Chapter 46 – Family Reckoning

“We both missed you very much,” Millicent said before Titus' father could say a word. “But surely you can understand your father’s reaction?”

Titus stared at his father as he moved to a corner of the room, purposefully making no eye contact with his son.

“When you left, you scared us almost half to death,” Millicent continued.

“When I left?” Titus replied, and it was his turn to be confused.

“Yes,” Millicent said, then turned her attention to Jordan and Petra, who still flanked Titus, and began explaining directly to them.

“You see, the day Titus decided to go to the Arena, it wasn't a simple decision. It was the culmination of... well, some quite troubling behaviour.”

Jordan and Petra exchanged a glance, their expressions clearly concerned.

“He had always been a spirited child,” Millicent said, her voice taking on a dramatic tone. “But as he grew older, his defiance turned into something darker. He began challenging his father, even threatening us at times.”

Titus’ father, still in the corner, let out a faint sigh.

Millicent leaned in closer as if she was sharing a secret. “There was this one time he lost his temper so badly, we feared for our safety. He was working in the bakery back then, you know, but he would do things wrong on purpose, just to infuriate his father.”

Titus stood there, his face a mask of disbelief. “That’s not true,” he interjected, but Millicent waved him off.

“Oh, but it is, dear. Your father was terrified of you. He never knew what you might do next. And then, the day you stormed off to the Arena it was like a relief and a worry all at once. We were relieved that the immediate danger was gone, but worried about what you might do out in the world, with your... temperament.”

Jordan and Petra looked at Titus, the concern growing to something far worse: fear.

Titus, feeling the weight of the room turn against him knew he had to speak up. “That’s not how it happened,” he said firmly. “I left because you…”

But Millicent was not done. “His father had to be strong, for the both of us. Titus’ behaviour left him no choice but to be stern. But deep down, there was always fear. Fear of what Titus might become. Fear of what he could do to us, or to himself. I’m sure you’ve already seen glimpses of what he’s truly like, if the two of you have spent some time with him? And this young man on the table too…”

The room fell into a heavy silence, each person lost in their thoughts, grappling with Millicent's portrayal of Titus - a portrayal that painted him as a troubled, potentially dangerous young man.

“That is enough!” Titus shouted, and the room seemed to vibrate with his anger. He knew the moment he’d opened his mouth that it wasn’t doing his cause any good, but he had no choice but to try to quash these lies.

“I left because you forced me out!” Titus continued, trying to steady his voice. “You and father decided to send me to the Arena against my will. I never wanted that. I pleaded with you both, but you wouldn't listen. I’ve never been a fighter, I’ve never hurt anyone. Your stories are twisted lies!”

Millicent looked at him with an expression of sorrow. “Oh, Titus, always so dramatic. It's this kind of outburst that made us fear for you. You see?” She turned to Jordan and Petra. “Even now, he can't control his temper.”

Jordan and Petra exchanged another glance but remained silent.

Titus' father, who had been quiet the whole time, finally spoke up, his voice barely above a whisper. “Titus, son, it wasn’t easy for us...”

But Titus cut him off, “No, father. It was never about what was easy or right. It was about control, about her sending me away to keep you all to herself, can’t you see that?”

“I know it was hard for you after your mother died, Titus,” his father said. “I know you’ve never liked Millicent. But you scared me. You still do to this day, and that is why we sent you away.”

And with those words, finally something made it through Titus’ anger. Doubt.

Had he been wrong this whole time? Had his father and stepmother really had no choice but to send him away because he’d simply been that bad, that out of control?

“I wasn’t,” Titus forced out, but his tone was far less certain now and his voice much smaller.

Millicent, seizing the opportunity, spoke softly again. “It’s always hard to see ourselves as others do, Titus. Sometimes our actions have consequences we don’t intend.”

Titus looked at his father, searching for some sign of support or understanding. But his father's eyes offered no solace.

“It was never about dislike,” Titus' father said, his voice strained. “It was about safety, about doing what we thought was best at the time. I know it was hard for you, but we were worried... about you, about us.”

The words felt like a physical blow to Titus. The narrative he had held onto so tightly – that of being wronged, of being the victim of his stepmother’s manipulations – started to waver in the face of his father's heartfelt confession. And he felt awful.

In that moment, Titus felt a profound sense of isolation. The reality he had known, the anger he had harboured all seemed to be questioned now. Was he the cause of his own exile? Was his memory of those events tainted by his own resentment and pain? Had he really been that bad.

The room remained silent, each person lost in their own thoughts. Titus stood there, the centre of attention yet feeling utterly alone, his mind racing to make sense of these new revelations.

“I was just never a very good baker,” Titus said in a very small voice. “That was all. I never shouted, never got angry…” but he trailed off because in that very moment, he was now not sure how he’d been.

“Listen,” Petra said after a long, silent pause. “We can get back to the Arena and carry Jacob, but all of this seems like a pretty personal matter, and we don’t want to intrude…”

“Nonsense,” Millicent said. “We want you to feel welcome here. Eat your fill before you go, and it’ll make us feel like we’ve helped in some small way.”

Titus hadn’t listened to what his friend had said, and Millicent was basically a blank for him at this point. He felt empty, like he didn’t know who he was anymore, so he had turned his attention inwards to the one thing he was completely sure of.

You have gained 76 experience points.

Congratulations, You have reached Level 2. XP to next level: 104.

You have 5 stat points to distribute. You have 1 Ability point to use.

Skills Available to learn:

Taunt [1AP]

Fireball [1AP].

You can save or spend your Stat and Ability points at any time.

Titus couldn’t believe what he was seeing here. He had no idea that the goblins alone would’ve given so much experience, and for the God of Balance to have deemed it so, he must’ve been in some very real danger. He hadn’t even planned what he was going to do when he levelled up because he honestly didn’t think it was going to happen so soon.

“Uh guys,” Titus said, bringing some sound back to the room. “Have you had a look at, well, you know?” He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

It took Jordan a minute to figure out what Titus meant, but he could tell Petra followed his lead right away because she almost squealed in delight before she caught herself.

In the meantime, Titus found that he could analyse the skills available for him to purchase with his new Ability point by focusing on them.

Skill: Taunt

Causes an opponent to focus their attention onto the caster.

Cost: 3 Stamina

Duration: 10 Seconds

Cooldown: 10 Seconds.

Spell: Fireball

Launches a small fireball at a targeted opponent.

Cost: 2 Mana

Cast Time: Instant

Cooldown: 10 Seconds.

Titus was just glad that there was a note telling him he didn’t have to spend the points right away, because he really didn’t care too much for either of the two skills available to him. If he was forced to take one, then Fireball was his only choice, though he still wasn’t set on that yet. What was a little easier to pick was where to spend his new Stat points. He found that he could place his points into any of his secondary stats: Constitution, Wisdom, Agility, Strength, Defence, or Magical Defence, with all of them currently at one except for his strength, which was at three. He already knew that these secondaries would affect his primary stats of Health, Mana, and Stamina, with Constitution, Wisdom, and Agility directly linked to these primaries.

The game was now to figure out what would be of the most use to him, not forgetting about his wooden stamina ring that already gave him a handful of extra points there.

Strength was already out of the question. If something needed smashing, then it was Jordan’s job and Titus knew he was never going to question that. Although he did smile internally at the thought of dumping all five points into strength there and then to see what Jordan’s face would look like when he beat him in an arm wrestle. But then it probably wasn’t worth it just for that.

Constitution meant health, and that meant survivability – something that Titus knew he very much needed, and defence, both magical and non, were of the same ilk. Wisdom would give him more mana, and agility would give him more stamina, and where both would be useful to him, he had no doubt; right now, everything was pretty much the same same. With that in mind, Titus did the only thing he could think of: he spread everything out evenly, leaving strength alone as that was already high in comparison to the rest.

In essence, Titus now found that his secondaries read two across the board and three for strength, and in terms of primaries, that meant his health had now increased to fifty-two, and his mana and stamina both sat at eleven. It wasn’t massive by any sense of the word, and Titus could immediately see how specialisation would help in the future, but for now, this was all he could do.

“No way,” Petra practically breathed as she had apparently finished up in assigning her stats too. She was looking at her hands and turning them over like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing or feeling.

“Did you put them all in a single stat?” Titus asked eagerly, and Petra nodded in response.

“Everything in agility,” she said. “And my stamina went up to twenty-three!”

Titus’ mouth fell open. “Twenty-three? How? I pretty much put one in each and only gained an extra point in Mana and Stamina, and two in Health.”

“I don’t think the growth is linear,” Jordan said, joining the conversation as he’d finished allocating his new points too. “I put two in Constitution, and my health points went up to sixty-three, but with the rest, I put one in Strength, one in Defence, and one in Magical Defence and nothing else changed.”

“I don’t get how he knows words like linear when I have to constantly remind him how to hold a fork,” Petra said nonchalantly.

“In any case,” Titus said, ignoring the jab at Jordan. “Did you get any abilities offered? Because I don’t really know what I should do.”

“Yep,” Petra nodded, beaming. “I had the option to learn Active Camouflage.”

“What?” Jordan replied, his eyes bulging. “I’ve seen that so many times, and it’s so useful! You’ll pretty much go invisible!”

“Yeah, for five whole seconds, and at a cost of ten stamina, but I don’t mind that. Now I have two abilities that cost ten stamina to use each, and I have twenty-three! I can do both!”

“That’s so good,” Titus replied, feeling a slight pang of jealousy. “And you?” he asked Jordan.

“And me what?”

“And did you get an ability?”

“Oh! Yes, actually I did,” Jordan said. “It’s Shield Bash, only works if I’m holding a shield, though. It knocks back all the opponents in front of me by two feet and stuns them for half a second. Costs five Stamina though, and I didn’t increase that because my Agility didn’t go up.”

Titus scratched his chin but Petra beat him to his conclusion.

“Either you need to increase your Agility the next time you level up, or you’re going to need some equipment that buffs your Stamina. It’s weird that your skills are reliant on Stamina though, isn’t it? I’d have thought a Defender would be more reliant on Strength or Defence. Constitution maybe?”

“Well, maybe,” Titus agreed slowly. “But then again, he’s going to have to stand there for a long time; perhaps Stamina makes the most sense? Maybe we should ask someone when we get back?”

“Maybe I can explain?” Millicent reminded everyone that she was still in the room with her sweet tone. Titus had all but forgotten where they were and why up to this point, and her voice just seemed to return his anger to him.

“What would you know?” He growled.

“Well, far be it from me to tell an Arena Contestant how the world works,” Millicent said, smiling the entire time. “But could it be possible that the Agility stat is required for most Classes to work correctly? I mean, wouldn’t it make sense that you’d need such a stat to actually prove effective at pretty much anything?”

“Anything except Spellcasting,” Petra added thoughtfully. “Unless you need to dodge the monsters or something.”

Millicent nodded. “Exactly. And I’m sure that Mana could come in handy to a Spellsword, or something like that anyway.”

“And where exactly did you learn about this?” Titus growled, determined not to believe a single word that spilt from his evil stepmother’s lips. After his level up he somehow felt a little more sure of himself, that he had been right all along, and this evil witch was doing whatever she could to turn everyone against him.

Titus’ father hadn’t uttered another word.

“I told you already,” Millicent said. “Before I found your father, I did some work in the Arena, helping the Contestants as much as I could.”

“No you didn’t,” Titus replied. “You said you grew up in the City with a wealthy father and you never even saw an Arena battle. You said you didn’t even think being a Contestant was that dangerous.”

Millicent looked shocked and held a hand to her chest. “Titus, I am sorry that your memories seem to be skewed of me, but…”

You have resisted a mental attack.

The text dragged Titus’ attention away from the conversation as it faded into his field of view. It wasn’t normal for a notification to show itself during times where his attention was taken elsewhere, but this one just seemed to want to be read.

“Did you…” he started, but Jordan interrupted him.

“We’re under attack!” The large Defender announced, drawing his sword like it was second nature. He also quickly moved to pick up his shield and take a ready stance, though he was unsure which way to face, eventually settling to guard the door.

“What?” Petra asked. “How do you know?”

“There was a message in my view, you didn’t get one?” Titus replied as Jordan continued scouring the front of the bakery.

“Nope,” Petra said. “But you both did?”

Titus nodded and Jordan grunted his affirmation.

“Weird,” she said.

Titus rubbed his chin. “You didn’t increase your Magic Defence, did you, if you put all your stats in one place?”

Petra nodded. “It’s still at one. I didn’t think it’d be very useful to me.”

“But we both did,” Titus indicated himself and Jordan. “So maybe that’s why we’ve been alerted to this mental attack, whatever it is.”

“Maybe,” Petra agreed. “But where has it come from? If the bloodhound over there hasn’t seen anything, then what’s going on?” She gestured to Jordan, who apparently didn’t hear her.

Then the penny dropped for Titus. He stared around the room to see that Millicent was looking at him as if in disbelief.

“You!” Titus shouted. “This is what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it! I knew I wasn’t going crazy! You’ve been trying to make me think I really was a terrible person this entire time! I bet that’s how you got my father to send me away too, isn’t it?”

Millicent looked shocked for a long moment and didn’t reply. But her silence just convinced Titus further.

Titus took a step forward to bear down upon his evil stepmother. His blood was boiling, and all he could do was ball his fists and watch the red mist descend.

“Tell me that’s what you did!” Titus shouted now. “Tell me you’ve been using some magic to control everyone around you!”

But Millicent remained silent, her eyes wide with fear and Titus did the only thing he could think to do in that moment. He mentally willed his stats back up to before his eyes, and spent his single attribute point.

New Skill: Fireball

Launches a small fireball at a targeted opponent.

Cost: 2 Mana

Cast Time: Instant

Cooldown: 10 Seconds.

Titus knew he had eleven Mana just sitting there doing nothing, so at least casting fireballs wasn’t going to be any bother to him. Dismissing his stats screen and bringing his attention back to Millicent though, he didn’t spare a single thought for compassion or mercy.

He only wanted revenge.

Titus held out his hands like he’d seen the Spellcasters and not least Ferran Torres do, and willed the spell into reality.