The next day saw another round of wishes for Rime, and another round of elixirs for Jessie. Our healer was up to two hundred seventy eight Vitality, and with only half of her elixir limit used up. She hadn't quite made it to the halfway point, but it was close. Sadly that was the easy part of the day, because after that we had to head in to the arena for our now daily match.

This was the sixth round, meaning we had two more after it before we switched to the solo fights. Upon arrival, we made our way down to the room under the stands to wait to be called out into the pit.

We sat for about twenty minutes, approaching the guy who was assigned to wait with us for a hint, but getting shot down and told to just wait. Finally we were called out into the arena, and on reaching the sand pit, were greeted by our next opponent.

"Greetings!" Said the short man in the huge hat with kelp green hair. "My name is Albai! I am the current representative of the Magnificent Fable Forest. You must be the team from the Starchaser Pavilion! We were warned about you all, so we won't be taking you too lightly."

Callie froze. "Oh shit." I looked at her quizically, and she swallowed hard. "They have Fable in their name, and they were warned about us. I'm guessing this is one of the teams sent in by the Faerieland, probably a legacy team like the Heavensong Tower." She turned back to Albai. "I take it Celine's sister was the one who warned you, and that warning came with instructions to show no mercy?"

He nodded cheerfully. "Of course. Lady Nalia was most displeased at her sister's defiance. She's instructed me to be extremely rough on you to prevent such an affront from occurring again. Lady Celine has been refusing to respond to meeting requests, and Lady Nalia's ability to punish her while under the purview of the Unity is unfortunately curtailed, so you'll be the instrument of her discipline, as it were."

The tiny red haired girl in the ponytail and the blue dress scowled at us. "I don't see what's so impressive about them that the Lady would be willing to forsake her family. They seem pathetic to me."

Another woman to her side, one with literal metallic gold skin and bronze hair, clicked her tongue. "Don't underestimate them Roxy. They must have something going for them to get this far. I hear one of them is even a Master Candidate." I was a bit surprised they didn't have any up to date information, but then I remembered that we'd been befriending the teams we went up against.

Sure you could watch the matches from the stands, but experiencing an attack was much different than seeing it. Like Alec's Fist of the Red God used golden fire, and so did Mel, but the two attacks were radically different in effect and application.

Roxy snorted. "I call bullshit. You're just too cautious Fiona. If they had a Master Candidate who was any good we'd have heard of them from before the tournament. I bet they're just hyping him up for the reputation."

"Enough, you two." Said the last team member, a huge rotund man with a bald spot so large he only had tufts of hair on either side of his head. "We're here to beat them, not insult them. Lady Nalia wants them used as a lesson, but that doesn't make them less worthy of our respect."

Albai nodded. "Right you are Garret, they've shown extreme talent and skill to get this far. We'll do them the courtesy of demolishing them with our full power." He spread his arms wide. "Now, to begin the match, I dislike this dreary sand. Let's change the scenery a little bit." He tilted his head back a bit and whistled.

As the sound split the air, there was a ripple behind him, and the air above his head and back a few feet started to swirl. As it swirled, color began to mix into the nothingness, green specifically. The whirlpool of color and space accelerated, dragging more space into it, and the entire field around us blurred momentarily before returning to normal again after a second of disturbance.

Well...not normal. Returning to being clear. The area around us was much different, specifically the whole sand pit had been replaced by what looked like a giant forest clearing full of colossal mushrooms. Roxy, who was staring at us, giggled. "Welcome to Wonderland." She said maliciously. Her eyes, which were shining with ruthless glee, began to ACTUALLY shine, and they transformed into a deep gold from their originally normal hazel. As they did, her body shifted, taking on the form of a massive wolf creature that bounded into the surrounding treeline, somehow vanishing into the shadows between.

Garret reached out and snapped his fingers, calling up a humongous caterpillar beast, and Fiona laid a hand on the monster, coating it in a casing of solid gold armor that looked much tougher than normal gold. Abel snorted, stepped forward, and cocked back a fist. He lashed out at the caterpillar monster and...nothing happened.

We all froze. "What's wrong?" Said Callie quickly. "Why aren't you attacking?" She sounded nervous, which I didn't blame her for given the circumstances.

Abel growled. "I can't. My ability isn't working and neither is my manifestation. The space here is being...restrained. I think this is a Domain ability. I've never actually seen one before. They're much more common in the Faerieland. This guy's Fantasy stat must be HIGH for it to restrain me like this. Probably a few boosting Skills between them too."

Cursing, Callie started looking around. I triggered Seek Hidden, expanding it to her through the bond, and looking for the wolf girl. As we searched, she grilled our mentor. "What is a Domain ability exactly? What does it do? Aside from..." She gestured around us. "This."

Unfortunately, that didn't seem like it would do us much good. "No clue." He said flatly. "I only know a bit about it, it's not a common style of cultivation here. It's not even a universal thing there, as I'm sure you remember, your elf friend uses something closer to the Empire's nobility cultivation. All I know about it is that it can lock down space in a way that makes it effective against Master Candidates and that to take it down you need to take out the caster or overwhelm it in some other way similar to a Domain."

I scowled. "Well how are we supposed to do that? If you can't use your ability or your martial art how the hell are we supposed to beat THAT." I gestured wildly at the massive metal caterpillar. " Nevermind the wolf thing Roxy turned into?" I was still scanning the treeline. "Speaking of, Nightstrike, do you see her yet?"

"I didn't say my Ragam wouldn't work." He said calmly. "I said I can't make manifestations right now. I'm still a Master Candidate, I'm just more limited in my range. Starbreaker, take care of the wolf girl, I'll handle the metal bug. Nightstrike, you and Solomon can handle Albai, just be careful. I have no clue what he can do in here."

One of my favorite things about Callie's leadership style was that she had zero compunctions about letting other people take charge if it was needed. Abel was by far the more rational choice to come up with a plan since he knew even a tiny bit more than us, and she had no issues letting him.

Albai and the others seemed content to play defense, with one exception. I felt a buzz through the bond as Callie noticed an incoming attack from behind me and spun to finally catch sight of Roxy, who had been hiding but was uncovered by Seek Hidden. She'd already committed to her assault so she only slowed down for a second before barreling toward me anyway despite losing the element of surprise.

Callie and I turned and moved even as Mel appeared in front of her, propelled forward by her flames like a damn rocket booster in a move so fast I could barely track it. I DID notice her seeming to tense up when she got there, presumably unable to handle the strain, but she quickly moved into a hand to hand fight, mobilizing her massive Might and coating her punches with flame.

As we turned to head for Albai, were shocked to see the massive caterpillar in a crater, with Abel already on top of it, fists driving into the plated shell like drop hammers as the summoner and metal woman tried to interfere in a panic. Grinning, I activated Leaf on the Wind, grabbed Callie, and hurled us forward with a long, low leap, right at the captain of the enemy team.

We came in fast, and I once again wished I had a weapon, because this bastard had somehow used his Domain to expand himself into a series of illusions, surrounding us and staying just out of reach. Callie lashed out with a hand, trying to pincushion all of them with her shadows, but nothing came of it.

I dismissed and retriggered Seek Hidden, and was pleasantly surprised to see the glow of a locked on target on one of the bodies, able to alert Callie through the bond without needing to say anything.

My girlfriend, well practiced at deception in battle, created another wave of shadow blades, and I triggered Flurry of Blows, funneling it into her attack to speed up the stabbing shadows. Since it was an area of effect attack, Albai didn't notice we were onto him, and I watched him use his Domain to somehow swap places with one of the illusions.

Once he did, Callie redirected ALL her shadow spears at him at the last second, and Albai snarled, agitated for the first time. He clicked his fingers and Roxy appeared in front of him, the wolf girl seemingly unsurprised at being summoned as she braced for the blades.

The giant humanoid beast shifter took all the blades head on, getting torn apart by the shadows with a snarl of rage, but even as she pulled them back they began to heal. I planted a foot, activating Stone Limb as casually as possible, stacking a triple density shifting blow with Consecration of Flames and Touch of Tears to make a poisoned version of my Magma Leg.

I waited for Callie to launch an attack again and Albai to swap out, and as soon as he did I triggered Double Trouble. I was already whirling off my back foot and swinging my leg around with the full rotation of my body when I appeared behind him. Apparently his spatial bullshit didn't prevent a Skill as weird or obscure as my DS Mastery.

Using my Balam Skill I'd built up the strongest kick I could manage, and a Mercy Kill at the last second made it even stronger. I aimed for his lower back instead of his head because I had no desire to kill someone over some stupid tournament, especially not someone who had made a point of mentioning he wasn't aiming for my life (even if he did it by telling me he wanted to kick my teeth in).

When the kick landed, Albai let out a low scream as I felt a crack, and he toppled forward, the domain shattering as the poison fire and damage to what I was pretty sure was his spine completely destroyed his concentration. Roxy turned on my to attack, but was unable to do anything due to the train sized fist manifestation that straight up smashed her into the ground like a bug on a windshield.

Walking over to kneel down I looked around to confirm the match was over, and once I saw everyone subdued I used a heal burst to fix the spinal damage as I released my Touch of Tears. Albai shuddered, finally going limp as his pain ended and I sighed. That had been a rough one, but it was over now. Only two more to go.