"Ugh. Fuck. How long will I have to wait now?"
Roan Sol-Valis looked down at the row of candidates lined up on the forest floor, their backs pressed against the mossy trunks of ancient trees, their faces swollen and bruised beyond recognition.
There were seven of them — five humans, a beastkin with broken tusks, and an elf whose silver hair was matted with blood. None of them were dead. He had made sure of that.
Dead people couldn't learn lessons.
"Why the fuck are you all so weak?" he said, twirling his crystal-tipped spear between his fingers like it weighed nothing. "With the confidence you all had when you jumped me, I thought maybe you were strong. I thought maybe I'd get to fight someone interesting."
One of the humans — their leader, probably, though it was hard to tell with his face swollen like that, opened his mouth to speak. His jaw quivered. His eyes darted from Roan's face to his spear and back again.
