by Rue Vespers
The spoon fell out between the bars of the mouth guard and clattered on the counter. “Little help?” the teacup called.
Jenner pushed the spoon back in and the fight resumed. “Heeeeere’s Rosy!”
“Five thousand dollars?”
“But he’s no one!”
Jenner needed to look like he was doing something, or else these people might decide to approach him for a direct confrontation. “Uhh . . . is there a merit trophy list? Who are the top 5 players in the game?”
Top 5 Merit Trophy Winners!
First Place: User453692: 5,287 trophies
Second Place: Zing Zing: 5,165 trophies
Third Place: ScrambleThis: 5,010 trophies
Fourth Place: Prince Nicodemus: 5,009 trophies
Fifth Place: Doctor WhenWhereWhyHow: 4,894 trophies
Damn! The dragon/elf prince hadn’t been lying. He was exactly one trophy away from a third place tie with ScrambleThis. But what was the point of gathering them?
Why not ask?
“Do you get something for collecting all of the merit trophies?” Jenner inquired.
Fun Fact Time! Are you a merit trophy junkie? You should be! Earn extra skill points, unlock special side quests, and explore new regions of the game open only to those who qualify! Many top-ranked players build their own merit trophy museums and collect money from visitors hungry to see recaps of a player’s most daring exploits in pursuit of those golden cups!
“Are you going to go to this teacup asshole’s match?”
“Hell yes! Nobody’s bid on me yet and I want to see the dragon teach him a lesson.”
Jenner wished the armorer would hurry up. “What about Dan the Troll?” he asked. “Can I look up how many trophies Dan the Troll has?” The troll had been in the game since it was released, so he had to have collected quite a lot.
The blocks broke apart and soared back.
Ninety-Sixth Place: Dan the Troll: 4,244 trophies
First Merit Trophy earned: Welcome, Opening Day Player
Most Recent Merit Trophy earned: Catch That Dock Kitty!
“All right!” The armorer was a whip-thin but wiry woman named Brigid. Lifting a reddish-orange shield up to the counter, she said, “You hardly need a shield this expensive or so highly enchanted for a Level 15 dragon, but your patron insisted on the best in stock.”
The shield was rather plain for its cost. Brass studs made sunburst patterns all the way around, a queer design positioned between each pair of bursts that was neither human nor animal yet both. Yet when Jenner ran his hand over it, he could feel the intensity of the wizard spells contained within the shield.
The spoon rattled loudly against the mouth guard. “I WANT TO SEE!”
Jenner tilted the troll helmet to let Rosy out. The teacup hopped over and gave the shield a critical examination. “Wood-wrapped leather?” it asked the armorer.
She nodded like she talked weapons with a teacup on a daily basis. “Hardwood-wrapped leather with a central brass boss, as well as brass rivets and studs, twenty-four inches across. It has multiple fire wards, an anti-smashing ward, a widener and weight-lightener spell, and a dragon blinder.”
“A dragon blinder? What’s that?” Jenner asked.
“He doesn’t know what that is!” someone whispered nearby.
“A dragon blinder is considered a weak spell even at full strength, which this one is,” Brigid replied. “When your opponent blasts your shield with fire, this spell will create a sunburst kickback that briefly blinds the dragon. However, this spell runs down after three kickbacks and it takes time to regenerate. Take up the shield and get a feel for it.”
Jenner pulled the shield from the counter. It was shockingly light due to the wizard spell, as light as if it was made of cardboard. He disliked it automatically; something with heft would have made him feel safer. This was like a kid’s cheap toy, or part of a Halloween costume.
Halloween. He remembered Halloween.
He just needed to get used to it. Slipping his left arm through the set of leather straps on the underside of the shield, he held it against himself.
Congrats on your rental! How does it feel to lift a shield? Players often overlook the offensive capabilities of a lightweight shield, which can be used in an axe-like motion for strikes to the head and to slice at the arms of one’s opponent. Take a street class to improve your shield skills!
“Now for the glove.” Brigid placed a pewter cuff bracelet on the counter. It had an etched brass inlay with intricate patterns. “Would I be right in assuming you have not yet encountered one of these in the game?”
“Yeah,” Jenner admitted.
“This is a Gregallan glove. They’re used by human players while confronting trolls and shifters in combat. For you, a Level 4 human player, to punch a Level 15 dragon will do it no harm whatsoever. It will barely feel your strongest blow, and its scales are hard enough to sprain your wrist. This glove evens the playing field. Raise your right hand.”
He raised it. She slipped the cuff bracelet over his fingers and settled it upon his wrist.
Congrats on your rental! The Gregallan glove is a pricy little piece of armor, but well worth the cost! Give a troll a punch it will always remember with this fascinating wizard-demon blend of magical jewelry. It’s fire-proof, smash-proof, and won’t let you down when you need it most!
Congrats! You have earned a merit trophy for Rented Weapons Are The Best Weapons.
“It’s just a bracelet,” Jenner said in bafflement.
“Of course it’s just a bracelet!” Rosy exclaimed, jumping to his shoulder. “You aren’t in any danger in the gladiator lounge.”
Brigid motioned to the dagger on Jenner’s belt. “I’d put that in your inventory. A Thimbault dagger won’t do you any good in this match, and you don’t want anything weighing down your pockets. Your purse either. There’s a weight limit on your inventory, but you shouldn’t be anywhere near exceeding it at your level.”
He wished she wouldn’t mention how low he was in levels. As if he wasn’t totally aware of that. His dagger and purse vanished.
“Come on! Hurry up so we can get seats!”
When Jenner turned around, the lounge was empty. There were practically tumbleweeds blowing through it. Everyone was rushing away to get seats in the ring.
“Rosy, what if I don’t win?” he whispered in horror as Brigid bustled away. “I won’t be able to show my face in public, and I’m kind of stuck here.”
“They’ll forget,” Rosy said. “People do stupid crap all the time in Scrambled Lives.”
That wasn’t comforting. “Promise?”
“I promise. For fuck’s sake, one wizarding student scrambled herself by using her wand as a dildo. That’s a lot worse than anything you could possibly do in the ring.”
ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE? Your match is about to begin! Say YES to accept the Loot Theft Challenge.
Oh God. He didn’t even have a genuine diploma from a gladiator school.
The luck potion.
He had traded his skill point for a luck potion! In a snap, the ampoule appeared. He nudged out the cork with his thumb and drained the liquid in one gulp. The flavor was strange though not unpleasant, a mixture of lemons and salted peanuts that were nice while separate but weird put together.
Well? Shouldn’t he feel lucky? He felt exactly the same.
The ampoule and cork vanished.
Congrats! You have ingested a Luck Potion (B). The effects will last for exactly twelve hours.
Congrats! You have earned a merit trophy for Feeling Lucky?
He had the shield. He had the glove. He had the luck potion. And he had a promise of five thousand dollars for a win.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely.
The lounge was gone in the time it took him to blink.
He was within a cage just like the one that the trolls had been in, looking out through the bars to the stadium. It was the same fighting ring in which he chased the baby troll, b
ut it looked completely different now.
Rows of broken marble columns ran here and there upon several distinct tiers of a formerly fancy ornamental garden. Linked by short staircases of eight steps, the individual gardens upon each level had been allowed to go wild. Green mats of weeds dripped over the sides of the tiers, tangled down the steps, and wound up the columns, which once formed linked archways. Only two archways still stood on a middle level; some giant hammer had gouged and downright smashed the rest of them into pieces.
Even in the sadness of its destruction, the garden was a hauntingly beautiful scene. Jenner moved along the bars of his cage to see it all. Some of the spilled marble wasn’t from the damaged columns but toppled statues, their faces and finer details washed away by time. Their pedestals had been clobbered into chunks.
In the distance was an onyx dragon with red eyes.
It was the size of a minivan. A frill of short spines ran down its back to its tail, which was tipped with a spiked ball. Dark gray wings stretched out wide and pulled back in as the dragon walked on six legs around a large treasure chest.
The crowd was going wild with laughter and foot-stomping and cat-calling. The seats in the stadium were half-full, and changed to completely full as NPCs suddenly filled in the empty patches.
The announcer from the day before came over the sound system. “This wasn’t the match I was expecting to see on the roster when I came in this morning!” he cried. “It’s a Loot Chest challenge starring Fang-tail, a budding favorite in the ring, versus The Teacup Guy and who in Hogdoor’s hell is he?”
Laughter thundered from thousands of throats.
“For those of you who are new to Loot Chest challenges . . . and I’m looking at you, Mr. Level 4 Teacup Guy . . . the object of the game is possession of the ruby in the treasure chest! Can Level 15 Fang-tail keep it all to himself? Can The Teacup Guy wrest it away? I’m pretty sure we all know how this ends, so get your bets in!”
“Hey, fuck you!” Rosy hollered, the spoon rattling around testily.
“Fang-tail has been wowing us with his fighting moves since his first match at Level 9! He’s bested dragons-”
“YAY!” the audience cheered.
“Scrambled trolls-”
“YAY!”
“Trounced Hammer and Nail, the dwarf twins-”
“YAY!”
“And let’s not forget what he did to that full werewolf pack just two days ago! He sent them home yipping with their tails tucked between their legs, didn’t he?”
“YAY!”
“You can’t go wrong dropping some coins on Fang-tail, who has never lost a match!”
“YAY!”
“And now . . . armed with a shield, a Gregallan glove, and loads more confidence than any Level 4 player should have and a Level 200 wizard would envy, introducing . . . The Teacup Guy!”
“BOOOO!”
“You see, folks, this is where I would read off a list of his accomplishments . . . but he doesn’t have any! Well, that’s not fair, is it? Let’s give him a round of applause for his one shitty point in sword skills! Yes, one whole point!”
Jenner wanted to sink through the ground as the audience clapped mockingly. “BOOOO!”
“And let’s give him another round of applause for drinking a demon-grade health potion, which infected him with grakel scales! How many of us know what a grakel demon is? Not me!”
“BOOOO!”
“Maybe he thinks his little luck potion will swing the match his way, but let’s see what Fang-tail thinks about that!”
The dragon reared back and roared.
“That’s what I thought! Give me a second to bet a gold on our friend Fang-tail here and we’ll raise that gate! Are you having second thoughts, The Teacup Guy? You should be!”
The crowd stamped and hollered and pumped their fists. Bookies and vendors raced up and down the stairs, taking money and tokens and handing out tickets and treats. Jenner looked upwards, realizing some of the drumming wasn’t thousands of feet but the rain upon the opaque umbrella cast over the stadium. The storm was raging overhead, lightning cracking in forks high above. A little of the rain had come down before the umbrella was put up; the tops of the marble columns were slick.
“Get ready to throw your popcorn! How about we count down from five together?” the announcer shouted.
“I hate this guy,” Rosy muttered. “I hope he gets scrambled into a toilet and I get scrambled into a troll so I can take a huge, hot curry dump in him.”
“FIVE!” the announcer chanted with the audience.
“FOUR!”
“THREE!”
“TWO!”
“ONE!”
“ZERO!”
The gate lifted.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The announcer had done Jenner one favor: he was so pissed off at being treated like a big joke that he stormed fearlessly out of the cage. Taking a partially smashed flight of stone stairs up to a higher tier in the garden, he tightened his hold on the shield.
The black dragon on the other side of the ring didn’t even look at him. The beast coiled around the big treasure chest and laid down, his spiked tail tapping against the ground in a cat-like fashion. His open boredom and disdain for this match put fresh energy into the audience, who fell apart with mirth.
That was how much of a challenge this wasn’t to the dragon. Those red eyes stared mildly up to the raging storm. And that made Jenner angrier than he already was! The shifter could at least do him the courtesy of looking at him.
Rosy was madder at the audience. “Fuck you! Fuck all of you!” the teacup yelled, waving its spoon in what it imagined was a threatening manner. Up on the jumbo screens, the pink-and-white teacup was a thousand times bigger but just as silly-looking.
Stepping over a headless statue, Jenner cut down a pathway between two snarled beds of flowers for the next flight of stairs. His right arm abruptly grew warm and he paused to look down.
The bracelet was changing.
Melting.
Growing.
Somehow, it sensed that he was approaching an enemy. The metal moved as liquid over his skin, glowing gray streams running down to his right hand and up to his elbow to form a gauntlet that engulfed his forearm entirely. The liquid hardened into a metal glove.
“Oho! Oh-ho-ho-ho!” the announcer cried. “Look at his face! He’s a Gregallan glove virgin, isn’t he? I bet he just scored a dinky little merit trophy! Give him a cheer!”
Up in the stands, they cheered. There was no merit trophy; the guy was just being a dick to score another round of laughter at Jenner’s expense.
Jenner closed his fingers to make a fist with the gauntlet. Unlike the shield, which felt like it could blow away in a light breeze, the glove had weight to it. Not too much to make it hard to lift his arm, but enough to give him a sense of its power.
He kept his fist raised as he climbed the second set of steps. The dragon was forty feet away over a tier speckled with garden beds, fallen statues, and wandering lines of columns.
Finally, finally, the dragon deigned to look at him.
And yawned.
Jenner was an ant challenging a boot. A towel taking on a tsunami.
His lips set.
The announcer shifted from nattering into the microphone about Jenner’s virginity with weapons to his likely virginity with the womenfolk as well. His memories were so spotty in this subject that he couldn’t contradict the guy, but in a primal, reptilian place in his mind, his pride was stung unbearably. He was twenty-one. He had to have had sex at least once in the outer-world, hadn’t he? He just couldn’t remember.
“Maybe we can give The Teacup Guy some helpful tips in the bedroom while the dragon throws him around the ring!” the announcer exclaimed. “Tip one: how to remove a bra!”
Seeing red, Jenner burst into a run.
Fang-tail leaped to his feet, the lightning that cracked overhead reflecting in the dragon’s polished black scales. Two giant jaws opene
d and fire ripped out. Jenner jerked up his flimsy shield and the spout of fire sprayed against it.
The shield held, and the blinder worked. The dragon reared and shook his head to clear his eyes. As the large creature’s legs hit the ground, the strong vibration through the rock caused Jenner to stumble. He kept his footing and swung back his gloved fist.
Still bleary-eyed, the dragon lashed out with his spiked tail. Just as Jenner slugged the beast squarely in the chest, the tail smacked into Jenner and sent him flying over the garden. Rosy yelled and leaped off.
“LOOK AT HIM GO, FOLKS! Minus a couple of HP to Fang-tail for that glove punch, but that’s okay, he’s got plenty of points to go!”
Jenner landed in a kneeling position. He slammed the Gregallan glove into the rock to stop himself from toppling over onto his face. Without the scales, the pain of landing on one’s knees would have been excruciating. But with the scales, he felt a tremendous though painless jolt and was back on his feet almost immediately.
“And minus . . . minus nothing to The Teacup Guy with that tail slap! Damn, those grakel scales are the only thing keeping him alive in there. A hit like that to a regular Level 4 human player and it’s scramble time!”
Shrieking like a little girl, Rosy jumped onto Jenner’s shoulder just as he looked back.
The dragon was closing the distance between them at top speed, smoke gushing out from its throat. Jenner turned to run away, but he only made it three steps before those jaws closed over his trousers and jerked him off his feet. He was whipped back and forth in the dragon’s mouth, unable to do anything about it when the beast was behind him.
“THAT SHOULD DO IT! HOW ABOUT A PLATE OF NICE SCRAMBLED EGGS FOR BREAKFAST, TEACUP GUY?”
Fabric ripped, and he was soaring again. Fire sprayed into his back, flames crackling over his shoulders and around his sides. Dropping to a staircase, he tumbled down the steps in a wave of sparks.
