“Dathai, you’re late,” Elora said. The elf and my best pal Jake the demon waited for me in the shadow of the Labyrinth. Similar to the Colosseum, it had something of a Greco-Roman vibe, but it wasn’t Greek or Roman, not really. Despite the minotaurs and satyrs milling about inside the massive stone walls and the similar appearance to ancient sites, this place belonged to Convergent City.

  I strolled up and shrugged. “This place isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Rude, dude.” Jake rolled his pure red eyes, long, slim arms crossing over his chest. He was tall enough to make it intimidating, and his folded black wings bulked his form up.

  I didn’t apologize for it, didn’t feel sheepish about it anymore, either. I shrugged and said, “Chores be chores, and a Salt Spear contributes. You know I show up.”

  Days had passed with us working as a team, going on forays into Subterania to practice tactics Frag came up with. If you can’t trust a classed Tactician to design sorties, who can you trust? When Jake, Elora, Akilah, and Fig felt like they’d had enough of killer insects—I’d been over them since level 6—we made the decision we’d planned on for a while.

  While Fig, Frag, and Akilah stayed at the workshop to make ‘genius,’ Jake, Elora, and I headed to the Labyrinth to sign up for the arena fights.

  I glanced at the lettering chiseled into the statue of a minotaur beside the entrance; not Greek or Roman, to my limited knowledge. I started for the broad gap in the wall that might have held a portcullis at one time. The wide, worn flagstones beneath my boots were uneven, the stone rutted over hundreds, maybe thousands, of years by the passage of wagons and hooves.

  The overbearing limestone walls, pitted by rain and time, rose like monoliths to tower above us as we passed through, weaving aside as a wagon rolled past, kicking up the scent of stone dust and sun-warmed horsehair. We turned to watch it go and followed. The streets were as tall and narrow as the walls, shaded except during high sun.

  A satyr swaggered towards us, a lazy smile curling his lips. His gaze locked on Elora. She grabbed my hand and tucked in close to my side, frowning. As the goat-legged man passed, he turned to look again. Jake hissed a warning through his fangs.

  “Satyroi have a bad reputation,” Jake murmured, still watching as the man swiped the point of a horn in a mock salute and wandered on towards the open gate.

  “Not like faun at all,” Elora murmured, still clinging to my arm. “Faun are sweeter.”

  I mean, compared to Satyroi, sure. But fauns also worshipped Magara the Blood Hungry. Anyway. I hadn’t noticed stuff like that in Convergent City. I guess my current privilege of having a male avatar was showing.

  “What kind of reputation?” I asked, my gaze skating over the crowd of aliens with suspicion.

  “You know Dionysus, right?” Jake said, his hooved gait causing his wings to bounce, his cast shadow taking on a kind of lurch from it. He continued, “God of festivity, madness, and frenzy, amongst other things. They’re kinda like the douches that would roofie girls at parties.”

  I nodded, getting it. Kinda got it when I saw the look in the Satyr’s eyes. El Creepo. I raised a brow at Jake and said, “Guess we finally found the bad side of town.”

  “Eh,” Jake murmured, gaze slipping away. “Twilight can be pretty bad, too.”

  “Demons, weres, and witches? Nooo,” I groaned, grinning. “Couldn’t have imagined the posturing and fetishy stuff.”

  “Some of those demons are real,” Jake said, his tone still hushed, glancing around as if one of them could be listening.

  I growled, bristling, “Are they messing with you?”

  My muscles twitched, already relishing the idea of crushing some demonic bullies. Or the Satyroi, for that matter. My blood fired up like a struck match. Let them start something in my presence. I’d finish it.

  Elora patted my arm and whispered, “Down, boy.”

  “No,” Jake admitted, but he had a troubled look. “But I’ve seen things. I’m gonna be moving over to Lacunae with Fig. It’s closer to the workshop anyway. I don’t fit in Twilight. I thought I did, but…” He shook his head, shaggy white emo hair bouncing around his eyes.

  I relaxed a little. Still. That adrenaline spike had nowhere to go. Lingered. Didn’t drain as quickly as it used to when I was a human, I thought. The memory of being angry as a human drifted, unmoored in the fog of the past. Which pissed me off again.

  We walked on through the looming maze, following our minimaps toward the heart of the Labyrinth. Elora let go of my hand after a while to go look at some sparkly items on a blanket. Thankfully, she didn’t buy anything. Just seeing her peruse the jewelery made me think of Shivrith. I glanced around. In a way, it reminded me of the bustling heart of NYC, 1925, just no glass to catch the blazing blue of the little sun.

  There weren’t full-on crowds, but there were clusters of people. Bugs sold their natural wares, fae—other than sprites—peddled magic trinkets and fairy dust. A few reptilians were sightseeing, clustered together, big eyes wondering at the view. An imp pickpocketed one of them and darted off with a cackle. What’d it steal? Fish?

  Humans thronged, as well as the minotaurs, kobolds, and satyroi that called this place home. I spotted a few orcs. I was surprised to see that. There were street scuffles and people wandering around, clearly drunk or high on something.

  Unlike the other parts of the city, it felt like there were no NPCs here. Almost everyone behaved in what I’d come to think of as sapient, unprogrammed ways. They were not measured or cyclical in their behavior. They were loud, messy, and miserable.

  Maybe that was what got under my skin, why my fists were clenched and I walked with my chin down, glare up. Chaos reigned.

  Everything about the Labyrinth suggested that law didn’t exist there. Not like the rest of the city. It was clear that the sheriff didn’t cross into the Labyrinth. I’d imagine Deputy Savage would have been all over these people if they were allowed in. My aspect screen had no answers about who the district lord was when I searched it. Helpful as usual.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  A roar from a doorway caused me to back up, arm out to hold Jake and Elora back as a minotaur flew out of the darkness, past us, and tumbled into the street. I shot a glance in and sidestepped the minotaur, who was already rolling to his hooves, guiding Jake and Elora around the danger zone. The minotaur roared and charged back in, footsteps thundering. I caught sight of his HP on my HUD.

  I could take him. Maybe. However, that wasn’t the point of this trip. I shook my head to clear it of the urge to join in a random brawl and sighed at myself.

  “Did you just soccer mom us?” Jake asked, pointed teeth flashing in a grin.

  Elora giggled nervously, eyes riveted on the doorway the massive man-bull had just tumbled from, then barreled back into just as quickly.

  “I don’t like this place,” I rumbled, my voice full of a hungry hostility.

  “Me either,” Elora said, head on a swivel. She’d fit herself between me and Jake.

  If I hadn’t seen her in a fight, I’d have been concerned. Maybe I should have been. We’d only ever fought the Subterania creatures and Shivrith together. Would she be able to manage harming something more like us? Would I? I glanced at her in that moment of doubt.

  Guess we’d find out.

  “I’ll feel better once we register and get out of here,” Jake agreed. “This place is one beer and a stupid comment away from being a massacre.”

  “Little like walking on the street in GTA,” I joked.

  Jake nodded, twitching an almost-smile.

  I was looking at Jake when I saw it. The thing I’d been looking for and afraid of finding all in one mixed-up bag of anxiety.

  The Fleshworker’s Shop.

  I stopped dead, staring at the storefront. Pictures of every race in Archive’s list floated outside the limestone facade, the holos colorful. Enticing. There were no windows. Only a door. Closed, with a sign, ‘Be back in 1 hour.’

  Elora tugged on my arm. Jake had taken a few steps ahead of us and stopped, looking back. I snapped back from my stunned silence. It had been here this whole time. Here.

  A slow breath escaped from my nostrils.

  The cold wall of inertia broke. With a decisive step, I nodded to my friends and kept walking. Twenty days—hell, even twelve days ago—I would have walked in. Now?

  I walked past the door.

  The Salt Spears accepted me. I had a place here as the half-orc. It was hard won, and I wasn’t letting go of it just to get a skin back that was just… It was the past. A past I’d win back, in due time. Until then, I resolved to be this hybrid design I chose, for better or worse. I knew how to fight in this skin, got used to the height, the weight, the instinctual surges.

  I justified the hell out of my choice in my head as we left the Fleshworker’s Shop behind.

  We made our way through an open-air beer garden, slipping past tables of raucous people and two more fights before we got to Labyrinth Square. A massive building soared in the center, its construction a more whimsical version of a Parthenon. Whereas the Parthenon had tall Doric columns and a low, peaked roof, stoic in its geometry, this had arches more reminiscent of the Colosseum along with stately columns and broad granite steps.

  A line formed at the building steps, full of people with armor, some holding their weapons like badges. Many postured, some in groups, others, solo.

  “So this is where the sweaty try-hards went,” Jake said, eyeing the uneven line of warriors.

  I checked the stats of those closest enough to register on my HUD. It was a tough crowd. Most of them were in tiers above us. I drew in a breath and straightened my spine, shoulders rolling forward, elbows dropping outwards in an unconscious display of low-key aggression. Crowds sucked. Lines sucked. To get to our goal, we had to stand in the blazing sun and wait.

  Elora, slipped between us, grabbed both of our hands. I fought the urge to shake off her nervous grip. I flicked a glance at Jake, then spoke to her.

  “We’ll be okay. We have grit, and we’ve been practicing. As long as you’re with us, you’re safe.” I meant at the moment, because I couldn’t predict the future. Frag had come up with some good offensive and defensive plans. Even knowing plans were about as predictably useful as a compass in a room full of magnets, having drilled some good habits hadn’t hurt us.

  The hall and steps were lined with guards. One would-be gladiator tried to cut in line—a female orc, go figure—approached from an angle, straight for the entrance. A scarred human in the same tactical armor that SWAT used stepped up to intercept. The orc, probably one of us new abductees, took a swing at him.

  Without blinking, the guard shot the orc in the throat with a plasma blaster. What was left of the orc’s head tumbled away and despawned with her body a moment later. Elora grabbed my arm again, and we three exchanged glances.

  “No cutting in line. Got it,” I muttered.

  It took twenty minutes of creeping forward in line until we gained a spot in the shade of the building. That gave us plenty of time to read holos floating everywhere covering the Arena and its rules, or lack thereof. Moving closer with the queue, I was allowed a few glimpses of what lay within the shadows. The stink of sun-warmed fur, damp leather, and a multitude of sweating bodies hung low in the air. Some of these guys didn’t know how to wash their ass cracks. My nose was more a curse than a blessing.

  Squinting at the sting in my sinuses, I stepped forward as the line moved. Elora’s arm stayed hooked around mine, and I felt her tug Jake forward, anchoring on me like a lifeline. Her nerves were tweaking mine, and I fought my face to keep a flat expression. The scowl wanted to come out. Badly.

  When it was our turn, I was a little surprised to find them using paper. Old school as hell, when the Grand Market had things equivalent to cell phones and data pads. A woman leaned on a low stone counter, along with a few other clerical types.

  Wait. Not quite a woman.

  Half of her was. The other half was a scorpion, with a nasty-looking stinger hovering just past a slender shoulder. It was twitching a bit. She’d probably already had her fill of bravado and obnoxiousness. Her gaze flicked up from the long scroll held down by metal spacers. In Orcish, she asked, “Name?”

  “Dathai,” I replied, shifting my stance. Just in case I pissed her off somehow. I wasn’t always good at the peopling thing, and that stinger? Probably poisonous.

  “How many in your group?”

  “Six.”

  “Classes?”

  “Fighter—Berserkr. Magetech healer. Druid. Bard-Technomancer. Sentinel-Battle Analyst, and…” What was Akilah’s class again? I thought of her as a mage, but she wasn’t. The stinger twitched again.

  “Incarnate. Entropy Incarnate.” I blurted as my brain caught up.

  The woman’s brow perked a few times, reading over what she’d written. “Are you sure?”

  “As I can be,” I said with a confessional shrug. I shot a look at Elora and Jake, who nodded.

  “Unusual. Boss might like this. Tier?”

  “Mixed, mostly around levels seven to nine. One ten.” I generalized, looking at the party statistics. She didn’t ask for anything more specific. I was glad. I was ready to get out of there. The press of people was almost as bad as at the auction house.

  “Does your group have a name?”

  “The Outliers,” I said, nodding at Elora, who’d come up with it.

  “Excellent. Pre-registry is complete.” She reached out of sight and slid six small tokens toward me. “You’ll be notified of the next arena battle. And, don’t forget… if individuals terminate registry, they cannot enter the battlegrounds again.”

  “Huh?” I said, hand hovering over the tokens.

  The scorpion woman’s eyes darkened, and her tail twitched. “Read your contract terms. Next!”

  “Great. Thanks,” I murmured, sweeping the tokens into my palm. Contract terms?

  My aspect screen had a list of documents I had somewhat skimmed, sort of. A new one was in the list, labelled [The Arena]. Ugh. I’d look it over later. My brain was already cooked, having stood in a line of uniquely scented individuals for way too long.

  We got out of there quickly and hurried back through the chaotic brawls and casual crime to the Labyrinth’s edge. We paused in the shadows of the high stone walls that kept the district’s raucous madness mostly contained.

  I pressed a token into Elora’s palm and then into Jake’s. It was official. We were arena fighters. The System confirmed it, my aspect screen appearing to announce our new status and a slew of new System tasks attached. XP was in our future and a step toward my real goal: digging out the System by its roots.

  “We’re in,” Jake sighed, gaze drifting back toward the district with an unreadable expression.

  “For glory,” I said, a savage smile pulling at my lips.

  -ARCHIVE-