Victor of Tucson

Victor sat on the stone bench where, just hours earlier, he’d been chatting quietly with Arona. Despite his victory and the still-lingering buzz of glory-fueled endorphins, images of her broken, torn body persisted in their attempts to worm their way into his mind’s eye, but he pushed them away. He didn’t know her all that well, so he didn’t want to let himself feel for her the way his heart kept trying to. Was that something you could or should push aside? He doubted the wisdom of it, but he decided he’d try. He’d box it up until one day, when the thought of her death came around, it would be blunted by time, and he could look at it objectively. Right then, it was too fresh, too raw.

To pass the time while he waited for Ronkerz to make good on his promises, Victor pulled Lifedrinker from her harness and contemplated her edge. Despite her difficulties with Lira, she’d fought hard and managed to drain a good bit of Energy out of the “steel seeker.” He could see it pulsing darkly—rivulets of metallic Energy buried in the depths of Lifedrinker’s silvery metal. “I’m proud of you, chica. You cut her nice and deep before she grew.” The axe pulsed with prideful emotion, and Victor grinned.

“You treat her well,” a melodic voice said out of the dim shadows near the cave wall, and Victor looked up to see Lira approaching. She was no longer clad in armor of any kind. Rather, she wore plain, rough-spun pants and a baggy, sleeveless tunic that hung loosely around her feathery figure. She ruffled her wings, flexing them slightly as she approached, her talons surprisingly quiet on the stone floor.

Victor shrugged, straightening to look at Lira more directly. “She’s a good companion, and she tried her best.”

Lira nodded. “She’s a wondrous weapon, and I hope you know how rare she is. Spirit-bonded metals are uncommon enough, but she’s especially conscious. If I couldn’t sense the age of her heart-silver, I’d think she was millennia older than she is.”

Victor smiled and lifted Lifedrinker over his shoulder, allowing her harness to pull her into place. “Hey, uh, thanks for not trying to finish me right away when I was down. Seems like you might have had a chance to cut me pretty good.”

“Oof! That must sting your titan’s ego, hmm? Well, I can say the same. You could have nudged me into that pool of lava rather than drag me out.” Lira moved closer and pointed to the empty area on the stone bench where Victor sat. When he nodded, she sat down, flexing her wings to accommodate her. “You’re a resilient bastard, you know that?”

“Me?” Victor chuckled. “Can you tell me about your affinity? I know it has to do with metal. At first, I thought it was iron—”

“Hah! You would have trounced me if it were only iron. Part of my quest for steel—in the figurative sense—has led me to refine my affinity, to broaden and strengthen it. When I was a child, I had a variant of an earth affinity, and it was, as you guessed, iron. I won’t say much more simply because I don’t want you to make the mistake of thinking all steel seekers go through the same sort of refinement. It would be unkind for me to lead you down a dead-end road. My affinity is, however, the reason for my visit. Ronkerz says I must give you something dear, and I understand the intention behind his lesson. That being the case, I have something very dear, indeed, for you.”

“Hey,” Victor held up his hands, shaking his head with his lips quirked in half a smile, “forget about it. You put up a hell of a fight, and I don’t see why I should get any—”

“No, Victor. This isn’t something you can decide for me. Ronkerz made a demand, and he is my master. This gift I bear does not leave my hands grudgingly but with utmost respect for you and for Ronkerz. He is wise enough to know that I must feel loss when I consider my defeat. No battle should be entered lightly, and to walk away, defeated, from a contest such as ours, with no penalty, would upset my karmic balance.”

With one hand, she dusted the stone bench between them, then gestured at the air, and suddenly, an oblong package wrapped in deep, blue silk appeared on the stone. It was about the size of a football, and when Victor reached to grasp it, he found it was hard and incredibly dense. The muscles on his forearm bulged as he tried to lift it with one hand and failed. He gave up and let his palm rest on the cool silk, smiling as the object throbbed with potent Energy. “What is it?”

“Well, you have some inkling about my affinity; you saw me summoning metal from the earth to use as weapons and armor. I can feel metal. I can hear it singing to me. Not long after I learned to…” She trailed off and shrugged. “I won’t get into the secrets of my affinity, but let’s just say I learned to do something very difficult with metal. I'm sure you caught a glimpse of it in my colossus armor. That’s beside the point, however. The point is that I gained a new insight into metal after that particular accomplishment—that’s the important part. I began to hear different types of metal singing from the depths of the world, but I only ever heard this song once.”

Lira reached out one of her feathered arms and, with polished black nails, gripped the blue silk surrounding the heavy object under Victor’s hand. When she tugged, the silk slid away, and Victor lost all awareness of his surroundings as his eyes focused on the magnificent ore resting on the stone slab. The lump of lustrous metal was a deep, depthless black, but, at the same time, it was luminous, giving off an intangible glow that made Victor feel like he was staring into a person’s eye, almost like he could see something in that ore, some kind of hidden intelligence or spirit.

After a while, Lira cleared her throat. “Mesmerizing, isn’t it?”

Victor had to cough and lick his lips before he could respond. “Amazing. What is it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before, never read about it in any books, and none of the masters I’ve ever had have mentioned anything like it. Before I learned to fight, you see, I was a crafter—a metal worker. I might have gone down a different path if I’d come upon this metal back then. Anyway, I’ve called it soul ore simply because I feel like I’m looking into a person’s soul when I stare into that depthless metal.”

“Wait, you found this in this world?” Victor waved his hand around them, indicating the dungeon.

“Yes. I believe the System may have provided it as a reward for my breakthrough. Make no mistake; even with my new sense for metal, I had to explore dangerous depths in this dungeon before I heard this metal’s song.”

Victor stared at the metal while she spoke, and after he’d absorbed her words, he asked, “What do I do with it?” He reached out and, this time, wrapped both his hands around the lump of metal, heaving it up off the stone bench. His muscles strained with the effort; while it was a fraction of the size, he figured it weighed more than Karl’s gigantic axe. Grunting, he set it back onto the stone with a dull, reverberating thud.

“Is that a serious question?” Lira cocked her head, looking at him sideways like he was stupid. When Victor continued to stare, unblinking and unapologetic for his question, she made an irritated clicking sound in her throat. “Feed it to your axe, of course!”

“She absorbs Energy—”

“She can do much more than that!” Lira chuckled, shaking her head. “Gods! Can’t you feel her hunger? She wants to grow, to be a match for you, but there’s only so much she can do with Energy alone. You’ve got to feed her materials, too! Ugh!” She huffed an exasperated sigh and scratched her long, pointed nails through the feathers on the side of her head. “I have to remind myself how young your axe is. Perhaps she doesn’t even know what she needs. Has she not asked for ore?” When Victor slowly began to shake his head, understanding dawning in his eyes, Lira smiled and nodded. “I can see that. Trust me, Victor, this is exactly what she needs.”

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“How…” Victor trailed off, his question unfinished because he couldn’t think of a way to ask how to feed metal to his axe without sounding like an idiot.

Lira smiled and leaned forward, slapping Victor’s knee. “I don’t mind helping. I owe you, after all, do I not? It’s easier than you think; simply put the axe against the ore and leave her in peace for a while. It may take her a week or a month, but she’ll slowly pull this dense metal into herself. Beware—she’s going to be much more of a handful after absorbing the soul ore.”

“Wait.” Victor rested his hand on the ore again, enjoying the steady buzz of potential he felt tingling his flesh. “Does it really have one? A soul, I mean. I don’t want Lifedrinker’s personality to—”

“No! It’s not alive, as much as it seems to be.” She reached down to rest her hand on the stone with Victor’s, her palm surprisingly warm and soft against his fingers. “There’s no intelligence in there. At least not in the sense that you, Lifedrinker, and I view intelligence. If I were guessing, I’d say this ore is the stuff of the primordial universe. It has the wisdom of eons in its molecules but no real mind to use it.” She shifted her hand to grasp Victor’s, and after a gentle squeeze, she let go and stood up. “That’s my duty done. When we meet again, I hope it won’t be as foes.”

“I…” Victor stood up, overwhelmed by how gracious Lira had been. “Thank you, Lira. I learned a lot during our fight, and now you’ve given me something precious. I hope you’ll consider me a friend.”

“I will, but that doesn’t mean I won’t heed Ronkerz if he says we must be foes. I hope that, when the time comes, you aren’t defending the Sojourn Consulate.”

“Tut, Lira,” a deep basso voice rumbled from the shadowy depths of the cave. “Don’t give away all of my secrets.” Victor looked past Lira to see twin, angular, purple lights approaching—Ronkerz’s eyes.

“Goodbye, Victor.” Lira ducked her head, her feathers ruffling as her wings twitched, then she turned and hurried away, walking past the massive shadowy form of the simian lord.

When Ronkerz stepped into the dim light of the glow lamp, he announced, “I’ll have words with you before you speak to Arcus and complete your quest.” He gestured to the lump of soul ore. “Put that prize away.”

Vitor touched the hunk of ore and sent it into the storage device Dar had given him. He wondered how much of a strain it was for the ring to hold all the powerful items he’d put inside it. It worried him, and he decided he’d better move the ore into his vault at the earliest opportunity. Ronkerz, ignorant of his inner conversation, interrupted Victor’s thoughts, “I will ask a favor of you.”

That got Victor’s attention. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Even in my time, your master, Ranish Dar, was often at odds with the council. Is that still so?”

Victor thought about the question and weighed his response. He didn’t want to give something valuable away to the renegade veil walker, but he also didn’t want to get his head crushed by one of those massive ape-like hands. “He doesn’t get along with all of the, uh, consuls.”

“Good! That’s the way I remember him. Tell me, do you serve Sojourn, or do you serve Ranish Dar?”

“I already told you: I’m not here because I work for the council; I’m here because I owe them. It’s a…punishment, I guess.”

“Good!” Ronkerz grunted again, thumping one of his fists on the stone. “You must know something, boy. I already know how to break this dungeon and free everyone inside it. I’m waiting for some of my Big Ones to break through into their lustrous veils, and then we’ll leave this place. You needn’t worry about the children born here or the suffering you think you see. Their lives are hard but not desperate, and, as you saw, great strength can be found here under my tutelage.”

Victor frowned. “What about the people in the other settlements?”

“They’ll come around to my way of thinking. As the time grows near for us to make our move, they’ll join me. If they don’t, they’ll still be freed. I’m telling you this so that you won’t return and raise any alarms with the council. I know we struck a bargain, Victor, but if you don’t promise to hold your report for any but Dar’s ears, then I won’t let you leave.”

Victor folded his arms over his chest, contemplating the warning in Ronkerz’s words. “I can still tell Dar everything?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t the council be able to see what’s happening in here? Can’t they tell who’s alive and who’s dead?”

“They can see much, aye, but I can block and obscure just as much. At the moment, I’m quite sure they think Arcus is just as dead as Arona. They also think I’m still struggling with my ascension through the test of steel and that my Big Ones are iron rankers.” He leaned forward, his knuckles grinding on the stone. “Can you do what I asked? Can you save your report for Dar’s ears alone?”

Victor shrugged. “I can do that.”

For the third time, Ronkerz thumped his fist on the stone and said, “Good!” Then he nodded and turned. “Arcus and Rasso Hine approach. When your erstwhile companion has said his piece, you may depart with Hine.” With that, Ronkerz turned and took a lumbering step into the shadows.

Victor watched him leave, wondering if he should say something—a promise of vengeance for Arona, a threat to fight him someday, a thank you, a curse. He couldn’t decide, and before he settled on how he was supposed to feel, how he was supposed to act, Ronkerz was gone. Much smaller, lighter footsteps approached, and two humanoid figures emerged from the shadows. Both Arcus and Rasso Hine wore gray rough-spun clothes. Neither held any sort of weapon, and neither wore any jewelry.

Arcus sighed and shrugged, gesturing at his much-humbled appearance, his tentacle arm twitching and writhing as it hung by his side. “I’ll be a while earning some privileges back.” He gestured to the clean-shaven, bald man beside him. “This is the infamous Rasso Hine.”

Rasso appeared to be human. Victor couldn’t see anything about him that would make him stand out on Earth. Even his size was average—probably a few inches shy of six feet. He bowed somewhat stiffly. “Hello,” he said in a hoarse, accented voice that sounded more like a mumble than a word.

Arcus shrugged. “I already filled him in on what the council said. He says he doesn’t know anything about the invasion, but he’s happy to leave this place to tell them so himself.”

Victor frowned at Arcus. “You seem pretty upbeat.”

“I am! Something about being irrevocably sprung from the grasp of my father and the demands of society—it feels good. Ronkerz is powerful, Victor, and I intend to learn a thing or two in here. If it takes a few centuries, what do I care? I’ve no love waiting for me. I’ve no family of any consequence. My father hates me, my sisters and brothers won’t miss me, and my mother is busy with her wars.”

Victor stepped closer, looking into Arcus’s eyes, trying to gauge how much of his attitude was bravado and how much was sincere. The Pyromancer stared back at him, unflinching. Victor frowned. “Sucks about Arona, though, doesn’t it?”

Those words broke Arcus’s façade, and he looked down, inhaling shakily through his nose. “I can’t believe she died. She was the best of us—our generation.” He looked up, his eyes red and watery, the flames behind his irises mere smolders. “Please tell them I’m dead, Victor.” His eyes sprang wide. “Gods! That’s why I needed to speak to you!”

“What?”

“My father! He uses my sister, Trin, as a pawn. He intends to trap your friends in our family’s dungeon. You have to stop them; don’t let them go in.”

“What?” Victor blinked, confused by the sudden turn of the conversation, but something in him understood—his heart began to thud in his chest, and his rage slowly trickled into his pathways.

“Our dungeon, it’s a wave challenge, but it won’t end. There’s no exit provided until the dungeon is completed. Worse, it only allows tier-one iron rankers to enter, so you won’t be able to go after—” Arcus’s words were cut short as Victor surged forward and grabbed his shirt in his fists, lifting him so their faces were an inch apart.

“You’re telling me this now?”

“I’m sorry! Victor, I’m sorry! I meant to tell you—I swear it. I’d grown to respect you, grudgingly, yes, but it was there. I’ve told you how I hate my father; I was going to help you.”

Victor growled but released Arcus. “What if I’m too late? Something like two weeks have passed on the outside since we entered this dungeon!”

“My father has the dungeon control stone. He can end it. He can get them out. I’m sure that was his plan: trap them, with death looming, then offer to let them out for some sort of bargain—a debt owed, or perhaps a piece of property from Ranish Dar, or—”

“I’ll just kill him. You said he’s only tier-five.”

“Ah! He has a champion. A steel seeker. Better to have Dar confront him. But…he’d lose much political clout getting my father to release your friends. Do you want Dar to hold that over your head? I don’t know what he’s like, but I’ve never thought it wise to collect debts to veil walkers.”

Victor growled, punching his fist into his palm and pacing back and forth as he considered his options. If Arcus was right, he needed to haul ass to wherever his family home was and make sure Edeya, Darren, and Lam weren’t inside their dungeon. Frowning at the thought, he looked at Arcus. “What about your sister?”

Arcus shrugged, his face pained. “Um, different mother, but still not exactly loved by my father. She’s mostly ignored by him, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find her used as a sacrificial pawn; she’s not exactly talented.”

Victor was still struggling to wrap his head around the scheme. “I don’t get it. What if Lam and the others just win? If you have to be tier one to enter the dungeon—”

“There’s a reason our dungeon isn’t listed in the guidebook—it’s basically useless unless my father intervenes with the control stone, which strips the entrants of prizes. The only group that’s ever completed the dungeon was composed of six level nineteen prodigies, including Arona and me. I know your friends are talented, but…” He let his words trail off, and Victor drew his own conclusion: Lam and Edeya were good, but they weren’t that good. If they brought Darren, he would probably barely be at level ten. At the low ranks, nine levels made a big difference.

“Listen, Arcus. You need to tell me everything you know about your dad’s champion. I also need detailed instructions on the fastest route to your family home.” He glared at Rasso Hine. “Stand close, ‘cause we’re leaving in a minute, and I’m dumping you off with the council.”

Arcus nodded, licking his lips. “Right, well, you need to know that he’s a wizard with two powerful affinities—nature and blood. His nature affinity has allowed him to cultivate a relationship with a powerful beast—a bog lion. Besides controlling his companion, his affinity allows him to use vegetation to…”

Victor listened to Arcus go on and on about his father’s champion, Fak Loyle, slowly building a picture of the man in his mind. Arcus described his powers, and Victor contemplated counters for them, slowly sketching a dance in his mind, one in which Fak Loyle was his partner. They moved in counterpoint to each other, Victor matching Fak’s talents with those of his own, and when Arcus finished, he felt confident that he’d have a chance. “That’s all I can think of. I’m sure that’s everything, though—I’ve seen him duel a dozen times. If he has a secret, it’s one he hasn’t used in forty years.”

“Right. Thanks, Arcus. Good luck in here.” Victor punched him lightly in the chest, then reached out to grasp Hine’s shoulder. “Let’s go.” With that, he summoned the recall token from his storage ring and channeled a trickle of Energy into it. He felt a surge of Energy, like being struck by a bolt of lightning, and the world faded in a brilliant flash of light.