Jones had been woken up by his alarm. ‘Alarms, the most useful nuisance ever.’ Jones thought while he leaned over and turned off the annoying thing. He sighed, and grabbed his ‘phone’ off his bedside table, and checked in on how his arena faction was doing. Jones sighed slightly when he saw his notifications.

* A village was raided.

* A combat engagement started.

* Victory! Your forces have defeated the enemy.

Looks like someone has been busy. ‘I guess I better inform the grunts about the alliance I made with the “Queen of the forest” Tatena. Eh, I’ll do that when I finish off a cup of nectar.’ Jones thought as he threw the covers off his skeletal legs and got up and out of bed. His room was small compared to other gods' massive bed chambers. Jones quickly checked his ‘phone’ for his schedule, and then he assigned most of his jobs off to other people, mostly former office workers he had recruited to do his job for him.

That system had helped him a lot. When an office-type worker died without being a good or bad person, Jones let them go to heaven if they did a couple centuries of work for him. Of course, there were things he couldn’t hand off to an unmortal, so Jones was pleasantly surprised when he completely cleared his schedule.

Jones rarely had a full day to himself. He decided he might as well go to the areal bar and watch the action unfold there. While the gods have many ways and places to watch the blood bath of the arena go down, Jones preferred to go down to this little bar on the edge of paradise instead of the stuffy stadium. To this end, Jones put on cargo pants, a T-shirt, and an Adidas hoodie.

He was off duty, so he didn’t bring his scythe, which lay by the doorframe, as he pulled on his socks and a pair of sneakers. He opened the door, which turned into a portal to the bar as he stepped through.

Jones’s body materialized as he stepped through into a small well kept biker-type bar. Jones glanced around the glimmering laminated wooden tables for any of the other regulars.

“You’re early. No one else is in.”

Came the booming voice of the blue snake-like bartender from behind a well-worn wooden bar. The bartender’s name always seemed to slip everyone’s mind, no matter if they were sober or wasted. So his name had just become barkeep. The burly snake with arms didn’t seem to dislike the name, so he just went along with it. Barkeep ran almost every drinking establishment in paradise. No one knew if there was just one Barkeep or multiple Barkeeps.

No one really was that intrigued in figuring out the Barkeep ‘mystery.’ mainly because he made the best drinks in the pantheon.

“Could I have the usual, and If you don’t mind, could I make a quick adjustment to the bar?”

“It’s alright as long as you don’t brake anything.”

Said the burly bartender as he slid a shot of nectar mix along the waxed bar to Jones. Jones snapped his fingers, and in several places the wall above the bar was replaced with TV screens, and speakers seemed to appear in the corners of the roof. All the TVs clicked on to show a female blue dragonkin in full-plate armor. Jones could only tell that she was dragonkin because she didn’t have a helmet on.

“WELCOME, GODS, AND GODDESSES, TO YOUR EVENING ARENA FIX!”

Jones looked down at the shot glass in his bony hands, downed it, and thought, ‘this is gonna be good.’

“First, we’ll start out with Kiger’s Lyluks, the Lyluks have been completely wiped out by Gren’s Goblins. Kiger has been having a rough go of it lately. With most of his arena submissions being wiped out in days. Expect to see him in the bars tonight!”

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The announcer spoke with a tone full of annoying glee.

Jones kept watching as the announcer talked about changes, and slowly she made her way around the globe. Most of the updates were from the large war currently ongoing between Gren’s Goblins and Oroki’s Orks. Then the part that Jones was tuning in for came up,

“... now we move over to the human territories and the small skirmishes happening along the border regions of the Human and Goblin territories. Just a little reminder to those in the audience that if you watch any further than this, then you will not be able to contact your priests in the area for 2 weeks.”

Jones thought about turning off the screens, but he didn’t. The ensuing blood bath would be well worth it.

“Anyway, let's continue-”

The speaker was cut off by the door swinging open. A creature that could be described as a minotaur wearing a toga walked into the bar. Jones quickly waved him over. The minotaur walked over and took a seat at the bar next to Jones.

“Barkeep, could I have my usual.”

The big blue snake nodded and reached under the counter to start making the drink.

“Kiger looks like you need something stronger than that.”

The minotaur had slouched in his seat just after taking it.

“Na, my usual is just fine for me. Just as long as I get enough of it.”

The minotaur replied with a slight smile. They drank together enough that little interaction had played out several times already. It was a little ritual and check-up at the same time. Jones shrugged and turned back to the screen.

“... While the Goblins had raided several villages along the border, the humans just had to take it while they form a reaction force.”

The announcer had been shown something off-screen. They could tell because her expression changed as she read the information.

“Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen, we are getting reports in that human forces are about to ambush a Goblin raiding party. Let’s watch, shall we.”

Behind the announcer, the screen showed a forest in the dead of night. A small trail with figures sat around a fire.

“Good luck Jones.”

Said the intently watching Kiger.

“I don’t need it. Just keep watching.”

Kiger shot me a look, then shrugged and took my advice to keep watching. The announcer had waited, probably waiting for bets to be placed, then continued,

“The bets coming in from the betting stand to place the human’s odds at 1-3 against. Anyway, in this engagement, there are only 3 humans facing 15 goblins. While humans might be stronger individually, the goblins' numbers can easily overwhelm them. In any case, this is going to be a blood bath.”

____________________________________________________________________________

The sun had gone down an hour ago. I did another quick check of my gear.

Mags? I quickly pulled them out and checked the spring tension. Full.

NVGs? I flipped them down and back up again. Working.

Frags? All of them had their pins. Ready to be pulled.

I slowly pulled the bolt back on my rifle, checking the chamber. The dull shine of brass confirmed that I was locked and loaded. I was good, so I looked over to Kazamir and Alexei. We all had dropped our packs on the ground, but Alexei was quickly looking through them one more time. ‘As if he didn’t know we didn’t have any more grenades or something.’ I thought as he pulled something out, stashed it, then got up.

Kazamir, for his part, was resting against a nearby tree trunk. He had tilted his helmet to cover his eyes. He was probably sleeping. I walked over and tapped him with the toe of my boot.

“Get up, it’s go time in five.”

Kazamir seemed to come alive. He got up, straightened his helmet, then scooped up his rifle.

“Remember, no talking on the radio. Clicks only, and Kazamir, you’re sticking close to Alexei for this OP. Alexei, you remember the codes?”

“Yea, one click for ‘in position,’ two for ‘open fire,’ and three for ‘retreat.”

“Alright, let’s get to work.”