Colosseum Core : [The Arena Dungeon-Core LitRPG]

 

Within the confines of the ancient, underground Colosseum, two dozen warriors who were once already in this very familiar position prior to their resurrection now find themselves locked in a brutal, life-or-death struggle once again. The darkness of their surroundings above the high walls of the small arena is oppressive; the damp underground air is unusually heavy with the scent of blood and fear, the likes of which would more easily dissipate on the surface world. Down here in this dimly lit arena that is illuminated by the sparks of metal and magic, humans, elves of all sorts, orcs, and fairies now battle to their respective ends with a ferocity born of desperation and raw survival instinct. It is something that cannot be faked. A duel for honor is one thing, and so is a fight for money; the latter can be fixed and rigged. But a fight to live or to die? This has some weight behind it.

 

Sure, the dead will be reanimated in their quarters after the fight is over, but they still won’t be allowed to leave. Only those who are able to collect one-hundred champion points by participating and winning in the games are able to really earn the price of life.

 

A human warrior, clad in his tarnished armor, swings his knicked sword in a wide arc, somehow narrowly missing a massive orc who, impressively for his stature, ducks beneath the deadly strike. The orc retaliates with a vicious blow from his spiked club, but the warrior raises his shield just in time to prevent it from shattering his skull. The impact sends a painful shock through his arm, the spikes sticking into the face of the shield that the two now wrestle over. He grits his teeth and continues to fight.

 

— Exhilarating! Munera, if it had fingers, would be gripping the edge of the railing as it watches from above in excitement. It turns its gaze.

 

An elven archer standing at the far end of the arena, well out of the mess in the center, gracefully notches an arrow that she had been supplied with by the dungeon-core and releases it with lightning speed into the fray. The arrow finds its mark and pierces the eye of another orc, who had been charging towards her. The wounded giant howls in instinctual pain before collapsing to the ground in a lifeless heap. The elf allows herself a fleeting moment of satisfaction before scanning for her next target. Her wandering eyes manage to go only an inch further before the fireball flying her way explodes right against her chest, swallowing her in a bath of red.

 

— Fantastic! Munera turns its gaze, the dungeon walls practically buzzing with the energy it feels.

 

In another corner of the battleground, a little fairy darts through the chaotic melee with impressive agility. She weaves between screaming and flailing combatants and sprinkles sparkling dust into the eyes of a group of fighters who had decided to try and work together, at least for the initial rush of the skirmish. Blinded and disoriented by some strange fairy spell, they stumble and lash out wildly at one another. The fairy swoops away from the ensuing chaos with a triumphant giggle.

 

— The dungeon core watches her, together with the other fairies. They’re able to fly, which lets them stay out of the mess below. It’s a distinct advantage for their species. It will have to think of something in the future to keep this from becoming an unconquerable advantage. Perhaps some form of flying height limit? Then again, perhaps as long as they actively participate and do not avoid the fights, there is no need to over-regulate.

 

Meanwhile, a berserker barrels through his enemies like a living battering ram. His massive axe, which he had taken with him back from the grave, cleaves through armor and bone with terrifying ease. An unfortunate human warrior who Munera recognizes from yesterday — one of those who had fought the hobgoblin — finds himself caught in the path of the rampaging beast and is brutally cut down, his screams silenced by the relentless cacophony of battle that simply drowns them out.

 

— Amazing!

 

Standing together by the opposite wall of the arena are two dark-elven mages, chanting incantations that weave a tapestry of arcane power around them, sending bolts of searing energy or tendrils of chilling frost at their indiscriminately chosen foes, whom they have teamed up against for now.

 

While teaming up is not against the rules of this fight, it is also somewhat against the spirit of today’s challenge. But perhaps it really is not so bad to allow participants a little creative freedom? Being too controlling would constrict the battle in unnatural ways. It would hinder the game.

 

One of the dark-elves looks at the other one now that they’ve successfully destroyed the humans around them, and then quickly lifts his hand and blasts his own compatriot away with a violent blast of ice before the other has the chance to do so first.

 

— So dishonorable. It’s fantastic. Everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to fight. Everyone wants to live.

 

Sure, their reasons for doing so may differ greatly. It is unlikely that they are all fighting for the spirit of the game. In fact, if Munera had to guess, most of them just want to leave.

 

But for this start to the festivities, that doesn’t matter.

 

What matters is the flare, the buildup, and the intensity of the action! Maybe if they’re in it long enough themselves, they’ll see what Munera sees from here up above. Maybe these gladiators it has created will understand the spark of competition for themselves. Perhaps the cracking of their skulls is like the cracking of a seed’s shell, their blood sprouting forth and up into the world.

 

The battlefield is a chaotic blend of clashing steel, crackling magic, and the guttural cries of the warriors.

 

Minutes pass, time moving at very rapidly different rates for every individual there.

 

As the fight rages on, the combatants, dwindling in numbers greatly, grow weary and bloodied. Their movements become sluggish, and their desperation becomes more pronounced. Yet they continue to battle for their very lives with every ounce of strength left in their battered bodies. The line between friend and foe has long since blurred as winning becomes the only objective, even between soldiers wearing the same color of uniform from the surface. These distinctions stopped mattering very quickly. Human fight against elves, who fight against an onslaught of orcish aggression, while the few uncrushed fairies dart between the warring factions, sowing chaos and reaping the benefits of their mischief before descending upon one another.

 

— Munera watches as one fairy grabs hold of another in mid-air, the two of them wrestling as they fall, tumbling down in a death spiral. They bite, kick, and scratch at each other’s faces and wings until one barely breaks free, causing the other to crash down against a rock below and die. The released fairy flies off, tumbling chaotically through the air until it crashes elsewhere.

 

Only a handful remain.

 

The dungeon-core moves its vision, switching from every possible angle to watch the dancing boots and the slicing metal. It watches them from the walls, it stares up at them from the dirt below, and it inhabits the empty air present in the gap between their gnashing teeth — all to get a perfect view of their desperate struggle.

 

Fun! This is so much fun!

 

From its many vantage points, some far more intimate with the combatants than others, Munera observes each desperate act of violence with rapt fascination. The dungeon core revels in the drive of these disparate beings to fight so fiercely against one another. As their life forces ebb away, their bodies slumping to the cold floor in defeat, Munera reabsorbs their lingering essence with an insatiable greed, their souls returning to the pool of the collected dead.

 

The many corpses are slowly dragged away, sliding off with little dignity as unseen tendrils pull them out of the arena through small slots in the stonework. They are collected one by one by an unseen force before being delivered to their resting quarters. Only the single healing fairy was spared from today’s fight. Munera isn’t able to heal-heal them all when they’re returned to life, so it needs her to do that. As compensation for working but not fighting, she gets one champion-point per event like any other participant. Fair is fair.

 

Every swing of a sword that remains, every flash of magical energy that still manages to get thrown out, and every last bone-chilling scream serves to fuel Munera's desires for more of this. The dungeon core draws strength from this scene of brutality, growing more powerful with each passing moment.

 

Sure, today was a little… messy. It wasn’t exactly the pure competition it was really aiming for, from a technical view of sportsmanship. Today was a little more free-form, shall one say? However, it was a good start. There was some good energy in here today. It thinks that with a little more training, the strong will be filtered up and the weak will be filtered down. It will find its champions in this mess of bodies.

 

Only two contestants are left standing on their feet in the arena.

 

— Munera observes the situation carefully, making sure nobody is breaking the spirit of the game.

 

The first of them is a short elven priestess. Her white robes are slathered in blood from head to toe and cling to her as if she had been bathing in them in the ruby waters. She’s not really a fighter per-se, rather, she’s apparently very adept at trickery on a deeply personal level. Up until now, she’s managed to survive by teaming up and subsequently betraying several people during the chaos. It is a game that will only work once, as they will remember her doing so in the future. At the very least, Munera admires her can-do spirit. She’s fully after today’s win without a moment’s hesitation in anyone else’s regard — a truly selfish heart that seeks the glory of the arena. Perhaps this demeanor is a bit unusual for a priestess.

 

— But Munera likes that. She’s just playing the game to its fullest extent and not making a fuss about it. She’s in it to win it.

 

So what is the weight of sportsmanship in comparison with a drive to win at all costs? Which is more desirable, the thrill of the game or the thrill of victory itself? A difficult question.

 

Is it better to be honorable and lose than to be dishonorable and win?

 

The other standing survivor of the final two is a more traditionally honorable counterpart. A human man with a spear. He’s the one and the same as yesterday, who killed the hobgoblin. As far as combat prowess goes, Munera is sure that he could kill the priestess and be done with it without a moment’s hesitation. He seems like a very skilled fighter.

 

However, he has a truly fatal weakness. Something that no human can overcome, despite their very best efforts. Quite simply put, it's that he is already dead. He stands there, holding his guts inside his sliced open stomach with one arm and swaying on his weak legs, the spear loosely held in his other hand at his side.

 

The fully packed seats all around the arena are quiet in tense anticipation, but this is to be expected as they are filled with the corpses from the graveyard. Munera just kind of sat them down there all over the benches and rows to fill the place out a little.

 

— Maybe it should have resurrected them too?

 

 

The glow of her spell fills the room, and then a second later she picks up a rock and hurls it at the man, who, unfortunately for himself, instinctively tries to block it with his only arm left, raising his spear out of the air. A second later, she tackled him, sending the two of them tumbling over the dusty ground together. His entrails splay out of him, tying around her arm and legs that fight through the mess of them as if they were yarn she was caught in as they roll. He lands on his back with her sitting on his emptied stomach and screaming as she holds her hands around his neck, choking the little life that’s left out of him with a violent fierceness in her eyes, spit leaking from her mouth as she screams.

 

Wow. She’s really in the zone, huh.

 

Munera watches as the man spasms, the light leaving his eyes as his body finally goes limp, leaving only the priestess there. Her chest heaves as she frantically breathes through her clenched teeth.

 

It takes a moment for her to finally catch her breath, her shoulders slumping as she sits there for a moment and then slowly rises to her feet.

 

— And then it comes.

 

She turns her head, looking at the sudden, sharp buzzing as the fairy, who had been hiding in the saggy hood of her robe, lifts its tiny hand against her skull.

 

“Thanks for the ride,” says the fairy.

 

 

The priestess spasms as a long, straight needle presses directly through her skull from the side, and then she falls over, landing on the dead warrior.

 

The final victor of the first battle in the arena is a fairy caster.

 

As the priestess falls over, it flies out of her hood and rolls over the dusty ground. It is one and the same fairy that had ambushed another of its kind in the air before, before crashing elsewhere. It just so happened to land in the baggy hood of the priestess, who failed to notice it in her adrenaline rush.

 

A dirty tactic and hardly honorable. But today’s game specified that there were no rules other than participation being mandatory. So…

 

The fairy, covered in blood and scratches and with broken wings, looks around the arena, which has now fallen silent. Corpses line the edge, and corpses fill the interior, slowly being dragged away.

 

 

“…I did it…” says the fairy, trying to catch its breath. It looks around the arena. “Hey! I did it!” yells the small voice, hardly carrying far.

 

Unseen tendrils wrap themselves around it, slowly lifting the creature up into the air and elevating it above the conquered dead for all of their glassy eyes to see. Soft, giving surfaces press against its body and face. The first champion of the arena!

 

“What happens now? Can I g-” starts the fairy.

 

— There’s a sharp crack as the tendril that had been nudged against the side of the fairy’s head firmly breaks its neck in an instant. Its legs twitch as Murena unceremoniously throws the limp corpse onto the pile to be dragged back into the quarters together with the rest.

 

The fairy won, but that victory was hardly the thrilling, blood-rushing duel Munera was hoping to foster here. Still, it’s a start.

 

 

 

A skeletal hand pops out of the ground of the arena floor, the shrieking undead rising into the world, its shrill, airless cry filling the void as it looks for fresh victims to kill.

 

“Clean this up,” orders Munera.

 

The skeleton’s never ending shriek slowly quiets into a long, whistling exhalation as it looks around in confusion. A second later, a broom manifests itself in its hands. Confused, the bony monster looks up into the air at the dungeon-core, receiving only a helpful nudge forward by an unseen force.

 

“Go on,” says Munera, which has better things to do with its time.

 

Still quietly screaming with a shriek that never stops, the gainfully employed skeleton begins sweeping the dusty arena, covering the blood and the core with a fresh layer of dirt.