Echoes was an old dwarven training technique. You began with a ritualistic exchange of attacks and counters. Then you started again and added another exchange on the end, and then started again, and then followed the pattern of four exchanges before adding a fifth. And so on and so forth, each time the exchange got longer. And when you reached a multiple of three, you’d increase the speed.

  Oz had once got up to fifteen exchanges with his dad, meaning he had completed a total of 117 counters and the same amount of attacks over the rounds. It was a gruelling exercise, a memory of times when dwarves lived in tunnels and were beset by hordes of relentless monsters that one might have to fight for hours.

  It did not only teach endurance but thinking and economy. You were not allowed to change your blocks. If you picked a bad counter, you had to keep doing that sloppy block over and over.

  It was a way to train physique, endurance, awareness, and processing. And one of Oz’s favourite ways to turn his brain off.

  He had been missing out for months. He used to train against his dad, and even after he got all loopy his dad had set up a golem for him to train against. It had run down after his death and Oz had been left without any way to train.

  Oz took a moment to soothe Chops and explain he was sparring. The first time he and Angie had fought, the familiar had gotten a little confused. The dog sat off with Bless and her aunt, accepting their pets as a couple of suits appeared and cleared out a ring in the middle of the room. A few people glanced over from their tables as the two dwarves took up position.

  Oz settled into his stance, wincing as the [Stance of the Menhir] flared up. An unfamiliar wave of embarrassment washed over him as Kazzar raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry, still getting used to a skill.” Oz went to mentally deactivate it.

  “No, I recognise that skill. Keep it. Means I do not have to worry so much and you should keep up easier.” Kazzar gave him a thin smile.

  Oz winced. He remembered the description of the stance of the Menhir. He was not entirely sure how he felt about needing the skill to keep up.

  [Stance of the Menhir] When in the stance of the Menhir, your body becomes tougher, unyielding to outside force. You resist physical and magical damage, and are especially resistant to abilities that impart momentum onto you. The skill ends if you move or are moved out of the stance of the Menhir. The improved resistance is an expression of your Vitality and Physique. Continued use is required to understand the skill in more detail.

  “You know Kozarz rules?” the other dwarf asked as they found their distance to each other.

  “That’s what I know best.” Oz nodded. There were a thousand and one ways to run a session of Echoes, but Kozarz rules was amongst the most popular. In this format, Kazzar would be taking the role of attacker and ‘speaker’, and Oz would be defending and responding.

  “Alright then. Haz, Rak, To!” The dwarf bowed to him, the dwarven words for ‘Fight’, ‘Respect’, ‘Honour’, acting as the countdown before the first blows.

  He started slow. The ritual exchange was so ingrained into Oz that he barely had to think. Instead, he watched his opponent. The man moved flawlessly, like his father used to. The attacks were perfectly adjusted for the height difference. A right hook, that Oz knocked aside with his left forearm, and then Oz struck back with a right straight going low. Kazzar stepped back as his counter, and then a shin swung at his legs. Oz’s legs shifted beneath him to dodge, followed by a quick strike with an elbow. Kazzar countered with a palm guiding away the strike, and then came the headbutt. Oz sidestepped, and then came the shin.

  And that was the established exchange, a reflection of the way that dwarves fought with every part of their body.

  “Ozk!” Faster. Kazzar’s ritualistic shout had them start moving. What had been a somewhat serene dance sped up. No longer were the movements slow and gentle, now there was some speed behind it.

  Kazzar took him through the ritual three moves again, faster but still slower than a true spar. The attacks landed with a touch more force. It was odd fighting someone who was not his father. He was so used to the pacing of his dad’s attacks, or the golems he had programmed, that each attack, while familiar, still felt alien to him. Kazzar completed the next round by adding a swift punch that Oz simply rolled around, bringing his head back out of its reach.

  They reset and the pattern began again. The rounds completed, each time just getting that bit longer. Oz almost wished they were moving faster. Moving at this speed took a different kind of energy than moving at full speed in a spar. The next two additions to the Echoes favoured attacks on his legs. Oz chose to block one and counter another with a simple defensive strike to push back the attack.

  They hit six exchanges, and Oz heard Kazzar’s “Ozk!” Faster.

  Oz’s mind slipped into a state of flow. The speed was now just a touch below a good sparring speed, like when he fought Angie. Keeping up with the attacks was not difficult, but now the repetitions were weighing on him. His arms were starting to burn. The counters where he was knocking aside blows rather than dodging them were making his arms throb, as even the reduced impacts were taking their toll through repetition.

  Another “Ozk!” rang out and Oz was completely in the fight. The speed was now fast, fast enough that Oz’s new deftness was being pushed. The attacks were difficult. His feet were almost out of place, his stance was wavering, and he could feel each breath sucking at his reserves. Still he pushed on though. Oz was not raised as a quitter.

  Kazzar’s attacks were driving him back. Each new addition seemed custom-picked to push him out of balance, to make him waste energy and push him into a position that would sap his strength. But he did not falter, he did not halt. No matter what was happening, Oz kept his arms ready, chin tucked in, and legs bent and ready. His strikes and attacks remained economical. There was the temptation to lash out, to try and push the older dwarf back with a wide attack, but that would be a waste.

  Echoes was endurance. It was not a fight, it was not about winning. It was about outlasting your opponent, about seeing them falter and slow. There was sweat in his eye. He was struggling to remember each next attack, and some of Kazzar’s hits were landing as his counters were getting sloppy.

  “Ozk!” was shouted one last time and Oz took a fast right hook to the face.

  “That’s it over! Twelve exchanges! Amazing work, kid.” Kazzar was opposite, laughing, and Oz’s body was still twitching, preparing for the rest of the attacks.

  Oz stood blinking in the centre of the ring. His muscles groaned in pain, and then, around them, applause broke out. He could not quite believe they were done. He shook off the stupor to see Kazzar grinning ear to ear before him.

  “I thought you said you were out of practice? You got to twelve!” Kazzar laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. Oz felt defensive, but his voice choked off.

  The itch was gone though. The Echoes round had cleared out the cobwebs.

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  Oz felt at ease for the first time in days. It was enough that he did not mind when the thick dwarven hand clamped around his arm and piloted him out of the ring with insulting ease. Kazzar’s version of “helping” was mostly just manhandling him back into the land of the living. Another heavy slap on the back nearly folded Oz in half again.

  Oz blinked away the static in his vision, jaw aching, and managed a grunt that could generously be interpreted as gratitude. That was when Oz realised the applause had started.

  Not enthusiastic applause. Not the roaring approval of people who had just watched a brutal fight and were high on excitement. No, this was polite applause. A curated event. The sound of dozens of wealthy spectators acknowledging, with dutiful restraint, that the correct moment for clapping had arrived.

  It made the hairs on the back of his neck rise more than any punch.

  Two attendants approached at once. One carried a steaming towel reverently between both hands and presented it to Oz. The other raised both palms and murmured a spell, siphoning the sweat and grime off Oz’s skin with faint, shimmering threads of magic.

  “No need to be sweaty while you watch the rest of the matches.”

  A few faces in the crowd were watching him with sharp, evaluating interest, people who had actually understood the ritual rather than just performing the part. It made his skin crawl. Hadn’t he come out here hoping to be anonymous?

  Swept up by Kazzar, Oz was dragged over to where Bless and her aunt were sitting. The Keeper was still petting Chops, who was absorbed in a good ear scratch. Bless greeted him enthusiastically.

  “That was incredible, I hadn’t seen an Echoes fight so smooth in ages.”

  “You know Echoes?”

  “My teachers used to make me run drills of it. I’m not as good as you though.”

  “But aren’t you focusing on magic?” her aunt piped up, and Bless began to blush. Oz did not mind. Considering all the talk about Dynasty kids, he was kind of surprised to find that Bless was so normal. He had been warned that they were incredibly competitive, to the point of believing they were superior to scholars in every aspect.

  “I wonder if you could adapt it for spells? I’m sure I could work something out.” Kazzar grinned, and Bless went pale and stammered out an excuse. The dwarf laughed as she tried to politely decline the offer before he leaned over and kissed Keeper Tessa, joining her on a seat to her left. Oz was guided to an empty seat as well, sitting beside Bless.

  The view over the arena was second to none. He could see the teeming masses of people. In the few minutes they had been running Echoes, it seemed that the seats had filled in and the people spoke in low tones, a palpable sense of tension in the air.

  “Get comfy, Mr Grimbrow, we’re about to get things started for the main event of the night. I do thank you and Kazzar for getting things started with that little exhibition though. Good to see you’re such a cultured dwarf.”

  Oz nodded to the impressive woman, making very sure that Ozzer did not drag his eyes into dangerous waters. The last thing he had expected this evening was to be dragged in front of a powerful Keeper. The way she watched him out of the corner of her eye set his teeth on edge. She had a calculating look that left him feeling like he was under the microscope.

  It reminded him of the eyeballing the parents of the girls he had occasionally dated used to give him.

  A suit came up with a notepad and whispered into the Keeper’s ear. She nodded and then stood with a clap. The VIP room went silent.

  “Well, now we’ve had our opening act, let’s get to the main event. Thanks all for joining us tonight. Let’s see if we’ve got any new talents here today!”

  Keeper Tessa then strode towards and over the edge of the platform with the confidence of someone who had long ago declared gravity optional. Her armour glittered sharply despite covering very little. The crowd’s attention snapped to her as naturally as trees bent towards sunlight.

  Oz took the opportunity to grab Chops and bring him over. He did not want his familiar getting swayed by even more pets.

  “It’s that time again!” she called out, voice ringing like a warhorn over the vast arena. “Welcome, everyone! We’re so pleased to have a fresh round of fighters tonight. Some of you we know, some of you are new to this, but all of you have a chance to win, a chance to stand and fight and prove yourselves as true tunnel fighters!”

  She spread her arms, the metal along her gauntlets sparking faintly. A roar of anticipation rose up from the crowd below.

  “Tonight, your homegrown heroes show their worth. It will be bloody. It will be sharp. May knives find blood, may wounds scar, may the arena judge them true!”

  The crowd below was nothing like the VIPs above. They did not applaud. They screamed their approval. Hooting and clamouring into a din that even the magic suppressing the sound could not quite drown out. The people banged their feet, pounded their chests and made it known they were here for blood and sport.

  “We have twenty-eight fights beginning shortly,” she continued. “Betting opens now! Fighters include…” She launched into a list of names so theatrical that Oz was vaguely convinced she was making at least half of them up. “The Minotaur Bulldozer! The Crimson Pickaxe! Madam Split-Your-Skull! The Recursive Bard!”

  Each name drew a ripple of laughter, cheers, or groans. Behind him, Oz could hear the VIPs talking and comparing notes.

  Oz suspected Tessa enjoyed this far too much.

  While the names continued, Oz started to overhear the VIPs talk. A soft hum of spoken numbers, bets being placed. Bets in amounts that made his stomach dip. Numbers that would have brought an entire house in Greywater.

  He swallowed. Hard.

  His own orichalcum-level account suddenly felt embarrassingly small. Here, that kind of money was a casual flutter. A bored-night-out wager.

  He leant over to Bless, who was watching the crowd below and doing her best to not look like the country bumpkin he was, and cleared his throat to get her attention.

  “Is this… a big night?” he asked, unable to help himself.

  Bless laughed gently as if he was making a joke. “Big? Oh, nether, no. This is regular. Auntie does this every couple of weeks to keep things lively. This has nothing on the professional nights. That has more than double the people.” She flashed him a grin over her shoulder.

  Oz tried not to choke on that information. The arena was enormous, carved partly from dungeonstone and partly from some kind of magically grown architecture.

  “My aunt’s very proud of this configuration. She came up with this format of dungeon.” Bless was keen to brag about her relative, and did not realise how thoroughly successful she had already been, so continued to explain to Oz. “She spent years refining her old boss’s dungeon before she took over here. See, she made it work for the mortals too. For them it’s a brawler’s arena, very specialised. Duelist-oriented. Extremely successful.”

  Oz nodded as if he understood all of that completely.

  Bless continued, clearly delighted to discuss it. “Most static dungeons don’t innovate much. They stick with a single layout, alter a few details so they can’t be solved forever, and call it a day. But my aunt, she built a sequence. A gauntlet of arenas. Each with rule restrictions. Weapons banned in the second. Pure footwork trial in the fourth. Brilliant, really. And the loot! Perfect for duelists and martial specialists. Hugely profitable. She’s not an emissary but she gets a huge amount of repeat delves!”

  Oz nodded. He did actually understand most of this explanation. While Emissary dungeons were constantly changing month to month and might pull in hundreds of diverse delvers, most dungeons found a single niche and stuck with it. While they tended to not get as many repeat delvers and could not compete for mana harvested, they still could be quite popular, especially if they had specific loot.

  From Bless’s description, it sounded like the Altharn Arena had found a good way to ensure it could function as a dungeon for the mortals and leverage those same aspects for its own development.

  Oz nodded again, faster this time, as Bless continued to explain and debate her aunt’s approach to loot and templates. He recognised maybe half the terms from nights spent cramming in the library. The rest blurred into the kind of advanced dungeon terminology he had skimmed over while trying to stop the words from slipping out of his skull.

  The Ozzer helped him keep up, and not look like an idiot.

  “Aren’t you excited though, to begin your studies?” Bless asked, bright-eyed.

  “Of course,” Oz said before he could overthink it.

  Bless lit up. “So I didn’t say, but I’m on the Emissary track too. I figured you must be too because you’re E-Tier. Sorry for prying, but I can sense the power coming off you.” She continued and Oz sighed. Were all the Noxarcer women this observant, or had he just met the two most eagle-eyed among them?

  “It’s not a problem. What extra courses are you taking?”

  “I’m going to pick battle spells as my magic option. I’m guessing from all the runes carved on your gear that you’re going for that.”

  “Yep, that and stuff for Ranger studies.”

  “Hmm, that’s a surprise. I kind of expected you to go for a pure Champion set-up. You look like you’d be a good floor guardian.”

  “We’ll see. I’m good with traps and the like, so I want to leverage that.”

  “Ah, I never have the patience. I prefer to do my zapping more personal. There’s something satisfying about blasting someone across a room where you can see it.”

  Oz felt the Ozzer quirk an eyebrow at their new ‘friend’. Oz ignored him. It was not like he was one to judge. He had just relaxed by getting punched in the face.

  Below, the fights were finally starting. The distance was big enough that everyone was tiny, but just as Oz started to wonder how best to watch the battles, bubbles of floating illusion magic popped into existence, showing the fights in more detail.

  “Let’s get ready to rumble! On your marks, get set and fight!” Tessa shouted out over the arena.

  The battles started and Oz frowned. The people here were not very good.

  He watched one dwarf charge down a corridor only to get tripped and fall onto the ground. A quick stab to keep him down and his opponent sprinted through the door at the other end of the hall. In another fight, a minotaur who was clearly expecting his greater physique to bowl through a headset beastkin was dismantled with some simple knife work.

  His scowl must have been so pronounced that, from a couple of seats over, Kazzar burst out laughing.

  “I tried to warn you they are actual novices. Any Grimbrow worth their beard would go through most of them like a hot knife through butter.”

  “They’re not that bad, are they?” Both dwarves swung to look at Bless, who blushed. “I mean, they’re not good, but I mean…”

  “Young Grimbrow, could I ask you to make sure you do some spars with my darling niece when you get back to Noxarcer? I think she needs to understand what proper tunnel fighting should look like.”

  “Kazzar, you don’t…”

  “I’ll do it. That you think this is acceptable is an insult to good tunnel fighting,” Oz growled, watching the fights.

  “Oz!”

  “Oh, Bless, do not complain about learning.” Tessa returned to the circle of chairs from hovering over the arena. She rubbed her hand on her niece’s head in a gesture of affection that made the younger Valkyrie squawk in anger. “I know you’re probably sick of tutors, but a good fight against a contemporary will teach you tons.”

  “But I’m a ranged damage dealer!” she complained as she tried to fix her ruffled hair.

  “Whined every mage stabbed between the ribs ever.” Her aunt laughed. Kazzar joined in as well.

  “Look, fine, we can spar, after I get my class. And don’t expect me to hold back.” Bless turned to Oz, a look of stern determination in her eyes that was only somewhat undermined by the frizzy hair she still sported.

  “That’s fine. I could do with some more sparring partners,” he responded calmly.

  “Well then, cheers to new friendships!” Tessa had summoned them some drinks, and raised her glass, looking the pair of them over. “I hope you both succeed in everything you want to do at Noxarcer. I’ll be following both of your careers with interest.”

  Oz gulped. He really hoped no one else was paying him that much interest.