“We don’t need to do this, Rob. We can think of another way. Do you really want to kill me? You want to be a murderer?” Hal questioned as he backed away from Rob.
“I don’t want to be a murderer, but I really don’t want to get eaten by a giant lion. You could make this a lot easier on both of us if you just run into the lions.” Rob swung wide, over and over, clearly unskilled with a sword.
Hal took a few steps back when his foot sunk downward. A small metal plate pushed into the ground, sand rushing to fill the empty space. Tripping over the edge of the new hole, he fell backward. A torrent of fire shot out of the ground, surrounding what must be a pressure plate.
Rob stopped his advance and shielded his eyes. “What the hell?”
Now there are traps to worry about. Hal got to his feet, taking this opportunity to gain some distance from his opponent. Rob recovered quickly and dashed after Hal. One lion pounced forward, Hal pivoted to the left and narrowly avoiding getting his head chomped off.
“Holy fuck!” Hal moved closer to the center in order to avoid the lions, but Rob was right on his tail. Continuing to run, he gave up looking for traps. If he took even a moment to look around carefully, Rob would slice him in two.
Amid his panic fuel sprint, he failed to notice just how many traps he was setting off. He only stopped running when he had fully run out of stamina. Collapsing to the ground, he grabbed a hand full of sand. He readied himself to throw sand at Rob when the man approached. Panting heavily, he waited. And waited. When the footsteps stopped, he turned and tossed the sand.
“Take that!” Hal shouted in surprise.
The sand flew forward and sprinkled over Rob’s mutilated corpse. The man had been following Hal closely, too closely. Several of the traps Hal triggered but sprinted past ended up hitting Rob. Iron spikes punctured Rob’s remains. Remains that were burnt, cut and partially chewed away. Hal tried to fight back bile but failed.
As he was throwing up, the announcer’s voice returned with several new messages.
New Achievement: Round 1 Victor!
You managed to live longer than the other guy. Congratulations.
Reward: 10 Arena Points
New Achievement: Pacifist
Somehow, you managed to win an entire round without ever attacking your opponent. That would have been impressive if you didn’t spend the entire time running around like a coward.
Reward: A Tier 1 Rewards Box… Actually, I’m kinda impressed you didn’t even touch a weapon. I think I’ll bump this one up, but don’t expect Mr. Nice Arena Dungeon in the future.
Reward: A Tier 2 Rewards Box
New Achievement: Trap Killer
You killed someone using a trap. A trap you didn’t even set. Who said being lucky never got you nowhere? You’re alive, aren’t you?
Reward: 5 Arena Points
“What the fuck is going on!?” Hal shouted as light engulfed him. As the light faded, he found himself sitting on a familiar cot inside a small metal room. The odd events that just passed proved too much for him and he passed out. Waking up an unknown time later, he found himself still inside his small room. He felt around his face and body.
“Not a dream then.” He muttered.
“Definitely not a dream.” A male’s voice responded. Dropping from the ceiling, a round metal ball extended on a rod illuminated. The image of an unkempt, muscular Human male wearing a dirty, long, brown trench coat projected into the room. The man was standing near the large rectangular opening Hal chatted with Rob through.
Hal shot up and sat against the wall farthest from the man’s projection. “Who the hell are you?”
“The names Jesse and I’m your first sponsor. Congrats, Kid.” Hal opened his mouth to ask more questions but Jesse help up his hands. “Why don’t you go through your notifications? It should explain the sponsorship program. Just focus your attention on the blinking exclamation point icon. It should be in the corner of your vision.”
Looking around, Hal quickly located the icon and focused on it. More system messages followed.
Great job surviving Round 1, participant. Now that you’ve shown off your skills, you’ve become eligible for sponsorship bidding. Based on your performance, we’ve placed you in the Tier 1 bracket. Don’t know what that means? It means you're cheap as hell to sponsor because you suck and you’re probably going to die soon. But don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to get placed in a better sponsorship tier after successfully surviving Round 10.
Sponsorship bidding is now open for participant Henry Walker.
An image similar to eBay showed up, listing all of his stats. The page had several images of himself and pictures of him from the arena. It even had a few video files shot from different angles of him running away and falling down.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Not the most flattering portrayal of myself. He thought as his focus went to the bidding section. There was a one hour timer and a starting bid of a million galactic credits. A large fast-forward icon appeared superimposed over the page as the timer quickly sped down.
When it reached one minute remaining, the starting bid dropped to 100,000 galactic credits. The timer counted down to ten seconds, and the bid dropped again to 1,000 galactic credits. The name ‘Captain Jesse’ appeared under the top bidder section before the timer reached zero.
You have been sponsored! Normally you would want to celebrate, but in your case, I wouldn’t. Your sponsorship went for the arena minimum. That actually hasn’t happened in a few seasons. Here’s an achievement to celebrate.
New Achievement: Bottom Barrel
They really scrapped the bottom of the barrel when selecting you for the arena. You were sponsored at the bare minimum rate possible and almost didn’t even get a sponsor, which would have been preferred because, let’s be honest. You’re probably going to die in the next round and waste your sponsor’s hard earned credits. Maybe try fighting for a change?
Reward: Nothing! You’re clearly not worth a reward.
That’s a bit rude. Hal waved away the message, allowing the next one to be read by the announcer.
Ah, sponsorship. Isn’t it great? You have someone in the galaxy routing for you and paying for the privilege. Sponsors get a portion of all bets made for or against you. They also have the option of sending you one item inbetween each round in order to improve or hinder your chances. Make sure to thank your sponsor, or curse them, because they just spent credits to help you live or die!
Lastly, sponsors are able to communicate with you via the chat system at any time. You just got a pen-pal. Please take some time to communicate with your sponsor via holochat. Note: This option is only available following sponsorship rounds.
Keep an eye on that round timer and good luck in your next match. Always remember, COG are the gears of the galaxy!
The messages faded and the blinking exclamation point icon vanished with them. Hal looked up at Jesse and cocked his head. “Are you trying to kill me or help me?”
Jesse laughed. “Why would someone ever tell you they wanted to kill you?”
“Good point.”
“I’m here to offer some help.” Hal didn’t respond, so Jesse continued, “Now you’re probably thinking I might be lying and secretly want you dead.” He sighed. “Listen. I try to sponsor one of the weaker contestants and bet on them dieing. I’m not a monster, I swear. Galactic credits are hard to come by for our kind and it’s a lot cheaper to sponsor one of the weaker species, buy them a hindrance for round 2 and bet on them dieing.”
“You sponsored me for the minimum. How do I know you’re not just doing that all over again? It sounds like literally what you just explained.” Hal’s face went red from nerves.
“Cause I don’t usually sponsor people from Earth, but you were, as you said, at the arena minimum. Our kind usually get placed in the tier one bracket, but we never go for the minimum.” Jesse sighed again when Hal didn’t respond. “Listen, I hate these fuckbag aliens and a chance for someone from home to kill some of their galactic asses. I’ll gladly pay the arena minimum to see that.”
“Sooo… You’re from Earth? How did I get here and how do you even know about all this stuff? About aliens and this weird death arena.” Hal was nervously speaking faster and faster. Before he broke into a full on panic attack, Jesse shouted over him.
“I was a participant years ago, and we were both abducted.” Jesse chuckled. “You know there’s over half a million missing people in the US alone each year? Some of those folks end up here. We’ve got a lot to cover though, so let’s not dwell on things we can’t change.”
“Wait. You were a participant? Does that mean you battled and won?”
“Yeah.” Jesse’s expression changed. The man looked haunted. “It was a dark time in my life.” The projection updated to show a large bottle of a brown liquid in his hand. He took a large swig of the substance before placing the bottle down on an unseen table. Once the bottle was down, the projection updated to stop, including it.
“Ok. So the only way out of here is to actually win?” Jesse nodded at Hal’s question. “And how do I do that?”
“By listening to what I have to say and with a metric fuck ton of luck. You’re going to be battling a wide range of aliens and you’ll soon find out that Humans aren’t exactly the toughest species around.” Jesse waved away the follow-up questions. “First things first. How many arena points do you have and did you earn any rewards chests?”
Jesse explained where Hal could check for both things and Hal quickly relayed the information.
“That’s a good start, actually.” Jesse said. “You usually don’t see tier two boxes before round four or five.”
“How many tiers, or better yet, rounds, are there to this thing?” Questioned Hal.
“The arena lasts for around a hundred rounds. It varies based on popularity. COG adjusts the rounds to add more carnage if ratings are dipping. As far as tiers, there’s ten, with ten being the best. And before you ask, the rewards boxes offer different stuff to help ya. Other than killing your fellow participants, they’re your number one source for new powers and items, at least any ones that are worth a damn.”
“So, should I open it? How do I open it?”
“Not yet. You have fifteen arena points, which is also good. Focus on that number in your field of view and the arena shop will open up. Based on your character sheet, mind is your highest attribute, which means you should probably go with a spell based build. Go ahead and open the shop and search for character classes.”
Hal did as instructed, finding his vision being covered by the multitude of options the shop offered. There were dozens of tabs and filters he could utilize but he focused on the search bar and brought up the character classes menu. Hundreds upon hundreds of different character class options popped up. They faded many out, their cost being too high, while others were red. When he focused on one of the red options, a message alerted him that he couldn’t choose that option because of which species he was.
“What am I looking for here?” Hal questioned.
“Open the filters, the three lines at the top, and filter by available only.” Once Hal did, the list shrank to only a handful of options. “Most people save their points and buy one of the more advanced classes because they come with more specific powers at a steep discount. We don’t have that option.”
“Why not?”
“Like I said, Humans are fragile creatures. You won’t survive if you horde those points now. I would recommend the generic mage class. It cost ten arena points and gives you a random tier one power. We can start building out your kit, your specific power set, from there.”
Hal cocked his head. “So as a Mage, you mean I’ll get actual magic to use?”
“Yes, now pick it while we still have time.”
Selecting the option for the generic mage, a confirmation box appeared, asking him to approve the purchase. It showed him that his new arena points total was going to be five after the purchase and listed a basic spell as a reward. He hit confirm.
New Achievement: Magic Time
You’re not the next Harry Potter quite yet, but this is the first step to becoming a magic wielding bad-ass. Lets how the RNG Gods are on your side because you just got a spell. Now that you're a mage instead of 2 generic attribute points each level that you can freely assign, you will earn 1 generic attribute point and 1 point in your mind attribute.
Reward: Panicked Scream
“What the hell is a panicked scream?” Hal asked as he read the prompt.
“Oh… Maybe I will bet for you to die.”
“What!?”