Purgatory Chronicles - A New Life After Death

Chapter 6 - Let the Games Begin

"Every realm has their own form of ritual, one that sustains the realm, feeds it a supply of energy that allows the realm to expand within the void...

...The Tenebris Consortium pioneered a new way of providing this power. Via the games. A ritual, involving battle, death, and glory. All the energy released in the ritual went to the landmass called the realm.

The original games were crude and inefficient. The reformation of the games during the period between 1884 - 1896 brought a new era of power to the Consortium. A complex intersection of rituals and magic absorb the energy, amplifying it. Even the crowd and audience is involved. The bigger battles, the more passion, the more bloodshed, the more energy the ritual outputs. Intersections of magic amplify this ritual tenfold, providing more power to the realm than ever before."

Chapter 4 - The Games
Beginner's Guide to the Purgatory (2002)
by Viviette Grenadine

***

The crowd was exhausting, numerous people, uncountable. The colosseum itself was gargantuan, dwarfing the pictures of the roman colosseum Liam had seen. It was far larger than any stadium Liam witnessed himself during life. It was said the colosseum could hold 200,000 spectators. Liam felt like an ant in comparison. From the other side of the colosseum he would look nothing more than a spec.

The colosseum was full. An uproar of chants and cheers erupted in and out. The games hadn't even started yet. This will be a long day.

The seating itself was multi-level. Liam found himself eight floors up patrolling the walkway in front of his section's seating. The levels grew even higher, up to twelve floors. The crowd was wild and ballistic, out for blood. They chanted and sang. They wailed and they screamed.

The stone of the colosseum was a gray stone, but much of the architecture was carved in intricate detail. Large gems were embedded in pillars and walls, likely aiding the magic the colosseum was embedded with. This structure was a marvel of magical engineering, or so the book made it out as one.

Liam used magic to reduce the vibrations to her eardrums. That was one benefit he hadn't anticipated from magic, but he appreciated it nonetheless. He felt bad for the mundanes and channelers who couldn't do the same, but they likely had some sort of ear protection.

Liam found himself patrolling with another small enforcer, Colin. One that he was all too familiar with. It was the teleporter that threatened his life on day one.

"What brought you into the Noctari?" Liam asked.

"What!" Colin tried to scream over the chanting. "I can't hear you!"

Figures, Colin surely was in Purgatory far longer than Liam, but it seemed like he barely knew the simplest magic, apart from his own Virtue. Liam used energy to create a little isolated sound bubble around him and Colin. It didn't block out sound too well, but enough to allow for them to conversate.

"What brought you into the Noctari?" Liam asked again.

"Smuggling wasn't really a good business." Colin stated, "and as you know, I didn't want to get my ass kicked again. How didn't we know we were going against a Grave Warden! Diabolical!"

"So you left the group?"

"Yea, even the lowest of the Noctari have a better life than smugglers. I should've left sooner." Colin gave off the tone of a millennial. He likely didn't die too long ago, maybe only a few years. "The only ones who do well in that business are the smugglers that have the Noctari bought off."

It was a fact Liam knew all too well as a glorified magical customs enforcer. They had protocols to allow smugglers to get away with sneaking magical items past. At least the Noctari knew the smugglers, that was one reason Liam could think of for allowing the smuggling in the first place. It was better to know who was smuggling and who wasn't.