Runeblade

Kaius looked on in awe as his friend crushed the skull of the bear abomination. Watching Porkchop's battle from within the glass airlock had been rough, not the least because this fight had been far more brutal than the last one. More than once he had had to hold himself back from ripping open the thick steel door and leaping to Porkchop's defence.

All that tension left the instant Porkchop had plunged his claws into the Champions chest and secured the victory, joy and excitement rushing in its wake to fill him with a decidedly more pleasant vigour. Letting lose a laugh, Kaius ripped open the door and sprinted into the arena.

"You did it!" He yelled, thrusting both of his hands in the air. It had not been an easy battle, Porkchop's armour had great rents torn through it, and he was still bloody from the many crushing wounds he had weathered in his frenetic assault. "Got the absolute piss beat out of you, but you did it!"

Porkchop matched his energy, bouncing around in excitement. "I got it! The same one as you!"

Kaius laughed in joy, throwing his arm around his friend and mussing up the fur on his head. "Never doubted it for a second." He said, inwardly deciding against letting his friend know how close he had come to rushing to his assistance. That blow he had taken to his ribs from the Champion's second skill had been nasty.

"So, what does it do? Any bonus for being the second?" Kaius asked.

"Unfortunately not." Porkchop shook his head. "Though the plus five to all and the bonus to skill levelling is still more than worth it."

"It's nice right?" Kaius smiled. All of your stats being raised by a quarter was a good feeling. Though in Porkchop's case it might not be that much, he still wasn't entirely sure how a greater beast's bonuses to stats worked.

Porkchop chittered in agreement, before he suddenly started looking around the room with a sharp look in his eye.

"Wondering where our loot is." Porkchop answered, clearly noticing the curious look he had been giving him.

"Ah," he said, before promptly joining the search.

Unfortunately, the room was completely bare. Other than the corpse of the Champion, that is, and Kaius doubted that their items were hiding in its chest like the last one. Porkchop would have already found them when he was scooping out the things innards. Whoever had designed this facility had taken the harsh cells to a clinical extreme. He couldn't even make out a slight divot in the stone to act as a resting spot for the specimens.

A clank drew his attention upwards. A small iron hatch set into the ceiling had swung open a small dark tunnel, something he'd missed. A moment later and something rattled its way down the chute, clattering to the ground.

"Please tell me that is not a pan." Porkchop groaned.

Kaius winced. "It's not a pan?" he tried unconvincingly. It was definitely a pan. There was another rattle. Porkchop's head snapped up, expectantly tracking the rapidly approaching noise, only for his face to fall when a coin pouch hit the ground next to their first piece of equipment.

"This is bullshit." Porkchop growled, staring at their loot.

"It might be a Pan of Slaying?" Kaius said halfheartedly.

Porkchop snorted, padding over to the drops. "Fat chance." He said. "Go on then, tell us what we got."

Kaius sighed, but focused on the pan anyway. At the very least it looked like a lovely pan, made of shiny copper with a long handle sheathed with a carved lacquered wood handle. He identified it.

Travellers Pan:

Common - Tier I

Basic luxuries become so much sweeter in the wild. Don't look down on the simple comfort of a hot meal when the night is long, the rain harsh, and the fire won't start.

Delicately wrought, this pan is capable of cooking food while the exterior stays cool to the touch, while imparting food with a greater ability to satiate hunger.

Depths-wrought Artefact

Auxiliary Equipment (Pan)

Self Repair 1, Camping Cookout 1,

"Yep," Kaius sighed. "Just a pan."

He groaned, walking away from the pan with a huff. The second time in a row that they had received loot that was decidedly more useless than the usual fair.

"What's changed?" He grumbled. "I just don't understand why we stopped getting the good stuff now, of all times?"

"Who knows, maybe we annoyed the Depths?" Porkchop asked.

"But how?" Kaius said, pacing. "We haven't done anything different."

"Maybe we got too strong? The Depths is trying to push as lower? Everything else in the system rewards challenge, and the last few haven't exactly brought us as close to the brink as the Champions did when we first faced them. Or maybe it just doesn't like greater beasts." Porkchop finished with a mutter.

"Surely not." Kaius said aghast. The system was supposed to be uniformly unbiased and meritocratic, the idea that it would favour people over beasts was almost heretical. Treat them differently, sure, but not favour one over the other.

"Guess we'll find out soon anyway, not like we need to wait long for our next fight." Porkchop said. "Either way, we should drop this junk off by our bags," he finished, nudging the pan with his paw.

Kaius sighed, but walked over to fetch the artefact and coin anyways. They made their way out, Kaius taking a second to count their new wealth, finding the pouch held six gold pieces. Not a bad find, though he still would have preferred something a little more helpful in their current predicament.

…

A figure lounging on a throne of granite rolled his eyes as he watched a far off predicament.

"Ungrateful brats, If only you knew how much you had already cost me," he muttered, lights fluttering through the void at the noise. "Doubt you would point your nose up at your rewards if you saw what most people found."

With their growing skills, and a few Honours under their belts, he felt confident that they had enough to make it out. No point wasting Psi if he didn't have to. Still, the fact that they had found a dense biome had moved up the time table. It wouldn't be long now, perhaps he should fudge things again. Just a little.

He sighed, decades worth of accumulated energy vanishing in an instant as he bargained with the cold and unfeeling construct that wrapped itself around the world.

…

"Look, all I'm saying is that a pan isn't so bad. Being able to cook anywhere is surprisingly helpful. Remember how often we just ate cold rations in the forest?" Kaius said, arguing his point as they waited around just outside the hall for Porkchop to finish recuperating from his last fight. It was probably fine for them to hang out near the enclosures; he felt a lot more confident that the remaining Champions and Guardian were well and truly locked in their cages.

On the other hand, who could relax with a bloody Guardian looming over them? Much easier just to wait by their bags.

"It's a PAN, Kaius! There's no way someone actually looked at that and thought it would be helpful to us right here, right now. We've either just been incredibly lucky, or there was something fudging things and they've stopped." Porkchop retorted.

They'd been circling around the argument for ages now, arguing back and forth. Kaius didn't really think that the pan was tailored. Not like the gear they had been getting up until recently at least. Porkchop was just a little too easy to work up when it came to his precious loot.

He grinned.

Porkchop squinted at him. "You've been fucking with me, haven't you?"

"Mostly," he said, shuffling back with a yelp when Porkchop swatted at him with a paw. "However I do think that it's not that bad of a find. It's still useful to us, and an artefact is still an artefact. We could still sell it for a bunch, if we really wanted to, when we get out."

Not that he wanted to, who didn't want a magic pan? Even if he would have much preferred a spatial bag or some kind of defensive artefact, he wasn't going to turn down a new toy. It just took him a bit to get over his disappointment is all.

"What good is money anyway? Never understood the two-legs obsession for shiny things." Porkchop muttered.

"For trade, you dunce. You have something they want, they have something you want, you swap and use coins to represent any difference in value. Basically. It's a lot more complicated than that." Kaius explained, kicking himself for not realising that Porkchop would have no frame of reference for fucking money. Not like the dens had banks kicking around the inner Sea.

"Oh! Why didn't you say so?" Porkchop said, perking up.

"One of those things you assume everyone knows I guess." Kaius said, scratching the back of his head, before he paused and gave Porkchop a curious look. "Wait a minute, how does that make sense to you? Isn't the whole thing that greater beasts are all free and uninhibited from the trappings of civilisation?" he finished, waving his hands to mimic a pontificating scholar. Or what he thought one might sound like at least, he'd never met a scholar after all.

Porkchop snorted. "Maybe if I was a wyrm-blooded, or some other solitary creature. We live in dens, Kaius. The Matriarchs trade all the time, like knowledge and hunting ground and stuff, remember?"

"Oh right." He said leaning back onto his hands.

They fell into a restful silence for a moment before Porkchop shifted his weight and looked back towards him.

"How's your last skill coming along?' He asked with clearly forced nonchalance.

Kaius raised his brow. "What an entirely innocent and not loaded question." He said with a smile. "Good, I'd be surprised if I don't cap the skills at some point in these next two fights. They get used far too often in tough fights not to. Still holding that skill you wanted to ask me about close to your chest?" He asked.

"Yeah. Thanks for being patient." Porkchop muttered quietly.

"No worries." he replied, before quickly changing the subject when he saw that Porkchop was still feeling a little off about holding on to his secret. He was curious, but not enough to put the pressure on, he could wait. "Hey, which Champion do you feel like fighting next?"

Porkchop perked up. "Maybe the Lover Boy? At least we've gotten some practice with similar creatures."

Kaius laughed at the name. He still felt like it was a ridiculous thing to call a four armed skinless giant, but he supposed that even in a twisted recreation of a fleshwarpers laboratory, there was humour to be found.

"Let's just call it the giant. Same tactic as the others? Try to blow a leg off?" He asked.

"Yeah, though maybe more than one cast. It probably has enough Endurance to make it a fair bit tougher on top of the added health."

Kaius nodded. It shouldn't take more than two, though he'd be ready with a third just in case. He didn't want to blow all of his charges in case something went wrong. It always did when it came to the Champions.

Porkchop turned to peer over his shoulder. "Well, I'm all topped off, and I think my armour is done repairing, do you want to check it for me?" He said, standing to present Kaius with his flank.

The enchantment had done some work, repairing bent plates and torn leather to an immaculate state over the couple of hours that they had been relaxing on the cold stone. It was still stained with blood, of course, but it was battle ready.

"Looks good to me." Kaius said, pushing himself to his feet. "Shall we just do it now?"

"Yeah. I'm bored. Let's go kill something." Porkchop said, shaking himself to warm himself up.

"Say no more." Kaius replied with a savage grin, leading the way back into the hall.

After watching Porkchop have all the fun for the last two fights, he'd been itching for something that would really get the blood pumping. He just hoped the giant would put up a good fight.