Two days after the battles, Nova Ordo held a mandatory meeting with the remaining combatants.
The meeting room had originally housed but a table and a few chairs, but the fighters, in their various degrees of madness, had thrown all of it out and replaced it with their own furniture.
They all had a room of their own, and this was likely the only time they would all meet here like this. In that sense, setting this room up with furniture of their liking only showed that they had no respect for the higher ups. These people were on a mission, and no pesky hierarchy would get in their way.
Cheshire was in it for the heck of it. Currently lying on a king-sized bed, which covered most of the room, and begrudgingly playing with a massive ball of yarn. Originally, she wanted to smoke a joint but got a resounding ‘no’ from her fellow occupants. The yarn constantly changed colour and brightness. One wondered how she did it, but then again, nothing ever made sense about that woman.
Emil was here to feel useful, or at least less useless. Having failed in his first fight, to a mage no less, he wasn’t in the best of mindsets. He sat on a replica of some kind of throne, unmoving and still.
Lei was fighting for reasons they themself didn’t quite understand. And after meeting Cardon, they began to doubt if any of this had meaning at all. In a few centuries the sages would be gone and forgotten. Besides, the enemy was able to field legendary creatures. Could they really hope to win against such beings? Lei was currently suffering in the corner of the room, lying in a bed.
And Camiel just saw the tournament as a way to dismantle Arc Trading. Standing in the doorway.
“I am glad-” the female official began, but was immediately interrupted by Camiel.
“My opponent was not an operative of the enemy. I did not sign up to kill hired hands. I joined to destroy Arc,” she wasn’t trying to hide her anger at the whole situation. And without a proper explanation she would deem this whole operation a massive betrayal committed by Nova Ordo, on her and her people.
“Does it matter if they are mercenaries? If we manage to win the tournament, Arc Trading will be effectively dismantled. The sages set the whole company up, for the express purpose of gaining access to firemoth silk. We prevent the deal, the company will stop being useful for the sages. The sages will abandon it, I promise. Arc will then either self-destruct, or your group of terrorists will be more than enough to deal with whatever will be left of it,” the official remained calm during the whole lecture. “Besides some of our own-”
By this point Camiel turned and left the room.
“Uh? You have to take part in this conversation!” the official was able to hide her irritation with Camiel’s behaviour behind a mask of surprise and authority.
“I do not, just call me when I have to fight again,” Camiel turned her head. “Unless that is, you want to evict me from the competition for not taking part in your stupid talks.”
Camiel then left without waiting for a response.
Out of irritation the official was speechless for a whole 10 seconds. Then proceeded as if nothing ever happened.
“Ok, so what I was about to say. Congratulations to Cheshire,” she made a dramatic pause.
“A round of appaws for me, anyone?” Cheshire sprung from the bed, somehow manipulating the ball of yarn into an eldritch creature clapping with its noodly appendages.
She scanned the room, observing the cold reception, well mostly. The official enthusiastically clapped as a polite gesture.
“Pfft, sore losers.” With a chuckle, she rolled her eyes and proceeded to morph the ball of yarn into various animated states before lying back down.
After a long sigh, the official continued.
“Of course, good job on winning the fight.. Sadly aside from y-her, and our Huser-friend we did not manage to reel in any victories,” she did not manage to say many words before being interrupted once again.
“How are we supposed to win against mythological creatures?” Lei burst out, and immediately regretted it. The pain in his whole body flared up and he almost lost consciousness.
The official could only shake her head at the boy. Having actually drunk the potion, despite knowing that the enemy did something with it. But this was not the time for that conversation.
“I think I should be glad we got any victories at all and that the 4 of you made it back alive. The automaton Echo and the assassin Xu, have been unrecoverably destroyed. The dryad Thorn is … well we don’t yet know what exactly seems to be wrong with her but we are currently negotiating her return to the battlefield,” after a short pause in her monologue, the official let out a long sigh before she continued “Not even our best perception-specialists were able to figure out what happened to this Hiram-fellow. Neither he nor his enemy arrived at the arena. It’s as if their very existences were erased from reality.”
At the last part of the explanation she looked at Cheshire accusingly. The not-a-cat cast a pitiful glance beyond the veil of the mortal realm and shrugged.
Only one of the three fighters actually reacted to the official, and the one that did seemed more interested in making a fool out of her. She realized that more words would likely only worsen the relationship to these people. With a defeated and frustrated sigh she decided to just end the meeting there and then.
“In each of your rooms, we left some notes about the opposing fighters. Even if none of you care, you can thank our on-site-observers for compiling these notes. Since we don’t know who you will be paired up against, we have copies of all fights in each room. I would advise you to look through them to get a feel for the opposition. And maybe even find out why you lost the last one? We have to step up our game if we want any shot at winning this. DISMISSED.”
Cheshire giggled like a maniac. “Y'all missed yer shots?! Boys, you should go seek an eye doctor before the next fight.”
The official didn’t even have the mental fortitude to react to this bad attempt at a pun, and just left the three crazies alone.
Did not expect the tourney to end up this bloody lol