The bars to their cell rose and then settled into place overhead with a muted clank, and Oskar heard footsteps above them walking hurriedly away. Gramm’s voice carried as he called out to the pitiful crowd of fifty or so that he could see; the arena had obviously been designed for hundreds.

He could feel his heart beating through his chest, but again, the errant thought hit him that had been running through his mind since that first night, sleeping in the whistling caves up top.

Who could have built such a place?

His thoughts were cut short as the ground rumbled. He had a Sandwyrm to fight.

Gramm yelled out unnecessarily; the arena platform, like the platform over the ruins, was well designed to carry sound to the whole arena.

“The gods gifted us with Sandwyrm for honor battle. Sign from above! Should be no problem for such trusty companions as piiink, and the one, two furry idiot stupid, ugly, dummy rats. So stupid, they are. And small.”

“I don’t think he likes you, Touwon,” Oskar whispered conspiratorially. Touwon replied with a flat stare.

Having run through the bulk of his vocabulary insulting the Kobolds, Gramm continued, “This is battle to death. Not even fully grown Sandwyrm. So easy. Could kill myself with bare claws,” he straightened up, probably imagining himself a great hero instead of someone whose power depended completely on being a water distribution chokepoint.

“When you win, freedom all yours! I am Croc of my word. As father, Great Chief Gram used to say: ‘That why even dumb Kobolds say true things called... a Croc.’”

Oskar had been drinking water from his waterskin while Gramm rambled on, but that last line made him choke, water getting into his sinuses. “Did he just say ‘a crock?!’ And does that count as a double quote?”

Luckily, sound didn’t carry out of the cell the way the platform carried sound in.

Fox shushed him sternly, nonetheless. “You would do well to guard your reactions better. We have spent generations on that joke. Do not raise suspicions.”

Oskar wasn’t even sure Kobolds had a sense of humor outside of their Chief Biggums stories, usually starring the small Kobold called Little Luth, but this was gold. I mean, absolute gold. He’d barely had a chance to catch his breath when, for the first time, the Sandwyrm rose higher than a few feet out of the sand, and Oskar's earlier confidence took a hit.

This was going to be nasty.

He missed Penny like crazy, but he was glad she wouldn’t be here for this, despite her usefulness thus far in their tussles.

I hope Erik is ready for what was coming, too, because if we manage to make it out of here, we're gonna have to move fast.

The whole thing felt hopeless, though. He couldn't see a path that didn't end with them fighting and outnumbered. Oskar didn’t exactly know what was about to happen, but one thing was certain- Gramm was not a Croc of his word.

He stepped out into the bright sun, and somehow, the oppressiveness of the direct sunlight felt less severe than in the closed off cell. At least there was a steady breeze in the open. Oskar noticed dozens of small slits on both sides of the arena that served as vents of sorts for airflow. Whoever had built this place, and they were surely not Crocodilian, had an eye for efficiency and an ear for acoustics.

Oskar moved further out of the cell, toward the Sandwyrm, but Fox and Touwon stopped him and pushed past, moving so silently that Sandy didn’t even notice them until Fox moved into its direct line of…sight?

Who knows, he’d trusted Fox to relay the relevant information, but felt dumb for not asking that question at least.

Thankfully, the floor of the arena had started out hard packed, though the Sandwyrm was doing its best to change that. The ability that allowed it to travel under the ground, magic or not, still left the ground tilled behind it.

Oskar’s spear had been tossed into the arena, probably because it looked as useless as what they’d left the two Kobolds… a cooking knife for Fox, and a little jeweling hammer for the artificer. Pulled straight from whatever small section of Touwon’s bag the Kobold had allowed them access to. Hilarious. At least they could say they’d allowed them weapons.

Stolen story; please report.

He scooped it up and tried to figure out what side of the Wyrm was the head based on movement. It seemed at times to be moving in more than one direction, which is when Oskar noticed it wasn’t just moving through the sand as if swimming the same way Penny did, it was also expanding and contracting, making it hard to judge its speed. It was moving even when it seemed to be sitting still.

Fox hadn’t bothered to scoop up the knife as she’d run by, but Touwon had scooped up both when he ran by because he was particular about his things and was as aware as Oskar was that there likely wouldn’t be time to gather their things afterwards.

If we can make it to "afterwards," Oskar thought with a forced smile.

Fox already had one of her small hidden blades out, and Touwon’s left leather glove had sprouted four telescoped foot long metal spikes and his right glove somehow had a ten-inch disk that Oskar wasn’t sure was a saw-blade or a buckler, but would hate to be on the wrong side of finding out.

The Sandwyrm had stopped thrashing about the arena and had pinpointed, by either movement, sound, or sight, the lithe form of Fox running across the sand nearby, and tried to do a Sandwyrm version of a hip check. Fox, the crazy Kobold, had a grin on her face as she simply jumped up and pushed off the hip check and let it toss her a few feet to the side, landing gracefully without missing a step. The crowd booed, and Oskar laughed out loud. Oskar immediately understood her earlier game plan much better. As long as she wasn’t pinned down or standing near the wall, it was like swatting a gnat. It wasn’t hurting her, just displacing her, and she was obviously made for this type of combat.

Oskar moved in carefully to try to find an opening and saw Touwon doing the same on the other side of the arena. The Sandwyrm wasn’t oblivious to their movement, and it wasn’t just utilizing vision considering it spent most of its time under the sand. It occasionally tried the hip check move on both Touwon and himself, but it was half-hearted and mostly just to scare them off while it chased Fox. She was doing a great job of not pulling the creature all around the arena and was keeping the thing mostly focused on the side of the arena with the platform.

Oskar, unused to this type of combat, hesitated when the Sandwyrm finally tried to come up under Fox directly, a move she’d obviously baited because she literally just waited on it, riding atop the head as it rose 10 feet or more in the air and then jumped behind the head at an angle it couldn’t easily react to. She pushed off the attempted side slam with a roll that put her in the first bad position she’d been in the entire fight. Too close to the head, too close to the wall and no room to move without turning the Wyrm’s head directly into Oskar, who easily had the worst maneuverability of the three.

His right foot was still doing well enough in the sand, but the constant churning of the ground was becoming relevant and his prosthetic side was sinking in a little with every step, making him much more unsteady and slower to react. He was trying to reposition himself after stepping in a particularly soft patch when Sandy threw another Shakira his way, and Oskar got tossed into an awkward heap a few meters away.

Distracted by his plight, Fox found herself in an awkward position as well and took a harder than expected blow, her shoulder hit by an indirect head-butt from the Wyrm… or possibly a butt-butt. This thing is weird looking.

Even still, she took the hit at an angle that tossed her in an optimal location with room to maneuver, but she did grunt on landing. Unlike Oskar, Touwon hadn’t hesitated at the opening the Wyrm gave him. Oskar noticed that when Sandy committed to a head butt, it fully extended itself and, in that moment was as close to stationary as it ever got. Of course, Touwon had already noticed and was taking full advantage. Oskar wasn’t sure exactly what Touwon did on the other side of its huge rolling bulk, but the Sandwyrm hated it. It jerked away from the Kobold towards Oskar and set him up perfectly for a thrust with his spear. It went in easily and deeply, and the Wyrm apparently hated that, too, spinning towards Oskar and wrenching the spear from his hands.

“Son of a-“

A whistling sound interrupted Oskar as the spin brought the blowholes on the top ridge of the beast into view as the beast finally stopped at an angle. Oskar registered the sound and remembered Fox’s warning about the sand blast attack. The holes were currently aimed low enough that his only chance to dodge was to jump. What small breeze existed in the arena swirled around his body, and he was launched in the air much higher than he expected. He tried to tuck his knees to completely avoid the blast, but the edge of the blast grazed his prosthetic right foot, and the impact spun him in the air.

Surprisingly, he had no problem with his bearings as he spun. Oskar wasn’t sure if it was his growing mastery over Sora or because he was able to keep his direction based on the Wayspring Location somewhere under the Point, but he knew exactly when and how to maneuver his body in the air to land. He did so, but his prosthetic sunk into the sand enough to land him in real danger of being crushed by the writhing Sandwyrm.

As he pulled his prosthetic out of the sand, he realized his boot had a bit of the outside edge shaved off. He blinked, wide eyed as the damage indicator flashed a red outline around the edge of his boot.

Yeah, thanks, PUBs. I noticed.

// You know, I don't always do stuff just to be irritating. I’ve got a bunch of this stuff automated. //

So, that was automated?

// Listen, I don’t tell you how to do your job. //

You might want to start. I have no idea what I’m doing.

// Don't sell yourself short, bud. Look. //

Oskar noticed his spear, painted in gore, sticking point up at an angle out of the sand where it had apparently come dislodged from the Sandwyrm during its spin.

The spin would have been a brilliant move if the spear hadn’t been indestructible. Instead, though, it had savaged itself with its violent throes. The spear almost tore Sandy in half before finally dislodging, and the Wyrm went berserk.