The planes shifted.
"Ah, there comes a likely candidate now. Do you suppose this one has what it takes?" The Demiprince looked at his tutor in askance. It was always the same speech, given to every mortal that passed through his realm. Make them feel special, make them feel wanted. Make them forget themselves for a while, doubt their own mortality, so that they may fight and die for his selfish amusement.
"But never mind, let's find out". And there the Imperial went, following his minions right through the portal and into the Veil of the Surreal.
Fa-Nuit-Hen sighed. Nobody seemed to appreciate the first stage and its name. Of course, the adventurers had other things to worry about, what with the Daedroths and other cute beasties he had in store for them, but nobody ever tried seeing past the actual Veil. The Maelstrom was an extension of his own mind after all. And yet, instead of noticing the cracks showing through, the inconsistencies, and the unreality of it all, the adventurers saw the illusion and fought it. And so they did fight and bleed and died in it. Oh well, so long as they were good sports.
The planes shifted again. The Demiprince stood in the stands and watched as giants and nereids swarmed his latest challenger. Look on my works you mighty and despair, indeed. Did giants and nereids even work together back on Nirn? He would have to check with his Tutor.
How many adventurers have tried (and failed) over and over again? Mortals all looked alike after all. Less so than flame atronachs, but then again, nothing came close to flame atronachs. Fa-Nuit-Hen wasn't sure which ones he liked better.
To say that the Demiprince loved his arena was an understatement. While no stranger to illusions, after all most daedras dabbled as peddlers of dreams, this one he had built from the ground up. First came the watching, and waiting, and observing. From the whirling sound of dwemer cogs in a Dwarven spider and the faint smell of pine trees in the thick Nordic forests, to the feeling of heat from the forge on the skin and sulphur in the air of the Infernace. Every small detail was stored in his memory to later replicate in his own realm.
Great illusions were rare. They required patience and effort after all, and nobody seemed to have time for it these days. Truly great illusions were meticulously crafted, like fine works of art. They tricked your mind and overwhelmed your senses to the point where you didn't think about questioning it at all. And so, no mortal doubted the reality of the Maelstrom arena.
Sometimes Fa-Nuit-Hen wondered what the other daedras saw in that pit. He could only see his own reality - the ghost of spiders, and spirals, and shadows flickering in and out of existence amidst the desolate wasteland of his mind, but what did the others see? Were they entertained by it? Were they even real to begin with?
No, he wouldn't think of that. Down this path lay solitude and madness. After all, there'd been a time before the Arena, when it was just him and eternity staring back, a little voice in his head asking if life was everything he'd hoped for. Fa-Nuit-Hen wasn't sure whether he liked existing. Of course, he didn't remember not existing, so he had nothing to compare it with, but nonetheless, existence fell a bit short of his many expectations.
What he did remember however were the long stretches of emptiness and oblivion, where time seemed almost to twist and turn into unrecognisable shapes, like a snake coiling itself in its slumber. "Sometimes, the Dragon breaks", the words came back to his mind.
Down in the pit, the Imperial reached the Theatre of Despair, which was perhaps too garish of a name for what it was, but Fa-Nuit-Hen did have a penchant for the melodramatic. It had been awhile since any challenger reached that stage, and he hoped that Variak Solkyn hadn't gotten too rusty. Of course, ultimately, Variak Solkyn was just as much a creation of the Demiprince as any other part of the arena, but sometimes, it was easier to pretend that winning or losing came down to the adventurer's prowess, talent, or simply luck.
The planes shifted.
"Ah, there comes a likely candidate now. Do you suppose this one has what it takes?" The Demiprince turned away from the Imperial to look at his tutor in askance.
The planes shifted, and time was a circle.