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The crescent moon shone down upon the trio of workers as the one with orange hair and a comical large conical wizard hat flipped the sign to say ‘closed.’ His outfit consisted of the traditional mage garb of Ylisse, just with orange and black colors replacing the common blue and white. Anna was giggling happily behind him, wearing her normal trickster uniform. Quaking next to the devilish shopkeeper was a young, female mage with long black hair who was on the verge of collapsing due to the weight of the bag of gold that was strapped to her back. She wore a set of blue and red armor which included a small opening where her cleavage was and a long cape attached to the back.
"Tee hee hee! You two are the best workers ever! Look at all of this coin!” Anna said happily as the orange haired mage groaned a bit. Lirael would have hung her head back in annoyance, but her attention was more focused on not collapsing under the money. Talquerin looked over his shoulder and glared at Anna.
“We only got you so much damn gold because you had us work for three days straight! Can we please get paid so we can go home now? Mutey here needs some rest…” He spoke with an intense vigor behind his voice that the black haired girl seemed to appreciate, though she furrowed her brow when she was called ‘Mutey’ again by her accursed best friend. It wasn’t her fault that she was mute. In response to the pleas of freedom, Anna only laughed in a dismissive manner.
"Not a chance, Talquerin! You guys are so great that I think you oughta be introduced to my main source of income!” She spun happily on her heel and began to walk, her red ponytail being pushed ever so gently by the soft wind that filled the air. Talquerin let out a hefty sigh before his eyes moved to gaze over at his friend, who was still on the verge of being crushed by the enormous bag of gold. He chuckled cockily to himself and smirked at her with a fiendish glint in his eyes.
“Tch, tch, tch. You always do manage to get yourself in trouble, Lirael. Perhaps you sh-” His taunt was cut off when he saw one of the mute mage’s hands start to move down towards her tome. She almost dropped the back while delivering her subtle threat, but it was worth it to see Talquerin squirm.
“Okay, okay! I’ll help you! Just…don’t turn me to ash in a crater…” He said quickly before he dashed over to the girl’s side. His hands caught the slowly falling back and he immediately felt the overwhelming weight on his shoulders. He let out a quick breath before both of the mages began to walk with a giant struggle between each step.
"That red haired wench is going to pay…” Talquerin mumbled. After an agonizing march, the two finally caught up with Anna. The three of them were now standing on a cliff face underneath a large stone bridge in the outskirts of town. Feeling as if there was no more walking left, the duo of mages dropped the hefty coin bag and collapsed onto the dirt beneath them.
“Is the ravine where you hide all of your coins, o great Anna?” Talquerin mumbled out with his face still being firmly planted into the dirt. He threw in the snarky nickname out of pure spite for the dreadful woman that stood before him. Alas, Anna just laughed.
“Tee hee, nope! Watch this!” Her peppy voice blurted out as she turned to face the stone leg of the bridge. She stepped towards and placed her hand on a certain stone. She pushed it inwards and a small click was heard before a large chunk of the leg sunk into the ground, revealing a secret passageway behind it. Anna stepped into the passageway before she spun her head to look at the two mages. “
"Well come on you two! You get to work the bonus night shift!” She said happily before confidently walking down the descending stairs. Talquerin and Lirael blinked in disbelief that this woman could possibly be signing them up for more work. Reluctantly, the two rose to their feet and looked at each other. They both nodded in unison. The same idea had entered their minds. With the bag in place, Talquerin and Lirael cracked their fingers and took a few steps back. This plan was definitely going to take some elbow grease to complete, but it was going to be worth it!
“One…two…three!” Talquerin shouted before they both bolted forward and shoulder charged the bag of coins. It moved slightly forward before it began to roll down the stairs, gaining momentum extremely quickly.
“Look out, boss!” Talquerin shouted down the stairs, hoping his call out was muffled by the loud sound of clanging coins that echoed throughout the passageway. A confused Anna, who was already at the bottom of the stairs, turned around and looked back up the stairs. She tilted her head ever so slightly.
“Watch out for what?! BY NA-” The coin bag boulder collided with Anna and sent her flying. She collided with a wall behind her, leaving a small cracked indent in it. Her head spun as stars circled around her dazed noggin.
“That’ll leave a mark…” She said wearily before she slapped herself to get back in proper condition.
“Gah! Get down here right now! The both of you!” She sounded with a mix of rage and sorrow in her voice. Having no other choice but to adhere to her commands, Talquerin and Lirael made their way down the stairs to the bottom.
“I am so sorry, boss! We were trying to carry the bag and we kinda sorta dropped it!” He tried to lie to squirm his way out of it, but Anna was not having it.
“I know ya rolled it down, Talquerin! You don’t get this far in a business by being dumb! And look at what you did!” She shouted angrily as she brushed her hand against the crack in the wall.
“My lovely wall is cracked..it’s going to cost so much to get this repaired..” She sniffed a bit with a hefty helping of sorrow in her voice. Talquerin and Lirael looked completely dumbfounded. This was not the expected result at all.
“Uh…Boss, you do know that you almost got killed by a giant bag of money, right?” Talquerin wore a slightly worried expression on his face, but that expression quickly faded once he remembered who he was talking to. It’s Anna, of course she would be more worried about the money than her health.
“Are you kidding me?! Being crushed by a giant bag of coins is the dream of a merchant! Spending a buncha money for no reason isn’t! This is coming out of your paychecks!” She shouted aggressively as the duo just blinked a bit in complete confusion. Was this woman really that obsessed with money? The answer was yes.
“Hmph, ignoring the wall…welcome to Anna’s Amazing Arena!” The bubbly merchant clapped her hands together and the magical lanterns flicked to life. The dark room was illuminated to reveal just what Anna mentioned, an arena. In front of them sat a desk with a giant metallic fence behind it. Contained within the fence was a massive arena with sand and dirt covering the bottom of it. On the left and right side of the arena there were entrance ways for the fighters to enter. The left entrance way had a large stairway that began from a small door that was to the left of the counter, but the right was barred by steel and only darkness laid behind it. Around the arena were countless stands and benches for onlookers to spectate the battles.
“Woah..this entire place is under the town? How did you manage this one, Boss?” Talquerin asked, to which Anna only gave one of her signature (and annoying) giggles in reply.
“That’s a secret between merchants! Now hop to it, I gotta show you the back room!” She said before skipping down the stairs to the arena with a happy look on her face. The mage duo exchanged a curious glance before they followed their overly excited leader. Anna’s feet glided smoothly across the sand as the duo of mages used their magic to make the sand carry them across to the other side of the arena where the barred entryway sat. Anna whipped out a key and fiddled with the lock a little bit before the gate unlocked. She let out a quick snap which was followed by Talquerin and Lirael swinging the fence open for her. Anna giggled and stepped into the darkness. Talquerin, not being an idiot, snapped and created a fireball in his right hand to create a light to cut through the darkness. Anna led them quietly into a massive room that seemed to be used for storage. It was cold and damp, and there was an ever present feeling of dread that loomed in the air. Talquerin waved the fireball around a little bit to light up some more of the room. His eyes spotted a medium sized looking cage. With a curious glint in his pupils, he took a few steps towards the cage and squinted into it. His mind subtly took notice of the flimsy lock and overly all weak looking cage. Someone must have cut corners. Anna looked over at him and her happy smile somehow grew happier.
"Oh, are you already introducing yourself to them?” Talquerin tilted his head a bit when he heard his boss ask such a bizarre question.
“Yeah, introducing myself to the air. What’s in the-” Suddenly, a masked humanoid with deformed skin and armor that seemed to be woven into their skin lunged at Talquerin from within the cage while making all sorts of horrendous noises.
“AH!” Talquerin jumped back and collapsed to the ground, shimming away as fast as he could. His cry of terror sounded a lot like a schoolgirl’s from a corny romcom.
“What the hell is…a Risen!?” He shouted out with shock and terror in his voice. Lirael stepped over with a calm expression and leaned down next to him. She rubbed her eye with her fist to taunt him for being a coward before laughing to herself with the best of her ability (she still is mute after all).
“Very astute of you, Talquerin!” Anna said with glee filling her voice, “All of these cages are filled with Risen! Some even have multiple if our challengers are feeling courageous! Also jeepers, you scream like a little girl.” Talquerin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How did she do this? Was this even humane? Why did she have to point out his scream? Anna, seemingly reading his mind, gave a thorough explanation of how this was all possible.
"All of this…isn’t this illegal?” He asked in a still frightened voice as he tried to yell at himself internally to stop blushing over his scream.
"True, the Ylissen royal family may have outlawed stuff like this… but it’s not like they’ll ever find out! There are still so many Risen left. Just go outside every night, sleep a few, drag 'em back, and you’re filthy rich!” Yeah, definitely not humane or even legal. Talquerin slowly arose back to his feet and patted some dirt off of his cloak.
“So…how do you get these things ready to fight? There can’t possibly be a switch for every one of these cages.” He noted. Anna nodded in response before stepping over to one of the cages. Her hand slid down to her waist. Talquerin and Lirael immediately felt their fight or flight reflex activate.
“Simple! Just cut…” Anna took out her sword and slashed the lock off of one of the cages. The door swung open and the angry roar of a Risen echoed throughout the room.
“And run!” She shouted. Anna’s feet quickly moved towards the exit to the room and she bolted. Talquerin and Lirael stood frozen for a moment before the sight of a horrifyingly large Risen made them sprint away as fast as they could. Once their feet had carried them out into the arena, Anna slammed the gate behind them and locked it again.
“Then we have a lever under the counter that swings this bad boy right open! The challenger fights the Risen. He dies or lives. We get profit, rinse and repeat!” Anna said happily before she started to walk back over to the stairs that lead back up to the counter. Talquerin and Lirael followed quickly so as to not fall far behind. Once they were back up behind the counter, Talquerin took off his hat and sat it gently on the table. He and Lirael both rubbed their eyes in complete exhaustion over their complete lack of sleep, but Anna stood there happily with a finger on her chin to look presentable to any challengers. What felt like hours passed, but none of them moved from their posts and Anna kept her jolly and marketable look the entire time.
“Boss…We’ve been standing here for quite some time…I don’t think that-” Anna placed a finger on his lips to shut him up.
“Quiet, Talquerin! I hear footsteps!” She spoke in a louder voice than Talquerin’s. True to her word, someone did approach the counter. It was a middle aged looking man in light mercenary attire. He looked overwhelmingly average except for the mask that resided on his face. It vaguely resembled that of a Risen, but it was done so poorly that it lacked true alikeness. Anna gave the man a nice and warm smile, keeping her finger on her chin the entire time.
“Welcome to Anna’s Amazing Arena! We’re having a special tonight where if you fight and win two battles back to back, you'll get quadruple your wager back!” That was how it worked normally, but the verbage made it sound more appealing. The man shook his head quickly to dismiss the offer.
“No. One fight.” He said bluntly with an edgy tone to his voice that attempted to try and make him sound cool. Talquerin and Lirael both looked away to hide their faces that were on the verge of cracking up at the loser in front of the counter.
“You got it! 4,500 gold.” Anna spoke while holding the hand that used to be on her chin forward. The man gave her the gold with no hesitation. Anna smiled and placed the gold underneath the counter. She swung her arm over to point at the entrance stairway to the arena, accidentally clocking Lirael in the back of the head.
“Head right down the stairs and be prepared! Good luck out there!” She spoke with a sweet tone to her voice as the man nodded subtly to her and followed her instructions. Once the man was standing in the middle of the arena, Anna snapped and pointed to Talquerin.
“Hit the lever!” She demanded in a voice that was a mix of authoritative and gleeful. Talquerin clicked his tongue a bit. He didn’t agree with the morals of this, but he needed the money. He took a hold of the lever and pulled it down. Just like Anna said, the gate swung open. The Risen contained within rushed out with a vigorous and disgusting roar. It looked onto the challenger and charged with a mighty axe in its hand. However, the challenger whipped out a sleep staff and immediately cast it on the mutant-like creature in front of him. The behemoth of a creature swayed from side to side before falling to his knees. It stared at the man dazedly for a moment before face planting into the ground.
“Fret not, my lovely! I bring no harm! Now watch this!” The challenger placed his sleep staff away and took out a spell tome as he sprinted as fast as he could to the storage room that contained the Risen. Anna widened her eyes and took a few steps back, as did Talquerin and Lirael.
“Uh oh…” They all said in unison. Talquerin quickly grabbed the lever and pushed it back up. The gate did not budge.
“Boss, why isn’t the gate closing?!” Talquerin shouted out in a panic as he kept pushing the lever up and down repeatedly in a vain attempt to close the gate again.
“The gate is on a slide lock based system! It needs to be pushed back to lock again!” Anna said as she began to sprint towards the stairs that lead down to the arena. Wanting their employer to not die so they could get paid, the two mages sprinted after her immediately.
“What idiot designs something so stupidly when there are bloodthirsty beasts being kept at bay!?” Talquerin shouted as Anna pouted a bit at the harsh insults.
“Don’t yell at me! The constructor said it would cost me an extra 25,000 gold and I never thought something like this would happen!!” She screamed back with a genuine look of panic on her face. The three of them reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the arena that had the still sleeping Risen inside of it. Unfortunately, they were too late as they saw a few fiery blasts come from the storage room. The man ran back out to the arena in a joyous mood as several pained and furious roars came from the storage room. Loud, metallic clangs were heard alongside the massive blasts of fire. The man giggled like an excited school girl as he made his way over to the sleeping Risen, shaking it rapidly to wake it from its slumber.
"Wakey wakey! I have saved all of your friends and am ready to be with you forever! Take me into your loving arms!” He shouted happily as he extended his arms wide open to hug the disgusting creature. Anna, Talquerin, and Lirael all stood there with baffled expressions on their faces and twitching eyes.
“W…WHAT?!” They all shouted in disbelief. The man turned to face them as he drew out his sword.
“You! You all will pay for this enslavement of my pretties!” The Risen behind him slowly rose to his feet and looked down at the man.
“I am one with the Risen! They love me as I love them! My sweet babies will ne-” The Risen swung his axe and cleaved straight through the man’s neck. His head was sent flying and smacked against a wall as his lifeless body crumpled to the ground since having a head is pretty important to human function. The three of them, once more in unison, jumped back at the brutal decapitation of the Risen obsessed man. Lirael covered her mouth before leaning over to the side, throwing up onto the floor over the horrendous sight. Talquerin quickly blasted the putrid Risen with the use of a Fire tome. It groaned angrily before falling to the floor, dead. The roars from within the storage room began to grow louder as Talquerin and Anna took a step back.
“Boss, how many of them did you cage up?” Anna began to sweat nervously and she instinctively placed a finger on her chin.
“Uh…three…hundred…and five.” Talquerin went silent as his eyes opened widely. His head slowly turned to look at the storage room door. A flood of Risen was beginning to culminate and charge out into the arena.
“Heh heh…we’re boned…” Talquerin held his fire tome as he took a few steps back and Anna began to cry softly, but Lirael had a different idea. She took her tome off of her belt and grew a devilish look. A red magic circle began to form around her as she began to chant in her mind with the book open. The sky above the surface began to darken as a similar red magic circle grew to enormous proportions, causing the nearby clouds to completely fade away.
“Huh? Lirael! NO!” Talquerin shouted, but she just kept chanting in her mind.
“What’s so bad about her casting that spell?!” Anna replied in a panicked voice as her eyes kept locked on to the increasingly massive horde of Risen.
“Because that’s a Meteor tome!! She’s going to cause this entire place to cave in!”
“WHAT?! HOW DID SHE EVEN GET THAT!?”
“Uh…Well you weren’t always around the shop and we kinda got fed up so…” Talquerin looked off to the side awkwardly as Anna puffed her already red cheeks in anger.
“YOU STOLE FROM M-” Anna could barely give a proper reply before Lirael snapped her fingers. Several explosions were heard from the ground above as the entire arena began to shake. The horde of disgusting brutes froze in place to observe their surroundings, attempting to discover the source of the noise. Lirael looked up at the ceiling as well with a look of sadness on her face. Meteor was said to be a rare and powerful spell, so how could it be so pathetically weak? The Risen, unable to find the source of the annoying racket, set their sights back on three still alive humans. Just as they began to move once more, the ceiling began to rumble before countless stones and rubble began to fall down.
“Hey! It did work! …Wait….RUN!” Talquerin shouted as Lirael and himself did just that, sprinting up the stairs extremely swiftly. Anna stood still for a moment due to her shock at the entire situation before she turned around to chase after them, but a falling stone smacked her in the back and sent her to the ground.
“Oof! Wait! Talquerin! Lirael! Don’t leave me here!” She shouted out in vain as another stone smacked her in the head, knocking her completely unconscious as rubble began to fill the arena. Dirt and dust filled the air as a scent of decrepit blood made breathing a chore. Hundreds of Risen were crushed and pulverized by the debris caused by the Meteor tome. Not among the casualties was the lone merchant. Anna slowly opened her eyes as she felt a throbbing pain from the back of her skull. She felt her head and took note of the rather large bump she received.
“Ugh…I…I’m alive…” She said to herself as she sluggishly rose to her feet, not bothering to wipe the dirt off of her attire.
“AH! My gold!” She shouted as a second wind kicked into her. Her feet moved quickly as she sprinted up the stairs to the entrance of the arena. Her massive bag of gold was gone along with Talquerin’s hat that used to be resting on the counter. She stood silently as her hands and legs began to tremble. She was at a loss for words.
“That…over a million…” Tears began to fill Anna’s eyes as she fell to her knees with a complete look of despair on her face.
“AH! I’ve been hoodwinked!! I never should've trusted a mute and an orange haired slimeball!!” She pouted as she looked to the floor, tears streaming down her bright red cheeks. She steadily made her way over to the counter to check under it. The bag of gold given to her by the man with a Risen kink was still there. Her hand immediately snatched it and she held it close to her heart.
“At least I still have you…” She spoke softly as she closed her eyes, crying loudly to herself over her heartbreaking loss.