Through the door, a staircase led up and into a viewing room. While the Coliseum was a huge ovur arena, the thousands of seats were for show; city goers weren't lounging throughout. Rather, they gregated in a spacious elevated viewing room with an that tained dozens of seats with an ideal view of the fight below, along with space to stand and watch. Only a few people were seated.

  There was a lot to take in as she finished her ast up the stairs.

  First: the other city goers. There were around four dozen ihe rge viewing room. More than she'd expected. Then again, idling in the Coliseum and viewing fights arently the easiest non-lewd way to gain ented tokens. So anyone who wasn't ined to tackle this bizarre realm iended way ended up at the Coliseum.

  Likely, along with that regur crowd, there would be curious viewers—like Natalie and Vaa—and perhaps teammates ing to watch a fight involving someohey knew. And maybe a few voyeurs sprinkled in. Those present for the love of it.

  Some were seated, some were standing, some were clumped together, and some were off by themselves, as far from the rest as they could manage. A number of versatioaking pce, especially by the people standing in a group he front, leaning on the railing that oversaw the arena. Natalie caught a few ss, sihey were the loudest: they were talking about the fight below. And it was still a fight; it hadn't moved on to more yet. That would e after a victor was decided as far as Natalie uood.

  The average attire was more servative than oreets. Far less lewd. Natalie assumed that was for previously mentioned reasons: the spectators who lingered in the Coliseum were those who didn't want to take more drastic measures to ent their tokens. So not only were they poorer, and thus couldn't afford the lewd gear being hawked, they were also on average less willing to walk around in tial bikinis.

  A few people gnced over at Natalie and Vaa as they walked in, but while their eyes lingered on Natalie's revealing outfit, they turned back forward after ining their heads in silent aowledgment.

  She shared a look with Vaa. The two of them swerved off and found a pear the front to stand, to the side, and peeked into the arena grounds below.

  As expected, the fight was underway. The Coliseum wasn't as massive as some of the ohat might be found at Aradon, but it was still rge, so the figures below were made small by the distance.

  But that didn't matter when there was a gigantic viewing s on the opposite side of the arena.

  On that s, an illusion—or however the entment worked—replicated the two batants ihan-life detail. There were simir devices for the higher-end arenas in Aradon, but Natalie was surprised to see one here. Maybe she shouldn't be. Anything the real world could create, the dungeon could.

  Down below, two mages were dueling.

  The first was a short brown-haired girl wielding a staff. Bolts of fire magic were spewing forth from the wooden on, though she was on the back foot and having to weave the spells iween dodging her oppo's attacks.

  Her 'oppo', a dark-haired mage, came bundled with a skeleton warrior. A summoner? Neahemed, or perhaps a full neancer, based on the bone creation. The struct wielded a small round buckler and a short sword, and it fearlessly chased down the fire mage.

  "Summe versus traditionalist, seemingly a pyro?" Vaa ented, after only a few seds of observation. "Catarina is the summoner, I assume. Sihe odds were rated to be in her favor."

  Natalie made a noise of agreement. She agreed with the analysis. Summes were exceptional solo duelists, sihey could call up a frontline while keeping their bae power as a mage. Ihe pyro was needing to defend herself from two e once, and a numbers advantage was no small thing, especially for a mage.

  "Doesn't matter if her spells do more damage," Natalie mused. "Too hard to duel two people at once."

  Even if the bone warrior wasn't a particurly effective threat. A single fireball would have it sprawling away, and the pyro—Brooklyn—could fend it off with her staff too, despite being no physical fighter.

  Still …

  "She's going to lose soon."

  "She is," Natalie agreed.

  They'd spent their lives analyzing fights. Maybe not in the same way a duelist would, but they were both more than capable of instantly identifying strengths and weaknesses of a set of enemies and deg what shape the fight would take. And here, the summe would win shortly. They'd walked in toward the end of the fight, and Brooklyn was struggling to keep up, fgging as she ran out of energy. Her spells were being desperate, trying to sneak in shots at Catarie the skeleton's pursuit.

  They watched in silence as the fight ed up in the way they'd both predicted. A moment of distra, and the skeleton warrior's sword plunged into the pyro's stomach. Several gasps filled the Coliseum's viewing room. Even Natalie flinched. Hard to fight away the first instinct that came with seeing someone 'die.'

  The girl staggered a step back, still skewered by the sword—

  And thehree figures flickered. In an instant, the skeleton disappeared, and the two mages were standing on opposite sides of the arena. Seemingly fully healed, like what had happened in the Arena.

  "Hell of a way to spar," Vaa murmured.

  "No joke."

  Eve couldn't facilitate to-the-death spars so effectively. Their solution was having a massively over-leveled instructor watg their students, ready to intervehere were also high-ranked emergency healers on standby, of course, and potions and other failsafes, but there were certain blows that were impossible to cure, even for Te. Like a giant warhammer popping a skull like a grape. Or a knife in the brain. Mostly—critical injuries to the head. The heart could be tricky to fix too, even fh-level magic.

  HP also mitigated acts—but acts happened heless. Te had a history of lethal sparring is. It was more on ier years, where the students became powerhouses in their ht.

  Now that they were separated, the s above had split in two, showing images of the respective fighters. Brooklyn, the defeated, seemed disoriehen annoyed with herself. Catarina's expression remained ral.

  'Victor: Catarina. 2-0.'

  "Oh. The fights are best of threes?" She hadn't known the Coliseum sted multiple rounds.

  "Maybe it varies." Vaa hummed. "Now, I wonder what the stake was?"