The bottom lane was a corridor of steam and fractured stone. On one side, a sheer wall of grey rock rose toward the arena sky. On the other, the heat pool bubbled and hissed, spitting plumes of scalding vapor across the lane. The ground near the pool was cracked and brittle, spiderwebbed with fissures that glowed faint orange. One wrong step and a fighter would be fighting the terrain as much as their opponent. The air tasted like sulfur and hot copper.
The first control point sat at the lane's midpoint, a raised stone platform with a neutral crystal glowing white at its center. Waiting.
