The door shut behind Jason as he walked into the room that at first he thought was a hallway that would lead to an arena, but instead, it was a moderately sized room that had several computer stations and padded benches. There was another door. It didn’t seem that it would go anywhere from appearances, but when he looked it was an bathroom with several shower and toilet stalls. He didn’t see any other doors or paths out of the room. After attempting to turn to access the computer and failing he was left with no choice but to sit and wait.

Jason sat on the bench and explored his VUI, looking for the settings that were supposed to be there according to Hanshi. A status display for people would be useful. It would probably be really useful right now. He looked all over in the interface for any settings that were like that, but no amount of probing into the various areas gave any clues about any such system. While he was exploring he came across an interesting fact. It seemed that the ability to contact the outside world via the messenger system was disabled. He hoped that would come back even though it had only been used by Mittana to harass him. It was only several minutes, but the waiting made it feel like an eternity was passing. Eventually, the ceiling lights began to blink red. A voice over an invisible speaker came on and announced that final preparations should be made as it was time for the match to begin. The room shook briefly. Then the room felt as though it was moving downward.

It felt like the room was twisting and turning. Sometimes it felt as though the room would stop moving before starting in another direction. It was just enough to discombobulate someone trying to follow its path, but for however fast the room went, the room never felt like there was any more force exerted on it than an elevator going up, or down, or to the side. Maybe a bit less for most of the time that it was moving. Before too long the roomed stopped moving and the door he entered to get into the room reopened.

Jason walked through the door. It lead to a long dark hallway with a light at the end. Jason made an amused grimace. “Light at the end of the tunnel. Cute,” he said to him. He walked towards the light uneasily. The room’s door shut behind him. There was no choice now. Proceed toward the light or stay in the dark until they found him, or perhaps they’d let him go.

As he approached the end of the hall, he eased himself forward trying to peer into what lay ahead of him. It would be better if he could see what he was up against before it saw him. He could make out what he thought was a short humanoid with a large head. As he approached he resolved the creature better. It didn’t have a big head. It had giant bat-like ears, each about the size of his head proper. That would be striking enough, but this thing had nose that was long and pointed above a smiling maw of sharp teeth. When it open its mouth its tongue dropped out with drool. It was 2 to 3 times as long as one would expect it to be, and pointed. It was bald, but it was not clear whether the creature just didn’t have hair, was short, or just fell out. It clothes all appeared to be dirty thin linen that had been made by tearing apart and sewing bags together to create the garments. Apart from this its forearms and hands were wrapped much like a boxer’s. It carried two nasty looking long knives that it was playing with by stabbing in the ground.

Jason gulped. Why would they make him a creature like this his first time in the arena he thought. He concluded that they just want to see him eviscerated. He passed judgement on the spectators and their sick and twisted entertainment. He didn’t have much of a hope in beating this thing, but if he didn’t have a chance it was in surprising it. He needed to kill it quickly and before it could attack him. He launched himself out of the hall and into the arena. Moving as quickly and silently as he ran at the creature.

Getting closer, the light of the arena made it easier to see the creature. It was a disgusting avocado green with splotches of dark hunter green. He was shocked at how close it resembled a fantasy Goblin, but he put it out of his mind. Win first. He drew his sword, jumped in the air, aiming to bring its blade down on Goblin’s neck. It gave no sense of reacting until the last moment when it spun to face Jason, blocking his attack with his two long knives. It laughed maniacally. Jason pushed, putting his weight on the block, hoping to break it, but it seemed to do nothing. The Goblin just continued to laugh as if it were out of its mind. He was able to look into the mouth of the Goblin and saw that its teeth were rotten and black or yellow, but more over it was very large with a double row of carnivorous teeth. It was looking into the jaws of a shark. A very dirty shark.

The Goblin’s stench hit Jason suddenly and he had to resist throwing up. He gagged. He needed to get away and recoup. His initial attack had failed and he didn’t have a plan to go forward. It would be better to play defense rather than just attack this thing relentlessly wearing himself down he thought. Jason roundhouse kicked at it. The Goblin quickly switched from blocking the sword to the kick, but the force of the kick pushed it back. He wasn’t used to kicking people. A pain shot up his body emanating from his shin. He was now able to retreat away from the Goblin. He had accomplished his goal, but at the price at a damaged leg. The Goblin when it stopped moving back just gave chittering laugh as it stared with bulging yellow eyes at Jason and stabbed the ground repeatedly.

Jason considered his situation. He didn’t see any opening to take advantage of, but he had to do something. He didn’t get the feeling that the Goblin was going to go on the offensive and reveal weaknesses. All he could do is poke at it and attempt to get through its defenses. He grabbed the pommel of his sword to stabilize his attacks as he stabbed at the body of the Goblin. It repeatedly knocked Jason’s blade away. He was getting nowhere. Each attack was easy for the Goblin to track and block against it. This went on for a while with no progress being made. Jason decided to change up his tact and began to wildly and quickly made strikes all around the Goblin.

Each of Jason’s attacks were cleanly blocked and he was getting more and more tired. The Goblin suddenly jumped at him and stabbed at his chest with its long knives, using the weight of his body to knock Jason to the ground, adding more force to his stab. As Jason hit the ground his wind was knocked out of him. He arched his back from the pain of hitting the ground caused by a jolt of pain shoot through his body. The Goblin repeatedly stabbed at Jason’s chest. It was a sure thing the Jason would die from the onslaught.

Jason felt the Goblin pound on his chest, but he didn’t feel a single stab. When he recovered his senses he looked down to see that none of the Goblin’s attacks penetrate his body. He didn’t understand what was happening, but he took advantage of it and threw it off of him. The Goblin landed and rolled through the momentum and sprung back to its feet. Jason pushed himself up off the ground. His breathing was ragged. The knives may not have stuck into him but the blows still hurt and he was still exhausted from his previous attacks.

Drawing his sword up to attack, Jason dashed at the Goblin. He made to pierce through the creature, but missed as the Goblin moved to the side avoiding the attack. Ignoring how open he was Jason spun backwards, swinging the sword’s edge at its neck once more. The creature stopped it with a single knife and thrusted its knife at Jason’s face. He saw it and shifted his head and arm to slam the Goblin to the ground, causing his sword to stick into the ground. Jason used this fact to push himself back to an upright ready position. He was lucky, because the Goblin roll bounced back to its feet with enough force to have landed a solid blow to Jason head if it had connected.

The Goblin took the initiative this time, charging at Jason. It launched himself off the ground, holding both knives over its head in a reverse grip. It was clearly aiming to stab its blades into his head. He raised his sword to a horizontal block, letting it run until it. To his shock the Goblin threw away its knives, grabbed hold of the sword blade, and launched itself back to the ground. In an instant it grabbed Jason’s dagger and, in the same motion, cut straight up his body shallowly, deep enough only to cut through his clothes and slices through his flesh to spill fresh blood. Simultaneously, the force of the Goblin pulling the sword down reflected back up, breaking his grip, and sending it up into the air.

When the Goblin landed it was was several feet behind Jason. He cackled with evil delight and rushed forward as Jason searched for his airborne sword. The creature jumped high into the air as it had done previously, but this time it was even higher and targeted the back of Jason’s neck as he had done to it. At just the right moment the sword came down into his grasp. He saw the creature in the air rapidly approaching him. With barely enough time and strength to react he swung the blade at the nightmarish creature and split it in twain along its midsection. The Goblin was surely to die now, but it was still able to stab the dagger into Jason’s left trapezius. Jason cried out in pain and began falling backwards. It no longer had the strength to hold the weapon and slid down his body. This wasn’t it’s last attack though. It bit into the Jason’s arm as it was dragged down from its own weight, drawing it bite down Jason’s arm. Beyond the pressure of the bite Jason felt nothing. The fabric of his clothing seemed to be preventing any more damage to be done to him.

“Please, collect you equipment and return to your rooms. If you cannot do so under your own power assistance will be given for a price,” a voice boomed out in the arena.

Jason struggled to get up. The blood coming from his chest wasn’t enough to need immediate aid, but if he didn’t get it taken care of it would assuredly get infected. he left the dagger in his shoulder, not knowing if it would be worse to pull it out. He shook the goblin’s body off of him, stood up straight, and looked around. He had failed to do so earlier. This is when he noticed that the arena was more than just a place to fight. It was a legitimate colosseum with seats for an audience and displays to show the action going on. There were a few people in the stands, but you had to really look for them to find them. New fighters are not going to draw in an audience obviously.

Before too long, a group of people came into the arena and made their way to the Goblin. They grabbed its body, brought it back together, and used a device that lit up over the Goblin. Jason could see that its internal organs grew and reconnected with their counterparts on the other side of its body. Suredly if he waited long enough the creature would be back up and lively, but Jason decided to get back to his room under his own power without asking for any healing assistance. He’d get Rina to heal him up tonight. It’d be good practice for her.

He made made it to the elevator room. The bench looked like an awfully comfortable place to him so he plopped himself down on it and laid down, closed his eyes, and waited for the room to return to its original position. Before he felt the elevator begin to rise he fell asleep, exhausted from the day’s events even though it had only been a few hours since he had left the inn.