Dungeons and Dalliances

7.41 – Coliseum

Through the door, a staircase led up and into a viewing room. While the Coliseum was a huge ovular arena, the thousands of seats were for show; city goers weren't lounging throughout. Rather, they congregated in a spacious elevated viewing room with an overhang that contained dozens of seats with an ideal view of the fight below, along with space to stand and watch. Only a few people were seated.

There was a lot to take in as she finished her ascent up the stairs.

First: the other city goers. There were around four dozen inside the large viewing room. More than she'd expected. Then again, idling in the Coliseum and viewing fights was apparently the easiest non-lewd way to gain enchanted tokens. So anyone who wasn't inclined to tackle this bizarre realm in the intended way ended up at the Coliseum.

Likely, along with that regular crowd, there would be curious viewers—like Natalie and Vanetta—and perhaps teammates coming to watch a fight involving someone they knew. And maybe a few voyeurs sprinkled in. Those present for the love of it.

Some were seated, some were standing, some were clumped together, and some were off by themselves, as far from the rest as they could manage. A number of conversations were taking place, especially by the people standing in a group near the front, leaning on the railing that oversaw the arena. Natalie caught a few snippets, since they were the loudest: they were talking about the fight below. And it was still a fight; it hadn't moved on to more yet. That would come after a victor was decided as far as Natalie understood.

The average attire was more conservative than on the streets. Far less lewd. Natalie assumed that was for previously mentioned reasons: the spectators who lingered in the Coliseum were those who didn't want to take more drastic measures to enchant their tokens. So not only were they poorer, and thus couldn't afford the lewd gear being hawked, they were also on average less willing to walk around in tiny metal bikinis.

A few people glanced over at Natalie and Vanetta as they walked in, but while their eyes lingered on Natalie's revealing outfit, they turned back forward after inclining their heads in silent acknowledgment.

She shared a look with Vanetta. The two of them swerved off and found a place near the front to stand, to the side, and peeked into the arena grounds below.

As expected, the fight was underway. The Coliseum wasn't as massive as some of the ones that might be found at Aradon, but it was still large, so the figures below were made small by the distance.

But that didn't matter when there was a gigantic viewing screen on the opposite side of the arena.

On that screen, an illusion—or however the enchantment worked—replicated the two combatants in larger-than-life detail. There were similar devices for the higher-end arenas in Aradon, but Natalie was surprised to see one here. Maybe she shouldn't be. Anything the real world could create, the dungeon could.

Down below, two mages were dueling.

The first was a short brown-haired girl wielding a staff. Bolts of fire magic were spewing forth from the wooden weapon, though she was on the back foot and having to weave the spells in between dodging her opponent's attacks.

Her 'opponent', a dark-haired mage, came bundled with a skeleton warrior. A summoner? Necromancer-themed, or perhaps a full necromancer, based on the bone creation. The construct wielded a small round buckler and a short sword, and it fearlessly chased down the fire mage.

"Summoner mage versus traditionalist, seemingly a pyro?" Vanetta commented, after only a few seconds of observation. "Catarina is the summoner, I assume. Since the odds were rated to be in her favor."

Natalie made a noise of agreement. She agreed with the analysis. Summoner mages were exceptional solo duelists, since they could call up a frontline while keeping their backline power as a mage. Indeed, the pyro was needing to defend herself from two enemies at once, and a numbers advantage was no small thing, especially for a mage.

"Doesn't matter if her spells do more damage," Natalie mused. "Too hard to duel two people at once."

Even if the bone warrior wasn't a particularly effective threat. A single fireball would have it sprawling away, and the pyro—Brooklyn—could fend it off with her staff too, despite being no physical fighter.

Still …

"She's going to lose soon."

"She is," Natalie agreed.

They'd spent their lives analyzing fights. Maybe not in the same way a duelist would, but they were both more than capable of instantly identifying strengths and weaknesses of a set of enemies and deciding what shape the fight would take. And here, the summoner-mage would win shortly. They'd walked in toward the end of the fight, and Brooklyn was struggling to keep up, flagging as she ran out of energy. Her spells were becoming desperate, trying to sneak in shots at Catarina despite the skeleton's pursuit.

They watched in silence as the fight wrapped up in the way they'd both predicted. A moment of distraction, and the skeleton warrior's sword plunged into the pyro's stomach. Several gasps filled the Coliseum's viewing room. Even Natalie flinched. Hard to fight away the first instinct that came with seeing someone 'die.'

The girl staggered a step back, still skewered by the sword—

And then the three figures flickered. In an instant, the skeleton disappeared, and the two mages were standing on opposite sides of the arena. Seemingly fully healed, like what had happened in the Arena.

"Hell of a way to spar," Vanetta murmured.

"No joke."

Even Tenet couldn't facilitate to-the-death spars so effectively. Their solution was having a massively over-leveled instructor watching their students, ready to intervene. There were also high-ranked emergency healers on standby, of course, and potions and other failsafes, but there were certain blows that were impossible to cure, even for Tenet. Like a giant warhammer popping a skull like a grape. Or a knife in the brain. Mostly—critical injuries to the head. The heart could be tricky to fix too, even for high-level magic.

HP also mitigated accidents—but accidents happened nonetheless. Tenet had a history of lethal sparring incidents. It was more common in the later years, where the students became powerhouses in their own right.

Now that they were separated, the screen above had split in two, showing images of the respective fighters. Brooklyn, the defeated, seemed disoriented—then annoyed with herself. Catarina's expression remained neutral.

'Victor: Catarina. 2-0.'

"Oh. The fights are best of threes?" She hadn't known the Coliseum lasted multiple rounds.

"Maybe it varies." Vanetta hummed. "Now, I wonder what the stake was?"