Book 8: Chapter 35: A Toast Before We Die

“The hell are we supposed to do?” Victor asked after he and his two companions stood in the arena for several minutes, staring around, watching the people of Rumble Town go about their business.

Arcus, still restraining his new appendage with his remaining hand, shrugged. “I imagine they’ll set something up for the feast and give us some instructions. I would hope…” He looked around with a sour expression, his once-fiery eyes mere embers, glowing faintly in their dark hollows. “I’d almost rather they just made us fight now—nothing worse than stretching out your neck, waiting for the ponderous drop of the headsman’s axe.”

Arona leaned against her tall, ivory staff and sighed. “I have foodstuffs, though they aren’t exactly gourmet—barrels of spring water, some wheels of cheese, a few crates of flatbread, and crocks of honey. They’re remnants from a campaign I led on Brun-Jun, just some rations I’d held as an emergency reserve.”

Arcus nodded. “I, too, have a plethora of rations from various training expeditions. That’s not accounting for my own meals, stowed away from restaurants I enjoyed over the years. It’s probably about time I cleaned out my containers.”

“Yeah,” Victor grunted. “Same. I’m sure that’s what Ronkerz had in mind when he volunteered us to provide the feast.” As though their words had summoned them, a trio of comically mismatched inmates emerged from a cave carrying a long, surprisingly well-made wooden table. Looking at the delicate, polished wood, Victor supposed that if a powerful Energy user was a craftsman outside the prison, they might still be able to work some magic with the materials in the dungeon.

As they set the table in place near the center-rear of the open “arena,” one of the inmates, a short, fuzzy ball of white fur, motioned at it and loudly squeaked, “Feast go here!”

“Thanks.” Victor waved a hand, acknowledging the strange creature’s words. In a much quieter voice, he asked, “The hell is that guy?”

“Shratling,” Arcus hissed, “Native to a world one jump from Sojourn.”

“Usually mischievous, but not outright criminal. I’m surprised to see one here,” Arona added.

“Come on. Let’s load this table up and get things moving. I’m ready to get this business done.” Victor followed his own directive and began pulling casks of his cheaper wine, bushels of fruit, platters of snacks, meats, sandwiches, soups, deserts, and several other dozen dishes from his storage rings. The truth was, he was a food hoarder. Whenever he tasted something he enjoyed, he tended to buy a surplus of it and store it away. He wondered what that said about him. Conversely, he wondered what it meant that he felt a weird sense of relief cleaning all those random bits of food out of his rings.

Arona and Arcus were, likewise, piling supplies and food on and under and to the sides of the table. Victor, of course, had started with things he didn’t value much, but once he’d pared it down to a few dozen platters of his favorites, he slowed, stepping back to watch his companions as they unloaded. When the entire twelve-foot table was laden with food, with baskets and crates stacked beneath it and kegs and barrels lined up to the sides, the puffball stepped out of the cave again and squealed, “Enough! You come with me! Rest before fights!”

“Hah,” Victor chuckled, “looks like we’re not invited to the feast.”

“Not!” the weird, four-foot-tall ball of dirty white hair confirmed.

“Seems inhospitable,” Arona rasped, taking the lead, following the creature as it glided into the cave opening. Victor decided it must have arms and legs obscured by all that fur because it didn’t exactly bounce or roll. The cave wasn’t very impressive—a long, low-ceilinged gallery that stretched about a hundred feet into the cliffside. Glowing amber and white lamps on the sides revealed passages and hanging ropes, but their guide didn’t take them beyond that first space. Instead, he or she or it—Victor had no idea what was appropriate—pointed to a rickety table and benches in the far corner beneath a dim, amber glow lamp.

“Wait.” After the pronouncement, the “Shratling” glided away, bobbing slightly as it moved.

Arcus, grimacing as he wrestled his tentacle, huffed and stomped over to the table to sit. Arona and Victor exchanged a glance and then followed him. Victor didn’t want to reduce his size to make the bench comfortable, so he pulled one of his large-sized camp chairs out of storage and sat down to the side, facing both his companions. “Not a great situation.”

His words brought a snort of amusement out of Arcus, and the man shook his head ruefully. “No, not great. If I didn’t think Ronkerz would rip all our limbs off for trying, I might suggest we use the remaining recall tokens now.”

Arona snorted. “Victor and I have recall tokens that take time to activate. It’s interesting that Roil gave you one that fired almost instantly.”

Arcus shrugged, flopping his tentacle around. “Not instantly enough.”

Victor changed the subject; he already took it as a given that Roil wouldn’t play fair. “Could Ronkerz really do that? Get here fast enough to interrupt the recall?”

Arona regarded him with an arched eyebrow. “Ronkerz is a veil walker. He could be standing beside you, and if he didn’t want you to know, you wouldn’t.”

“That big a difference, huh?” Victor spat to the side and shrugged. “Go ahead and judge me; before I met Ranish Dar, I’d never spent time with a veil walker.” As he said the words, he began to doubt their veracity; the more he learned about the stages beyond the “iron ranks,” the more he suspected Tes had passed her test of steel and would be labeled a veil walker by the people of Sojourn. It wasn’t hard for him to imagine that she could stand and observe them undetected if she so wished it.

“They call passing the test of steel a ‘breakthrough’ for a reason. Cultivators at that stage are on another plane, power-wise.” Arcus’s tone was pleasant as he explained, though punctuated with frequent grunts as he fought his tentacle.

“I know this sounds rough, Arcus, but maybe I should cut that damn thing off. If you can’t control it, it might do more harm than good.”

Arcus’s eyes widened in horror as he sharply disagreed, “No! I can already get it to move a bit—my mind is just learning to deal with a new type of limb.”

Victor raised his hands placatingly. “All right, all right. It was just a thought.”

Arona watched the pyromancer with slightly narrowed eyes, staring at the tentacle as it throbbed and pulled against the grip of Arcus’s hand. “What will your father think of that new appendage?”

“Gods damn my father,” Arcus snarled. “He and Roil both!” Arcus looked up toward the ceiling of the cave and cried, “I hope you can hear me, you shit-bred, demented, scheming lickspittles!”

Victor drummed his fingers on Lifedrinker’s haft. “Well, I intend to return.”

“As do I.” Arona’s voice was raspy as usual, but there was an edge to it, a hardness. Victor saw that hardness reflected in her dark eyes.

“Gods!” Arcus said, holding his hand against his eyes in dismay. “If this had happened to me before the Vault of Valor—before I’d lost…” He trailed off and looked at Victor, then slumped his shoulders, sliding down on the bench so he nearly reclined against the table. “I used to be more confident, but I’m not so sure I’m up to the task of fighting a steel seeker.”

“They’re just at a higher level, right?” Victor was half trying to encourage Arcus and half trying to confirm what he thought he understood.

“Higher level, aye, and who knows how far along with their custom Class, their cultivation, their spell and skill mastery, their—”

“Arcus!” Arona reached over to grasp his shoulder. “You’re among the hardest-hitting casters in Sojourn, at least among the iron rankers. Take Victor’s advice and think of these ‘Big Ones’ as nothing more than iron rankers who’ve leveled past one hundred. For all we know, their training and cultivation are lacking. Vesavo has told me tales of steel seekers who were decidedly weaker than he was in his iron ranks.”

“That’s a good point.” Victor frowned, tempted to reveal his level and describe how easily he’d vanquished some of the tier-eight and nine combatants in the challenge. He decided not to, though, simply because he didn’t know what Arcus might do with that information once they were out of the dungeon. Instead, he said, “I’ve beat the shit out of some folks with dozens of levels on me. I mean, shit, these guys don’t even have good food. I know high-level cultivators don’t need much to eat, but think about it: how good could the training and cultivation they’ve been doing in this death-attuned dungeon be?”

Arona nodded. “There’s something to that; the Energy is weak in the air. Their Cores may not be up to the standards we’re used to.”

Arcus sighed. His tentacle flexed as he stared at it, and a large goblet of wine appeared in its coiled embrace. “I did it! I pulled this from my dimensional container with my new…arm.” Arona and Victor watched, holding their breath, as he stared at the goblet and ever so slowly began to raise it toward his mouth. The tentacle twitched and throbbed, but it seemed to be doing what he wanted. When he got the rim to his lip and took a shaky, slurping sip, Victor clapped his hands, and Arona laughed.

“Fuck! Nice one, man!”

“Hah!” Arcus crowed, but then the goblet tilted and poured out onto his red robes. He laughed harder as the liquid rolled onto the stone floor, leaving no hint of a stain. The sight of his pristine robes drew Victor’s eye to Arcus’s torn, bloody sleeve. It was utterly whole; his robe had cleaned and repaired itself. “I’ll master this damned thing yet!”

Arona’s black-stained lips were still curved in a broad, genuine smile, and she reached over to gently pat the Pyromancer’s back. “Well done, Arcus.”

“Making me thirsty.” Victor summoned a bottle of honeyed mead. He’d noticed the crate of bottles from Zaafor while putting out their “feast” and marked its location in his storage ring; it was one of his favorite alcohols. As he took a long pull, he heard the faint thump of a drum and, close behind it, the twang of stringed instruments. “Guess they’re getting their party started.”

“What a miserable existence,” Arona said, staring toward the distant glowing opening of the cave.

Arcus followed her gaze and, somewhat wistfully, said, “At least they have Ronkerz to support them. At least they have cause to celebrate.”

“Were you serious about your dad?” Victor asked. “I mean, if he wanted you dead, why…” He’d been about to ask why the man didn’t just kill him but let the words die on his tongue.

“As with anything political, it’s complicated—doubly so when you consider I’m his child. A death in the line of duty, serving the greater interest of the city, however? That will aid him politically.” Arcus stared at his tentacle, and, while Arona and Victor looked on, he forced it to pick up his goblet and tilt the dregs of his wine into his mouth. He managed it much more quickly and steadily than the first time.

“What does it feel like?” Victor gestured to the long, black appendage with its row of tiny, throbbing suckers.

Arcus reached over to squeeze the tentacle with his fingers, frowning slightly. “It feels like flesh. The, um, soft, pink part is very tender and sensitive, like a hundred fingertips. At first, I thought for sure I’d seek out Yon and demand some sort of restoration, but this new arm has some potential. It’s quite long if I stretch.” To illustrate, Arcus grimaced in concentration, and then his tentacle extended away from him, wriggling through the air toward Arona. Victor’s eyes bugged out as the narrow point began to probe toward her breasts, but she wasn’t having it. She swatted it away with a pale blue flash of Energy, and Arcus winced in pain. “Bitch!”

“Please,” she flatly sighed. “You’re lucky you still have your new limb attached.”

“I mean,” Victor chuckled, “you gotta have better judgment than that, man.”

“I wasn’t aiming for your chest, woman!” Arcus growled as he rubbed the tip of his tentacle. He sucked in his breath through his teeth, grimacing. “I just got through saying they’re sensitive!”

Arona ignored him, summoning a small wooden tray filled with candied fruits. “I suggest we have our own feast. It may be the last any of us will enjoy; if we lose our duels tomorrow, we’ll either be dead or stripped of our gear and enslaved to Ronkerz.”

Victor nodded. “I’ll drink to that.” He made good on his words, chugging the rest of his bottle of mead. He laughed and tossed his empty bottle to shatter against a nearby stone wall. Arona lifted one of her dark eyebrows, and Arcus chuckled. As the music grew louder and the noise of Rumble Town’s celebration echoed into their stony holding cell, they all began to pull out their favorite foods—things they’d held back from the feast.

Knowing he was probably watching them in one way or another, Victor held up a fresh bottle of mead. He didn’t like their situation, and he couldn’t say if he liked Ronkerz or not, but he had to admit, the giant simian demanded respect. “You know, Arona, considering your words—that this might be our last meal—how about a toast before we die? To Ronkerz!”

“Hah!” Arcus spat onto the stone floor but didn’t shrink away from the toast. He held up a fresh goblet of wine. “To Ronkerz!”

Arona, grinning with half of her mouth, seemed to recognize the irony of their actions. She narrowed her eyes briefly as she concentrated, and then a delicate flute of sparkling alcohol appeared in her slender fingers. Still smiling crookedly, she clinked it against Victor’s bottle and Arcus’s jeweled goblet. “To Ronkerz!”