“Bah! Should have known the little rat not able to read. Must have accidentally pick trust door. Oh well,” Gramm said in a mockingly casual tone. On the platform, Erik and Touwon stood stock still. Every guard and every merchant present who was looking down from the upper tier was frozen in place; the tension was almost thick enough to have a physical presence.

Watching Fox bear the constant barrage of insults cut Oskar. He was torn between wanting to rage at the Croc and reassuring Fox that she was wonderful, but he was afraid showing her any further affection outside the trust they’d already shown one another would only put her in more danger. They wouldn't survive open defiance with everyone watching, and the stalling to figure things out game was looking just as hopeless.

“I am great Chieftain, so I keep my word. Since you think your little pretend Collective want greatness, I honor you with honor fight. A simple contest to win blessing for future adventures.”

Gramm had on the slimiest smile Oskar had ever seen. Joker’s face looked hard set and he looked away from Oskar instead of meeting his eyes. Looking up through the open Trust door, Oskar realized they were about to have to face down another execution.

The guards marched Fox and Oskar up the stairs, over the Point and then down again to the smaller platform over the arena. They roughly kept them moving, and my the time Oskar was close enough to sneak a better look at Erik, his guard shoved him roughly and he almost lost his balance. As the guards Oskar behind them were marching them town into the Arena proper, Touwon was shove off the Point onto the Arena platform below, where he landed with a grunt and rolled halfway down the steps. Blinker, standing on the Point looking, laughed openly.

Can I kill him?

// Not yet. //

Gramm was tickled at the abuse, and made a big show out of it, clapping Blinker on the back and dancing around. Oskar helped a disoriented Touwon to his feet with his shackled hands, but Oskar intentionally kept his back turned to Gramm in order to hide the fact that he was dangerously close to providing the Croc with the opportunity he sought to openly kill him.

Blinker and five chuckling Hyenamen came down and locked them in a cell on one side of the arena, and left them there with a single water skin. Moments after the guards were out of sight, though, Touwon had food, water, and Oskar’s shackles off.

Fox is great, but I don't think we'd be alive right now if it wasn't for Touwon. He's one of my favorite types to people. Resourceful, dependable, and honest. He's never lied to me once, Oskar thought with a smile, still watching his quiet friend.

// I know, remember when he pointed and said, "Gramm." He was spot on. Never doubted him once. //

Oskar smiled and rubbed his wrists as he finally calmed down. The cell was filthy. Bones of more species that he could identify littered the ground, and thorny, dry looking vines that looked to be tipped in blood ran up a third of the back wall. The lower portion was decidedly more blood tinged than the top half. Between the look of it and how Fox eyed it carefully, he steered clear of it himself.

Oskar turned and looked out over the Arena. They were on the floor level, in one of a dozen or so similar cells along the inside of the Arena wall. The Arena was a circle, but there was another gated opening opposite the Point that showed a smaller flat section, surrounded by an entire wall of spikes.

Cells for people, spike walls for animals?

The ground on the other side was sand, torn up as if excavated, but there was no movement visible anywhere. Touwon and Fox were studying the ground intensely. Fox was on a knee, her purple furred hand on ground as she listened, or felt, for something. After some time, she sat down against the wall, well away from the thorny spikes, but kept a wary eye on the

There was no point in stressing what he had no control over, but he couldn't stop worrying about Erik. He worked on settling his mind and even tried meditating to calm down a bit, which helped more than he believed possible. They sat there for hours, though, and he spent some of that time feeling for the patterns in the sand that denoted the Magic Below.

By the time he felt truly in control of himself, the blue sun was barely in the sky and the red sun was long gone. He could just see the Point if he stood in the far corner of the cell near the bars. Looking up at the edge of the Point platform, he found his brother there looking out over the blue tinted sky. His brother knew better than to interact or even acknowledge the party, but that calmed his biggest fear: that Gramm would take his frustration out on his "pet."

Even in his condition, Erik was doing what he could to help by making sure Oskar knew he was alive. As soon as his brother knew Oskar had seen him, he struggled to his feet and got permission to leave. To rest, Oskar supposed. Oskar and Erik had a hard childhood, and his adulthood had been full of even tougher experiences he’d barely had time to process. Oskar had to admit, though; he’d always had good people near him. He was still angry, of course, and more than a little afraid, but he was thinking more clearly than he’d been able to in months.

Stolen novel; please report.

Ahh, fear. Actual, tangible fear... nature's best remedy for anxiety. I hate how pressure makes me feel alive.

Looking up at the blue sky through the bars, he thought of Penny.

He thought back to Erik waiting for him the moment he’d landed back on American soil getting his leg blown off.

He thought of Fox staring at him through the trust door with those wide, green eyes when he’d turned back around after stupidly winking at Gramm.

After a time, his anger cooled. No less dangerous, but calculated. Controlled.

He slept, but did not dream. It was a rest of necessity and boredom. The red sun had poked up in the distant horizon when he sat up, wishing he had a nice cold Wayspring to wash with.

He hoped his brother had gotten some rest, because Oskar knew their time here was done, one way or another, and he was determined to get him free of Gramm.

No matter the cost.The Kobolds had followed him here, knowing the danger, but they'd not expected Gramm to have fallen so far off the deep end so quickly. Fox said he'd been his same mean self, but not like this.

"He did not even acknowledged Touwon and myself, and there were Kobolds running errands and waterskins regularly. This time, we saw not one Kobold up top." She'd been quiet after that comment, obviously worried about her people whether they were from her tribe or not, but a few minutes later she spoke again.

"We should have been able to get in, trade for supplies and information about known humans, and leave within a day. We have done so half a dozen times the past year. That is a truth." It wasn't a complaint, it was simply a statement of fact.

Something had obviously happened, and Oskar felt damn sure Valla was at least indirectly involved, if not the driving force behind it.

Breaking this Great Collective to pieces would be the dream, but doing it with his fists and spear was a last, and dangerous, resort.

He knew better than to hope that Gramm would just allow them to leave, even if they won this mockery of an "honor fight." However, being trapped as they were, his choices were limited. It had been a mistake coming here, but only because Gramm had fallen off the deep end.

Sitting there, well rested, he began focusing on the sand beneath him. The shifting patterns danced below his fingertips. It wasn't physical, of course, just something he could feel in the sand and rock below. He moved his hand, and for the first time, the pattern followed.

Hmm. That's new.

The sand below his hand wasn't just following now, it began to rise into a point towards his palm like an upside down hourglass. He could feel the ground below his hand vibrating, but it was just the pattern of the Magic Below destabilizing, the ground wasn't literally shaking. Guiding it gently, like with Sora, wasn't working, but he continued trying and experimenting. The softer his approach, though, the more the pattern destabilized until it fell apart and the gently swirling point of sand that was almost touching his palm collapsed.

He started over, and this time, he stopped the weird notion in his head that not being gentle was somehow... rude?

The Magic Below wanted to be told what to do. It did not change and fly free in the ever changing air like Sora. It wanted rules. It understood rules. It didn't care as much where those rules came from, and so Oskar told the magic to rise. He told the magic what it was supposed to do.

Envelop my hand. Protect me.

The magic, much more than the simple sand it appeared to be, rose up and wrapped around his hand in a flexible honeycomb shape. He was rewarded with a notification, and the PUB was blinking excitedly.

// Prerequisites met: The Magic Below – Talau, has been revealed to you. Congrats!

Talau is the Magic Below. Many elements encompass this type of magic, namely earth, or in this case... sand. It represents not just the ground below you, but a foundation, an anchor for other magic, and like Sora, mastery over the other concepts is not far behind for those willing to put in the work!

World Gambit updated- Step 3: Master the Magic Within.

Oskar, this is huge. Not many people ever learn two schools of magic, but then again, you're a Druid. Your growing connection to this world will only make you stronger. //

Excited, Oskar felt around him with Sora and Talau, and realized he could feel the water from the oasis much stronger than before.

The air called to him, wild and shifting. The earth rested below him, content. And something else that felt intangible touched upon his consciousness. Something that was not inherently dangerous like the strange beings watching from some nightmarish place floated in and out of his awareness.

This is the Magic Within, I'm guessing?

The PUB was quiet.

Oskar feeling more a part of this world than ever was helping him get a grasp on his power in a whole new way. He didn’t just want to use it anymore; he wanted to understand it.

When he mentioned this to Fox, she nodded and explained.

“The difference is purpose. Unique classes are purpose driven. That is how your class evolves. Your power is derived from need. What is it you need, Oskar?”

Oskar spent a moment thinking. He wasn’t trying to figure out what he needed. He knew, for the first time since the Marine Corps, exactly what he needed.

“I need to protect my family. But, that means I need to get my brother away from that psycho and then ruin everything he’s tried to build here. It also means I need to get you and Touwon out of here, and then I need to make sure people don’t have to rely on pricks like that just to survive.”

“Well, then..." She stood to her feet, "First we have to kill that.” Her face was paler than he’d thought it could be, and Oskar felt the ground move beneath them, literally this time.