grajo’s ankles, a worried look in his eyes. Alexsandr made no move to stop the contest, squinting upward at the pair of them silhouetted against the aurora.
“Put him in a bodybag!” Tanis shouted enthusiastically, and I chuckled in spite of the suspense.
Grajo released his grip, pulling his sizeable claws free from Ingvar’s mane. The moss troll held fast for a moment, but while the bird might’ve been the larger of the two, his digits were more nimble and he managed to wriggle free from the rocky nubs that tried in vain to maintain their grip. Ingvar plummeted to the ground below, his arms and legs cycling wildly. He seemed to be trying to roll back into a ball, but something about the process wouldn’t quite work with the impression of gravity on him. He landed with a THOOM, creating a small crater at the point of impact. Grajo heisted for just a second, then descended with all the fury of a falcon after their prey. He thrust his legs into the hole and hauled Ingvar out, the troll still aware enough to let out a panicked shout before being tossed ass over teakettle in an arc before crashing into a heap amidst the hills. Breathing heavily, Grajo lighted on a knoll to maintain the high ground, but it was unnecessary; Ingvar was still. Breathing, much to my relief, but decidedly unconscious.
“The first fall goes to the challenger,” declared the judge, prompting more raucous cheering from Tanis and polite applause from the few others in the stands. “Alexsandr, call your second and final esper for this contest. Red Company, do you wish to substitute at this time?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, suddenly remembering how to breathe and swallow to cleanse the dryness from my throat. “Wysteria?”
Dutifully, she trundled forward, nodding to Grajo as the two crossed paths. The nachtkrapp was limping a little on an ankle I only now noticed was pointed a bit in the wrong direction, but an expenditure of mana and a little spellwork started the process of bringing him back up to snuff. Part of the benefit of substitutions was that it gave a chainer time to tend to their espers’ injuries, though it could also often lead to their attentions being diverted. Between combatants seemed like the best time to start Grajo on a healing path, but I wanted to remain cognizant of the potential hazards for the future. For a moment, Wysteria was alone on the pitch. However, soon I began to see the immense shape of a long, dark-scaled serpent winding its way through the valleys. Like a river of dark brown, she glided along a circuitous path before arriving in the center to meet Wysteria, raising up to tower over her with her visage not unlike a hammerhead shark with forward-facing eyes. She might’ve choked on Ingvar, but Wysteria was just the right size to be a proper meal for the fifteen foot-long midgarsormr.
“This is Kjersti,” Alexsandr announced. “I used to have two other moss trolls who helped me establish myself and make my name in the League, but they sought retirement in their old age, and I granted it to them. It took me a lot of searching to discover an appropriate replacement, but a few years ago I met this beauty out among the untamed wilderness of Astonia. Ingvar is a good friend and has won his fair share of fights, but I would be lying to all of us if I said this was his first loss. Kjersti, however…” his lips pursed in amusement as he took a second to select his words with a bit more careful precision, “she is the real test. Even in the days of my youth, when I sought victory in the tournament and a shot at becoming the Grand Champion… I have not had an esper with such a tremendous win record as she.”
“So are ya tryin’ to convince Wysteria to take it easy on her, to spare her ego?” I wasn’t aware psychological warfare would be part of the contest and was a little under-equipped for a proper response monologue. Red’s punchy schoolyard banter would have to do.
“Ha!” he barked. “No, of course not. I’m just saying… don’t feel too bad if you lose. Kjersti is more than most chainers and their espers know how to handle.”
She was intimidating, for sure. They both were; Alexsandr with his cool, detached air and Kjersti with her sheer size, feather-like scales, and that iconic visage of a blunt-nosed head with bared fangs and a flicking, forked tongue that spoke more deeply to primal fears than even more dangerous creatures. Red and I weren’t about to buckle under pressure, and neither was Wysteria. The terramor toad dug her heels into the earth and squared up her stance. She looked different from the first few fights we’d had back in Lion’s Head, less a wild creature that was for some reason half-following my direction and more like a seasoned fighter ready to mount a challenge. I had missed this transformation not joining the espers on their training sessions, and it felt a little bit like what I imagined parents experienced when they missed their child sitting up for the first time. Perhaps I should start sitting in now and again, building the bond between us and gleaning a better understanding of the fighters I was charged with directing. Maybe it would even build a stronger bridge between myself and Red.
“BEGIN!”
The judge’s voice brought me out of my considerations, and the fight was on. With a creature that size, Wysteria would have a devil of a time trying to bring her down through her typical method of throwing her entire body at a creature and letting her weight do the job. Even Grajo with his beak and talons would find Kjersti’s muscular body and armored scales a challenge that Red and I both were too afraid the snake would overcome before succumbing to her own injuries. Instead, we resolved to assault her with Wysteria’s poison, engage evasive maneuvers, and hope for the best. Dutifully, the terramor toad began to emit lavender plumes of smoke from her mouth, drifting gently upward toward the face of her opponent. Kjersti closed her eyes, flattened her nostrils, and withdrew her tongue, turning away from the poison gas once she realized what it was. I wondered if shutting herself down and recoiling the way she had was representative of a successful defensive Stamina check. Her body was long enough, however, to swing around the cloud Wysteria had created and opt for a closed-mouth strike, bashing nose-first into the toad and sending her flipping through the hills away from their starting location like a crashed car in an amusing physics simulator.
“Stick and move, Wysteria! Just try to avoid her until you can use your gas again!”
Grajo didn’t require my direction as much, but it seemed to ground Wysteria more and keep her head in the game. She flopped her legs to right her body and shook the dirt from her head before putting all power into her legs and leaping out of the way at the last second, just before Kjersti collided with the ground where she was once sitting. A small rain of dirt and grass came down on the midgarsormr’s head, but she was already on the move and positioning for another attack. Wysteria’s throat sac inflated and deflated rapidly, and I wasn’t sure if it was an equivalent to heavy breathing or some sort of tic she was performing to regulate her nerves or psych herself up. She picked her target, re-positioned, and performed another mighty leap into the lee of one of the small hills and out of my sight. As much as it was to Kjersti’s advantage to stay low and use the valleys to obscure her movement, Wysteria was smaller and could hide even more easily.
The great snake slithered around one of the hillocks and vanished into the maze of moors as well, starting my own toe-tapping anxiety responses. I didn’t have eyes on either one of them, and while I wanted to call out I was concerned my voice would impair Wysteria’s ability to sense the sound of her opponent’s scutes pushing through the silky grass. Instead, I forced my mouth closed and swallowed hard, forcing my thoughts to Alexsandr on the other side of the pitch. He had raised a hand to his chin, stroking gently at the divot between his lower lip and the bottom of his goatee. He had the stony exterior of a master strategist, giving nothing away in his ice blue eyes. Suddenly, they lit up, and a second later I could see Kjersti spring out from her hiding spot and land with fangs bared at another obfuscated spot on the battlefield. My heart sank and time ticked in slow-motion until I saw a lavender cloud rise up from between the hills. Soon after, Wysteria came hopping out of the valley onto some high ground before taking another dramatic jump into the low grass. Kjersti followed, nostrils almost flapping with how quickly they were moving, her head on a swivel and her tongue flicking at the air to get a lead on her prey. Alexsandr put his fingers before his eyes like he was performing the first half of the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture, and his lips twitched into a small frown as he gazed upon his reptilian esper. It looked enough like a gesture for spellwork and immediate disappointment to me that I was able to catch my held breath.
“I think Wysteria got her,” I whispered to Red, who could only bring himself to nod as he continued to focus on the action.
The terramor toad and the midgarsormr continued their game of cat and mouse a few more times, Wysteria avoiding Kjersti’s fangs more effectively since she wasn’t trying to apply her Venomous Vapors anymore. Apparently, she had a better grasp on when her poison was working than Red or I did and was now just leading the snake on a merry chase through the mounds. Kjersti was growing more frustrated by the second, but instead of making her sloppy and careless it seemed to sharpen her resolve and forced her to calculate a bit more. She began circling Wysteria a few times before attempting to strike, and she even stopped opening her mouth when she leapt. The behavior was confusing, and I was starting to get impatient. Every other opponent Wysteria defeated had succumbed to her poison this long after being exposed to it. Was Kjersti still suffering from it at all? Never had I more desired some kind of heads-up display to tell the hit points and status conditions of the creatures in the fight. Between these thoughts and the adrenaline pumping through my system, stymieing my own analytical mind, it took me too long to figure out that she was trying to lure my esper friend into a trap, and only when all the pieces fell into place did I find the pattern in her designs.
“Wysteria, look out!”
It was too little, too late. She had leapt away from a feinting strike by Kjersti; no fangs and braced to hit the ground slithering. The serpent had been studying how Wysteria leapt and somehow divined a method to get her to jump right where she wanted her. The terramor toad was smack in the middle of a long straight between the hills, and by the time she realized she was out in the open, Kjersti was already en route to attack. The snake’s jaws closed around Wysteria’s body, and she croaked in surprise and pain, lavender gas spewing from her mouth in a desperate attempt to defend herself against the attack. One of the midgarsormr’s fangs had missed the lower half of her body, but the other was piercing the meat behind her shoulder, and she could only move one arm to try and force herself from Kjersti’s trap-like grip. Both the toad and the snake began to falter, Wysteria’s efforts growing less frantic as the midgarsormr’s head drooped, going still as they both slumped to the ground. There was a tense space of seconds where I couldn’t take my eyes off Wysteria. I couldn’t see her breathing for the way Kjersti’s jaws were closed around her, and I was desperate for a sign of life. She was the first esper who was really on my team, the first one I called over on purpose, my friend. Esper battles weren’t usually fights to the death, but Red’s voice droned in my mind like a funeral dirge. ‘There’s risk in any fight, right?’ ‘It happens.’
“The second fall is a draw!” The judge’s voice cut through phantoms of Red in my mind, and it snapped my eyes up to him before returning to scrutinize Wysteria. “As the Gladiator has no remaining espers capable of combat for this contest, the victory is awarded to the challengers, Red Company!”
Tanis’ voice whooped loudly, but it seemed hollow and far away. With the match officially over, I could legally enter the arena, and I almost tripped over the small hills in my dash before Alexsandr’s magic flattened them out. His long legs and cool stride saw us reaching the tangle of espers at the same time, and he gently prised Kjersti’s jaw open as I extracted her tooth from Wysteria’s wound. Claret seeped freshly forth, and my right had started working the spell to mend her injuries while my left scooped her gently out of the serpent’s maw. I re-learned how to breathe when I saw her eyes blink open, and the tension released from my shoulders and back when she threw up today’s breakfast of half-digested insects into my hands. Wysteria looked at me, croaking what I assumed was a small apology for the mess, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“It’s OK, Wysteria. You’re alive… and we won.”
Finally, I allowed the excitement to take me over. It spread through my body with a tingling energy that stung my eyes and brought forth tears that had been no doubt largely primed in preparation to mourn my fallen friend. I almost didn’t know how to handle the feeling as I’d never won something so public that felt so important. I’d never had someone cheering my name over any real accomplishment, or really even been involved in a situation where the stakes were this high. All the minor victories of my life had either been expected like graduating school, or private like winning a match of no consequence in an online video game. Even if it was just the judge, Tanis, and a few bored citizens of Brum applauding me, it filled me with more emotions than I was prepared to process. Red’s tiny hand gently tapped the side of my thigh, and he smiled at me. It was a soft smile of pride, of reassurance. He gestured forward, drawing my eyes to Alexsandr and Kjersti, the latter of whom was now coiled in recouperation from her own venom-inflicted internal injuries. The Gladiator was also smiling, and he took a few steps forward to close the distance between us.
“Your espers fought well today,” he commended. “Few beginning chainers with terramor toads have mastery over their poison gas, much less the practiced ability to apply it and focus on staying alive rather than bashing their bodies against the enemy. I believe Wysteria here is the first of her kind to defeat mighty Kjersti.”
“Thank you, sir.” He knew her name and thought enough to speak it. That honor was more than I was expecting and made the pile of feelings inside me a little more precarious. I blinked away the water in my eyes and tried to think of something to say in response. “I won’t pretend I have much to compare it to, but your team were incredible opponents.”
“I will take the compliment as it’s meant,” he grinned, clapping me on the shoulder. “Rest and celebrate, Red Company. You are now officially one step closer on the road to becoming Grand Champions.”