Victor lay awake for most of the night after he and the others decided to get some rest. He wasn’t worried about being on top of his game or feeling groggy; he hardly needed sleep since his body had evolved to the “epic” stage, and if he got a few hours now and then, he always felt fine. So, while he listened to the sounds of Arcus muttering and sometimes whimpering and the soft, quiet breaths coming from Arona, he lay on his back and thought about everything he’d seen in the dungeon. What he kept coming back to was the children.
It bothered him to no end, knowing that everyone on the council could kill him; when he returned to Sojourn, he desperately wanted to go on an ass-kicking spree. He’d been away from Earth long enough to understand how power scaled when Energy was involved, but learning about veil walkers and their seemingly exponential increase in potency rubbed him the wrong way. He’d liked the fact that someone being ten or twenty levels higher than another person didn’t mean they could automatically dominate them. Being forced to recognize the superiority of all the people who’d passed their “tests of steel” rankled.
Nevertheless, Victor didn’t see a way around it. He simply had to watch his step and rely on his alliances and the customs and laws that seemed to protect the iron rankers from the veil walkers. Even the System seemed to enforce their separation—Ronkerz should not be in this dungeon with all the iron rankers. In a way, Victor was comforted to see that the System wasn’t without flaws. He liked that it could make mistakes; having some omnipotent, all-knowing force ruling over their lives was stifling. It felt good to know it wasn’t perfect.
Aside from his fruitless pursuit of a solution for the children in the dungeon, he couldn’t sleep because he was excited. In his mind, the whole situation was like being moved to a new, bigger school as a freshman and being expected to face off with the state champ just because he showed some talent. He chuckled at the idea; why did he still fall back on wrestling analogies? He’d fought a hell of a lot more with his axe in the last couple of years than he’d ever wrestled. He supposed it came down to formative years—memories integral to his personality.
He wondered which Big One Ronkerz would pit him against. Victor hadn’t displayed many of his abilities since entering the dungeon, so he hoped Ronkerz was judging him by his appearance. He hoped he thought he was a brutish axe fighter without any finesse. Victor had quite a few tricks up his sleeve that even Arona and Arcus knew nothing about, even after watching his performance in the Vault of Valor. Thinking about that brought his mind around to how he felt his two companions would fare in their matches.
Arcus was suffering from a bruised ego, but Victor knew the mage could pack a punch. He hoped he’d pull something off and get away with a win. However, he was more interested in Arona’s fight. He’d felt the depths of her power in her aura and was curious what a Death Caster like her could do in a one-on-one contest. He pictured their fights, his imagination running wild, then he drifted back to himself and began envisioning his own battle, running his moves through his mind, visualizing counters and counter-counters. The hours of the night slipped away, and though the sun never rose in the dungeon, he began to hear the sounds of people stirring outside the cave.
He was straining to hear a distant conversation when he felt a shift in Arona’s soft, steady breaths, and then she whispered, “Did you sleep?”
“Nah,” he whispered back, turning to look at her dim form atop a low cot between himself and Arcus. They were all lying on camping beds with blankets and sleeping bags—none of them had been willing to pull out their entire camp setups. Victor had a big tent and lots of furniture, and he was sure his setup paled compared to what the others had. Still, something had kept them modest—probably the knowledge that Ronkerz was watching them.
“You wondered if I was undead the other day. Now you know the truth of it; if I were, I wouldn’t need to sleep.”
“Ah. Never? I thought vampires slept while the sun was out.”
“Vampires? Well, there are many types of undead. If I become one, I’ll be more like my master—a lich.” Her raspy voice took on a smoother, softer quality when she whispered, and Victor could almost imagine what she might have sounded like as a younger woman before she’d gotten involved with her death magic. She was obviously trying not to disturb Arcus because Victor had heard her whisper far more harshly near the lich-wyrm’s lair.
Her mention of their earlier conversation brought a thought to Victor’s mind. “Do you really hate your magic? Your master?”
“Shh!” she hissed. Arcus still breathed deeply, each exhalation steady and even, but Victor realized she feared the Pyromancer would hear him. “What I told you before is true, but please don’t bring it up.”
“All right. Sorry.” Victor tried to shrug, but lying on his back, the movement didn’t translate.
Arona shifted, and then her arm stretched out toward him. “Will you take this for me?” She held something dark that glinted with silver in the faint glow-lamp light. Victor reached out to grasp the object; it was about the size and shape of a socket wrench, and when his hand closed around it, he felt the deep, powerful well of cold Energy inside it. Arona let go, and he realized he was holding a dense, heavy bone. He pulled it closer, out of the shadows, to see it was dark, almost like it had been charred, and was inscribed with silvery runes. It seemed familiar.
“That’s one of my best summons, the one I used against the lich-wyrm. He’s not yet recovered, so I can’t use him in the duel and…” She trailed off for a moment, then started again, her voice so quiet, Victor had to lean toward her to hear, “And if I die or have to surrender, I don’t want to lose him to Ronkerz. You know he’ll strip us if we surrender.”
“What if I lose?” Victor clutched the heavy, cold bone, wondering what creature had once walked with it as part of its skeleton.
“I have a feeling Ronkerz will make you fight last. If I win, I’ll take it back from you. If I lose and you lose, the end result would be the same.”
Victor sighed and put the bone into the same container he’d gotten from Dar for his cultivation items. “Well, what do I do with it? You want me to give it to your master?”
“No!” Arona’s raspy whisper became a hiss. “Do not tell him you have it! If you leave this place without me, then please, just take it to Dar’s estate and bury it near those lovely orchards. I’ll rest easier knowing my oldest, most loyal companion made it out of this place and that he’s resting peacefully in such a beautiful setting.”
Victor narrowed his eyes at her. It was strange hearing words like “lovely” and “beautiful” in conjunction with burying a bone and hiding the fact from her undead master. He leaned close and whispered in a voice so low there wasn’t a chance Arcus could hear him, “You really do hate him, don’t you?”
Arona’s dark eyes seemed to grow luminescent in the dim light as moisture pooled in them. “I do, Victor. I hate him with every fiber of my being.”
Victor drew a breath, ready to ask her a follow-up question, wanting to know more about Vesavo and what made Arona hate him, but then thudding footsteps sounded on the stony cave ground, and Victor knew their time was just about up; Ronkerz was approaching. He heard Arona shifting, sitting up, climbing out of her blankets. Victor did the same, stowing away his blanket and comfortable sleeping platform. He’d just stood and was nudging Arcus’s bed with his boot, jostling him awake, when Ronkerz’s hulking form loomed into view, backlit by the glow lamps.
“Your feast was a success,” the giant announced, his angular violet eyes shifting from Victor to Arona to Arcus as he stopped to assess them. “It’s good that you rested rather than schemed to escape. I’ve set wards, and any use of those recall tokens would have ended painfully.”
“We assumed you were watching,” Arcus replied, stifling a yawn with his new, writhing appendage.
“Excellent. I was watching and listening, and it seems to me that you three are, while spoiled and foolishly compliant, not exactly willing participants in your venture here. Well, perhaps that’s giving some of you too much credit. Perhaps it’s better to say you’re somewhat unwilling pawns, hmm?”
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“That’s accurate.” Arona shifted her staff as she spoke, placing it between herself and Ronkerz. “Does that mean you won’t make us fight for our lives?”
“Hah!” Faster than Victor’s eyes could track, Ronkerz lashed out and snatched Arona’s staff. A flash of cold blue Energy rolled out of it, washing over the huge simian, and, for a moment, Victor thought Arona had tricked the giant, that she’d somehow set a trap for him. That may have been true; it seemed the Energy was harsh and focused on the hulking figure, but he stood stoically as it poured over him. Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the Energy was gone, leaving behind a faint odor of decay, a rimed-over stone floor, and Ronkerz—utterly untouched.
“Clever but fruitless, girl.” His massive forearm twitched, and, with a resounding crack, her staff broke into splinters in his grip. Arona cried out and fell to her knees as the giant dropped the pieces of her once beautiful, polished ivory staff to the frosty ground. Victor could see the tears of frustrated anger and despair in her eyes, and he wondered if her staff had been alive. How would he react if Ronkerz did something like that to Lifedrinker? Before he could envision the scene, Ronkerz grunted, “Pyromancer, you will fight first. The three of you have fifteen minutes to enter the arena.”
As they all watched his lumbering form recede into the tunnel's darkness, Arona hissed, “Bastard!”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Arcus mumbled, awkwardly stepping close to the still-kneeling Death Caster. “I know you had him for decades and were very close.”
“Him?” Victor didn’t want to rub salt in the wound, but he was curious; it seemed that her staff had, indeed, been conscious.
“Ghivalt,” Arona sniffed. “He was a sturdy soul and a boon companion. Many were the nights I whispered my frustrations into his ever-heedful ear.” With shaking hands, she gathered up the splinters of her staff, sending them into one of her dimensional containers. Watching her, comparing her staff to Lifedrinker in his mind, Victor’s reluctant respect for Ronkerz began to wane.
“What an asshole.”
“I wasn’t trying to trap him; I simply had defensive spells primed in Ghivalt. It’s a habit of mine to put him between myself and those I view as a threat. I didn’t think Ronkerz would take offense.” She accepted Arcus’s hand and rose to her feet, suddenly holding a different staff, this one made of black-streaked gnarled wood. “Let us face today’s trial.”
“Right.” Victor nodded and turned to Arcus. “You ready, man?”
“Not especially, but I’m resolved. Whatever champion they pit against me had best be ready.” With that, Arcus’s red metal rod appeared in his right hand, and the black one appeared in his tentacle’s firm grasp.
“You’re getting the hang of that thing.”
“My sleep, though troubled with strange dreams, seems to have helped my mind come to grips with the change in my body.”
“Come,” Arona rasped, already walking toward the cave opening. Victor and Arcus followed, and soon, they came into view of the broad, low-ceilinged opening. The sky was still dark, and Victor had to remind himself that the sun never rose in the dungeon world. When they stood in the opening, facing the stone-walled box canyon that served as Rumble Town’s arena, none of them were surprised by the gathered crowds or their raucous boos and hisses.
“You’d think these assholes would be a little more grateful for the meal we laid out yesterday,” he grumbled. He scanned the cliffsides, the rooftops and the gaps between wooden buildings and figured there were something like three hundred people watching. It seemed like a lot to him, but when he considered that the dungeon had been around for thousands of years and that people were having kids inside it, the number wasn’t all that high. It made him wonder at the average life expectancy inside the place. He also had to remember that he hadn’t seen the other “communities” in the dungeon. For all he knew, Rumble Town housed only a fraction of the populace.
“Rumble Town!” Ronkerz boomed, his basso voice rattling the wooden structures and causing pebbles to bounce on the stone ground. Victor turned to the sound and saw the giant simian high on the cliffside in a wide cave mouth, surrounded by his Big Ones. “Today, we have entertainment! Three outsiders who come to us in servitude of the vile criminals who govern this world will face off against three of our Big Ones!” The crowd went wild at the announcement, though Victor couldn’t help but think it was all some kind of strange pageant; the people had to know already that they were going to fight.
“Arcus! Pyromancer of the family Volpuré, step into the arena!” Ronkerz’s voice was loud and shook the ground, but it was also clear, and it felt like it was aimed right into Victor’s ear. It made him wonder if the veil walker was using a voice amplification device or if Ronkerz simply had to flex his will to push his voice out on the waves of his ocean of Energy.
“Fortune be with you, Arcus.” As she spoke, Arona reached out and caught ahold of Arcus’s sleeve, causing him to turn toward her. “I hope you know that, despite our many contentious bouts of—”
“I know,” he sighed. “I’m not always easy to get along with, but neither are you. In any case, should I perish, try to remember me as I was when we were young, crushing one dungeon after another, hmm?” The words made Victor evaluate Arcus and Arona in a new light. She’d warned him of Arcus’s impending betrayal, so he’d thought they were likely enemies, but it seemed they had quite a history. It made sense, he supposed; the “gifted” students and apprentices in Sojourn seemed to be very familiar with each other. If they’d grown up at the same time, why wouldn’t they have been friends, especially when they were younger and had less pressure from masters and society when their “tests of steel” were a distant proposition?
They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, then Arcus’s eyes flared with bright, white-hot flames, and he turned and strode into the center of the “arena.” Quietly, Victor muttered his own encouragement, “Good luck, you asshole. Burn the shit out of ‘em.”
As Arcus stepped away from the cave mouth and into the focus of everyone’s attention, he burst into flames, a living, walking brand of white-hot fire that slowly lifted off the ground, hovering some five feet in the air as he spread his arm and tentacle, brandishing his two magical rods. The crowd seemed torn—some cheered, likely eager and excited for a fight, while others jeered and booed, clearly holding their praise for the hometown champion.
Ronkerz’s voice boomed out over Rumble Town, “Fighting the mighty Pyromancer will be one of your favorite Big Ones—Fanatala the Gasher!” His voice rose to a heart-stopping crescendo as he howled the combatant’s fighting name. The earlier noise for Arcus paled in comparison as Rumble Town began to vibrate with cheers and stomps, screams and howls. One of the shadowy figures near Ronkerz launched into the air, falling like a comet from the heights to land on the stone surface of the arena with a ground-shaking thud. Dust and pebbles flew into the air, and, as the dust slowly cleared, Victor got his first good look at Fanatala.
She was a tall, ebon-skinned woman with a high, spiked, white mohawk. Arcus wasn’t a small man—probably Valla’s size, if Victor were guessing—but Fanatala was giant-sized at nearly ten feet. She wasn’t bulky like many giants, but she was powerful-looking, with arms and shoulders covered in ropy, bulging muscles. She wore a strangely shimmering green and ochre breastplate and a mask of the same metal, cast in a scowling, goblinesque visage. Around her waist was a thick leather girdle, and—likely the source of her moniker—two wickedly curved swords hung from it.
Even as Ronkerz screamed, “Fight!” The sky above the canyon darkened and erupted with angry, red, and orange flashes of fire. Thunder crashed, and then fiery meteors the size of compact cars howled through the darkness toward the center of the canyon. Arcus held his red rod high over his head as the flames limning his body surged upward, like a fire given too much oxygen.
“Holy shit,” Victor grunted—he’d been on the receiving end of Arcus’s meteor strike before, but this was on another level. It looked to him like the whole town was going to be wiped out when they impacted the ground.
“He’s dumping everything into it! His Core and the stored Energy he has in that rod! Is he mad? Does he seek to destroy us all?” Arona looked at Victor as though he had the answer. He just shrugged and took a step back, only to be met with an invisible wall of force. Arona had followed him, and, just as the first meteor hit the ground with a cacophonous boom, she stumbled into the invisible barrier, too.
“Ronkerz!” She hissed and muttered something else, some curse in a language the System didn’t translate, then turned back to the arena as the rest of Arcus’s payload smashed down like a cataclysm. The sound was deafening, and the ground shook and jumped and lurched, forcing Victor to concentrate on keeping his balance, but, even as he struggled to stay on his feet, he realized something: the fire and smoke weren’t touching him. The explosion rolled out from the impact point—waves of fire, clouds of black smoke, curtains of dirt, rock shards, and rubble. Everything came up against another invisible barrier, channeled away by waves of force or magical wind.
As the fire and smoke cleared, Arona sighed and gestured up the cliffside to where Ronkerz stood, his enormous arms spread wide, his violet eyes blazing like twin stars. “He’s protecting the onlookers and town.”
Victor nodded; he’d figured something like that was happening. As the smoke and dust cleared, he started scanning the arena, wondering how Arcus’s alpha strike had served him. The place looked like a bomb had gone off, which, he supposed, made sense. What Arcus had done was the Energy-user equivalent of calling in an airstrike. The stone ground was cracked and pitted; pools of fire, red-glowing stone, and black smoke still lingered. Hovering in the center of the destruction was Arcus’s fiery form.
The crowd had gotten quiet, but when Arcus slowly turned, his flaming arm and tentacle held high in triumph, a murmur broke out. Several heartbeats passed as everyone looked for Fanatala. When no one could see any sign of the champion, hushed and tentative at first, the onlookers began to cheer. The applause started near the ground, where people stood like Victor and Arona in cave mouths or between buildings, but it slowly spread until the entire canyon was roaring with it. Meanwhile, Arcus continued to rotate, basking in the praise, his body too alight for Victor to see his expression.
Ronkerz lowered his arms, but he didn’t speak, and Victor began to feel a funny twinge of doubt in his gut. If Arcus had killed Fanatala, Ronkerz would know it. He would be shouting something—praise or anger or amusement. He wouldn’t stand there on his high perch, watching Arcus intently. “He missed.”
Arona looked at him sharply, “You see her?”
“No, but Ronkerz—” Just as he was about to explain his thought process, Fanatala appeared behind Arcus and drove her twin blades, not once or twice, but three times each, into Arcus’s back. Arcus’s flames winked out, and he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. Fanatala held up her bloody, curved swords, and the cheers, which had abruptly stopped when she’d appeared, erupted with renewed frenzy, and the crowd took up a chant.
“Gasher! Gasher! Gasher!”
“He lives,” Arona said, pointing. Sure enough, Victor saw Arcus slowly, laboriously flop onto his back, a great pool of blood blossoming out around his red-robed form. His tentacle shakily clutched a bulbous potion bottle, but Fanatala saw his movement and blinked away. Suddenly, she loomed over the downed Pyromancer, her boot on his tentacle, holding the potion at bay.
“Yield?” She growled, but she didn’t look at Arcus. Her mask was trained upward toward Ronkerz.
Victor never heard Arcus say anything, but Ronkerz’s voice boomed through the canyon, “Fanatala the Gasher has won! Her opponent yields! Welcome, Arcus the Inferno, to Rumble Town—our newest Big One in training!” While Victor and Arona absorbed those words, the town roared in a frenzy of excitement. Ronkerz let it go on for several long seconds, then held up his hands for silence. “Arona, Death Caster, student of Vesavo Bonewhisper, the Demon of Tsuva, enter the arena!”
“Damn,” Victor muttered. “I think you were right. He’s building an army, and I feel like we’re about to be recruited.”
“Yes, I’m quite certain that warrior could have killed Arcus with her strike. Teleportation skills, even short-ranged like that, are difficult to contend with.” Arona looked up at Victor, her dark eyes depthless and full of secrets. “I won’t be so easily conscripted.” With that, she stepped into the arena as Fanatala scooped up Arcus’s fallen, bloody form and simply disappeared.
Victor had to admire Arona’s confidence, but he was starting to have doubts—how was he supposed to contend with someone who could blink around the battlefield? Could he kill someone he couldn’t touch? “Shit, chica,” he muttered, hefting Lifedrinker in both of his hands as he watched the dark-robed, straight-backed Death Caster gliding through the wreckage of Arcus’s meteor strike, “we might get a decent workout after all. This is gonna get good and bloody.”