After spending a great deal of time wandering around the second stage, Crow liked to think that he had become somewhat of an expert on it. While he ran from every fight he came across, that was merely evidence that he had been around the block enough times to know the capabilities of everything he encountered- as well as his experience having hardened him to the futility of pointless heroics. Granted, he didn’t actually know what most of the things he ran away from were capable of, but it was still better safe than sorry.

Monsters were not the only thing Crow, veteran that he was, had encountered. Wandering around had led him to stumble into no small number of other contestants, some of which had attempted the Sieve before. Thankfully none of them were any more eager to fight Crow than he was to fight them, and it was from those people he learned exactly what was at the centre of the stage. And exactly why even the inexperienced contestants had heard whispered warnings to stay away from it.

The most powerful, dangerous and rewarding creature was always found there. Many things about the Sieve changed with each year, but the location of the highest-rated monster was a constant. Practically all contestants opted to give it a wide berth, foregoing the chance of a high credit reward in favour of retaining use of their limbs. Of course practically all contestants aimed lower than scoring enough credits to gain the Eclipse’s Nectar, unfortunately for Crow he was the exception.

It hadn’t taken him overly long to trudge his way to the structure which housed the big bad, though it was still a solid forty five minutes of walking with an extra half hour added by the persisting need to duck away and hide to avoid unneeded battles as he went. By the time Crow actually reached his destination he had begun to worry whether he’d have been better served simply crushing hordes of small fry, then decided against it the moment he laid eyes on the building.

He’d been expecting a great castle of black stone, the roof being caressed by lightning as a storm twisted the black skies above it. Something out of the stories of the Shrouded Era, built by a long-dead Deity or some such thing. Instead he found a large rectangular building, made from worn grey stone with cracked and collapsed pillars on all sides. It looked more like a tomb than a fortress, the sort of place one might find a storybook villain sealed away or buried rather than living.

And yet there was an unquestionable sense of menace surrounding it, a faint crackling of power more in Crow’s mind than his ears. There was the strangest smell too, almost coppery and burnt. Like a faint trace of blood or decay mixed with the scent of the air right before a thunderstorm. Death and power all wrapped around one another. Crow glanced at his gauger, suddenly feeling the need to remind himself of just what he had to gain by taking this challenge on.

Credits: 1147

Team Credits: 4550

Team Position: 3rd

Time left: 1 hour

After a brief bout of staring, it occurred to Crow that he had yet to actually take a step towards the house of the great monster. He grit his teeth and steeled himself, burying fear with frustration at his own lack of a spine, and soldiered on.

The tomb was atop a hill, and while the hundred or so steps leading up to it were no trouble to Crow- he’d exerted himself much more in sparring matches- once he reached the entrance he was forced to bolster his body with magic in order to force open the doors. Even with the aid of the arcane he felt his muscles strain slightly to shift the great slab of stone apart.

Light spilled into the building ahead of him, revealing a relatively well maintained entrance hall. Or rather what Crow assumed was an entrance hall, while it didn’t contain mountains of dust or rotting carcasses as he had thought it would there was a distinct lack of the furniture which made a room’s function easily identifiable. Tentatively, he activated his future sight and took a step inside. And then when he was not bombarded by a hail of arrows or a jet of flame from some ancient trap, he took another. Then another. And before long he was making his way into the depths of the monster’s lair.

Crow wasn’t sure how far in he was exactly when the darkness started to get to him. It didn’t all envelope him at once, but as he walked farther and farther into the tomb he began to see less and less clearly. At first the cracks and chips of the walls were clear to him, and before long he couldn’t even see how far away the walls themselves were. They had been just under ten feet from him on either side when he entered, but in the bottomless gloom in which he now fumbled around they may well have closed in without his knowing.

So dark was the corridor that Crow nearly walked face first into the wall when he came across it. He frowned to himself as he studied the surface, running a hand along the rough stone and searching for the tell-tale gap that would identify it as an entrance. Thankfully, and just as he began to panic at the thought of being trapped at a dead end, he found it. And then, seeing no other option, he reengaged his physical enhancement and charged shoulder-first against the slab of rock.

It must have been thick, as his first slam sent Crow stumbling back as though he hadn’t even been using magic. He was braced for the second and third, but while he didn’t bounce off the door he still failed to damage it. Then the fourth was accompanied by the half-scape-half-snap that Crow recognised as the sound of cracking stone.

The fifth to eighth intensified this sound, and upon the ninth Crow succeeded in smashing a large chunk of the door inwards, then fell back as a bright light shone through the newly made hole. He covered his eyes and grimaced, having adjusted to the darkness a little too well and finding the sudden change downright painful.

After a few moments of blinking and forcing himself to look at it, he could see clearly once more. And with renewed vigor, he got back to work on making himself an entrance.

Dust from the broken stone hovered in a slowly descending cloud around the breach, and Crow found himself stepping free of the hole to breathe in much needed lungfuls of clear air at several points. Even with this slowing his progress, he was able to make relatively quick work of the wall. Striking it at certain points to send more cracks running through the already fractured surface, then ripping free large sections of the hard material and casting them aside.

Eager to conserve as much of his magic reserves as possible, Crow didn’t go out of his way to make the gap overly large. Once finished it was slightly wider than his shoulders, and just a shade shorter than him. In other words it was something that was very possible, but not remotely comfortable, to squeeze through.

He grit his teeth as he climbed into the space, feeling jagged chunks of rock scrape at him right away. The thickness of the wall meant that he had to take one or two steps even inside to exit it, and every inch forward he moved there was a distinct tugging at part of his clothing as the fabric caught on something. Crow was not a particularly claustrophobic individual, but even he felt his breathing begin to get laboured after a few seconds of the unpleasant fit. When he finally stumbled out into the room on the other side, he took a great inhalation in relief.

That relief lasted about as long as a fae in the Butchery, however. As the moment his attention was on the room rather than the passage he’d entered through, Crow realised that it was quite possibly the most terrifying place he’d ever been.

Skeletons littered the floor, all in positions which gave him the impression their deaths had been anything but peaceful. The walls were adorned with large torches, all were lit and most were made from bone rather than wood. The ceiling held a chandelier which burned with a green light, and the shadows it cast gave Crow the impression that no matter which part of the circular chamber he was facing- something was moving behind him.

Sweat began to build on his skin. The cold kind that accompanied nightmares and helplessness. And just as he considered examining the walls more closely in search of an additional passage, the tension of waiting and searching became too much. If someone had asked Crow why, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them, but for whatever reason he called out into the chilling silence of the tomb at the top of his voice.

“COME OUT AND FACE ME!”

For a few seconds there was silence, or as close to it as Crow had ever heard. The only noise was the crackling of the flames and the distant echo of his own challenge. And then a raspy voice assailed him from all sides, sending a chill up his spine and making his heart lurch with fear.

“You called?”

There was a scraping noise behind Crow, and he spun with arms raised to defend himself from the source. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he saw one of the skeletons. Unlike the others, however, it was on its feet, walking towards him and surrounded by a pulsating green fog. One of its feet was dragging limply as it shuffled forwards, and as the bone ground against the floor Crow realised that it was the source of the scraping. When it was only a few paces away, the skeleton stopped walking and simply stared at Crow with empty sockets. He went to speak but his voice came out as an uneven whisper, and so he forcefully cleared his throat and tried again.

“You’re the most powerful creature on this stage, right? Then I’m here to take you down.”

It sounded cool in his head, but in practice it was apparently quite amusing. At least if the skeleton was anything to go by. The undead’s jaw flapped up and down with a clatter and a shrieking noise which Crow took a few moments to identify as mocking laughter. Before he could think of anything else to say, the skeleton answered. Its voice was decidedly inhuman, yet its pitch was undoubtedly closer to that of a man than a woman.

“I see.” The skeleton seemed to purr as it spoke, as though enjoying each and every syllable. “Well that doesn’t surprise me, really. I’ve been in this ridiculous contest for five consecutive years, and each time there’s at least one imbecile who’s thick headed enough to ignore the obvious red flags and come charging into my lair in the hopes of beating me. Tell me, boy, what do you suppose happened to them?”

Crow’s throat went dry, and he couldn’t answer even if he’d tried. The skeleton continued talking regardless.

“Hmmm, you’re terrified of me. I like that. It tells me that, even if reckless, you are at the very least not deluded. Tell me o’ simple one, what is your name?”

Something, quite possibly the ridiculous amount of magical energy he sensed bearing down on him from all sides, told Crow that he’d be best served answering any and all questions this creature asked him, and so he did so.

“Crow.”

The skeleton paused.

“Crow…. That’s a terrible name. Did your mother despise you? It wouldn’t surprise me, giving you a name like that. I suppose one never can tell with the fairer sex, they… hmmmm. Lie.”

Not knowing quite how to react to a misogynistic undead, Crow simply nodded nervously and mumbled a reply.

“I see.”

He may as well not have said anything, as the skeleton simply clasped its hands together.

“Well then!” It began. “Please enlighten me, o’ simple one. What exactly do you think will allow you to claim victory where four other entire teams of people found only death?”

Deciding to mull over his answer before giving it, Crow took a few seconds before answering.

“Statistical inevitability.”

The skeleton tilted its head.

“And?”

“Uh… well, that’s basically it I suppose.”

“That’s stupid. Extremely stupid, and so are you. You should stop being stupid. In fact I’ll make you stop being stupid, you can’t be dead and stupid at the same time after all.”

The creature spoke of killing him incredibly casually, and yet that just made it all the more terrifying. Crow’s heart sank and he took a reflexive step backwards, balling his fists and activating his precognition.

“Come on then,” he blurted out.

Though it had no face, the skeleton’s fleshless face almost seemed to be grinning at him- exposed teeth catching the flickering torchlight like the world’s widest smile.

“If you insist.”

And then it was upon him. Crow was glad he’d backed away, as even the single step he’d increased the distance between them by may have meant the difference between his precognition being useless and it letting him glimpse the skeleton grabbing for his throat.

He raised his left elbow and used it to smack its arm aside by the wrist, knocking it off-balance as a happy side effect. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, Crow followed up with a straight using his other hand, deactivating his precognition as he did so to avoid wasting his magic reserves sustaining it while it did him no good. His knuckles crunched into the enemy’s face, giving him a split second to realise his mistake before the pain of hitting something so solid racked his hand.

There was no time to dwell on the sensation, however, as before Crow could do so much as step back the skeleton’s arm shot out once more. This time there was no glimpse to warn him, and strong fingers closed around his shoulder. Crow was barely able to pull a stupid face in surprise before he was dragged into a headbutt, the white skull colliding with his nose and instantly blurring his vision with pain and tears.

Crow didn’t retreat this time, more stumbled away haphazardly. Disoriented as he was, it was all he could do to cover as much of his body as possible with his arms and weather the skeleton’s beating as it came. Fortunately, while the skeleton was significantly faster, it appeared that Crow had a significant strength advantage. After less than ten blows he had regained his bearings and quickly put them to use, lashing out both of his hands and grabbing the skeleton just as it had grabbed him- only gripping both shoulders at once.

He saw its jaw open slightly in what he could only guess was shock, and then he turned his entire body in the hardest throw he’d ever attempted. Ordinarily he’d have struggled to shift the weight of something as powerful as his enemy, but seeing how quickly it could dart around had given him an idea- and sure enough it turned out to be correct. With nothing in its body but bone, the skeleton’s mass was only a fraction of what it should have been. Crow was able to pluck its feet from the ground before it had figured out his intentions, and it had barely started struggling by the time he brought its head crunching into the worn stone of the floor.

Crow had tried to help the local blacksmith once, but he’d quickly found that the job was more difficult than it looked when he’d missed the horseshoe he was meant to be hitting and struck the anvil directly with the stone malet instead. As he was using magic to enhance his strength at the time, the malet in question did not survive the impact. The sound the strike made, stone shattering against something extraordinarily hard, still stuck with him to this day for no reason other than how strange it was.

And he heard it again as the skeleton’s skull fragmented the rock beneath it. The shock reached his feet before it reached his ears, travelling through the rock much quicker than it did air, and before the chips of granite thrown in all directions had even finished raining down around him he was stamping down on his enemy.

Though being nothing but bone may have lightened the skeleton and given it greater speed, the lack of any muscle, sinew or cartilage meant that it was far less resilient than normal. Even if Crow hadn’t already had the power advantage, he would’ve hurt it. As things were his boot heel came down upon limbs, ribs and vertebrae like the fist of Hercules himself.

Had he been stomping on a human, or any other of the higher species for that matter, it would surely have been stunned and dazed by such attacks. However the skeleton took only a few hits before it was able to dart free, placing a leg against Crow’s shin and pushing out to temporarily send him off balance while launching itself into a metres-long roll. It came to its feet at the same time as Crow regained his balance, and their battle returned to a standing one.

Crow would’ve cursed himself for turning off his precognition, it would have prevented the exact cheap shot that had robbed him of the upper hand, but he was unable to even keep a coherent thought in his head with how frantic the fight was.

He’d grown used to the speed of his enemy, Eclipse it didn’t even match up to that of Ra, but though it didn’t surprise him anymore, it was still a significant disadvantage. However, while his movements were sluggish compared to the skeleton’s, the power behind them was significantly greater. He took shallow blows one after another, but none were heavy enough to cause him serious harm, and hitting him any harder would leave his foe open for a counter attack. Which meant that the skeleton was forced to continue dodging and lightly striking, doing minimal damage, before leaping back before it could be struck in turn.

That sort of strategy wasn’t sustainable, however even if it had been Crow rather coincidentally had just what he needed to overcome it.

He felt the sigils in his eyes light up, and winced at the familiar pain they always brought. The world slowed down, from the lightning-quick movements of his enemy down to the rhythmic poundings of his now seemingly normal heartbeat. And as he saw the latest punch begin to close in on his face, Crow side-stepped and countered by stomping down on his attacker’s knee.

The force with which Crow’s heel caved in the fragile joint of its target was so great that the impact sent tremors throughout his entire body. He felt the shockwave travel up his leg and torso before finally ending in his fingers, in fact even his gauger felt as though it were shaking. A truly strange sensation, and yet one that was completely overshadowed by the skeleton’s leg buckling underneath it and landing it flat on its back.

Crow didn’t take any chances this time. He reactivated his precognition, then stepped forwards and resumed the stomping he’d been so rudely interrupted in earlier. He needn’t have bothered doing anything but bringing his foot down. Before the skeleton could even begin to counter, its ribs, jaw and clavicles had been reduced to splinters. With much of its body destroyed already, Crow concentrated his remaining efforts on the head. The hard bone put up a valiant struggle, but before long tiny cracks began to appear in its arched surface. Those cracks multiplied and widened, until the entire skull resembled patchwork. Finally, and much to Crow’s relief, it caved inwards- sending dozens of fragments of bone skidding across the floor.

The glow of the green vapour, which had blanketed the skeleton even when it was being battered and broken, finally dispersed- spreading out and disappearing like breath on a cold day.

That was what finally laid Crow’s reasonable paranoia to rest and convinced him his enemy had been defeated. Despite himself and his plentiful fresh bruises and still throbbing nose, he felt himself grinning. Opening his mouth as far as he did allowed some of the crimson river flowing from his nostrils to fall into it- spilling a sickly metallic taste across his tongue. It was quite revolting, but even that wasn’t enough to ruin the sense of glee building in his chest.

He’d won.

Resisting the urge to prance with joy, Crow glanced at his gauger to see the numbers it displayed. Though he disabled his precognition and time dilation, he decided to keep his physical enhancement active while he read just as a precaution.

Credits: 1147

Team Credits: 4750

Team Position: 3rd

Time left: 40 minutes

He blinked. That wasn’t right. He’d won, he should’ve earned himself five thousand credits. Yet according to the slate before him, nothing had changed. Was he just misremembering the previous amount he’d held? No, that wasn’t possible. He’d gotten half the credits for defeating that terrorist bastard, no matter what he should have had at least five thousand one hundred and fifty. So what was going on?

There was a horribly unpleasant chill building in the back of Crow’s mind. One that told him there was a perfectly rational explanation for why he hadn’t received the credits for killing the creature. And that suspicion grew stronger as that familiar scraping sound picked up once more, this time from all sides.

Crow looked up from his gauger, and then shifted his gaze rapidly from one skeleton to another as they all finished pulling themselves to their feet and stared at him. There was an unmistakable sense of malice in those empty eye sockets as the green vapour around each of them gently billowed like sheets in the wind.

The voice of the first skeleton sounded once more, this time echoing from all sides as each skeleton projected it at once.

“Just in case you can’t sense magic very well,” the voice purred. “I don’t have to split my power between these skeletons and weaken them to animate multiple simultaneously, I just thought I’d start you off with one to play with you for a while.”

Crow tried to speak, but no sound came from his mouth even as it moved. So he simply turned on his heel, activated his time dilation and precognition, and began sprinting for the door.

It seemed the creature had expected this reaction, as there were already six skeletons in his path. With the world slowed around him Crow ducked a tackle from the first, then sidestepped a grab from another. However this slowed him, giving two the chance to attack at once. And while he was able to shove one and send it flying into the far wall before it could reach him, the second landed a heavy blow to his side which didn’t even show up as a glimpse. Crow coughed and wheezed as his lungs were emptied and his breaths brought no more air to them. His body was made no more durable in the world of slowed time. He stumbled towards the door in a vain attempt to avoid further confrontation, but he succeeded only in moving into a kick the remaining skeleton threw his way.

The undead’s foot crunched into his already injured nose, further jarring it and sending a bundle of hot pain shooting upwards into that magic spot between his eyebrows. Then something slammed into the back of his head, and before he knew what was happening the ground was coming up to meet Crow as his legs gave way.

He couldn’t run, couldn’t fight, couldn’t do anything. He had more than half an hour left, and now it was his turn to be pummeled by a merciless volley of stomps. Heels crunched into every inch of him, Crow did all he could to cover his body but there were just too many attacks for him to have a chance at stopping any of them. Sharp pain blossomed in one place after another, but he noticed that vulnerable areas appeared to be attacked no more than the rest of him- not even when left undefended.

Of course. With this many minions, anyone controlling them would have to give them some degree of autonomy. Nobody could split their focus among twenty skeletons at once. That brought the trace of a smile to Crow. It was useless, of course. Even if they were mindless, he wouldn’t have had a hope against half as many skeletons as were now crushing him into paste. Still, it was nice to know he’d found a weakness- even if it didn’t help him.

He was quite sure his time dilation and precognition had deactivated before long. The kicks kept raining down, and the pain which had previously been so sharp simply turned into a dull throb. Before long Crow wasn’t even sure if he was still conscious, it was almost as though he were watching someone else be beaten to death instead. How curious.

He tasted that same metallic tang and realised he was probably coughing up blood, and as all noise turned into nothing but a far-away ringing in his ears, and his vision dimmed to the point of not even being able to see the light which passed through the bodies of his assailants, Crow felt the strangest feeling on the end of one of his arms.

And then the ringing was replaced, or rather mixed, with another sound- a crashing and another scraping. Suddenly the constant impacts he’d almost stopped feeling let up, and with the last few coherent thoughts in his beaten body Crow made himself turn onto one side and stare around at what was going on.

Several very large chunks of stone were lying next to Crow, with many more smaller ones- ranging from pebbles to the size of a head- surrounding them. Strewn about in-between the rocks were pieces of bone, some in recognisable segments such as arms or legs, others simply as pieces of white with visible jagged break-off points on either side.

Before he could do much of anything to process what was happening, Crow was grabbed once more from behind. He feebly struggled in his daze, deciding that he’d use the opening to make as much of a nuisance of himself as possible to the skeletons, but when he turned with a closed fist what he saw was not the permanent grin of the undead- indeed, the permanent grin he found in its place was one which he hadn’t expected to see ever again.

“U-Unity?”

His head still buzzing from the beating, Crow could think of nothing more complicated or eloquent than that to say. His former teammate seemed quite amused by this, as he showed even more teeth with a widening smile.

“Hello Crow, we’re here to rescue you!”