No Sunshine in Hell

[Shang Tsung]

The world shimmered.

Argento felt the hot air against his face as his throat tightened with the thirst that often associated the revival process. Gravity took hold as he dropped a few inches to the warm ground of the Hellscape. How long had it been this time? The paladin glanced at his hand and wondered if his skin had always looked this cracked and weathered. Primes couldn’t be permanently killed but did that also mean they couldn’t die?

He was clothed in rags, as he had been for the last half dozen or so lives he’d lost in the pit. The only armor he ever saw was what he could scrounge from the remains of a dead gladiator from a previous fight, and even then, he was never able to retain it for future battles. Any effort he’d try to summon it for his own use would be met with mild physical torture and theft of the stuff. The hammer was the last link he had to anything associated with his old lives, either that life lost in his home realm or his days as Darkshire’s champion.

“There he is!”

Already? Argento clenched his eyes shut in the vain hope that the demons were just some dementia—some façade of a mind now truly shattered. A swift kick sent him onto his side and back into the reality of the situation. Opening his eyes, he saw the trio of slobbering fel orcs grinning down at him. Had they figured out some means to track where he would reenter this hellish world or was he simply a man who had long ago lost his luck?

“Ready to go back to the pits, human?” The orc snarled as he reached down and grabbed Argento by the head. “I got a bet that you’ll last a little over four days this time.”

“Three days!” One of the other orcs snickered as the paladin was dragged to his feet by his hair.

“The way he looks, he might not last the ride back,” the third creature laughed as it stepped forward and smacked Argento in the side of the head. “Path—”

The creature’s words were lost amid the gurgle of blood that started to sputter from its jawed maw. A beat later, it crashed to the ground next to Argento, who found his vision blurred from the head trauma. He looked up, but everything was out of focus and his vision was likewise impaired to the point where everything sounded farther away than it should. Amid the sensory deprivation, he could see other figures behind the two orcs. There were flashes of light and what sounded like the clanging of steel against steel. Something wet splashed across the paladin’s face as one of the tusked monsters fell backwards and tripped over him.

The other orc was gone—Argento didn’t catch what had happened to it. All he knew was that he was being pulled to his feet by two of the blurred figures. A rival gladiator arena? Small time peddlers hoping he was worth something? A hand fell against the side of his head, and just like that, the paladin could see and hear again. More than that, all the aches that radiated across his body seemed to melt away in a matter of seconds.

He looked to his left to see the smiling, caring, and very human face of a man in chainmail armor. His eyes were a crisp blue that seemed to glimmer. Argento opened his mouth but the many quickly shook his head. “Questions for later. Save your strength. Just know that we are not demons, and we mean you no ill will.”

With that, the paladin lowered his head and tried to clear his thoughts as he was aided away from the corpses of the three fel orcs.