Winifred quickly learned that the interesting thing about fighting someone twice her size and twice her strength was that she needed to dodge every single one of his strikes. Any time she tried to block one so far had ended with her rolling across the sand with blood seeping out of a fresh wound. She’d barely been in the ring ten minutes and she’d already accumulated numerous cuts as she dodged each fatal blow.

The fight was so fast and furious that she was already panting with exertion. She glared at Gregore who was smiling smugly at her as he walked nonchalantly towards her again. For almost the whole ten minutes, he’d been unashamedly showboating and the crowd was loving him for it. Their chanting and cheering were reaching a fever pitch. It was annoyingly distracting. Usually, when these fights would go down, the crowd would be split almost equally and, the more fights she did, the more they’d started chanting her name. This crowd, however, was assuming the fight was a done deal.

As pompous as the prick was acting, it wasn’t unfounded. As soon as Winifred pulled herself back to her feet, The Champion was on her, slapping the staff out of her hands with one hand and backhanding her hard across the face with the other. She struggled to stay on her feet as she felt the blood start to well up from her newly split lip.

The strangest thing about this whole situation was that Gregore was clearly holding back. If he was being serious about taking her life, he’d have cut her down in the first five minutes. Instead, his focus seemed to be on putting on a show and getting the crowd excited by swinging his massive blade just fast enough to pressure her. Winifred supposed it was all Rodyr’s doing. It probably didn’t make a great night’s entertainment if your main attraction cut down all his foes within the first few minutes of a fight starting. This crowd was a lot more bloodthirsty and wanted to see genuine torture.

Still, she could work that to her advantage. She channeled a bit of her rapidly dwindling core’s Mana into her waist. She grabbed the staff from where it had fallen and took a desperate swing for his throat. Even with the enhanced speed, the most she managed was to have his eyes widen in surprise before he deftly ducked under the blow. Realizing that his counterblow would most likely be one to her chest, Winifred brought her staff to bear just in time, causing his sword to slam into her guard.

Sliding back to keep her balance, she spat a glob of blood into the sand. She lifted her staff into a raised stance, unsurprised to see that the damn thing had bent under the repeated blows. It was useless now. She tossed the malformed piece of metal to the side and threw her hands out to call out to the spectators. It was time to try and gear the excitement of the crowd to her favor.

“Is this all ye lads came for tonight? Watching some wee defenseless woman git cut down in her prime all because Gregore is so limp-dicked that he feels th' need tae compensate? How about we git a cheer if ye want him to toss aside that unwieldy piece of shit he calls a sword and fight hand to hand like a real man!”

It was a tactic she’d been able to use before. Rouse the crowd and get them on your side by playing to your foe’s obvious weaknesses. This time, however, instead of the usual rallying cheers of agreement, she received the loudest silence that she’d ever heard. Gregore let it go on for an uncomfortable amount of time before laughing. It didn’t take long for the crowd to join in, jeering at the tops of their voices, so sycophantic that it made her nauseated.

“Little girl, this fine crowd are here to watch one thing and one thing only,” Gregore said with a flourish. “And that’s some poor soul, man, woman, or beast, getting sliced into chunks of dripping meat at my hands. If you’re lucky, you’ll get the privilege of being in Rodyr’s belly before the night is over!” Gregore turned to the crowd, all the while keeping an eye on her. “So folks, who wants to see me start with an arm?”

As she listened to the crowd’s drunken cheering and the many, many shouts of ‘kill the wench!’, Winifred let out a low groan as she braced herself to dodge out of the way of the next inevitable attack. It was easy to slide under Gregore’s blade, even easier to pick up a handful of the filthy sand and toss it directly into his face. She wasn’t proud of the move, but it wasn’t likely to be pride that got her out of the ring alive.

While the giant of a man fell back, swiping blindly at the air with his sword, Winifred took a calming breath. She could do this. She would do this. Blackmaul hadn’t trained a fool. Besides, she knew that she was bound for adventures and something more, not to die in some filthy sand in the basement of some mansion. She channeled the remaining dredges of Mana from her Core into her hands and adopted a proper fighting stance. Her knees were bent slightly. Left shoulder positioned towards her opponent. It instantly gave her a jolt of confidence as she fixed her eyes on Gregore’s blade. She felt all the tension ebb away.

Stepping into the range of the impressive greatsword, she felt the wind press against her as the blade just barely passed her by. Crouching down for a moment, she threw herself back upwards as quickly as she could, bringing her fist directly into Gregore’s square jaw. As the man stumbled backward from the sheer surprise, she calmly followed, keeping her stance close to the ground. Every one of Blackmaul’s lessons was playing through her mind. Even the painful ones. Her old dwarven master would’ve been ashamed to see her losing to such a simple brute. Brawn was nothing, he would tell her. What would win the fight was making the right moves.

Gregore regained his balance albeit with bleary eyes and bright red in the face. He let out a growl of displeasure and dropped his sword to bring his hands up in a tight guard. Hells, Winifred could’ve laughed at the sight. If she’d known that it was that simple to get the idiot to drop his weapon, she’d have tried earlier. She reached up and calmly grabbed his closest wrist and wrenched it out of the way. Taking a deep breath again, she ignited the Mana that was traveling through her body before throwing a haymaker directly into his exposed cheekbone. The bones cracked like glass under her fist, as Gregore’s jaw snapped under her blow.

It was worth it to get in a decent blow but, as quickly as it ignited, her Mana burned out, leaving her feeling drained and panting. Sucking down air as quickly as she could manage, it took every ounce of effort to stay on her feet. Her vision started to swim as she stood in the center of the arena, blood pooling under her soles. She was getting lightheaded from the blood loss, staggering under her own weight. It was obvious she had to end this, and quickly. She forced herself to focus on Gregore, trying her best to summon what little energy she had left, keeping Blackmaul’s face in her mind’s eye.

But just as she began to step forward for her final assault, she felt an immense pain flare from her temple, her body being sent flying. As she lay in the sand, all she could make out was Gregore with his jaw hanging open as he grabbed his massive blade from the bloodied sands.

Walking over to her prone body, Gregore tried to grin and mock her but all that came out was a mixture of gurgling noises. His eyes flashed with hatred as he raised his blade. His eyes flicked to some point above her head. He was silently consulting with Rodyr to see whether his master wanted her alive or dead.

Rodyr simply smiled, leaning over to Zacharias. “Looks like I’ll be the one collecting the gold today, old chum. I’m sure you’ll find a replacement for her anyways. Though I’ll admit, the fight was more entertaining than I expected. You do have an eye for talent.”

Standing from his ornate throne, the monstrous Minotaur slowly dragged his thick thumb across his neck as Gregore grinned. Taking a moment to savor his victory, however, The Champion began to hear screams of death and pain. Snapping his head behind him, he watched as a brown Iskrin burst into the room, loudly proclaiming “Don’t worry everyone, I’ve got a new plan!”

——————————————-

The interesting thing about the mindless ghouls of Dray’Mel, Skrakch thought to himself as he scrambled up the ladder leading back to the garden, was that once the ghouls had the smell of blood in their noses there wasn’t much that could get them to stop them from chasing down their prey. They were, ironically, single-minded in that way.

Looking down below him as he pushed his way back above ground, he caught sight of a truly massive pile of ghouls, each piling on top of each other in their haste to catch him. There were so many that he couldn’t even begin to count them. But, he knew that when the time came to relive the story in the tavern, he’d state a huge number. It just sounded more impressive didn’t it? Facing off against, what, two hundred? Three hundred?

Someone really needed to speak to the Tomb-Makers about this, Skrakch quipped to himself, ghoul packs of this size were supposed to be quite uncommon.

He honestly hadn’t expected to find so many. The things usually didn’t travel in packs, unless there was an Alpha nearby… Shuddering, the Ratling doubled his speed, frantically pulling himself out of the sewers. With good luck and a fair wind, he wouldn’t come face to face with the Alpha. They were the most ferocious of the pack, able to tear almost anything limb from limb. He could vividly recall the time he first saw one. It was deep in the sewers, and he’d been hiding from something or other, and he’d smelled the thing before he’d seen it. It had been crouched over the remains of a Goblin, tearing into his flesh, stripping muscle and sinew off the bone as though it was a turkey leg in a tavern. It had barely paid any attention to Skrakch as it consumed its prey. It was one of the most terrifying things he’d seen in his short life.

Taking a quick look around, he noticed a handful of guards right as they noticed him pop out of the sewer grate. As they began charging over, Skrakch did the only sensible thing and ran to meet them.

He could tell the exact moment they spotted the ghouls, their grim expressions turning into pure horror. As they turned to run, Skrakch managed to close the distance between himself and one of them, slashing the fleeing man's hamstrings. The doomed guard fell to the ground with a cry of pain. The others didn’t even bother to turn around, merely continued running. That was loyalty for you.

Leaving the howling man behind, Skrakch and the remaining guards booked it towards the mansion. Doing his best to avoid looking behind him, the Ratling squeaked in fear as he heard the ghouls descend on the fallen guard. The dying man's screams rose as he was torn to shreds before suddenly cutting off.

Now that they were spreading out onto even ground, the ghouls quickly caught up to the running mortals, as screams from the living and the damned filled the air. Lungs burning, Skrakch reached into his Core, and shoved as much Mana as he could into his legs, pushing himself to run just a little faster.

Reaching the mansion's door first, Skrakch desperately pulled at the handle to no avail. Turning around as his mind worked frantically, he caught a splatter of blood across his snout as he watched the ghouls rip into one of the last guardsmen. Streaks of blood flew into the air as the ghouls simply ripped the man apart, limbs being pulled off as easy as plucking a stem. Guts and viscera showered the ghouls as they stuffed their undead maws, most of the blood running down their chin.

Letting out a truly heartfelt curse, Skrakch quickly threw himself towards the mansion's walls, claws scrambling to find purchase as he climbed upwards to a higher balcony.

Not to be outdone, the ghouls began leaping towards him, necromantic energies fueling them to perform inhuman feats of strength. Pulling himself onto a balcony ledge, Skrakch was suddenly stopped short. With a squeal of pain, he looked down to see a ghoul grabbing onto his leg, its claws sinking into his flesh.

Kicking desperately down onto the ghoul’s head, he managed to dislodge the creature and roll to safety. Panting heavily, he started running down the hallway, ignoring the pain in his leg as he started playing the map of the mansion through his mind. Heading through to the arena in the most direct path possible, he passed shocked and confused attendants without saying a word.

Callous as it may be, but if they slowed the ghouls down even for a second then Skrakch was more than happy to leave them to their fate.

Practically jumping down a fancy staircase, Skrakch neared the fighter’s entrance to the Underground arena. Tearing up in relief, the bloodsoaked Ratling couldn’t help but catch his breath. Maybe if he was lucky, the ghouls were heading elsewhere, he chuckled to himself right as a massive crash rang out behind him.

Spinning in place, Skrakch watched as the floor above him caved in, dropping bits of lumber and a mass of very irate ghouls down around him. Lurching away from their grasping claws, Skrakch rushed towards the arena doors, before throwing them open wide.

Hustling through the doors with all due haste, the Ratling couldn’t help but take a moment to shout out, “Don’t worry everyone, I’ve got a new plan!"