Snailtrail—I couldn’t deal with that name—led me to a curving red velvet lounge where a new set of holos played. Once again, the area was gilded and embellished, clearly serving as his reclining space when he wasn’t sitting on his ostentatious throne. It was low. And small.

  I just stood beside it, holding Loogie. Sitting there would have brought my knees into an uncomfortable position, shins wedged against the gold table. Instead, I turned to look at the fights. They were all Arena. Replays and live matches.

  The idea that people sat there and watched us really sunk in. I knew they must have, but I hadn’t let the thought touch me until that moment. Maybe they bet on us—or against us. We were entertainment. I didn’t like that. I’d seen the viewing rooms, though at the time I hadn’t dwelt on it. Of course people like Sn… the district lord would capitalize on it. Every gladiatorial arena in history had people watching.

  Loogie clung to my shirt, hiding its face in my hair. I pet the bug and waited. The district lord spoke to one of my two goblin shadows in evening gowns, in Gob, so I had no fucking clue what they were plotting. Instead, I watched the battle. Looked like a 2v2 duel in an abandoned desert city. Kinda cool.

  When one of the goblin ladies left, my attention bounced between the different screens. The goblin lord snapped his fingers at me. I clenched my jaw and faced him.

  “So, kid, like the Arena?”

  It was one of those conversational questions to warm up to the actual point. I hated that shit, too, though I’ve engaged in it. It’s socially expected.

  I shrugged. “They’re alright. Too bad we have to lose our lives. I’d probably fight a long time if I didn’t have final death hanging over my head.”

  “Yeah, haven’t figured the secret out to that, yet. Still workin’ on it,” the lord boasted, reclining, propping a foot up on his expensive furniture. “I’ve watched a few go on their last runs. Even regretted it a time or two. Great for ratings, though. All the view rooms are booked for those fights.”

  I ran a hand down Loogie’s back to soothe myself. The seething anger under my skin wanted to surge up and start some drama. Not in anyone’s best interest.

  “Your team, The Outliers, are noteworthy. You six coordinate really well. Almost like you’re psychic, or somethin’.” He steepled his fingers and tapped his thumbs together. The sly look on his face suggested he had an idea about our party link.

  “Could say that,” I replied. “We prepared for this. Drilled scenarios.”

  “You could spice it up more.” Voice a warm caress of suggestive charisma, the blingy goblin was pitching something. Subtle, and annoying.

  The lady returned with a kobold behind her, carrying a tray of refreshments. I flicked a glance at them, then arched a brow. “Why would we do that?”

  “Where’d you get that thing from, anyway?” He didn’t answer my question, instead asking one of his own. He pointed at Loogie.

  “Mysterious Egg drop from a lowbie task. It’s bonded to me,” I added, to make sure this gobbo knew he couldn’t just steal Loogie.

  “Ah, too bad. I woulda bought it. Never seen one before,” his gaze roamed covetously over my pet before fixing on me.

  “Maybe I could own you,” he added with the confidence of one who has done it before.

  “Maybe some things can’t be owned,” I responded, the hint of a threatening rumble in my chest warning me that my temper was possibly getting out of hand.

  I felt it running through my veins, hot needles pricking, begging for me to reach out and slam his smarmy face into the table. Or better, grab him by the face and chuck him over the railing. I felt my lips twitch, teeth starting to show.

  “Now, now, don’t get all excited,” The lord said dismissively, waving at the goblin ladies. He leaned forward to poke a finger into the bowl of crispy fried maggots. “The girls are dying to try their new tasers on someone.”

  My eye twitched. “Did you ask me here to insult me or to talk to me?”

  “I asked you here to find out more about you. Seems it’s working out,” he replied, popping a fried bug into his mouth and crunching it like popcorn between straight, white teeth. Funny. I always imagined goblins to have sharp ones.

  I exhaled anger and inhaled the scent of perfumed goblins. I needed to chill the fuck out and not let him play bullshit games on me. A quick assessment of the stats I could see on my HUD was that he was tough, but not as tough as any other district lord I’d faced. This guy lived by his wits, not his might. He’d still kick my ass, but not as thoroughly as any of the others.

  Another tier, and I’d stand a chance at surviving a fight with him. Two, and I could almost go toe-to-toe. He watched me, eating his bugs and sipping his drink. Waiting for me to explode.

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  I chose not to.

  Which, after a good two minutes, made him smile. “You’re leaning hard on your human half right now, aren’cha?”

  I smirked. I was leaning on my WILL stat and curiosity. My human self might have snapped something harsh at him by now.

  “Well, kid,” he began, leaning his elbows on his knees, looking up at me like I wasn’t towering almost five feet above his seated position. “You’re unique. Not another fighter out there with your specific looks. I mean, which one was orc and which was human?”

  My face went slack, then I slowly smiled. “I wasn’t born this way. I’m one of Archive’s new contestants on ‘The Price is Your DNA.’ I’ve been here a few months,” I said, making air quotes with one hand as I spoke. “There are no half-orcs where I came from.”

  “I love that, kid. Might steal it. The Price is Your DNA. Good stuff,” the goblin said. He had the charisma to almost make me feel good about making up a rip-off title for a gameshow.

  “I didn’t expect to be this different,” I argued, glancing down at the ground floor and the plebes going about their bacchanal. How could I have expected any of this? I couldn’t have expected to feel my avatar’s skin, similar enough to the real feeling that it tricked me. Doing things normal people did, but in a virtual reality world… who could have?

  Akilah, maybe. Jake, possibly.

  “Wah wah, save the drama for the battleground,” the goblin lord said, and sipped his drink. After smacking his lips with satisfaction, he added, “And I mean that. I want drama.”

  “Huh?” I don’t think I could have sounded dumber if I tried. He was asking the wrong person. He should’ve asked Fig, or maybe Jake. Me? Ha.

  “Look,” he said, pointing at the screens. “There’s blood and gore, but not a lot of what your team’s got. Here.”

  He touched his crown, and one of the screens blanked and then shifted to the arena fight where Akilah and I had been excluded. Replay blinked in the corner of the frame. I winced, watching Fig get murdered. Again. And Jake’s reaction. He zoomed in on Jake’s face, which made me squint with rage. It took everything not to turn around and jump over his gold coffee table. I never would have been able to smash his face in before I was tazed into paralysis.

  “And this,” he said. The scene on the screen shifted to me, lurking in the ferns of a jungle. It was weird to see my avatar like that. Kind of cool, but strange. And then the bladewitch passed by me. The way I’d grabbed her, and whispered into her ear, then taken her down and murdered her in cold blood… I glanced away before I saw myself drive my sword into her throat.

  Watching myself do that chilled my blood. Fuck. No wonder she wanted to kill me when she saw me again.

  It looked worse than it felt at the time, and it felt pretty bad.

  I huffed and shrugged. “Just the way things play out.”

  “More,” the goblin commanded. And it was a command. A single word and the stern expression on his face made the demand clear.

  “I’m not getting my party killed for entertainment. We’re doing it to be better fighters. Where’s our incentive, anyway?”

  Loogie crawled up onto my shoulder, draping around the back of my neck. Its tight grip would have been impossible to dislodge, but at least it wasn’t hiding anymore. I folded my arms over my chest, frowning.

  “What do you want?” The goblin asked.

  It could be that simple. Probably wasn’t. “Unbound status.”

  The goblin paused with his glass almost touching his lips. He smirked. “You want to get out of Convergent City? Why?”

  I shrugged. “See what’s out there.”

  “Nothin’ but wastelands and death, kid.” The goblin said, waving his hand as if he could brush away the idea. “Ain’t worth it.”

  “Have you ever been out there?”

  “Nope. Me and mine arrived here in the Labyrinth, and we’ve been here ever since. Happy as pigs in mud, except we’re gobs in lucre.” He made a universal symbol for money and wiggled his thin eyebrows.

  “No.” Loogie whispered in my mind.

  No? What did that mean?

  “He be out.”

  I paused, glancing at the Vash’Ora. How did it know? I suddenly wished I could speak with Archive again. Every question I’d thought of had an answer, and that machine had them all. Fucker never talked back, though.

  “Yeah, okay. Well, it was nice talking with you, Lord Snail,” I said, turning on my heel—only to face two snapping tasers thrust near enough that I took a step back.

  “Boss didn’t say you could go,” one of the goblin ladies spat.

  “Hey kid,” the goblin lord said. I turned enough to look at him. “Maybe I can get you what you want. But I want more drama. And I want dirt.”

  “What kind?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the dance of cattle prods that were too close to my crotch for comfort.

  “Info on the other lords. Word is, you know some,” His smile grew wicked as he kept talking. “Heard you escaped from jail, and the Sheriff didn’t kill you for it. Heard you and your crew stayed the night in the big tree, with the fae lord.” His brows wiggled. “You got accepted into your clan, so you know the Salt Spears lord, too. How well do you know her, anyway?” He put up his hands when he saw my expression and chuckled, then added, “Also heard you almost married Shardshore’s lord, till you screwed that up.”

  Don’t punch him. Don’t punch him. Don’t. I took a long breath to rise above the invisible cloud of pure hostility billowing from me.

  I gave him a smile that was all teeth, no friendship. “So? What do you want to know? I don’t pay attention to much. My big dumb orc half runs me most of the day.”

  “I’ll get you a list.” He snapped his fingers at the two brandishing their weapons in my general direction, and they pouted as they lowered the prods.

  “And we get Unbound.” I nodded a cursory sort of bow. “I’ll be going, then.”

  “Let’s do this again sometime soon, kid,” the district lord said as he leaned back, gaze moving to his screens.

  I moved away from them and towards the stairs. The goblins partying around me quickly closed in after I left the bubble of his exaltedness, Lord Snailtrail. I couldn’t wait to get out of the glitz and glam of the goblin balcony and the Labyrinth in general. Bauring Dath felt more wholesome and safe than ever while I tried not to trip over the goblins dancing all around me.

  The next thing that happened was inevitable.

  A goblin spun around with its arms flailing and its head thrown back, striking me straight in the groin. [Bad Luck] Gritting my teeth, I bent and turned, glaring at him. Loogie rumbled a tiny growl, leaning off my shoulder to snap its little toothy beak like an angry chihuahua. The goblin turned and said something in Gob. Fuck if I knew what, or even cared.

  I coughed and swallowed against the growing ache, sidling away.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d felt the sensation. Once, I’d crotch-crashed into the corner of Alga’s prep table. You’d think I would have looked into a cup or something after that, but no.

  A floor of dancing goblins later, I was rethinking that plan.

  I left, ignoring the laughter behind me and the lingering sensation that mirrored how I felt about the underbelly of the Arena.

  -ARCHIVE-