“Look, obviously this is meant as a challenge of teamwork. They put an obstacle in our way that nobody can overcome alone, but let us appear in a safe place for once, giving us all the time in the world to wait for allies to arrive.”

The islander-woman’s logic was sound, Trivelin would be the first to admit.

As the six of them huddled together in the stands, below, the centaur-gladiator paced the sand of the arena, sensing battle was near. It’s enormous paws clawed the dirt, muscles rippling in the light of the crystalline sun that hung over the ring.

“Do you think it can hear us?” The fisherwoman with the tiger-stripe tattoos asked.

“Anyone know thief-sign?” Trivelin suggested. There were blank looks from all. “Well then, if it can hear us, it can hear us.”

“Names.” The woman insisted. “I’m Umi.”

“Cevret.” One of the twins said. “Havret.” The other added. They were strange ducks. Blonde, short-cropped hair, smirking eyes, sour mouths that might genuinely have never smiled. Silver chains decorated their sleeves, dangling with obscure charms.

“Nim.” The man with the golem hand nodded. His entire arm was a beauty of shining bronze, little chains and gears exposed beneath the metal plates, sliding and shifting with every motion. A slender skeleton of tiny pistons formed the hand with its strange, spidery dexterity.

“Trivelin.” He saw no point in lying. By now, Cathara, that old schemer, would already know he was in the tower. The question was whose face he was going to wear when he left.

“And I’m Jakon.” The last of the group was an old, grey-haired adventurer who wielded a shovel in place of a sword, his right eye clouded over and blind. “Have any of you fought in a team before?”

“We’re always a team.” Harvet and Cevret answered in unison. Everybody else was silent.

“Well, I have two decades experience adventuring, and half of that leading my own crew. If you don’t mind, I’ve got a suggestion.”

The old man had a calm manner, and Trivelin was happy to let someone else take the lead and the attention. His mind was already elsewhere, calculating the next escape, not focused on climbing to the next floor.

“Go ahead.” Umi flicked her hand.

“The last time someone tried to group up on it, the bastard just started running and forced us to break formation to chase. So this time, we should start by forming a circle and closing in. It will still try to escape, but it will have to go through one of us.”

“Meaning it will head for the weakest link.” Nim stated.

Trivelin paused his scheming to glance up, and noticed everyone was looking at him. He coughed. “I can handle myself.” Truthfully he was no slouch with the blade, he had been a pirate for the better part of a decade, but…

Well dammit, everyone else here was a monstrous talent. There were people in this world who moved like tigers and fought like demons. Trivelin had stayed alive by avoiding them at all costs.

“Is he joining us?” Umi asked, glancing towards the seventh contestant. He stood alone, away from the group, staring out into the void past the edges of the arena. “Seems a bit like an odd fish.”

“We know who he is.” Cevret said, smug as anything. The man slowly turned. He was, indeed, an odd fish. His face was placid and calm as the surface of still water, with amber-colored eyes, a pair of spectacles sitting on his long, beaked nose. Dozens of lenses in different shades of crystal were perched at the ends of mechanical arms, where they could be dropped or lifted in front of the eyes.

“We won’t tell.” Hevret hastily added, elbowing his brother.

“I will do my part.” The man said slowly, and then smiled. It was a fanatic, unhinged kind of smile, one that reached his eyes and burned with a madman’s all-consuming focus. Trivelin found himself holding back the urge to shiver. “Sorry, I’m a bit easily distracted. Has anyone else noticed we seem to be in an entirely artificial world? It’s fascinating.”

“Seven! Seven’s my lucky number.” Umi declared, slapping her knee.

Some people, Trivelin remarked, had no sense of the weather. They could look right at an incoming storm and see pretty clouds.

They jumped down into the ring as one, seven sets of boots landing in the sand. The gladiator let out a snort, turning its armored head this way and that, choosing who would be its first victim. It was a chimera, the upper body of a man mounted on a panther’s black muscle and terrible claws, with a trident gripped in one hand and a net in the other.

Trivelin felt sweat trickle down his back as he tried his best to seem intimidating. Not easy, when the form he was shifted into was a head shorter than anyone else.

The gladiator’s paws raked the earth, and with a sudden bend of its hindlegs, it rocketed straight towards him. Trivelin grimaced and held his ground, waiting, hoping, his eyes closed-

The twins both reached out unison, standing on opposite edges of the arena. As they conjured twisting runes of spellwork the air rippled like a lake disturbed by a stone, and a net erupted into being between them, formed from silver-blue mist. It tangled around the gladiator, slowing him, draining the momentum from every movement.

At the same time, Nim and Umi were rushing forward.

Without the speed to catch up to Trivelin, the gladiator turned, sweeping its trident towards Nim in a backhand blow. The golem-arm leapt forward to meet the golden weapon, a sudden eruption of smoke venting from its inner workings in a billowing cloud full of firefly-embers.

Fist met trident with a strangely melodic note, ringing through the entire arena. Nim’s back foot was driven into the ground, the sand blown away and the hard earth beneath cracking as the force of the collision passed through him. The gladiator reared up, ready to finish him with a swipe of its terrible claws.

Umi’s fish-hook sailed through the air and snagged the long, vertical slits of the gladiator helm, twisting it on his head so he was blind for as split instant.

As the panther-claws swept down, Nim wasn’t there. As the gladiator reached up and realigned its helm, Umi suddenly was, leaping through the air to deliver a ringing blow with the shaft of her fishing rod against the golden helm.

Again, the sound was almost musical, but this time there was the added percussion of the gladiator’s infuriated roar.

It caught her out the air with a swing of its fist, smashing her down to the ground. She rolled as best she could, but she had no time to tuck her limbs in, and she came up limping on a twisted leg, a scowl on her face.

All the while, Trivelin hadn’t moved. What could he do? He just stood there, frozen, a slight weakness in his knees threatening to erupt into an actual tremble if he so much as tried to take a step forward. Paralyzed.

An arrow of ice struck the gladiator from behind, piercing its skin. Blood the color of oil gushed out as it turned, angry.

The twins, the mystery man, and old Jakon had formed a new perimeter, captured the beast once more, this time in a semicircle. The seasoned adventurer stood by to guard the twins as they drew golden designs into the air, the runic circles collapsing down into bursts of flame, flying blades, all manner of deadly weapons. They sailed towards the gladiator as he let out a thunderous growl and charged into the fray.

The mist-net had worn off by now, its ethereal strings torn away. Nothing else had even phased the beast. It ran forward at full speed, a blur of bronze flesh and black muscle, golden spear ringing beautifully as it struck projectiles out of the sky. In a blink, a heartbeat, the beast was almost on top of Cevret, almost ready to end him in a single blow.

Now.

The spectacled mage clapped his hands together. Earthen barriers erupted up around the beast, sealing him into a crude triangular prison formed by three walls each bursting diagonally from the ground. Numerous runic marks glowed on the walls, an angry, red hue, smoldering like fires and slowly building towards what could only be detonation.

One by one, the blazing marks burst into blooms of raging fire, tearing the prison apart as they bombarded the gladiator caught within.

And before the fires had even faded, all of them were rushing forward, even Trivelin, his better sense swept away by the bravado of the moment. They roared, closing in on the wounded, charred beast that struggled to stand on its wounded legs.

It screamed back, and swept its net against the earth. A huge dust-cloud billowed up, full of darting embers from the fire, and as their charge punched through the smoke and blowing grit, there was nothing- the beast was gone.

A shadow moved above them.

They all looked up in horror and saw it. The beast had dropped its net and jumped, catching the crystal orb that floated in the sky as an artificial sun with one hand- and with that one-handed grip, pulled itself over, vaulting over the sun.

Its trident was lifted high in a throwing stance, the points gleaming.

With a triumphant roar the gladiator hurled its weapon, piercing through Havret’s chest before any of them could move. It slammed down to the earth, catching Jakon beneath its paws and tearing him apart. With a flicker, both of them vanished, ejected from the tower’s challenges.

Nim lunged forward, but there was a ripple, and suddenly the trident was back in the gladiator’s hand. His own momentum ran him through on the triple spikes, and the man with the golem arm was gone too.

A gout of flame burst from Cevret’s hands, the poor man screaming in rage, not sure if his brother was dead or alive. The gladiator charged through in a single pounce of its enormous, burly legs, and cracked his spine in half with a swing of the trident's shaft. He lifted into the air like a broken doll and was gone before he hit the ground.

A fish-hook sailed through the air-

And this time, the gladiator caught it. Umi had time for a panicked, caught-out grin before she was yanked forward, the fishing rod ripped from her arms. If she had held on a second longer she would have been pulled under the beast’s claws.

“You two. How long do you think you can buy me?” The nameless mage asked. It was a damn good question.