A roar of excitement met Cass and company as they stepped out of the Velillia Catacombs and into the stadium. The crowds were packed and cheering from the stands, their voices a physical force over the arena.

  An announcer yelled over the crowd, “Folks, looks like one of this year’s candidates for Dragon Knight has returned from the deep! Alyx Aretios Veldor has returned! Just in time, too, the Silver Serpents Treasure Company is on the ropes. Can she defeat the dread Alke and rescue the Treasure Company from their greed?”

  Before her, a two-headed elk reared back, its forelegs easily twenty feet in the air, its four antlers sparking with mana and filling the air with an impending dread. It had grey fur and black eyes like voids into the depths of space. Around its back legs, more of that energy circled like mist, nameless and building.

  Black-Antlered Alke

  Lvl 26

  [Hailing from the forests of Nevren, this beast is known for its control of shadows. Accounts of it stalking intruders of its domain for miles, all the while oozing dread, are well documented. This beast prefers to sap the strength of its foes rather than face them directly, but it will fight viciously when cornered.]

  Opposite the monster, a group of five humanoids cowered. A tall man stood at the front, his sword and shield shaking in his hands.

  Human Warrior (lvl 21)

  Beside him, an archer fired arrows at the beast from a black longbow. The arrows shimmered through the air, slicing through the alke’s dark energy and burying themselves in its coarse fur. She wore heavy bandages along her arms and fresh wounds along her sides.

  Elven Thief (lvl 20)

  Behind them, an elderly orc had an unconscious woman slung over her shoulder and a bulging bag hanging from the other.

  Orcken Shopkeep (lvl 26)

  Human Warrior (lvl 23)

  At their side, a dwarf with a mace frantically looked between the monster and his companions, an expression Cass was entirely too familiar with on his face.

  Dwarven Medic (lvl 17)

  All had prominent bandages and scuffed armor. Several had stuffed packs, and more lay discarded at the arena’s edge.

  “What is happening?” Cass asked.

  “The exit trial.” Alyx said it like this was the most obvious answer in the world.

  Cass did not like the sound of that at all. “Do we need to fight that thing?”

  “Yes.” Alyx drew her sword.

  Cass rubbed her face. She was exhausted from the trials and tribulations of the catacombs. She had recovered some of her Health on the trip back, but it was still low. Her body ached down to her bones, protesting even the idea of more fighting.

  Stamina: 138/138

  Focus: 531/531

  Health: 50/130

  All she wanted was a bath and a bed.

  Was that too much to ask?

  But no. This came first. And they clearly needed the help.

  “Marco, protect the Treasure Company. Cass, see if you can take down any of its antlers. Salos, Fairy Fire on me,” Alyx ordered.

  “With pleasure,” Salos said far more quickly than Cass liked, and Alyx’s skin burst with purple flames.

  Marco raised his shield. “Group up behind me.”

  The treasure company startled, but the orc woman wasted no time dragging her charge and her bags behind her for Marco, the dwarf quick on her heels.

  Cass skated along behind Marco. If Alyx was going to draw the aggro, she’d sit quietly behind the tank and throw Tempest Blades like a good little mage. Her whole body hurt too much for anything else.

  Alyx burst across the field, her body flaming, her sword glowing, her crown blazing. Every eye in the stadium followed her and her alone.

  The alke’s hooves slammed down on the stadium floor and the black mist exploded in a ring.

  Alyx leapt over it, her sword burying itself into the beast’s front thigh as she landed. A hundred similar cuts appeared along the beast’s body, all wet with dark blood.

  The alke thrashed. Its antlers bristled with dark energy.

  The remaining treasure company members—the archer and swordsman—scrambled out of the way, sliding behind Marco’s shield as the expanding mist struck it.

  Alyx dodged around the alke’s attacks, her sword nicking its neck and slashing along its flank.

  It reared back again, a wailing sheik emanating from both heads.

  Cass shot off a pair of Tempest Blades, angling them for the base of the right head’s antlers. The first hit the shrouding, black mist, only to break as they collided, but not without blowing the fog out of position. Cass re-angled the second blade for the clear spot. It flew true, taking a chunk out of the antler.

  The alke slammed down again, the black mist exploding in rioting waves. Alyx sliced through the stuff, cutting a break that closed behind her.

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  Marco’s shield burst to light, and a shimmering wall formed between the monster and his charges. The treasure company’s less combat-capable members huddled in the middle while the archer shot arrows after the beast. The swordsman clenched his sword, anxiously watching the battle unfold.

  The mist around the alke was less dense after its attack, though Cass could feel it already re-accumulating on its antlers.

  She threw another flurry of Tempest Blades, pairing them up and aiming for the base of each antler.

  Alyx cut deep into its other flank as she dodged a sweep of those antlers. Cass’s Tempest Blades cut through the broken antler, and it fell to the ground.

  The head that lost the antler thrashed, throwing the creature’s body off balance as the uninjured head tried to chase Alyx.

  Another set of Tempest Blades ripped through the mist and chopped off the injured head’s second antler.

  It screamed. The antlerless head pulled toward Cass while the other head thrashed after Alyx. It pulled against itself.

  “Now’s your moment if yah want to help,” Marco said to the company swordsman.

  The swordsman raced from behind Marco’s wall and joined Alyx before the beast.

  The mist gathered slowly around the monster. With half the antlers, it had half the power to collect it. What mist it had hung loose in the air, pushed and pulled in ineffective strikes. Like it was trying to use all of it to strike Alyx and Cass simultaneously and getting neither effect instead.

  The company swordsman sunk his blade into the beast’s hindquarters. The antler-less head snapped around to bite him, stretching around, exposed before Alyx’s sword.

  Vulnerable.

  She swung and sliced clean through, decapitating it.

  The remaining head, still antlered, screamed. It reared back again, throwing its head back, blood fountaining from the stump and dripping from the countless rends across its body.

  The mist swirled around it, but Alyx’s amber-glowing blade cut through it like it wasn’t there and stabbed up through its chest.

  The alke’s scream sputtered. The creature fell limp. It collapsed to the ground.

  A cheer resounded through the watching crowds.

  Alyx pulled her blade from the beast, raising it high. Her aura enveloped the sword, growing brighter, bright enough to drown out the purple of the Fairy Fire still licking her skin.

  With a victorious shout, Alyx shot the aura into the air in a beam of light. A system window accompanied it. It was huge, big enough so everyone in the stadium could read it no matter where they sat.

  Major Blessing of Alacrity

  [You have proven yourself worthy of She of Stunning Brilliance and Striking Inspiration’s attention. She has granted you the right to bind with her chosen people: the dragons. Additionally, she has granted you the following boons:

  + 27% Ala

  + 9% Str

  + 9% Dex

  + 9% End ]

  The crowds went wild.

  “Velillia! I give you your Champion!” the announcer shouted over the crowds. “Alyx Aretios Veldor, bearer of Alacrity’s Major Blessing! Sear this image into your memory, folks. This is the beginning of something we haven’t seen in twenty years! Will this be the redemption of House Aretios?”

  Alyx’s aura dimmed, and Salos’s Fairy Fire flickered out. Alyx bent over and chopped the remaining antlers from the beast, then sheathed her blade.

  “These are for you, Cass.” Alyx handed Cass the antlers. They were enormous twisting things, still steeped in the dark mists that the alke had summoned.

  “Thank you?” Cass shuffled them in her arms for a better grip.

  Marco retrieved the other pair, though Cass wasn’t clear if those were also for her or if he was collecting them for Alyx, and she was too embarrassed to ask either way.

  The treasure company looked relieved, if disheartened. The swordsman’s shoulders slumped. The noncombatants behind them still shook.

  “Thank you for arriving when you did,” the lead swordsman said. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with ill-fitting armor and a simple sword. “Let’s move off the field before we’re interpreted as wanting to rechallenge the Catacombs, yeah?”

  Alyx nodded and led the entire group out of the spotlight and through one of the other two doors on the arena’s perimeter.

  Another group of people were waiting in the wings, an anxious air floating around them.

  “Best of luck,” the swordsman said to the group. They nodded back.

  Alyx led them into a side room with a wide table in the middle.

  Do you know what’s happening? Cass asked Salos.

  Not a clue.

  “Alright, what are you offering us?” Alyx asked.

  The treasure company set their bags down and started rummaging through, placing a number of strange objects on the table. A great many were orbs, gems, or metals, but there was a mix of unusual trinkets among them, too.

  “What’s happening?” Cass whispered to Marco.

  “This group’s a treasure company,” Marco said. “One of hundreds that tried their hand at the catacombs this year, I’m sure. But you can’t just come and go as yah please. Entering’s easy enough; just be invited like our lass or join the mad rush into the dark on the first day. If you weren’t invited or you don’t have the confidence to make it through the crowds, you can win yourself a spot to enter later in the week through the tournament they hold while the rest of us are down there.

  “But then, on the way out, invited or not, you’ve got to defend your winnings. They keep big monsters like that alke in the arena, throwing other challengers or monsters at each other while the crowds wait for divers like us to return. It’s a good, fun show. But, when divers come out, they got to beat whatever’s waiting for ‘em.

  “Win, and you keep everything you found down there with the duchess’s blessing. Lose, and best case, the city guard stepped in to save you, and you forfeit everything you brought back. Worst case, you die before anyone can save you and the city gets your loot, anyway.

  “Except if another team happens to come out while you’re still fighting. If another team saves you, giving ’em the first pick of your loot is customary. More loot, depending on how dire the situation was.”

  Alyx looked over the loot on the table, setting pieces aside in a small pile.

  “Is that okay?” Cass asked. The whole thing sounded ridiculous.

  “Eh, it’s better than dying or losing everything to the city. And most of the loot is redistributed as prizes for other tournaments, so it makes its way into good hands, eventually.”

  While Marco explained, Alyx spoke to the treasure company. “What floor did you make it to?”

  “We were primarily on the third,” the swordsman said.

  Alyx nodded, still looking through the loot.

  “A team like this made it to the third floor?” Cass whispered.

  None of them looked fit for fighting monsters to Cass. She wasn’t one to talk, but most of them looked even less martially inclined than Cass. Their highest leveled member was the orc shopkeeper—a green-skinned woman with hair silver from age and yellowed tusks protruding from between the corners of her lips. Like Cass, she carried a staff, though hers was a long metal rod with a mallet-like head about the side of the woman’s fist. She leaned on it like a cane rather than a weapon.

  Behind them, the diminutive dwarf—their lowest leveled member at lvl 17—fussed over their unconscious member’s wounds.

  The woman labeled ‘thief’ by the system flinched. Evidently, Cass wasn’t quiet enough for advanced Perception to miss.

  Cass flushed, her head ducking.

  “Three’s pretty ambitious for this lot, yeah.” Marco scratched his chin. “But clearly, things didn’t go too poorly for them. Look at their equipment.” Cass followed his gaze to their clothes and armor. There were almost no metal plates on their armor. Rather, their equipment was mostly thick leather. “That’s all Ridian leather, highly resistant to electricity and fairly slash-resistant. Now, think about the beasties in the catacombs?”

  Cass nodded. The gophers were a lot of slashing. The crocs and snakes were all electricity. And on floor three there shouldn’t have been wolves yet, as far as Cass had gathered from Alyx and Marco’s discussions.

  “With all fights, it’s not just relative power but also proper preparation. Besides, I imagine if they’d been full strength, they’d have handled the exit better.” He nodded toward the unconscious fifth member they’d laid over the back table.

  “Thank you again,” the swordsman said as Alyx pulled her small pile from the table.

  She shook her head. “I had to kill it the same as you. I’ll take this, but that just makes us even, understood?”

  He nodded.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Alyx said, waving for Cass to follow her.

  “Get anything good?” Marco asked.

  “They had little of value, and I wasn’t going to just take everything they had.”

  Marco nodded. Salos rolled his eyes.

  “But this should go a long way toward our new equipment.”