“So,” Ethan hopped in place across from his sparring partner. “We just need to try and find a spell to communicate across planes that doesn’t need my foci or obeys your restrictions. Keep your arms up.”

Zahn grumbled as he obeyed, raising his metal-wrapped limbs higher. His partner nodded, jumping to set his feet and rocking between them. The Player tried to copy, his own stance awkward and long. “Why am I wearing these?” The crude mimicry of metal armor strapped to his arms and legs weighed significantly more than the sand weights he’d been starting to run and train with, and Ethan didn’t seem to need anything of similar make.

“Because you’re too weak to wear any of our actual armor. And besides the point, I think we struck adam when we found all those Artificer’s tools.”

Looking again at the surplus of wrenches and spanners bound to his forearm, Zahn sighed again. “So, when we’re done here we should hit up your Grimoire and see what we can learn about spells that contact the other Realms. We just gotta find something that fits the description and is legible.” He tugged at the wire wrapping around in loops and tried to tug the uneven weights to distribute their burden.

“Not really, I can just give you permission to read my spell once we find a decent one.” The blond Warlock bent at the waist to stretch down to each toe, tapping the ground with arms wrapped in layers of cheap iron bands. “Once we find a spell that’ll work, you use your Spellform nonsense to change it and we get to work. After we contact Chaos, I just hit up the Patrons and get a new one, easy.” Their lunch conversation had shed some light onto a method of reaching Chaos, but the Tome they were working out of implied they needed a working connection to even begin.

Zahn tried to copy the stretches across from him, with his arms swinging in arcs at each motion. “Right. Long as you’re still a valid Warlock, we should be able to reach out. And you’d have the same Patron, jus’ gotta find ‘em again.” Running out of breath as he ducked and bobbed, the lowbie found his shrinking belly jiggling at each bend. Growling at his midsection he skipped the count and tried to keep up to Ethan’s insane warmups.

“Feeling good? Refreshed?” The Warlock in question bobbed on his feet, wiggling his hands as if drying them. “Feel that blood pump, I hope your arms are ready. We’re getting into unarmed today!” His smile stretched the man’s face, nearly making him bite his tongue as he jogged in place.

The Custom stretched up on his toes before settling back down, trying to stay in motion like his instructor. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Zahn found himself lifting both heels and nodded back at the other Player.

Ethan’s smile vanished as he ducked into a half crouch and bent forwards, his rapid steps eating up the distance between them. Zahn had time to bring both metal-bound arms down and try to catch the smaller man before he bolted back upright scant inches from the lowbie’s face and dealt a blinding uppercut over the lowered arms.

-38 Health. Warlock Ethan used Jab!

“Lesson one about fighting without a weapon: you only sort of need to aim, activating an ability will line up your strike based off of your body’s current position.” He stood over Zahn’s prone form, a single finger raised as he lectured. “This lets you perform attacks that are not only unadvisable back on Earth, they’re downright impossible. Normally sprinting at you while admiring the ground only means you’d get a sweet shot to my skull, but here it just sets me up to land a straight attack on an angle you’re nowhere near ready for. On that note,” he paused in the lecture to reach down and retrieve the dazed Zahn. “What the hell kind of block was that?”

Shaking his head and trying to process the conversation, the Custom wobbled and nursed his chin. “I wanted to get my arms in the way,” he couldn’t think of how to justify the defense beyond his intent but Ethan had mercy in victory.

“That’s fine. So, next time, just remember you need to trigger your melee attacks when I’m in range, I suggest dropping them into the first few slots of your hotbar.” His words finally caused a reaction somewhere inside Zahn’s brain and he straightened up as he tried to figure out what was wrong. “I like to call my first three the ‘Oh Shit’ buttons, depending on what I’m doing. Going so long without a minion means I pulled all my Quick Spells out a while back, so I mostly just use attacks that hit fast or have a knockback effect.”

Finally, his thoughts cleared. “What about Quick Slots again?” His eyes slid down the ever-present HUD he’d become comfortable ignoring and browsed over the empty squares at the bottom of his vision. Sixteen translucent boxes sat next to two empty sets of armor and icons for the gear on his basic belt. Ignoring the Inventory and Tools buttons, Zahn thumbed his mental finger over the four sets of blank spots and listened to hear whatever explanation would be coming. After several silent seconds he looked back up to see a very still Ethan staring at him, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

“You’re fucking with me.” The returned silence stretched for multiple breaths before the higher-level groaned and dropped his face into his hands. “You can’t be not fucking with me!” He sank into a crouch before falling completely onto his ass, curling up on the sands. “Fuck. You.” Even behind his hands the muffled curse was clear enough to hear.

“So, you gonna tell me more about them, or..?” Zahn watched the antics and waited, knowing either his friend would fill in the blanks or nobody would and either way their day would move on. Standing guard over the moaning fighter left a great view of the other Gladiators as they traded punches and took advice on chaining attacks.

“Fuck.” Ethan’s mumbled complaint seemed to be the end of his tirade. Uncovering his exhausted face the Warlock heaved himself to his feet. “Okay, from the fucking top. Again. Ahem.” He straightened up, pointing a single digit into the air once more. “Your slots are for attacks and spells you want to use frequently, or at least without needing to activate them manually. I’d been assuming you just bound Fire Spit to one, but given the last few days I guess that doesn’t make sense after all. Douche. When your Grimoire is open or your summoned weapon is on hand, touch the Spell, Ability, or Skill you want to bind to a quick use slot and drag it into your HUD. From experience, I recommend you start with whatever it is close to the slot you want it in, the damn thing isn’t very intuitive for moving around.” Glaring at his student, Ethan’s mood only darkened. “What.”

“So, you’re mad at me? When I have no way to know this yet.”

“Yes,” the blond’s growl nearly turning the word into a burp.

“Why? Not like anything I do hurts you, right?”

His reply was delayed by a furious pointed finger and Ethan holding his breath. “Gah! Fuck you.” He turned on his heel, stomping a short distance away before returning. “Okay fuckhead. You aren’t using the very simple tool everyone else is, and nobody can tell because you’re casting a spell by fucking coughing, and just to add more ‘look at me I’m so fucking special’ to the mix you’re only able to cast it at all because you fucking remember how it’s supposed to feel. Do you fucking get it yet, you goddamn fucknugget?”

Zahn looked up and down at Ethan’s panting body, noting the stress on certain words. “Right, but we’ve been over how I deliberately set this character up. It’s not like I’m trying to rub it in your face or anything, I’m literally trying to leave, so,” he shrugged one shoulder, trying to keep his only ally on his side. “Speaking of, I’ve been taught a few weapon skills and even used them, but you’re making it sound like I should be activating them from a button press? Is that supposed to be in my Grimoire too?”

The innocent question only made Ethan’s eyes widen as he bared his teeth. “You’re not even activating-? You! Fucking!” Apparently running out of words, the Warlock dipped at the waist and spun, kicking Zahn’s feet out from under him.

The lowbie landed hard, gasping for air as his lungs failed to behave. His restricted vision of the sky was interrupted by Ethan’s now red face.

“Fix your fucking stance, newbie!”

* * * * *

Hours of drilling the same basic attacks felt like they dragged on beyond normal limits as Zahn’s weights added the burden of all his sins to his every swing. Each strike and block was heavier than the last and only after practicing for half the afternoon was he finally allowed to remove the weights and store them. Drilling the same attacks without ten extra pounds on each arm changed his striking style from dropping a hammer to lining up his shoulder for each punch, and he quickly learned his brutish arm-swinging from before hadn’t counted for much of anything.

Unarmed has reached level 8!

His efforts from before hadn’t gifted him a single notification but a mere dozen strikes after removing the weights gave him increases already. Drilling through the same motions again without the weighted limbs even gave him a surprise just before dinner, being a single level in a Martial Art.

Tae Kwon Do has reached level 1!

Collapsed into the blessedly soft couch cushions, Zahn listened to the sounds of dinner cooking as he stared blankly up at the ceiling. Going over the day’s punishment, he decided the cruel taskmaster he’d been paired with had indeed doubled his sets between morning and dusk from the ache in his body. Smelling something different, he struggled to tilt upright and witnessed something he’d never thought of.

Ethan wasn’t cooking soup. Or stew or broth or even using his precious great iron pot. Staring at the scene caused an additional hitch in the lowbie’s brain as he tried to parse the sight of the Warlock cutting up meat into strips and skewering them onto thin metal rods.

“That’s not soup.” Devastatingly clever as usual, the Custom’s observation drew a chuckle from his opposite.

“Yes, it’s not soup. We have work to do, so I’m cutting it quick with some bread and cheese. Not as filling,” he trailed off as his fingers threaded more strips onto the spike. He moved quickly, setting four filled skewers on the ever-present coals before pulling the rest of their meal from his bag and slicing the bits apart. “While I prep, you should get through that section again. I’m not going to waste half of the dinner hour on you checking your notes.”

“Why did I get a whole Martial Art during sparring? And why did it take over a month to kick in?” Zahn pulled his Tome from its storage space, letting the parchment pages flip to a halt at the desired place. Since getting the little journal he’d found he didn’t need a bookmark to reach whatever section he was thinking of, and the book was quickly becoming his favorite part of this hellish prison world.

“Well the ‘why’ part is easy, you suck. No really, your body simply hasn’t been moving correctly until today. Gratz on getting the Art, by the way. Read.” Pointing his knife at the lowbie went unnoticed as he flipped virtual pages without looking up.

“Alright, so it finally unlocked. It’s not in here though, where would I even find the thing to learn more about it?” Glancing up at the ‘lock, he flipped another page distractedly. “Not to mention I can’t find the melee skills to begin with. Am I supposed to be chopping something?”

Ethan rolled his eyes as he turned back to task. “If you had a Bound Weapon you could just ask the registry, like the one in the front of your Grimoire. Caster classes don’t get the normal weapons or the Binding Cloth, because we get the books instead.”

Zahn stared as he waited for the obvious missing link. “So, where’s yours?”

The Warlock smirked into the cutting board before reaching over and flipping the skewers. “You know, my Grimoire is stored safely away.”

The lowbie wasn’t buying it, “Yeah no, I don’t care. You said you’ve been putting melee Skills in your slots, where did you grab them from?”

Ethan’s face rose to a full-on grin as he faced the novice, “Stole ‘em. Got my hands on an unowned cloth and made good use of the compatible attacks there, so now they’re on my slots and I don’t need to source them.” He looked rather proud, with his head bobbing to each side as he remembered the heist.

Zahn blinked slowly at him before realizing the other pin wouldn’t be dropping. “And where is that thing now, exactly?”

The Warlock waved his hand, dismissing the question as he assembled their sandwiches. “Long gone, he took it back years ago. There’s a storage cubby for each of the commons, but ours doesn’t have any spares in it. Perks of being in the lowest group, I suppose.” He handed a skewer and sandwich over before snatching up his own dinner.

“Wouldn’t those kids under fifth be the lowest? I mean, you’re way tougher.” Zahn asked around a mouthful of meat, trying to parse the strange system he was stuck in. “It’s not like there’s an average level between a high position and some nobodies?”

Ethan shook his head, chewing. “No, but there is among contestants. Our level gap made us the weakest set, because we’re treated as two separate teams for the purposes of rankings and they’re treated as one. So basically, teens versus single, and me versus nothing.”

Zahn nodded as he considered his sandwich, thoughts far away. “This place is some kinda bullshit, I’ll tell you what.” Their dinner finished in silence, an hour break ending twenty minutes in and giving them time to work. Dropping his skewer into the coals, the lowbie blackened its tip with soot before retrieving it to sketch on the floor.

“We need a circle, and probably another nested circle in the middle. We’re not trying to bring anything out, so we shouldn’t need another set to protect us, just the group to reach out.” He drew the two circles, scribbling nonsense runes between them to fill the space. “In the middle here, we want to fill the small circle with the details of your Patron. Outer edge of it we’ll need the address, somewhere in Chaos, and then there’s a band that goes around the inside of the bigger circle before another ring between them, keeping the inner sets of runes apart from the outer set. The only thing he talks about for those ones is a repeated symbol, something that binds you to this world and doesn’t exist over there. It’s like a bubble to keep you knowing you’re you, and not one of them. So far so good?” He looked up to find Ethan.

The Warlock in question stood slack with mouth open, staring blankly at the sketched donut on the ground. Flicking his eyes between the drawing and his pupil, he finally closed his mouth enough to speak. “Are you nuts bro? Nothing in my book looks anything like that. Also, no, we’re not doing that.” He straightened up and summoned his own Grimoire, flipping through its pages as he paced around the room’s edge.

Zahn grumped silently as he erased the doodle, trying to scuff the soot marks with his foot when the patterns stuck around. Leaving the mess for a future him, he tossed his instrument back into the coals and rose to join the other Player. “Alright, then show me something in yours that looks right.”

Without answering, Ethan plucked his map from nowhere and panned on it, pushing the beautiful details of their immediate area away to scroll north. After green and brown turned to white and black, the icy northern lands vanished to reveal endless canvas. He stopped the image and poked it with a finger, looking between the book and his backed parchment as he drew. Zahn watched over his shoulder to see the image take shape, a complex series of triangles and squares that ultimately ended up connecting to one another via a long jagged line.

“There, that’s the first step of my summoning spell. It’s a two-part spell, where I open a path then draw something through it, so this should be the part about opening a gate to hell.” He looked between the drawing and lowbie, “Anything?”

Zahn followed the lines, tracing with a finger as he tried to parse the crude runes. “Ah, I think we need more time.”