"Is something wrong?" asked Nayiri.
"Not a damn thing," said Alex, puffing up her cheeks and blowing out a breath.
A horn sounded from the center of the camp, a long rising note that felt like a call to battle. Everyone tossed their meals next to the fire and started gathering themselves with clouds of doom hanging over their heads.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Battle time," sighed Mancalf.
"First horn calls us to the battle circle, second horn is the start of the fights, and third horn signals the end," said Nayiri.
Alex nodded and started to move with them before calling out, "Wait!"
Startled, they turned back towards her. She produced the wooden cube from her Handysack.
"Have any of you seen this before? Or know anything about it?"
Everyone but Blaze shook their head. He squinted at it with his lips pursed with thought.
"I don't know anything about it," he said eventually, "but I bet the wisewoman, Zelda, might know something."
"Great, thank you," said Alex, shoving the cube back into her Handysack.
Quest Completed: Ask around about the box
You have gained experience: 1,000 XP
Quest Chain II: Ask the wisewoman about the mysterious cube (+1,000 XP)
Witches give stitches, so don't be naughty be nice
"You'll have to be at least novice rank before she'll talk to you," said Blaze.
"Thanks, Blaze."
The Bravebear clan gathered at the center of the camp, which was the highest point on the hill. A wide circle about ten meters in diameter had been lined with small stones. Alex and the rest of the unranked stood in back as the higher-level clan members took up the front rows.
The nervous energy was palpable. There was lots of neck and knuckle cracking, shoulder rotating, and the nervous touching of weapons. The lower-ranked clan members glanced nervously at the setting sun, which rapidly approached the horizon.
Alex climbed on a barrel to get a better view of the circle. She wanted to know what kind of fight she was getting into. There was something primal about the wait that filled Alex with energy. It felt like foreplay for battle, to gather around the circle and wait until the appointed moment to begin the fighting.
As she looked around the circle, she knew she wasn't alone in these feelings. Even the unranked members she'd just met seemed awoken by the anticipation.
The second horn blast nearly startled her off the barrel, which brought laughter from the nearby clan members. Nayiri touched her on the calf and motioned with her head that she should get down, but Alex didn't want to lose the view, so she shook off her touch.
Nayiri's caution became clear when Battleleader Tormane the Tower pointed across the circle to her on top of the barrel.
"Alexandria the soon to be destroyed, taunter of shrews, slayer of clouds, and protector of nothing, you will fight the first battle," he said, bringing laughter from those gathered.
Nayiri looked exasperated, throwing her hands up and walking away.
Blaze shot her a sour look. "Good luck?"
As Alex pushed through the crowd towards the circle, her hands started sweating. It was one thing to ambush a warped animal in the middle of the forest with unfair tactics. Here she would have to face her opponent and feel the sting of their blades. While the pain she felt in the game wasn't the same as in the real world, it was close enough that her stomach had turned to stone by the time she stepped into the circle.
Hundreds of eyes stared at her, none of them friendly. It was worse than any speech she'd ever had to give in high school, the focus of so many people on her, especially when one of them would step into the circle to kill her.
When Tormane nodded to a woman to his right, Alex groaned internally. The muscled Andreque the Bold stepped into the circle with a pair of scimitars hanging loosely from her hips. In the forest, a level 22 warped animal wouldn't have scared her, but she didn't have any trees to climb or log traps to trigger here.
Andreque produced her twin scimitars, spinning them expertly on her palms before tossing them into the air, then launching forward into a front flip, catching the blades and jamming them into the earth.
"Okay," Alex said quietly to herself as she bit her lower lip. "That was impressive. I'm impressed. Would have preferred a warm-up round with a novice, but I'll manage."
When everyone looked to her as if they expected a similar performance, Alex reached for her whip, purposely fumbling it when she pulled it off her hip.
The whip landed in the dirt, which produced a round of laughter. Andreque glanced back towards Tormane with an eager grin as if she couldn't wait for the match to start.
As Alex picked up the whip, she sized up the space of the circle. Ten meters wasn't much to move around in, especially when a buff woman with twin scimitars wanted to kill her.
"Bravebears, are you ready?" called out Tormane in his thunderous voice.
Alex let the whip hang loosely from her hand and lifted one shoulder as if she were apprehensive about the fight. Andreque gave a firm nod.
"Begin!"
Before Andreque could charge across the circle, Alex hit her with a Cloud Taunt. The gray cloud wrapped around her opponent like an angry tunic of electricity. Andreque's scream of surprise was followed by rage. The tendons in her neck as she sprinted forward could have been used as bowstrings.
Alex tried to get out of the way, but Andreque moved like a cheetah, hitting her twice with her scimitars before she could raise her whip hand, taking her down by a quarter health.
As crackles of lightning caressed Andreque, making her twitch, she sliced Alex two more times. The scimitars burned bright lines of pain across her chest.
She was down to nearly half and she'd only hit Andreque with a single spell. Alex spent the next moments frantically avoiding the twirling scimitars, barely diving out of the way. Her retreat felt more like she was the final girl in a horror movie than organized escape, and it earned her no love from the crowd, but it was effective enough to keep her alive for a few more seconds.
The crowd was cheering for Andreque and yelling taunts at Alex. She thought the whole clan was against her until she caught a high voice from her left that came from Nayiri, who had pushed her way to the front.
"Come on, Alex!"
She knew there was no way she was going to take down Andreque quickly. What she needed was to slow down her opponent, keeping her from killing her. By the clan's cheers and Andreque's swaggering approach, everyone expected her to die soon.
After rolling out of the way of a dual scimitar head sweep, Alex cracked her whip, aiming for the scimitar in Andreque's left hand, catching it right below the hilt. With a two-handed yank, the scimitar went flying out of the circle. A collective gasp went up, suggesting her tactic was unusual. Andreque glanced to Tormane as if she expected a ruling, but he thrust his enormous hand in Alex's direction as if to say that the battle must continue.
Alex snapped the whip a second time, aiming for the other scimitar, but Andreque was ready for the disarm attempt and shielded the attack with her body.
You deal Andreque the Bold 19 damage!
You have gained a skill point: +1 One-handed Whip
Including the damage from the Cloud Taunt, Alex had only taken a sixth of her opponent's health, but the removal of the weapon left Andreque off-balance, forcing her to think more about protecting her scimitar than killing. Which was exactly what Alex had hoped for. She kept cracking the whip at the scimitar until Andreque realized she couldn't win if she let Alex pin her down and rushed forward.
While the veteran clan member preferred two weapons, she was no slouch with only one, and before Alex knew it, she was down to a quarter health. Andreque kept the blows coming, hammering away as if she were trying to hack through a log.
Before her health reached zero, Alex cast Dewdrop Orb on Andreque's face, giving herself a moment of respite as the woman clawed the watery orb from her face. With
Andreque distracted, Alex attacked the other scimitar, spinning it out of the circle before the woman realized what had happened.
Stunned by the reversal, Alex easily wrapped her black whip around Andreque's neck, strangling her until the match was won.
You have defeated Andreque the Bold!
You have gained experience: 1,000 XP
You have gained conquest points: 2 CP
Quest Progress: Defeat 5 Novices – 1/5 Defeated
The silence after the fight was over could have cut glass. No one spoke and everyone looked to Tormane as if they expected him to void the result. It was clear that they hadn't appreciated her tactics.
"She does not fight with honor!" said Andreque, stomping her foot in the dirt.
"She won, get over it," said Tormane the Tower, throwing his hand in the air with a scowl on his lips. "Next match!"
As Alex stumbled through the crowd, a few of the ranked members gave her sharp elbows in the ribs or kneed her in the thigh. When she exited into the cool air outside the circle, the unranked gathered around her, patting her on the back. A wave of euphoria passed through her at how close the fight had been.
"No one's ever seen a fight like that before," said Nayiri, eyes wide.
Alex looked at her sideways. Her ears seemed different than before, rounder rather than angled. But maybe she was misremembering.
"I've never fought one like that before, so we're even," said Alex, holding her ribs where Andreque had sliced her. "When do you think I'll get to fight next?"
Mancalf shook his nut-brown jowls. "Why would you want to do that?"
"I need conquest points." Their faces wrinkled with confusion, so she added, "I need to climb in rank if I'm going to challenge Tormane."
Nayiri stared at her with equal awe and horror. "You'll have to wait until tomorrow night. Everyone fights, but everyone only fights once per night."
"What?" she exclaimed, marching away as she calculated the problem before her. "But I can't do that. Why, that'll take me twenty-four more days to climb the ranks, assuming I win every match."
"What's the hurry?" asked Nayiri.
Sorrow leaned forward, almost right next to her face, a snarl on his lips. His eyes were ringed with darkness and he smelled like jasmine. "She seeks her death in the arena."
"No," she said, snapping her head back. "And are you rubbing ashes around your eyes?"
"Beauty secrets," he said, waving his fingers mystically before his face while bobbing his head from side to side.
Their conversation was interrupted when Nayiri's name was called for the battle circle. The pale girl's shoulders drooped as she marched through the gathered. Alex climbed the barrel to get a good view of the fight.
Despite the apprehension she'd seen in Nayiri when her match was announced, as soon as she got in the battle circle, the nerves appeared knocked off. While her opponent, Gat, a tall lanky novice rank using a long spear, stepped forward to cheers from the crowd, Nayiri tossed her dagger between her hands expertly, spinning it back and forth as if it were connected by wires.
"Come on, Nayiri," Alex whispered as the battle started.
Gat began the match by attacking Nayiri's position using spear thrusts. Between the length of the weapon and his long arms, he covered a huge amount of territory within the circle, leaving Nayiri almost no room.
Despite the tactical disadvantage, Nayiri did the best she could, rolling out of the way of the worsts thrusts, or parrying the spear tip with her dagger. A few times she managed to roll under the shaft and slice Gat's thighs, but she took too many blows from a distance that added up. Eventually, she guessed wrong and Gat caught her in the midsection, impaling her on the end of his spear, ending the match.
After it was over, Nayiri slunk out of the circle with her head down, avoiding the rest of the unranked. Alex jumped off the barrel and tracked her down, catching her near the tents.
Nayiri flinched away when she touched her arm, spinning around as if she had the plague. Her pale cheeks were flushed.
"Great fight," said Alex.
"Great fight? I lost. I only hit him twice. It was all I could do to avoid his stupid spear. I suck at this," said Nayiri, close to tears.
"You don’t suck. They gave you the worst possible opponent for you to fight. Have they ever given you someone with a shorter blade?" asked Alex.
Nayiri furrowed her forehead. "No. It's either the long spear, or the sword and board."
"See," said Alex. "It's not you, it's them."
"So what?" asked Nayiri. "It's not like you can make them give me better opponents. I'm always going to be unranked, killed in the battle circle until the end of my days."
Alex was left jawing at the air as Nayiri raced back to the unranked tents. Even though she was only an NPC, Alex couldn't help but feel empathy for her. Could NPCs in this game world actually have feelings?
"I'm going to help her win a match," said Alex.
Quest Offered: Help Nayiri Shadowmarch (Reward: Unknown) [Y/N]
"Hmmm...that's interesting," she said, hitting YES.
Quest Chain I: Help Nayiri win a match (+1,000 XP)
An optional quest line which triggered when she announced her intentions. This had happened a few times last year too, which suggested the game engine was dynamic, able to make adjustments as the game state changed. Or, someone was watching her, like Ethel Stormfeathers, and making manual adjustments.
Alex checked the deep-umber sky to find nothing, not even a cloud. Only a few stars had begun to peek from the firmament, so she returned to the battle circle to watch the rest of the fights, taking mental notes on the styles and weapons each member of the Bravebear clan used. Most of the fights were fairly one-sided, especially when it came to her new friends. Not one of them got their opponent below half health. It seemed like the upper-ranked fighters were usually matched against the lower ranked with a mismatch of weapons much like Nayiri's daggers versus the long spear.
"Bravebear my ass," said Alex when the third horn blew, announcing the end of the nightly fights.
When Alex returned to the unranked tents, everyone except Nayiri was drinking ale around the fire. Blaze offered her a mug, which she politely accepted but left next to her log as she scribbled out notes from the fights.
"Are you writing spells?" asked Blaze eagerly.
"No," said Alex. "Just homework."
The fledgling mage didn't seem to understand the word, but took her obfuscation as a sign she didn't want to be bothered. While the rest of the camp stayed up late, the cheers and songs of after-battle carrying over the hills like in the halls of Valhalla, the unranked had their drinks and returned to the tents.
Alex was last to leave the fire. She wanted to make sure she'd written down every possible thing she could remember from the fights. She wished she had easy access to a computer so she could put the information in spreadsheets, but the penalty for logging out wasn't worth it.
When at last she lay down in her tent, a wave of emotions threatened to overwhelm her as her mind whirled with all the things she had to do. Champion of Warsong. Defeat 5 novices. Take the Bravebear clan as her own.
"One thing at a time, Alex," she whispered to herself.
But these thoughts were expected, normal. When she was confronted with a difficult problem, it felt like it became her whole world. Except this time, lying in a canvas tent that had holes she could see the stars through, Alex kept thinking about Nayiri's button nose, her messy dark hair that stuck in all directions, and her bow-like lips.
"She's just an NPC," Alex whispered to herself late in the night. "I shouldn't fall for her."
Alex tossed and turned for hours. It was always uncomfortable sleeping in a new location because she had so many questions. Her mind worried at the information she'd been presented, like a banker counting coins.
For a little while, she heard distant song, a woman lilting out a tune that made Alex pull her arms tight to her chest, but then insects resumed their second dirge
and she lost track of her thoughts as exhaustion claimed her.
Chapter Six
The next morning, she found Sorrow working the fire, cooking eggs and bacon in a skillet. Alex stretched and yawned, cracking her neck, which was stiff from sleeping on the hard ground.
"Good morning," she said to Sorrow, who gave her a nod as he poked at the sizzling bacon with a dagger.
"At least I don't have to worry about foraging for food in a clan," said Alex. "And this is far better than iguana meat."
Sorrow wrinkled his nose. "This is iguana bacon. The higher ranked get the real stuff."
Alex rolled her eyes. "Figures."
"You fought well last night," said Sorrow with an odd smile on his lips. "Strangulation is a particularly enjoyable way to die."
"So did you," she said, ignoring his dark comment. "I liked the way you used your staff. It was unfortunate that lucky warhammer strike caught you across the jaw at the end, or I thought you could have won."
Sorrow stared blankly back at her. "I do what I must. The staff is only a placeholder for my real weapon."
Alex raised an eyebrow, pre-grimacing because she could sense what was coming. "And what is your real weapon?"
"The pain and rage of meaningless death in this farce we call reality," said Sorrow.
"Careful, Alex," said Blaze as he sat down next to her, grabbing a piece of sizzling iguana bacon from the skillet with his bare hands and popping it into his mouth. "Talk to him too long and you'll want to throw yourself off a cliff."
"So what happens during the day around here?" she asked.
Blaze poked a burning log with his toe. "You're looking at it. In the morning time, I like to space out for a while. It's just far enough away from spear-in-the-gut time that I can relax. But then when the winds rise on the plains, I remember that the battle circle is less than half a day away, and then it's just creeping dread until my eventual murder in the arena of human misery."
Gladiators of Warsong Page 4