Seeing the group assembled on the sands before him only prompted a single question from Zahn, sighing out his curiosity before being sentenced to die once more. “That guy change his weapon?” Pointing at the teen who previously covered both his fists with heavy metal, he eyed the newly equipped spear with trepidation. “Fuckin’ thing’s got reach.”

Burnato crossed his arms as he rose to his ward’s defense. “He’s allowed to change weapons between bouts. So long as his banded fists remain dismissed, the changed weapon may be used.” The large man glowered at the lowbie, his cold iron stare meeting bored indifference.

“Yup, that looks about right,” drawled Zahn’s lazy reply. “Totally from the rules and all that. Because I care just so much about you and your nonsense.” Turning away from the aggressive ranked fighter, he stepped up to the edge of the circle and toed the line as he let his thoughts run free. Five boys faced him back, each silently standing in their position on a half circle as those with the longest reach pointed their weapons at him. The longsword and spear were closest, with axe and knuckled gloves past them and the net-wielder in the middle with his bident polearm. The party seemed tense, stressed as they watched him with sharp eyes and unwavering concentration. The double-tipped bident flickered with light as the points shook in the lad’s grip and sent sunlight scattering around.

Tilting his head to the side, the Player spotted something odd about the nearest head that manifested as something in the boy’s ears. Staring a second longer helped him identify the mystery, prompting him to step back and bother Ethan for a moment. “Hey, what’s wrong with their ears? Looks like they stuffed ‘em with shit.”

“Hm? Ah, yeah, now I see it. Maybe they didn’t like your little screaming fit, taking precautions. The chubby kid with the mace took the least damage from it last time, and he probably couldn’t hear you very well from being half-buried in the sand.”

Zahn nodded along at the analysis, glad he hadn’t planned to open with another self-damaging scream. Where were you looking last fight? He was at my feet, the boxer kid was in the dirt. “Speaking of, where is the guy? Hiding from sword-boy after their last conversation?”

Burnato once again spoke up, stepping closer as if he would push Zahn over the rock circle. “Gerb is still respawning, recovering after your little stunt controlling the minds of his comrades. Once he has returned to our ranks, you will be facing the six together.” Wouldn’t the sword boy have died last though? The formerly cheerful hulk seemed to grind his teeth for a moment before he growled out more information unasked for, “Because you defeated the team set against you, your challenge rating has increased. You’re to fight all of my boys for every life from now on, until they all reach another Ranking. You may think you’ve won something, boy, but it only means your deaths will come that much faster. I won’t let you ruin their hard work, my boys will be victorious!” Shouting by the end of his rant, the man glared with bulging eyes before he stalked around to the other side of the ring with his chest heaving.

Zahn slowly turned to see Ethan meeting his wide-eyed stare in kind, “Wow, he’s stressed the fuck out.”

The Warlock sighed out half a laugh, “Yeah, looks pissed. Must be between him and the Ringmaster, we sure don’t get a look at your ratings. Come on, step in there already. And don’t just start off screaming, they’re ready for that!”

Yeah, maybe, but it's not like they can block screaming into their little chat, Zahn gloated silently as he stepped back up to the line. “Here goes. Again. Yay.” Now I just need to figure out how to blast their little network without getting hit back. Maybe it has to do with how long I hold it? Standing on the edge of the circle, he could feel the solid barrier stones beneath his feet as he pondered his limited options. Short bursts of screech? Should be doable. Just gotta keep them from surrounding me. Rolling his shoulders a final time, Zahn stepped over the barrier and felt the familiar shuddering behind his ear.

As if waiting for the signal, the two closest lunged in unison. Sword blade arcing overhead reflected the light into Zahn’s face as the spear lunged close, jabbing at his belly. Squinting against the shine he traced a circle with his foot before releasing the wave a handful of feet, “Shift!” Both attacking boys recoiled, rolling on the sands to tumble back to their feet outside the short range. Neither of his opponents hesitated, running in opposite directions to try and flank him around the moving sand patch.

The net soared, straight ahead and spinning as it expanded to envelop the Player against the barrier. Zahn growled in frustration, wishing he had a polearm of his own to knock the ropes aside with. The impulse came with an idea, one he jumped for as the spear came poking at his left side. Stepping and turning, he stomped the ground again and focused on sending mana though his legs. Seeing his blue bar drop by a good fifty points, he cast while lifting an arm to the sky, “Shape!” In response to his spellwork, the dirt mound erupted from the Shifting sands and formed into a stalagmite taller than himself catching the flying net.

With his back to the new formation, Zahn couldn’t see the other three but had a clear view of the two he’d started with. Sword and spear traded glances before looking back at him in unison, then stepped carefully back to each side as if he’d trapped the ground. Hearing something rushing and shifting, the Player hopped back to the edge of the circle and looked for his enemies to find the pillar he’d crafted already dissolving and taking the Shift spell with it. The mana he’d invested into moving the ground was already eaten up by the standing dirt spell, which itself was crumbling as the mana needed to sustain it drained away.

Taking the moment to think, Zahn pushed more magic up into his head and tried to get a handle on the next wave. Purple lights dimly flickered into view, showing the Player that their Party Chat was indeed active between the five and pulsing with messages. With the net disposed of, Zahn had to deal with several steel tips but they seemed manageable so long as the quintet wasn’t able to lock him down. Trying to remember how to cut off a cast, he pulled on motes of mana from his head down again and locked onto the glowing psychic weave in the air.

Letting out a slow breath, the Custom was surprised to see a pink and purple mist color the air before him with magic as the mana bled its way out his throat. The cloud didn’t seem to react to the world, but floated and rippled to stimuli he couldn’t see mid-fight. The little cloud pulsed, seeming to shift towards him on a wave just before the lights indicating the enemies’ Chat going off lit up. Cocking a half-grin, Zahn blew out the next breath to send an even wider cloud of magic in front of him which his prey seemed to take as an attack by itself.

The closest spearman backed away, keeping the tip of his weapon between them as if it’d keep the wretched Player at bay on its own. The cloud hanging in front of Zahn started to clear, almost dissolving in the air like sugar in hot water before another ripple chased through it and indicated the use of Psychic magic nearby.

Jumping on the chance, Zahn sucked in another breath and let out the shortest version of his new spell he could. The Psychic Scream went off like a whistle, the short blast seeming to echo around their little fight ring as the group taking his hit flinched as a unit and tried to cover their heads. The remaining boxer clapped both hands to his head and fell to his knees, while the swordsman gasped a long breath and squeezed his eyes tight against the pain.

The spell ended in seconds, leaving Zahn able to move again and juke for position within the ring. Three quick steps landed him next to the eager spear-bearer, still recovering from the screech and completely open to abuse. Zahn exhaled a puff of flame bigger than his fist at the boy’s undefended chest as he swung his punch, smashing through the fire cloud and into the lad’s chin with a mana-empowered uppercut. Contact felt amazing, seeing the kid reel back with pain as blood shot into the air was almost as cathartic as landing a kill on Fodder for the Player. His follow-up attack took the boy across his cheek, the bones crunching as Zahn felt his fist twist and strain under the pressure of punching up Ranks with mana. He felt something give in place from the follow-up, leaving his left hand too sore to open while his right palmed the little magic dagger.

Glancing to the right as he backed away from the spearman, he could see what looked like a small ball of purple inside the Gladiators’ heads. The sphere inside the boxer was almost twice as big as the rest, while the lithe swordsman’s bubble had almost shrunk itself to oblivion already. Shit. Is that the timer? It gave me a fucking timer? Zahn felt his heart jump as another jolt of adrenaline joined his hyped-up fighting stance, and his weaker hand started to tremble with his pulse. Fuuuck, I can’t just fisticuff these cunts and now the scream wears off too fast. I have to chain these attacks. Latching onto his new plan, Zahn filled his lungs before spewing fire in a line straight back at the axe-wielder, keeping the dazed boy off-balance and away from helping the dazed spearman even as his mind built with pressure.

Spinning back to his starting position, the Player faced off against the five as he braced to cast another Scream. The spell seemed to catch in his throat, as if the casting itself was some marble or food morsel that needed to be forced out instead of simply leaping from his mouth like fire was so wont to. Straining against the stubborn magic, Zahn felt the spell finish forming at the back of his throat just as it locked him in place - and the swordsman burst free.

The Custom could only watch as the spell moved in slow motion, leaving his mouth in expanding rings of magenta light at their own leisurely speed. The boy - his opponent charged in, blade held ahead and distance closing far too fast. Zahn felt paralyzed, knowing the attack was coming and helpless to even dodge the stupidly choreographed strike. His enemy even had the time to line up his stance mid-stride, twisting his shoulders to hold the blade flat and pointed like the tip of a bayonet to strike true.

Finally, Psychic Scream went off and the slow-moving rings exploded into motion and rippled across the fight to slam into his foes, immediately dropping the boxer to the ground while swelling the spheres taking up brain matter to nearly double their size. The spell rocked his body, sending ripples across his cheeks as the magic shook its way out of his mouth, and the sight of the silver blade drew far too close. The sword-wielding Gladiator screamed back, his own voice lost in the rampaging high-pitched screech that filled Zahn’s ears as he uselessly stared back at his killer.

The Gladiator stabbed true, glaring at his hated foe as the Psychic magic coursed over his mind and passed through it. The spell shook and seared the fighter’s mind as it hit him, the vibrations passing through his skull looking like a series of explosions going off in a pit mine that refused to form into a numbing sphere anywhere in his mind and leaving the Gladiator intact. Sword met skin, the long steel plane sliding into Zahn’s throat and neatly bisecting his windpipe.

Pain exploded in Zahn’s mind, the spell stopped as if countered, ripples disappearing in midair. He could see his Health pool in the corner of his HUD, dropping far too quickly as the precious lifeblood keeping the Player going seemed intent on fleeing through his new port. For what would have been a breath, the Player and Gladiator silently glared at one another over the shining steel distance before the swordsman’s eyes hardened with hate and he struck again. Pushing the blade deeper into Zahn’s throat, the fighter’s mouth moved as he punched his weapon into the Player’s spinal cord and ended the fight.

His health vanished, the red bar completely replaced with black in the moment of the kill as Zahn felt himself fall. He couldn’t move his eyes, couldn’t change where he looked when the sword blade spun free of his neck. He couldn’t blink as his head tumbled, his vision of the world spinning strangely as he fell free from his body and watched the world rotate around him. In the moments between life and death, the Player found he could almost think before his respawn, though his thoughts were already driven away. Pleasure burst through him, countering the pain a thousand times over and feeling like he’d let out a painful fart and finished in his woman in the same moment, lasting forever and only leading into the ever-loving darkness.

Zahn leapt to his feet, panting and heaving as he grabbed at his throat with both hands. Once again he stood in the commons, freshly reborn from the Hearth in the afternoon before the next match. Finding his neck intact, he let his hands fall as he tried to parse his last moments alive. He could clearly remember the fight, seeming less than a minute with his warding off the group before being struck down. Dying to a single blow didn’t surprise him, not nearly as much as what had happened when he did fall. Rubbing his neck again and grunting out a cough, the Custom resolved to get an answer.

“Iengoris. I’d like a word.”

The simple sentence hung in the air like smog before the little imp appeared from its master’s room. The demon moved lightly, its feet hardly touching the ground before it leapt up to a couch and settled on the back giving him a side-eye. “I don’t mind the chat, but would you mind? At least use a fuckin’ nickname, you don’t see me greeting you with a threat.”

Zahn waved the complaint away, trying to focus on his memory. “Yeah right, like you’d do anything if I didn’t invoke your Name.” His dismissal seemed so right, he didn’t even question his own logic as the beast glared back at him. “I want to talk about death. Dying, really. Is there something I should know about it? Anything, I don’t know, odd, exceptional?”

The imp snorted, “Not to say, really. Given that you respawn, your deaths are different from that of the Locals.” A blank stare prompted a heavy sigh and further explanation, “Your body disappears into a Gravestone, so you don’t leave anything behind. Y’all don’t even shit yourselves when you die, talk about keeping your dignity in death.”

“No, no,” Zahn stood again and paced, trying to form his thoughts properly. “Something’s different, something’s wrong. Is there anything special about dying in a match like that? Or being decapitated?”

Iengoris rolled his wide eyes, “No, and really you’re not even in a Match. Just a practice bout you’ve stupidly signed up for. Would you stop the walking!” Halting, Zahn eyed him again. “Come on, you wouldn’t try asking me unless it was weird, embarrassing, or you didn’t want Ethan to know. What are you asking?”

Zahn sighed, sitting on an armrest and rubbing at his leg. “It felt… good. Strangely good. Like,” he looked up and thought back to the feeling, taking a moment to revel in the memory. “It felt amazing.”

The imp stared at his moving pants, “Uh, yeah I’d say that’s all three. You need to adjust yourself there? That better not be for me.”

Zahn growled and tugged at his pants again. “No you little shit. Believe me, that’s not voluntary. The only woman I’ve even seen here is One and I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot blade.”

“Ach, how the Collisae has fallen. At least they aren’t around to see it,” the familiar griped in reply. “I sure won’t be the one to tell them. Back to you, mind explaining why your nethers are being extra-friendly?”

Standing and stomping around the room, the Player tried to focus his thoughts again. “What the fuck do you think I’m asking you? I’ve died I don’t even know how many times here, but suddenly death gives me a fucking boner? What the hell? I’m trying to parse why it felt amazing to die, not put up with your bottom-tier crap.”

Silence met him long enough for Zahn to look for the imp, finding the little demon in place and staring at nothing. The awkward pause stretched enough for him to reach for the imp’s immobile neck, finding the thing roll out of reach at the last minute.

“You may be onto something, actually.” Iengoris dropped his mocking tone, jumping up to the Hearth and walking its stone rim. “So, just making sure I have the bases, you reached level ten here before?”

“No,” he grumbled back as he fell against a wall and crossed his arms. “I hit ten before I respawned here, died fighting a big ol’ field boss down below.”

The demon spun, pointing a red finger at him. “When, exactly?”

Giving the imp his hardest stare, Zahn enunciated like the thing only knew Common as its third language. “Right. Before. Coming. Here. Point of fact,” he scratched at his belly as he remembered his first morning respawn on the altar. “I couldn’t even read my pop-ups before I woke up on the slab. Talk about bullshit, leveling up and dying in the same fucking moment.”

Iengoris’ body stopped, abruptly becoming a statue as its little head vibrated. It opened its mouth, the teeth misaligning in its excitement and causing a chattering noise, “Ah, ahah aha aha ahahaha. Yes! That’s it! It’s your reward, and you left it in Death!”

Summoning mana into his head, Zahn glared at the demon as he felt the Psychic mana refill his eyes. “Make. Sense.”

“Yes, yes yes.” The imp lurched back into motion, holding up both paws in surrender. “So, it goes like this. Death isn’t the same for you, Players, it’s more like a middle ground. When a Local dies, Death takes their soul and brings it to wherever. But for you, it grabs your soul-thing and brings you to the closest rebirth point and lets you come back. For the endlessly immortal, for your lot, Death is a transitive state. You’re there, then you’re not, and you aren’t even aware of the transition. If I remember properly, there’s a bunch of lore on the Earths about a river of death that brings souls in boats? Let’s say you have a boat.”

“Get to the point,” Zahn could feel a headache starting to bloom over his left eye, echoing his rising pulse. “I do have another fight about now.”

“Yes, shut up impatient. The point is, you didn’t get the first rush. If you died right away, you couldn’t have even had time! So, the system activated to reward you, but you were already dead! Don’t you see? You left your reward behind, you left it inside Death!”

Moving closer, Zahn leaned on the back of the closest couch as he gave the little thing his best death stare. “I said make sense. What reward?”

Iengoris smiled, its too-many teeth filling the sharp mouth. “Your Ranking reward, silly Player. The Gods of the Gods put it in place, you’re given a reward for each Rank you climb. I understand it gets stronger with each tier, if Ethan’s reaction was any indicator. Each time you reach a new rank, or come back up to it, you get this absurd rush of pleasure.” It paused to cackle, letting a wad of snot fly into the flames as it chortled. “Silly Warlock hit Rank three for the first time mid-fight, he fell over and creamed his pants. It looked like a seizure, but he kept moaning and saying, ‘Oh, Rebecca!’ She didn’t think it was nearly as funny as I did.”

Zahn tried to blink the mental picture away, failing and settling for another evil glare at the demon. “Thanks for that. So, there’s some kind of haptic feedback for Ranking up?”

“Not just,” the imp held up a single finger to correct him. “I’m saying it happens each time you reach a rank. So hitting twenty, letting yourself die, hitting twenty again, whatever does it for you. Dealing with that kind of temptation usually takes Players a few years to get a handle on. I think it’s just supposed to be motivation, set by the Gods-of-Gods to make you want to reach one hundred at all. From the idiot’s memories, you call them ‘Programmers’?”

Zahn sighed and stood up, turning to lean on the same couch as he stared off at the far wall. “No,” he corrected back, “I’m a programmer.” He couldn’t see the demon’s body once again lock up as its eyes swiveled to stare at him sans lids. “You’re thinking of Developers, or maybe Content Creators. Sure, they can do coding but you’re talking about the kind of decisions that go right over the grunts’ heads. It also tells me that someone on their team half-assed the quality control, nobody working under me would be caught dead leaving an exploit like that open. I’d make it need ten whole levels from the last, minimum. No point in letting them just keep getting off on that kind of addiction. Fuck,” he growled at nothing, “how am I going to deal with suddenly seizing and shit if I Rank up mid-fight?”

His question went unanswered as daylight appeared, accompanied by the sounds of swearing men and a quickly closing door. Zahn turned to see Ethan leaning against the double doors, giving his minion a strange look as the little imp scurried off its perch and back into his room. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” Ethan walked into the room slowly, looking around like he expected to find Two in the corner. “You guys just hashing shit out or summat? You have another fight buddy. Like, now.”

“I wouldn’t hate moving that big old stage in place,” Zahn tried to counter as he stood up. The idea of hauling around the wooden frames seemed like a good way out of the fight, even as he found his heart wasn’t in the reply. “But you know? I don’t think dying again would be that bad.”