Stepping into the room, little lights like fireflies drifted down from the ceiling, dancing through the air in spirals and loops. Reaching the bottom of their descent, the hearth roared to life. The sudden burst of magic prompted them both to draw weapons and scan the room for monsters, fearing they had sprung a trap of some sort.

But, after a few moments, no monsters appeared and they sheathed their weapons. The fire was warm and cozy.

“Seems like a good spot for camp, if we can find our way back here later.”

Edgar nodded, scanning the ceiling and walls, which were decorated with a series of reliefs reflecting skeletons, zombies, and what looked like mushrooms. In the flickering fire light, they could also see the doors were numbered one through five. The center door, labeled number five, was a bit larger than the others.

“With the numbers like that, there must be an order to things, right?”

Mirai nodded, “which means five must be the rifts final boss.”

“Do you think we can clear this in three days?”

Mirai shrugged, “it’s only day one, we have a chance.”

“On that note, how are we even going to tell the time in here?”

“That’s what this is for,” Mirai withdrew a time piece on a chain. “I set it for three days.”

“So, maybe if we clear two rooms today and two rooms tomorrow?”

Mirai chuckled, “you are quite a planner, huh?”

“Too much?”

“Let’s just get started on the first room. Remember our main goal is not dying and taking out a few monsters along the way. Clearing the rift is a bonus.”

Together they walked over to door number one. The door’s frame was at least ten feet tall, made from white marble threaded with black. It looked similar to the marble of the temple above, just black instead of purple. The door itself was some sort of black granite.

As they approached, a glowing purple magic pooled in a channel carved into the floor, seeping up from the ground and filling the channel. The magic flowed towards the door like water, crawling up the veins in the marble until they glowed with purple energy.

Once the frame was fully saturated, a purple seam appeared in the door accompanied by the sound of a heavy lock unlocking and the doors ground open on their own. Glancing at the other doors in the room, the veins in the marble frames were still black and the doors were still closed.

“Looks like we were right about the doors.”

Mirai nodded, “ready?”

“Ready enough.”

The hallway beyond the door extended a long while into the darkness. Mirai lit a torch to keep her sanity, while Edgar scanned the corridor ahead. They moved carefully, wary of traps. Reaching the end of the corridor, they found another pair of doors made of wood and iron. As they approached, he realized a message had been hacked into the door with violent strokes.

Welcome

to the

Arena of Bone

“The Arena of Bone? Don’t tell me we’re walking into some sort of wrestling match.”

Mirai pushed through the doors and stepped out into a cavernous space. The majority of it was an empty abyss except for a large stone pillar in the very center. On top of the pillar sat an arena littered with bones. Even at this distance, Edgar could see the skull of something like a wooly mammoth and a rib cage tall enough for him to stand up in. A narrow pathway of stone zagged its way towards the arena from where they stood, cutting a path across the abyss.

The doors let out onto a narrow ledge and Edgar made the mistake of craning his neck over the edge, and staring into the nothingness below.

“Oh, god…”

He skittered back from the edge.

“Afraid of heights?”

“Afraid of certain death!”

“No problem. I’ll go first.”

As they walked, the ostensibly precarious stone path proved quite stable and Edgar regained much of his confidence. The main trick was not looking down.

The path led first to a viewing platform next to the fighting arena, which then had a set of stairs leading down onto the arena.

Stepping onto the larger platform, Edgar slapped his face to collect himself, “keep it together.”

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As they paused to look out over the arena, they heard the clicking of unfurling chains as four bronze braziers lowered from the ceiling, hovering over the abyss near each corner of the arena.

“Pretty, isn’t it?… sigh, makes me hungry.”

“...Hungry?”

“A bit actually. Does this world have hamburgers?—”

Edgar and Mirai glanced at each other, quickly realizing the voice didn’t belong to either of them. They spun, finding a zombie wearing sunglasses and a bowtie, sitting in a plush seat and idly flipping a blood red coin across its fingers.

Monster: Undead Arena Boss

* Type: [Undead]

* Level: 31

Edgar and Mirai reflexively drew their weapons, but seeing the monster’s level they knew fighting would be hopeless. They shrunk away from it, readying all the defensive skills they had.

“Don’t worry, I’m not the one you fight. I’m the one you talk to.”

Mirai groaned, mumbling to herself. “What is it with our luck? We’re two for two with talking monsters.”

The undead frowned and its’ decayed scowl proved quite intimidating. Mirai’s face whitened, which pleased the undead.

“Very good! Quake with fear. This is my arena—my turf. You play by the rules and you might just make it through.”

Edgar raised an eyebrow. “There are gangsters in rifts now too? Really?”

They smiled at him, raising a cigar to its mouth and lighting it with a match. Then, began flipping a coin across its mostly bone fingers, clink-clink-clink-clink.

“So… you’ll wanna know the rules, then?”

They waved a hand, releasing a stream of magic that formed itself into a score board over the far end of the arena.

There were two rows, labeled “E” and “M”, with three empty columns. The empty columns had an empty space in the header.

Leaning forward, the undead pointed a finger at the score board, peering over its sunglasses and revealing eyes that looked nearly human, white with vivid purple iris, but no pupils.

“Each of you fights three rounds in the arena, against my pets. If you win all your fights, I’ll arrange for a visit from a powerful benefactor as your prize. If you die… well, then you die! Do you accept these terms?”

“Do we have a choice?”

The skeleton flipped the coin across its fingers again, clink-clink-clink-clink.

“The terms can be negotiated and I do love negotiating. I could agree to a time limit, or maybe fighting to a knock out instead of death, or maybe even let you fight each others battles. However, the loot from each monster will be lowered to iron coins only and you won’t level,” the undead tapped the side of its sunglasses knowingly. “It’s a raw deal, if I say so myself, but… you’ll live.”

It puffed on its cigar while Edgar and Mirai huddled up.

“What do you think? If this guy was ever alive, he had a few screws loose.”

“Bit of a gangster complex.”

The undead cleared its throat, “Ahem, I can hear you. You’re like five feet away.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

“So, what do you think, Edgar? I feel like we should go for it. If there was someone in our party who was more of a support build, it’d make more sense to negotiate, but both of us can hold our own.”

“I agree. At some point, every fight is a risk and something about this ‘powerful benefactor’ is tripping flags in my RPG brain. We should do it.”

They turned back to the undead, who was smiling fiercely, having heard their whole discussion.

“So, you accept the terms?”

“We do.”

“Excellent.”

The skeleton snapped its fingers and the rocky passage back to the cavern entrance plummeted down and out of sight into the abyss, “who’s up first?”

Edgar and Mirai looked at each other.

The undead smiled, “I can flip a coin, if you like.”

Edgar shook his head, “No need. I’ll go first.”

“After that, let’s rotate each fight. That will give us a chance to recover between fights.”

The undead nodded and gestured at the arena, “whenever you are ready, sir.”

“Oof, weird. Nobody’s ever called me sir before. Not sure I like that.”

Mirai shook her head, groaning.

The undead gestured to his side, where a second plush chair appeared.

“A seat for you, miss, if you’d like to sit.”

“I’ll stand, thanks.”

“As you wish.”

The undead made an odd hacking sound, which Edgar eventually realized was an attempt to clear its decayed throat. When it spoke next, its’ voice boomed throughout the cavern.

“I summon the Bone Hound!”

Edgar heard a sound like a cold wind whistling through dead trees as a black tear in reality formed in the air over the far end of the arena.

“A rift in a rift? Is that even allowed?”

Along with the cold wind, globs of purple energy leaked out, reforming into the skeleton of a huge dog the size of a giant wolf. Its shoulder and hip bones were etched with red runes glowing with heat. It shook itself and then ran in a tight circle, stretching its legs. Then, it spotted Edgar and lowered itself into a crouch, growling at him.

Monster: [Bone Hound]

* Type: [Undead]

* Level: 1

Edgar lowered into a crouch as well, his nerves spiking as he barred his claws and readied his [Acrobatics] skill. As he stared down the bone hound, he felt a light tingle in the back of his mind from the budding skill.

“Good doggie. Maybe together we can unlock a shiny new skill.”

The undead’s voice echoed through the cavern.

“Fight!”

~~~~~~~~~~

* Check out the Stats Page for this Chapter here