As I approach the steps to the champion’s balcony, I stop, Avis almost running into me.

  “Kinda walking here.” He snickers as he moves around me towards the stairs. I slowly turn around to face Prisha.

  “I’m so—” I begin and she immediately raises her hand to stop me from speaking.

  “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not, but it’s fine. Let’s not linger on it.” She says sternly, her gaze never once breaking from my own. I nod, realizing that pressing the issue will just exacerbate the problem.

  “Ophiuchus.” I say in a soft whisper, only loud enough for Prisha and Art to hear me.

  “What about it? It is the name of the city we are in.” Art looks at me confused.

  “Last night I remembered something. In some myths from my world, there are stories of a thirteenth Zodiac, Ophiuchus, the snake bearer. Can you look into it? See if it means anything?”

  “I will.” Prisha nods, turns, and walks away. Dardania pauses at my side.

  “Give her some time.” Dardania turns to look back at Prisha, “She won’t be mad forever.”

  “She has every right to be.”

  “Yeah, but she won’t be.” Dardania starts climbing the stairs leaving me alone with Art. For some reason, it feels extremely awkward.

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” I quickly turn and start climbing the stairs towards the balcony. As I reach the landing I’m convinced I have completely lost my mind.

  Standing before me in the center of the arena is a tower that stretches towards the sky, and as far I can tell, goes on forever. It appears to be made of stone, is perfectly cylindrical, and has several doors at the base, I’m assuming those are the entrances.

  Beyond the doors, it’s a solid structure with no other windows, doors, or exits. What could they possibly have planned for us?

  “What the fuck am I looking at?” Avis gawks at the tower, the rest of us just stare in awe unsure of how to put into words what we are seeing.

  “Welcome to round two Magician.” Law says as she and the rest of the family pass us by the entrance to their balcony. I turn just as she glides by, not once turning towards me. I stand there, mouth agape, unsure of how to respond.

  “It would be in your best interest to simply go to your balcony, and be grateful she has acknowledged your presence.” A member of the Aries family says with a threatening tone as they motion for us to keep it moving.

  “Oh dear, pay them no mind.” Guy says as he reaches the top step, Law shooting him a dirty look from the balcony, he smiles in return. “I just can’t wait for the show.” His eyes slowly descend until they land on my crotch. He smiles, and then continues towards their balcony.

  “What a creeper.” Dardania whispers as she grabs me and Avis by the arm and drags us towards the balcony to take our seat.

  As the champions slowly descend onto the balcony, only about fifty of us remain from round one. I wasn’t entirely sure how many participated in the first round, but I imagine it was several times the amount of people who currently are here awaiting our doom.

  After several moments, the crowd falls silent as Theos stands and claps her hands once.

  With the blink of an eye, all the champions are teleported from the balcony into the center of the arena and standing before one of the entrances to the tower. The best part of this scenario, I am completely naked.

  The crowd immediately erupts into cheers and chants and whistles as the champions all stand before them completely naked and exposed for all to see.

  “Hey.” Avis says with a sexy whisper several feet away from me, he winks as his eyes shift downward.

  “Don’t.” I say, blushing, “I don’t need to be at attention for this sir.” Avis chuckles at me as he turns the other way, shifting his focus away from me. I should probably do the same.

  I didn’t have shame in my nudity, or care who saw, but it felt weird to be standing like this in the middle of a tournament. What could they possibly have in store for us?

  “As our champions stand before us, stripped of all that protects them, they shall face their next challenge.” Theos raises her hands towards the sky, her palms facing the tower. “The goal is simple, the journey is difficult, reach the top of the tower and you will move on to round three.”

  Theos lowers her hands, drawing them into a prayer pose as she bows low before the arena.

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  “Those who use magic, will always contain their weapons.” I look down and notice that my card was now stuck to my inner thigh, almost as if it had been glued there and now become a part of me. It wasn’t there prior to being teleported, but clearly someone wanted me to have it.

  “And those who do not use magic, I wish you luck, for your journey will be much more difficult. And so we shall begin round two!”

  Theos raises up and claps her hands once, the crowd jumps to their feet as they begin chanting. A magical barrier on the entrances shimmer and vanishes, the champions immediately rush towards their door, excited to get the next round started.

  I turn towards the balcony, my eyes landing on Gem, who was staring back at me. He nods slowly as I turn back towards the entrance. Everyone else had already entered except Dardania and Avis.

  “Good luck Dee.” Avis screams.

  “You too brother.” Dardania slowly begins walking towards the entrance and vanishes as she passes over the threshold. Avis turns back towards me.

  “You better kick some ass there and make it back out.” Avis says, a grin on his face, but it doesn’t quite mask the worry in his eyes. I smile.

  “I will, and in style, all while naked apparently.” I chuckle as we both start making our way towards our entrances. As I pass under the arch of the entrance, the outside world fades away and just like that, I’m alone.

  * * * * *

  Just like round one, I am completely cut off from the outside world and can no longer hear the crowd. All that stood before me was a long stone hallway that stretched on into the distance. What was their goal? To bore me to death?

  Yawn.

  I slowly start walking, hoping that something would happen before I died of old age. Unfortunately for me, being stuck in silence gives my mind time to wander, and immediately wander it does.

  It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for my heart to start racing and my suppressed rage to simmer to the surface. I think what makes it all worse is that the Zodiac is currently housing the Saint.

  “It’s one monster protecting another!” I scream as I stop walking and throw my hands up in the air. My voice echoes down the hallway, bouncing around endlessly towards no one. Slowly it drifts away, unlike my anger which just feels omnipresent.

  When my father died, seeing the family show up with their arms outstretched like they actually cared, that made me see red. I never once in my life truly wanted to harm another person until that day. My father had been sick for quite some time and yet none of them showed up to help, and here they are pretending like they cared.

  It took everything to not completely lose it on those assholes and go all Kung Fu on their asses, but I opted not to. My father wouldn’t appreciate me using violence on his family to solve a problem. He was a morally upstanding person and didn’t think that violence solved our problems. Well sorry Daddy-O, I don’t necessarily agree with your sage wisdom these days.

  Unlike my deranged family, these people I’m dealing with now are like genuinely evil. The sheer amount of blood that is on their hands is impossible to conceive of, and violence is the only way to stop them. People like that, who hold so much power, will do anything to maintain that power. They will basically plug their ears and sing la la la when you try to speak any sense into them. So, you speak their language and punch them in their stupid faces. Their rich and religious stupid faces.

  I sigh.

  This hallway is never ending and I’m pretty sure I will drive myself insane before I even get anywhere.

  Maybe they want us to off ourselves? Well, if they wanted that they shouldn’t have stripped us of our weapons. I’m sure some idiot adventurer with dollar signs in their eyes would have done the deed already at this point. Especially if they’re in need of as much therapy as I am.

  Or, perhaps, it’s some sick porn. Like a sick pornographic Truman Show. I’m bouncing around in the nude, literally, in this tower while a bunch of people watch on for their entertainment. Maybe they are getting off on seeing it.

  “You sick bastards!” I scream at the wall, completely guessing where this magical camera would be that allows the audience to see the contestants. Okay, realistically, I know that the latter idea is just absurd. They stripped us of our clothes to remove any protections and enchantments that they may hold prior to entering the Tower.

  Plus it makes us literally vulnerable. I mean, the idea of it is a little on the nose, but I get it. Back on my Earth, this would cause the majority of people to just like drop out immediately the moment they had to stand naked in front of countless people.

  I can’t help but laugh at the idea. War, terrorism, genocide, poverty, famine, and every other horrible thing in the world exists and people are more concerned about how much nudity there is. How stupid.

  My mind was wondering for so long that I didn’t even recognize the light at the end of the tunnel, which could only mean I’ve finally found the first room.

  I pass through the archway, and into a circular room also made of stone. Along the wall was four pedestals, including the one that I’m standing on. It’s attached to the wall behind it, and nothing else. The entire rest of the room didn’t house a floor, instead it was open to what looked like a bottomless pit.

  Directly above each of the pedestals was another archway, I’m assuming it was our exit out of this room. It was too high to simply jump to, which meant there was some other puzzle that needed solving in order for us to reach the archway.

  As I look around the room, two other individuals step into the room and on to two other pedestals. That leaves one room for one other person. It was then that I noticed some rod lightly hung on the right side of each of the archways. It was made of wood and had several magical carvings on it, perhaps a wand of some sort. The magical carvings, I assume, allow it to use some kind of magic.

  As the forth individual blesses us with their presence, and with a flash of light, a barrier forms on the archway blocking all of our exits.

  “Three will fall, one will rise.” A disembodied voice echoes through the chamber. Gulp. This doesn’t sound good.

  The person to my right, a teen boy immediately turns back towards the archway and starts beating the barrier with his fists. It was useless. He was just wasting his energy punching an invisible wall that definitely won’t break from just a simple punch.

  The woman directly across from me grabs the rod off the wall, points it at the teen boy, and grins.

  With a flash of light, a burst of energy erupts from the end of the rod, rushes towards the teen and blows him off the platform and into the pit.

  “Why would you do that?” I gasp as I drop to my knees, hoping to see what happened to the boy.

  As he vanishes into the darkness, the three remaining pedestals rise about a forth of the way to the higher up doorways. The rod in the woman’s hand disintegrates into dust after she uses it.

  “Two will fall, one will rise.” The disembodied voice echoes again.