--- Dov ---

"Are you alright, Morgan?" Dov asked her sister.

"Do I look alright to you?" Her sister responded. The hostility wafting off of her was almost palpable.

To be fair, Dov had to admit that it was kind of a stupid question. Morgan had just been revived three hours ago. From what she had been told, this was not a pleasant experience. To make things worse, she was still crippled. The woman was lying on a hospital bed, with both her arms and legs missing. The doctors had attached intravenous feeds to keep her supplied with nutrients, after Dov explained that Davlash could regenerate on their own so long as they had enough food.

After explaining the situation and setting up the feeds, the doctors had promptly fled the room and left her sister on her own.

"What did you do to get everyone to run away?" Dov asked in exasperation. "They are doctors who have sworn an oath, and we are basically medical miracles for them. I actually had to threaten one of them with a lawsuit because he wouldn't stop poking at Alexis."

"Alexis is already up?" Morgan asked.

"He is." Dov responded. "They revived him two days ago. It took some time for them to prepare a second resurrection spell."

"Why am I not surprised?" Morgan said. "They don't even have the ability to revive multiple people on short notice. I thought this place was supposed to be one of the largest cities of Oruk, and they can't even get that right. Did you know that the doctors tried to use a Demurian divination pattern to check me for vitals? They are third-rate biomancers at best."

Out of all of her siblings, Morgan was the one who focused the most on her biomantic abilities. She took the thing that made their species unique, and specialized in it. Being reduced to her current state must be terrible for someone who took as much pride in her physical abilities as her sister did.

"And suddenly I understand why they all fled the room." Dov replied drily. "You do realize that nothing about our education was normal, right? You can't very well blame them for not being taught by some of the best teachers on the planet. And the difficulties with reviving people are not surprising either. You know full well that these spells require volatile ingredients that you can't hoard efficiently because they spoil quickly. We are just lucky to have a lot of them in our kingdom. And again, Elona is hardly a fair comparison for what you should expect from a typical priest."

"Bullshit." Morgan replied. "Even Edward could have done better than them."

"...who?" Dov replied.

Morgan blinked at her in confusion.

"Sorry, I should explain." Dov said. "I kind of changed my brain chemistry to improve my memory. I forgot most of my childhood memories except for things that I took care to save. I have no idea who Edward is. But don't worry! The knowledge should come back to me in a few months, and then I will be better than ever."

Dov smiled brightly at her sister. This was only a minor short-term sacrifice, for a great long-term gain. That should be obvious to anyone, right?

"That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard." Morgan responded. "You are telling me that after you were done physically mutilating my and Alexis' corpse, you went ahead and mutilated your own brain as well?"

"It's not like that!" Dov shouted in exasperation.

"It is exactly like that!" Responded Morgan.

Dov took a deep breath, then said "You know, I am starting to understand why my past self left me the messages about you that she did. I don't remember most of our childhood right now, but the message I left myself said that I should remember that we love each other, because it will be really difficult to believe after talking to you."

"Fuck you!" Morgan replied eloquently.

"...I'm sorry. That was a low blow." Dov replied. "Let's get back to the topic before this deteriorates further. I came here to ask if there is anything you need, since you scared away all the people who were supposed to help you."

"I need to get out of here." Morgan replied. "I can't stand lying here and being useless."

"I can't really help you with that." Dov said. "I guess you can show the doctors here how superior your biomancy is by regenerating your limbs extra fast?"

Dov was quite sure that Morgan would have flipped her off at this point, if only she had fingers.

"Can you at least get me to Alexis? He is in the same situation I'm in. It would be nice to talk." Morgan said.

"Sorry, but I can't do that either. Alexis is already out and about." Dov responded.

"What? How?" Morgan replied in shock. "There is no way he could regenerate that fast. Even I can't do that!"

"Oh, he hasn't regenerated yet. He just doesn't care."

--- Balron ---

"Run!" The young wizard shouted in a panic. "Get to cover! I will protect us!"

He cast a spell, and a partly transparent wall of force sprang up in front of him, in the middle of the arena in which they were fighting.

A basic spell, but well practiced, and cast while talking at the same time. Balron slightly raised his estimate of the man's abilities. It wouldn't be nearly enough for this battle, however.

"It's no use!" His ally, an orc archer, responded. "We have to take him out! Those defenses won't hold!"

Balron silently agreed with that assessment.

The defeated forms of their teammates were lying all around them. They were the only two left of their team.

The archer took aim, wide eyes darting across the arena. But their enemies were nowhere to be seen.

They were taking cover behind a boulder on their side of the battlefield. Their melee fighters had never even shown themselves.

Maniacal laughter suddenly echoed across the arena.

"Gods, that fucker is so disturbing." The wizard said nervously.

"Focus!" The archer responded.

That's when it happened again.

The form of a crippled gnome shot out from behind the boulder and looped through the air.

The archer reacted quickly, but his aim was off and the arrow sailed past Alexis.

Balron resolved to recommend remedial training sessions to the young man later. Being able to hit a moving target that is being telekinetically pulled around to dodge your arrows was certainly an advanced lesson for an archer, but as Alexis had just demonstrated it was merely unlikely to come up, not impossible.

He had made a list of such scenarios once and presented it to the chief of the guards. She had adopted some of these practices as part of the training for her more elite fighters, but this particular situation was not one of them. Maybe he should talk to her about it again, after the tournament was over.

Shortly after the archer's arrow sailed past Alexis, the Davlash unleashed his sorcery.

While he was still in the middle of his flight, he launched a lightning bolt at the wizard.

The lightning impacted the barrier, and shattered it instantly. The archer looked away in time, but the wizard was blinded by the bright flash of light. Naturally, Balron himself had a spell on him that protected from sensory overload, so he was unaffected.

Before the wizard could recover, Alexis launched a second bolt at him.

Balron was impressed at the Davlash's ability to keep cackling maniacally even while casting spells. Sorcerers like him usually had an easier time casting spells than wizards did, since their magic was more based on intuition than knowledge, but being able to laugh while casting was still an impressive feat, even for a sorcerer. Not particularly practical, mind you, but still impressive.

The spell hit the young wizard, and the impact threw him to the ground. His belt started glowing a bright orange.

The defensive enchantments in the belt had protected its wearer. The color indicated that he would be heavily injured, but not quite dead, if this had been a real fight.

This was only one of the many safety features used by the Tournament of Kharn to ensure the survival and relative safety of its participants. The priesthood had hired Balron not just as a referee for these minor qualifying rounds, but also as a security consultant. To his surprise, they actually did very well and he had had few points of criticism.

The most important safety feature was of course that they had a priest on hand who could resurrect anyone who died. Reviving people who only died recently was significantly less expensive than reviving them after time had passed, so this was actually cheap enough to be covered by the entrance fee of this very popular event. Still, shields and emergency teleports were much cheaper than resurrections, so the priesthood had layered redundancies upon redundancies to minimize the risk of death for the participants.

Kharn was a god of combat. There were many gods of combat, war, bloodshed, and other related concepts. What made Kharn unique was his sheer pragmatism, which explained why he was so popular in Oruk. Some war gods valued honor in combat. Other war gods declared that victory was all that mattered. Kharn meanwhile viewed even the concept of honor as a weapon. Adhering to it made it more difficult to win a fight, but being known for honorable conduct made people more likely to cooperate with you, which had strategic benefits in the long term. The correct degree of honorable behavior therefore depended on the situation, and on your goals.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Oruk's military had been adapted to this philosophy. It was split up into legions that held themselves to different standards of ethical conduct. The White Legion employed many paladins and priests, and had such a solid reputation that they were often seen as liberators instead of conquerors. The Black Legion in contrast was deliberately filled with horrifyingly effective ends-justify-the-means sociopaths. They usually patrolled the Realms Below, and they were never deployed in war against other countries unless those countries broke the rules of engagement first.

The threat of deploying the Black Legion often worked to keep wars relatively civil. A country that fought Oruk but followed the rules of conduct could expect to survive even if they lost the war. A government that used unethical means in a war against Oruk had to expect assassinations, executions of government officials, torture, and worse.

Kharn's priesthood held regular tournaments such as the one Balron was refereeing for today, which brought in large amounts of money. Kharn had no issue with commercialization so long as most of that money was used on things he cared about, such as developing more effective forms of warfare. In fact, he approved of it: Holding tournaments was a form of training, inspired zeal in soldiers, could be used to spread propaganda, and was useful for both recruitment and resource acquisition. All of these were related to warfare.

As a result, his tournaments were well-funded and very popular public events that drew in visitors from far away.

The arena in Northpass was one of the biggest and most sophisticated of its kind. This was owed to the fact that the Old Power Nuala, an immortal druid, had once participated in it, and decided on a whim that the arena was not big enough. So she used her druidic magic to manipulate the rock like clay, sunk the arena deeper underground, and expanded it in all directions.

Needless to say, she did not feel very challenged by the other contestants during the tournament. She had made up for that disappointment by going on a shopping spree to sample every type of alcohol and hard drug she could find in the city. Miraculously, not only did Northpass survive this, but nobody had died permanently.

Luckily, events like these were rare, as the Old Powers tended to keep each other in check. The priesthood held regular tournaments like the current one in which the prizes were quite low, and which served mostly as qualifiers for the true tournament that was held once every five years.

If Balron had wished to fight in the previous tournament a few years ago, he would have had to participate in these qualifiers. But after killing both a basilisk and an Elder Mind Warper, his powers had increased. It was quite likely that the priesthood would simply let him and his party skip qualifying matches like these. Even Galanys was far more powerful now than any of the contestants for whom he was refereeing today.

Well, except maybe Alexis. That man was ridiculous.

"Do it again!" Alexis shouted to his teammate, an orc wizard. The young woman had been using telekinesis to lift Alexis off the ground and pull him through the air.

Between his small frame, missing limbs that were just beginning to regrow, and the erratic flying movement caused by the telekinesis, the man was impossible for the enemy to hit. His own magic was almost entirely focused on offense. Balron was slightly nauseous just from watching him fight. Not because of the missing limbs, but because the sheer disregard for defense in favor of superior firepower was deeply disturbing to the old dwarf.

Although he had to admit, while it was a highly unconventional tactic, it worked wonderfully.

The orc smiled in amusement, and took a few seconds to cast her telekinesis spell on Alexis again. His teammates were random strangers that he had found while signing up for the tournament. The qualifying rounds required teams of exactly five people, and one member of their team had fallen ill. Balron had been there when they met. The team of strangers had first thought that Alexis was joking, since he was a cripple and had to be pushed in a wheelchair. They quickly changed their minds when he demonstrated how powerful his magic was.

The Davlash could combine genetic material from multiple sources. This ability also extended to sorcerous bloodlines. As a result, Alexis had turned himself into an amalgam of multiple different types of sorcerer. He had no real understanding of magic, but he had combined so many different sources of raw sorcerous might in his body that he was probably one of the most naturally talented sorcerers in the country.

His combat training was also far superior to what most contestants showed. But considering who his parents were, Balron was actually somewhat disappointed in this regard. They really should have taught him how to defend himself better.

In Balron's opinion, it had been a grave misjudgment by the organizers to let Alexis fight in the lower brackets of the tournament. In a country with such well developed biomancy as Oruk, being crippled was seen as a temporary condition, and not a lifelong issue. Kharn's priesthood was pragmatic enough that they would not turn Alexis away out of hand, since it was clear that the man did not need his body to fight. But the priests were not wise enough to investigate further and find out just how powerful his magic was. Otherwise they would have recommended a higher bracket of the tournament.

As his teammate's telekinesis took hold, the Davlash started laughing again, and he cast another spell.

Their opponents had taken cover behind a brick wall in the meantime. Balron knew from experience that this was not a good idea. He supposed it was difficult for most people to tell, but this wall was not particularly sturdy.

This time, Alexis released a powerful blast of frost. A poor tactical choice. Fire would have been much more effective. Frost blasts were easily blocked by solid obstacles, while flame had a tendency to move around walls.

Not that it made a difference here. Alexis substituted raw power for experience and skill.

Balron made a snap judgment, and cast a spell of his own.

The frost blast impacted the brick wall and destroyed it instantly, turning the bricks into shrapnel. The shrapnel flew directy at the terrified faces of the two combatants hiding behind it, only to be stopped in midair as it impacted Balron's own protective spell.

A klaxon sounded, announcing the end of the match.

The people on the ground started standing back up. They had been eliminated early in the fight, and as per the rules they had had to stop moving as the battle raged around them.

"That was bullshit." One of them said.

"Did we just get our asses kicked by a cripple?" Another asked incredulously.

"Oh gods. The others will never let us live this down, will they?" Added a third.

Meanwhile, Alexis' team was in good spirits. The orc tried to high-five Alexis, before she remembered that he didn't have arms and both of them started laughing. One of their teammates looked a little annoyed, though. He had been eager to fight, Balron remembered. But the plan had been that he would wait for the enemy to come to them, and Alexis had been so effective that he never even got to swing his weapon.

"Victory goes to team Rilton." Balron said, indicating the team Alexis had joined.

The crowd looked a bit unsure how to react. Some were applauding. Some were laughing.

As he led both teams out of the arena, Balron offered his own commentary.

"Alexis, your last spell was excessively powerful. It would have been strong enough to break the protective enchantment on your belts. I had to intervene directly. This is extremely hard to do by accident, so I have to deduct points for excessive force."

The defeated team blanched as they realized the implication. They had come very close to dying here. They would have been revived within a minute by a priest standing nearby, but it was well known as a deeply unpleasant experience. The priesthood did not like to be forced to revive people needlessly, which was why the rules against excessive force existed.

"That said, I congratulate you on your victory, and team Ondra for putting up a good fight. If you would like, I will go over any flaws I noticed with each of you individually later this afternoon."

"Thank you for the offer, sir! I will gladly hear what I could have done better." The archer of team Ondra responded, and the others were quick to affirm their interest as well.

Balron had been doing this long enough that he had acquired something of a reputation. His critique was brutal, and he knew that people said he sometimes had unrealistically high standards, but his assessments were usually correct.

"I would like to highlight two particularly interesting points." Balron continued. "Point one: Both of your teams favor offense over defense. You have seen what Alexis can do, but a single hit from an arrow would have taken him right out of the fight. Team Rilton made the better tactical choice by focusing on evasion, where team Ondra tried to take cover. You all saw how that went. It's a general lesson for designing security systems: A lock is only as good as the wall it is attached to."

"Point two: Excellent use of psychological warfare, Alexis."

"Huh?" Alexis responded in surprise.

"Your maniacal laughter was deeply disturbing even for an experienced adventurer like myself. At first I thought it was a bad idea: You laughter gave away your position. But then I noticed that you timed one of your attacks perfectly. You struck when your enemy was distracted by the disturbing noise."

"Oh. That." Alexis responded. "Yeah. That was a thing I did on purpose."

Nobody was fooled.

Balron blinked. That had been an accident? He had been sure it was on purpose. The timing had been just too convenient.

He supposed that traveling with his current party had spoiled him to believe that people did things on purpose, rather than out of madness or stupidity. He thought back to the people he adventured with in his youth. They had been far less professional, making small talk or joking in the middle of combat. In comparison to that, Atrog was pretty much the ideal of what a paladin should be like. And while Galanys and Rania might sometimes do things that confused him, they were disciplined when it counted. He hadn't seen Dov in combat very much, and not at all since she turned back into a humanoid, but he hoped that she was not too similar to her brother.

--- Galanys ---

Galanys and Dov were sitting in a bar. The place was popular and quite crowded, and the two of them had sat across from the most attractive man they could find.

"...but enough about that topic." Galanys said, bringing an end to their boring introductory small talk.

"I learned the most interesting fact from my girlfriend yesterday." She said, while pointing at Dov, who smiled amiably. "Did you know that the phrase 'casual sex' implies the existence of ranked, competitive sex?"

"It's really a very fun game. The objective is to make your partner have as much fun as possible. Whoever makes the other person happiest is the winner." She gave her most playful smile.

"It sounds weird, doesn't it? Why would you make a competition out of that? The thing is, Dov here is a very devoted follower of Brytius. You know how they can get, right? They look at everything like it is a skill to be mastered. According to Brytian doctrine, even fun things are a skill, and getting better at that skill means having more fun. Yesterday I learned that this also applies in bed."

"Honestly, I think Brytius' priests should use this fact as advertisement, then maybe he would be more popular. I don't pray to Brytius because he is very demanding of his followers, but let me tell you, my girlfriend has almost managed to convert me."

"Anyway, I'm looking for help. I keep losing to her. She is just too good. It's a competition where I don't really mind losing for obvious reasons, but I feel like I owe it to her to win at least a few times as well. So I need some help, and you look like you fit the bill."

The man looked more than enthusiastic, but as he opened his mouth to respond, Galanys held up a finger and interrupted him.

"Before you agree. I have to warn you, so that you know what you are in for. It's going to be very difficult. She is a really good biomancer. You can already tell that from looking at her. But it's even worse than it seems. She can shapeshift much better than a normal biomancer. She looks like an elf now, but that's only because I asked her to. When we went on our date yesterday, she looked like this."

Galanys cast a minor spell to project an image of Dov's form on the table. She looked like a human with dragonborn features.

"She can even change her biochemistry to produce pheromones and drugs. It's very unfair. How am I supposed to compete with someone who can produce an aphrodisiac in her saliva?"

"And last but definitely not least, she is a telepath. That means we can share experience with each other when we are mentally connected. So every time I make her feel good, it also feels good for me. And every time she makes me feel good, she feels that as well. But she has already gotten used to that ability, and I have not. So I'm basically competing against myself as well as her, at the same time."

"Sounds really difficult to win that competition, doesn't it? But you look like you might have what it takes to help me win."

"So what do you think? Are you up for the challenge?"

The man stared at her open-mouthed for several seconds. His mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.

"*You were right. That was way more fun than I was expecting.*" Dov told her telepathically. "*Look at him, trying to get his mouth to work again. I think you broke him. It's hilarious!*"

"*I know, right? It's so much funnier than sitting around and waiting for them to use uninspired pickup lines on you.*"

"*Oh, and thank you for not mentioning the whole 'genetically engineered foreign princess' thing in public. I don't think I would like that kind of attention.*"

"*Don't worry. I'm trying to have fun here, not embarrass you and give him a heart attack.*"