Zahn sat back against the couch with a groan, his face still warm from the hearth that returned him to life. “They jumped three on me, Ethan.” His complaint was met with a grunt as the Warlock in question stirred his stew with a serious expression. The lowbie rubbed at his face and tried to wince the memory of those kids getting the drop on him away. Opening his eyes at last he found the respawn window kindly informing him of the loss in experience and was blinked out of existence without even getting read. Summoning his Grimoire with a wave, the lowbie flipped to the new Earth section and looked again at the spells’ requirements.

While he studied, the blonde finished his preparations and served two bowls with crusts of bread before joining his fellow Player on the seat. Spying in his book while handing over the lunch, he pointed at the Shift spell. “Use that, set up an area on the ground and jerk someone’s feet from under them.”

Zahn accepted the meal and stared at his opposite, blinking his surprise. “Would that work? I mean, if I go through the trouble of setting up a big circle and just try to bait them in, that’s pretty obvious right?”

The Warlock grinned into his spoon, “You’re thinking too straightforward, mister batshit mana-gen. Which is stupid, by the way. Just write a small circle to set up the spell on the ground then dump a shit ton of mana into it, problem solved. Spells that affect areas leak over their boundaries when their basic mana demands are vastly overpowered.”

The Custom sucked down the information and food simultaneously, nodding as he gulped spoonfuls. “Alright, so I draw a circle, then-”

Ethan waved a hand to interrupt him while he swallowed. “Ahem, no. Cast smarter, smaller spells then overpower them if you need to. Start with using Shape to make the circle, then power your perfect carving with another jolt of mana. Then, if they step close enough, super-charge the spell you set up and activate it.”

Chewing on the ideas, the lowbie swallowed some potato bits. “Where do you even get this stuff man?”

He got a grin in reply, “My Int is almost double yours, I’m primarily a caster remember? I just can’t do much of anything without my Familiar, so.” Ethan shrugged as he turned his eyes back to his soup and Zahn hummed to himself as he pondered the options in front of him.

“Think I could get Brouhaman to help me use these spells?”

The blonde shook his head, “No, you already made a deal with him and the dude’s super formal. Watch out for him tomorrow, by the way.”

Zahn turned to stare over his bowl, “Nah, he’s not even ranked. Shouldn’t we be watching for the numbered guys?”

“Obviously. But, he knows a bunch of area effect magic and he’s literally in his element. Sand arena when we’re not spectated.”

The lowbie sighed as he finished lunch, “I hate AoE’s. Well, I love using them but hate having to deal with that shit.”

“Keep your book out during the next few matches,” came Ethan’s advice as he collected the bowls and fetched more water to refill the stew for dinner. “Worst they could do to you is slash the thing, then you just feed it mana to repair its pages. It’s really your greatest resource.” Dumping a pitcher into the pot, he then set the iron cookware on the coals and turned with a gesture. A red leather-bound tome over black hard backing, the yellowed pages gave off a whiff of sulfur as the opened with a creak. Sitting more than double the size of Zahn’s journal-like paperback, the sinister book was engraved with a number of glowing runes on the outside and held a fat red bookmark like a tongue across its opening page. “See? This is how I keep track of where to open to,” the blonde seemed perfectly happy flipping through the book as if it didn’t ooze decay, “and most of my spells need a Familiar to act as my focus. Mages can just use their Grimoires as one, but they usually get their hands on a staff of wand or the like. Other classes get different weapons to summon, but we casters are stuck with endless magic potential instead of a sword that you can make appear in your hand every time you try.”

“So how do mages and shit summon or dismiss wands, the other foci?”

“They don’t.” Ethan closed his book with a thud and dismissed it by inverting its summoning gesture, a swirl of his hand as if mixing dough. “Those things are stuck as external, and if they break they’re broken. But, if you do get your hands on one you can carve any spells into it you want, as long as the thing can handle them. I think I heard that the Artifact-level gear can hold spells up to Rank ten, but anyone that can cast that shit is already gone.” Grinning and waving, he gestured at Zahn then the door. “Anyway. Time’s up, go kick some ass.”

Confused at the turn in conversation, the Custom eyed his clock before picking up the blade-catcher and rising to face the exit. The doors opened as if on cue, and Two stood between them.

“Good, you’re back. Hope you had time for a bite, you’re scheduled every hour till sundown.” The tan man nodded at Ethan before disappearing, shimmering out of sight without moving.

Zahn looked over at the blonde, growling his frustrations. “I don’t have enough levels for that many deaths. What the hell’s going on here?”

The Warlock shook his head, leading his pupil out to the sands. “They won’t bring you below two, but you can probably expect to be killed once even after hitting it. Half a level keeps you within it, right?” A scowl answered the rhetorical question and he ploughed on, “So you’ll be barely level two starting tomorrow for the melee, where you’ll die to someone in the noon match and be sat back to one-half, before being allowed to sit out for the rest of the day. Unless you’re stupid enough to challenge someone else after being level one-and-a-half.” A cool gaze stared down the scowling growl, and Zahn nodded in silence at the lecture.

Walking back into the sunlight, the Players were met with a line of the boys capped with a grinning Burnato looking like contestants for the smug dick awards: Collisae edition. Before he could speak up Ethan chimed in, “Pretty dickish of you to start with three-on-one, we agreed to two max Burns.”

The thick thug’s smirk fell at the nickname, and he crossed his massive arms over his chest. “Can’t help it if one of my boys can Stealth his way in on another’s match. Besides, we’re still following orders. Game time.”

The Warlock scowled back but relented, stepping aside and letting Zahn enter the small ring nearest their doors. Across the zone two of the boys stepped in, one having swapped his short sword for a hand axe. Readying his catcher in the right and holding his left hand over the hovering Grimoire, the Custom pushed on his mana and tried to get the warmth going down his arm.

The blueish field snapped into place, distorting the air as the colors faded. To Zahn’s mana vision, the field danced like heat from flames into a curved roof some twenty feet above. Lowing his gaze back to the field, he saw neither boy had pressed the advantage of his bared neck and only now began to stalk forward in sync. He touched the page for Shape and knelt to slap his palm to the sands, “Shape!” before feeling a surge of heat answer his push and pulse down his left arm into the ground, staining the area around him green beneath the dirt like spilled ink. As he watched the shape of a perfect circle sink itself into hardened sand where he’d touched, nearly as large as his hand and only using up a tiny fraction of the mana he’d dumped into the ground. Looking back up at his opponents, he saw the sword wielder on his left stop when caught and heard the axeman speed up. This ring’s barely twenty steps across kids, stop drawing this out.

Turning from his staring contest with the sword wielder he found the other as his breath sucked in to prepare for the strike. Raising his double-pointed dagger, Zahn caught the boy’s forearm and dragged both tips upwards towards the kid’s wrist to discourage using the axe again. As his prey squealed and dropped his weapon, the Player heard the rushed steps of his companion and stomped on the circle he’d shaped before. “Shift!”

With the sounds of rushing water or sand falling Zahn found himself immediately off-balance and landing on the ground, having moved all three fighters and tipping the group entirely. Laughter rang out from beyond their barrier, and the lowbie wheezed trying to catch his breath as he saw the ring he’d carved stood out bright green in his vision and beneath the mana pool had shrunk slightly. Rolling towards the disarmed axeman, the Player knelt as the boy rose to hand and knees before driving the double-tipped dagger into his opponent’s good arm’s elbow and bringing him back down to the sands with a cry.

Staggering to his feet, Zahn turned to see the sword wielder approaching slowly, stepping around the edge of the barrier like pacing a wild beast. He stepped backwards around the sobbing teen, keeping an eye on the fighter with working arms as he stepped over his spell. Glancing down at the green circle he tapped it with his foot and felt the mana in the ground ripple in response. Looking back up he saw the boy silently rushing him, his sword held parallel to the ground and each step light on the sands. Crouching and pressing his free hand to the magic carving he tried to shift the shape beneath the charging foe’s feet. “Shift!”

Zahn kept his balance as he watched the circle and its pool of energy hurl itself across the ground before the shape found the lad’s approaching steps some five feet out and sent him sprawling, his leading foot being pulled backwards with the shifting ground and his knee bent to support the run collapsed under the sudden change. The Player leapt forward at him, intent on using the opening when his prey changed their roles.

With a wrench of his hips, the young warrior rotated his legs in a circle and rose to his feet, finishing the turn with a long horizontal slice that Zahn had to lean backwards to avoid, nearly getting decapitated as the blade carved the air before him and left a divot across his hairline, the sharp pain sending the Player to his back as he grabbed at his face.

-26 Health. ??? used Rotation.

He felt sand splash against his leg and he rolled away, dodging the blade that came stabbing downwards on his prone form. With his eyes covered by his hands and blood freely flowing down his face, Zahn could clearly see from Mana Vision but the Shift circle did little to help him navigate the battlefield. Rolling again to hit the barrier with his shoulder, the Player pointed at his spellform with his blade and tried to pull it closer, feeling the mana in the distance wiggle and quake but not activate despite his insistence. After another long moment without an attack, he tried to wipe the blood from his eyes and squinted at the world to see the fighters supporting one another, with the swordsman wrapping his friend’s arms in cloth as he handed over the retrieved weapon.

Wiping the blood away from his face again with a forearm, Zahn reached into his bag to fetch the spellblade dagger and began to channel mana into it, held backwards in his offhand. Seeing the blade come to life as blue through his arm, he felt better about being able to see where the dagger went as the boys approached once more. With his back to the curved wall again, he didn’t have far to navigate as the Gladiators closed in and waved their weapons at him in an alternating pattern.

Smacking the axe aside with the dagger and trying to catch the sword with the other seemed like his best plan to keep them at bay, but they’d planned his response and as soon as he moved to twist the catcher he saw the axeman move. Jumping along the wall, the boy tackled him and sent both flying to the ground before Zahn felt the short sword punch between his ribs.

-92 Health. ??? used Stab.

Critical Hit!

Gasping with lungs that failed to draw, the lowbie felt a horrible pain arc through his body that only multiplied as the long metal withdrew and pulled its terrible weight through every inch. Warmth that should have been comforting after his mana’s encouragement felt only apologetic, sad as it flowed across his chest and pooled around his body. With each fluttering pump of his slashed heart, more of the precious strength left his limbs until he felt himself growing cold, and his head fell to the ground.

Alert! You have died!

Waking up on the couch again, Zahn growled at himself and spat into the coals. “I’m starting to hate this seat.” Standing and swinging his arms, the lowbie dismissed the respawn window and looked around to see he was alone this time and their dinner bubbled quietly on the other side of the hearth. Summoning his Grimoire and walking a circle to stretch, he flipped to his Tome to try and find something about magical combat but found the third chapter to be continuing its rant about the magical planes instead of surviving this one. Flipping the ink pages he skimmed the first line of each paragraph until he found a bit that caught his interest.

Chaos is a realm none would venture to willingly, as the place is as evil as its inhabitants are reputed to be. An entire plane of existence powered by hunger, and hungered by power. Every being known as a Chaos is a formless entity, having lost its right to a shape when it died in the Mortal Realm and was banished to the demonic. While having lost their shapes, each entity retains its knowledge and power in a void filled with others of their own kind. That void itself pulls on them, draining their powers and weakening their memories until the things become weak mindless husks of their former selves. To fend off the eternal assault, each Chaos being feeds on each other it can encounter, all throughout the distorted time and space that makes up the realm of Chaos. As each being is eternally at war against each other, they often split their memories involuntarily and share bits of themselves, giving up what they seek to protect in their battles for power. When a being of Chaos is summoned to the Mortal Realm once more by a Warlock, they are given the shape that said Warlock understands that ‘demon’ ought to be. Whatever said Warlock envisions an Imp to be, for example, is exactly what that caster would summon down to the personality and dangers. This holds true for all manner of demons, as a Warlock is only capable of making a contract with a single entity in their lifetime and is constantly summoning that same being in different forms such as the Succubus or Archfiend. If a Warlock is known to abuse its weaker minions, they may find the stronger manifestations of the Chaos they have bound with to be less willing to assist their cruel master.

Closing the book, Zahn sat back down on his couch and considered what that meant for his friend. Maybe I can get Ethan’s familiar back after all, just shaped differently. As if being summoned, the blonde entered through the double doors and jumped at seeing his apprentice’s return. “There you are. Your grave vanished, so I was sent to fetch you. Nice match, sorry you lost.”

Shaking his head at the rush of words, the Custom stood and brushed at his torn shirt. “Don’t suppose I could get armor for these? Besides being outnumbered and out-leveled.”

Ethan winced back at him, shaking his head. “Sorry, nothing until the official match tomorrow. Technically speaking, you haven’t even been introduced to the arena with your first match and neither have they. Hence the bloodletting, none of you get armor.”

Following his ally outside, Zahn found the same ring with a slight surprise waiting. Both boys had red labels above their heads, one bearing fifteen and the other a skull. Stepping into the ring and feeling the barrier snap into place behind him, he pulled his weapons and charged both with mana, feeling them warm against his palms. The circle he’d carved over an hour ago still remained, with a tiny puddle of green surrounding it in his mana sight. Walking along the right wall, he stopped near the shape and turned to face the boys as they stalked forwards with open grins.

The Custom squeezed on his mana’s source, feeling the warmth pound outwards like a bubble before filling his neck and skull, supercharging his mana vision and showing him a burst of colors. As his face lit up with magic, both opponents charged with the skull-level leading the way. Each held a full-sized longsword in both hands, and Zahn knew he wouldn’t get the space he’d need to catch and pull one away before the other closed in. As the lad swung across the Player ducked under and rolled, his back dragging along the sands and a jolt of cold following him on the way up just before he saw the other boy’s blade swing down at him.

Jumping to the side with his Skill, he dismissed the increase notification and spun to face the pair as they charged him again. A glance down at the now vibrantly-glowing green circle showed Zahn a happy surprise as the pool of mana had refilled and sat wider than it had in the previous match. Greedy lil thing, he thought fondly as he stepped forward and stomped on the shape. He had to lean back as the closer of the pair swung, cleaving his sword in a Rotation attack that would have taken his arm above the elbow. Ducking under the blade as he leaned, the Player had a second to curse his own stupidity before he slapped the mana pool with a blade, “Shift!”

The mana pool obediently reacted, the entire field of mana behaving as if enchanted with the inscribed circle and caused the sands above to rotate on the spot. The turning ground continued the boy’s spinning attack, to both opponent’s horror as the longsword’s heavy blade sunk into the side of the skull-level’s flinching body. Their mixed cries of pain and fear echoed across the barrier, and Zahn straightened up with a chuckle at the sight.

“What’s wrong boys? Don’t you know I can’t hurt you, being so much stronger and all that?” Part of him felt his gut twist at mocking the pain of someone who could have been his younger brother, in another life. The rest of him felt the pain from his repeated deaths and shrugged at their suffering. He’d been facing off in practice bouts against all of the half-dozen recruits over the past few weeks, and been keeping himself from spitting fire at such low-level kids obviously way over their heads. As he faced the pair now, trapped within a magical wall, he decided it was time to stop treating them like their ages. He took a deep breath and tried to shift his thinking, to recognize these were fighting men who chose to enter the ring and risk pain and death for glory and reward. They chose this, they volunteered. They chose this, he repeated to himself as the heat of his mana continued to build in his torso.

Straightening up and stepping close, he moved around to an angle where he could almost reach the blade impaling his opponent as the other wailed his panic to the crowd. Taking another breath, Zahn charged his neck and released the attack on the metal sword still in the boy’s ribs. “Fire Breath!” Holding the spew for several long seconds, the Player watched the metal quickly heat to red and white, causing his victim to scream and flail against the ground as he scratched and dragged his nails leaving rivulets in the sand. If I could hurt you directly I would, little man. Pouring heat on the weapon and burning his foe from the inside, Zahn squinted his eyes as he exhaled and thus missed the incoming attack completely.

“Bastard!” Coming around from his left, a Rotation powered blade dropped before hacking into the Player’s leg and dropping him, taking over half his health at once and giving him a cheery pop-up describing how his leg had become ‘Fractured and Unusable’ until healed. The pain arcing up his bones vibrated that message to him loud and clear as he collapsed onto the ground, his fire spewing wildly before sputtering to a halt with the last of his breath.

“Bastard!” His opponent wasn’t terribly imaginative as he plunged the blade into Zahn’s chest, pinning him into the sands before he died and disappeared into the hearth’s coals once again. The Player’s body faded into a gravestone, holding the longsword fast and forgotten as the Gladiator rushed to his friend’s side and tried to ease his pain, the boy gasping and wheezing with his burned lung.

Waking up again had Zahn ready to kill. His thirst was answered immediately, being dragged back to the ring for another quick death. With each kill his foes changed weapons and tactics, facing off against him in a variety of gear and with fresh bodies each time. His level fell consistently, falling to four and three until finally he dropped to two and stayed, coming back to life for the last time that evening and being handed a bowl of stew.

“Today sucked,” the lowbie summarized for his companion.

“You did fine,” the Warlock returned. He sat across the hearth, spooning his soup. “I thought your tactics showed some improvement, even if you’re a sadistic cunt.”

Blinking at the monotone delivery, Zahn pointed back with his spoon, “Do you see a better way for me to hurt something I literally can’t deal damage to? It’s not even a contest, the whole fuckin’ thing’s rigged bro.” He slurped at his dinner defiantly as he ignored Ethan’s indignant stare.

“Yes! Yes you can, ass!” Blinking over his bowl, the lowbie cocked his head at his mentor. Ethan stood, gesturing with his free hand, “Are you fucking kidding me? Dude, nothing below level twenty has any magical resistances, and even when they are tier two they only resist whatever they have. Why do you think everyone who ever ran a Dungeon brought a fire mage along? Everything burns, dude. You’ve been burning those assholes all afternoon!”

Zahn blinked again, thinking back to the matches. With each hour passing in a blink and being dragged up to fight death after death, he’d started ignoring most of the surroundings to focus on the match. Remembering the fights, the smell of burnt hair and flesh was present but not overpowering, and the red marks on their skin could have been from exertion. Right? Isn’t the level difference enough? Asking the same question out loud brought a snort.

“Really? You’re trying to use melee weapon logic with magical damage? Even if One couldn’t fly she’d still be the strongest badass here because of her magic, the different damage types aren’t even close. A party without casters is dead, where casters without tanks have a hard time. I’m telling you bro,” the blonde leaned in and poked at Zahn’s level two chest, “your spells were plenty. You didn’t see the healing they went for between bouts.”

Thinking back to the matches, he did remember real fear in the boys’ eyes each time he’d opened his gob to spew flames, and their reactions seemed to line up with the lecture. Even in his last match, one-on-one against their strongest skull level, the lad ducked and weaved each time Zahn had launched a Spit and downright fell on his ass to avoid a Breath attack. Looking back up at his friend, the Player swallowed his mouthful. “Alright, so the fire spells work. What about earth, you see any better way to attack with Shape or Shift?”

“I might, but that’s not my fight. And technically, I’m facing you tomorrow too, so…”

Zahn scowled, “No way. Even if we’re matched up you just take it, I’m not going to fight you. There’s no point in competing against the only person on my side in here.”

“Not quite,” the blonde’s grin took a little of the sting out of his words, “you have two whole friends. Two likes you too. Say that five times fast.”

Giving a smirk back, he thought about how to keep the other man in his corner. “So, what about a deal? I might be able to help you, past like dishes.”

Waving a hand, Ethan emptied his bowl and poured seconds. “No thanks, I’m straight. I hear Four likes getting sucked though.”

Spewing a tiny Fire Spit over his food, Zahn continued. “No, jackass. I might be able to help with your demon problem, my Tome has some hints about the Chaos realm in it.”

Ethan stared for a silent moment over the rim of his bowl before lowering it. “One, you did not just tell me you have a Magic Tome in your Grimoire. For your own safety, you just didn’t. Two, you can’t just tell me something like that night before a match. That’s…” He trailed off, looking towards the closed doors as he sipped on his meal.

Sitting in the silence for long minutes, Zahn tried to break the awkwardness. “Well, my ah, source, tells me that it can be done. We can talk about it after the match tomorrow, unless it takes too long?” The blonde shook his head silently, still not looking at him. “Right. I have to study this shit and I’m not going back out there ‘till dawn, so. Your turn for dishes.” Leaving his bowl on the floor, Zahn left the common area to hide in his small room and summon his Grimoire again. Maybe this will have more about it, he tried to tell himself. No matter how he reconciled the possibilities, Ethan’s reaction disturbed him beyond what he could phrase.