Walking through the dark tunnel, the travelers kept one hand against the wall so that they would feel less lost. A small glow emanated from Azim’s round eyes, but it was not enough to see the path ahead of them. While the knight seemed confident and knowing of his surroundings, the others were a fair bit more cautious.
Eventually, the knight stopped walking. Leone bumped into the man’s armor, leaving Riva to bump into him. Behind them all, Azim stopped himself early, as did Roman. The group wondered why they had stopped, but the knight quickly answered their unspoken concerns. “We are at the door to the first arena, but I must warn you all,” the man uttered. “Once we pass through this door, we will be in the heart of the battle. Some floors have more order, some are more of a free-for-all. The first floor falls into the latter category.”
“Wait, so… there are no sidelines?” Riva inquired. “Once we’re inside, we’re just… in it?”
“Yes, however, there a few nuances to the arenas,” explained the knight. “When you first enter the stadium, there will be a Personal Barrier around you for 4 seconds. During these 4 seconds, no one can attack you, but you are unable to extend any attacks of your own. Use the short amount of time you have to make sense of your surroundings, and quickly prepare yourself for when you’re going to jump into the fight.”
“Okay, okay sounds good,” Leone replied. “Everybody ready?”
The group turned to face Azim behind them, whose glowing orange eyes were the only source of light brightening up the space around them, albeit faintly. The others squinted at the brightness of his artificial drops of radiating amber. “I am ready,” the robot responded.
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In the arena, the five adventurers were separated. Azim, Riva, Leone, and the knight were along the edge of the circle in four different spots, though because Azim had kept his hand on Roman, the moss-covered cat was still with him.
The travelers had not known what had happened, save for the knight, or how they had ended up apart. When the armored man had opened the door in the tunnel, there had simply been a flash of blue light. The group had been blinded for a moment, but when they opened their eyes, they were in the middle of an arena, away from one another.
A translucent blue bubble surrounded each of the adventurers. It was just wide enough for them to stretch out an arm without touching it. None of them had much time to prepare, as the knight had said, because as soon as they appeared in the arena, the attention was on them.
In the center of the fighting area, clustered together, was a horde of Skeletons. They carried various weapons and shields, though most of them seemed rather plain. The horde somewhat blended together, with none of the skeletons really being distinguishable from one another, and their only noticeable differences being the items they carried. As soon as the adventurers had popped onto the scene, the skeletons went rabid. They scattered from one another and toward the five new combatants, swinging their spears and swords recklessly.
“Give me one those little guys!” the knight screamed, running toward one of the skeletons approaching him.
“Hell yeah!” Leone said in response, seeing how the man in armor was facing the situation. “Strength Switch!”
Three men made of bones swarmed the knight, two with spears and one with a sword. The man ducked the thrusts of the two spears and lunged toward the sword-holder. The middle skeleton swung its blade down in front of its ribcage in a horizontal arc, completely missing the knight, who sidestepped out of the way and grabbed the skeleton’s wrists. “I’ll take that!” the man shouted, breaking the skeleton’s hands off and stealing its weapon.
By the time the other two began to turn around, the knight was already prepared, putting up his guard to block the swinging spears. Two swift cuts and the long sticks were each split in half. Finishing up the job, the knight spun a full 360 degrees just as the two unarmed enemies were within a few feet from him, slicing their skulls clean off their vertebrae, along with the unhanded one that remained on the other side of him. The satisfied man didn’t even bother to watch as the headless bodies of bone fell to the ground, simply running after another to keep up his thrill.
Leone followed in the man’s footsteps, squaring up to the incoming skeletons with no fear. The meatless minions swung all sorts of weapons at the young man, who easily dodged and rolled off the attacks. After giving the skeletons plenty of chances to strike and seeing they would not be getting any closer, Leone decided it was time to return fire.
The young man grabbed one of the skeleton’s spears just above the point and gripped it tightly. Pulling as hard as he could to the left, Leone swung the spear around him, dragging the skeleton holding it as he did. His twists waved in front of his face as he spun, and bones scattered all around him as the spear-holder smashed into the skeletons around them. He tossed the spear aside, which no longer had anyone wielding it on the other end. Looking around, the young man saw more and more men of bones materializing in the center of the arena and fanning out.
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“Yo! Knight dude! How many of these guys are there?” shouted Leone.
The knight slashed a newly picked-up sword and dropped another two bone bodies before looking up. “They spawn endlessly, but a staircase to the next floor will appear when we break enough of them,” he shouted in response. “I’m sorry, I didn’t count last time so I don’t know how many to expect.”
“Don’t worry about it man, I could do this all day!” Leone exclaimed pridefully.
Meanwhile, Azim was taking a more defensive approach. The first skeleton to invade Azim’s space merely scratched at the metal man’s personal barrier. As soon as he appeared in his location and was made aware of his new surroundings, the robot started a counter for how long his barrier had remaining. At 1.75 seconds remaining, the skeleton had reached him and slashed one diagonal strike. At 0.5 seconds remaining, the skeleton brought down a second blade in a strike mirroring the first.
As the skeleton reeled back its hands to swing both swords at once, Azim’s barrier reached 0.15 seconds. Still standing in his stiff position, he waited for the man made of bones to follow through. As the skeleton swung, the barrier dropped. The robot anticipated this. He was ready. Not losing any sense of composure, the android kept his legs firm and leaned back, perfectly ducking both blades without losing balance. As Azim lifted himself back up, he was met with a perfectly exposed skeleton’s ribcage. In one swift motion, the metal man launched his left arm forward, smacking into the skeleton’s skinless chest and blasting him back, crashing through several other bodies of bone as he flew. When the skeleton finally reached the other side of the arena, its bones shattered everywhere as it hit the wall, leaving no sense of sentience behind.
Seeing another go after Riva just as her barrier released, Azim ran toward the woman, with Roman following closely behind. Brandishing an axe, the skeleton approaching Riva brought its weapon down just as the woman’s barrier dissipated. She closed her eyes and raised her arms in defense, but was not met with any impact or pain. Opening her eyes, she saw Azim perpendicular to her and the skeleton, holding the mindless minion’s arm from bringing its axe any lower.
With his only arm busy, the robot chanted, “Metal Sway,” and sent the axe flying out of the skeleton's hand. It floated up for a second, passing over Riva’s head, before swinging back down like a boomerang and decapitating the man made of bones.
As the headless skeleton fell limply to the ground, Roman walked over and aggressively gnawed at one of its arms, angry with the sentient bone pile for attacking Riva. The woman laughed. “Good boy, Roman. Thank you very much for your help.”
Turning to face the swarm coming towards them, the metal man noticed a thin aura enveloping his body and arm in front of him. It was familiar. From behind him, the robot heard, “Alright, sweetie, go get ‘em. None of them are even going to touch you!”
Pulling a scimitar to his left hand up from the ground with Scrap Return, the robot slowly walked into the fray to join Leone and the knight. Roman stayed behind with Riva, making good company and keeping her safe as more skeletons rushed toward them. The moss-covered cat would jump on the bodies of bone as they came forward, while Riva would rip the heads off them once on the ground and throw them against the nearby wall.
The adventurers tangled with the endless swarm of skeletons for about 10 minutes straight, knocking their bones apart and causing new ones to come forth, only for those new bone bodies to smash apart as well. The various pieces of the skeletons would dematerialize seconds after being defeated, as if being released from a conjuring spell. None of the fighters kept track of the skeletons taken down, except for Azim, who managed to keep track of the enemies that everyone took down, even while focusing on fighting the mindless minions in front of him. 12. 34. 57. 73. 98.
Grabbing a skeleton each, Azim and Leone threw their respective skinless minions toward each other’s, sending them crashing and splattering their bony fragments in all directions. 100. Despite the skeletons continuing to spawn and come forward with no change, the group noticed a difference in their circumstances. Along one section of the edge of the arena, a doorway had magically appeared with what appeared to be a staircase going up inside it. “There!” the knight yelled to the other adventurers. “That’s the way to the next floor! Move!”
The knight charged forward, knocking skeletons down as he barreled towards the stairway. Azim followed close behind but turned to find Riva. Leone, who realized why Azim had stopped, called to the robot, “Don’t worry buddy, go! I got her!”
“Speed Switch!”
While Azim made his way to the doorframe, smacking away skeletons as he did, Leone raced back toward Riva. The young man clotheslined one body of bones as it crept near her and Roman. “Need an escort, m’lady?” He offered jokingly.
She nodded with a confident smile and ran behind the young man, making sure the moss-covered cat followed along. When she turned to look for the dark green creature, she saw it dragging behind the top half of a skeleton by its right arm, the animal nonchalantly carrying its wrist in its mouth. With Leone knocking back any skeletons in their immediate area, the three made it to the stairway and met up with Azim and the knight. “Up here, let’s go, come on!” shouted the armored man from halfway up the steps.
Once past the doorframe and on the stairs with the other two, Leone and Riva found that the skeletons were still trying to reach for them. For whatever reason, they could not walk past the doorframe and up the stairs after the adventurers, but their arms poked through, unsuccessfully clawing for them. The knight had mentioned that this had not happened the last time, and when he turned to see the path up the stairs ahead of them, he called to the others that the stairway had not opened up yet. The group wondered what to do or how they could advance when Riva looked down and saw Roman was still carrying the skeleton torso.
“Azim, dear, can you tell Roman to leave the skeleton behind?” she asked the robot. “I think him trying to bring it with us is what’s keeping the rest of them awake.”
“I understand,” the android replied blankly, turning to his new cat and pointing down the stairs. “Roman, please release the skeleton from your maw, for it appears to be inhibiting our progression.”
Lowering its head in disappointment, Roman begrudgingly let go of the body of bones, letting it rattle down the stairs until it rested back in the arena, just along the edge.
A moment later, the skeletons stopped reaching through the doorway. The air around the travelers shifted. The minions could still be seen, the wall to the arena did not immediately close, and yet it seemed as if once Roman’s trophy had reached the bottom of the stairs, the adventurers were no longer even a concern to the skeletons down below. The three humans panted as they caught their breath, while the metal man just stood beside them unbothered. Roman snuck up to Azim once more and nuzzled against his side.
Looking around at his new companions, the knight asked, “Is everybody alright?”
“Yeah, we’re good. Real good,” replied Leone a bit enthusiastically.
“Good. Then I suggest we make haste up these stairs,” the man continued, as if delivering a speech. “The second floor is eagerly awaiting our arrival.”