Misadventures Incorporated

Leutgar groaned as he picked himself back up the floor and put his head back on his neck. The flesh mended itself in an instant, returning to its uncut state in less than a hundredth of a second. Though he hadn't technically died—the wound was a minor inconvenience at worst—Julius had stepped on his skull and put him in check a moment after the initial exchange.

"Good fight," said the cottontail. He walked over with an arm extended.

"You too." The elf sighed as he shook the other man's hand. "I didn't realise you were that fast."

"You would've had me if we were the same level," he said.

Leutgar smiled, but said nothing. The rabbit was clearly just being polite. Unless the ascension had increased his speed fivefold, it simply wouldn't have been possible for the elf to pull ahead.

One of the referees walked over during the exchange, and after making a few notes on a clipboard, raised her head to speak to the two combatants.

"Thank you both. Lord Evander, congratulations on your victory. Master Silverthorn, I bid you better luck with your next battle." She pointed a pen towards a small set of bleachers. "Could the both of you please proceed to where the others are seated?"

"My next battle?" Leutgar raised a brow. "Aren't I eliminated?"

"Not yet," said the scribe. "You will continue to fight until we're certain you won't be counted among the seven. And in fact, winning or losing isn't strictly relevant, given that the results are often match-up-dependant. "

"Huh." The elf scratched the back of his head. "That sounds… time-consuming."

"It's why we've gathered you all bright and early. And it's also why we'd like you to clear out as soon as possible."

Leutgar nodded and proceeded towards the seating area. A crew quickly ran a few operations on one of the terraformers and reset the ring before sending in a pair of replacements.

"This next battle features a special guest." The minister broadcasted her voice as soon as the stage was clear. "As I'm sure many of you are already aware, we happen to have our opponents from Vel'khan on site. One of their members, Miss Sylvia Redleaf, has graciously elected to participate in our selections as a guest fighter. This next match will be one of hers, and I would highly advise carefully observing it. This, of course, does not apply to those of you who are currently in combat. This will not be her only match. You will have plenty of opportunities to observe her."

"Uhhh… Hi. I'm Sylvia," said the fox, as a thousand eyes fell on her at once. She smiled awkwardly, stood up on her hind legs, and waved at the crowd.

Most of the onlookers were simply curious, but Leutgar frowned as he found his eyes upon her. He wasn't fond of talking animals, and foxes were the worst of them all. Even some three, four-hundred years later, he remembered how they'd almost lured him to his death.

Biting his lips, he watched as she nervously walked into the arena. It took the orange creature a few seconds to position herself opposite her opponent. She didn't seem even the slightest bit accustomed to fighting in a ring. Either that, or she was putting on a cutesy display on purpose. In either case, Leutgar was annoyed.

"Pay your respects," said the referee.

The fox was on the north side, but it took her a moment of fussing around before she realised that she was supposed to be speaking.

"Right. I'm Sylvia," she said. "I'm a fox."

It was a sloppy, incomplete excuse for a formal greeting, but her sparring partner didn't mind. Like Ephesus, she was up against a member of the royal guard. He was an older gentleman with a beard. Dyed the same grey as his fur, the silky smooth face decoration extended all the way down to his navel. His eyes were not as red as those of his younger peers, but they retained a piercing light. His body was, likewise, every bit as muscular as it was in his youth and his back was still ramrod straight as he stood at ease.

"Hello, Sylvia. It's very nice to meet you, and I thank you for the privilege of being the first to duel a warrior from Vel'khan" he said, with a grandfatherly smile.

"Oh uhmmm… I'm not really a warrior, or a fighter at all," said the fox. "I kinda only came along because my best friend did."

"Well, in that case, I suppose I will be the first to duel a Vel'khanese civilian then." The old rabbit chuckled. "Would you mind divulging your archetype?"

"I'm a bard," said the fox.

"Thank you," he said. "My name is Pryranian Daedelus, and I am a Heavenly Cottontail Daggerfoot. Classwise, I function as a battlemage, specifically one halfway between a monk and a ritualistic caster."

Sylvia tilted her head. "Wait, you use ritual magic?"

"I do." The monk lowered his stance and raised his fists. "You will see in a moment."

"Take your stances!" said the referee.

Sylvia stood up on her hind legs and placed a paw on her chest. "Ready!"

"Begin!"

The fight was nothing like Leutgar's. Neither fighter immediately charged at their enemy. The fox stood still and did absolutely nothing, while the monk drew a circle with his feet, clapped his hands together, and mumbled a prayer under his breath. In less time than it would have taken for anyone but the fastest attackers to close the distance, he completed his ritual. All of his muscles bulged at once as the rabbit grew to a height of almost three meters.

Had he not a specialized uniform, he surely would have found himself charged with public indecency. But fortunately for him and his criminal record, his outfit stretched and conformed to his newfound frame.

Sylvia, on the other hand, simply continued to watch as the man initiated a second ceremony. He knelt and prayed, charging his faith through his body before ripping his still-beating heart from his chest. By crushing it, he petitioned his god for strength. And surely enough, his body was flooded by her rosy divinity. It coursed through his mana veins and highlighted the precise shape of his circuits. Energy coursed through the air with every movement he made. Even his breaths caused his magic to spark.

It was only then, after he was fully prepared, that he leapt across the arena. He rose over fifty meters into the sky before crashing down feet first, intent on smushing the fox beneath his naked toes.

Perhaps if she were her great-grandfather, Sylvia might have allowed the attack to land just to experience the sensation. But with no such fetish, she turned incorporeal prior to contact and waited for the attack to pass through her body. The lazy defense had perfectly negated the stomp, but Sylvia fell to her knees. She choked and gagged as blood leaked from her lips. For there was little fouler than the scent of a 2000-year-old athlete's foot.

A bubble appeared around her and repelled every blow thereafter. The accompanying air filter ensured that she was kept safe from every part of his attack. The man delivered a few hundred strikes and completely shattered the arena before finally backing away with a frown.

He took a few seconds to scrutinize her barrier. With another breath, he tapped the back of his fist against his chest. His whole body deflated in an instant and returned to its usual size. The energy that had fueled his transformation gathered in the palm of his hand, twisting and swirling as it wrapped itself around his index finger.

Only as he pointed it towards her did he unleash its power.

The arcane torrent glassed the sand between them. It drilled itself against her barrier with all the might of a blazing inferno. If not for the barrier that surrounded the training grounds, the castle behind her surely would have crumbled to dust. Just like everything beneath and above her. A giant cylindrical void was blown into the ground and the sky alike.

A murmur went through the crowd, one that only grew louder as the debris cleared to reveal that the fox was neither harmed nor bothered. If it were up to her, the battle would have ended long before the man had a chance to show off his stuff. But at a certain snoose's instruction, she had allowed him a five second head start followed by a lengthy display—a brief moment to show his stuff and demonstrate her stalwart defense.

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And coincidentally, those five seconds had passed in the time it took for the dust to settle.

Clearing her throat, Sylvia pressed a paw to her chest, straightened her back, and began to sing. The tune that left her lips was somber. Though her voice echoed through the castle, it almost seemed quiet, like a faint whisper in the wind. It was a gradual crescendo, a faint but mellow ascension like that of an opera's solo. Her notes were gentle but resonant, with each word, each description of the abyss ringing through the minds of all who dared to listen.

Of course, her opponent was not so foolish as to allow her to cast unhindered. He crossed the battlefield and hammered her barrier with attacks. But not even with his strongest was he able to crack the shell. It didn't matter what he did or to whom he prayed. Every attack bounced off the shield without exception.

He was forced to endure, to fight and struggle, until she finally reached the end of her hymn.

And activated the corresponding spell.

It was one that she had never quite used in combat before. She simply didn't have the opportunity. The equitaurs on which she grinded most of her levels had long learned to pierce her defenses and work their way around her incorporeal form. There were no opportunities for her to sing a song whose effects would only manifest upon completion—there were no opportunities for her to recite the scene of her twenty-first nightmare.

The sky blackened as the castle and its audience were taken into the void and held in the palm of a giant. It was no ordinary bipedal, but a horrifying distortion of a creature whose form was far from certain. Sometimes, it was a congregation of mouths, an all-consuming terror whose sole purpose was to devour until all was eaten, and others, it was a mess of hearts. Anywhere from one to ten thousand beat at once, each to its own haphazard drum.

But no matter its form, its core was constant. A single eye with a thousand disproportionate limbs. Their lengths and thicknesses were entirely random. Some were wide as the stars but short as a needle, while others extended beyond the sky. Whatever the case, they were boney, near fleshless in their construction.

The two that held the castle and its residents were covered in pulsing flesh. Its veins shifted under its skin, constantly dilating and constricting at a rate far too fast to be natural. Six times a second, they pulsed, carrying a thick green gloop to the pustules scattered all over its body. Each was large enough to put one of the castle's chambers to shame, and within each swam a river of souls, crying, screaming, begging to be released from the beholder's fluorescent chambers.

Seven of its longer, thinner arms converged on her rabbit-shaped opponent. He stood his ground and met them with his fists, but while they certainly flinched at first, they soon seized him and bent his spine backwards as they brought him towards the creature's core.

It opened its eye wide and bathed the warrior in the sickly green light that emerged. Perhaps if he were an ordinary man, he would have screamed in pain. But for a Cadrian elite, the searing pain was easily ignored. His nerves were so burnt out on the sensation that he simply didn't care. He did, however, grow somewhat concerned as he realised that he was being pulled from his body. A spectral copy of his hands and feet had already escaped, and the rest of him was slowly following suit.

The aberration was stripping his flesh from his soul.

He flailed wildly, summoning all the strength he could, but breaking from its grasp was impossible. It simply dug its fingers deeper into his flesh and pinched his nerves, cutting off all sensation to his furthest extremities.

And then, suddenly, the pinching sensation was gone. His limbs responded again. But his vision was tinted in green.

All around him, there was groaning. Screaming. Wailing.

Spinning around, he found a terrified spectral human quivering in her boots, a panicked giant bird bashing its head against a wall, and an elf strangling himself as he flailed. So on and so forth, the scene was filled with deranged spirits. All crammed into an impossibly large but tiny space, small as a bathtub but vast as the sea. He couldn't stop himself from seeing and processing everything at once as his spirit began to unwind.

The strands floated off of him and into the mess, melding into the different people scattered all around. He chased after the strands, but they slipped out from between his fingers. Because they too had started to scatter.

No matter how hard he tried, they refused to come back together.

One by one by one, the pieces that made up his self began to disappear.

He didn't think much of it at first.

It was just an effect of the enemy's attack.

And as with any attack, it had to have an oversight, a weakness that he could break and exploit. All he needed to do was find it, and he would be returned.

It was as he reaffirmed his goal that he finally realised that something was wrong. He couldn't help but feel like he'd been struck over the head, perhaps beaten just a little too hard, for he couldn't quite recall the exact field of battle to which he owed his presence.

He didn't even remember what year it was.

Or how old he was.

Or even who he was and why he was fighting.

Or if he was really fighting at all.

Suddenly, the feeble old man was struck by a sense of dread. He started to shake as he tried to recall his appearance and identity, as he desperately scrounged his brain for even the slightest clue.

That was when a thread passed in front of him. Desperate, he grabbed it. And recalled that he was Adja Arslan. She was a sad little child who'd once suffered from a chronic wasting disease. And thinking that she couldn't be cured, her parents had offered her to a group of cultists. She needed to escape before they did the unthinkable. Vefa was waiting for her by the river. If she could just run there, then she could easily escape.

Yes.

That was right.

She needed to meet him.

Even though the cultists had already ripped off his head and fed her his flesh.

It was very tasty flesh. It was no wonder she loved him so dearly, no wonder she didn't resist when they strung her up by his guts and relayed his final words. Yes. Even in death, Vefa had offered his loving embrace.

It was so wonderful.

So blissful.

So wrong.

Until he vomited. He couldn't be Adja. No. He didn't know who he was. But he couldn't have possibly been Adja. Nor Ryan, nor Aleksej, nor Kenneth, nor Vivi, nor Kaede, nor Pryranian, nor Jinho, nor Katerina, nor Cletus, nor Bob, nor Manon.

It wasn't right.

Nothing was right.

He couldn't remember anymore. She didn't know who she was. Why he was. Or why she fought so hard against His will.

After all, it was waiting. Waiting for her to offer himself.

It was right there.

The.

Eye.

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Waiting.

Salivating.

Ready to accept.

They were its children.

They were its suffering. Its joy. Its raw, unadulterated affection.

They were there to feed everything it was and wanted to be.

He wasn't bound any longer. All he needed to do was hand himself to the eye. All he needed to do was show the eye to everyone he had ever known and loved.

And then it would all be over.

His pain would all be over.

And then, suddenly, it was.

When he next blinked, he found the verdant, swirling world replaced by a familiar dirt. With familiar voices in his ears, and a familiar sense of identity.

He gasped for air as he clawed at his throat. It wasn't until after he broke the skin that he realised he didn't need it. His lungs were full and the only damage he'd suffered was that which he'd inflicted upon himself. It was obvious from his reflection. He could see himself perfectly in the mirror that was his bubble-shaped cage.

His face was covered in ink. Someone had drawn a series of images upon it, including three sets of genitals and a strange creature he somehow recognised as Adja Arslan.

Shaking his head, Pryranian brought a hand to his brow and laughed.

It was starting to look like the proxy war would be more fun than he'd expected. But he couldn't kick back and enjoy it just yet.

First, he would have to prepare a sacrifice.

Something to feed the eye.