When Daybreak had gathered his wits enough to stand, the ghostly elf rose as well. It continued to stare. Empty eyes, empty thoughts-- for a moment they both simply stood, staring at one another, Daybreak uncertain how he had come to be here at all. How he had caught this elf's attention... then all at once she turned from him. Her face fell slack, and she began to shuffle. That slow, halting gait adopted by so many of the wartorn dead. She half looked like she might keel over. Vanish in a puff of the eerie mist which hung across this place. Instead she lingered, and on the breeze Daybreak caught the hint of her voice. 

Galatea. 

He had heard the word before. Many undead wanderers whispered it, measuring out an endless heartbeat with their droning voices. Daybreak knew little else of it. Nothing else. So far as any delver could tell it was meaningless, a name centuries lost. Daybreak had even met Coursers who had adopted the name themselves. Dungeon-born, mostly, raised in the shadows of ghosts. On its own, though, Galatea meant nothing to him. 

Yet something bade him follow. 

Stiff with the memory of his dream, Daybreak limped after the empty elf. She no longer seemed aware of his presence. Shambling. Muttering. Whatever instinct drove her to tend him had clearly gone upon his waking. Only once Daybreak had lost all sense of where or when he was walking did the spirit arrive at what might have been a desintation-- one towering structure, half-tumbled by the ages, unnatural round and larger than any Daybreak had visited before. He followed her silently inside, only to loose her in the throng as countless hundreds of ghosts swelled from nothing. Lacking any name to call out, Daybreak could only allow himself to be swept away. Down, down, round a bend and down again, into the sandy pit at the center of this ancient colosseum, for her now understood precisely what this place was. He'd heard stories from other delvers, of a duel before an audience of thousands. Of spirits shaking their fists in the air and crying for blood, and all of them in one raised voice-- Galatea! Galatea! 

Rumor had it not all those who found themselves trapped in the colosseum survived. He expected to face whatever spectre met him in the pit alone-- expected to die again, no doubt, as though once in a week were not enough. What Daybreak did not expect was the cry of a familiar voice. 

"Day!"

Jasmine had been a stranger when they began. The way his heart swelled at the sound of his name on her tongue, Daybreak felt he could well call her a friend now. 

"Day, you're alive!" 

"Oh, great-- and stuck in here, too?" 

There was Kelpie, voice grating with the sort of irritation that spoke only of fear. Relief nearly blinded Daybreak. Nearly. 

"You both survived?" It was the last thing Daybreak could have hoped for, after what he'd seen. 

"Speak for yourself," Kelpie hissed. "You've been dead as a doornail for two weeks. Veda--"

"Where is Veda?!" Daybreak glanced frantically around the arena, but found the gleaming spectre who had stalked his dreams for months before their meeting absent. Kelpie snorted, shrugged. 

"Ran. Soon as shit went south, took off back to safer places. Now can we focus a little?" 

Daybreak did not want to believe it, but he had no choice except to do as Kelpie asked. The ringing of a gong announced their challenger's arrival.