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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eccles" data-source="post: 3494836" data-attributes="member: 5675">Bedecked in illusory silks and satins, I fumbled with the strap for my lyre, and began singing a popular chant. Within a few moments, dozens of audience members were stamping their feet and clapping. My encouraging chant was picked up by the audience, and as they started to encourage my comrades, I changed my own tune in counterpoint to the melody, giving Igmut and Sheba still more confidence and enthusiasm for what was to come.Igmut layered enchantment after enchantment upon himself, and as he finally asked Kord to bless us all in the combat, I cast a final spell to hasten us all. As this was going on, Endo cast his own spells of empowerment, wreathing his lumpen orcish body with spectral enchantments as well as making arrows and crossbow bolts for himself, Flynne and I burst into flame. Meanwhile, Flynne poured two potions down Sheba’s throat (first turning her skin a bark pattern, and then making her fade from sight completely), and then he tossed down the bronze griffon statue. As the griffon swelled into being, Malachite’s pair of summoned wolverines materialised; he followed this with a couple of spells of his own, strengthening himself and then calling up threatening stormclouds to float low over the arena, rumbling with ominous thunder.Looking up, as my song, the crowd and the drumbeats echoed out over the arena, I could see that Reneda the lead elf had drunk a potion at the same time as her followers, and then plainly cast a spell – 6 identical visions of the elf weaved in and out of one another in a confusing pattern. Each of the gnolls also drank 2 potions, clearly enhancing their aggression and strengthening them, whilst their leader cast a sequence of spells and summoned a badger to aid him. On the far side of the arena, Khoresh the djinn and his two human mercenaries mounted their heavy warhorses and drew their curved weapons, just in time for the horn to ring out over the stadium..oOo.Acting almost quicker than my eye could follow, Reneda had briefly saluted to the gnolls (and to my horror they saluted back), before raising her bow to eye level and firing a positive barrage of arrows, one of which managed to drive past Igmut’s heavy armour and leave an enchanted, frost-rimed wound under the edge of his breastplate. As if in response, Sheba suddenly materialised from her invisibility right next to one of Reneda’s elven archers ripping and tearing with her claws and teeth and killing the unfortunate elf sending her look of sudden surprise into bloodstained horror before a death-rictus and she stiffened and fell. Lightning crashed down from the shadowed sky, as wolverines leapt towards one of the other elves.Khoresh the djinn rode towards the gnolls, slashing one across the chest with his glowing scimitar. Sheba and one of the wolverines were both struck with arrows, but shook off the damage and kept on snapping at the retreating elven women. At the same instant, Igmut dashed across to the gnolls to engage them in combat, driving his longspear across the man’s chest with all of his (much enhanced) strength. The human snarled, and simply dropped his heavy club and changing – his face lengthened and warped, as his body changed. Snarling with fury, he faced Igmut as a snapping, enraged crocodile. In response, as I started another song of inspiration, something heavy and dark flew out of the crowd and landed on my head. I pulled off the sweaty material and waved it in the air as a trophy.“Up the orcs!” was all I could think to yell in surprise to my apparent admirer, whose green toothy grin beamed down at me from the stands.I repressed my instinctive shudder.For his part, Endo cast rapidly, stripping the elven woman of many of her protections; the many images of her disappearing in an instant, whilst the mounted mercenaries rode towards us drawing bows before firing shots towards both elves and gnolls. The dog-faced halberdiers ran towards Igmut, whose spear danced and spun, plunging into them repeatedly as they closed on him. Although badly wounded, they slashed back at him, and although one missed, the others managed to tear through much of Igmut’s protection and the first of his blood spattered to the sand. .oOo.From his position atop the bronze griffon, Flynne flew towards the elves, leaping off at the last moment to roll and land neatly, bow pointed towards the closest elf, his arrow streaking into Reneda, followed closely by the shrieking griffon which scratched and clawed at her. The elf looked panicked, and dived away from the massive metal beast before casting a spell at Sheba – a dark line struck the tiger and sapped her of much of her strength. Sheba responded by slamming into another of the elven followers; although nothing like as strong, she was still more than deadly enough to despatch this archer in turn. Meanwhile, a few dozen feet away, one of the wolverines dashed in and bit Reneda, whilst the other sank its teeth into the surviving elven archer, who was also struck by yet more lightning crashing from the sky at Malachite’s insistence. On the other side of the arena, Khoresh called out his intention to cast a spell on Sheba, and rode over to her. Growling, Sheba shook off the spell.“I thought that we were to be allied,” exclaimed the djinn in irritable confusion.The surviving elf slashed at the wolverine which had bitten her, and swore in elven as her blow went wide of the mark.Not so for Igmut, who was hastened, inspired, and enchanted beyond all recognition, Igmut stepped away from his foes and slashed a wide arc with the blade of his longspear. The blow slashed through the throat of the first gnoll, which dropped to the floor in a burbling heap; his spear then tore nearly a foot through the second gnoll’s armoured chest. Igmut pulled the spear free, and to tumultuous applause from the bloodthirsty crowd, he stabbed the weapon into the badger, impaling it into the ground. As the summoned creature faded from sight, Igmut left the spear impaled in the sand and ripped his greatsword from its scabbard on his back.I took this instant to cast a spell upon myself, making myself appear to be about two feet away from my real position, whilst Igmut was attacked in turn by the raging crocodile; the jaws locked shut around Igmut’s forearm, but he clamped his free hand onto its upper jaw and pulled the beast’s mouth open to free himself.Near me, I saw Endo hesitate, and then focus his attention on the two horsemen in the centre of the stadium; clearly waiting for them to do something. It clearly wasn’t for them to charge Flynne, which they did; one of them slashing my elven comrade across the shoulder. One last gnoll swung at Igmut, but he missed..oOo.Khoresh, pointing his scimitar at Flynne and spurring his horse, was surprised when he was suddenly assaulted by the griffon, biting and clawing at him. He weathered this assault, but then realised that he was riding into the face of Flynne’s arrows. Firing and reaching again for more arrows before firing again, Flynne paused. Khoresh paused two, arrows deeply stuck into his chest and head, before very gently sliding off his horse, stone dead..oOo.Abruptly, there was a clanking and grinding noise – a series of walls rose out of the floor, dividing the arena into quarters, whilst the floor dropped out from under the points at which we had started. There was a cry of alarm from behind me as Malachite dropped into one of these spike-lined pits. Endo, to my left, swore as his intended target was shrouded by one of these large wooden walls, which easily rose to 40 feet in height; so high that we couldn’t climb over them without disqualifying ourselves.At the far side of the arena, Igmut also shouted in annoyance as he was unceremoniously dropped into one of these pits alongside the surviving gnoll, leaving Endo and I facing the raging crocodile. We both swallowed deeply. Beyond the wall, there was the snarling, snapping noise of a number of wild beasts savaging elves, as Malachite soared out of the pit in the form of a graceful eagle. A wet gurgling sound emanated from the pit as Igmut despatched the ‘distraction’ so that he could start climbing uninterrupted. .oOo.Rather worried, I fired a shot with my crossbow, scoring a fiery hit on the beast which barely seemed to even feel the enchanted shot. It then hurtled across the sand towards me, its jaws slamming fast about eighteen inches to my left – precisely where my illusory double was standing.To my side, Endo simply took flight, casting a spell down towards the enraged crocodile-man draining my foe of much strength. Above the sound of Endo’s spellcasting, I could hear Flynne’s bow sing several times, and the sound of another man falling off his horse, whilst the bronze griffon screeched in a strangely mechanical voice.Suddenly, the walls sank back down into the floor, and I could glimpse Sheba beset by foes, and Flynne clutching his bow and surrounded by dead enemies. Just as I could see Igmut’s hand reach the top of his pit, the walls sprang up in different places, blocking him completely from my sight. I swore, and Malachite, who was also locked into this new partition with the reptilian rager, screamed out a spell from his place hovering in the sky. Freezing winds tore around the crocodile as heavy balls of ice slammed around him and beating at him.As I looked around and realised I had no escape route, I pondered leaping into the spike-lined pit behind me to escape the creature; then I heard Igmut’s greatsword slam into the wall. A single titanic blow tore a gap easily eight feet from top to bottom, and Igmut was framed in the hole, spattered with the blood of many foes and grinning toothily as he yelled abuse at the crocodile-fighter.Stapping at the reptile once, I leaped away from the snapping jaws to stand next to Igmut. The crocodile hurtled after me, and its jaws snapped, slamming shut on my leg. As I fell, I reached up behind me and tapped Igmut on the leg.“Tag,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “You’re it.”I shut my eyes in pain, but could still hear the sound of Endo’s crossbow clicking from behind Igmut, and a series of bowfire from Flynne beyond the wooden wall – several arrows slamming into the wood having clearly torn through yet another target, and heralding the defeat of the elven bow-women. Her leader, Reneda, could dimly be heard to yell “I surrender”, and Malachite screeched out some instruction to Sheba. Igmut’s sword hacked down four times, and the pressure on my leg was eased when the beast was suddenly slaughtered. 5 roughly equal sized chunks of crocodile littered the floor around me, and I was positively covered in its blood.The wooden walls sank once more, and I could see the cheering crowd all around me. Not a single enemy was still standing as Racnian stepped down form his seats to announce us the winners. We were summoned up to meet with him (as we walked I took a moment to cast spells to clean myself and heal the worst of my injuries), and he handed me not only a sack of gold, but also a bronze trophy. I turned, and raised our prize to the screaming crowd..oOo.By the afternoon, other winners returned to the cavern complex. The dragon and its team of kobolds were victorious, as (of course) was Auric and his team of stone golems. ‘The Crazy Eight’; a group of 8 monks won their round, as had a ‘Rauth’s Dragoons’ – a military unit of 7 men and ‘Pitch Blade’; a group of 4 heavily equipped axe-wielding dwarven berserkers.The announcers came to advise us that the rest of the day and the next day were to be used to recuperate. The very next fight that we were to have was against ‘Pitch Blade’, the four dwarves – trained and equipped by Raknian’s own Chief of Security, they were likely to be clear favourites in the next fight, and would have a considerable ‘home field’ advantage..oOo.In the afternoon, we were also allowed to meet with Akame, our manager. He finally explained to us why he had been so intent in staring at Raknian during the opening sequence. He admitted that he was simply using us as an excuse to get close to the Games Manager. He had a sister, a bard of considerable repute named Lahaka, who had caught Raknian’s eye the previous year. She had been very popular and performed often during last year’s games, but at the very end of the celebrations, she had simply disappeared. Akame had tried divination spells without success, and believed that his sister was, in all likelihood, dead. However Akame still wished to confirm this, and the only way he could think to do was to get into Raknian’s palace, or the forbidden area beneath it.Our eyes were drawn as we spoke, inevitably, to the ‘forbidden’ and blocked off passageway to the south…</blockquote>

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