by Ryan DeBruyn
He turned the Sovereign signet ring on his finger distractedly. Ogma glanced at his hands and squinted for a brief moment before moving on. Azrael felt his heart stutter when Ogma looked at his hands. Luckily, Ogma hadn’t commented on the ring and must have thought Azrael was just playing with his hands.
Jophi followed Ogma’s eyes to his hands and frowned at him before continuing the story. “Since that day, Ogma has refused to increase his rank from Master to Epic. After all this time, he found a way to bypass Stasis, but he worries that entering the Epic rank will trigger his mother to place him in the same type of experiment.”
Ogma picked up the hanging thread of conversation. “For Oberan to have already been given permission to track me down, I’m afraid she has enough Essence to perform the experiment a second time.
“I should have tried to escape, but I fear I have stayed in seclusion too long—Oberan is Epic ranked now and likely can beat me like I used to beat my red-headed step-brother, Lugh!”
“Jophi mentioned the shiploads of prisoners delivered to the planet. What possible reason could Danu have for that?” Azrael asked.
“The Essence Danu used the first time was purchased from all over the Etherverse. In shops, quests; any way the Tuatha could find it. Still, once Tech Duinn was habitable, she discovered that she could farm it here. The infrastructure to handle life, Ether, and Essence is in its juvenile stages on a new planet. Danu is overloading the ecostructure by dumping massive amounts of slaves here. At first, Danu just wanted living races as filters. The plan was to overpopulate the planet and farm the wildlife drops for the rare Tech Duinn Essence.” Ogma paused in his story and looked at Jophi sadly.
The moment stretched, and Azrael realized this was information he had never told her.
Is he resigning himself to his fate—given up on saving himself and his brother?
After a few moments, Jophi shrugged, “Yeah, Cathodiem already knew that part before I got sent to you.”
Ogma nodded but held up a finger. “Oh, it gets worse, I’m afraid. Oberan was in charge of the hunter teams who were collecting Essence from wildlife. They founded a few Territories to house themselves and placed some Cardinal Dungeons to add some challenges for their days off. Well, one of the Cardinal Dungeons was the Arena Pit in Samheim. During a run, Oberan killed a few of his guardsmen who had been stealing bottles of Essence. Instead of normal loot, the Pit presented Oberan with bottles of Essence for every second kill.”
Jophi held up a hand and asked the question on Azrael’s mind, “Dungeons are part of the infrastructure that help planets filter Ether to Essence. Why would this dungeon help him?”
Azrael turned back to Ogma, who answered, “Turns out that the Planetary God isn’t communicating with his dungeons like he should. The lack of communication is a huge confirming factor for why I believe Dagda is in trouble. He isn’t able to handle being a Planetary God.”
Azrael scratched his head, “Is that why they push people to the arena?”
“Not only that, Azrael, why do you think the system allows people to loot all gear off of a corpse? The Tech Duinn system doesn’t even lock the equipment after a kill. They encourage murder now, anywhere on the planet. Danu is pillaging Tech Duinn to gather enough Essence to create another broken Planetary God. If someone doesn’t stop her, one day the Tuatha De Danaan will have thousands of broken, unstable Planetary Gods. Then no one will be able to stand against them.”
The sight of the Black Pyramids of Samheim came into view behind Ogma and Jophi. They followed Azrael’s gaze and the conversation stopped. The pyramids were small things on the horizon but the reminder of their destination and his fate didn’t leave him in the mood to continue. Azrael was likely to end up in the Arena Pits. A slow death certainly, but a death all the same. Jophi had some protection still from her family but ran the risk of also being converted to a bottle of Tech Duinn Essence.
Ogma wasn’t going to die. No, his mom was going to turn him into a planet—yay for family, right?
Chapter Thirteen
Welcome to the “The Pit Arena”.
This Arena Dungeon has an Ether Contract with the Territory. You must have the leader’s permission to enter here. This dungeon cannot be cleared, only challenged. Step onto the sands to compete.
Good luck.
Level: Unknown
Age: 3155 days
Best time: N/A
Clears: N/A
Ether Concentration: High
To exit the dungeon, leave through the entrances.
Azrael jerked as the prison transport stopped. “I wish you luck in the arena,” Ogma said as he stood.
Azrael sighed. He just needed to survive and gain strength. To hold out long enough to find a way out—honestly, those aspirations were only slightly better than hare-brained.
The guards opened the back and politely removed Ogma and Jophi. Azrael stood, expecting to be taken out as well, but was largely ignored. One of the guards escorting Ogma shouted, “The last one is a recruit! Make ‘im feel right at home, boys.”
Azrael closed his eyes and breathed. He needed to be in control of his racing heart. He opened his eyes to find a barrel-chested orc, wearing cheap leather armor, approaching the back with a long polearm. Something bounced at the top of the shaft. The movement was a loop of rope tied in a noose.
Oh, come on! The other two weren’t treated like animals.
He used Analyze.
Torin Tarzac
Master-Warrior
Level 8
Moderate Analyze failed to provide additional information.
Torin barked, “Don’t resist, and this ain’t got to be hard on ya.”
Azrael stood still after the warning. He let the rope slide over his head like he was a dangerous pet. His body stiffened when the rope scratched down the front of his face and settled in place. Torin wrenched his end and dragged Azrael from the center of the prison transport. A small pop sounded from his neck as it protested the whiplash. “What? Ow, man! Was that totally—”
Torin yanked on it again, completing Azrael’s extrication from the back of the prison vehicle. Azrael bit his tongue as he fell the five feet from the bed of the hovering transport to the stone floor. He braced the collision with his palms and the gray stone peeled back skin. Pain blossomed along both his hands, forearms, knees, and chest. Instead of trying to talk again, he quickly got to his feet, hoping to minimize the orc’s poor treatment.
His compliance didn’t help. No matter how fast Azrael moved, there was constant pressure on his neck from the rope. They moved towards a doorway out of the courtyard and Torin jerked the pole, forcing Azrael to collide with the stone doorframe. He managed to avoid slamming into it face first, but only barely.
Azrael slid along the wall of the hallway before careening across to the other wall. It was like a grotesque puppet show. They ignored passage after passage before Torin yanked him back into one he had already walked by. Azrael was beyond the door frame and collided first with the wall, then was dragged back over the corner, and into the passage Torin wanted to take.
It took every piece of training he had to avoid being knocked out in one of fifty collisions.
They entered a well-lit room. Azrael got a look at his hands and knees. Both body parts were burning from the constant abuse, and a glance showed them to be bloody and raw.
He checked his interface during the reprieve, and his health points were even down twenty-two points!
Torin guided him to the center of the space and commanded, “Strip!” Azrael breathed in his first full breath in minutes. At least there wasn’t a wall immediately beside him to be wary of. His hesitation cost him. The orc flicked a switch.
Instead of Azrael being able to remove his tattered clothing, a jet of water exited the wall. A spike of intense pain tore through his ratty shirt and ripped it right off his back. The jet of water, now on his bare skin, began to tick away at his health points as it flayed him. Azrael screamed in pain and sh
ock, but Torin just maneuvered the polearm and, by association, Azrael into turning around, so his back got torn as well.
His health points hit one hundred, and Torin hit another button. The jet of water fell to his stomach. The process repeated. The button clicked again, forcing Azrael to protect his manhood with his hands, which soon were painfully red and chafed. He didn’t dare remove them, or he might become a eunuch.
He felt the Ring of Holding on his right hand and covered it with his left. He didn’t think Torin would notice it, but wanted to be cautious anyway. He considered pulling out his sword and attacking Torin but realized in his weakened state that was certain death.
Another side effect of the spray, making its way to his lower body, was the loss of what remained of his tattered garments.
The torture finally ended. Azrael was only standing on his feet because of the rope and polearm. Around him, red water swirled into a nearby drain. His health points had dropped to a dangerous ten points, and he had numerous debuffs on his interface.
Torin didn’t let him rest long and steered him back out of the chamber.
He kept his hands cupping his exposed manhood, and tried not to let the lump in his throat morph into tears. He locked onto his anger and mentally began plotting all the ways he would hurt Torin in the future. He would gain power, and Torin would pay for this casual abuse.
Azrael stumbled into another well-lit room. A massive Bearman stood in front of stacked shelves. His jerky entrance heralded the man to turn, pick up a bundle of assorted cloth, and shove it into his stomach. The bundle knocked the air from his lungs while simultaneously pushing him backward. Of course, his hands came away from his ‘jewels’ to catch this package.
Torin jerked the pole forward towards the new abuser. Azrael’s neck dragged his upper body forward as his ass and stomach were pushed back by the Bearman. Intense pain flared at the base of his skull, threatening to turn out the lights.
He bit his lip to combat the blackout with pain and growled. The Bearman growled back at him louder. Mocking him. Torin and the Bearman laughed. Azrael clenched his teeth and Analyzed his new tormenter.
Papi Vears
Journeyman-Grizzly
Level 43
Moderate Analyze failed to provide additional information.
Gallows humor. It had no meaning. But Azrael stacked logs on his inner fuel source. These two would one day burn if he had his way.
Azrael was directed through an exit. The only upside was that Torin stopped abusing him, due to his low health points. The width of the path opened up, and Azrael breathed in a full lungful of air. There were no close walls to bounce off. Then he noticed the two stories of cells with leering faces. He was paraded naked and bleeding past hundreds of angry eyes.
He was without a stitch of clothing, barely able to cover his manhood, and being frog-marched. This scenario had never even crossed his mind. Not even in his nightmares. Now he knew he would be reliving this moment in his worst dreams the rest of his life. He stacked more logs inside of his heart. He refused to allow this to break him.
Torin stopped rushing him too, instead reigning him in whenever he tried to speed walk. This orc was a toad, and Azrael’s fingers dug into the fabric bundle he held, imagining the cloth as the orc’s neck.
Without warning, he was wrenched sideways into an empty cell. The cell didn’t have any windows. The light in the hallway was the only illumination, but even that was dim.
Torin jerked the rope, which loosened it, and then pulled it over his head. It might have been unintentional, but Torin managed to hit Azrael in the face with the rope. The threaded fibers caught his nose, and Torin chose that moment to pull. His nose cracked, and a debuff image of a broken bone joined his interface. Azrael roared.
Another image of a red teardrop joined it, and hot liquid spilled down onto his lips and chin. He tasted salt and iron. He cut off his roar, clenched his jaw and turned around. Torin met eyes with him. The toad was smiling, and Azrael glared back. They stood there for a brief moment facing each other before the orc chose to slam the cell door and turn away.
Torin turned over its shoulder. “Battle Royale tomorrow morning at dawn. Sleep well.” As if that was an afterthought. The toad howled with laughter and continued its strut away.
Azrael glared at the orc’s back, hoping an iota of his rage transferred into the action. That toad was going to die one day.
He dropped his bundle to the stone floor and twisted his storage ring on his finger. They hadn’t thought to take it from him. Not that they could have, thanks to its Soulbound nature, but he still had a weapon and the desire to kill—to survive.
Too bad he had left all those spare clothes tied to his portable tent and not in his ring!
Chapter Fourteen
Torin strode out of the cell block. The toad’s exit signaled Azrael’s brain to stop emitting pure static and allowed him to begin to use the organ again. He remembered the dropped bundle of assorted cloth. He picked it up and sorted through it. He groaned when he found only a rough woolen bed sheet, blanket, and some sort of scratchy towel.
After numerous failed attempts, he at last managed to wrap the towel around his butt, waist, and privates. Tucking it in on itself. The end result was a very uncomfortable loin cloth. He took a deep breath; he needed to continue thinking. Anger would only hinder him now.
There was a life or death free-for-all battle tomorrow—he needed to prepare. Despite everything he tried, a part of him was still seething. Roiling like magma. He couldn’t wall it off or cool it down and decided to run through his martial katas one by one.
His erratic heart fell into line first. His muscles demanded the organ’s appropriate action to supply oxygen. His brain was next as his movement grew more complex, and the neural capacity being used to throw a temper tantrum shrank. Sweat broke out on his skin and, with it, an occasional cool breeze as he moved. The magma calmed but the volcano below it remained active, rumbling its displeasure at his treatment.
The cooling heat sharpened into a blade that he was more comfortable using. Azrael went through some stretches to reduce stiffness after his exertions and studied his character sheet.
He was a bit unbalanced now towards Stamina. But it may have saved his life. So, while it was slightly high for what he would have wanted, he was able to come to terms with it.
He had mostly ignored Charisma and Luck. Charisma represented external beauty, the ability to convey emotion through speech, and general likeability. A person’s charm, per se. It might be helpful in the arena to gain the favor of the crowd, but he was praying to never be in the precarious hands of that mob. The blood crazy entity that reduced all sapients to their basest natures.
Luck, on the other hand, could be the most useful or useless stat. In many ways, Luck was a multiplier. The more points in Luck, the higher chance of finding rare situations.
Those rare situations could be finding a dropped money pouch in a massive city or running across a mighty and deadly creature. After arranging this fateful encounter, Luck seemed to not play into the picture. It was a literal crapshoot that played with chaos theory, tugging on threads in a woven tapestry. Sometimes creating something better, but often destroying the entire work.
He wanted no part in Luck’s dubious results. He needed high combat stats, first and foremost. They were concrete—tangible.
His points in Stamina increased overall health and added to his body’s recovery rate. A point in Strength increased one’s physical ability to maneuver heavy objects, cut through opponents’ inherent Ether, and increased bone density. A point in Agility was a point in synapse speed, muscle response rate, and explosive power. Dexterity added nerve endings, creating heightened awareness to sensory inputs, more exceptional motor control, and in some ways, speed to precision actions.
After that, you were out of physical and into the two spiritual attributes. Intelligence was a no brainer, his teacher used to say. A stat point placed in Intelligence increased
brain synapse response, information recall and, of course, the body’s ability to encapsulate personal Ether. Wisdom was also linked to the brain, but simultaneously the body. Wisdom was the speed of information recall, the efficiency of brain usage, and the body’s ability to absorb external Ether.
His sheet came across like a melee class. Not horrible, but from this point on he was going to need to balance out the spiritual stats. The more skills he unlocked in his custom class, the more he believed his strength lay in a balance. His class was shaping up to be something on par with how people described the Sovereign class: a threat from anywhere on the battlefield.
He continued to twirl his ring and briefly considered pulling out his sword to use in training. No. That was too high of a risk to use for a prolonged period. If he lost the blade, he would be at a severe disadvantage tomorrow. Instead, he looked around his cell for the first time. There was a cot in the corner, made from old and cracking wood. He had a hole, right at the foot of the bed. Theoretically that hole was the perfect toilet to relieve himself.
That was everything the cell contained.
Azrael’s eye twitched. He turned towards the only structure that might work for his plan. Surreptitiously, he began a downward strike and pulled his sword from his ring’s inventory into his hand. The sword sheared through the old dry wood of the bed with ease. The blade exited the wood and he dismissed it back into the Ring of Holding.
He waited as the bed collapsed in the destroyed corner, acutely listening for any reaction. The boom of the bed was loud in the silence, followed by the leg he had cut, falling and bouncing hollowly on the stone floor. Each bounce echoed a pang through the cell block, but other than some angry hissing, nothing else happened. Perfect!
