She was pretty close to her last nerve already. Whatever had happened to dump her here, combined with the gnawing unfamiliarity of the place had her on edge. A part of her wanted to say to hell with it and lash out at the assholes right then and there. No sense giving the game away before things even kicked off, though. Forcing down her pride for the moment, she managed to avoid eye contact with him.

“Thanks for the advice,” she said as meekly as she could manage.

The lean troll gave her a final glance then seemed to put her completely out of his mind. The larger one, Vrek, laughed a cruel little laugh and spat at her feet before turning away. Most of the others in the group didn’t bother to pay her any more mind once the first two lost interest, but she’d have sworn that a lizard-man… no, a Draconid, eyed her. She didn’t pick up on anything hostile from him, just a mild curiosity as to why she was deemed worthy of the bracket. She resolved to watch out for him once the fight started.

* * * * *

Apparently the Demon Army wasn’t big on buildup to things because, contrary to her assumptions of how the events would play out, the first battle of the day was to be the Heavies, followed by the other brackets in descending level of power. She supposed that the idea was to have the grander (and presumably bloodier) battles take place as the day went on, but it felt a bit odd being the first ones out of the gate.

The arena itself was massive, probably 150 yards in diameter and made of a polished black stone that looked like granite. She was surprised at how clean it was, she’d sort of assumed that a place used for demonic gladiatorial combat would have layers of gore ground into it instead of the near-pristine surface she saw before her. Mind you, the scars of weapon strikes scattered about made it clear that it had seen its fair share of use, it just had a very devoted cleaning crew.

Overall, the opponents didn’t have her too worried. Sure, all of them were bigger than her, but she didn’t have any reason to believe that the laws of gravity were any different here. She felt comfortable in this skin that wasn’t exactly hers. She could move like she wanted and, more importantly, was confident she could make the bodies of her opponents move the way she wanted. For all their beastly appearances, they still were mostly humanoid, though a few of them had tails that might throw her off. Get a good lock on them, throw ‘em off balance, break ‘em. Easy enough, right?

Okay, so if she was honest with herself (a terrible idea, given the circumstances, but she was prone to them from time to time), they were an awful lot bigger now that she was actually facing off with them. In her other life, she’d only rarely run into people taller than six feet. Ten feet tall hulking monstrosities were outside her comfort zone by a good mile or two. Still, it wasn’t just that exhausted office worker bouncing around inside her head and THAT Lenore was getting excited. She’d grind every last one of these mongrels into pulp and force them to swear fealty to her. Any who refused would be crushed to gravel beneath her boots!

She paused. Those newfound fascistic impulses were probably a less than great sign of things to come if she let herself lose control. The memories of who she’d been here were useful to keep everything straight but, whatever else was going on, she’d really rather not become a full-on murderous psychopath like these others seemed to want.

The presenter was droning on about the basic rules of the fight: no weapons, no magic, no unnecessary fatal blows. That last one had a lot more wiggle room than she’d have preferred, but she hadn’t been on the planning committee, so she had to live with it. Most of the others had actually laughed when it had come up, they all knew that some of them wouldn’t be leaving the platform alive. Vrek in particular was eying the leaner troll with what might charitably be called ‘murderous glee’. She resolved to stay well away from those two for as long as she could manage.

Again she noted that the Draconid was the only one of the group paying any attention to her. Gambling a bit, she flashed him a smile and a wink before resuming her role of meek girl in over her head. To her delight, he smiled pleasantly back at her and turned his attention elsewhere. She wasn’t about to trust that he’d be an ally out there, but it was fun to have at least one of the group in on the fact that she wasn’t going to be a complete pushover.

Nothing else the presenter had to say really registered. There was some talk about fighting honorably, but she got the impression that there really was going to be little about this melee that qualified as honorable. Each of the assembled was looking at this as an opportunity to gain status and power, nothing else mattered besides that.

Original Len didn’t have much knowledge of the specifics of the Proving, but that was more a matter of lack of interest than the knowledge being guarded. She got the impression that one could enter a Proving basically any time one wanted and compete to their heart’s content. Only catch was that you were stuck with whatever rank you got out of the thing. A general could end up a foot soldier, a foot soldier could end up an admiral, all dependent on the results. Meritocracy wasn’t the right word for it, but it was definitely a gamble that could pay off. Assuming you didn’t find yourself mangled beyond repair and cast out as useless, that was.