The stairs ended after a few minutes of walking. Estimating the distance, Arborior guessed there were about 100 meters separating his cell level from the ground floor. Slowly but surely, with the help of Raven's scouting, he had the map of The Arena forming within his mind.

In the overworld, they were on a plateau with four large interconnected domes, each housing a gladiator pit. Each pit - H, I, J, and K - was a ring of cells around the central battle arena, and The Pits were accessible to any clientele that made the journey to the forbidden colosseum. Outside The Pits was a thriving black market village, complete with their own inns and other tourism services. Underneath the ground, 7 separate “corridors” of cells - labelled A to G - were reserved for the fighters deemed strong enough to perform for the VIP clients in the caverns.

He opened the door on the final landing where the colder air above stung his eyes momentarily and he bumped immediately into two guards on patrol.

“Hey!” one of them exclaimed. “Watch it!”

“Sorry!” he quickly defused the situation.

After a few clicks of tongues and grunts of frustrations, the two guards moved on, and Arbor let out a sigh of relief that the guard outfit he had stolen was working as intended. He had about another hour before the guards on his level checked in on their cell, and he had messages that needed to be delivered.

Straightening himself, he left the doorway and strolled into the open. He was now on the ground level, in the outer ring of one of The Pits. He needed to get to the inner ring where the cells were.

It was not just guards in the outer rings. Mercenaries and drug dealers, slavers and wanted criminals, and even some well off civilians with sick fetishes, all wandered around the level, a large ring concourse held up by giant pillars; Above which, shouts of ecstasy erupted as another gladiatorial death match wowed the audience into a fervour. Aside from the daily amounts of murder and manslaughter taking place, one could easily mistake the building for nothing more than a theatre or stadium running another round of sports or performance for spectators.

Despite being a decent fighter, Arbor could not help but feel a tinge of forebode without Zen at his side. The wolf had been a constant companion for him, and they fought as a well drilled pair. It felt as if one of his arms had been lobbed off.

He trailed off, searching for the gate that would lead him to the inner ring. A group of drunkards started a brawl near the entrance and guards rushed to the scene to break up the fight. Tellers behind stone counters watched, absentmindedly taking money for the bets placed by those queueing up while enjoying the scrap.

Arbor took the opportune distraction and slipped through one of the unguarded doors near the counter, negating the risk of being checked further. The centre ring was a short corridor that served as both a connector of the outside world and a checkpoint for the inside, serving as base stations for employees with offices, holding stations for errand customers with jails, and a heavily guarded vault room for counting and storing money. The only way of traversing into the inner ring where the cells were was to go through the barracks stationed east and west.

The trick with infiltration was not to keep one's head down, but rather, move confidently as if you had been there forever. In fact, being too cautious drew in more suspicions. Head held up high, Arbor strolled past anyone from armoured guards to well-dressed henchmen. The only time he slowed was when a single other dark elf walked by. There were very little of their kind up on the surface world, and those who lived there generally retained the isolationist culture from their underground city. However, it was a small community, and they weren't immune to gossips. But the other dark elf guard simply zoomed past him without another peek back.

Still, Arbor could not help but take a quick glance into the opened vault room, the metallic and leather tang of common currencies wafting across his nostrils. Within, half a dozen accountants checked off boards of finances. Crates and bags of coins and straps of quints littered the shelves and tables.

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Finally, he slipped into the eastern barrack behind another guard. With chest out confident, he waltzed across the mostly empty room. The barracks had a dozen bunk beds for those stationed at the arena. Others lived off-site. Cabinets of shared weapons lined the near walls, and a quartermaster sat behind a horseshoe desk in the middle, collecting damaged equipment. It was the most dangerous place for Arbor to sneak through and he made an effort not to stick around for long, quickly sliding out the door on the other side of the room.

The atmosphere changed instantly. The buzzing customers and clanging steps of guards vanished in silence. The bricked walls of the cell tunnels curved to his left and right, flaming torches guiding the way at barely visible intervals. All sense of direction vanished within the dim light. The cell immediately opposite him used to be his. Now, it was empty, saved for dried blood that stained the floor. It seemed the last occupant had bled into the ground. He was about to take a left turn anti-clockwise to the path but remembered that patrols moved in the opposite flow. It was a longer walk but drew less attention, thus he made his move.

Two-thirds of the cells were occupied. Most gave no second glance to him as he walked by. Those were the veterans, used to their captor's daily strolls. The ones who did stare - the new bloods - burned hatred into him. Some spat. Others cursed. One ran up to the bars and reached out, grabbing Arbor's shoulder. He broke the prisoner's arm against the steel. A loud crack followed by a scream echoed. The prisoner can request for a medic later, but for now, Arbor had to steel his will and act the part. A heartless caretaker for a bunch of mindless, worthless, beasts.

After what felt like kilometres of walking, he finally reached his destination. A single corridor in the north extended straight down into darkness away from the main cells, not a single torch hung on the wall past the corner. He turned down the road, letting his dark vision adjust to the light slowly retreating with each step.

Finally, at the end of the path was a heavy steel vault door with a slot underneath.

Arbor bent down to the gap. “Hey, you alive in there?”

“The door's open,” a raspy male voice answered. “Just come in. It's stupid if you get caught outside.”

The dark elf clicked his tongue in annoyance. He pulled at the heavy door and sure enough, it creakily swung opened. He widened the entrance just for him to slip through before closing the vault cell behind him.

“Argh!” Arbor exclaimed as sudden light blinded him. “What are you doing?”

“What?” the man answered. “It's dark.”

“I'm a dark elf, idiot. I can see in the dark.”

“Oh,” he replied unapologetically. “Well, too late now.”

Slowly, Arbor let his eyes readjust. The cell they were in was about 4 metres wide and tall. A bed, toilet, and tub for bathing accounted for all the necessities. Crysts marking the walls glowed in protective symbols to restrain magic within. Despite the precaution, the man leaning against the sink had casually summoned a ball of light to float beside him. His panta black hair which seemingly ate luminosity had the streak of someone not afforded a good shower in months. His skin was as cleaned as the conditions allowed, though still marked by the dirt of the condition he lived in. A scraggly beard denoted the months since last kept, and he wore nothing but a patchwork leather pants. Despite the situation, his body was beyond fit, packs of muscles making up his abs and sets of lean but mean arms and legs with veins that throbbed waited for the next person to challenge them.

“What are you doing here?” The man asked.

Arbor held a hand to his headache. “Aramas is ready. Time is two days from today. Can you even tell the time in this shithole?”

“Usually I use the amount of screaming from the fights to gauge a day's end.”

The dark elf shrug. “It's fine. You'll probably know the signal when you hear the giant explosions we're putting up.” He took a deep breath and the stench of soaking sweat, dried blood, and dew walls got to him. “Well, I'm getting out of here. Reeks. See you, Ierba.”

He turned to leave and Trini stood, silhouetted at the door, arms crossed, waiting for the dark elf to react.

“Yes, it's the same person,” Trini answered

Nadier was in the room now, away from his flashback. The walls were quiet in the dark, its magic faded long ago. Instead of blood and sweat, dried disinfectant was the overwhelming sense in the room now.

Turning away from Trini, Nadier stepped deeper into the cell. The tub, bed, sink, and toilet had been in disuse, mould spread across their corners. Chains hung from the ceiling and floor of the centre, binding the limbs of the figure kneeling the middle. Though the chains were loose, the cloaked figure made no attempt to move. It was Atro's mysterious bodyguard.

Nadier knelt down before the living corpse. “Ierba Langsley. What did they do to you?”