Coming back to life again and again was feeling less like a pleasant safeguard and more like an experience thief. Eyes opening in midair just as he fell the half inch to the stone slab, Zahn coughed out his complaint against murder and wheezed for a moment at the respawn screen describing his fall to level six. Blinking the message away and focusing his thoughts on the mana fueled eyes trick let him activate Mana Sight and begin pumping mana into the effect. As the magic sensing vision gained power and highlighted his surroundings in colors and mana variants, the glare near the door became shimmering and distracting.

Sitting up and wiping at his eyes he could see through his hands the glow was primarily blue in the shape of a metronome and was backed by a fat silver crescent. Looking at the magical shapes fully he recognized the dim shape of One sitting on the destroyed boxes, watching him respawn and beginning to stand. Hopping off the altar to his feet Zahn willed another pulse of mana from his center up and tried to pull on his throat’s fire pepper side effects. The red light flickering warmly in his throat was bright enough to give a dim candlelight to the otherwise unlit room, and the woman walking towards him smirked at his efforts.

“So, you are a Player and not some other freak accident. And you have fire magic on top of your little psychic trick. How cute.” Her smirk grew into a snarl as she spun the scythe from behind her into view, allowing the weapon to rotate over her palm. “I think you’ll find a single-tier nothing can’t even scratch me, little man. Come on, give me your best shot, mister big bag Player.”

Watching the silver arc dance through the darkness around her blue form behind her and between them made the small room feel like it was closing in and Zahn stepped backwards to trip over the altar and land with a huff on the far side, shooting up a cloud of dust. The blade clashed against the stone near his legs prompting him to tuck them in with a yelp and roll over his head to fall against the wall to a stop. Between his body and attacker, the atlar was glowing blue where he’d touched it. From his path along the dirty floor he could see a trail of fading mana linking him to the altar, and looking at it made him aware of the warmth in his feet that began to brighten the link.

A silver flash spun between the dazed Player and his respawn point as Gladiator One tsked at her mistake of playing with her food. “They can hardly squeal when they smash heads.” She rotated her weapon around once more to no reaction before scowling and removing the lowbie’s left arm at the shoulder.

The pain from her attack shocked Zahn back to reality but locked his throat with the pain, leaving him writhing on the boards and clutching at his ruined side wheezing. Even with his agony and spastic movements, the mana trail connecting Player to altar continued to brighten as it fueled the resurrection spellform with the mana his body leaked during combat. With his eyes squeezed tightly shut he couldn’t see the dark room or where his arm lay in the dust, but the shapes of the blue trail in the ground and silver weapon spinning nearby were impossible to mistake. He could almost feel the location of the scythe as it neared, its magic power radiating into his new sight like a campfire filled with cold pain.

Alert! You have died!

Gasping awake and falling again, Zahn blinked rapidly and tried to calm himself, grasping at his chest with his newly restored left arm and patting himself breathlessly. Finding his body as intact as he expected, the Custom heaved a sigh and tried to steady his breath while flicking on his Mana Sight to see if his killer was around. The clock in his display showed only a few hours had passed but given the events of the day he wouldn’t have been surprised to see the fighters having gone to bed.

Charging up the mana in his face felt like waiting for a reply after sending a risky letter, but his jitters didn’t cause a full blown panic before the ability began to shine. Mana was glowing from beneath him, and the light from the right side could only be one thing. He wasn’t about to try and fool himself into thinking someone was swinging a magic torch, and rolling off the far side saved him from another quick death.

The clang of metal on stone rang out through the room, sending him wobbling as he tried to find the wall and stand. Grabbing something to lean on he found his grave as it crumbled and sent him falling into the actual wall face-first before dropping into a fetal position. Holding his wounded face and trying not to scream with the pain resulted in holding his breath, and for a moment it seemed to work better than he’d hoped.

“Where is the little fuck? Did he send himself off?”

The voice of the hammer-wielding warrior that Zahn concluded must be Four looked around the darkness trying to find the unarmored lowbie. From his curled up position in the corner the Player couldn’t see anything, but the shuffling of footsteps and tapping of weapon against the floor could be felt and heard nearby. As it began to turn away, he found himself getting a notification he hadn’t expected to see anytime soon.

Sneak has risen to 2!

He must have made a noise at the notice, as the searching killer suddenly zeroed in on him. “There you are, little fuck.” Before Zahn could let go of his face or try to turn, the bright magic hammerhead came flying towards him from the far side of the room.

Alert! You have died!

Gasping on the altar once again, the custom was starting to hate this shit. I can’t even leave the fucking room. What the fuck is this. Turning on Mana Sight immediately was becoming more and more of a priority, but before he got his bearings the lowbie rolled off the altar immediately and lay against the floor trying to breathe quietly.

Even with all his wounds gone and his body fully restored, he still came back to life with his heart pounding and breath short as if having just been running. He pressed his body against the side of his respawn point as he tried to apply the levelup of Stealth he’d earned in his last life and felt a twist of irony make him want to grimace. In my last life. Which one?

Thinking back to Earth was siderailed when his magic vision turned on and he found the entire altar face he’d been hugging glowing brightly with fresh mana, so much that he couldn’t see past the cloud of blue light and intricate spellform just under the top level with power running through it. From his side perspective, the magic shape looked like a circuit with energy entering a single point and flowing down the pattern as if wires. The mana coalesced into uniform-sized blobs as it entered the stream and traveled down the path in set order, each unit coloring more of the path at the far end. As if each measure of mana were its own packet of cells able to fill any role of a body that performed whatever the spellform required next, cells building a magical body.

A voice echoed in his small room before his terrified musings could go much further, seemingly having found him. “You can’t just use normal sight in the dark, idiot. We have options, so just use Darkvision or Nightvision, even Heat works. I hear Two never turns heat vision off. He’s behind the altar, you heard him alright. Go get ‘im.”

Zahn didn’t know the voice’s owner, but whoever it was became his least favorite person behind the top five. And the Ringmaster. Maybe in the top ten. Leaning up to peer over the edge he found not only Burnato but a team of two others heading towards him with ropes in hand, outlined by the magic on the armor. He found the chipper thug to be glowing green and yellow, with his helpers each glowing a pattern of green and brown. The trio didn’t speak as they grabbed him and roughly tied his arms at his sides.

The custom waited for a moment when they weren’t looking at him before pulling on his mana and trying to push the energy into his neck. As the red glow began he inhaled deeply, ready to launch-

Only to get a swift chop to the back of his neck, cocking his head straight down as he coughed out and breathed fire all over his naked stomach.

“None of that,” came the fighter’s stern warning as the smell of burnt hair filled the altar room. “We talk to one another stupid, we’re wise to your little tricks. You’re being brought somewhere to be useful, or we just kill you again until you comply.” Burnato didn’t enter the Player’s line of sight, but his stern voice reminded Zahn strongly of that night he summoned his rapier and cut apart one important throat.

Swallowing his pride and tongue, the lowbie nodded and let himself be led out of the room down the curving hallway. The early morning wasn’t quite lit yet, but the stage was already partially disassembled. Near the stage sat a half ring of torches stuck into the sand giving light to the quiet scene. Between his door’s exit and the rest of the construction, a thick wooden post was left sunk into the ground standing over seven feet tall. The lowbie tried to struggle against his ropes but was dragged without much effort to be trussed against the pillar and tied with loops wrapped around him.

As he finally stopped trying to free himself and opted to just glare at his captors, he saw that the portly Ringmaster was up and about even this early as he walked into view on top of the stage. He was lit from below and his belly gave his face a rather silly shadow that the helpless lowbie wasn’t about to point out right away.

“So, you think you can just cause trouble for me? Think you’ll get attention from the masses? They don’t even know you exist, idiot boy.” The man talking down to him seemed to have this identity built up about the Custom that he didn’t mesh with, but he wasn’t about to try to correct the nutjob running a death ring. “Your little firework did get some attention, but not a single body thought to mention you to any of the attendants. Even your pitiful grave remained unnoticed in the shadows where it belongs.”

Despite the proud bragging, Zahn knew he shouldn’t rise to the bait. “Who are the attendants?” He was well aware that mouthing off would only get him in trouble, and he was having a hard enough time waking up to danger as it was. “I can’t imagine anyone but Burny here wearing an apron and prancing around the stands, handing out snacks.” Trying to start a fight here would be suicide, not to mention he was bound and- What am I doing? “Did you hire out someone to serve drinks to the crowd too?” Zahn couldn’t stop himself from talking. His mouth kept moving and spouting taunts no matter what he wanted or thought, and he didn’t understand any of it. He looked up at the Ringmaster with wide eyes to find the cold mask slowly breaking into a sneer. “Can’t be you’d ever attract decent staff to a junk heap like this.”

“Finally.” The ornately robed man began to smile fully as the Player continued to spout foul arguments. “I’ve been waiting for that taunt to kick in since your miserable hide arrived, and finally you can’t stop. You’ve caught yourself a bit of a Boxer’s Cant, haven’t you?”

Clenching his jaw, Zahn mumbled something about the manager’s mother and tried to hold his breath, anything to stop the endless chatter. How the fuck is he making me talk? Nobody makes me talk! After a moment’s revelation his chatter paused, And those insults are just stupid, who even talks like that?

As if his internal narration knocked something loose, he felt a weight settle against his face pushing back on his forehead. The cool pressure reached all the way down his throat past his clenched teeth and he could feed the effect trying to coax words out of him. Trying to make sense of what the spell wanted from him didn’t get anywhere, but the compulsion to speak got stronger the more he held his jaw shut.

As he closed his eyes to try and navigate the strange enchantment he was under, a punch came out of nowhere and crashed into his face. Concentration and willpower broken the lowbie found himself spouting off again as the magic took firm hold.

“I’ll fuck your mother with the dick I kill you with!” Shaking his head to try and regain control he felt the cold magic mask grab his cheeks once again. “Once I’m done skullfucking your corpse I’ll raise your soul to learn where your goddamn family lives!” Finding the world slowly refocus, the Player faced a group of shocked and angry faces glaring back at him.

“He wouldn’t.” Two was confident and leaning back against the half-assembled stair.

“He can’t.” One sounded less sure, looking over at their Ringmaster. “Right?”

The fat manager had stopped smirking and glared at the bound helpless level six. “I’d dare him to try, but we’re going to keep the little shitstain too busy. Anyone sees even a hint of necromancy I want to be informed, we’ll bring in the fucking Arbiters if we have to.”

The various strong and muscled men surrounding the tied up Player nodded and patted one another on the shoulder, turning back to their prey with newfound purpose. Glaring up at them and their master standing on his stage, Zahn tried to direct his mouth even if he couldn’t stop it.

“Why do you want me talking so badly? You fucking wank I’ll break your spine and shit down the gaping hole! Fuck, that’s annoying!” Being unable to stop himself was starting to wear on his patience and throat, leaving Zahn feeling more helpless as time went on. Being tied against a log was disconcerting enough, but he felt as if he could at least tough out being about to die again - but being helpless in his own mind was becoming a new kind of torture entirely. He growled at himself and clamped his jaw shut, struggling against his impulse to speak as if wrestling with a rubber bone between his teeth.

Surprisingly, the ringmaster deigned to answer him after all. “You hold secrets that will make my men stronger. I gave you a choice and terms, which you broke yesterday with your little stunt.” Trying to look up at the speaker made his face feel even more like unlocking, leaving Zahn glaring at the ground trying to stop the insane babble. “You will be the living practice for my men during the daylight hours, and the nightly patrols will now include killing you off each time you return to curse us with your presence. If our lord wills it, you will perish beyond the lowest level and not return. If not,” the Player could hear an evil smirk even when he couldn’t see it. “My men will hone their techniques on you for a very long time indeed.”

As fatty’s footsteps began to sound like walking away, the Cant he’d been enchanted with seemed to warm and fade off his head. Finding his words back under his normal control, Zahn looked up at the angry crowd of expert fighters and thought about his next words.

“So, who’s first?”

Alert! You have died!

Three deaths spun by faster than he thought were normal, given the usual circumstances of life and death. By Zahn’s measure, ‘life’ meant he ought to actually get some time to go out in the world and do the ‘living’ bit first. Then die. I probably wouldn’t be so salty if I at least got a breather, he lamented while being dragged to the post for the fourth time since his forced conversation. Eyeing his HUD clock assured him that it had been less than a day, and it looked like his fueling of the respawn altar was speeding up the time between rebirths. So the things I can do are: Fight back and die, empower my rebirth device to die faster, and spit fire before dying. Great. He’d tried launching Fire Spit with each rebirth to fight back, but the powerful warriors laughed as the spell splashed across their armor before slicing him apart between the ropes.

As he was being manhandled back into position he tried to pull to one side only to find his grave blocking the way, slowing him enough as it dissipated to stop his escape attempt as the thugs laughed.

“Told you he’d run into it.” Zahn couldn’t make out the speaker in the crowd, but he expected he’d learn who soon enough.

The day’s deaths had changed, no longer so quick after the first execution before dawn. After he’d come back to life in about four hours they tied him up and hauled his body back to the post before securing him in place and lining up in a single file. To his horror he watched each Gladiator summon a weapon from nowhere with a gesture before activating a skill and attacking him as lightly as possible. More than one ‘Split Wound’ was drawn across each slice that scraped an inch of skin away, causing more pain than he was able to hold up against.

Growing up in the Revolution he was constantly on his guard, always vigilant against the Reichers and their torture methods. He’d been briefed on the various high-level pain inducing methods they had, including a number of drugs that would leave him delirious with each inch of skin feeling raw as if flayed and leaving him covered in bugs for days. The stories of tortures and the constant reaffirment of a solid will standing fast had been the bread and butter of why not to be captured, and all that he’d been told paled before the simplest of repeated attacks.

Each man and woman readied their own bladed weapon, often something poorly made or rusty with disuse, and performed what was apparently the attack each of them were taught on the same part of his body. Withstanding the single slice took off only five points of health, and he first thought the man had missed his torso. When the second hulking thug smirked and performed the same Split the minor pain skyrocketed while the minor damage remained the same. As each warrior executed the same cut his body grew a larger and larger divot as his health was whittled down strike after strike.

After the second rebirth that morning, he’d made the mistake of counting the attacks. Down to level five he withstood thirty-two of the weakest wounds these monsters could inflict on him, and each seemed perfectly happy to repeat the farce. On his third run he tried to keep track of how many Gladiators were participating, or how many were in line at a time. The line curved around the stage each time he was dragged out during the day, but as night drew closer the stage was more disassembled. Before he died the third time, he felt the cold air enter somewhere he knew it shouldn’t and the pain made him delirious enough to hear someone say ‘ribcage’ before the next slice mercifully took his consciousness.

When he respawned to find night, Zahn almost breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. They won’t do it at night. Trying to calm his panicked heart, he started to charge up his Mana Sight when the sound of a breeze near his ear made that same heart jump jacks as he vaulted sideways off the altar. The blade of a heavy weapon clanged against the stone, and a male voice cursed in the darkness. The lowbie almost gagged on his spit and panic as he tried to fuel up his vision and keep away from the deadly blade coming closer.

Wheezing and scrambling on the ground, the lowbie was now quite familiar with the small alcove to the immediate left of his altar versus the usually occupied right. From the now far side of the stone slab, the hulking fighter growled inaudibly and marched around the foot of the relic to get at his prey faster. Zahn watched his approach as his magic vision kicked on, and jumped to scramble over the stone to the far side and make for the exit.

He doesn’t have a rope. The thought trickled into his head a moment before the heavy swinging axe made solid contact between his right-side ribs, sending him flying into the wall and likely breaking his arm with the splintering sounds that came from it. Before he could even attempt damage control or try to move, the handle wobbled violently as his assailant grasped it and with a pull created the horrible sucking noise that Zahn felt in his throat before being sent off to respawn once again.

Landing on his back and gasping for air, he blinked away the notification he’d lost another level and looked around for the axe man desperately, feeling his last death as he groped at his intact ribs. The room seemed silent, and while he fell to the left and scooted around the dust remained still and serene. When his Mana Sight activated, he saw besides the altar fueling up on his adrenaline mana the room was indeed empty with his grave sitting silently near the exit.

Letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, the lowbie heaved a sigh and collapsed against the wall. That was a fucking nightmare. When he’d been griping to himself about the deaths that had been taking away time from being alive, he had no idea what kind of hell being aware could be like. He thought he’d been hardened against torture, but the simplest of endless attacks against him were something he didn’t know if he could face forever. I can’t log out. I can’t leave.

Staring silently at the altar as it began to take on a new glow, Zahn let his thoughts swim around the problem he faced. How do I get out? I need to make some kind of progress… The altar itself wasn’t remarkable from the outside, just a smooth stone that could have been sandstone or granite, he couldn’t tell. It was under the surface that the magic lay, slowly building itself based on a pattern somehow inscribed into the being of the artifact. The more power I give this thing, the fast I come back to life. The faster I come back to die. I have to find some way to break this cycle before they drive me completely insane. Leaning his head back against the wall, he watched the warm blue glow from the corner of his eye as the night’s hours ticked by.

As the night's watch slowly turned, the Player plotted his escape.