Chapter 4: Tessa

  In a tournament colosseum an announcer commentated the final tournament match between the greatest of this years Stage Two adventurer’s.

  “Oh! Look at that strike folks! This is going to be one heck of a battle!”

  A women with a bright pink and very wide mohawk with full plate armor grinned at her opponent. In one hand she held a hammer, and in the other an aegis shield. On the other side of the arena stood a shirtless muscle man with a spear. His empowerment tattoos flared to life as they clashed once again in the arena’s center.

  The announcer yelled, “Okay folks, it’s time to finish placing your bets. Who will win?! Will it be Tessa the Brute, or will it be Jackie the Barbarian?! You have twenty more seconds to finish your bets, and they must be placed before the battle is concluded. Don’t you hesitate for one more second or you will miss out! Oh! That was a nasty hammer blow!”

  Tessa was a hammer fighter, but everyone knew her for her telekinetic force abilities. As a Stage Two with a few years of Adventuring experience, she was known for her effective combat abilities. The tournament she entered was one way to practice against humanoid enemies in a somewhat safe environment. As long as you weren’t outright killed, you’d be healed as part of the compensation of the match. Gladiator’s in this arena also got to keep ten percent of any losing bets if they won.

  Tessa kept her eyes trained on the man in front of her. They circled each other. He definitely had a weapon advantage against her. A hammer was slow, and a one handed hammer was just about as slow as a two-handed one with less power and less reach. Her fighting style did not lend itself well to direct weapon to weapon combat. But, that was exactly why she was doing this.

  Jackie’s spear fighting abilities were top notch. His body tempering techniques went above and beyond any of his peers, and so he couldn’t be budged with a simple hammer strike.

  Tessa jeered at him, “All muscle! No brains!”

  Jackie just grunted in response, and started charging with his spear trained on her.

  She side stepped and deflected the initial spear strike with her shield but his forward momentum kept him coming. He let his spear get shoved to the side and leaped up to give her a flying kick to the head. Tessa dodged the incoming foot while smacking him in the side with her hammer. It didn’t do any damage to the barbarian of a man, but was good practice. After the collision, they took their cautious stance once again encircling each other.

  The announcer continued, “Clash after clash. Who will win? These two fighters have endless energy! But this battle is growing long. Who will turn it up a notch and finish the other?!”

  Something about what the announcer said got Jackie to roar and start charging Tessa again. This time his spear glowed with a crackling white energy, and she knew it wasn’t a blow she could deflect. Sure enough, he was aiming to pierce straight through her shield. At the last second, she let go of her shield and bent her body over to the side, just dodging the spearhead as it pierced right through the shield into where her chest was.

  Jackie growled at his unsuccessful finisher and the wasted energy, and brought the point of his spear up in a hard flick to throw her damaged shield away from their scuffle. It clanged unceremoniously to the dirt. Tessa wasn’t nearly as fast as Jackie, and considered herself a battle mage, rather than a pure warrior. But, she managed to take a step back and get herself upright again in a fighting stance.

  Jackie lunged once again, and his spear crackled with the same energy but this time, it was pointed at her head. That would be a killing blow for sure. As a knee jerk reaction, Tessa let loose her telekinetic force strike to the side of his head. She compressed it as hard as possible to get through his toughened body. Just before he finished his strike toward her head, she heard a sickening crunch of bone.

  When she opened her eyes, Jackie was falling limp to the ground, and his spear was sitting on top of her shoulder having just barely missed her head. When she got a rush of experience for the kill, she was mortified. This was a peer, and it wasn’t supposed to be a life and death battle to that extent. His neck was twisted at an unnatural angle as he lay face down on the ground, motionless.

  The announcer was silent for a few moments.

  Tessa yelled, “What did you have to die for?!” She began to get upset at having accidentally killed the man, despite the action having saved her life. She took a knee by his side, and placed a hand on his bulging shoulder muscle. Her head bowed toward him in respect for his all out effort. She realized that given his height difference, her head was at his chest level, and he probably struck at that height due to muscle-memory. That broke her. This man’s public reputation may have been fierce and battle hungry, but she knew the man was a respectable person. His character as an adventurer was above reproach.

  The announcer was yelling something, way over the top in excitement and surprise. But when Tessa shook her head left and right, the announcer’s tone grew far more flat and business-like.

  “Behold, the winner of the tournament by Legal Sudden Death, Tessa the Brute.”

  There was still a round of applause from everyone, and some congratulations, but they didn’t cheer. Everyone knew it was something that happened every now and then, and they could all see the supercharged spear heading for her face before her telekinetic strike.

  She cleaned herself up in the private rooms of the colosseum, and started making her way to the markets. Her hammer lightly tapped against the plate armor at her side in its holster as she walked.

  The most annoying voice in the world spoke at her from behind, “Hey Tes!”

  She groaned loud enough for him to hear, “What do you want Barry?”

  “Jeez girl I’m just sayin’ hello.”

  The Captain of the Guard, Barry, was the Governor’s son. He was far too young and inexperienced to be in the position he was. He always walked around the city with his two goons at his side to help cover up anything that he did. Whether it was grabbing a free apple from an apple stall right in front of the clerk without paying, or smacking someone for being disrespectful, he was all around not a great guy.

  She glared at him for a few moments, said, “Hello,” then turned around and kept walking.

  He stepped forward and grabbed the edge of her shoulder armor to stop her.

  Barry said, “Hold on a minute. Can we just, can we talk?”

  Tessa turned to him and said, “Barry, I don’t know you. We don’t have anything to talk about. I’ve told you nicely a thousand times. I’m tired dude. I’m going to go rest.”

  Barry sighed, “Why don’t I take you somewhere better, to rest? How does that sound?”

  She frowned, “No dude. What? Were you listening to anything I said? No.”

  Goon number one spoke up, “Tessa, you should watch how you’re speaking to Barry.”

  Now she was pissed, “Look. I just accidentally killed a man today. Do you want to be next?!”

  Goon number two then smiled and said, “Well now you’re under arrest little lady. You’re coming with us.”

  They all had an evil grin on their face, and so she snapped. She only had a little bit of her Soul Orb filled back up with energy since her tournament fight, but it was enough to do something with. As soon as they took a step toward her after that, she lashed out with telekinetic force. Each hand grabbed goon one and goon two, and force slammed their heads together into Barry’s head hard enough to draw blood. Barry was knocked out with the impact of goon one, but goon two followed very shortly after that.

  Her adrenaline was pumping now with fear on top of her rage. They would probably get away with their behavior, but she certainly wouldn’t. She looked around the mostly empty street, and found a few people looking at her. They threw their hands up in surrender, and she was pretty sure they wouldn’t report her immediately.

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  She yelled out to the bystanders, “They’ll live!” She bent over and grabbed the first one to drag him into a nearby alley out of sight and started pulling him. By the time they were all out of sight, she looked at their sleeping faces in disgust. Being hit on the head once wasn’t enough for her. She unbuckled their chest armor plates, which were their badges of honor as Guards of the City. They had expensive and hard to acquire metal inlay that was ornate and hand crafted by a master artisan.

  She took her hammer and smashed their badges into a rumpled sheet of scrap one by one, and began her way to the nearest Guard Station to turn them in.

  She was under heavy suspicion about the whole ordeal, but just claimed, “I don’t know, I was done with my tournament fight today and I found these badges on the ground. A bystander told me that the guards had tried to assault some girl. I’m not sure exactly what happened, just glad to return these. Let me know if you need any more information.”

  She repeated the easy and simple story of finding them on the ground to multiple guards, and was let go with gratitude from the station. When Barry and his two goons woke up though, it was going to be a different story altogether.

  She made her way to the market like she originally planned. She had to get something for Jackie’s family as an apology for the accident today. She had been on a few Stage One missions with the man, and was hurt to be the one that took his life. All the money she had to her name was her winnings from that fight. But to her, it was blood money. It was quite the sum. It was a few thousand Draugs. That was enough to buy a horse, or a cart, or even a person on some other planets.

  She wouldn’t give away the money she needed to survive, but she didn’t need the entire sum. While at the market, she broke down crying a couple times while trying to decide what kind of apology gift to get them. Instead, she just went to their home with the money.

  She knocked on their door.

  The door opened, and Jackie’s mother greeted her with a bright smile, “Hey Tessa! How are you?”

  “Good evening Mrs. Walltron.” The look on her face must have gave away that she had some bad news.

  “What’s wrong Tessa? Come on in.”

  She didn’t immediately answer. It was horrible that the colosseum didn’t deliver the news to the family of the deceased right away. It had been several hours already, and she wasn’t prepared to be the one delivering the news too.

  “Tessa, please, tell me what’s going on? It’s been ages since we’ve seen you.”

  Her voice broke as she said it, “I, accidentally killed Jackie.”

  Mrs. Walltron gasped, and put a hand over her mouth. “My Jackie is dead? What happened?!”

  Tessa explained the best she could that his piercing strike was coming right at her face, and her attempt to knock him out was a little too rough and broke his neck. She also expressed her anger at the colosseum for not notifying her, and vented a little about how the guards harassed her too. She broke down, and Mrs. Walltron didn’t get angry, or anything. She was sad though.

  “I can’t keep this money from the tournament today. I just can’t. You have to have it, as my apology to your family.” She held the stack of paper bills two inches tall toward Mrs. Walltron, but she didn’t take it.

  “Young Tessa, look at me,” she said calmly.

  Tessa was barely able to meet her eyes.

  Mrs. Walltron continued, “Don’t you ever be ashamed of defending yourself. You keep those Draugs, and get yourself a new shield.” She finished it off with a hug.

  Her kindness broke something inside Tessa. She couldn’t fathom the amount of kindness and generosity in this women’s heart. Tessa didn’t have any memory of her parents, and Mrs. Walltron was definitely one of the only people that treated her like family, even if they didn’t know each other that well. The first time they met she was invited in for a meal. It was really bizarre and unexpected, but she had just wanted to know who her son was working with.

  Now, they sat in silence and ate dinner together again.

  “Don’t disappear on me. Just because my Jackie is gone, doesn’t mean that I will push you away. I want you to come to the funeral and say a few words okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you for the meal, and I will be there, I promise.”

  Just outside a few blocks away, she heard a child crying. She didn’t care if it was some sort of sick trap. If there was any chance that an actual child needed help and she could be there, she would.

  The child cried, “Owie, my leg hurts!”

  Tessa approached the child who sat on the ground holding her leg. “Hey sweetie, what happened?”

  The child said, “The meanie head pushed me off the roof and I landed on my leg!”

  Tessa flinched, and looked up the thirty or so feet to the top of the nearby roof of the apartment building. “From up there? You were pushed from up there?”

  “Yes. It hurts!”

  “Okay honey. Can I take a look?”

  “Don’t touch it,” she whined as she showed the injury to Tessa.

  The child had landed directly on one knee, exploding the bones around that area, and also breaking her femur. The black and blue coloration of her leg showed internal damage from the splintered bones. She needed healing, now.

  “Oh my goodness, you’re really tough. But we need to get you to a healer right away okay?”

  “I can’t move, it hurts.”

  “If we don’t get you healed, it’ll get much worse. So I have to pick you up and get you to the healers.”

  She waited for the child to think about it and give her assent. She reluctantly said, “Okay. Hurry.”

  Tessa carefully picked her up by her good leg, and around her back face up, and let the broken leg dangle to the side. If she put any pressure on it or moved it around she could cut open more of the inner tissues with the sharp bone fragments.

  “What’s your name honey?”

  She sniffled and said, “Julia.”

  “Alright Julia, I’m Tessa, and I want you to stay awake, if you feel tired let me know alright?”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you tell me who pushed you?”

  She walked at a solid pace trying not to shake the injured leg, but it still bounced with her steps a little.

  The child started to cry for more than just physical pain at the question.

  Tessa reassured her, “Nevermind. It’s okay, we can talk about that later.”

  Tessa entered the hospital, and yelled out, “Hey we have an emergency! Can we get assistance right away please?”

  After answering an hour of questioning about who the parents are, where they are, and not having any answers about what happened, she was let go. Why they needed to question her with the same questions at ten minutes intervals with different people asking them, she had no idea.

  The next couple days were like any other. She stayed at the Tabernackle Inn, and waited for her new shield to be crafted. When it’s done she would head out. She went to get another Quest from the Adventurer’s Board just before she expected her shield to be done.

  The Military had their own tasks, but the lowest priority missions were usually local and able to be handled by anyone at least at Stage One. Sometimes the Quests had a hard requirement of being Stage Two or Three, but anything past that and the military officially handled the problem.

  To her surprise, in the stone building that worked as a gathering center to take Quests, everyone looked at her like she was absolutely insane. Some Stage One’s took one look at her at ran out of the building like she was going to kill them.

  “What’s going on in here?” she asked.

  People started to filter out of the building, but the clerk behind the desk who helped sync the system up with the given Quests in their interface menu couldn’t exactly leave.

  Tessa walked up to the librarian and asked, “Excuse me sir, but why did everyone freak out when I walked in here?”

  The old man said, “Well young miss, it seems that you have a Stage Three bounty on your head for kill or capture. Look just over there at the priority board.”

  Her jaw dropped, and she ran the direction he pointed. Sure enough, her face from her Warrior’s Guild Application was right there with a mission description underneath of it.

  “Tessa Zarnock. Age 26. Accused of intentionally killing Guild Member Jackie Walltron in a tournament duel. Accused of battering Barry and two other Guards, as well as destroying their badges of honor and uniforms. Accused of conspiracy and lying to multiple Guard Personnel. Accused of bribery of Mrs. Walltron for her obvious help in these criminal endeavors. Accused of evading law enforcement and resisting arrest.”

  “What! In the hell! Is this?!” She scrambled for ideas about what to do, and came up blank. She ran back over to the clerk, and he had a crossbow leveled on the counter at her with a sad look on his face. She flinched back with her arms raised, and the sudden motion almost made him fire. She did wield nearly invisible magic after all. A jerk of her hand could be a devastating attack. Luckily the old man didn’t want to shoot her, and was simply afraid.

  Her day just took a wild turn. She was definitely ejected from the Warrior’s Guild, and unable to do her job as an Adventurer. Anyone taking Quests was considered an Adventurer, and not all Warrior’s Guild Members did that. Some became guards, others politicians, and many became crafters. She was now a fugitive, probably because of Barry. She almost wished she had done worse to him now that it came to this. She just hoped that Mrs. Walltron was okay and not incriminated on her behalf.

  As soon as she stepped out of the Adventurer’s Board Assignment Hall, she felt an ambush of Stage Three Aura’s pressing down on her. There were many in the shadows, and places she couldn’t see. But around ten of them had surrounded her with various weapons and magics flaring to life. Even she couldn’t evade that level of attack. Plus, she wanted her life back. She just wanted to do her missions, make some money fighting, and live her life. But no, she had to get harassed by the local Barry.

  She slowly pulled her hands away from where her hammer was on her belt, “I’m completely innocent, no need to be rough. I can explain.”

  The one guard in the mix of people in random armor threw down a pair of Stage Four Suppression Cuffs.

  “Put these on. True justice will be served.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure that was accurate, but decided to keep her arms and legs in one piece and comply with the order. They could have just executed her as the bounty said, so their leniency was a little bit of a welcome surprise.

  She slowly bent down and clicked the cuffs on. When they activated, she fell to her knees. All the strength was drained out of her.

  The guard said to the others, “Report in to claim the capture bounty. I am taking her straight in for my own reward.”