There were fifteen contestants, including Ryan and Lisa—not including Sam. Most of the others who stepped into the ring looked a year or four older than him. Only one other had dressed quite as outrageously as him, a woman in an elaborate olive poncho.
Bells were sewn onto its hem. It made him think of a jester or rogue, but she wore a leather tricorne hat and raised a spiked mace in a falconer's glove. He didn't know what to make of her then.
The fashion of the other contestants leaned more toward authentic climbing gear with allowances made for style—fewer arm and leg guards, showing off muscled arms; one swordsman didn't even have a helt and had styled his hair into a wave.
The comntators were finishing their introductions, but Ryan figured that was a lost cause. He had missed the others, too. "So uh, what exactly do we do?"
"Fight monsters. Put on a good show. Steal opportunities from the other contestants, show them up, or team up depending on the mood of the audience. Don't fall into a trap like Kyle."
The reminder made Ryan check the arena. He couldn't spot any traps at a first glance … which was probably the point.
He found it hard to focus. His attention was pulled in six different ways: the comntators, the arena, the other contestants, her, the audience, his own giant image in the air.
"Do we fight the others?"
"This is a dayti Raid Royale so … it's complicated. Only if the audience wants it, if the situation demands it, or if that's part of your character. The comntators will cue you in.
"It's definitely sothing you want to communicate to … just about everyone. To the audience, the referee before the fight, and especially whoever you challenge. No ambushes right off the bat. Issue an obvious challenge and get consent. If they aren't up for it, kind of tussle for a bit and part ways to make it look smooth."
"Okay?" That was a lot. Ryan just struck the idea from his mind entirely and thought, Play nice.
He almost scoffed at himself. Of course, he would. He was an alleyball player raised on fair play. So why would he think … otherwise …
Oh. Right. Not so much nicety lately.
"Tap out before you get too hurt. If the referee has to do it, you'll be penalized. Dayti matches try to avoid gore and serious injuries."
"Evening matches don't?"
"If you want, we can stick around and watch from the booth. You'll see." She turned to a window in the far wall, where a dozen or so people surveyed them with their own, more extensive illusions. A few held crystals … the summoners' booth?
He imagined Lisa in there, summoning hordes of Sam clones to attack poor helpless climbers. Suddenly, her choice of work made a lot more sense.
"How do summoners work at that distance? Skills?"
"Sotis, but they have spellwood connecting from the booth to around the arena and use crystals as anchors. Steal those if you can, but don't break them. The audience wants to see us earn loot, so they can feel like they're in the Tower, but we don't get to keep it—"
"—in a match like this," he finished for her, "but if we make a show of it, we might get paid more?"
She smiled. "You've got this."
It made sense. And it fit with a lot of what Ryan had read in its broad strokes, even if the details were off. His books had lied to him. Big surprise.
Feeling more secure, he put Lisa, the audience, and the giant image of himself out of his mind and took in the terrain. The arena was around eighty by eighty ters and filled with artificial lawns and hills, crumbling ruins, bushes, a few trees, and a pond near the center.
Lines cut across its floor and anything in their way—bisecting a hill and going through a missing brick in a wall—to be visible from above.
In the illusions, two of those lines each ford trapezoids without a ceiling—their starting areas. There was space between each, as well as the large center.
'Steal opportunities and show the others up.' He figured that ant they had a claim here but had to conquer the common areas?
The team of four had gotten a double-wide starting area, cutting what should have been eight symtrical trapezoids, one for each side and corner, down to seven.
They had a white coyote with them, mist flowing off its fur. Ryan recognized the type all too well—a monster like it had sunk its teeth into his forearm once and slobbered into the wound. A Forest Prowler.
He instinctively backed away, but they were far from them, across the field and to the right. Ryan would try to avoid them.
Another team of two to their right, a team of three to their left. After those, the green jester on her own, another duo, and the swordsman with the hair and arms opposite them.
The numbers seed disproportionately weighted toward one side. Or were the two singles so powerful as to balance it out?
The comntator with the steady voice was wrapping up the introductions, and Ryan began to panic again. "So how do we—" he started to ask as the second comntator raised her voice into a shrill scream:
"Ladies and gentlen, let the raid begin!"
Ryan had turned to address Lisa. He caught a glimpse of movent in the corner of his eye and barely heard the wildcat's yowl over the roar of the audience.
It jumped out of a bush. He spun his spear to strike it down. It hit the ground and lay limp but didn't burst into smoke.
Was it dead? Ryan poked it. He'd torn a gash through its ribcage, but instead of bone or blood, he found an earthy glow. It didn't even leak smoke. It just … glowed. After the short delay, as if it had been commanded to self-detonate, it burst.
All over the arena, the other contestants launched into action, and the comntators' voices beca a steady back-and-forth between calm and excitent as they described them.
A thorny vine snapped into place around Ryan's leg. Distracted, he didn't sever it until it had begun to dig in and tried to yank him off his feet. It faded like a smudge.
… Had that even been a monster? It was difficult to tell with crystal-less summons, but it had felt more like a [Thorn Whip] spell.
A violent buzz filled his ears, and he fixed his stance. A swarm of bees descended from a nearby tree, surrounded by a sickly green glow.
"Gout of Flas!" a female voice yelled, and a red vortex shot past him to incinerate them.
He leaned away from the roar and heat, but when he turned— It was Lisa. She had announced her spell and struck a pose, cradling her staff behind the small of her back in one arm and thrusting her palm out with the other.
She gave Ryan a brilliant smile and, clearly enunciating the words for the audience, said, "I got your back!"
He didn't know if he should blush or laugh—or maybe cringe. He settled on a smile of his own and said, "Thanks!"
Two of the soundless illusions had picked up their exchange, but the comntators were focused on the group of four who had proportionately greater enemies. From what he saw, this was just a warm-up and a welco …
Or maybe the two of them weren't entertaining enough to be highlighted.
Following Lisa's lead, he straightened his back and twirled his spear, drumming the tip and butt end against the ground as he strode confidently—he hoped—further into the ring.
A pulse of her mana swept past him, thin and weak, but visible to the naked eye. As far as he could tell, that was all it did: produce blue light. But she said, "Detect Magic!," and two clouds clung to the top of a hill near their area and the bush the feral cat had spawned in.
Ryan didn't hesitate. He lunged and swung his spear like a scythe. The motion would be more at ho in a spear form than in combat, but it looked nice.
With a bit of mana, a thin crescent of flas passed through the green, illuminating the underbrush and reflecting off an earthy crystal that lay in its roots.
Two more wildcats crouched beside that crystal and counterattacked. His fire clipped one. He brought his spear back to stab the other, and it ran onto the shaft and jumped at his face.
The first went for his shin. His training took over. In a less glamorous move, Ryan jerked his boot back to dodge its tackle and stomped down on its neck. Lowering himself, he leaned away from the second cat, raised shield and spear both to bash it into the air, and skewered it.
He imdiately checked the illusions to make sure he hadn't made a face as the cats' claws had swept past his nose, but they weren't focusing on him.
Phew …? Was that a good thing or not?
Carefully, he lifted his boot—and quickly lowered it again to hide the sight of road-kill. A flick of his spear sent the second body tumbling over to Sam, who bit into its neck and shook it like a new stick.
The audience liked that, at least. Lisa crouched to praise Sam, but Ryan caught her ear with a bird trill and pointed his spear at the brush.
She straightened and gave him a firm nod, staff held ready, fiery determination in her eyes.
… Ryan really wanted to laugh to break the mont, but a part of him enjoyed this.
He carefully peeled the branches back with his spear, though he knew there were no more monsters inside, to let the audience see. The crystal was one of the rough types. A glossy rock cradled in the dirt. It wasn't even valuable. Maybe from the ninth floor? But it was sturdier than the lower ones that flaked or crumbled, and it was pretty.
Did they have prop designers to handpick the crystals for these matches?
As he brushed off the dirt, he pushed so mana into the earth, confirming what Lisa had told him.
Like the fire sli's crystal that had been buried beneath the ritual circle, he found a receptacle beneath the arena. Only a bit of his mana could fit inside, because the spellwood buried there brimd with power.
It extended in a tangled ss of lattices all across the arena, forming … any kind of geotric shape a mage could need, he realized, as well as so common runes. Here and there, bits of mana speared up to spawn monsters that attacked the other contestants.
A glimpse was enough to make him awe. He snatched the crystal and turned to Lisa. "Loot?"
She chuckled. "Yes, loot."
"Aw, would you look at that, Lou," the male comntator said.
Ryan searched to see what Sam had done, but the Teacup Salamander had returned to her side, and three of the illusions showed Ryan with a carefree grin and a cheap crystal he held proudly out to his teammate.
"It's nice to see that novice spark of adventure sotis. And isn't that what climbing is all about?"
That— Ryan had just wanted to know if they could earn bonus points.
"Sure thing, Bob," Lou said, "but you know what I want to see? Their faces as they deal with our weather forecast: LOOKS LIKE SLI!"
He barely had ti to parse his smile up there, or the comntator's condescending words, when she shouted that.
The other contestants must have dealt with their warm-ups already. They looked up as above them, the support beams of the ceiling began to drip. As if squeezing out of the wood, ocean blue slis grew and shot off toward them.
People in the audience leaned back to get a better look, or to get away from the creatures despite being safe on the other side of the net. So laughed.
The other contestants began to dash for cover. His knee-jerk reaction would have been to do the sa, but Lisa stopped him.
"In the summoning booth, this is what we call a 'shaker.' It's ant to get fighters to carelessly interact with the terrain." She pointed.
The duo across from them ran along a dirt path. They ca across a bush that looked … one shade lighter than the rest. Vines lashed out to entangle the closest of the two as the bush ca to life.
To their right, the lone swordsman approached one of the ruins for cover. Two stones lifted themselves into the air, blue runes painted on them. Lightning shot out to zap him. He deflected one beam with a glowing sword, but the other struck him in the back. He gave a dramatic groan of pain.
"Oh."
Ryan smacked a sli out of the air. His spearhead nicked it, but where it t the shaft, it bounced.
It hit the floor and bounced again, its trajectory bringing it on-course to leap out of the ring at the audience. At the last mont, it hit an invisible wall. A ripple of light spread out from the impact, revealing a ward that surrounded them.
A group of kids jerked back—all but one, who leaned forward and awed at the sli past the net. After a tiny delay, it shot back into the ring.
More and more spawned from the rafters. Soon, a chaotic hailstorm of bludgeoning blue bodies filled the arena, so glowing with enchantnts.
One hit the ground and left a thorny patch of hoarfrost. Another split into two, which split into four, which split into eight—
The group of three had conjured a translucent wall to hide behind, instead of trusting the arena, but all of the other teams were doing cool stuff.
"If this is ant to shake things up," Ryan said, keeping his guard up to defend Lisa, "shouldn't we interact with it?"
"We are," she said as she strode forward, "with confidence."
He understood why she was relaxed. This was little worse than their agility training course at school, but … he didn't want to be left out.
Just when he was going to ask for a plan, Lisa surprised him with sothing new—she began to chant.
"Ancient blood and blackened end
grant aim; hunt and rend"
Orange light tinged the air. With every word, her mana pulsed. She twirled her staff overhead and swept it out, yelling, "[Kobold Flaseekers!]"
A volley of fiery arrows launched from the length of wood. Instead of the standard thin zips of light, these were harpoons with manes of fire and tips like burning coals.
They curved after the slis and exploded them like color bombs, blue and grey.
Everyone noticed that.
"That spell is from the new Salamander's Den," Lou said. "Arrows of fire that curve after their targets!"
"Fun fact," Bob added, "Lisa Chandler was among the first people to discover and explore the new Salamander's Den, before that fateful morning of the twenty-second. A true pioneer."
Not all of the seekers found their target, and Ryan chased a few slis through the smokescreen they'd created.
They comnted on that, too. "Ah, but it's better at finding burning targets. A quick firebolt to tag a large enemy, or a wave of heat, we've seen, often does the trick—"
"These are water slis, Bob."
"They are indeed. And it looks like the Salamanders aren't the only ones struggling with that distinction."
The illusions showed the green jester, who was alone and the only one among them with no way to easily fend off the hailstorm, it seed, because she leaped with an atrocious form, one knee up high, and cannonballed into the pond near the middle of the ring.
Her tricorne hat fell. Three slis blurred and impacted the water to give chase.
"Uh oh," Lou said, "they don't have a lot of slis up in Ostfeld, do they?"
"No. Neither did we, until recently. One thing our climbers learned quick, ladies and gentlen, is that you don't want to feed an elental sli its elent. Those things grow."
Her hat had barely co to rest when the pond, and the entire ring, began to shake.
"Remind what we put in that pond again, Lou?"
"Water mana!"
The green jester shot back out as if she'd cast fly, sohow barely damp and flanked by two slis larger than herself.
She brought her mace down. The sli rippled, spikes forming out of its own mass that tore it apart from the inside-out. The other hit the upper bounds of the wards and rebounded.
The third sli was the largest. It had to squeeze out of the crater they'd left behind.
"Does failing upward count as showing us up?"
"The audience doesn't just want to see us succeed, does it?"
They had to act fast but … He realized the diviners weren't focused on them. Ryan shuffled closer to Lisa and mumbled, "Hey, uh … Did you co up with that chant just now?"
She nodded eagerly, eyebrows up. "I couldn't rember any of the better ones I've heard around here, so I improvised."
" … Cool."
The green jester produced a feather fall effect to slow her descent. It would take her a mont to reach the ground.
That gave them ti to rush toward the center to steal her prey. They weren't alone. The other teams raced them with the sa idea: to challenge the giant sli and claim it.
The second sli bounced off the ground and jiggled in the air, giving them a second target at least, but those weren't the only enemies. Feral cats jumped out of the bushes, spiders unearthed themselves, giant hornets with sword-like legs appeared in their way.
And two-thirds of the slis still bounced around like construction hazards. Most of the other teams couldn't be bothered to eliminate their fair share as Lisa had done.
It was a slow advance, but Ryan expected their target to be slower, like the sli his team had fought during the exam.
It was not.
The sli trembled as it inched forward, drew itself together, and shot off, bouncing as quickly as the smaller ones around it.
One mont, the duo across from them was running down the hill after murdering a bush. The next, the sli had taken the vanguard's place and light rippled as she impacted the ward. It had tackled her out of the ring.
The audience groaned or cheered. "Ooh," Bob joined them with a wince.
Her body hadn't even fallen yet when a man in knight's armor outside began to count to ten. The referee.
Ryan stared, suddenly alert. This was more dangerous than he'd thought.
Her teammate barely managed to dodge the next charge. The illusions showed the sli's giant body whizzing by an inch from his face.
He aid his crossbow and fired a magic bolt that tore a chunk out of it, but it simply drew itself together when it couldn't reach him and unleashed a condensed beam of water that pumled him into the dirt.
The referee reached ten. Lou called the countout. A mont later, she announced the other teammate had tapped out. In the illusions, he lay in a crater of mud and groaned.
Two down. Thirteen contestants and six teams left. The larger sli was free ga again.
"Can you tag it from here?"
"Doesn't count from too far away, and it's rude from a middle distance."
"Then I'm going ahead," Ryan told her. "That okay?"
"Got it, go!" She turned. "Sam, give six!"
He glanced back in confusion. On the ground, Sam trembled and elongated into a serpentine form that sprouted two additional legs.
Disguising her magic as orders? That seed counterintuitive. If she wanted to show off, being able to alter her summons on the fly would be far more impressive than making it look like a [Monster Tar] Skill.
Then again, she shouted, "Flatongue!," and a fiery sword appeared in her left hand, and that looked aweso. Ryan trusted in her.
Who knew? Maybe audiences liked tad monsters more than skilled summoners.
It reminded him of her advice from earlier, but [Longstrider] would be suboptimal in a sudden sprint. He went in the other direction: ignoring his montum and using his imagination alone to turn his mana into a burst of force.
Ryan shot forward.
Vines tried to wrap around his legs. Horse spikes made of thorns and branches burst from the ground. Spiders jumped at him. He hurdled them and slowed only to avoid flying slis.
The group of three had entrenched themselves in the left corner. The smaller of the giant slis lumbered in their direction. A water blast cracked a conjured wall—and it held.
The team of four and the duo in the bottom right were at a disadvantage because of their distance to the pond.
That left the green jester, who had landed and was searching for her hat, and the lone swordsman, whose running form was horrible—
Or no, wait. He wasn't running? He jogged toward the sli at a brisk pace, a large sword resting on a shoulder, a lazy smile on his face, his styled hair bouncing with every step.
Were you not supposed to sprint? Was that considered rude, because people liked to keep up appearances or sothing? The arena was sort of small …
Ryan almost slowed but figured Lisa would've warned him if that were the case. Screw it. He threw his back into it. With every step, he looked down to check for traps. Every other step, he looked up to check for dodgeballs— for slis.
This felt familiar. During agility training, he'd also only watch out for himself and for—
"[Swathe of Flas]!"
Ryan swung his spear like a scythe.
One of the scout leaders had noticed his fire affinity in the woods. Fire and nature were a poor mix. The man had signed him up for thrice-weekly fire craft training.
Ryan condensed the spell and folded it on his spear. Like Lisa before him, he used the entire weapon as his output: instead of a curtain of flas, a thin arc whipped out.
It cut the sli with a fluttering hiss. The cut was smaller than the chunk the crossbowman had torn out. It healed more quickly. But, it got its attention.
Ha!
Ryan caught his breath, eyes on the prize. He'd done it. Now they had a claim. He'd … he'd gotten its attention …
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Oh.
Now for the hard part. He recognized the signs of its charge. With another burst of speed, he dodged ahead of ti. It shot past him and he reoriented himself. There were other hazards in the ring that he had to keep an eye out for, and—
And a hat.
Ryan frowned. The jester had climbed back into the crater of the pond.
He scooped up the hat with his shield hand and ran a cloud of mana over it. Enchanted, but hell as if he had an idea what it did.
He stabbed the sli and whipped another sickle of fire at it, then backed up to give himself space to react.
It charged, he dodged and imdiately swatted another sli out of the air. That one left a sheen of frost on his weapon. That— That couldn't be good. Ryan used a pulse of fire to burn it off.
Those few spells had already burned through over half his mana. The consequences of replacing quality with quantity, he guessed.
Across the sli, he spotted the jester climbing back out of the pond with a huff. She brushed her brown hair back and proudly held up a bracer, silver and blue, embedded with a smooth blue gem.
"Looks like Julika has found the treasure of the lake!" Bob announced to a round of applause.
"Good thing the slis didn't eat it, huh? Who knows what could have happened."
"With monsters using items nowadays, Lou, anything can."
Ryan gave another bird trill and threw her hat like a frisbee. She looked down just in ti to catch it and called, "Thanks!"
Julika. The comntators had said she was from Ostfeld. Now that he got a better look at her deep tan despite her travel clothing …
Realization dawned on him. "Hey, are you a [Traveler]?"
Just like Hadica had combat [Gardeners] and [Harvesters], or Lighthouse had combat [Fishers], Ostfeld had adapted the [Traveler] Class to the challenges of their Tower.
If he rembered right, they were so sort of [Explorer]/[Witch] hybrid, or [Adventurer]/[Druid], depending on who you asked—unless, of course, his books had lied to him about that, too.
Exploration and survival, druidic attunent, souvenirs, and resonance. And a focus on powerful Skills they saved for a rainy day, like a cal or cactus stored water in a desert.
She gave him an odd look. "Didn't catch my announcent?"
Ryan ducked his head. "Sorry. First ti. I'm sort of overwheld."
"Sa here." She pointed her mace back at herself. "Exchange sester. You might wanna' pay attention now, though—!" Her warning grew frantic.
"One sec." Ryan turned. His expression shifted to fiery determination in the blink of an eye and he raised his shield to block the condensed water blast that ca rushing toward him.
That had always been the plan.
He'd seen what the sli's attack had done to the other contestant, but he had the raincoat, a relic designed to let soone survive disaster. This was a good way to show off, he figured: blocking an attack that had put another contestant out in one hit.
It wasn't quite that easy.
The water t the raincoat's ward, bent one way, then the other, and parted down the middle into two, four, a dozen lesser streams and sprays.
Its ward dampened the force, but Ryan had to dig his heels in as it shoved him. When it finally let up, he almost fell forward as if he'd finished a sprint.
He kept his smile up, though.
Backup arrived in the form of a dozen zips of light. He'd claid the sli so Lisa could attack it from afar—not far enough to be out of range of its charge, though.
In the twists of its gelatinous mass, Ryan saw its attention shift. He lunged forward to stab it. Once, twice; on the third ti, he yelled, "HERE!" As the vanguard, he had to keep its attention on him.
"Say, lizard guy," Julika called, "you want help cleaning up my ss?"
Ryan glanced at Lisa, but she was too far away. "I … don't see why not?" There was probably a cooler way to do a team-up. If so, he didn't know it.
"I'm Julika, by the by. In case you missed that, too." She adjusted her hat and donned the bracer she'd discovered, then held a hand out and said, "[Control Water]!"
The jewel flashed. The sli stopped.
"As expected of a [Traveler] of Ostfeld! Julika has found out how to use the treasure of the lake," Bob said. "If she'd found it sooner, she could have used the water mana we packed into the lake, but she decided to expend its one use on the slis to help her peers."
"Aww, what a goodie two shoes."
Slis? Plural?
Ryan turned. All around him, blue bodies hung frozen in the air. Only the ones at the edges of the ring or that fought other contestants were unaffected.
"Hopefully, she won't need that use for sothing later," Lou teased.
Well, that's not ominous.
Julika clenched a fist and the slis exploded. The insides of the largest sli twisted like noodles around a fork, but when the effect subsided, it stood.
Half-deflated, lting, leaking glowing smoke from its wounds, but it stood.
Ryan regretted the team-up a little then. He was sure the organizers and audience had appreciated it, but she had kind of totally stolen their thunder. Nevertheless, he went to work.
Too wounded to bounce around, the sli ford tendrils to smack him with. He cut those or burned them with [Firebolts], grateful for how artsy his version of the spell looked then. The rings of light that pulsed away from his hand echoed through the sli's body.
Sam leaped, biting off a tendril. Julika tore a chunk out of its side. Ryan used the 'opening' to stab it and flooded it with fire. It tensed, inflated, and burst into smoke.
But the excitent had already ebbed: the illusions seamlessly shifted to show the trio's fight against the second-largest sli, and they began to scatter in scenes of the lone swordsman fighting a golem, and the group of four fighting a spindly treant.
He caught his breath. Sam skittered by with a tendril in his mouth. Ryan followed him to Lisa. "What now? How long do these fights usually last?"
"About thirty minutes. They change them up on a long day like this. The standard formula is introduction, call to action—like a shaker, mini-boss, or a treasure hunt—followed by dium monsters with other hazards to cull the herd."
She pointed at the golem. A cry shook the air as a bird unfurled long crackling wings on a tree in the far right. A woman climbing that tree froze, one hand on a wand built into a nest.
Ryan stared before he rembered the bird was a summon. "Have you noticed any other opportunities with your insider lore?"
"There's the magic item we left on the hill?"
He swiveled. Right! He'd forgotten about that.
"It was probably ant to lure us into a trap, if it was that close," she warned him.
"I don't care." Ryan was already bouncing away. His adrenaline was running high, and the excitent of the arena was infectious. He wanted to find the new cool thing to awe the crowd. "I'll go get it?"
"Sure—"
The word was enough for him to run off. Monsters spawned. The ground gave way to pit traps filled with muddy water, but those were easy to overco.
Near the top, the sounds of combat from the rest of the arena faded. He was almost to where Lisa's cloud had clung, earlier, when he heard Bob's calm voice again. At the sa ti, a cacophony of cries echoed through the air and the arena darkened.
From his vantage point, he saw a vortex of shadowy bats spill from a hole on the far right.
"Uh-oh. It looks like the Blood Antlers have unearthed the treant's hidden shrine."
Lou cried out in a sickly voice, "One of the two seals has been broken! Will the other be enough to hold 'them' back?"
The arena shook again. A black hand crunched down onto the edge of the darkness. The illusions focused on it and the stunned faces of the Blood Antlers around it.
Instead of stabbing the hand and levering it off to toss whatever was climbing out of there back down, one of the sword fighters held a fearful hand over her mouth and watched.
Wisps of black smoke drifted up. A thin mbrane clung to an arm like loose skin. Where they both extended into the dark, they looked … ghostly.
Lou answered her own question, "Nope!"
Then the ground exploded next to Ryan's hill.
As the dirt rained down, he took cover in a pitfall trap. Spiders crawled out of the mud, but he crushed them and watched the illusions.
So useful to have. So distracting.
A bulked-up Coldlight Bat took to the air and assaulted the Blood Antlers.
At the sa ti, a giant, glowing yellow centipede burst out of the ground on the far left side of the arena, between his hill and where the trio fought, and Julika chased her hat again.
Ghostly organs beat inside of it. It had only one dark insectoid head, but antlers grew from it. Its feelers whipped through the air and it scread like a cat.
It wasn't Maria. It was half its size and the proportions were all wrong. It looked more like a reskinned fifth-floor guardian with so antlers glued onto it. But for a recreation of a monster that had only been described by three people in a single report, it was damn close.
Part of Ryan wanted to hurl his spear at the summoner's booth. Another part of him hungered. He needed this.
The fake Maria towered over them. Its head turned toward the hill. Ryan gave a bird whistle to signal Lisa, wherever she was, and leaped out of the pit to charge—
It turned toward the team that had just defeated the sli and, as if deciding it wanted greater prey, attacked them.
Ryan fired a [Firebolt] at its back, but failed to get its attention. Then it was tearing into them.
He didn't know the rules in this situation. He'd attacked it first. Did that an he was allowed to join the fight?
"Ryan!" Lisa called out, stopping him. "What was up there?" She gestured at the hill.
Ryan took in the overflowing pit traps, the shadow that dimd half the arena, the fake Maria, and the muscled Coldlight Bat. He was getting the hang of this, and he wasn't an idiot.
"The 'second seal,' I'm guessing," he called back, "nothing good!" The treasure up there wasn't to lure him into a trap, it was the trap. The organizers had six teams, thirteen—
The fake Maria swatted one of the trio out of the ring.
—twelve, Ryan corrected himself, fighters left. They had to spice things up. Whatever was up there, if he interacted with it before that happened, it would only make things worse. This was a show after all.
Maybe if he went back while things were bad, the organizers would change it on the fly to be beneficial to them but … He planned to be in the thick of things by then.
He raised his spear sideways like a rallying call. "Let's go offer our help!"
Lisa nodded and went around the hill.
"—and Julika cos in with the save! A deft use of a mage hand on an unallied mage. Her skill with her Skycaller's Glove must be truly amazing to pierce Sophia's defenses."
"Kalim is fending for himself," Lou picked it up. Her voice beca a fever, "He blocks, weaves, severstwolimbsand— Ohh!" The audience groaned. "So close. A direct hit and he is on the ground!"
"Will he get back up again?"
"Sophia is back in the fray with a conjured spear—"
A giant invisible spear slamd into the centipede's throat. Sophia seed like a summoner, or a [Conjurer] at least. She'd blocked the sli's attack earlier.
Her spell gave her teammate the chance to get back on his feet, but he was visibly woozy. A strike from one of the insect creature's many legs sent him stumbling toward the edge. The spear cracked as three legs slashed at it. It broke.
"And it looks like she is tapping out," Bob calmly said. "Out of concern for her teammate? Or is she out of mana after those stunning displays of aegis casting?"
"Leaving Julika alone to fend for herself!"
"Traveler!" Ryan yelled over the sounds of a dozen shifting legs. "Care to let us repay the favor?"
He saw her nod but even with his enhanced hearing didn't catch her reply. Not only because of all the noise around him but because the lone swordsman shouted.
"Solar Flare!"
Where Ryan's spell had been a thin sickle of flas, his was a thick crescent of white fire that slamd into the centipede's side, pushing it toward the edge of the ring where the other two were evacuating.
There went his option to use [Swathe of Flas] again, because he'd definitely just been shown up.
"We've seen plenty of her Ostfeld diplomacy in this match," Bob said. "Let's give Julika a warm Hadica welco! The cavalry has arrived!"
A true Salamander made of translucent red light crashed into the centipede and began tearing off its limbs. Not Sam—Ryan spotted it at Lisa's side. A loose echo of a summon.
Ryan started working his way from the midsection of the beast to its head, cutting limbs and spearing joints. It tried to swat him, but he stepped out of its range. It took the entire beast shifting its weight to hit him. Even then, he blocked with his shield, but—
But he'd done that before, once. He could still feel the firm wood of the tree as his back slamd into it. After he had been swatted aside like a fly.
He needed solutions.
The centipede shifted its weight in the other direction. Ryan turned his back on it and retreated.
Looking over his left shoulder, he saw the traveler and swordsman fighting off its torso and head. She ducked and weaved between feelers that struck like whips. When she managed to deflect one, it snapped back to strike itself.
A phantom outline of a dozen green thorns surrounded the feeler and tore into its body.
The swordsman used the chance to cut another slice into its neck. The glow around his sword pulsed, and the wound widened in a flash.
"Lisa!" Ryan whistled. When she looked, he tossed his spear at her sideways. She fumbled but caught it on the second try, and he pointed back. "I need firepower?"
Her frown turned into a smile, and she reached back into a thrower's stance. "Go long!"
Oh, sh— Ryan caught her aning and turned on his heels. He let himself slip in the mud, used his freed hand to pull himself back up, and kept his montum.
Her voice cried out, "Flatongue!"
Sam was hot on his heels, and the spear sailed overhead as he sprinted, a brilliant flaming sword attached to its tip.
Where its legs were missing, the centipede couldn't balance its weight and crashed into the ground, piling up dirt. It didn't seem to care as it reared itself up to face them. The wounds in its neck glowed. Ryan almost prepared himself for disappointnt before he pushed past its fifth-floor exterior and recognized the motion for what it was—breath attack.
The swordsman held his sword like a shield. Julika dove to the side. Lisa called for Sam with a note of panic in her voice, far away.
On instinct, Ryan leaned right to offer a hand. The Salamander leaped and clawed his way up his arm. With a grimace at the tugs, he raised his shield and kept running.
The cone of sickly yellow fog rolled over them. It muffled the noise in the ring. Where it touched the grass, it withered, dried, and crumbled.
He caught glimpses of the raincoat's ward then, like a thin film of water around him. It pushed the gas aside, but where pieces of his armor and shield extended outside, they began to bleach.
Ryan quickly pulled the shield close to his chest and put a hand on Sam to keep him close, all the while running after the orange glow of Lisa's sword like a guiding star.
He left the fog. The centipede's tipped body served as the perfect ramp. His boots touched down on yellow chitin, over glowing organs. He snatched the spear up in passing and dragged a red line through the beast's segnted exoskeleton as he raced up its body.
Its breath attack cut off. It turned back on itself, on him. Its chest was lined with half a dozen surviving legs. Gas leaked from the wounds in its throat.
Ryan jumped and severed one of its mandibles. Sam tackled the other. He stabbed his spear into its eye and dangled over its open maw.
Rembering that [Swathe of Flas] wasn't an option, he folded the spell together over and over again, crumpling it up like a ball, and held a fist in front of his mouth in his best impression of Myra: "Fire Breath!"
The centipede tried to resu its breath attack, but his flas pushed the yellow gas down. Its throat filled with a bright red glow. Sohow, it screeched before it burst into smoke.
He fell. He caught Sam. A giant fist made of air caught him—Julika. Lisa would have been gentler.
In the sea of smoke, bits and pieces of Bob and Lou's excited back-and-forth inford him that they'd been comntating on both of the boss fights at the sa ti.
And the Blood Antlers were losing.
"Hey, Sam," Ryan panted, "how about we end this?" The Teacup Salamander stared, not understanding, but Ryan jogged to the edge of the arena and pointed down the hole the centipede had burst out from. "Fetch!"
When Sam raced back out, Ryan pumped the miserable five or six mana he had left into a purple summoning crystal and tossed it to Lisa.
Her eyes hung on Sam for a second before she glanced at the crystal she'd caught. Her eyebrows shot up. "You have high expectations."
"Don't you want to show your colleagues up?" He saw her hesitation and added, "An outline would be enough." She couldn't have much mana left herself.
"An outline I can do. Go long?"
Ryan swallowed painfully and took one last gulp of air before he ran.
The yellow outline of the very centipede they'd just killed appeared beneath him, lifting him up. They overtook the lone swordsman and Julika, who was missing half her poncho and bells.
The Blood Antlers were beginning to tap out. He saw no sign of the duo that had awakened the lightning bird.
As the wounded Coldlight Bat turned to face him with a deafening roar, the echo of the centipede crashed into it like a wave, and Ryan stabbed his burning spear through its chest.
His heart pounded in his ears. He labored for every breath. The smoke cleared, the world lit up and the sounds of the arena returned: a deafening cacophony of bawls and roars, high-pitched whistles, and hands slapping like shattering glass.
Applause.
Structured. Feet stomped down. It was muffled whenever Bob or Lou spoke—and they spoke at great length about the surviving contestants—but he heard his na between the beats.
Ry-an. Dun, dun, dun. Ry-an. Dun, dun, dun.
He stood in the illusions. Wisps of smoke— of mana emulating essences faded on the ground and in the rafters.
But the sa smoke trailed from him where the armor Lisa had conjured had been broken.
The ornate knots they'd tied through the raincoat were gone. The yellow jacket hung slanted like a half tuck. One of his antennae was shorn off, revealing the brown helt underneath. Sam had done a number on his right pauldron. His gaiters were missing.
He was covered in sweat, heaving from the exertion, swaying from a headache. But he smiled at the crowds, the lights of the arena reflected in his eyes.
Hundreds of people. They were cheering for him. For the newcor who had given them a show.
Ryan.
The voice that bubbled up to say his na was calm. Tired. A reminder.
Suddenly, it all turned to mud. The cheers began to overwhelm him.
Don't. Please, stop.
Why would they cheer for him? Didn't they know what a piece of shit he was? His smile vanished. His expression wavered. He didn't deserve this. Any of this.
But as he stared at the faces in the crowd, the people leaning over the railings, who stood in their seats or pointed at repeats … nobody seed to notice.
They were excited. Thrilled. Happy. They didn't know him. Of course, they didn't. And they didn't care.
Neither had he, back before he had known anyone like Garen or Allison. And he honestly still didn't know them that well, but that didn't matter. Who cared about the flawed person beneath? He looked up to them because …
Because of their stories? Their actions and feats? Because of what they represented?
No, because of what they made of them in their eyes.
A false idol.
That can be .
This could be .
Ryan turned to take it all in and slowly found his smile again. He found Lisa, headed toward him with Sam running ahead, and t her halfway. So part of him watched him take those steps with bated breath. This is dangerous, it whispered.
Ryan answered, I don't care. Their excitent filled his chest as surely as his allies could lend him their strength. He took Lisa's hand in his own and thrust their arms up into the light.
The crowd went wild.
They ca from afar to give us a show. You know and love them. Please welco, Andi and the Pals!
Ryan waited in a drab hallway, sohow a welco sight after the match. The firm stone muffled the noise inside the arena and outside. He leaned against a wall where he could drink in the cold and savored the tranquility while it lasted.
The arena staff had given them check-ups after the match and told them to co by on Monday to pick up their pay. They needed to determine which bonuses they'd earned and subtract their penalties, if any.
The comntators had also put the word out that he was looking to sell the raincoat, at the end of his match. He was supposed to drop by in case soone tried to reach out through the arena.
They want to keep you, Lisa had whispered to him. All those ways to make him return.
Maybe he wanted to stay? Not tonight. He was glad he'd packed so comfortable clothes. When he got back, he was taking it easy.
But the night wasn't over.
Lisa stepped out of the gym after her conversation with her contact. He pushed off the wall. Sam poked out from her duffel like a rat-catcher this ti. Good for him. He'd squird around inside her bag the entire way here, trying to fight the fabric for his freedom.
"How is he?"
"It's fine. It wasn't hurt."
She didn't seem to catch his insinuation. Or maybe she wasn't ready to talk about it.
Maybe it was his Path, or maybe it was because he had been around the Salamander for a year, but sothing was off about him.
He didn't press the issue and fell into step beside her. They walked back out the sa way they'd co.
"And? Was that enough fun for you?"
"Definitely. We should do this again soti."
"Sure— Well, I might not always have ti, but if you want to ride the event season out, I'm sure Valles would let you. You made quite the impression."
Ryan frowned. "Event season?"
"The tournant? Open invitation Raid Royales like this aren't common. The finals are next week, they'll milk the reruns for a few weeks after that, but the hype will die down. Then it's back to ranking and exhibition matches for the rest of the season."
Ryan made a face. People fighting other people. That sounded far less appalling to him.
"Won't there be other tournants or … sothing?"
"They can't have a tournant every day. Closest thing to this is the show matches that kick the new season off. But those are more … choreographed. You have to audition for a part and go to practice."
"What, like a theater production?"
"Exactly. Then they tend to host invitations throughout February and March. New year, new talent, y'know?"
Ryan walked backward to face her. "That's good! And after that?"
She gave him a blank look. "Nothing."
His face fell. "What do you an, 'nothing'? Don't they have to like … do this all year to make a living?"
"You had that much fun?"
He shrugged and shouldered the door open. "The arena made a good impression on , too."
The lobby looked serene in the evening light. It was late sumr, early fall. The sky began to dim and the crystals reflected on the pond and polished floor.
The last trickles of people ford an intersection: families and tweens headed out now that the dayti matches were over; the evening crowd catching up.
A single illusory screen over the receptions showed the sa four or five shots of the fight inside the arena on repeat, just enough to show so of the highlights, but never the full picture. A lure.
There it is! Lou's distant voice scread. [Brainslip Violence]! Keep an eye on those illusions folks, because things are about to get slippery.
The illusion showed a muscled man with a dark handlebar mustache in low-riding leather pants and a fur-lined cuirass. Nothing else. The bottom lines of his abdominals were visible, the hair of armpits—he wasn't even wearing shoes or a helt.
His image looked sohow off, like soone had drawn a street for the first ti and gotten the angles wrong. Then, suddenly, he'd moved. The illusion lagged, showing two of him for a second. One oddly fluid and distorted, the other thrusting a rapier into a scarecrow.
The crowd roared. So of the late-cors hurried to find their seats.
"Actors perform in the sa play for a couple of years, right?"
Lisa scoffed, "If they get lucky. Yes, arenas run all year long, but the shows and fighters rotate. They get a lot of climbers who only dip their toes in for the levels, or young people who have a lot on their plate. They have to juggle injuries and hype.
"Exhibition matches between famous fighters only draw in such massive crowds because they're rare, you know?"
"Can they make a living off of it?" It would still be people fighting people, but he wanted to wrap his head around this.
"For a ti? There probably are arenas out there that offer consistent pay, or you could rotate between arenas, but you would be a [Show Fighter]."
"And that would be bad because … ?"
"Because they get Skills that make them flashier, but not necessarily better at fighting …? You said you want to be strong like Garen or Allison, right? You have people you want to protect."
She looked at him expectantly and Ryan nodded. "Right. I do."
Part of him tried to accuse himself of already looking for outs, for ways to back out on his commitnts, but that wasn't entirely true.
If it had been a viable option, Ryan saw no issues in being a [Show Fighter]. In being an entertainer. Today was fun. They made people happy.
But she was right. He glanced north as he got the door for her. His blurred reflection in the glass looked at him with shadowed eyes.
Whatever you do, don't disappoint your mother.
They walked onto a cobblestone street through a few small groups. The street lights were on, and the sounds and glamor of the arena faded behind them.
Their conversation almost faded, too. It wouldn't have been the first ti they had walked ho in exhausted silence, simply enjoying the cold air of the evening, but he pushed himself. Now or never.
"Hey uh, Lisa?"
"Hm?"
"Would you— Would you want to go out with soti?"
"Huh?" She looked up at him.
His heart thumped in his chest. "Like, on a date?" Ryan asked. "Just you and ."
"No."
She wasn't flustered, or confused, or dismissive. Her answer wasn't a reflex. Lisa looked him in the eye and gave an honest, small—no. Without thinking.
The fluster ca afterward when she realized what he had asked, what she had said; when he realized it, too. Why did he feel so relieved? Why couldn't he keep his mouth shut?
"No?"
"I an— Ryan, I care for you, but not—"
"No, no, sa here—"
She squinted in bewildernt. "You just asked out."
"I know, but— I didn't an it like that—"
"It's okay! You don't have to pass this off as a joke, Ryan, I—"
"I'm not! Really. I just—"
From his seat in her duffel bag, Sam glanced back and forth between them.
They talked over each other, barely walking, hands gesturing. Finally, she stopped and gestured for him to go first.
"It's just, my parents keep teasing about when I'm going to get a girlfriend, and they like you a lot so I thought …"
"You asked out because your parents like ?" There was a strange tone in her voice.
Finally, Ryan stopped and realized what he was doing. What he was saying. He stared. "No. Yes. I an— Please don't be mad. Of course, I think you're aweso! It's just—"
"I'm not mad, Ryan. I think it's sweet."
"You … do? You don't think it's shitty?"
She seed confused. "Maybe a little? Just so we're clear, you don't have feelings for ?"
"No."
He was only a little flustered and confused, but not dismissive. He looked her in the eye and said it honestly … and maybe so part of him had hoped she would press the issue.
She didn't. She chuckled instead, and Ryan nervously joined her. "Phew. Well then, yeah, no. I like your parents, too. You can tell them that. And it's great you respect their opinion so much."
Ryan tried to think of sothing to say, couldn't find anything, and then just breathed. He had seen it all fall apart in front of his eyes. In a mont, he could have ruined their friendship. Or worse.
Except, Lisa was Lisa. Weird.
His nervous chuckles turned into a desperate laugh. He shook his head. "I'm an idiot."
"No, you're not. You actually reminded of a topic I've been aning to bring up. Uhm … my family is in town."
Ryan frowned. "Your family?" He thought of a confession she had made to them, in an underground tunnel in the Tower, and his confusion turned into a spike of alarm, then confusion, and then deep worry. "You an your family from—?"
"Yeah," she stopped him. "We can't talk about it too much here. Maybe in the Tower?"
Oh. Was that why she had wanted to go climbing? He should have listened. He did now. He was wide awake again and stared.
"How are they even—?"
"Garen is handling it." The way she said it, he thought there should be quotation marks around the words. 'Handling it.'
But what did she even an? Had Garen sohow gotten permission for them to enter their city, their border? If not … He didn't want to consider the alternative.
"They're the guests you ntioned." Now, he looked west. His feet almost carried him in the direction of Garen's house. School hadn't started. They had nowhere to be. But it wasn't up to him.
"I was going to tell you, but I figured I would wait until school starts so they'd have fewer chances to bother us."
"You … don't want to et them?"
"I do!" she assured him, "it's just— My mom ca. My dad stayed ho. But everyone in my family can be a little odd. Especially by your customs."
Yeah, no, obviously. How did it go? 'The apple didn't fall far from the tree'? He knew Lisa well enough to expect the worst.
"They have high expectations of … just about everything. And there are eleven of them. I would take you, but … it might be overwhelming."
"Oh. So maybe wait until the right opportunity …?" Ryan guessed.
She sighed in relief. "'When they're distracted?' That's what I was thinking."
Ryan nodded and resud walking. Stumbling along, really. He barely registered where he was going. "Your mom," he said. The Sages of the Witch's Forest.
He struggled to let the thought go.
"Please, tell you're not going to act like you did when you found out who Garen is."
"Huh?" Ryan straightened up and looked around with a smile. Who, ? "No. No," he assured her and took a deep breath. "So … rock climbing?"
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