Zahn beamed up at the opened wall, dismissing his notification with a blink. The wretched obstacle that had sealed him away was finally removed, and if his new spell was any hint he’d be able to repeat the trick much easier next time. He saw his Grimoire’s light dancing out the corner of his eye, and the Custom turned to the page holding the Sever pattern updating into a spellform he could cast. The expansion took a drain on his mana, leeching the bulk of the heat he’d been generating away and blessedly taking the strain of his headache with it. The pages updated, shifting text around until they became two pages hosting the spell on the left and detailed notes in Magi on the right about the intricate spellform he’d first found and activated.

Closing his book and tossing it away into space, the lowbie faced the Shaman again and chuckled. “Thanks, you didn’t really do anything but I guess that helped. I’ll remember how to carve forms to cast this time, promise.”

The old man glowered an evil eye back at him, unsatisfied with his gratitude. “You may not recognize my actions, but I upheld our bargain. Speak! How is that beast alive?” He pointed across the sands to the wall where the dirt blob continued its futile trek along the curved inner wall.

Zahn chuckled again, raising his palm to ward off the old man’s wrath. “I’ll tell you, don’t worry. It has to do with how the spells change mana, instead of just casting.” The Shaman nodded and gestured with his free hand, impatiently demanding more. “So, when you cast a spell you’re sending energy through the spellform and changing that energy into the spell’s desired effects, and that’s why we just get the spell when we spend the right amount of energy. I fed the ‘shift’ spellform on a pile of dirt waaay more mana than it needed, and now the pile in question is carrying around its cloud of Earth mana attuned to Shift and taking the dirt with it.”

Brouhaman scowled at the Player, “Do not think to lecture me on how magic works. The nerve of a novice trying to ‘instruct’ me, an Expert on my own. You are fortunate we have a bargain, else my manners would no longer spare you my irritation boy.”

“Look, I can prove it. That same cloud is what broke apart your wave during the match. Remember, I was crouching over this thing and your spell smashed into him and crumbled like wet paper?”

The powerful caster’s eyes began to emit their own light, a yellow shine tinged with green at the edges. “Are you trying to say that you used this primitive construct to defeat my own mighty magicks? Do you honestly believe I would stand for such an insult?!”

Looking over the old man with his magic-enhanced vision, Zahn could see his Core was releasing energy in ripples and waves that passed through his limbs, likely empowering his staff. “Right, sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I was talking down to you, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page for the context of my explanation. Without setting up the framework, my answer would have been limited to something like: I fed the spellform too much mana. I hardly think such an answer would qualify our bargain, would you disagree sir?”

The caster maintained his hard stare, growling something mumbled under his breath. The moment stretched into two, with the dirt blob continuing its ongoing adventure across the arena at its best crawling pace. Finally the Shaman coughed a sigh, “Your manners are shit. Your casting method is crude and unsatisfactory. Your actions are poorly-thought out, and your defenses for them are childish. You behave as if this entire world is some great game, and there is no consequence too great for you to suffer.”

The Player blinked slowly at the living irony confronting him. “Ah, I really don’t mean to disparage you here, but you are aware the reason I’m called a Player is that I logged into a game world from my home world, and the reason I’m still here is because I literally cannot log back out? You are, in fact, aware that from my perspective, this is literally a game? Right?”

Brouhaman snorted, his scowl growing to a glare. “Your excuses are as nonsensical as your speeches. Your perspective means nothing to us, we who have lived our lives here. We have built families, legacies, lost loved ones and risen to mighty challenges. I was there, I stood against the Dark Lord and his Orcish Legions!” He stood tall, his layered warded robes flaring wide as they took in his mana and lit with runes. He slammed his staff into the sands, letting out a great crack as the ground fractured around the point and sent sand each direction. The only force unaffected by his display remained the stubborn dirt clod, pushing its way at a glacial pace between the men and ignoring the spell.

Zahn resisted the urge to snort at the sight, instead forcing his face somber against the powerful display. He can rip you apart. Killing you would take less mana than he’d regain in five minutes. His control over elements makes you look like a child. Do not laugh. Do not laugh. Refocusing on the present he found the old veteran staring at him and gripping his weapon tightly. “I don’t mean to disrespect your history, sir. I know you’ve lived a long life, before coming here I spoke with another Player who had lived more than fifty years without aging a day. I can understand that your lives have been completely real in here and I don’t want to do anything to upset that.” As he spoke the annoying groups nearby migrated to the display of the potent magi, and upon hearing he’d met with another Player their conversations ended with a synchronized gasp before whispering sparked furiously out of hearing. “I’m just trying to give you complete honesty here. I wish I could stop bothering you and just log out, it’d make my day. Until then, I’m just trying to survive.”

The old man relaxed, his glare staying on Zahn’s face as he turned and began to shuffle off without answering. Watching him leave, the lowbie saw his Mana Core had stopped steaming out its energy and was instead taking the loose mana floating around his body back into itself. I gotta learn about recycling mana. Can I still put mana back if it already refilled? Turning away from his brush with death, the Custom patted his split wall before a thought pinged off his skull again. Turning his Mana sight to the wall, he found his opening Sever carving intact and shimmering with power. Waving his hand over the stacked glyphs on his side, he could feel the ground shake as the wall shifted itself back together over the opening. As it closed the carvings he’d painstakingly Shaped into the surface filled in, ending with a smooth face of stone holding the spellform under its surface.

Ethan stepped close, drawing his mind away from the magic. “You stood up to the Shaman? Mate, you’re a fuckin’ nut. That guy has a body count higher than One’s.”

“Yeah, well.” Zahn shook his arms to try and get the adrenaline pumping through them to stop shaking. Waving his hands around, he took a moment to scope out the field and see aside from the worried gossipers who'd gotten all scared about a fifty year old player the sands were empty as the sun lowered over the horizon. “No Burny? What were they even fighting about when they shot me with rocks?”

Ethan chuckled, “During the melee Burnato was rolled a few times. After you ran away from the middle big thunk over there busted his ass out of the dirt pile and attacked. The Shaman crafted a bunch of walls out of stones and dirt, tossed them all around. Fifth couldn’t even get close, every time he tried the ground under him would slide away or turn into a wall tilting upright and fuck with his balance. The guy was screaming during the rematch, you really couldn’t hear it?”

Zahn shook his head, reaching out to his Grimoire nearby. “Naw, once I tuned out the argument I didn’t know shit until some dirt punched me from behind. I even headbutted the fuckin’ wall man.” Rubbing at his sore skull, the lowbie flipped his Earth pages with his free hand until he found the entry for Sever. The spellform looked like a single line, slightly off a perfect vertical and spinning to change the angle every few seconds. The first moving spellform he’d seen, the Custom tried to make sense of the Magi text around the shape and understand more.

The blonde Warlock ambled his way over to drape his weight across the novice’s shoulders. “What’d you even get outta that? You look like a cat that got his cream.”

Zahn held up the pages, trying to show the other fighter. “It’s called Sever, it’s supposed to be a variant of what I used to open the wall. I got an error message when it was generating, something about me not qualifying so I got a lower tier or something.”

Ethan chuckled, “Right, right. So really, it’s just called Sever? I wouldn’t think the grand Shaman would really care about teaching you that.”

“No no,” the lowbie tried to correct him. “I got this outta the error message, I can’t learn whatever the long inscription is yet. I can write it, which makes it live and all that, but I don’t get it as an entry on its own.”

The Warlock’s grin faded as he listened before pushing Zahn towards their doors. “Sounds like this is some crazy Player magic, and we shouldn’t be talking about it out here.”

Stumbling forwards, he squinted back at his friend. “Anything particular about out here I should give a shit about?”

Stepping up to keep pace, Ethan kept his arm behind the other man. “Yeah, it makes it that much harder to get a Private Conversation that nobody can just break through with raw Perception scores.”

Entering their common room, Zahn spun to lean on a couch as the other Gladiator closed the doors. “Alright, explain that shit. What’s special about ‘Private Conversations’ to begin with? And why did I know it’s a proper noun?”

Ethan paused en route to the stew, turning his head as a statue to give him another sidelong stare. “You’re not fucking with me?” Resuming his trek, the blonde heaved a sigh as he plucked the lid off their dinner. “Fuck, I kinda hate your Class Trainer. There’s a whole lotta shit you just don’t know about this place.”

“Right, like there’s a second tutorial. Why isn’t this stuff in the tutorial?”

“Because you’re supposed to have a Class Trainer! Fuck,” the blonde grabbed some green leaves out of his bag and scattered them into the stew before continuing. “Okay, so. The points are kind of related, you can hear proper nouns and you normally can’t hear Private Conversations for basically the same reason, and that’s that sound sucks here. You aren’t hearing anything, really, it’s more like you’re in range for the speaker’s words to reach you, so the transcript shows up in your Logs and you’re connected to those constantly. Go ahead, pull 'em up.”

Doing so, Zahn found their current conversation perfectly recorded in his HUD, complete with punctuation. “Okay that’s fucking creepy.”

“Right, so. Privacy depends on a few conditions, one of which being proximity. You might have already noticed, but you can carry on a coherent conversation even when it’s busy around. That’s because you’re essentially ‘sending’ your words to the other guy, as long as it’s not too far. The further the distance, the easier it is to break into and the louder you have to be. If we’re somewhere private,” he gestured at the closed doors and roof overhead, “it’s that much better. The less chance for someone to realistically hear you, the more precautions you take and such, the less chance someone can magically hear you either.”

Zahn nodded, thinking back to talking to both the village elder and a certain healer in the dungeon. “That does make some sense I guess. Who else would be telling me this stuff? I got some instruction from the leader of that village.”

“Nah, that’s more general. In fact, I suspect your starting town had a Trainer for all the main classes and you’re just fucked mister Beta Class.”

“I still have that quest from the elder to find my Trainer, remember? I’m supposed to look in a big City?”

“Yeah why didn’t you, by the way?” Stirring their food he pulled a face before depositing a fistful of salt. “You said you were employed and basically freely wandering in Twin Towns for what, a week? Two?”

Zahn smirked and lifted a finger, only to find his brain screeching to a halt. Wait a second. Replaying the events of his time in the city, he tried to find the memory of when he did go looking for a Class trainer like his quest instructed him to.

“And besides that,” Ethan’s commentary struck like lawn darts, “when you were in the city why didn’t you just activate your Quest Tracker? When you’re tasked with finding a single person or where to get something you can activate it, and it’ll highlight a part of your map relevant to that quest as long as you’re near the right spot.” Looking up from his cooking, he found Zahn still staring agog. “Yeah, that neither huh? Man, fuck that guy. What would you ever do without me?”

Finally closing his mouth and exhaling through his lips, the Custom griped his reply. “Well I died, and then signed up for a death cult.”

The moment of crackling coals was broken by Ethan snorting and Zahn joining him in choking laughter, slapping his leg. “Yeah, yeah you did! Man, you’re a fucking retard. And we’re not a cult, you’re just,” he trailed off as he sipped off the stirring spoon. “You’re the stupid asshole who agreed to be de-leveled before each match. I mean really, if you’d just let the levels be natural you’d be growing at a constant rate even with the occasional death. Sure, guaranteeing a level per match means when you’re about my level it’ll really pay off but that’s years away at your rate man!”

Nodding along at the berating, Zahn chimed in when he paused to breathe. “You’re giving me too much credit. I didn’t plan that far ahead, I just wanted to get above one. I only agreed to die a bunch because he’d made a fuss about that part in our last talk, I figured it was my bargaining chip.”

Ethan snorted again, stirring and staring into the pot. “Your bargaining chip is he was losing his mind. With all the damages and contracts you kicked off, you’ve been a huge hassle since day one. Once there was a non-fodder in the grounds he needed to hire out guards for escapees, and that shit’s never cheap. Nevermind the repairs, and hiring the very expensive services of a certain Shaman to seal your ass in there. You cost him more than ten times the amount it would take just to house a new fighter, he was saying before your meeting he needed to strongarm you into a contract if he couldn’t get you to just leave. Then you demand one anyways.”

Zahn stared into the coals, watching the red and orange lights dance among the soot as he considered the words. A future where he’d just been let free seemed like the best one, but not anything he’d been offered. Without the Key to escape, his own quest seemed to be forcing him to join even without the prompt indicating so. “What would escaping have looked like?”

“Then?” The Warlock gestured with his spoon, “You’d probly died. Local wildlife woulda gotcha, then you’d just respawn here again. Now?” He dropped the spoon into the pot and stood, brushing off his hands. “Now you’re at the mercy of his precious schedule. If he doesn’t mark you in a match you don’t participate, and that means you don’t even get that single guaranteed level you bargained so hard for.”

* * * * *

Running after that annoying blonde head didn’t help clear Zahn’s own, but at least the exertion was his new normal instead of the ongoing torture it’d started as. With each day beginning the same, his poor body had given up on demanding he stop the absurd movements and resorted to making each joint and socket feel like soggy wooden hinges rather than pliable flesh. Jogging ahead of him, and nearly bouncing off the sands with his endless energy, the Warlock guiding him pumped his weighted arms and legs with each step as he trained like he hated carbs.

Stumbling to a shaky stop near the exit gates, Zahn leaned against them to catch his breath as he pulled out a waterskin from his bag. The warm life-giver tasted like musty leather instead of crisp cold freshness but water was water and his sobbing body needed a drink. The sun’s early morning light gave enough detail to the arena he could clearly see even if in some grayscale. The destroyed grounds from the night before were flattened, more of the Shaman’s work according to Ethan.

Approaching his trainee, the Warlock jogged to a stop. “Already? That’s not even five laps my man,” bouncing from foot to foot he looked so very punchable that Zahn was debating the herculean effort. “Gotta keep that blood pumping, gotta stay fresh.”

“I’m going to hurt you,” came the intelligent and dangerous reply. “Once I can move again, you’re gonna be pulling my foot outta your ass.”

Ethan grinned, dancing out of immediate range. “Can’t use magic shit for that, tough guy. C’mon, five more laps and we’ll call it.”

“Actually?” Zahn tried to catch him before the jock took off on another round. “I want to try something, magic-wise. Your end. Should we put it off to after lunch?”

The blonde slowly curved, bringing his path back to Zahn. “I don’t get it. Explain simply, or I’m doubling your sets for trying to get out of them.”

Zahn looked him in the eye, trying to express his seriousness from panting against a door. “You made a fuckin’ point yesterday, I have no way to get on the match list each time. But, a Warlock minion can do stuff remotely like get in a certain office and doctor paperwork.” He looked around the arena, seeing a number of bodies beginning their mornings.

Switching to English, he continued. “Zo I want to try and zummon your demon, from zcratch. I can’t truzt luck, we muzt do zis ourzelves.”

Ethan stared back in silence, finally halting his dancing jog to mimic a gorgon’s victim. Finally, he took in a deep breath and answered in English. “What the fuck is wrong with your accent? Who even talks like that, God fucking damn. Yes, we can try that but fuck, please just stick to common you sound like a Goddamn eighties villain.”

Blinking back at him Zahn switched back to common. “What accent? You sound like you’re talking about food, where are you even from? And no, besides that. What’s an ‘eighties villain’ to begin with?”

“You.” Rolling his eyes, the Warlock scanned the arena before turning back to the other Player. “You have a terrible fake German accent, you literally spit fire, and nothing can kill you forever. I swear I’ve seen like three flicks with you in it.”

Zahn tried to make sense of the word vomit, “What? What the deuce is ‘German’? And what are flicks?”

“We really should have had this conversation last night,” Ethan pointed out. “Tell me more about your plan, after today’s training. Hell, describe it to me over lunch. For now,” he stepped back again with a grin, pulling basic weights from his bag. “Now, you tried to get out of physical training for a magic experiment. You’re doing double today, bitch!” His grin nearly reached his ears as the lowbie groaned his pain to the world.