I had assumed, based on prior experience, that the trip to the dark district would be accomplished through an elevator. I'd used my five wishes all on Sloane and the others yesterday, netting myself another fifteen points of Perception and getting that stat to an even one hundred fifty, and had plans to do the same today if I didn't need them in the dark district, as we were told to show up at the Pavilion pretty early.

To my surprise though, when we showed up the next day Abel and Mel had been dressed in sturdy, functional clothes, and had gestured us towards a car, telling us we would be driving to the entrance. At our surprise, Abel had smiled. "The dark districts are considered restricted to civilians, so making them accessible through the upper terminal was considered a bad decision. We'll be taking a series of tunnels, and will be walking most of the way." The biggest surprise of the morning had been Abel. My teacher had replaced his signature rabbit mask with a stylized silver mask that covered half his face. I assumed it was the mask he'd worn as Apollyon.

As we drove, Abel filled us in on more of the reasoning for this trip. "Alright, the dark district we're heading to is specifically known as Doomtown. It's a relatively out of the way spot that as I mentioned, is mostly aimed at newbies. Different forces send their youngsters there to get them some combat experience before dropping them in the deep end, though there are also several unique forces that have formed there over the years. Doomtown is, as the name implies, dangerous and cutthroat, aside from the basic courtesy of higher end F-rankers and E-rankers staying out of there, don't expect any rules or protection to be in place, which is why we had you leave behind Clockwork and Agria."

Benny and Jessie had been understanding if a bit annoyed at staying behind, but once we passed some cash to Benny and told him he should work on his Inventing, he'd perked up quite a bit. Jessie had headed for the Beast Lord Garden with most of the wolves to say hello to Melinda and get in some training, with only Rellia and Jin coming along for this particular trip.

"So." I asked with some trepidation. "Are we...supposed to just randomly kill people down here? Because I'm not really ok with that. Even if they're trying to kill us first, it just seems kind of wrong defaulting to murder. Is there some way we can avoid that? Because if we're expected to just wantonly slaughter anyone we meet I'd rather avoid the whole mess. We can just work on the normal training we've been doing."

Mel and Abel looked at each other, but my teacher finally just shrugged. "It's not really anyone's default down there. While there's definitely a 'what happens in Doomtown stays in Doomtown' mentality, it isn't unheard of for people to declare vendettas if someone they love is killed. Most of these people are younger generation members of bigger factions, so wanton slaughter is usually avoided. Not that someone won't murder you if they can get away with it out of sight, but most public brawls lack a killing edge. Most. There are some straight up psychos down there, so be aware we may not always have a choice."

I still wasn't ok with killing, but I could handle it if someone forced the issue, especially if they were some mass murdering lunatic, and I told him as such. He nodded in relief. "Fair. I wasn't sure where your line was on that. The Unity tends to be more inflexible about that than pretty much any other faction in the wider universe because of the nature of heroic cultivation. As Ascendants who grew up in the WCP we're a bit less persnickety about ending problems, but we aren't here to force you to do anything."

That was a whole can of worms I wasn't going to open. It wasn't my job to try to convince Abel and Mel killing was wrong. The whole live by the sword mentality was pretty common in the WCP and I figured you took your life into your own hands when you went down there, even if that might make me a bit of a hypocrite for refusing to actually kill anyone unless I had to. Callie, seeing my thoughtful silence, decided to pick up the conversation herself. "So, you implied there were other reasons to go down there. Is there some unique aspect of this place that's relevant to us right now?"

Clearly happy for a return to the subject at hand Abel cleared his throat. "Right. That. Anyway like I said, Doomtown is where most of the big wigs send their juniors. We're likely to run into several of our competitors down there. You'll get a chance to match yourselves against other people in the same general strength bracket and see how you stack up. We're G-rankers but we aren't exactly considered your average combatants, and while training against strong opponents is great, actually being able to WIN some training matches is also kind of necessary."

From anyone else that would have sounded like hubris, but thinking about how they'd spent the month before our vacation bouncing us off every surface in the Pavilion it was tough to argue. Also the idea of meeting up with some people more our strength was a lot of fun to consider. Without the worry about killing someone (past any accidents we would do our best to avoid obviously) it sounded like a ton of fun to see how we measured up before the big tournament.

Although..."Wait." I said. "Isn't the main difficulty in the tournament likely to come from outsiders coming over from other parts of the star cluster? I mean, I guess the Titan Twenty are a concern, but will those other forces send their people down there when it's such a disadvantage that they do so? Like their juniors could get hurt before the tournament and they they would be out of the running."

The look Abel and Mel shot me made me feel like a total idiot, though I didn't really know why until Abel spoke. "Yes, Shane. They WILL send them down to feel out the opponents. Anyone that they consider top tier will be strong enough not to worry about, and anyone who gets killed or injured fighting G-rankers from a backwater planet like this isn't worth their time. I forget sometimes how sheltered you guys are in the Unity."

Zeke had said similar things a time or two, though he'd also implied even the Unity wasn't as cuddly as it pretended to be for the most part. Still, it stung to have that condescending look shot my way. That must have been clear in my body language because Abel sighed. "Look, it won't be all of them. There's a spectrum out there. Some factions, like the Beast Lord Garden here, are more concerned with their juniors than others. Some do the law of the jungle thing. There will be a few scary outsiders running around I'm sure, though plenty we won't see until the tournament."

I sighed. "Yeah, I get it. It's just hard for me to think in terms of 'well if you're good enough you won't die in the first place' ." My experience with the WCP hadn't been GREAT, but they at least left me Zeke to watch my back against really high level people. Thinking it through though, the Black Sorrow Cult was probably more cutthroat than the WCP in that regard. I remained silent as we arrived at the tunnels we were taking to get to Doomtown and climbed out of the car to begin our walk.

It took a few hours to get down there, and we talked a bit, but mostly I just thought over what I knew, came to terms with how things worked, and chose to focus on my excitement. As we started to get closer though, I tuned back in to the conversation around me just in time to hear Callie asking something extremely relevant. "By the way, how common are attacks? Should we expect to be assaulted as soon as we get down there? Will they try to catch us somewhere secluded? What should we expect?"

Abel, who was walking ahead of us, turned around to walk backwards, still easily keeping pace with Mel, who was out in front. "Depends who we meet. Some of the factions native to the place are less restrained. Since they never leave they don't worry as much about politics. Those are the ones more likely to just attack when your back is turned. Larger factions usually try to make a pretense, but they're often bullshit. Bumping into you and accusing you of spilling their drink, shit like that. Best to just assume you're always in danger of an attack and act accordingly. Everyone else will."

I nodded, tightening my grip on my cane as we finally emerged from the tunnel, into...well. A town. Not a huge one, but not as run down and shitty as I expected from the name. The buildings were squat, made of sturdy dark stone, and the light was mostly shades of red. It gave the place a sinister, hellish vibe, and despite being unlike what I had thought I'd see, it was pretty fitting for a place called Doomtown. I turned to Abel, who was still walking backwards. "Ok, we're here. Where are we heading to get some training in?"

That got a laugh from my teacher. "Where else? A bar. If you want to get into stupid fights, there's nowhere like a drinking spot to get them started. The Raving Baby is still around I think. I haven't been down here in years so I'm kind of behind the times. But if we can't find a fight there we can at least ask around. In either case, it's that way." He point off in a direction that looked the same as all the other directions, finally resuming a forward gait as we headed off down the road.

Before we had walked twenty feet though, a series of forms melted out of the shadows, all dressed in identical brown and black dog masks with bright red eyes. Their clothes were a variety of black leather articles covered in chains and studs of different kinds, and they surrounded us quickly and silently. Once they had us encircled, the leader spoke. "Well, well, well boys. What do we have here? Looks like fresh meat to me. And here I was getting hungry." He grinned nastily at us. "The question is which of you are snacks and which are trash for us to toss?"

Mel glared at him, taking a deep breath and reaching into a pocket to pull out a jingling bag that I was pretty sure contained chits. "You indescribable assholes. You couldn't have waited for the next group? This is my pocket money for the whole month." She turned and passed it to Abel, who deftly caught the bag and jingled it beside his ear with a happy sigh. "Don't gloat. It's unattractive." I could almost hear the sulk in her voice as she pretty much ignored the men standing around us.

Abel chuckled at her. "No one likes a sore loser dear heart." He shook his head derisively. "Betting we would make it to the bar before we got attacked. Honestly, it's like you WANTED to lose your money. I have to say though, getting surrounded by LITERAL rabid dogs is a bit on the nose. Good to see Doomtown doesn't disappoint after my time away." He turned to us, his grin taking on a brutal edge. "Well then kids, looks like were in for a practical lesson. Pick your dance partners fast, or all the good ones will be taken."