Guardian of Nekops
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Jarvis fell to his knees on the stone floor of Cellar, crying out with the paralyzing, overwhelming pain that followed any blow to a man’s most vulnerable spot. His rapier clattered, useless, to the ground, its swing having gone wide… How could I have missed? He was right in front of me! his mind screamed, outraged at fingers that would no longer obey his commands, even to save his life. Inexplicably, this little runt had brought him down, and would surely finish him off before he recovered control of himself.
Throwing his head back, the Worker gasped for air… and grinned despite the pain. In through his open mouth swarmed the twinkling, rainbow-colored sprites responsible for fetching the Champions, rushing down his windpipe and suffusing his body with their warm, radiant light... a glow that somehow encompassed even Darkness in its scope. His pain forgotten, driven away by the shining restorative power of Selection, Jarvis rose to tower triumphant over his opponent and Nudged his weapon back up into his hand. His unoccupied fingers curled around the hilt of the knife thrust into his belt, gripping it until the knuckles turned rainbow.
“Hope it wasn’t important, runt,” sneered the rising Champion for Darkness, the light of all the Elements burning through the shadows that encased his eyes and emerging from his mouth and nose fierce as hellfire, “whatever you came here for. Because all you gave, all you must have sacrificed for this?”
Jarvis glowed brighter and brighter, his body becoming less and less distinct as it was lost in the growing, rising light. At last, when there was but a point of light left to explode, showering the whole arena in its wondrous shards, the contestant finished his thought, softly, his whispering voice meant for one set of pointy ears alone…
“It wasn’t enough.”
~~~
He did not feel cold, exactly, but the warm light of Creation was certainly gone. The pain of the tiny wounds burnt into his flesh was also gone, but there was something off about that… he discovered that there was in fact a feeling opposite to pain, not pleasure, mind, but the sense of well-being, that told him that his flesh was hale and whole. This was gone along with the pain, along with even the pressure of his clothing or the ground beneath his feet, and the loss devastated him.
There was no light here, nor should there be. There was Darkness all around, and he could see through it thanks to the spell the imp had placed upon his eyes, but there was nothing TO see, nothing to even illuminate his own form when he turned his gaze down. This was a plane where Nothing ruled, and over the Nothing only one Lord held sway.
What there was, though, was thought. Jarvis was free from all mortal cares and comforts, but there in the part of Man that is immortal the Worker suffered. He longed for the touch of his wife’s tender lips against his own, for the new sense of wonder that came from listening to his young lad, sitting on his knee and telling him of the day’s adventures. He missed long strolls in the gardens, the sweat of a hard day’s work and above all collapsing into his chair at the end of it all, this wonderful family he was building giving him purpose and sustenance for it all… but every time he thought of them he could only see their blackened corpses, crushed and mutilated by the building that had collapsed with them inside. All he could feel was the rage and shame that now powered him, overpowering and casting their dark shadow over everything he once held dear.
”Do not punish yourself, please. You don’t deserve your wrath.”
“Eh?”
”What happened to your family was not your fault… sometimes, things just happen. You have gone to extraordinary lengths to save them, to bring them back from death… not by way of necromancy, which is simple, but in their own right. This Darkness need not be torturous for you, and you do not deserve for it to be. It is all in how you approach it.”
Jarvis glared into the Dark, though he still could see nothing. “Who are you, to speak to me thus?”
The dark voice could be heard to smile, tenderly but sad, as it replied from all around, ”I am Darkness, and I have faith in you, even though you have lost it in yourself. I believe you have the strength and the resolve to achieve your ends, win back your family, and bring honor to My name, which is why I have selected you as My Champion.”
“Darkness?” the Worker scoffed. “As in, the Lord of Darkness? Don’t you dare, of all people, try to feed me that garbage about things just happening. You could have saved them, not just my family but the whole body count of that day, by damping out the light of a single candle. Without even lifting a finger! But did you? No!” It was then, as Jarvis paused for air, that he realized he did not need to in this place. So he continued.
“Not a single one of you eight saved my family that day, and you didn’t help the others, either. Seven others have been selected, right, and several times that many lie broken an dejected in the other arenas? We all came here, each and every one of us, to pry from your hands a boon that you could freely give! You could solve EVERYTHING, but instead you have us fight to the death over your table scraps, and only aid ONE? Why, for your amusement? For your sick pleasure? For BRAGGING RIGHTS?”
At this, Jarvis sighed. “I’ll do it, but only because I need to. It’s the only way I put things back the way they were, the way they need to be, and I’ll be damned before I praise you for the opportunity. It’s an ugly business all around, and I don’t want to hear your excuses for it. So either strike me down and be without a Champion or let me get to it.”
Sadly and without a trace of anger, the voice replied, ”Your will is sufficient for that here, Champion. Merely wish yourself gone from this place, and you will find yourself in your place in the Grand Arena.”
Without a word, Jarvis was gone.
Alone, the Lord of Darkness whispered softly to this anteroom of his domain, ”Fare well, Simon son of Deren. May the Night enfold you and guard your slumber, and may you, somehow, find peace.”
~~~
Jarvis strode out from the Darkness, through the opening gates, and onto the blood-red sands of the arena. That feeling of physical well-being flowed back into his frame even as he felt the warm grains beneath his feet through his soft-soled shoes. Without even needing to check, he knew that his wounds had been healed as though they never were.
Even in this moment of relative calm, though, the Worker could not feel free at heart. In his fist he clutched his black-bladed rapier, the sickly green lines of its damascus steel gleaming with their power—perhaps even their intent—to do great and terrible things to mortal flesh. His hide was protected by garments just as magical and black-hearted as the blade, simple cloth that hungered for Shadow and which was fed by metal bracers that constantly leaked black smoke to settle down through the air around it, and coat the sands in his wake before the sunlight burned it away. Even the sun could bring him no comfort, for his shadow-covered eyes were no longer made for its light. Oh, he could see in it, right enough, but the illumination was unfamiliar, and a little off… The only untainted thing on his person was the dagger of honest steel that glinted by his hip, and even THAT was stolen rather than earned.
And in the end, what had he assembled this arsenal of unholy might for? To kill other beings, not unlike himself, and wrest away the one chance they had, between them, to obtain what they needed, what they were risking their life for a chance at achieving. He was, in point of fact, a monster, and despite the actions of whatever systems had made him that way, he would have to own up to that someday.
Ah, and to top it all off, here was the symbol of what he stood for. Looming black and bile-filled above him, too Dark for even the eyes that had been prepared for it by agents of the Lower Realms to pierce, or even to endure, was the Pillar of Darkness. Though he looked down from it before many seconds had passed, he was able to see deeper into it than most and what he saw there was deeply, deeply unsettling.
“Only one thing makes this bearable,” the Champion for Darkness whispered to himself, bypassing the Pillar and looking up across the arena, eyes keen for exploitable weaknesses even through the tears and shadow, “just one thing can partially excuse my actions here today. You were all, each one of you, foolish enough to choose this, and for that folly you’ll all pay.”
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