You gained a level.

Your maximum and current hit points will increase by 12.

Your maximum and current mana will increase by 10.

I woke to the darkened room and a little blue window, but I was becoming accustomed to it now. Bia sat cross legged on the floor as she always did, apparently deep in meditation. I waved away the window and propped myself up on my elbow. I took a few moments to just relax and sort thoughts. She was still as beautiful as the first time I saw her, but I guess that was only two days ago? Or was it three. I regretted that her eyes weren’t open, though. Ah well, she’d probably crush my rib cage if I mentioned any silly notions like romantic interest. It was a mystery to me why she continued to hang around in the first place. Thoughts still unsorted, I decided I’d better get on with the day.

“Bia,” I called.

She stirred and rose to her feet with her staff. In a moment, a soft light suffused the tip of her staff and lit the room. “Bia’Keres, my Lord,” she replied.

“My apologies,” I answered. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It should be around the time of the evening meal,” Bia answered.

I nodded. “Let’s go get something to eat, then,” I suggested.

“As you command, my Lord,” Bia responded.

I suppressed a sigh at her formality. Every once in a while, it seemed like she would almost relax into treating me like a real person, only to return to this stiff formality the moment I turned my back. “Have you seen Myrkai?”

“No, my Lord. He left hours ago and has yet to return.”

We stepped out into the corridor and headed for the exit, only to see the white cat himself.

“My Lord,” Myrkai greeted me. He handed me and Bia cloth wrapped bundles which smelled of food. “I brought meat pies, since we won’t have time for more.”

“Are we short on time,” I asked. I unwrapped the bundle and realized I was absolutely famished. The meat pie had a flaky crust with just the right blend of crispy and chewy filled with a smoky sauce and shredded meat. It was so delicious, I almost missed what Myrkai had to tell me. “Did you just say we have another fight?”

“Yes, my Lord. We are scheduled for the supper special presentation,” Myrkai answered.

I frowned. “I think that’s in breach of our contract. The maximum number of fights they can require is one a day.”

“No doubt you are correct, my Lord,” Myrkai replied, “but if my experiences have shown me anything it is that contracts are valueless unless enforced. We can assume we would be defaulting if we fail to show up.”

My frown deepened. If the management was willing to go to these lengths to work against me, I must have pissed someone off. They probably didn’t like me adding Myrkai to my group or perhaps they just didn’t like my odds. After all, if I won ten matches they would actually have to pay me, and it would be a king’s ransom.

“Perhaps we should forfeit,” Bia suggested.

“I’d really like to get paid for my efforts,” I countered. “Let’s go win this fight before we throw in the towel.”

Bia crinkled her eyes in a cute look of confusion, but it was Myrkai who revealed his ignorance.

“What towel, my Lord?”

“Ah, it’s an expression which means to give up or to admit defeat,” I answered. “This should only be our third official fight, but so far I haven’t seen any serious contestants that could deal with Bia, much less all three of us. I’m curious to see what they are throwing at us this time around.”

Bia straightened slightly at the implied praise, although she kept her expression carefully neutral. Myrkai simply nodded at my assessment. With that decision and the demolishment of our meat pies, we headed to anteroom III to await our match.

Anteroom III, like the others, had two stone benches built into the walls along either side, but I noticed some odd stonework on the floor which brought me back to some of the architecture I observed in town, especially on my first day. Many of the buildings had seemed incomplete or built over the tops of ruins made from a different material. As I considered, a dizzying wealth of information from my souls presented itself and I had to brush it away for now. Apparently there was a great deal of history to the city of Akhar that I should think about when I had the time.

The door to the arena slid open and we stepped out to the sound of the announcer. “Welcome to Ker’Haros, Bia’Keres, and Myrkai for tonight’s special arena match! They’ll be our guests of honor for tonights Monster Mayhem encounter! Also, tonight, the master of ceremonies himself, Lord Meydan!”

I looked up toward the box seating at the long end of the arena and saw a man waving to the crowd. I couldn’t see him clearly from here and the amber shade of the barrier above the arena tinted the view oddly. There were other nobles present, as well, which was a departure from the norm. I had almost concluded that arena fights were solely an opiate of the masses to distract them from poverty and societal ills, but now it seemed that some events were considered proper events for the gentry to frequent. Specifically, if this Lord Meydan was the master of ceremonies of the arena, doesn’t that mean he has something to do with making me fight four times in three days?

“Lord Hauser is presiding over the event this evening and his best conjurors will be summoning a creature from the elemental plane of water to challenge our worthy contestants. For those about to do battle, we salute you! If you die, die well!”

I was distracted from the announcers words as the sound of bass chanting seemed to rumble through the walls. A pattern of runes and sigils lit up on the walls of the arena in every direction and the memories of my souls unnecessarily informed me that this was one big ass summoning circle built right into the stone of the arena, and we were in it.

Rays of light thickened and took on the consistency of water and that water flowed from the runes like horizontal rain to meet in the middle of the arena where it rapidly grew into a large ball of water. With a cracking noise, the mass of water crystallized and took shape, smashing into the ground with force that rattled the spectators in their seats.

Before us crouch a creature like none I had ever before envisioned. The shape was roughly that of a giant crab, but standing over four meters off the ground with at least half a meter of separation between its belly and the sandy arena floor. It sported ten crab-like legs, each tipped with a point edged and shaped like as a scythe. A pair of massive grasping claws snapped at the air, each one easily capable of cutting a horse in two, much less a man. It had no noticeable gaps in its shell. Only, maybe, the joints where its armored and segmented legs joined the main carapace could be called weak points. It had no eyes or feelers, or any of the other sensing apparatus of crustacean kind, yet the way it shifted its body to face us left no doubt in my mind that it new we were here. I felt my mind click and sidestep and my emotions fell away, leaving only a clear rapid analytical response.

Your fear status has been cancelled as the Chosen of Death.

“Bia, engage the right claw. Myrkai, engage the left,” I ordered rapidly.

“Yes, my Lord,” they responded in unison and the pair leapt forward, running in step to attack their targets. I heard the announcer’s voice roll over the top of our conversation.

“There you have it! The deadly Crystarix summoned from the alien planes of elemental water. Immune to most normal weapons and possessed of immense strength, how can our contestants possibly deal with such a creature?”

“Good question, mister announcer,” I mumbled under my breath. I started running even as I said it, though. Despite their skills, I didn’t expect either Bia or Myrkai to deal with the creature by themselves.

Ahead of me, Myrkai accelerates over the last dozen feet and launch himself full onto the monster’s claw, finding purchase with his claws to simply stay on it. The creature attempted to scrape him off on the ground and then seemed intent on snapping him in half with its spare claw when Bia arrive and used her staff point on to smack it right in the joint behind the oversized claw. I was gratified as it showed a pain response and drew its claw back, leaving the front of the body exposed.

I performed a flying leap and slashed downward with my sword. The blade of the weapon sank into the creature to the hilt and my weight forced the creature down to the ground. For a split second, I thought that was it, but its free claw came across and smashed into me, throwing me onto the ground to the accompaniment of bright flashing lights in my head. I smashed into the ground hard and left my sword behind, stuck in its shell. Come on, pull it together, I told myself. This was no time to be napping.

Your dazed status has been cancelled as the Chosen of Death.

The flashing lights cleared out, although there were still fuzzy black edges to my vision, and my arms and legs started doing what I told them to instead of mindlessly flailing about. I was just in time to watch one of those giant scythe like legs shearing down at me. I rolled right and Bia cleared my body in a flying tackle that knocked the leg off target. It still sheared through my rib cage about three inches from missing me completely and slashed along my back almost to my spine as I rolled. I found myself lying directly under the belly of the monster. I could see through the transparent shell where veins filled with ice water and crystalline shapes seemed to fulfill the life functions of the alien creature. The wound in my side burned like fire and froze like winter, while blood was pumping out of me like water out of a canteen.

Your frozen and chilled statuses have been cancelled as the Chosen of Death.

You have taken a severe wound for 18 points of damage.

You are immune to death by massive damage.

You are bleeding severely at the rate of 5 hit points per round.

My body felt hard and stiff, and it crackled as I forced it to move at full speed. In fact, I was moving as fast as I ever had as the monster above me shifted to stab at me with its other legs. For a few moments, it was all frantic rolling and dodging while I heard Bia shrieking and going to town on the leftmost legs, pummeling them with her staff for all she was worth.

Myrkai seemed to be occupying the front claws by himself, but that was only a guess. I hardly had time to consider it. The Crystarix lifted its body up and I rose to a knee before I realized this was the precursor of a smash attack. There wasn’t time to dodge. I looked forward and happened to lock eyes with Bia. Without time for words, she threw her staff to me and as the creature’s body began to fall, I planted it upright into the ground and ducked. The staff gouged into the body and for a split second, I thought it would hold. With an ear splitting crack, the staff didn’t just break, it shattered like a glass pillar. The shards of staff disintegrated as the staff released a blast of energy far beyond my expectations. My body flew backwards from the blast while I watched the Crystarix arch up into the sky like a several ton ice sculpture launched from a magical snow machine. I smacked into the wall of the arena which had been over a 100 feet away.

You have taken impact damage for 8 hit points and are dying.

You are -1 hit points and bleeding out.

Override dying status?

“Yes,” I said instantly, and just like blinking I was fully conscious again in time to see the Crystarix impact the barrier of the arena. It had come through the destruction of Bia’s staff almost unscathed, but when it contacted the amber barrier, its body simply disintegrated into so much ice water which sprayed out across the arena.

You are victorious!

Your team has successfully defeated a crystarix.

You have gained 1500 experience.

Your fame as a gladiator has grown!

+10 Reputation

Your status is critical. You are at -4 hit point and bleeding out.

I wrapped my hand around my side and tried to stop the bleeding. Thankfully, that seemed to be doing the trick, so I held it while a dull shroud covered my vision, casting everything into the grey scale. Bia was limping toward me without much hope and Myrkai took her arm to help her walk. The entire front of her body was soaked in blood and her robe was torn from shoulder to waist.

So that’s what they have to throw at us, I mused silently. Supernatural creatures summoned from other planes by a cabal of wizards. I should have known better.

A quite *shik* sound as my sword stuck point down into the ground six inches to my left couldn’t make me jump. I was feeling too dull for more than gratitude that it hadn’t simply speared my head.

Bia reached me and went to close my eyes. I caught her wrist with my free hand. “I’m bleeding,” I said. “Can you fix that?”

“Y-yes, my Lord,” Bia choked. A tear trickled down her cheek as she worked her healing magic.

You are stable at 1 hit point.

For surviving after reaching the point of death, you have gained a point of Luck.

A little blue window informed me. Then Bia passed out across me. Does this make us blood brothers, er, siblings? I wondered as our wounds smeared across one another.

“Fool,” Myrkai muttered as he took the rest of her weight and scooped her into a princess carry. “But I supppose she had little choice. Can you walk now, my Lord?”

I coughed up some blood. “Yeah, I can make it.” I stood with the aid of the wall and tuned out the announcer who was babbling something. I grabbed my sword and together with Myrkai, who was merely battered, and the unconscious Bia’Keres, I staggered out of the arena and back to our quarters to collapse yet again.