The still bodies of players and crouching figures shrouded in black barriers littered the floor of the arena. I sat in my box seat with Maxwell and Raven watching the fight. It had been interesting, and had not at all gone how I expected. The crouching figures covered in black barriers were members of my thirteen that had been defeated.

There was a thud, and a player flew across the arena before they slammed into the wall. I didn’t know if they were dead, but when they slumped, they didn’t move. As of right now, only four of my thirteen remained in the fight. I personally had never needed the protection of the arena to survive, but I trusted Kellnock’s word that my new minions would be fine, even if they lost.

Against my four remaining minions stood seven players, not counting the one who’d just been hit. At the start of the fight, my thirteen were torn apart by the thirteen players. We had done our best to train and equip my new minions, but something had been missing. We pitted them against creatures provided by Kellnock and they had destroyed them, but the second they fought players the difference was clear.

While they all matched my thirteen in levels, the players were far more skilled in working together as a team and using their weapons and abilities. The exalted living dead were powerful combatants, no denying that. I was certain in a one-on-one fight at equivalent level they would be a match for almost any player, not even counting the strength they got from fighting together. However that had not been the case in this fight.

From my perspective, as the fight progressed, the thirteen’s skills and coordination were drastically increasing. Now, outnumbered as they were, and no longer at full strength, the remaining four exalted living dead were being hemmed in.

In preparation we had let the thirteen pick their own weapons and fighting styles. We determined what worked best for each of them simply by tossing them into a fight against a horde of zombies that stood no chance of actually hurting them. In that fight, along the walls of the room we had left racks of different weapons. Everything from war hammers to longbows to magical staffs. They’d not taken long to pick up their own type of weapon. Nothing was excessively powerful, but they were all of good quality.

The players scrambled, falling back from the remaining four. Of my thirteen, only Samson, De’Barak, Gideon, and Abimelech remained. All of them were either some kind of melee fighter or a magic melee hybrid. None of the pure casters or ranged fighters were still in the fight.

Abimelech was organizing and commanding the three others, they responded to her commands readily and promptly. She was a hybrid melee fighter type. In one hand she wielded a long sword while in the other she held a short ranged magical weapon that, to me, looked like a sci-fi pistol. It fired concentrated bolts of explosive eldritch death magic. The potency declined swiftly as the range increased.

As Abimelech organized the exalted living dead, so were the players organizing. I could already tell how this would end. Determining that there was no benefit to risking the rest of the fight, I stood and leaned on the railing of my box seat. I sent my will out towards Abimelech. Her attention instantly snapped to me. I thought I felt a whisper of resentment from what I was telling her to do. But a moment later, she followed orders.

Abimelech stepped in front of the group and placed her weapons on the white sand. The players had been just about to attack but when they saw this they stopped. The other three exalted living dead did the same.

I could tell the players still wanted to fight, but their pause, Kellnock materialized in the arena. “Congratulations, players, you have won.” He unrolled a piece of parchment, the crowd in the stands cheering. “As a reward, fill out the requested weapon on this parchment, for your fallen comrades when they return to us, they can find the same parchment with the clerk. Once it has been fully filled out, I will begin the production of your weapons.”

I left my box seat to head below to prepare for the fight. To my surprise, I found Livia waiting in the hall outside my seat. “How may help you?” I asked.

“I just wanted to warn you that in this next fight, Larry’s team is involved,” Livia explained. At my questioning look she continued. “We hope that this can possibly smooth things over.” She sighed heavily. “I harbor doubts, but it’s my final recourse.”

“You think they’ll play nice with the others?” I asked, not believing they would for a second.

“I think so,” Livia said. “The armor as a reward is a tempting thing. Only one other set has been claimed from the dungeon and it is far more valuable than any of the weapons.”

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“I didn’t know Kellnock was offering armor of that quality,” I said, looking down at my armor. I knew how powerful the armor could be, but I doubted he was offering the equivalent of my own.

“Oh, it is,” Livia agreed. “The option to have even further upgrades if they are willing to risk their gear is very tempting indeed.”

“Well, thank you for letting me know, I will keep an eye out for them in the fight.” I nodded at Livia and she smiled back. Telling me they would be involved was not an advantage for me, it was just a courtesy on her part. After all, knowing would not change how the fight went.

***

Necromancers sent by Kellnock were restoring all of my thirteen in our preparation room as I entered. Abimelech was waiting for me. “I am sorry for my failure, milord.” She bowed her head in shame, her voice was deep but smooth and formal.

“You did fine,” I assured her. “You are still learning your abilities. The point of these fights isn’t necessarily for you to win, though that would’ve been nice, but is for you to gain more experience. What lies before us will be difficult and we need to be as prepared as we can be.”

“Understood,” Abimelech agreed. She was fast becoming the leader.

The thirteen were divided into two groups, the ranged fighters and the melee fighters. I approached the ranged group first, inspecting each as they were restored. None of them had fancy armor, only wearing simple black robes or leather armor. Othniel was an eldritch wizard. I had been surprised by that. The eldritch mind would give them greater ability with the power but I hadn’t expected an eldritch wizard to develop. He was, aside from Abimelech, the most assertive of the thirteen. But he was content organizing the other caster types.

Tola and Izban were my two necromancers. I had honestly expected more of the thirteen to be necromancers, but it was okay that I only had the two. They served the role of healers in the group.

The final caster was just as interesting as Othniel. Jair was a death mage. Mages outside of the primary elemental mages were uncommon. While her abilities as a death mage were understandable, considering they all have the conduits for death and eldritch energy, they were also unexpected, though not unwelcome. Death mages could be tremendously powerful.

My two ranged fighters were E’lon and Jepthen. Both differed greatly from each other. E’lon was an arcane sniper who used a massive longbow. She could imbue her arrows with either eldritch or death magic giving them unique abilities. Jepthen was an arcane skirmisher, something I had never seen before. He fought with a short bow and could conjure arrows made of pure death or eldritch magic. His fighting style was to dart around the field, even closing nearly to within melee range as he released a constant barrage of attacks.

Next, I moved on to the melee types. What had been interesting was that out of the thirteen, seven had melee archetypes of some kind but only two were what you would call standard. Gideon wielded a massive tower shield and flail. He was one of the tanks. And Samson wielded two war hammers and was a berserker. The rest were hybrid types.

Abdon wielded a morning star in one hand while he worked death mage abilities with his off hand. He was a battle mage.

De’Barak wielded twin rapiers, but one was a blade conjured of pure magic projected from a hilt. With the magical blade, she could bypass armor and even work simple spells. She was an arcane duelist.

Ehud was a rogue type wielding two short swords. One would deal out hexes with every attack while the other inflicted curses. He would disappear in and out of shadows, similar to Raven. His class was called an affliction ghost.

Finally, there was Shamgar. He was something called a runic tank. In his off hand he held a large kite shield that he could project barriers from. In his dominant hand he wielded a large hammer that didn’t quite look like it belonged on the battlefield, as it was more like a craftsman’s hammer. Anything he struck he could leave behind runes that would have different effects, anything from enhancing allies to corroding and destroying the armor and flesh of his opponents.

All of their gear and armor was rather subpar from what I knew Kellnock could create. But judging by how quickly he created each of their equipment I was guessing these were meant as stopgaps.

“What you to think?” I asked, sitting down next to Raven and Maxwell. They had watched the fight from elsewhere.

“I think the players are going to be overconfident after that last showing.” Maxwell plucked at a string on his guitar, checking its tune.

“I think with all of the other stuff going on, I shall have lots of distractions to use to sneak in and stab people,” Raven laughed. “There’s nothing quite like the look of shock on someone’s face when suddenly their kidneys are perforated!”

“You’re scary,” Maxwell accused.

“Thank you!” Raven primed.

“That wasn’t…” Maxwell rolled his eyes.

“Abi,” I called, shortening Abimelech’s name. I paid attention to her face as she came over, gauging if the shortening of her name bugged her. She had known who I was talking to partially because of the intent to my connection. I didn’t see any annoyance, but I also didn’t see much of any emotion, they were still a long ways away from being what I would call fully awake. “Maxwell can provide powerful buffs to us as a group, make sure he is protected almost as well as you protect Tola and Izban.”

“As you command,” Abimelech’s voice was serious. “But we should protect you first and foremost.”

I almost opened my mouth to argue against them prioritizing me since this was just an arena fight. But I recognized that protecting me was intrinsic to their nature, so countermanding might cause confusion among them. With the front line being so powerful, my intention is to play a supportive role. I could fill in whichever gap was needed.

The announcer was beginning his tirade—the match was going to begin soon.