Wizard Tournament: Chapter 13 (Patreon)

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          Trundle took a moment to catch his breath and wipe the blood from his hand onto his leather coat. He did not move to leave the field though. He looked to Maeve and she shook her head in a firm no.

          “Giryuoru! We’ve talked about this,” Maeve’s enhanced voice called out across the field.

          A lump of mud the size of a small child, rose up out of the ground. “My swamp,” A tiny voice called sullenly.

          “Giryuoru, no. Bad. You lost fair and square. You have to go now. You can try again next year.”

          The little mud creature ducked its head and slithered off the field. Draevin was just glad to see all the crazy gear-heads run after him. It was only after the swamp elemental had left the field that Trundle received the all clear to leave himself.

          The guards who had escorted Trundle to the field made no move to return him to his chains—it seemed he’d served his penance for the demon-fiasco during registration. Draevin saw his opportunity to get some more answers out of the little gnome. He could spend the rest of the tournament scratching his head over who might have tried to have him eliminated in that little attack, or he could just ask the one person who already knew the answer.

          “…taking advantage of him,” Peter was saying to Sylnya. Draevin realized they had been having a conversation without him and tried to catch up.

          “Well he agreed to the arrangement. You think they force him into that metal box?” Sylnya said. “Just trust me, this is the best arrangement for all parties involved. Gear-you doesn’t try to attack the protectorate anymore, his crazy fans don’t protest, and his size is kept in check each year.” Sylnya motioned with her head down toward the back end of the field where the elemental was absorbing the splattered mud all the gear-heads had collected. Each time he splashed over a dirty fan their body came away clean and his size increased modestly. “Mostly in check anyways,” Sylnya conceded.

          “Yes yes, Giryuoru used to be very annoying,” Draevin agreed. “So anyways, I’m going to go get some answers out of Trundle now that they finally let him out. I’ll be back in a minute.”

          Sylnya waved goodbye and went back to her conversation with Peter. “Why are his fans so excited about…” he heard Peter asking as he left the booth. That was definitely not a conversation he wanted to get involved in. He could already imagine Sylnya’s yellow blush.

          On his approach to the stairs that led down to the arena floor Draevin ran into Grrbraa, the werebeast contestant they’d met at The Pot this morning. Grrbraa’s snout was snuffling against the ground but when Draevin approached he raised it to chest level and gave him a sniff. “You smell like the human wizard. Do you know where ally-Peter is?” the muscly black beast asked him.

          “I… do?” Draevin asked. Had Korack been telling the truth when he’d said the same thing yesterday?

          “Yes,” Grrbraa answered. He sniffed again as though he needed to be sure. “It is a weak scent. I wish to speak with him about the plan he mentioned. Is he available?”

          Plan? “Uhh, yeah probably.” Draevin pointed back the way he’d just come. “Take a left at the intersection, then it’s booth number three.”

          The beast muttered a little to himself and counted off three claws. “Yes. I understand,” he said. “Thank you for your help.” Grrbraa padded off in the appropriate direction with most pedestrians giving him a wide berth.

          The interaction left Draevin confused. An overly polite werebeast making plans with a human… he couldn’t for the life of him understand what the two of them might have in common.

          He brushed his concerns aside and focused on the task at hand. Figuring out who was behind that clumsy attempt on his life seemed more immediately relevant. He still thought it was probably Zolt, despite what Peter had said. It wasn’t as though Zolt couldn’t have consulted a seer to figure out who he was going to be matched against in the first round.

          Draevin reached the tunnel that led down to the ground floor of the arena. Trundle was already almost to the exit. The little gnome was looking sickly-pale and was breathing heavily. He stopped a few paces from the end and leaned against the wall. “Draevin,” he said simply and waved him closer.

          This section of the arena was closed to the public, but the guards on duty recognized Draevin and let him through. Draevin reached the gnome and saw that sweat was beading around his forehead in addition to the panting. “You should really see a healer about all that blood loss, you know,” Draevin told him.

          “Can’t. Restore…” Trundle held up a hand for a moment and took some deep breaths. “Pact blood can’t be magically restored. You think I wouldn’t try that?”

          “Sorry you’ve just…” Draevin eyed the gnome up and down. He rested his eye noticeably on the hand covered in crusty blood. “Well, you’ve looked better.”

          “What do you want, Draevin. I didn’t think we were this friendly.”

          Draevin glanced back the way he had come at the nearby guards but decided they were far enough away that the ambient noise of the audience moving around during intermission would keep them from hearing anything. He lowered his voice anyway just to be safe. “I was hoping now that you’re out of custody you could tell me who tried to kill me yesterday.”

          Trundle raised the eyebrow over his one good eye. “I didn’t know you had those kinds of enemies, Draevin.”

          “Neither did I, now can you just tell me who it was?”

          “Why d’you think I know?”

          Draevin sputtered in disbelief. “Because you told me! Remember how your patron said those demons were under pact from another contestant?”

          Trundle scratched his beard. “They were? You talked to my patron?”

          “No, you told me they told you that.”

          The red-haired gnome shook his head. “No. I never said that. When could I ‘ave done that, you suppose? I been locked up since those damn imps chased me out of Hell.”

          Nothing about his body language said Trundle was being deceptive and Draevin couldn’t think of a reason he would have to lie about this so suddenly. “You really don’t remember? You talk to any cerebromancers lately?” Draevin wondered how Zolt could have hired a cerebromancer to wipe Trundle’s memories so soon. He didn’t know the guy was so well-connected.

          “You forget the part where I spent last night in the Guild holding cell? Of course I fuckin’ didn’t! I only talked to my damn guards and none of them are mind mages.”

          “Alright alright,” Draevin said. “Let me think… there has to be someone else that can confirm—” He snapped his fingers. “Your patron!”

          “You know Chaska’nal?”

          “No, but you do. Whoever messed with your memories couldn’t have gotten to your patron. Just go talk to them again and then tell me what they say.”

          Trundle started picking dried blood off his hand and dropping the flakes in a pouch. “And I’m gonna do this for you, why exactly?”

          “Obviously I’ll pay you for your time.”

          “Fifty,” Trundle said without looking up from his disgusting task.

          “Silver? Sure. That seems fair.”

          “Gold obviously.”

          “What? It will only take you two minutes!”

          Trundle put his pouch away. The hand he’d slashed open in his fight looked clean of dried blood aside from a puckered scar that slashed across his palm. “You want me to go waste Chaska’nal’s time asking about something a confused elf told me? Tell you what; if money’s a problem for you why don’t you just pay in blood.”

          Draevin pulled out his pouch. “Fifty gold you said? I think I might have that much here…”

          “No. I changed my mind,” Trundle’s low voice grumbled. “It’s blood or nothing. I can’t be wasting my own blood on this stupid shit.”

          “Surely you could just pay some commoner for some of theirs. I bet you could get buckets for fifty gold.”

          “Nah. You’ve stepped in the Conflux before. She likes the taste of Champion’s blood. I can’t buy that from anyone.”

          Draevin wasn’t sure if he believed that or not, but he was out of options for the time being. “Ok fine, but you can only take what you absolutely need.”

          “Of course,” Trundle agreed easily enough. He pulled a dagger from his belt and beckoned Draevin forward. “Hold out your hand.”

          He was sure to look away as he did so, but the cold bite of metal was still enough to cause him to suck in a breath. “Tell me when you’ve got enough.”

          “Flex your fingers. Open and close… yes, just like that.”

          Draevin felt warm blood slowly pulsing across his palm. He let it continue for a short minute before getting uncomfortable. “You don’t think maybe that’s—Hey!” He finally looked at the wound and found Trundle was collecting the blood in a glass bottle. A glass bottle that nearly looked full! He pulled his hand back. “I’ve never seen you use anything close to that much blood on one of your portals!”

          Trundle didn’t even have the courtesy of appearing mollified. “Fine fine.” He corked the bottle and placed it into an inside pocket of his dirty leather jacket. “That’s probably enough,” he agreed.

          “You said you’d only take what you absolutely needed,” Draevin complained. He conjured up a strip of icy thread with a wave and wrapped his hand in it. It did nothing to soak up the blood but it was comfortingly cool on the hot wound.

          “You said that, not me,” Trundle countered. He shooed Draevin off with a flick of his wrist. “I’ll come find you later if she says anything. If you don’t see me you can assume she just yelled at me for wasting her time.”

          “If I don’t hear from you I’ll find you,” Draevin promised him before departing.

          At the mouth of the tunnel a red-skinned little goblin was trying to get past the guards and they were having none of it. “This only leads to the arena,” a guard explained in a slow voice, “the audience uses the big stairs over there.”

          “Me Boom’ba!” the goblin screeched back angrily. “Boom’ba fight go boom boom. Wish for boom stick.”

          The other guard tapped his partner on the shoulder. “That’s actually one of the contestants,” he explained to his purple-robed companion. “We might want to let him by.”

          “You’re kidding. A goblin?” The guard looked Boom’ba over closely before giving in. “All right little fella. Just head through the tunnel, the guards on the far side will tell you what to do.”

          Draevin smiled at the little creature. “Good luck out there,” he told it. He always rooted for contestants he thought he could beat.

          The goblin barred a set of sharp fangs at him and hissed. “I boom you too, ice boy!” It padded off down the tunnel, only stopping to sling more threats at Trundle as it passed him.

          “Vicious little creatures,” the guard complained.

          “They can be,” Draevin agreed.

          When he got back to the booth it looked like they were ready to announce the next match. Peter was gone.

          “Hey Drae, where’d you get off to?” Sylnya greeted him.

          “I tried to ask Trundle about that demonic attack that was supposedly targeted at me. He didn’t remember it.” He held out his bloodied hand and dissolved the make-shift bandage of ice he’d wrapped it in. “Think I could get a Healing Lotus from you?”

          “Ouch,” Sylnya said. “How’d you get that?”

          “Didn’t you hear the part where I asked Trundle for a favor?”

          “Of course.” Sylnya briefly weaved some fingers together and a pale pink flower started to bloom from the spot on her chest just above where her heartseed was. “Did you see if Peter was on his way back yet? He went off with that werebeast Grrbraa. I think he’s going to miss the next match.”

          Before Draevin could confirm that he hadn’t seen the human Maeve started the announcement for the next round.

          “Deekek is a hawk-kin aeromancer representing Mayor Uureek from Seataak. He is carrying the Mirror Shield of Ketak’an.” Deekek held up his mirror shield and flapped his speckled brown wings proudly for everyone to see and the crowd gave a cheer. Maeve continued. “His wish is to create a nation for Hawk-kin to call home. Deekek wants everyone to know that he fights for his family and to prove that hawk-kin were not a wasted wish.” 

          Deekek received polite applause but nothing too crazy. Draevin clapped once out of instinct before his hand angrily reminded him of the abuse it had recently suffered.

          “Here.” Sylnya handed him her Lotus. He sucked down the sugary-sweet nectar and felt the pleasant itch of his wound closing up. “And scoot over,” she added. “In case Peter comes back.”

          “Deekek’s opponent this round is the goblin named Boom’ba,” Maeve continued. This was apparently the wrong thing to say, as the crowd promptly interrupted with a chorus of boos.

          “I just met that thing,” Draevin commented.

          “Oh yeah?”

          “Angry as all Hell. I wished him luck and he threatened to ‘boom’ me, whatever that means.”

          “Boom’ba hails from the foothills of Kundreil and has brought as his item a ‘Boom Stick’ he found. He is unsponsored and his wish is for two ‘Boom Sticks.’ Boom’ba wants everyone to know that he is Boom’ba, he uhh… makes the boom booms.” Maeve was sounding uncomfortable quoting the nonsense the goblin had recorded with the registrar. “And if you fight him he’ll make you go boom boom.” While Maeve announced him, Boom’ba wandered a few steps out of his box and started picking his nose with the wand he was carrying rather than presenting his item like most contestants. The crowd laughed at this, then laughed even more at the comments he left. Their earlier distaste with a goblin contestant seemed to be forgotten for the moment.

          Maeve waited an appropriate time and eased the crowd to silence. When they calmed down more the bell chimed and the match began.

          Immediately Deekek leaped into the air and his wings carried him high above the ground. He started some hand movements. Though he was too far away to see what the hawk-kin was doing, Draevin could see the intermittent flash of the shield that was strapped to his arm as it moved.

          Boom’ba didn’t even seem to know what was going on. He was looking toward the spot where the bell chime had come from and was still picking his nose. Some nearby fans pointed enthusiastically to the sky and shouted at him.

          Deekek fired off his first spell and it was a gust of wind. It buffeted the little goblin, but between the complete lack of shoes and the sharp claws it had for feet it was able to hold on. Boom’ba finally looked to the sky where his opponent’s attack had come from: he pointed his little wand and unleashed Hell.

          A bright pinpoint of light appeared in the air over the field briefly followed by a blinding flash. The arena’s wards shimmered a deep purple for just a moment—then shattered. The bench Draevin sat on jostled him like a bucking horse and a sharp pain split through his skull.

          He felt himself tumbling through space before everything went black.

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