In front of the massive structure that was the Adventurer’s Guild were several training fields. They had obstacle courses, sand pits, terraced fighting areas and weights and other exercise equipment. There was also a dueling ring, pretty much the same as the one Kalamedra had seen in the Magi Quarter, a large roughly circular area with a boundary around the outside of it inscribed with runes and magical sigils.

Kalamedra and the half-orc both strode towards that ring, a large crowd following them out of the Tavern. The sound of the crowd was loud and boisterous, a near roar, while the two combatants walked resolutely towards the fighting ring. The sound of bets being made was especially intimidating to Kalamedra as the half-orc was a heavy favorite.

The two of them reached a stone pillar in front of the dueling ring which had a place to insert jade slips, up to 16 total. Kalamedra shoved his jade slip in and waited for the half-orc to do so as well, all the time his mind spinning on tactics and options.

Here is a chance to establish myself, if I don’t get hurt too bad. Hopefully I can defeat this guy before he does too much to me. If I am lucky he is as rash as he seems and I can use that against him. Here’s a chance to see how I stack up against a true fighter type here.

The half-orc produced an unsightly grin on his misshapen visage as he followed Kalamedra in inserting a jade slip. The crowd quieted down at this sight and a cold breeze prickled Kalamedra’s skin. Something unexpected had just occurred and he wasn’t sure yet what it was.

“Ha! Ah ha ha! Thanks so much for putting your slip in first, knife ear, and challenging me. As the challenged, I get to pick the weapons and type of fight! I choose that we do not use weapons, let us fight like MEN! I will use my fists to beat you to death! We will fight to the death!” The half-orc’s reddish eyes gleamed as he held his hammer-sized fists above his head.

The crowd was responding with gasps and head-shaking, and a few cheers from the rampant elf-haters. A middle-aged man in worn leather armor stepped out of the crowd, holding up his hands to quiet everyone down. The raucous crowd took a minute but finally the human could speak.

“Rangor, do you have to do it this way? We all know you hate Dark Elves, hell we hear it everytime we see you at the Tavern. That said, if you keep going around killing every elf who comes through the Guild, we are going to get a bad name. Can’t you just beat him up a little? To the death? Really?” The middle-aged man was trying to convince the half-orc, but his tone indicated to Kalamedra that he wasn’t going to lower himself to begging.

Oh god, I wish you’d beg a little. Fucking death? Against a mutant murder-machine? Fucking fuck all this shit!

“Dark Elves are the scum of this planet! The other elves, are just wannabe Dark Elves! I won’t back down, I won’t let up until they are all fucking dead! You know what they did to me Billous! Don’t ask me to fucking go easy on this one!” The half-orc’s hand were clenching hard, the sound of cracking knuckles sharp in the air. He pulled a necklace out from behind his battered iron breastplate and let it fall on his chest, the leathery sound of a dozen elf ears feeling like a slap in the face to Kalamedra.

After a moment, his temper began to boil. Of course he was not really an elf, Dark or Shadow or any kind, in the “real” world but day by day that was meaning less. What was left of his life was sure to be spent in K.O.R.A.L. and in Koral. The difference between those concepts had never felt more stark to him. Those ears, just digital pieces of flotsam, now had an emotional response built into them, even if only because they were meant as a threat to him.

“Oh, I see. Take advantage of the new guy. Well, I guess it’ll be the last mistake one of us makes. Since you have made this life and death, I don’t have a choice anymore about how it goes down. Better make your peace with this world, and make yourself ready to spend eternity in hell with your pig-faced mother.”

The half-orc’s face grew even uglier as he attempted to master his temper, the veins in his neck standing out as thick as a pencil. A few of his pals were trying to hold him back, but he seemed like he was actually holding it together.

“Get in the fucking ring! Let’s end this now!” The words were ripped from the half-orc’s twisted lips like teeth getting pulled. Kalamedra started walking toward the ring, but Billous held up a hand towards him to halt his path.

“No armor in the ring, lad. Wouldn’t learn much about fighting if every bout took an hour to finish. Just drop it all here and you can get it after the match. No one will touch your stuff in the Guild’s estate.”

“Learn? This is a fucking fight to the death! I am not trying to learn anything! I am just trying to survive!” The sense of tension was rising, both in the crowd and within Kalamedra. This was turning out to be much more of a serious thing than he had ever intended.

“When you put that jade slip into the pillar, you accepted the rules of the duel. Don’t be a little bitch.”

I guess that’ll teach me to not read the terms and conditions. Fuck all this shit!

Kalamedra and Rangor both started to divest themselves of their equipment, first removing armor and then clothing until they stood there just in their pants and boots. One of them a giant of a man, rippling with muscles and covered in scars and old war wounds. The other was a 12 year-old elf with pale skin covered in what looks like gray tattoo swirls, long grey-tinted silver hair and pointed ears. For sure the pitch black eyes and skin aberrations made a few people suck in their breath, he didn’t look like any Dark Elf they had ever seen, but even more people were made to feel uneasy by the sheer youth of the lad.

Cries began to ring out from the crowd as the obvious nature of what was about to occur became obvious. “He’s just a little kid, let him off!” “C’mon Rangor! You’re better than this!” “Is the Guild just going to let this happen? We’ll lose a lot of face over this!”

Rangor looked at the crowd and just grinned even wider. “I don’t care how they come, big or small, young or old. If it’s an elf, I want their ears on my chain and their bones underground.”

Kalamedra seriously considered picking up his gear and running for it, but he now had the sneaking suspicion that he should have read those Guild papers a little more closely. It was likely if he tried to run for it, his life might even up worse than if died under the hands of this orc. If Kalamedra died, Mike could still live on, albeit with far fewer resources and choices. If Kalamedra was physically, or socially, crippled by running then it was a no-win solution. The only choice that remained was to rise above his foe, conquer and live.

The combatants entered the dueling ring, and Billous worked the pillar and before Kalamedra was ready a screen of force sprung into life around the dueling ring. It clearly separated the fighters from the crowd, and when he touched the bit of it nearest him Kalamedra could clearly feel that it had enormous strength and resiliency.

With a resigned look on his face, Kalamedra adapted a wide-legged stance, waiting for the fight to begin. The half-orc was cracking his knuckles, neck, back, shoulders and so many other parts it sounded like someone was doing gymnastics on a mat made of bubble wrap.

Suddenly Rangor sprang forward with arms held wide, and hands held to graps. Clearly trying to grapple the young elf from the start he rushed in. Using his high speed, Kalamedra dodged to the side and avoided the half-orc’s grasp. Kalamedra tried to take a kick at Rangor’s leg as he moved past his but it felt like kicking a steel plate.

System Notification Skill Increase: Dodge is now Novice 2 (+1)

Rangor’s speed was surprising, and he quickly recovered from his missed grab. He spun the opposite way from Kalamedra and threw a backhand at him, which Kalamedra quickly dodged. The half-orc was chuckling, clearly pleased with himself.

“See, you have to dodge every blow… I just have to hit you once. Your weak little body will fit in a bread box after you take one blow from me. On the other hand, you can punch and kick me until the Travelers return and it won’t make a lick of difference.”

A chill grew in Kalamedra’s heart.

Rangor lunged again, throwing the fingers on both hands out like claws. Kalamedra tried to dodge to the side once again, but Rangor seemed to anticipate this and side-stepped at the last second so that his right hand swiped along Kalamedra’s cheek, raking the skin away. Pain filled Kalamedra’s head like a swarm of buzzing bees and he quickly dropped his body down and rolled backwards. He quickly came to his feet and took some backwards leaps to put more distance between himself and the hulking half-orc.

Rangor licked some of Kalamedra’s blood off his fingers, and laughed darkly. “I will devour you! You are just meat, boy!”

Kalamedra felt his face burning, and not just from the four long gouges on his cheek. All of a sudden a cruel grin came over his visage and the half-orc stopped chuckling. Kalamedra held his hands out in from of him and all of a sudden a point of darkness formed between them and started growing rapidly as he poured all of his mana into the shadowbolt. The air around his hands seemed to be shuddering at the ferocious way in which the mana was flowing into the throbbing ball of shadows. Shadows were also pouring off his body like a thick fog and snaking into the point of darkness.

Rangor roared out in shock and anger and started to rush Kalamedra. His body was thundering forward until he ran into the edge of Kalamedra’s shadow. It was like his feet suddenly became attached to the floor and the rest of him kept traveling forward, his body plummeting to the ground with a savage thud.

I have him. Hit him with the spell!

The shadowbolt in front of Kalamedra was now fully formed, and hovering slightly over his upraised palm. He stepped forward and pushed the swirling shadow ball of death down on top of Rangor’s skull. There was a dull boom and then a loud pop and fragments of skull were flung around like an exploding land mine.

System Notification XP Increase: You have gained 400xp

The crowd outside the dueling ring was quiet for a moment as everyone took the sight in, and then immediately a cacophony erupted as people were yelling about unfair practices, cursing as they lost bets or yelling in joy as their underdog paid off in spades. Kalamedra reached a hand off and scraped the bone and brain matter off his face. He couldn’t keep a smirk off his face.

“Hey, I just used my body to kill him. Just so happens that my body is the body of a mage. It’s not my fault that he wanted to fight me, and if he beat my skull inside out how many of you would be complaining? I don’t wanna hear any of your shit.”

Holy shit that was lucky! That guy was a fucking walking tank! If I didn’t get a chance to use that shadowbolt right on a super damaging spot like that I don’t know if I could have beat him! I need to be more careful, I am not a fucking superhero!

Billous lowered the force field and Kalamedr started walking out of the ring towards his gear. The human moved over to him and whispered in a low voice, “Good on you for living. Did what you had to. Just want to let you know though, better grow some eyes in the back of your head. Rangor had a lot of friends in the Guild.”

Kalamedra nodded his thanks to the man and started to put on his gear, acting as if this was all in a day’s work and as calm as the day is long. Inside he was nervous as hell and just trying to avoid showing any weakness in front of these people, many of whom wished he was the one who died in the ring.