As soon as Shankhe enters the arena and a glass panel rises so that I can view the match, I wait for his opponent to arrive, well, and wait for his nickname. If I care to listen to the announcer, which I didn't, I just ignored it. The employee let me go, and I walked to the glass eagerly. Shankhe now had his katana back, and he held it with confidence as he waited for his opponent. Not long after he got his weapon did the opponent emerge. It was a lizard man, with a very bad and rusty double sided sword in his grasp. The lizard man was clearly corrupted, as his scales shone purple and eyes had a magenta glow.

  They both rush in, clashing in a mix of sparks from the steel. Shankhe looks at his opponent and grins, water flowing out of his blade and making it sharper. It starts to wear away at his sword a little since it's very old and slightly more frail then normal. This means that Shankhe has the upper hand. The lizard man jumps backwards, making sure his sword disconnects from the other.

  I huff, Shankhe should’ve just cut him right then. But, he raises himself, gets into position, and holds his katana to the side as he rushes to the lizard man. They collide again and again as Shankhe goes forwards and the lizard man jumps back every time Shankhe tries to engage him. I smirk happily though as I notice how Shankhe is strategically, and secretly, placing water droplets all around the area. They’re all floating mid air, and as soon as they reach the middle in their clash, a lot of tiny, watery bullets fly towards the lizard man, and he gets impaled by one of them in a crack of the armour. In his shock, he pauses. A mistake he will come to regret as Shankhe’s blade proceeded to follow that droplet and manage to enter the crack.

  The lizard man falls limp to the ground, and Shankhe starts to walk back to me. However, the glass doesn't move, and as the announcer starts to talk again, we look at him.

  “That seemed to be too easy, didn’t it?” The crowd cheers in agreement, and I scowl. “Well, we have another monster just for this very occasion!” They roar, and I can almost hear Shankhe groan as he waits for his next opponent. “But this time, we’ll have another person join. His twin, Golden Desertttttttt!!!!”

  The crowd is all riled up as I see the glass slowly go down to allow me into the arena. I grab my jambiyas, and then step onto the sand. I stare at the announcer for a second, grateful that he hasn’t used my horrible name, before looking across to where our opponent will enter. We wait, and a three headed hydra enters. I stare at it in shock, then at the announcer. He expects us to defeat that??!!!

  A hydra is one of the most dangerous monsters anyone can encounter, and no one ever manages to defeat them without being their rank. And this hydra is bronze rank. We are wood rank.

  A sense of dread fills me. We may die. We may actually die. I pull myself together though. We have to do this, we have to survive. I share a look with Shankhe, and we rush in to fight. The hydra starts off with a breath of poison, but luckily I duck under its legs, and so does Shankhe. Seeing the soft skin near the joins, I stab it, and I can hear the hydra growl angrily as its leg weakens. Shankhe too stabs the front leg, and its knees buckle, sending the whole body tipping forwards as i duck from out of under the hydra. It soon gets back on its feet however, and stomps around like mad, breathing poison that spreads across the arena. It opens its mouth again, and as I expect another poison breath, sand starts to creep up in a sphere around me. A boom echoes around the arena, and I quickly duck into a ball, sand covering me over and over in several layers of protection.

  Forget poison breath, it was fire! Of course, since the poison is compatible with it for some most annoying reason, it means it explodes together. Just as I think of this, I hear explosions rock the arena, and I try to find Shankhe by the sand. He’s safely in his own sphere of water, and not hurt but certainly tired. As soon as the explosions stop, I immediately rush in, clamouring onto the hydra's back using a combination of sand manipulation to lift me and grasping the scales to pull myself up. I can also see Shankhe following me onto its back, and when we both get there, the hydra is really desperately trying to turn itself around to get at us.

  We walk up to its neck slowly, and just before it breathes poison or fire or whatever it is going to do, Shankhe stabs its heart, and quickly abandons the hydra's back, and so do I. Because I am for sure not standing on its back when it falls down.

  First, its knees buckle, then, the body follows and proceeds to collapse into the sand. “Well, folks.” Says the announcer as both of us try to heave our bodies back to our cell. “We still have one more monster for our blue haired fighter.”

  The glass door opens, but an employee is there, and doesn't let Shankhe in no matter how hard he tries. Eventually, he stays in the sand.

  I look through the glass to where Shankhe is on the sand as he looks at the announcer with annoyance and tiredness. He looks as if he’s going to collapse and go to sleep any moment now. Seriously, its stupid. Why can’t he just come back to me and go into our cell? He’s fought two times already, one of them very tiring as well. He definitely doesn’t need a third. But, then I got an idea. It’s glass, and the arena floor is sand. I smirk. I’m not going to give it away just yet though, as the employees will probably stop me before I get too far. What also surprised me is they left me with my Jambiyas, not even taking them, which was strange, as i could do a lot with just my jambiyas. Clearly they hadn’t gotten anyone willing to escape getting captured, or people realised that with Brendon, it was very hard to escape without being stone rank, and even then there’s probably something stopping them.

  But I was willing to escape, because I am not going to sleep on those mouldy mattresses for a night longer than I already had. Finally after a couple second’s wait, Shankhe’s opponent arrived in the arena. It was a hellhound. It didn’t seem to breathe fire, like the normal ones, but did have-like practically every other corrupted monster-purple glowing eyes. It’s almost a theme now. Shankhe grips his sword tight, ready to move it in any direction to defeat the opponent, although he absolutely doesn't look wanting and willing to do so.

  The blob of sand on Shankhe’s shoulder moved slightly. I knew that no one else would see the sand but Shankhe, and he looked surprised for a second, before back to ‘focusing’, also known as trying not to fall asleep. He now knew that I could help.

  He rushed in, his sword to the side as the hellhound tried to pounce on him, but he dodged, pulling the sword up and slashing at its side. That’s when I noticed something. The announcer was actually making comments on his moves.

  Of course, I didn’t listen, since I could just look at the fighter, I didn't need commentary. I look at Shankhe as he rushes in for second contact. As he slashes at the hellhounds mouth, it dodged, and manages to get its teeth close to Shankhe. It’s teeth near his arm, almost puncturing his flesh. He looks too tired to dodge, let alone fight. A wall of sand roars up, overwhelming the hellhound with the pure anger of my madness. How dare it try to bite my brother. It comes crashing to the ground, and he stabs it with his sword, quickly killing it.

  “What?!!!.” Says the announcer in shock. “Two spesh?!!!!” Just as Sir Brendon came into my cell as Shankhe joined me. I see Dalyva behind me. She came with Mother Teresa, and is probably here to heal Shankhe up if he was hurt. “You.” Says Sir Brendon, and my friend in the next cell pays rapt attention. Too much attention. It’s suspicious. I transform into Fae form, and Shankhe does as well as he reads my intentions. We mix together, using each other's spesh, well, not really but playing around with our own and pretending to play with the others.

  The man looks increasingly annoyed. Dalyva gets the idea, and starts to get into a fighting stance. I grab Shankhe’s sword, and he gets my jambiyas, then we swap them, turning our eyes onto Sir Brendon. I hold a Jambiya to my neck. “Your aura comes in, bang!” I had figured something out. They needed me. I had just fought the Orc, something big and expensive, meaning that since they spent so much on me, they needed to get their money's worth in people coming to watch me fight. If I die, they lose a lot of money. Sir Brendon, no, Brendon, stops in his tracks. Shankhe and Dalyva look horrified, but they understand. “Brendon.” I say, cutting the slave collar off my neck, and making the tip press against my skin. He looks shocked as the pieces of metal fall to the ground, like no one’s ever done that before, then annoyed as he hears me call him Brendon without the sir, as if he was so used to it he expected it. “You think I wouldn’t know how to cut it off? I used to go around with desert scouts, they always had to cut them off when they save people from sketchy traders. Now, hand over the keys.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I instruct, using the hand that I don't have on the dagger to hold out. Reluctantly, he hands over the keys carefully, almost as if he wants to grab the dagger, but i purposefully have Shankhe and Dalyva around him for a reason. He knew that if he made a move, they could stop him for the few seconds it was worth while I died. For what he suspected I was going to do, it wasn't worth it. I walk carefully around him, and to the exit. But then, I looked at the workout guy, and saw his pleading expression. For some reason, I got a feeling of an aura way more powerful than the one I got from Brandon, and decided to chuck him the keys. Brendon’s focus immediately switched to him, and we got out of there real fast. As we neared the exit, security guards tried stopping us, but we dodged them, and continued running.

  My legs were sore from fighting, and all i wanted to do was rest, but we couldn’t. Not just yet. As we ran further up the hill, i saw many other slaves escaping, and was shocked. I realised that workout guy had actually managed to free all those people. I smiled. I knew that was the right choice. After all, I definitely couldn’t have done it. I was weak, and none of the stone ranks would want to bow to me, even if for a little while of escape and would just leave, but when i saw what workout guy was hiding as he showed me a glimpse of his true power, i knew that the stone ranks would band together under him easily, at least, long enough for them to help everyone escape.

  When we followed the path, I saw a group of animals that looked like they were guarding something, and then, as I looked around, a portal, exactly like the one we had seen when the corruption entity pushed us into it was there.

  I look at the portal, and then the beasts. We were all tired, and definitely wouldn’t be fighting them. I pushed some of my sand to the far side, making a noise there and all the beasts went to investigate. While they do that we sprint with all our might into the portal, and once we get in, we collapse tiredly as the warped feeling comes over me, transporting me-hopefully-back to Khaliff and Fora, even Byrn would be better than back there.

  As the swirling ended, I looked up to see a familiar figure, before leaning back and falling fast asleep.

  ————————————————

  I woke up, looking around to see Fora as she smiled over me. “Hello dear.” She says, and I immediately relax my muscles as I recognise her. “Where is Shankhe and Taegan?” I ask, and she just gently grins. “They’re still asleep.” She answers, encore walking over and picking up a bowl as I sit up. “Here, eat up.” She says, giving me some broth. I eagerly start to devour it, and she looks on.

  I could tell that she seemed slightly concerned at the way I was so hungry, and then resolute as she sat on the end of my bed. “So.” She starts. “What happened?” I look up. “Huh. Well, we woke up in a cage, apparently having slept in this woman’s land, and so we got enslaved.” Fora looked horrified. “What did they do?” I shake my head. “Oh, it was fine. They put us in a coliseum, but because we were new we only were supposed to fight monsters. I got to be a healer, and that was fun.” She nodded. “I assume that the new scar on Taegans shoulder is from the monsters?” I nod. “Yeah, it is. It’s from an orc, a monster he had to fight alone.”

  Fora gestures for me to get up and out of bed, and I do so. She looks over my rags of clothes and scowls. “We need to get you new clothes.” She says, and then holds out a green fluffy hair tie. “Tie your hair up with it once you finish brushing it.” She points to the hair brush on the dresser. I hug her tight, and she looks surprised. “Thank you.” I mutter.

  She hugs me back after a second, and then says. “Why don't you brush your hair so you can put it in.” I nod, release her from my hug, and then walk over to the dresser, gently brushing my golden strands. Once I’m done brushing, I put my hair up in a high ponytail, and Fora looks happily at me. “You look beautiful!” She says, before dragging me out the house to shop for clothes. We go to a market that looks to have all sorts of things, including clothes, furs, people trying to sell whatever they can, even weapons are being sold. And I realised something as all the stalls were out. “It’s Jiri, isn't it?” I ask, shocked, and Fora nods. “Yep. We can go to the temple later if you want?” I nod. Although Dasani-the forest god-doesn’t necessarily want people to worship him obsessively, if we are ever lost, hurt, or in trouble we are taught that if we pray to him, he will help us.

  I’ve only tried it once before, but it's true. Once, a very sad and grief-stricken me was mourning my mother, and so I went to the temple to pray, asking Dasani for one last look at ‘Ma’ and he delivered. That night, I dreamt about my Ma coming to me, and we had a whole talk.

  I shake the memory from my head as I look at the present. Fora has dragged me into a clothes shop that has several different dresses and clothes. One I looked at is called a Cheongsam. (Actual name, search it up if you want a look at it. Mines are a bit looser than theirs though because they can be used for fighting.) It’s a dress that flows around the body, not too tightly of course, and then flares a little at the bottom to give legs extra movement. Although it's more of a casual dress, for someone like me, it can be enchanted, or made using Gara, which is a type of cotton that doesn't break, and some really expert sowers can even make it sword proof for up to certain ranks.

  There’s a tag on it that says ‘Gara made.’ Fora comes up behind me. “You want that?” She asks, and I nod. “Which colours?” I look over them. There’s not much to choose from in terms of colour, but I still look to find a really good one. There’s red, purple (of course), dark blue and white ones mixed with a few other colours. After a couple seconds, I decided. “Can I have 2?” I ask shyly, and Fora nods. “Of course!” For some reason, I had asked. At home, when I was in Daruden, I could get practically whatever I wanted, as I was in the nobility, a Baroness. But here, I worried, for I was nothing but an adventurer, someone who fights. I hadn’t seen any signs of nobility here yet.

  I picked out a white one that had light purple flowers flowing down the right side mainly for casual wear and a red for fighting. We brought them up to the desk, and a person looked at the tags. “40 copper.” I blink. That’s expensive by Jesva terms. Of course, in the time we’ve been here we’ve gathered a lot of money, so it could be different here. Fora gets out the money, and pays for the two Cheongsam. “Thank you Fora.” I hug her in appreciation, and she smiles. “No problem. Now, I know you have signed up for the Adventurers Guild, but have you thought about what you want to do in the non-fighting month?” I look confused at her, and she chuckles. “Sorry, I forgot you don't know what that is.” She starts to explain as we walk. “You see, back home we would call it the monster surge, but here it makes all the monsters too strong. So strong that they’ve banned anyone from fighting them unless given explicit orders or approval. That’s when everyone of the adventurers has to do another job for a month. Because unlike home and the monster surge lasting two weeks, and two weeks of cooldown, it’s four intense weeks, and then nothing after that, because the monsters instantly return to their area after the rampage.”

  I open my mouth to ask a question, but she stops me. “If you want to know how-dungeon fuckery. I have no clue.” I nod, and as we continue walking we come across a lane of all sorts of temples.

  There’s all sorts of temples. One to Shana of Shafka, one to Dasani of Dejenu, one to Jerava (j-eh-r-ah-v-ah) of Wandé (wan, like one but with a w and d-eh), one to Neraxi (n-eh-r-ah-see) of Mara, one to Uxciesa (you-X-see-ah) of Tingari, and heaps of other gods who are around the land and help. Like Farakuri, the Goddess of Fae from the tail of Jesva.

  I walk up to the most familiar one, one surrounded and lathered with plants and vines, all looking healthy and well. I walk inside, a huge carpet on the floor in front of a tree at the end of the temple, with light streaming in onto only the tree as the roof covers the rest of us. I take off my shoes at the entrance, as it's rude to walk on carpet with shoes on, especially inside a temple. Not only because it dirties the floor, as Dasani probably wouldn’t care, but because it's annoying for other people to walk and kneel on a dirty carpet that’s supposed to be clean for prayers. Once I take off my shoes, I go close up to the tree, and kneel, putting my hands on my lap together over one another, and bowing my head down.

  ‘Please Dasani, I ask of you to let me see my lover. Thank you.’ I think, and then stand up once I’m done. Fora smiles at me as we leave. “Hopefully you get an answer here.” She says. I nod. “The gods don't really know we’re here, do they?” She shakes her head. “I’m sure if they did they would’ve done something long before, but I think the Corruption Entity is shielding us from them. Otherwise, the Corruption Entity’s domain and realm would be destroyed.” I nod, agreeing. You see, I’ve heard comments and stories of worlds whose god does nothing and yet gets prayers, and I find that strange. Why would the god demand prayers if they do nothing? You see, for us, our gods do lots. During the monster surge, they protect the towns and cities with their power if we are incapable of doing it ourselves, they watch over us like parents and sometimes even descend to protect little kids from monsters, whether actually monster or sentient. They even help adults who are being used, and really, they don't act like gods at all.

  For one, some of them aren’t even ‘real’ gods. In fact, all of them ascended from being mortals, they were never born a god. That means, they take care of us a lot more closely, and all of them vowed to never have a kid while being a god, because a ‘real’ god should never exist if they cannot take care of their people. And so, that's how the Pack of Gods was formed. I’m getting a bit off topic though, so let's continue. We headed back home, had some lunch, and I discovered the boys had woken up. I went to them, and we all headed to the Guild Hall, as Fora had suggested, to sign up for a job during the no fighting month.

  As we walked, I told Taegan and Shankhe about the temples, and they both shook their heads adamantly about going to Farakuri’s temple. “She’s not truly our goddess.” He says, and I look at him pointedly. “Yes she is.” I insist, but they both shut me down, and I can definitely see the worry in Taegans eyes. I don't really get it, but I guess it must be a shock to discover that you have a new goddess who could be your leader, instead of the one you’re comfortable with. We open the doors to the Guild Hall, and step inside.

  Instantly we all look around to all the different Guilds. “Taegan, what guild were you thinking of?” He sullenly walks over to one of them, and we follow. “Welcome to the Cooks Guild, what can I do for you today?” The front desk person asked cheerily. “I’d like to sign up please.” Taegan says, handing over his Adventurers Guild card. She takes the card, reads it, and then goes out the back.

  She returns moments later with two cards in her hands, handing both to Taegan. “Here, it's all set up, feel free to use our kitchens at any time.” Both me and Shankhe grin. “All right.” We celebrate, as Taegans food is really good. She looks back at us slightly surprised, then to Taegan. “Have a good day.” She says, and he nods. “You too.” Bath boys then turn to me once we leave. “You’re next, what’s your guild?” We head next door to the Healers Guild. I walk up to the front desk. “Hello, I’d like to sign up for the guild?” The desk person nods. “Spesh?” They ask. “Blood.” I answer, and their eyes widen before they compose themselves. “Any previous guild cards?” I hand them my Adventurers Guild card, and they’re gone for a second, before reappearing with two cards. “Here, your Healers Guild card. Be sure to come in at least twice a week to help out.” I nod, and thank them before we leave, turning to Shankhe. Shankhe seemed hesitant, but he headed to the guild of his choice anyways. The Design Guild. He signed up, got his card, and when he headed back to us, I was confused.

  We started walking home as I asked him. “Why the Design Guild?” He shrugged, before saying. “I just like it.” I could feel there was something more, but didn’t push it, letting all of us walk home in silence before spending the rest of our day exploring town. That night, I fell asleep quickly.