At first, there was nothing, neither heaviness, nor pain, nor existence.
Then—
It had been born.
Lying on the cold, hard temple floor, it doesn't know who or what it is. It only knows blood lust. Blinking blearily against the dim light, the scent of blood heavy in the air.
It hears others nearby.
Some groans.
One whimper.
Pathetic.
It scrambles to its legs, looking around itself, finding many others slowly rising to consciousness.
Bodies to discard.
Flesh to feast upon.
Challenges to prove itself against.
A voice rings through the temple: Fight, my children. The winner shall be freed, fed, named, and revered.
That's all the encouragement they need.
The whimpering whelp is the first to be torn apart by fangs and claws.
It slowly backs off from the pile of bodies, diving straight in seems like a bad idea, too many of them, too close together, all of them in a frenzy.
Slinking into one of the shadows of the arena, it tries to decide who to kill while the others are busy.
Which of them is easy prey?
Movement to its right draws its attention.
Nearby, a halfling ducks under the claw swipe of a white dragonborn, running right between their legs and toward the dying flesh in the middle, blinded by blood lust and hunger, they dive into the fray and dig their dull teeth into squirming flesh.
It smirks, its tail lashing out and pulling the halfling back. Something rips, something screams. It doesn't matter what makes the noise, as it quickly lifts the halfling with its tail and rams two claws into their throat.
There's no time to feast on the dead body, not while so many others still stand.
It drops its kill unceremoniously and moves on to the next.
The arena dissolves into chaos.
A half-orc tears the limbs off of a black-haired half-drow he captured, the sound of ripping flesh and cracking bone momentarily overshadowing their screams.
The white dragonborn from earlier crushes the arm of a crimson-haired half-elf with their jaws.
