Herald of death

The lord straightens its posture and picks up its cigar from the bench, where it fell in its surprise. It puffs once again, leaving time for everyone to calm down.

Megaera pushes the body of the mace-wielding man with her foot, dropping it into the darkness below. Ethan expects a thud that never comes even through predator's sight. He mentally estimates, 'At terminal velocity, the body would travel over fifty meters per second. It's already past the height we climbed to enter this place. Just how deep is this building?'

Twenty seconds pass before the lord breaks the silence. "Now that we have been ridden of the fools amongst you, I may finally explain how you'll play for your soul. For each game, you are to elect one amongst your room to partake. If you fail to do so, they will be chosen."

Ethan peers into the Ether and senses multiple presences equivalent to Ivy's amongst the participants. The lord is concealing its aura, but not well enough to counter Ethan's Ether perception. Its aura is weaker than Tatiana's, but something is amidst; the lord isn't absorbing Ether. Could it be that the cost of the ability it used to disintegrate a target was negligible? Or is it unable to recharge outside of meditation?

'If it's capable of vaporizing someone without spending a lot of Ether, why did Megaera slay one of them?' Ethan ponders. 'Any of the other two could have held him if necessary for the lord to declaim his sins. It would have been more … grandiose that way.'

"You'll enter a stage at the center of which a golden bough awaits. One by one, in an order decided every turn by chance, you'll move a tile in any of the four main cardinal directions. Moving next to another player will grant you a single attack against them. At the beginning of your turn, you may choose to attack someone next to you, but it will end your turn. Many boons and dangers will await you, and you'll need to make use of them to be the first to reach the prize. The winner must choose who will receive the chance to ascend. I will judge those who lose," the lord continues. It lifts an hourglass from under its bench, inverting it as it places it down for all to see. "You have until the last grain of sand to choose a participant."

Alecto coughs to clear her voice and translates the information in Chinese. Is there someone in the other rooms who doesn't speak English?

'Fuck. That's why they allow animals as participants. It isn't something Russ can partake in. And where is the list of those game elements? Do we have to test things to see if they will harm us?' Ethan thinks. His stomach tightens; he will volunteer should Russ be chosen. But winning twice? 'Taking part in the first game is reckless. I should at least wait to see how it unfolds. I doubt anyone will volunteer anyway.'

"The majority chose you; get to the platform," Alecto commands in Chinese from one of the bridges. It isn't an exact understanding of her words, Ethan filling up the gaps. An Asian man looks left and right, confused.

'I see; they chose him,' Ethan thinks. He glances at those around him. They are frozen, oblivious to what transpired in the other room. Worry creeps in Ethan's mind. Ivy's group knows what he is; they could decide to get rid of him. Or worse, they could all elect to send Russ. Would it be enough, or even allowed, to coerce them not to?

The hourglass runs out. The furies fly to different rooms and call out names. The people they order to join the central platform refuse. They recoil until their doors block their escape route. Megaera throws her chosen across the bridge. He lands with the cracks of breaking bones. Staring at him squirming on the stone ground, the others agree to move of their own volition.

Tisiphone lands in Ethan's room. Ethan's heart hastens outside of his control. Ivy and Mikko hold their breaths while the others' quicken. They stare at her except for Russ, who scratches the back of his left ear.

"Grant Dawson," Tisiphone calls. Her predatory stare finds him as she pronounces his last name.

He takes a step back. Looking at the man still unable to stand, his right leg broken at the tibia, he exits the tribune and moves forward.

Ivy follows him with her gaze. She looks worried, but Ethan notices that her body calms down at once. She's relieved that it wasn't her; who wouldn't be? But contrary to her or Ethan, the others stay affected by the stress they experienced for longer.

The last participant enters the arena. Its ground shines, rising into walls, decors, chests, and a pedestal holding the golden bough. Ethan recalls, 'It looks like One's little decor for the game we played. And from here they all resemble pawns.'

The furies fly upward before landing on the walls, giving them a view of every player. They all stand in the middle of a square tile, wide enough to hold them but not so much as to be out of reach of an attack coming from an adjacent tile.

The lord leans over the bench to scan the stage below. "Cheating in any way will be punished. This includes acting out of turn, disrespecting your movement restrictions, using abilities outside of the permitted attacks, or attacking more times than allowed to."

It pauses, letting its words sink into the audience. Its gaze moves from one competitor to the next. "Remember, you are playing for your life. Mercy and hesitation are not welcomed here."

Twenty faced dices, the size of soccer balls, appear next to them and roll to their feet. Grant, who's standing next to a tile holding a small chest, obtains the highest score with a twenty.

'What happens if there is a tie?' Ethan ponders. It isn't the case this round. 'They are not all equidistant from the bough and can't see it right now. It is in an isolated room, a bit off center. Is its position random?'

The number on Grant's dice shines. He glances at the furies and the lord with a questioning look. "What does this mean?"

"Your dice will shine once it is your turn to play," Alecto explains. She turns her head to the Asian player and relays the same information in Chinese.

Grant moves to the chest and, with a hesitant hand, opens its lid. A card rests at its bottom, bearing an illustration of a running man and some text. "Passive, you may move two tiles on your turn," Grant mutters to himself.

"Passive cards' effects only apply from the beginning of your next turn," Alecto clarifies. Once again, she reiterates in Chinese.

Another player's dice shines. The man, who was thrown by the fury, holds his bleeding leg, the bone jutting out. He doesn't notice the glowing numbers and seems like he's about to lose consciousness.

A silence hangs for a moment. Tisiphone walks down the wall section leading to the man. "As you are unable to continue playing, we have no other choice than to eliminate you," she says. She jumps down, summoning her blade and pointing it downward. The tip pierces the man's throat, ending his life.

The crowd gasps. Around himself, Ethan sees Mikko, Ivy, and Fabio shaking. Derek seems to be the only one unaffected.

The other players move one by one. The last of them, a woman, opens a chest and pulls out a card. It reads, 'Action, summon a Hobgoblin two tiles away from another player.'

"Actions may be played on the turn you loot them at," Alecto says in both languages.

"I want to use it," the woman informs. The card vanishes and a wall bursts, a Hobgoblin forming from the dust. It lands two tiles away from a player, who, in surprise, steps backward to another tile.

Tisiphone lands behind him, her sword summoned. She swings, and he parries with a Draugr's sword. She's too fast for him; before he can counter, she kicks his knee and uses the pain and distraction to place her blade along his throat. With a slow movement, she slides the edge against his flesh, cutting through to his spine.

The dices turn into coal-like dust, and a new series appears above the remaining players. Another dice manifest above the Hobgoblin. Ethan only realizes now that the monster stayed on its tile. 'Is it a player too? Could it take the bough and win?'

The dices roll once more, thudding against the arena floor. Grant stares at the number, almost as if he could alter the result with his will. His dice lands on an eight, last in the order. Once again, there are no doubles in sight.

On its turn, the Hobgoblin moves a single tile towards the nearest player. Its dead eyes seem devoid of any kind of emotion as it stares into the void.

As his number finally shines, Grant looks around. He can see the woman who summoned the monster a dozen tiles away. A chest lies two tiles from him, opposite to her direction. He moves to it and eagerly opens its lid.

A card rises from it, levitating in the air to Grant's eye level. 'Trap, Judgement.'

The lord brings its cigar to its maw and draws on it. "For your greed in stealing that which wasn't yours and your sloth in wasting years of your life to spirits and drugs, I condemn you to purgatory!"

In a flash of light, Grant disappears from the arena. He didn't make a sound, even from Ethan's enhanced point of view. No scream, no pain, no burning, no sublimation. He vanished without a trace.

This time, Ethan was peering into the Ether as it happened. No Ether left the lord; it appeared around Grant in vast quantities. Like for characteristic upgrades, it seemed to come from nowhere. 'Can this thing somehow control the system?'

Derek stares at where Grant was before raising his gaze to the lord. Tisiphone's attention falls on him, but everyone can tell he's seething. Slivers of life force escape into his Ether, strengthening his unconcealed aura.

"I'm sorry," Ivy whispers. The words break Derek's choler, and he looks back to her. Only Derek and Ethan can hear her. "I insisted we came here. I thought it would be like the dungeons – simple monster hunting. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault; we both knew that we could… die any time we entered a dungeon," Derek whispers back. He leans forward, his gaze turning back to the lord. "It looked like teleportation."

"What?" Ivy exclaims.

Derek whispers, "When the lord condemns someone, it looks a lot like a dungeon teleportation."

'I've never seen someone else teleport without doing so myself,' Ethan recalls.

The game continues. The participants find cards after cards. They allow them to move faster, locate the bough, summon or destroy monsters, move other players, and more.

The hobgoblin, now boosted by two of the woman's cards, rushes three tiles to stop next to the Chinese man. It swings a club at him. The man rolls to the side, avoiding the blow but landing on the adjacent tile.

"For your greed in selling dangerous and toxic creations as remedies to others' ailments, I condemn you to purgatory!" the lord booms. Light englobes the man, and he vanishes.

'Why kill some participants and condemn others? And how is it that on the forty-something rolls, none tied? Is the lord cheating?' Ethan ponders.

The woman, now one of two remaining participants, uses a card to exceptionally move five tiles. She reaches the bough and lifts it off the pedestal.

The lord draws on its unending cigar. "My congratulations. Now, choose who will be given a chance to ascend."

"Me, I choose me," the winner answers.

Light englobes her, and in an instant she's no more. The crowd gasps. This looked no different than the fate of the condemned. Could it be that this entire game is a trap, a hoax leading to the same fate?

'If she was teleported to the next trial, then Derek would be right; the condemned could also be teleported rather than killed,' Ethan thinks.

"As to you," the lord booms towards the remaining player. "For your envy in destroying your brother's marriage to strip him of the love you never knew, I condemn you to purgatory!"

The arena vanishes with the man and the monsters. The lord turns back the hourglass. "You have until the last grain of sand to choose a participant."

The tension in the room is palpable; a lot of them are still shaking from the deaths that occurred before them. The furies kick the corpses into the void. Ethan stares as the grains of sand descend one after the other.

'It would be safer to play the last two games,' Ethan thinks. 'But the chances of me and Russ remaining unselected are thin.'

Megaera lands near their platform. Her eyes narrow in on Fabio, her wings spreading slightly. The sand runs out, and without a break, she lifts her arm to point towards him. "Fabio Olivera, you've been chosen."

The blood drains from Fabio's face, his leg almost buckling beneath him. "No, please…," he whispers. In his stress, he fiddles with a golden ring on his left ring finger. Megaera moves forward to grab him, but he avoids her and starts walking down the bridge.

The arena transforms once more. The aesthetic stays the same, but the walls, chests, and bough positions all changed.

Turn after turn, they move through the maze. Warned by the first game, they make sure not to break any of the rules even when hit by monsters and traps. Or at least they try, as one rolls to the ground, consumed by a woman's Flamme spell.

Fabio finds himself at the edge of the bough room, two tiles away from the prize. His last adversary stands four tiles in front of him, and it is his turn.

The man approaches forward two tiles, just as many as Fabio can move. He shows a card and says, "I want to summon a wall in front of him." The ground rumbles, and a solid one-tile-wide stone wall bursts forth, cutting off Fabio's path. The other man gives the wall a cold smile, confident in his victory.

The dices fall once again, and Fabio plays first. He moves left and forward, placing himself next to the man. He swings his Draugr's mace to the man's head, but he blocks with his forearm. His bones break under the impact, and he falls to the ground. A passive card allows Fabio another strike, and he aims once again for the head. The man shields himself with his other arm, sacrificing it in the same way.

The wounded's dice shines, and he stands back up to stumble towards the bough. "I choose me," he cries, the pain seeping in his voice. The lord stays silent. The man grabs the golden prize between his teeth and reiterates. "I choose me!" Light envelops him, taking him away.

The lord's gaze falls on Fabio. "For your gluttony in gorging in my charity, I condemn you to purgatory!" Fabio falls backwards as light envelops him, making him vanish from existence.

'It lied,' Ethan realizes.