Facing off against the Barbarian and Rogue duo continued to prove a challenge, ending most of Zahn’s days with a quick trip to respawn. Two made allowances for his constant deaths and let the Players fight multiple Fodder beasts each morning. Pairing up with the Warlock helped give Zahn time to perform his longer distance casts against the monsters while the staff-wielder pretended to be a monk and beat the tar out of the captured beasts. When Zahn finally crested level nine, he dropped the points into his lagging Perception stat and brought it closer to the rest. Bringing it up six points to twenty-three left him with a single free point remaining, after the cost doubled after it hit twenty. He still didn’t have a use for the ‘Free Attribute Points’ section, but if his first-rank popup wasn’t lying he would be able to unlock those at eleven and higher.

Four days after Zahn unlocked re-shaping fire on the fly, Gardor brought new defenses to their duels in the form of dark blue body paint in varied swirls and patterns. Each time he saw a fiery missile going to hit his painted lines, he let the attack land and usually came away either hardly burned or completely unscathed. He had apparently been working with the Shaman on his defenses as the elder approached and changed the patterns on the hulking man’s skin just before the daily practice fight.

Two took additional measures as well, wearing ornate bracers that completely covered his forearms and a matching set of shin guards that completely enveloped his calves. The leather-bound metal looked a muted orange in the sunlight, and took on a dull golden sheen that was hard to focus on as the night fell. When the sneak took his ready stance, it gave the Custom a strong impression he had a complete set of the gear and was only bringing out the minimum against the Player.

He refrained from seriously fighting against Ethan, with their close combat style of practice unsuited to his long-range spells to begin with. Each morning they waited after breakfast for anything from his missing minion, then began their sunrise exercise program and moved onto sparring. Killing as many of the Fodder as they were allowed only took a few minutes per clash, leaving most of their mornings dedicated to individual training. Zahn summoned his compressed earth weapons each day, ranging from a rather round sword with hilt to a set of a dozen arm-long spears, mismatched and lumpy.

By stomping hard on the ground with legs packed full of mana he found he could forcibly inject a pulse of the blue power deep into the ground, tracking the energy with his sight showed him the magic touched rocky soil some fifty feet below and began to convert to the dense green he’d found within his charged earth weapons.

Trying to draw that converted mana back up to the surface proved difficult, enough to distract him to a loss in several fights over the week. When he tried explaining what he wanted to do, the Shaman brushed him off and simply explained he wasn’t strong enough in Earth magic to perform the trick. He passed his staff over the Player’s head and announced he wasn’t even past the first Rank of his new school of magic, and would remain ineffective until he did.

Zahn attempted meditation to force a path of mana deep underground, and found while he could channel his mana away to be converted relatively easily, pulling that same mana back up was like fishing in molasses for a marshmallow. Every time he felt like his hooks were in the power he’d donated, trying to pull the treasure back towards him only resulted in even more mana lost for the attempt. Expanding his will deep underground took up the bulk of several nights, without the greedy demon feasting on his output.

The benefit he found from his constant attempts to draw on the deep underground’s power was his legs’ improved mana channels and how quickly he could send the power through his limbs. He practiced pushing mana into the ground in short bursts to fuel his spells, watching his mana bar refill almost immediately after each cast no matter how powerful he tried to make it. One thing he learned the hard way, he didn’t yet have the ability to expand his moving ground Shift to fill the entire inner fight ring. He’d tried pushing mana into the spell for over an hour, resulting in a long-lasting sliding sand pile but failing to expand it beyond a dozen feet across.

Fighting Gardor with his new fire defenses proved an exercise in casting his new Earth weapons shapes as fast as he could. Slamming a mana-packed foot to the ground and forcing the blue power into a contained area allowed him to Shape and Squeeze the ground into a handful of thin spikes with a few gestures and commands. Once he’d crafted a quiver’s worth, he simply casted Shift on them and willed the barrage to fly forwards, sailing across the distance while he hurled distracting flaming Bolts from both hands.

Two continued to demonstrate his prowess, slashing at the condensed sand missiles and either slapping them aside or destroying them outright. He punched and kicked at the fire spells, impacting with his armored limbs and seemingly absorbing the magic or pushing it away. Both of his partners had agreed to a simple rule - they would let him cast for two minutes without interrupting, then charge and try to kill him. Gardor found the challenge downright thrilling after winning for the first time, having let Two lead in blocking the incoming attacks. With the assurances of being able to regain any lost experience, Zahn was nearing level ten again when Two chose to make a rather stinging point to end a match.

Muttering and moving his feet in circles, Zahn felt a bit like a crazy wildlands spirit talker as he stomped his feet and uttered incantations, feeling the thrill of magic respond. He hadn’t needed to cast any of his simple spells out of his Grimoire in weeks, leaving the magical book dismissed or in Ethan’s hands to study when he remembered to ask for it.

Lifting nearly thirty of the rocky arrow missiles into the air, Zahn raised his arms weaving circles as he cast Shift after Shift trying to raise the full stack he’d spent his first minute crafting. Finding he was already lifting as many as he could, he changed elements and pulled on the not-muscle above his gut and let the higher rank mana flow. It seared like the worst heartburn as it climbed his throat, bringing all the pain of acid without even the taste for old time’s sake. Opening his maw and inhaling deep, Zahn panted out white and red flames to ignite the mana above his hands with his breath.

Garbling out a wordless challenge, he opened fire on his opponents as they stood ready and waiting for his assault. Throwing both arms forward, he felt the stinging pain climb down the limbs once more as thin black lines traced their way towards his palms. Speaking around the pulsing flames in his mouth garbled the words, but sounded like he spoke from the depths of somewhere dark. “Shift,” he intoned and felt the empowered spell jump and hurl his missiles away. Flinging fire from both hands, he launched Bolt after Bolt as he tried to breathe around the growing blaze in his throat.

Using the higher power fires to ignite his smaller spells seemed to transfer a measure of the heat difference between them, making his simple Bolt spells soar faster and hit harder than they had any right to. When a thin sand arrow shattered on Gardor’s shoulder and took paint with it, the next thin fire spell left a jagged line across the man’s skin as he screamed.

Two glanced at the double impact before pausing in his dancing defense to give Zahn a quick half-bow, as if the custom had planned how to get around paint. Hurling as much magic as he could with both hands, Zahn found himself finally draining of mana before the pair threw themselves forward and finally began their counter attack.

The sneak sprinted in, his metal guards performing as he took in and blasted aside Bolt after Bolt. He stepped side to side each time he lightly touched the ground, skipping between the flying Earth missiles easily as if they were merely falling leaves. The Rogue danced over the intervening ground, sliding up inside Zahn guard and peering at his face from far too close.

“I have something of a lesson for you, and news you’ll want to hear afterwards. As for the first,” Two abruptly slid down and away, clear of the Player’s fumbling grasp attempts and spinning to deliver a hard strike.

Zahn gasped, breathless as the tan man drove his elbow below the Custom’s ribs and drove the air from his lungs. He found himself propped up, standing by the grace of Two’s steady hands as he dribbled too-hot flames out his lips.

“Mages tend to need air, much more than the melee Classes. We can fight for breath, literally, while you need breath to fight. For the second part of your lesson, I think this should do.” Two’s smooth voice carried the tone of instruction, even as the high level performed basic torture on his student. The Rogue held his fingers to Zahn’s twitching lips, letting the Player see his ability to control his mana and steal the flames right out of his mouth. Zahn stared dumbfounded, seeing the light blue glove around two’s fingertips slide between his teeth and steal the still-active magic spell he’d spent time and pain learning to cast. Carefully removing the magic, Two held the ongoing spell between them like a child holding up a bug to examine. “Anyone can be taught a few tricks. Like, if you make someone suffocate for example, they’ll breathe desperately once they get the chance. And just what happens if you happen to inhale flames.”

Zahn’s HUD displayed a Suffocating debuff, flashing as a timer ticked towards the next level of the effect. He couldn’t lift his arms, instead helplessly clicking on the new box indicating the debuff with his mental digit as he struggled to breathe. From the brief description, the helpful little menu addition told him the second stage would take his Stamina away, and the third would drain his Life. At five seconds to each level, he felt his heart pound with panic as his green bar depleted. His chest burned with pain, his beloved lungs begging for use as he failed to breathe and felt he’d been taking those beautiful lungs for granted far too long.

Two’s calm face bored into the desperate Player’s, seemingly studying how this Gladiator would react. Rolling the held flames between them over his palm, the Rogue pushed more of his own mana into the spell and let Zahn watch with glowing eyes as the flames took on a slightly purple hue before flaring into new life. The new fires were hot against Zahn’s skin, inflicting a burn just from being so close to him.

Two twisted his hand and spun the flames to his fingertips, bringing the spell right up to Zahn’s lips. He could see his health bar shrinking, and the Burn debuff screen flipped to the second level immediately. “But I also know how long this particular kind of stun lasts. Here you go.”

As if the sneak had precognition, feeling returned to Zahn’s ribs as his mouth opened and he tried to pull away from the fires. He failed in the Rogue’s grasp, inhaling the hostile flames and feeling the searing pain fill his chest. He collapsed in a blind heap, unable to scream as his lungs filled with a whole new kind of pain and the love he’d never realized he felt for his precious, air-giving organs was broken by another’s twisted cruelty.

Waking up out of the hearth felt like taking in a cold, sweet breath of mountain spring that sent tingles all through Zahn’s body. He lay gasping against the couch cushions, hands blindly clutching at his chest as he tried to confirm for himself he was whole once more. By the time he was able to open his eyes and focus on the outside world once more, he was belatedly surprised to learn his killer and roommate were having casual conversation over the stewpot as they waited for him.

“What the fuck, Two?!” Zahn tried to express himself rationally and found his level of response perfectly appropriate. “What the shit even was that? You can steal spells out of my fucking mouth? Dude!”

The tan sneak looked over at the outburst, raising an eyebrow at his student. “That, in case you stopped listening at some point, was a lesson. You’re vulnerable to being physically controlled, such as restricting your airflow. And,” he held up the same hand that had stolen his enhanced Fire Breath, “If you’re not actually casting your spells, if you choose to simply hold them, yes. I or another can take them from you, fuel them with our own mana and feed them right back to you. You’re not fireproof, and you’ve been taking your own quasi-immunity to breathing fire much too lightly. To be specific, you inhaled fire and collapsed your lungs. You also took significant damage internally, enough to instantly kill you.”

Ethan nodded silently during the lecture, ladling out bowls for their communal dinner. “He’s right. You’re always spitting fire from your face, it’s like you lose sight of the fact it’s still hot. You can burn down the building you’re in and suffocate on the smoke you made.”

“Please, don’t talk about suffocating.” Zahn held up an open hand in plea as he rubbed his neck gingerly. “So, as much as I like fighting with prepared spells, if I don’t set them off someone will likely just up and take them from me. That fucking sucks.”

“More than that,” Two gestured around the room. “You’re vulnerable. During the last match, you cast a powerful third Tier fire spell, and nearly blinded yourself from the brightness. Any proper Rogue trying to off you would distract you with a forward image then loop around and carve out your kidneys. Even if you can’t get decent armor here, you need some physical defenses once you leave. If you leave.”

Zahn looked between the two sour faces as he tried to parse the shifting mood. “What is it? Something else happen?”

Ethan broke the pensive silence, “We found out about my imp. Well, Two did. Turns out, he got caught during the first night I sent him out to reinstate you into the roster. Because the building is already ranked up so high, it has defenses even if the Ringmaster is a total tool. He tripped one of those, and has been sitting in a magic circle for the last several days. Today,” he shared a glance with Two as the tan Rogue remained silent, “well, today we had a visitor. Turns out, the vendor that supplies a certain square drugged snack is a powerful magic caster with even more powerful friends. The Ringmaster invited a master mage who arrived after you died, and the caster swung by the altar while you were out.”

Two finally broke in, “More than that. He interrogated the demon, and learned its master is a Gladiator. And examining the thing told him it’s been here a matter of weeks, not years. Unless the dear master is going to start pointing fingers at Burny’s boys, he’s likely to think it’s yours. And he performed some quest while he was here, I saw the final exchange in the master’s office. I watched him leave before coming here to tell your friend the news.”

Ethan shook his head slowly, “I have no idea how we’re supposed to get to him now. I mean, I half-hate the little shit, but he is my property. I have to get him back.”

Zahn glanced towards the Warlock’s room, “We can’t just de-summon him and reach back down for him again? Worked pretty well the first time.”

Two huffed a short laugh as he accepted a bowl from the blond. “I forget you don’t really know much about magic after all. He’s in a circle, which can be used for eternal imprisonment up to and including permanent destruction. Moreso, the circle was installed back when the tribe was near the height of their power. It’s the only reason why it even still works, and it works exceedingly well.”

Looking between the two men over his own bowl, Zahn frowned as he considered the obvious. “So, it would be carved in stone?” Both companions nodded, focused on their own thoughts. “So we just need to find and break the circle. Hell, I could probably just use Sever to snap the lines and then Mend to put it back when he leaves. Easy.” He shrugged the problem onto the back burner as he turned to his dinner, happy to have sorted out their crisis.

Two sounded pensive, “That might actually work. We’d have to get him into the office, but that’s not impossible.”

Ethan seemed less optimistic. “There’s also much higher consequences. They’re doing something with the respawn point, if they catch and kill him, who knows what would be waiting in that little room.”

Zahn rolled his shoulders again, “It can’t be that hard to just walk down that little hallway for the altar. It’s not like they keep it guarded, and they only know that I come back to life there anyways.”

Two pointed between the Players with his spoon, “I can cause sufficient distraction to pull the master away, then you two need to head in and free your minion. Once Zahn breaks the floor, unsummon him. You have no chance of crossing the sands with a minion, doubly so after my distraction goes off. I don’t know what other defenses are in place, but you can be certain if there are any the visiting mage would have activated them all.”

* * * * *

They spent the morning on edge, waiting for whatever signal Two would be using to get the Ringmaster away from his office. Zahn had no idea how they would get around One if she or any of the other Gladiators were still in the hall, but Ethan didn’t raise the point and it seemed unlikely the strongest would simply be sitting around. When it came time to kill off some Fodder, Zahn was eagerly bouncing on his feet as he thought of the approaching level ten. He was nearly there before Two brutally killed him the night before, and sitting just under half a level made him confident he could break into the first tier again before they tried to bust the imp out of jail.

Facing off a bear-hog beast that raised flames from the line patterns on its skin, the pair of Players worked in tandem to distract the thing before it could land a solid hit. Each time Ethan backed away from a charging run or strike empowered by the thing rearing up, Zahn would step in to hurl hardened sand arrows or a stream of flaming darts. Punching through the big fiend’s belly with thin lines of fire caused the baroog to roll onto its back and scamper on all fours, trying to escape the flames scorching its dense fur.

“After it!” Ethan followed his own advice as he dropped into a lunging run, trying to keep the pressure on the beast over the open sands.

Zahn stomped heavily, dumping mana into the ground and holding the missile’s shape in his mind as he held an expectant hand over the churning earth. “Shape, Squeeze, Shift!” Intoning the simple spells in order and gesturing with his free hand, the Custom felt his magic respond and he had to shrink the pop-ups that were already making him grin. The new Sand Spear rose from the ground, loose material falling in soft streams as the smooth staff-like body of the weapon hovered above the golden ground. Zahn spun at the hips and whipped his arm forward, casting the Shift’s direction and hurling the new spell across the intervening distance to slam into the massive bear beast’s side.

The baroog let out a wheeze, ending in a horn-like howl as it fell to the opposite side and slid to a halt. As Ethan approached, he found the thing panting heavily as it carried a hefy second-rank Bleeding debuff from the sandstone lance threading its lungs. The blond turned and caught Zahn as he ran closer to their prey, gratefully grabbing the Warlock’s offered hand as he panted for air.

“I hit it.” He tried for a longer sentence and found his refilling Stamina bar disagreeing with him. “It’s a. New spell. Like it?”

The other Player silently shook his head before turning and finishing off the beast with a solid strike from his plain staff. As the thing collapsed in death, Zahn saw another window blink to life and shrink into his waiting stack. His struggling experience bar still hovered at another third of a level before ten, but if they could face more like the latest level seventeen beast then he knew he could do it.

Tugging at the Spear freed it, and trying to use Observe told him nothing about the construct. Examining the spell with his Mana Sight showed its internal earth-type mana amount was rapidly depleting, and the object itself would soon crumble. He tried to grip it tighter to send more power into the weapon and found his physically strengthened hand was enough to crush the crumbling shaft apart and pulverize the sand construct.

Brushing hands clean, Zahn was about to summon his Grimoire and examine the new spell when Gardor approached and Ethan left to fetch more Fodder. The huge man nodded at their kill, gesturing towards the sandy ground.

“Quite the feat, little cheat.” He grinned as he spoke, openly admiring the bear monster. “I have seen many spears thrown, and I would fairly say your form is terrible. But it was at least better than how you toss your darts! Ha!” He reached down and patted the dead beast’s patterned lines and brushed the scorched fur aside. “See this? We have a similar beast in my home. It is of white fur and blue patterns, but thus. It was from that beast we first learned of how to resist cold with magicked body paints. Perhaps, someone like yourself could learn something of shedding flames from the patterns of what you kill while you are here? Learning spear-throwing can be improved with practice, can your fire magic patterns be improved through the same? Questions, I think.” Gardor stood up and straightened tall, looking down on Zahn above his bushy beard. “There is much you can learn from your allies. Much from your enemies, and much more from your losses than victories. We can teach and shape you, give you time to improve your wasted body and shape yourself to be grand. Though we offer you all this, you seek to demons. Why?”

Zahn rocked back, flat-footed as he tried to follow the brief lesson on picking up beast and Monster magic before being accused of demon summoning. “Ah, that’s quite the jump. What are you on about? I mean, yes, thank you for teaching me about the markings and I should probably be writing them down and all but - what?” Holding his hands wide, he tried to keep a sincere face as he struggled to remember if he’d hinted to the Barbarians about the imp at any time.

Gardor continued to frown down at him, holding his silence another beat before answering and speaking slowly. “We felt a ripple, in the storm. We were approached by Brouhaman. He confirmed for us, a new demon had emerged. A demon. Here. In the lands of men, under the watch of the elves. The source is far too near, and you are the only new magical user. Your skills grow, perhaps too quickly. Have you sought the magicks of demons, Player Zahn? Have you been filling your books with the words of darkness’ serpents?”

Zahn blinked at the accusations, remembering the lessons on mediation and packing his body with mana to empower it. “Well, no. I have been learning more about moving mana around my body, and how to store and use it better. But all my spells? I’ve been practicing, trying new combinations, trying to use Earth lessons on Fire and vice verse. In case you haven’t been watching,” he gestured at the fallen beast, grinning again despite the pounding in his ears of his panicked pulse. “It seems to work. Is that abusing something?”

The large man let out a long breath, his dark eyes moving between Player and monster. “Versa,” he finally muttered before seeming to shrink back down to normal bulkiness. “It is said, ‘vice versa’ and means to do the same both ways. Not ‘verse’ as you have said.”

Zahn smiled wider, patting the huge man on his scarred shoulder. “When they attack your word choice, is ‘cause you’ve won. Thanks buddy. Hey, have you guys ever eaten this kind of thing before? Not that I hate soup or anything, but steaks go on a grill.”

Before Gardor could answer, Ethan’s panicked voice rose from behind them. “Holy fucking shit! Someone get the boss, Two’s fucking dying!”