Elsewhere

Entering the arena this time was completely different than it had been the first time for Duke. The stands were packed to capacity and then some – and they were loud! Even the Royal booth was occupied. It seemed that King Chopie himself was in attendance. The air was sparking with the energy flowing off the crowd. They were here for blood and blood was what was promised.

Duke and his team stood on one end of the main combat platform, arrayed in their armored Leviathan uniforms. They stood proudly and prepared, silently taking in the atmosphere.

Across the platform stood the team from Stone. The smallest of the four was over two meters tall, taller than even Lysander. They all had a greyish tone to their skin, indicating that they likely carried some stone giant blood in their veins. To a man, they were all simply armed with stone weapons. Two had stone clubs while another had a pair of obsidian swords and the last had an obsidian-bladed spear with a spearhead nearly two hands-breaths long. None wore more than a loincloth. No armor, but their stonelike skin was likely enough protection.

“Obsidian weapons? Sharp but fragile, I would think.” Duke spoke quietly to his team.

“They are designed to slice you open and break shards off in the wound making it nearly impossible to heal the wound. Nasty things. Brutally effective with enchantment.” Lasandra responded.

“They will charge us and try to overwhelm us with physical force when the fight starts. Plan seven?” Lester asked.

“Plan seven.” Lasandra agreed. They all nodded and set their stances, waiting for things to begin.

A single mournful tone carried across the arena, silencing all conversation. It was followed by a magically enhanced announcement from the Royal booth. Lord Quaid stood at the edge of the booth to address the crowd. Seated next to him was a man dressed in red and black finery. Duke presumed it was the king. He etched the man’s face complete with its pointed nose deep into his memory. I’m coming for your King Chopie. Maybe not today, but when I am ready – on MY terms!

“Greetings one and all! We are gathered here in the presence of our great king, King Chopie!”

The audience roared a response, “Hail and Glory to the King!” Duke tried not to puke.

Lord Quaid continued, “Standing before us is the murderer known as Duke, whom has been convicted by mine own hand.”

Duke and his team looked at each other. “This is a set-up for sure. You three need to stand down and leave me to handle this on my own.” He implored the others.

“Nothing has changed. We stand together until the end.” Lysander responded.

Quaid’s voice echoed across the arena as he continued. “As he has been convicted of murder, Duke’s life is forfeit.” The crowd roared in response. Lord Quaid raised his hands and waited for the crowd to quiet down. It took a few minutes, but the crowd did eventually quiet down from their bloodlust and Quaid continued, “Now because our great King is so magnanimous, he has decided to allow Duke the opportunity to survive a trial by combat. Should he survive, he will be granted clemency and his conviction for murder shall be set aside. Hail and glory to the great King!”

The crowd cheered, the roaring echoing throughout the arena shaking the walls and making the floor vibrate beneath Dukes feet. He once again implored his teammates to step aside and let him fight alone. They, of course, refused and stood by his side unwavering.

Lord Quaid held his hands aloft yet again and the crowd quieted down. Duke stared hard at the four opponents across the platform. He planned his opening moves to coordinate with his team and waited for things to begin. He knew that his PURPOSE would come into play in this mockery of a trial. As he stood in his preparatory stance, he alternately flexed muscles in his legs to make sure they stayed loose and ready to act when things began. He did not have to wait long.

Lord Quaid started the fight with a single announced word, “Begin!”

Neither Duke nor the leviathan team hesitated and neither did the Stone team. The four stone warriors charged at the leviathan team and Duke opened with his first salvo of his newly learned abilities. Before they had crossed the platform, each was greeted with a pair of Bolts of Darkness to the face. He had developed an Ability called SIMULCASTING that allowed him to cast multiple spells at the same time. It was better than using his OVERCHANNEL ability in this case as it gave multiple chances for the secondary effect of the Bolts of Darkness to take effect – namely temporary blindness.

Two of the Stones were blinded and stumbled in their charge. The other two charged on, heedlessly ignoring the spells’ impact. Lysander stepped up to meet the charge of the first and Duke the second. Meanwhile, Lester stepped into stealth circling behind the blinded Stones and Lasandra stepped back, preparing to cast healing as needed.

Duke was greeted by a vicious slash of the Stone’s spear. Duke tried to roll under the slash to close the distance with his opponent. The flash of pain across his back clearly indicated that he was not very successful in dodging. He could feel his regeneration kicking in, knitting flesh back together, so was not very concerned with the wound, especially since he had achieved his goal in closing the distance. He also knew that the armored uniforms they were all wearing were next to useless against the enchanted weapons.

He lunged to his feet inside the reach of the Stone’s spear and delivered his best punch to the solar plexus reinforced with his LIGHTNING Ability, the full push from his legs, and the twist of his hips that Jablach had taught him. The half-giant’s skin was so hard, it was like striking a wooden support beam.

Duke could feel the bones in his hand strain and crack with the impact. What he also felt was the full extent of his LIGHTNING ability travelling through his arm, directly into the torso of his foe. The entire arena lit up from the flash leading to cries of startlement and not a small number of painful cries as spectators were dazzled, momentarily blinded.

Duke could hear none of this as he was thrown back down to the ground with tremendous force, his head slamming so hard it dazed him. The arena had gone completely silent around him as Duke groggily got to his feet trying to shake the fuzziness out of his head. The sight of his opponent standing before him wobbling unsteadily on his feet was enough to shake Duke out of his daze with a burst of adrenaline. Ok, so maybe it was his REGENERATION repairing the damage to his head, but the sight of his opponent didn’t hurt.

Duke fired a heavily OVERCHANNELED FORCE DART at the wobbly half-giant, knocking him off his feet. He snapped his head around to see how the rest of the team was faring. The answer was…not good. Lysander was locked, collar and elbow with his opponent, Lester was slumped down against the far wall unmoving, and Lasandra was hunched over him trying to apply healing. If she is healing by contact, Lester must be in real bad shape. The best and worst of it was that the two remaining foes were bearing down on Duke quickly with murder in their eyes.

Good, they are now focusing on me. I hope Lasandra can get Lester back up and moving and most of all, that they stay out of the rest of this fight. Duke backpedaled, throwing Bolts of Darkness with abandon. The blindness effect did not seem to want to trigger a second time on the pair, but Duke kept up the barrage as he put more distance between the rest of his team and himself.

His backpedaling ended abruptly as he slammed into the arena wall. The two half-giants were mere steps away from him now, each bearing a cruel grin. They charged in with swords and club swinging to kill. Duke’s back was literally to the wall, and he did not like his chances of surviving any of the coming blows. He decided it was time to pull out a trump card and TELEPORTED behind the pair. Their attacks slammed into the wall, unbalancing them without the expected resistance. They roared in rage and spun around looking for Duke.

They saw him across the arena punching the Stone still trying to outpower Lysander. Duke’s blows were not heavy when compared to the half-giant’s armored skin, but it proved a tremendous distraction. Even with armored skin, getting your kidneys rapidly pounded upon is not a great feeling. The distraction was enough for Lysander to finally get the upper hand, slipping his left arm free and delivering a rocket of a blow to the throat. As the Stone stumbled back, Duke crouched down, delivering a sharp elbow to the back of a knee. The Stone tumbled over Duke’s back to the roaring delight of the crowd.

It was at that moment that Duke realized that they had somehow turned the crowd to their favor. He smiled.

“Stay down, Duke!” Lysander’s voice froze him an instant before he stood back up only to have the enormous man vault over his back and plant a flying double-handed axe-blow in the half-giant’s face. The Stone’s nose exploded in a crimson wave while the Stone’s head slammed down to the ground with a solid thump. The half-giant was done, at least for now.

“You forget something?” Duke asked with a wry grin as he slid Lysander’s hammer back to him. It had been simple to TELEPORT the hammer to his hand. It had not been easy to lift the thing, however.

“Um, yeah. Thanks. I kinda…” Lysander stopped in mid-sentence as he was thrown off his feet by the colossal impact of a stone club to the side of his head. He flew from his feet, completely limp and unmoving. Duke turned towards the direction the half-giant’s blow had come from, prepared to TELEPORT out of the way of the Stone with the swords that he had left on the other side of the arena only to find himself alone with the club-wielding giant’s knowing grin.

The scream that came from behind Duke was short-lived and terrible. He spun to see Lasandra nearly cleaved in half by one of the half-giant’s obsidian swords. His guts turned to water in horror while his mind flared with absolute rage. They had set this up as an execution and we walked into it anyway. Lasandra is dead. Lysander likely is as well. Lester too. I stand alone.

The crowd had quieted some in shock at the brutal execution of the healer. Duke’s life had been declared forfeit, but the other three had not. There were murmurs amongst the crowd – they did not know how to react, so King Chopie told them. He had to retain control.

The king stood from his gilded throne in the ornately-decorated royal box and declared. “If you stand with a murderer against the King’s Justice, you share his punishment. My Children of Stone, finish this. Execute the criminal!” His voice was enhanced by subtle, yet powerful magic cast by a crimson-clad mage who stood behind the throne. There was magic compulsion layered into his words and the crowd willingly joined him in his bloodlust.

Duke saw that the half-giant he had put down earlier was back on his feet. He now faced three foes that were physically far stronger than him. He took a quick glance at his stats and saw that he was down to 134 mana. He had been conserving his Mana from the start by mainly using base magic Abilities but was not sure how far even that much would take him. He rode his rage coldly, feeling the glowing of his PURPOSE in his soul pushing him to fight…and fight he would!

Duke wreathed himself with LIGHTNING and prepared to fight for his life once again. The three Stones had taken their time to spread out and surround Duke from different angles. Each were armed differently. One had the massive stone club, the next with the twin obsidian swords, and the last was the spear-wielder. Duke decided to charge the club-wielder.

The club-wielder grinned and cocked his arms back holding the club with both hands like a batter preparing to tee up the shot of their lifetime. Duke likewise cocked his crackling fist back, pouring speed on. He charged, his legs flashing faster and faster as they crackled with electricity. Duke leaped into the air. The Stone began his swing, aiming perfectly to swat Duke right out of the air once and for all.

The blow never landed as Duke TELEPORTED behind his truly intended target and unleashed his LIGHTNING into the back of the spear-wielder one final time. This time, however, Duke was 5 meters away and was not caught up in his own blast. The thigh-wide bolt of lightning struck the half-giant square in the back with a full 40 Mana channeled into the Ability. The bolt exited from the Stone’s chest, head, and arms simultaneously. He collapsed backwards; his smoking eye sockets a clear indicator that he would not be getting back up this time.

The remaining two Stones reoriented back towards Duke as their compatriot collapsed to the arena floor. With a glance at each other, they activated devices on their wrists. A glowing blue field snapped into place around each of them. Oh great. Fucking magical shields. This is going to complicate things. Duke stared across the platform at the two Stones, grinning behind their shields. They grin an awful lot. Time to wipe at least one grin off.

“You’re dead human. Stop fighting and I’ll make it a clean cut.” The sword-wielder gloated. Duke tried to stall a bit. His regen had healed his wounds, but his Mana was only ticking up one point a second. This was going to be a problem. He was down to less than half his Mana and things had gotten much more difficult.

“How about, you drop a weapon or three and fight fair.” Duke continued to back away, circling around the arena to keep them at a distance.

“No, I don’t think so, mage. I’m going to enjoy spitting you like a pig.” The spear-wielder declared.

Duke concentrated as he moved, trying to get a feel for the spear, to get familiarity with how it moved, how heavy it appeared to be, anything that might give him an advantage for his next move. Finally, when it appeared that they had had enough waiting, they spread out, cutting off Duke’s ability to circle the arena. It was time.

Duke flexed his will and his magic, focusing on his TELEPORTATION Ability. He had desperately wanted to get the Ability back so he could just leave the city, but, no, he had made friends here and then these assholes had killed them. This could not be allowed to stand. With all of his will, he pulled.

He stood there holding a very heavy, obsidian-tipped spear, rage flowing from his eyes as he slammed the butt of the spear down on the stone platform with all his strength. He was no giant-kin, but he was quite strong for a human. The sound echoed around the arena, silencing the crowd momentarily.

Duke shouted, his anger seething out of his pores, “You killed, no…MURDERED innocent people today all because I defended myself against a blood-crazed orc that tried to murder ME on my very first day in this cursed city. Your trumped-up charges are nothing. Recall these two glowing bags of meat before I add to the day’s death toll!” Duke was not sure where the words had come from, but he could feel his emotions boiling with anger with a frozen shell. It was like nothing he had ever experienced but the injustice of the day’s events was driving him, driving his PURPOSE to act.

“Kill him!” was the shout from the Royal booth.

Like a hammer shattering glass, the crowd erupted with a roar, matched by the roar from the pair of Stones charging Duke with their own rage.

Quietly and with pure intensity Duke responded, “So be it. You have chosen death.”

Duke felt his PURPOSE amp all his Abilities far beyond anything he understood and simply flowed with the feeling.

The half-giants charged heedlessly towards him, ready to slice him to pieces. He noted that they each were wielding one of the swords, the club discarded at some point, but his PURPOSE didn’t care. It welcomed them to come closer, to charge to their deaths. Duke’s consciousness rode upon the wave of rage that his PURPOSE continued to build.

Duke raised his spear to strike the one charging from the left, his weak side. The half-giant casually slapped the spear aside as he barreled past the raised point. Duke barely had time to process the situation before they were on him.

They came at him each with a side-slash trying to meet their swords together through Duke’s bisected form. Duke screamed as the swords struck him, biting deeply into his flesh before he could stop their momentum with a hand grasped on each of their forearms. It seemed the shields didn’t come into play for melee. The cuts were deep and caused what would be fatal wounds for any normal man. Duke was not a normal man.

Duke started to speak, but only coughed up blood. What he did, instead, was tighten his grip and poured Mana into his TELEPORT Ability, taking both Stones with him.

***Warning! Your TELEPORTATION Ability is not developed enough to safely take passengers with you. You may cause them harm in the process. ***

Duke grinned maniacally. Perfect! He ignored, no, relished the warning while he TELEPORTED 200 meters into the air, above the top row of the arena…and let go of the wrists of the two now stunned half-giants.

The agony and pure terror in their eyes as Duke TELEPORTED back to the surface of the arena burned into Duke’s mind. It was now ingrained into his PURPOSE as he watched them plummet to the ground slamming into the stone with a terrible finality and a pair of sickening wet bounces. Moments after they landed and with their collective bounce, their shields winked out, allowing the blood and viscera to splatter out of the bubbles and onto the stone floor of the arena.

Duke pulled the swords from his side and held his arms against the wounds to try and keep from bleeding out while his REGENERATION worked overtime to heal his grievous wounds. He could feel the wounds healing but knew it would take some time, especially as the glow of his PURPOSE faded from his mind and exhaustion gripped him.

He stood still as the sound of the twin swords clattering to the arena floor echoed across the silenced crowd. He turned towards the Royal booth with its now glowing shield and loudly addressed the stunned crowd. “I have emerged victorious from your trial by combat. Now let me go free.”

King Chopie stood arrow-straight as Lord Quaid desperately whispered in his ear. The magical auditory enhancement started again, and the king addressed Duke and the crowd. “Yes, you have survived the trial by combat and the charges of murder have been set aside. Congratulations!”

The crowd erupted in wild cheers, their bloodlust more than satisfied. The thundering roar nearly sickened Duke as he looked to his fallen friends. He turned back to the King as the crowd once again fell quiet.

“You are, however, still convicted of vagrancy and will remain a prisoner and participant here in the arena.” The King sat once again on his throne with a satisfied smirk, knowing he had won the day after all.

The crowd was as silent as Duke for a moment until a laugh started. Duke snapped his eyes on the man laughing. He recognized the man! It was the thug who had stolen his coin pouch to start this whole ordeal. Duke seethed.

In moments, others joined in the laughter. It was a grand joke after all and relieved the tension of the weighty battle and proclamation after all. Duke, for his part, stared hard at the thug who stared back and shook the selfsame coin pouch back and forth as he laughed at Duke.

Duke’s rage re-ignited, overwhelming his grief and he locked eyes with the thug who suddenly stopped moving like a rabbit hearing a predator. He stared back at Duke, his eyes growing wide in fear of the monster that stared back at him. Then he shrieked and shook the pouch as if it were burning him.

Burning him? Duke thought, remembering Baslin’s words after all this time. He TELEPORTED the pouch to his hand, ignoring the warmth it was giving off. Moments later things got really interesting.

An azure flash traveled across the arena and, as Baslin had said it would, a portal opened up behind Duke. Baslin stood on the other side, eyes wide as he took in the scene beyond Duke.

The arena erupted in shouts and confusion which instantaneously died as King Chopie’s mage invoked silence over the stands. The King rose from his throne yet again. “Baslin? How?”

Baslin offered a slight bow. “Um, hail to the…to the…um…king.”

Duke flipped off the king and dove through the portal. Baslin offered a wave and a wink, and the portal closed.