Chapter 43 – Alarm Bells

"I just don't get why you want to trust him all of a sudden," Petra asked as the three of them lay in their beds at the end of the day. "You remember what he did to you, right? How he talks to people, how he treats people? And you think a week in the dungeon is just going to change all that? That what, he's some kind of changed man now? People don't change, Titus, people are just who they are, and that's that."

Titus scrunched his nose at that statement. He knew people changed. He didn't know exactly how or why, but he knew. It was because his father had changed. His father had been the man he looked up to most in life, the one person who cared for him, made him smile, laugh and, most importantly, feel safe. But then he'd changed. The day he'd met that witch, Millicent, he'd changed. And Titus had learned a harsh lesson the day his father had turned his back on him and allowed him to offer his life up for the good of the City.

But in response to Petra, Titus simply grunted. They'd been having the same discussion all day long. They'd gone to the pits first thing in the morning after breakfast and spoken about it at length, then they'd gone to combat training thereafter and spoken about it. They'd even managed to speak about it during running the circuit in strength and conditioning, and they'd quietly whispered about it during a lecture in human evolution and history. The group on this day had all remained together, all of them choosing to skip their Class-specific training for the day. Not that Titus actually wanted to go to it any day, that was.

"I think Petra's right," Jordan agreed, as he had been doing all day. "If Henderson's changed, then great, you can be nice to him or whatever. But if this is another trick then only bad can come from following him down into the dungeons to speak to this mysterious voice that you might've heard and that Henderson might be talking about. If you ask me, things should just be a bit more straightforward. The thing is, if you don't go with him, then nothing changes, and nobody gets hurt. But if you do go, then what might you learn? Is it something that's going to change your life?"

"Maybe," Titus replied thoughtfully. "But I just feel like I need to know more, you know? Like I've been handed whatever this Class is, and I'm not supposed to talk about it, and nobody can help me. You two have it easy. Either stand there and take the hits or sneak around and do the damage."

"Oh, and that's the easy part, is it?" Petra asked, her voice raising slightly. "I suppose you'd rather be the one at the tip of the spear then, or the one getting pummelled so we can stand there at the back looking all pensive. You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that?"

"I... I didn't mean..." Titus asked, realising how what he'd said had come across.

But his forthcoming apology was immediately cut short by a sound that Titus hadn't heard before. A sound that, in fact, few had.

A loud, deep clang rang out through the Arena, and then repeated every few seconds. It was so loud that with every clang it shook the walls. It was clear that it was a bell, but that loud and at this time of night...

And then the door to the three friends' slammed open, almost breaking its hinges apart and causing dust to fall from the walls and ceiling. There in the doorway stood the hulking figure of Darius, the Purple-Ranked Warrior.

"Up you get, all of you. Get what you need to fight from your boxes and make your way to the main hall," Darius said.

"What's happening?" Titus asked, but by the time he'd finished his question, the large Warrior had disappeared.

"Seriously does he sleep outside our door or something?" Petra asked.

Then, a moment later, another voice came through the open door, and Titus recognised another familiar face. It was Jacob, the young Arena Hand.

"You need to get your things together quickly, I can help you carry things if you need me to," he said quickly.

"What's happening?" Titus urged, pulling his chainmail overshirt on and looking around the room to see if he'd forgotten anything. The three had actually been pretty quick at getting dressed, and where Titus left his overshirt out of the anywhere box, Jordan and Petra were both rummaging through the magical contraption for their gear.

"Don't you know?" Jacob asked with wide eyes. "It's the City alarm. It hasn't been rung in decades as far as I know, or at least that's what the books say. And there's only one reason the alarm rings. It means monsters have made it inside, through the walls."

"Through the walls?" Jordan asked, now holding his sword and shield, wearing the plate armour that Titus had furnished him with. "How many, and what are they?"

"Do you know their levels?" Petra asked.

Jacob shook his head. "I don't know anything," he said. "I only know what the bells mean. But it's our, I mean your," he corrected himself, "duty to protect the City. We have to all meet in the hall, and the Grandmaster will tell you what you have to do."

Titus hadn't noticed it before, but looking at Jacob now as he spoke, he could see the fear in the boy's eyes.

"What aren't you saying, Jacob?" Titus asked. "Why are you so scared?"

"It's not... It's just... like I said, the alarm hasn't rung for a very long time. The Hunters have always done a great job at keeping the monsters away, but now... this has to mean something, doesn't it?"

"It means that the City needs us to protect it," Petra said. "And that's exactly what we're going to do, so you don't need to worry." She sent Jacob a purposeful smile, though it didn't seem to put him at ease. "So let's get to the hall and see what we've got to do."

The group then all made their way to the main dining hall, where they found that every Contestant in the Arena was either already there or just arriving. Jacob filtered away to see to his duties, and Titus, Jordan, and Petra found a place to stand where they could see that everyone was looking at the far end of the room, where Miss Kane and all the other Instructors stood. Titus did not appreciate that all of them either looked serious or worried.

The alarm bell kept ringing every few seconds, and Titus realised that the sound was being echoed far away, like there was more than one bell ringing. Eventually, Contestants stopped arriving, and Miss Kane clapped once to silence the room.

"The alarm bell is not a sound that we have heard in many years, but the time has now arrived," she said, her voice carrying clearly around the room. "All of the information that we have received so far is that a small group of monsters has breached the Northern Gate. The small complement of City Watch stationed there was killed, though one managed to survive long enough to raise the alarm so that we can offer our aid. The Hunters will have also been alerted, but it is unknown as to where they may be at this precise moment." She took a deep breath to allow that information to settle in before giving out her set of orders.

"As the attack came from the North, all Black-Ranked Contestants and all Instructors will make their way through the City to the Northern Gate. As we move through the City streets, we will remain vigilant and on the lookout for any sign of anything slipping past us. Those of you with the Brown rank are to head to the East, Purple to the West, and all Blue Rankers will proceed to the Southern Gate. We do not foresee any threats from these secondary locations, least of all from the South, but the City calls and we must answer. Now, let us move!"

It was a short speech, and one that raised a few questions for Titus. Mainly that if the City Watch had been so easily killed, then just how strong were these monsters? Though on a second thought, he remembered that soldiers didn't have the God of Balance on their side, so even low-ranked monsters could've given them a hard time.

He wasn't really prepared for the fact that he was about to leave the Arena and head back out into the City, least of all to the Southern Gate, which actually wasn't too far from where he'd grown up inside his father's bakery. He felt the sudden urge to return there and to ask his father what he'd been thinking again, but really he knew that wasn't likely to happen.

What he did know though, was the fact that with the rest of the Blue-Ranked Contestants in the Arena, they were going to head back up into the City and fan out to the South. It was a great convenience to everyone that the central amphitheatre of the Arena sat in the dead centre of the City.

Movement occurred all at once with the Contestants all following behind the Instructors and their Black-Ranked peers. It was like everyone had suddenly awoken to the terror that the City was no doubt facing from this unknown threat. A threat that had already claimed more than a few lives.

"Let's go!" Petra tugged at Titus' arm as he stood watching the rest of the Contestants pass. He didn't know why, but he just felt like he was supposed to be at the back of the group – after all, that's how they always planned to fight out there on the sands, wasn't it? But also, it was true that although Titus was Blue-Ranked, he didn't feel much better than a White at this point, only having a few weeks' training under his belt and not much else to show for it.

Somehow though, seeing his friends dressed and ready for combat, he felt a little better about what they had to do. He knew it was unlikely they'd find anything out there heading South and all, but the moment he felt the cool night air touch his skin, Titus felt like he was leaving home again. Leaving and going somewhere dangerous. Somewhere he truly didn't want to go.

It was apparent immediately that the alarm bells were ringing all over the City, presumably to keep everyone alert and indoors wherever possible so that the Contestants from the Arena could do their job. But as Titus and his two friends walked, he couldn't help but take in just how vast the City was, and in comparison, how few Contestants the Arena had.

Yes, there were a lot of Contestants that called the Arena home, but in the grand scheme of things they really only made up a small percentage of the population of the City, which covered an astonishingly large area and housed an equally impressive number of citizens.

"You think we're going to find anything?" Jordan asked as the three walked. It had become a bit of an unspoken rule that the groups separated from each other to cover the most amount of ground, and as Titus had dragged his heels somewhat, it meant that they were at the back, and had to take the long way around.

"Nope," Petra replied before Titus was going to say the same thing. "The attack's from the North, so that's where they'll be. Besides, do you really want to fight anything that can break through the City Watch and cause such a mess? Do you even know what level something like that could be?"

"Could've just caught them by surprise," Jordan said. "Or maybe they're low level and there's loads of them?"

This conversation carried on for a while until Titus realised that the streets had turned as quiet as it was dark. They'd fanned out so far from the rest of the Contestants that they couldn't even hear them anymore.

The alarm bell still rang periodically, and it was as loud as ever, but that was the only sound that travelled along the streets along with Titus, Jordan, and Petra.

"Did you hear that?" Petra eventually asked as the three came to a narrow crossroads.

"The bell? Yeah, it's been going on for a while, this can't be the first time you've noticed it," Titus replied.

"Not the bell, you complete idiot!" Petra replied. "Stop, and listen," she commanded.

The three stopped in the centre of the road and waited, both Titus and Jordan trying to figure out what it was Petra was talking about.

A long moment passed with nothing happening.

"See," Jordan said. "You really need to stop worrying about…"

And then to cut him off, there was a definite sound from around the corner. Titus couldn't have been sure, but it sounded very much like someone was walking through some woods and over dry sticks. Like it was a soft, crunching sound.

Petra moved to the side of the road immediately, pressing her back against the stone building there, and both Jordan and Titus followed suit. They listened intently from their position of cover to make sure the noise they'd heard was real, and Titus winced as the noise came again.

Petra threw a look over her shoulder that said she was both worried and cautious, but Titus knew they had no choice but to see what this was. After all, they were there to protect the City and the people within, so getting scared over a noise wasn't going to do them any good.

They all reached the corner of the intersection in a line, backs flat against the wall just had Petra had done. It was clear that something was making this noise and that it wasn't too far away from them – just around the corner. Petra moved first, cautiously peering around the stone wall to see whatever it was. Then Titus saw her freeze, her eyes wide.

Needing to know what had shocked his friend, Titus moved out to see past Petra, and Jordan followed suit.

What he saw there was something he'd never been expecting to see in all his life.

Hunched over and almost crouching was a small humanoid creature no more than four feet tall. It wore some kind of cloth wrap around its waist, and even in the dim light that spilled out into the street, Titus could see that its skin was a dark green.

Goblin

Level: 3

HP: 25/25

Attached to the cloth around the goblin's waist was a rather damaged-looking rusty blade with a rope handle, and it looked like it was dripping.

With the goblin's back to the group, Titus couldn't see what its face looked like, or even what it was doing to make the noise.

Petra took a single step forward and it was almost silent. Whatever she'd been learning in her Rogue lessons had been paying off because Titus already knew that he wouldn't have been able to move so silently. And then his mind returned to Jordan, who stood behind him in his heavy plate armour.

"No!" Titus did his best to mouth to Jordan as he turned to see the large Defender beginning to take a single, exaggerated step forward to try to emulate Petra's stealth.

But it was too late. Jordan had moved, and that meant his plate armour clanked. Loudly.

Titus turned back to the goblin immediately and saw just in time the creature turning to see what was happening, with a distinctly human hand hanging down from its mouth.

Petra froze and for a second, so did the goblin as its huge black eyes took in the sight of three Arena Contestants trying to sneak up on it.

“AAAAARRRRRRGHHHHHH!” A loud shout erupted from behind the group and in a flurry of footsteps and a ferocious warcry, a blur shot past Jordan, then Titus, and then Petra.

But it wasn't just any blur. It took Titus a second to realise it in the dim light, but Jacob, the young Arena Hand had just sprinted past them with a large battleaxe in his hands, directly at the goblin .