by Edward Brody
He leaned his head towards the runestone. “Touch the runestone and pray.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t understand his intention, but I knew that if I touched the runestone and put any sort of focus into it, I’d immediately bind to that spot. Did he somehow know that I’d be bound or was he trying to get me to participate in some sort of kooky religious ceremony?
There wasn’t much time for me to think about it, as I felt the point of a dagger press against my back. If I wasted any time, I was sure I’d end up like the guy on the floor.
I reached over to the runestone and touched it, but tried to think about anything other than binding—baseball, giant oasis bullfrogs, girls.
“Close your eyes and pray,” the bearded man insisted.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
You have bound to this location. Using a Recall Home spell or death will return you to this position.
“That’s enough,” the man said after a few seconds. “What door will he fight from, Castille?”
“Door 2,” Castille answered. I could hear the reluctance in his voice.
“Well, then,” the bearded man said. “You should hurry to your fight.”
My heart was racing as I walked down the hall and towards door two, and one of the bald men was following me to make sure I didn’t try to get away.
When I reached the door, I looked at the sinister-looking man, and then to the door, still completely confused about what was going on. Why had they attacked the Arena’s warden, and what was the purpose of them making me pray?
As the door started to slide away in front of me, I switched my mind back to my objective. Regardless of what the creepy freaks in the gathering area were doing, I still had to defeat Meijir. My main priority was to win the battle and complete the King’s quest, so that he would send spies across the Serpent Sea.
I needed to stay focused.
Arena Quest: Tier 1 Battle
Wins: 4, Losses: 0
Defeat your opponent to collect your reward.
Reward: Minimum of 500 gold, 4000 XP
Do you accept this quest?
Accept/Decline
I accepted the quest and snarled at the bald man as I drew my sword and stepped out into the fighting grounds. I could see Meijir was already waiting for me on the other side.
The crowd in the Arena was going wild.
But, no sooner than I had made it halfway to the announcer, I froze, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
It hit me then that I didn’t have the Last Breath spell, and that fact had essentially set me up for a deathmatch. If I didn’t defeat Meijir, I was going to die.
I spun around, and the door behind me had already closed. My heart started pounding in my chest, and I was breathing heavily. I needed to stop whatever was going on before it started.
The announcer beckoned me to step closer, and then I heard him ask, “Are you ready?”
“No!” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not ready.”
The announcer nodded once, said, “Very well,” and then he suddenly disappeared.
What the fuck!? I thought. Did he not hear me over the crowd or is he somehow involved in whatever’s going on?
I sheathed my sword and put my hands up in the air. “Stop the fight!” I yelled. “We’ve got to stop the fight! Something really weird is going on!”
The crowd continued cheering as if I were simply putting on a display.
I spun around in circles, scanning for guards, trying to figure out where Ozzy was sitting. “The Arena is under attack!” I yelled. “I wasn’t given my safety spell! Stop the fight!”
The intense cheering continued.
I put my arms down and started to turn back, thinking that I might try to reason with Meijir and explain the situation with him, but no sooner than I started to pivot, I felt an exploding, fiery pain slam into my back.
I screamed and fell forward and to my knees, and when I reached behind my back, I felt two throwing stars sticking out of my spine. A strange energy was rising out of them, and they felt like they were burning me from inside.
A hard boot slammed into my side, causing me to fall over and onto my back, pushing the burning stars deeper inside me.
I yelled out at the searing pain, and instinctively arched my back, but Meijir walked up to me and slammed his boot into my chest, holding me down from moving.
“Nooo!” I shouted in a panic. “Don’t kill me! I don’t have the spell!”
Meijir lifted his chin and held two of his daggers high into the sky.
The crowd roared.
“Finish him!” I heard someone yell.
I reached a hand out and tried to cast an Arcane Missile at him, but as I opened my palm to him, Meijir threw a dagger down that pierced my hand and pinned it to the ground.
I screamed again, and reached my other palm out, but he repeated the process and impaled it with his other dagger.
You are bleeding and require medical attention.
My hands were bleeding, and a strange energy was burning a deeper hole into my back. I was rendered mostly immobile by the daggers and Meijir’s foot, and when I glanced at my health bars, I was down to 15% health and losing a at least 1% every second.
I was going to die soon—very soon.
“Stop this,” I muttered weakly. “I’m going to die…”
Meijir didn’t stop. In fact, he didn’t even wait the 15 seconds for me to die. Instead, he lifted his boot off my chest and high into the air, adjusted it until it was right over my head, and slammed it down hard onto my face.
My vision went black, but I could hear a second or two of cheers before I passed over.
“Meijir! Meijir! Champion! Champion!”
YOU HAVE DIED
All of your current level’s progression has been reset to 0% and any unused attribute and level points have been lost.
You will respawn at your last bound location in approximately 2:00:00
Take this time to reflect on your choices.
You have failed the quest: Tier 1 Battle.
You have failed the quest: Defeat Meijir.
I sat in the void, brooding.
I had failed what might have been my most important quest yet, not for lack of ability, but because a group of freaks had infiltrated the Arena. And even worse, I had to endure the agonizing pain of another death.
I even lost all my progress towards level 21, which I was extremely close to hitting. That was killer.
Would the King give me another chance or was that that? Was I just going to have to forget about ever having any help from King Rutherford? Surely, he would see that the battle had been sabotaged.
And what about all my gear? There was a chance someone could steal something while I was dead.
I figured the guards would have witnessed my very public murder, and as soon as they got a handle on the situation with the freaks, the healers would come out and resurrect me. I thought it was unlikely I’d get looted before they rezzed me, but I couldn’t help but worry about my house key, which was still in my bag.
I wasn’t sure what the weirdo street prophet had been trying to accomplish with the arena attack, but whatever it was, I was sure he was in for a serious punishment for his crimes. The king was about to execute Jeremy and me for killing someone based on a single witness testimony, but there were numerous witnesses to this crime.
I started getting worried when I was sitting in the black nothingness for a while, and I couldn’t fathom what was going on for so long. Why hadn’t I been resurrected? Did the arena not have a healer that could rez?
Telling time in the death space was difficult, but I knew that I had been in there a long time and was anxious to get back to the world, when the darkness around me started to speckle away. But when my vision was fully cleared in front of me, I just wanted to run back to the void and hide.
I was still in the Arena, still in the middle of the fighting grounds, and down to my boxer shorts and
unburdening bag.
I hadn’t been resurrected. I respawned.
The entire crowd was still there, and everyone’s eyes were glued to me. Aside from a few alarmed gasps that I heard as soon as I materialized, it was dead silent.
In the stands, I could see several of the bald, robed men restraining the guards and blocking the exits. The wheelbarrow with the runestone inside it had been wheeled out to right beside my corpse. At least, I could only assume that it was where my corpse was, as all my gear was lying right there on the ground where I spawned, sitting in a pool of blood.
Meijir was gone, and the only other person on the ground was the bearded prophet, who was standing directly beside me.
“Freelanders! People of Highcastle!” he bellowed loudly with outstretched arms. “Now you have bore witness with your own eyes! The prophecy has come true! The Reborns have arrived!”
Everyone’s head turned as a sudden, heavy whooshing sound pierced through the air, and right above us flew a massive, red dragon. It passed overhead quickly, turned around and stopped, flapping its heavy wings again and again so that it hovered in the air.
It lowered itself down until its feet grasped onto the outer edge of the Arena wall, its weight causing tiny pieces of stone to to flake and fall. It lunged its neck towards the center of the Arena, exposing its sharp yellowed teeth, and let out an ear-shattering roar. The forceful air from its throat was so strong that it knocked the bearded man down into the dirt, and I instinctively ducked and put an arm over my eyes.
People started screaming and running in every direction, even the bald, robed men who were previously holding everyone back.
It was a total ‘holy shit’ moment, and I knew that things in Eden’s Gate would never be the same.
Author’s Notes
When I started writing Eden’s Gate, I challenged myself to write only from Gunnar’s perspective—unless it was action that was happening on Earth—so that we would only experience new in-game concepts as Gunnar experienced them. Resisting the temptation of jumping into Rachel’s head, Dr. Winston’s head or others—in game—to speed the story along and show you areas of the world that haven’t been revealed yet hasn’t been easy.
The fact that we stay with Gunnar the whole time means that Gunnar’s leveling speed is a little more gradual than other LitRPG stories, but hopefully you can appreciate the slow burn. I don’t want to fade-to-black and start a new segment where Gunnar suddenly has a whole repertoire of new skills and fighting abilities when he still has so much to learn about the game.
Also Gunnar dies, he loses loot, loot breaks. Just like if we were playing a normal MMO, there are those occasional times when Gunnar suffers tremendous setbacks, and he doesn’t always win by default. In The Arena, he lost nearly an entire level of progress during his death. Don’t worry—Gunnar will eventually reach higher levels, and he will level faster at points, and I’m looking forward to writing about all his badassness when that time comes.
When I write this series, I’m considering how all the books will feel at the end. When someone reads all ten (or however many) books that will be a part of this series, I want them to feel like they’ve gone through an epic adventure with Gunnar once they’ve reached the end and find out Gunnar’s (and Rachel’s) ultimate destiny.
In The Arena, I think we got to see how Gunnar’s experience in The Sands changed him and how he’s slowly evolved. He’s a bit tougher, a bit surer of himself, and he’s taking charge and stepping up his role as a guild leader. He’s gradually come from a guy who was a bit self-absorbed and saw the world around him as disposable in The Reborn, to someone who’s now more selfless and compassionate to the people around him.
I know a few people were speculating a Ray Ray appearance, as we already know Ray Ray is competing in the Arena, but keep in mind that Ray Ray is/was fighting out of Scotia, and it would be somewhat reckless for Gunnar to recall to the Endless Sands so soon after roasting Noreiga and escaping the Bloodletters.
Ray Ray will show her face again soon—very soon.
And the fate of Rachel will be revealed eventually as well. [Take that how you will, haha.]
Eden’s Gate is a massive world, there’s so many questions to answer, and we’ve only put a dent into Gunnar’s journey so far. What are the motives of robed men that have taken an interest in Gunnar? Why is there a dragon touching down in the Arena? Will he take up the offer to join the Mage’s or Fighter’s faction? What about the Village of the Ancients?
You may have noticed that The Arena is the first book in the series where there were no Earth segments, and this again goes back to keeping things in Gunnar’s perspective. It’s obvious that Crylight is in the game at this point, so there’s nothing of note happening on the Earth side. We’ll only return there when something does happen.
That begs me to ask, what would you think of a spinoff in the Eden’s Gate world that follows the story from Rachel’s perspective? Perhaps another Reborn’s journey? I feel like we’ve gotten so deep, and some of the rules and systems are so complex that it would be a waste to leave the world once Gunnar’s story is done. If you’d like to read the adventures of other characters in the same game world, leave me a message to let me know. If I see there’s some interest, I might make it happen! :]
And once again, thank you so much for sticking with the series so far! The feedback has been tremendous, and it still honors me to think that so many nizzles have gotten lost in any story that I’ve created.
If you enjoyed the book, the biggest ‘thanks you’ I’ll ever ask you is for to leave a review on Amazon. It helps me a lot! And as always, feel free to email or kick me a message or comment on Facebook if you have the urge. I love hearing from all of you!
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Til book 5…
-Edward
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