Morning of the next day came quickly and Jason prepared to leave. He had emptied his personal ARMS inventory the other day which only left the things he needed for the Arena and the necklace. Most of his personal belongings he could leave at the inn now that he was permanent resident, but something told him that he shouldn’t leave that necklace lying around. The scent of the breakfast meal Su was preparing smelt wonderful. He found himself moving down to the dining hall, drawn almost by instinct. No patrons had arrived yet, but it was still early. Jason took a seat and Rina brought to bowls to him, one for himself and one for herself, and sat with him.

“Morning.” She said while yawning.

“Thanks,” he returned and began spoon at the contents of the bowl.

Rina looked at him funnily,then said, “itadakimasu,” before starting to eat her breakfast.

Jason was slightly taken aback by her, “You say that before you eat?”

“Of course. Why don’t you?” she questioned him completely seriously.

“That’s a Japanese thing. Americans don’t.”

“I’m American,” she said resolutely.

“You family must have kept the tradition then,” he posited.

“I guess. Did you level up yet?”

“You might say that, but I don’t think that’s how it works here. Haven’t got any higher grade equipment yet,” he told her, then an idea shot through his head and he pulled the necklace from his inventory. “Think you can hold onto this for me? Gotta keep it safe though.”

Rina saw the necklace and nodded her head vigorously, “what is it? I’ll keep it safe! I promise,” said reaching out for it.

Jason grinned. He got up, moved around behind Rina, and placed the necklace on her neck. A moment later the jewel embedded in it began to shine. A moment after that the Orc that he had killed in the dungeon and the elegant Goblin Woman appeared at his side. Jason unsheathed his sword preparing to fight while simultaneously moving Rina behind. “Awlrek! Might need your help here,” he shouted.

The Orc stepped forward to challenge Jason, but then the Goblin woman stopped him. She moved around the Orc and approached Jason. She had raven hair, violet eyes, a large nose, lips, and pointed ears. Her flesh was lovely shade of light green with blushes of brown. And while male Goblins had figures that were generally unpleasant to look at, this Goblin woman had a very pleasantly rounded figure with proportions that while not overly large were gracefully matched with the whole of her form. She wore many piercings but none detracted from the beauty of her face that was indeed attractive even while being a Goblin. Her dress could be seen to be made of a high quality fabric, leather, and fur with a plunging neckline that left little to the imagination. Jason hadn’t seen her standing and up close before, but now that we was staring at her and trying to keep from being distracted by her cleavage he noted that she wa quite small standing at almost equal height to Rina.

“No fight. We soul-link to c. She call us. We come. I Princess Frisxea. He Sir Dork. Please, no fight,” the Goblin woman attempted to calm Jason down.

Jason wondered why she was speaking in broken English when the translators should be fixing all of these communication problem, but he lowered his blade, giving her a chance, “That makes little sense that you’d be linked to this pendant.”

“I not know why. We born soul-link.”

“Goblins and Orcs do not exist. You can’t be them so what are you?”

“I Goblin. I not understand. I born, live in village, Human attacks. Girl call. I come,” she tried to explain what she knew.

“I think I understand,” he said as Awlrek charged out from the back.

He saw the Orc and was quite impressed, but before he got the lay of the situation he rammed shoulder into the Sir Dork, “Ye’ll not be hurtin’ tha’ girl.” If not for this the situation was all sorted out. However, when Dork was knocked over, he didn’t think it through, and just reacted. Dork sprang from the ground with a right hook that landed across the jaw of Awlrek. Jason saw this and face palmed. Frisxea looked like she was about to jump in, but before she could Jason pulled out another chair at the table and motioned for her to sit, before he took his own seat. ‘Well this could last a while,” he said. Rina giggled in agreement. The princess took the seat and pondered as she watched both the two she was sitting with and the two that were now fighting.

Dork and Awlrek exchanged blows fiercely. They were of equal size and neither had a weapon to give the other an advantage. Dork was bulky for Human proportions, but compared to an Eaugr’n he was slim and sleek, letting him move quicker and dodge Awlrek. Awlrek on the other hand was stronger with longer reach meaning that while he missed plenty, when he hit, it hurt more. It was an interesting fight to watch. Even more so when one picked up on the fact that they both seemed to be avoiding crashing into any tables or destroying anything. It didn’t stop them from creating quite a loud ruckus attracting the attention of Su. When she came out she ordered them both outside and to stop disturbing the customers. Immediately, both of them stopped fighting, apologized for causing problems, and as they were told went outside. Once out the door, they picked up right where they were. It seemed like the both of them forgot why they were fighting to begin with and were simply enjoying the competition.

Jason and Rina finished their breakfast. Rina took their bowls to the back and brought a meal out for the Princess. “Su says you can work it off,” she said with a smile. Jason was curious if Frisxea even ate, but there wasn’t really any other way to test other than to off and see how she reacted. She ate, although at first it took her a moment to figure out how to operate a spoon. He waited till she finished eating. This was because he hoped that Awlrek and Dork would be finished and come back in by then, but no such luck.

“I take it you control Dork?” Jason asked.

“Dork listen to me. We obey her. We obey you,” she replied.

“But Rina has the necklace,” he pointed out.

“Rine possess pendant. You own pendant,” she explained.

He thought about it for a moment before looking through his VUI and noted that the gear in his inventory had an owner label on each item. He had given the necklace to Rina to hold onto, not own. This explained the situation. “Well, I have to register for the Arena so we’ll look into this later, but I hope that you look after Rina and don’t trouble her or the Tik’rs while I’m away,” he said to the Goblin, then turned to Rina, “If you want to see me fight, ask the Tik’rs if they know about the audience for the Arena. I think you can come watch, but I’m not sure. I’m gonna get going going now though.” Jason stood to leave. Rina hugged him. “I should be back later today,” he said patting her on the head.

Rina let him go and Jason exited the inn’s door to find that another fighter had entered the fray. Hanshi had arrived a few moments earlier and seeing the fight took the opportunity to join in. As far as Jason knew she liked to fight, but hadn’t been able to have a good brawl lately. Awlrek and Dork had originally been evenly matched and neither would let the other get ahead in some mental calculation of who was winning. When Hanshi arrived she just randomly jumped in which surprised the two combatants, but after a few moments they came to an unspoken agreement. They would team up and defeat this nutty woman that was able to not only equal their points, or equal their points combined, but get more points than both of them together. They were going at her with all their might, but Hanshi seemed unphased. When she saw Jason come out of the inn it took seconds to subdue both of them, putting them both in a position that all they could do is give in or be knocked out. They both chose to be knocked out, not wanting to blemish their manliness. Afterwards, Hanshi stood, brushed herself off and waved towards Jason, “Ready?”

Jason shuddered watching what Hanshi did. He would be surprised at the seen, but he was used to Hanshi being able to put all that confronted her in the ground. He nervously gave a chuckle and wave, “Yeah… I was just on my way to register.”

The two of them went to the DRA to register Jason for his next match in the Arena. A Nith`phane tended to them instead of Mittana. It was the first time Jason saw one. It looked something like it had a human body topped with a giant mouse head and a tail. It was somewhat disturbing to look at it because it’s eyes were black orbs rather than any sort of regular eye. They had a mild resemblance to the greys of UFOlogist nutery with the shape of their head when seen from above, but this was due to it having an elongated snout with whiskers stretching out a good foot from its face. Of course you also had to ignore each of its ears which were also about a quarter of the size its head. It nimbly typed on a keyboard with its long fingers. Everything was taken care of without a hitch, but it was far less personable than when Mittana handled the registration. Then again, the Nith`phane didn’t seem to have anything against Hanshi, but again, Jason didn’t know what an Nith`phane trying to show disrespect to another would look like. In the end the registration was done. They had time to chat before the match was scheduled, but not enough to do very much of anything. They decided to take the elevator down and prepare themselves just in case something happened to them again. It wouldn’t be good to register to fight and then not show up. It would cost if he did that, so they tried to avoid a situation where that could happen.

When they got below to the barracks Jason wasn’t expecting that the room had become smaller and it was now lit. Where as before it wasn’t possible to see from one side of the room to the other he now was able to easily do so. Turning to Hanshi, he gave her a questioning look waiting for her to explain what was going on, “They couldn’t be reducing the space because all of these Humans were killed,” he said with a shaky voice.

“That’s one reason for it. The other reason is that they’re slaves or otherwise lost all their property. They have been discarded as trash, proving what your society claimed they words. Or maybe they just like being the possession of others. What do you say? Want to become my toy. I’d take good care of you,” she said sexily licking her lips and running a finger over his chest.

“No thanks. I have a feeling you treat your toys rougher than you treat your students,” he said thinking back to all the times she had broken, fractured, sprained, and dislocated his bones during their training, leaving out all the slashes, gashes, and perforations that she had given him and toyed with to cause him that much more pain. “How bout I just go get ready for the fight and you can fantasize about that while cheering me on?”