"There. All done," Sara exclaimed placing her hands on her hips, satisfied with her handiwork. "What do you think," she passed Vect a mirror for him to see his new look. Hesitantly, for fear of seeing a disaster, Vect turned the mirror towards himself. His formerly shoulder blade length blond hair had been cut closer to his head. It was still about 2 inches in length in most places, save his hair just in front of his ears, which hung down past his jaw, a strand of beads hung from the left side. The hair on his head, while long had been straight, had decided to become a bit wild looking. Standing up in places like spikes. (Think Link from Breath of the Wild with the short ponytail in the back cut off.) Over all he liked it.
"Oh my gods....I don't look hideous." Sara playfully slapped his arm.
"You jerk. You're welcome."
"You are pretty good."
"Thanks, I did all my family's hair when I was living with them." She seemed to get worried at their mention. It had been so long since she had seen them. She was so different now.
"Don't worry, you'll see them soon enough," Vect tried to reassure her, missing the real reason for her expression.
Jack, Sara, and Vect left Lelu and Beverly to go pick up the other gear that they were going to use. All participants were required to register any gear they were using for the tournament so the items could be recorded and healing staff be prepared for whatever injuries might be inflicted by participants. The 3 then reached the Colosseum and waited in line to register.
"Please remove and state all weapons, armor, spells, abilities, and/or tools that you will be using in this tournament. Failure to do so will result in expulsion from the tournament," said the bored goblin.
Jack removed his belt pouches and set them down on the table before him, followed by his dagger, kopesh sword, and buckler. He opened each pouch to show the contents in each one. The thieves school was more than willing to sell some of their best students gear to participate in the tournament. Each of the 3 had taken similar tools. While burglary was the primary goal of the school, self defense is a necessity. Jack laid out his choice of tools: smoke bombs, throwing knives, caltrops, sleeping powder, a pair of daggers for backup, and a few other tools. After the goblin had written every tool down and asked Jack to make certain it was everything, he was given a tag marked 4- 33 for the 4th stadium slot 33 out of who knows how many participants. The Colosseum was actually a series of 8 different stadiums surrounding a much larger central stadium where the finals would take place. Each smaller arena had it's own bracket for fights. Then the finalists of those would face off in the central arena. Pairings would be announced in 6 hours when the registration was over.
He wondered who would be first to see the special item he had snuck to Sara before they left the camp. From what he knew, only him and Sara knew about it. Eventually he saw that tattooed elf and naga from last night chatting.
"Hey Freed, Vesper. How's it going?"
The naga shrugged, "it's going ok. I hate having to list every possible spell I'm going to 'possibly' use."
"Really? You have to list them all?"
"Oh yeah. Usually its safer to just list every spell you know than risk accidentally casting one you didn't register."
"Now I'm really glad I just stuck with swords and strength. Seems like a lot of effort."
"It is, but it's worth it," said Freed.
Jack couldn't help but eye Freed's tattoo covered arms. "So....if you don't mind me asking, what's with the tattoos?"
Freed and Vesper exchanged looks. Then Freed spoke. "Well, they're actually not tattoos per se...."
Jack tilted his head. "If it makes you uncomfortable, you don't have to tell me."
Freed shook his hands as if to reassure Jack. "Oh no no no. It's not that bad to talk about, but it might make people uncomfortable to be around me."
"Why," Jack asked causiously.
"They're actually restricting brands. They help regulate my mana control."
"Why would you need that?"
"Freed here has a massive excess of mana reserves, and if these bands weren't here, Freed would probably explode."
"Uhh, okay...."
"You wanted to know," Vesper shrugged.
"Yeah, I did ask," Jack scratched the back of his head.
"He probably could have been a little more subtle about it though," Freed remarked.
They chatted for a bit, waiting for the rest of them to finish with registration. When they met up and still had time to kill, Lelu suggested they go to a nearby restaurant.
"I gotta say Lelu, your eating habits have certainly gotten more, um, I wanna say savage," Eva commented.
Lelu blushed as they exited the restaurant, abundantly aware of how she had devoured the stake she'd ordered, tearing into it savagely like a beast. "Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I was hungrier than I thought." But it did bother her that she'd acted like she did.
"I guess I should explain," she took in a deep breath for courage. "I got attacked by a werewolf at the camp. They couldn't cure it. Don't worry, I'm not gonna start howling at the moon anytime soon if I can help it. But I guess I have picked up some habits."
"Well it still doesn't exactly explain why you're over 7 feet tall and have white hair," Celine stated.
"It wasn't a regular werewolf. Somehow it got to be over 20 feet tall. I over heard Gorg say something about it possibly being experimented on," explained Beverly.
"That's a lot to unpack. Wait, are you....," trailed off Freed.
"Contagious? No. I was worried about that too at first, but I can't pass on my condition. And yes I've registered it with the officials before you ask."
"Sorry if I seemed insensitive."
Lelu waved him off. "Speaking of the tournament, you think the brackets are posted yet?"
They walked over to the Colosseum to see who their respective opponents were going to be. The tournament was split into 5 tiers based on years in the system training starting with 4th years. The thieves school weren't usually participating as their lessons were more stealth than fighting. Jack, Mai, Sara, and Vect were counted as 5th years surprisingly. They had to guess it had to do with the Champions Fruit as everyone else looked at them strangely. Records indicated they had spent 3 in thieves school, one in the barbarian for the 3 and one in Mage's school for Mai. However it also had them listed as starting one year later than everyone else. They were allowed into the 5th year group due to their age. But they hadn't started late. Did the fruit's effects affect more than just them?
"By the way Bev. Where is your gear? For registration I mean."
She stood proudly. "We centaurs have made this whole process way easier than it anyone else has. Our style has been narrowed down to one of 3 categories. Light, medium, and heavy arms. Light is no armour, bow and arrow, and a spear. Heavy is full plate armour with lance and greatsword. Medium is in between the 2."
"Really? Only 3 options? Seems kinda limited to me," Freed said as he raised an eyebrow. "No spells or tricks?"
"Hmpf. Petty tricks are beneath us and we have yet to find a centaur that can cast spells."
"Centaurs can't cast spells," said Jack shocked.
"Well, not on our own," she pointed to the horn on her head. "That's why this was so important to me. We can add items to the 3 choices, but we must take all the items from whatever our choice is."
Jack looked at Vect. "Are you able to actually use the spells from that druid training or whatever."
"Yeah, it's not much different from regular spellcasting. The spirit component is a boosting effect that helps low mana people."
"And it does open up more senses," added Beverly.
"Like?"
"Sounds and smells are more vivid to me. I feel more at ease in wilderness than here in the city. But that might just be a personal preference. "
They finally reached the Colosseum, a sizable crowd had gathered to see the pairings and where they were to take place in.
Immediately upon seeing the pairings, Vesper's normally lax attitude became stern and rather angry. Vesper Aklas Vs. Aurora Hightop. He turned to leave, none of the mage school group stopped him.
"Ex girlfriend," was Freed's only explanation offered.
The matchups that mattered to them are as follows:
Mai Brightwing Vs. Dyrk Ballard (human male fighter)
Sara Zagan Vs. Vectivus Whitewood
Freed Gornhilde Vs. Akemos the Blue (Blue skinned Male Tiefling)
Eva Greathorn Vs. Irann Amalith (Female elf Ranger)
Jack Turner Vs. Thotzil Greenscale (female naga ranger)
Vesper Alklas Vs. Aurora Hightop (female harpy fighter/ archer)
Celine Vs. Beverly Bolton
Lelu Smith Vs. Tegan Sutton (human Male fighter, magic null zone specialist)
"Its him," growled Lelu, not even paying attention to the other's pairings. "The one who humiliated me last year." She gave a menacing grin. "Here I come."
Meanwhile, Vect and Sara stood in shocked silence staring in disbelief at their pairing. Neither one could bring themselves to look at the other out of discomfort.
(This is a general listing of the fights I'll post. If anyone wants to add another fight please have at it :). )