An afterparty for the fallen.

Throughout the rookie brackets, one of the stadium’s private boxes had been reserved for eliminated finalists. About twenty had regathered after washing off the mud and blood of defeat and swapping to civilian clothes. Fewer would have attended, the usual instinct being to log off in shame. However, the afterparty was for many also their final hangout. Soon, adventures would redistribute them across the globe and fray the friendships formed through the ardours of the tourney.

Attentions were only semi-concentrated on the stage - the thing still stung to stare too closely at. Most were drinking. Rookies walking through the box’s centre hopped over the snoring tangle of a drunk Venezuelan and his equally-drunk grey wolf. Around him, in the corners, pockets of duellists mumbled over stumbles, ranted at luck, and hypothesised fantastical what-ifs. A shield held a little higher, an arrow hitting centimetres to the left - how tragically thin the margin between being in the ring and being here, a loser.

At the front of the box overlooking the arena was a sofa. On it sat London Tremor, intern from Channel 5 news, and three of the less-wasted duellists. The group were busy giving commentary for a livestream.

Unlike those moping around him, London was beaming. It'd been a wonderous finale for him, live-streaming from this most exclusive of seats organised through his connections. He'd been able to showcase the qualities he'd come to love in Suchi's oddball rookie scene, its informality, its tightness, its personality. What's more, Channel 5 had upgraded him to the main stream once his own surpassed their viewership due to its popularity with the tourney’s massive entrant base. After weeks of humiliating setbacks, this was highly validating. He felt—as HF had promised in the parable of the fannypack’s epic return—the intoxicating power of redemption. All in the golden light of vindication was miraculous, and all was almost perfect.

The sole blemish had been another intern, a Scottish lad, dumped on him by Channel 5’s management in exchange for funding the box. This freerider hailed from their celebrity and entertainment division. After adding nothing to the broadcast, he was at this moment going bonkers over the draw between HF and Septic Rose. The duellists, hot off losing, had not reciprocated his enthusiasm for the teen drama.

London, a duelling purist as well, tried to shift the topic back. "I think, rather than love triangles, most here are more interested—"

He flinched as a handful of popcorn splashed his face.

"Not so hasty, darling!" The drama intern had thrown the food across the couch at his poo-poo of a colleague. "We've heard enough of man's dull grunts today. What about the feminine perspective? PCJ, honey, chime in!"

Addressed had been the casting panel’s single female guest, ‘Pretty Crafty Jangly’, a South Korean Qi Master and aspiring professional figure skater. Skills from this hobby had transferred splendidly into duelling before her head in the first round got ripped off from her neck, twice.

PCJ hadn’t even understood the previous question. “Actually, I'm a bit clueless about all these girls. I only bought the game three weeks ago."

”Oh, honey,” insisted the drama intern, “but you are clued into them as your fellow deadly creature, woman. Is there not some profound surge of feminine ferocity that unleashes here to help Rosie-baby win? You can practically feel her claws extending. They're ready to tear apart this good-for-nothing, girlfriend-juggling beau! Reeeow!”

He mimed a tiger swipe.

“Hmm…from that angle, it feels a bit distracting. HF encourages us to balance our excitement levels. Some of the complex moves can falter if you’re too emotionally charged...”

The two other duellists on the sofa nodded.

London, mindful of the time, frustrated at this compromise to his show’s integrity, messaged the figureskater and a cameraman squatting in front of them to mute the parasite.

Moving onto the first match, SaNguiNe versus The Third Gate, he gave a summary for any new viewers of its basic mechanics. EarthfriendxMiracleworker duels at their level had evolved into melee brawls due to both struggling to kill the other with magic. Since Miracleworkers lacked dedicated physical attacks, they’d received a meta-game health compensation, needing to inflict less grievous injuries to win.

Within that metagame, both SaNguiNe and The Third Gate were unconventional in ways that seemed by London’s analysis unfavourable. SaNguiNe, his dagger wrestling manoeuvring for one-shot lethal attacks, functionally forfeited the health compensation, which was based around other Miracleworkers skirmishing for limb damage with longer-range weapons. The Third Gate’s main strength wasn’t in brawling but the mid-distance spell kiting she’d adapted from The Strategy. The gradual stream of damage this inflicted could be exceeded by a Miracleworker’s self-healing.

For more complex matters, he handed the mic over to Y-A-III. This duellist from Japan had not qualified for the finals. Nevertheless, he’d been invited as an expert in statistics and a former teammate of HF.

The Japanese stats nerd found the series uncompelling. “With this one, it is perhaps wisest not to entangle ourselves in the confusion of the particulars. If we hush her schizophrenic murmurings, a clear reality emerges. SaNguiNe slips into this series without a single loss, as the first place in the zone ratings, as the first place in the preliminaries, and as the statistical first place of today. How HF intends to subvert the trend, that is a puzzle worthy of our earnest contemplation. But for this mystic, who’s already surrendered several victories against duellists of lesser stature?” He gently shook his head. “She has been pinned.”

A long-winded refutation was offered by another panellist. Victor Schunzel or ‘Victorioush’ was a German Arcanist who'd converted post-A-Thousand-Tools to an Earthfriend. He was reputed to have the biggest brain amongst this rookie duelling batch, although this had not saved him in the final’s second round from a ruptured heart and a smashed kneecap.

Using his Germanic wit to explore beyond the “surface gaze of statistical assessment”, he argued that The Third Gate’s match losses all stemmed from her showmanship, from her putting in no more effort than was necessary to secure each series, “the sole theatre of significance within the panoramic reckoning of The Strategy”. If, however, her ostentation risked elimination, as it might against a duellist of SaNguiNe’s calibre, then she would no doubt abandon it. Her vocal cords would be clogged by the earth she inhales, or an actor dressed as an angel would swoop down from the stadium’s broken roof and compel her to silence – the German, evidently converted to her fandom, enjoyed hypothesising these RP workarounds.

“But, for me,” he finished, “it is this ability of the mystic’s to split her brain towards this dramaturgy that conceals this matchup’s decisive factor. Who else continues to play in the finals? Not SaNguiNe, that's for sure. The losses that Yasunoke misinterprets as weakness are, quite to the contrary, indicators of a confidence rooted in a covert reservoir of strength. This reservoir allows her where others couldn’t to straddle her toes against the edge of the abyss while laughing gayly. And this reservoir, I’m betting, far transcends the limits of an amateur wrestler try-harding every duel of inconsequence.”

The Japanese stats nerd, slumping back onto the sofa after grabbing a beer, waved a hand dismissively. “Any conclusion can be justified when you’re willing to traverse its chasms with these qualitative flights of imagination. ‘SaNguiNe wins because he’s shaped his muscles into a direct counter for A Thousand Tools, of which she employs an outdated, imperfect prototype.’ ‘SaNguiNe wins because the apocalypse needs his iron grip to pry apart The Gates.’ Please. Anchor yourself in the empirical.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

London, monitoring his chat and seeing that the discourse had gotten too abstruse, gave them a breather by questioning PCJ, the Korean figure skater. He asked if she might fill in any of the ‘chasms’ in this theoretical analysis with her personal experience with the two contestants. Her own elimination had been by The Third Gate in the first round, a 1:2 series. As a fellow athlete from South Korea, she’d also ended up one of SaNguiNe’s primary sparring partners.

The figureskater answered hesitantly. “One underrated strength I’ve not heard anyone mentioning about FuzzyGirl35 is her agility.” She used the mystic's username since she hadn’t followed ‘The Third Gate’ lore. “Her movements are very graceful—very natural, almost like a cat. Weighed against Sang-won’s grappling…” The explicit point was left unstated, the figure skater neither certain in her judgement nor wanting to jinx a compatriot. “I did get a sense, as Vic suggested, that my win might not have been earned. She could’ve thrown it to have an extra match for giving speeches.”

The German agreed. “I was being courteous by not elaborating, but PCJ’s was a flagrant concession. The Third Gate withdrew from no less than three finishers.” He paused hesitatingly before giving a bold proclamation. “It is my estimation that, beneath the absurd spectacle, this sage roleplayer is the strongest duellist in the running - not the second, the strongest. She will upset this round against SaNguiNe. In the one ensuing against Whitefrog, she will upset him. Finally, she will upset HF. Again.”

The others smirked and rolled their eyes. The day had been filled with contrarians and attention seekers embarrassed after predicting HF losing. The mystic this guy was fluffing up had been the worst offender.

The stats nerd responded to the claim seriously. Picking at the smallest of flaws, he demanded a rationale for the German’s confidence in The Third Gate fighting Whitefrog next. Assuming she did progress, the lottery for that stage had still not been determined.

The German shrugged. “A less reflective soul would call it intuition. I can go a little bit beyond that, although the highest degrees of the gestalt remain ultimately indissociable...”

He proceeded to confuse everyone with the distinctive idea-salad of his nation’s 2050s intellectual scene. He outlined a theory of the improbable events in the tournament and surrounding it as a “conspiratorial matrix of anomalies”, in which The Third Gate represented the second “densest nexus node” after HF, highlighting her as his opponent of greatest significance. This basic description of the theory was hard enough to follow. His derivation of who’d win from it—based on “the anomaly matrix’s subtle tendencies towards sensation, order, the inversion of order, and, of course, anomaly”—passed like The Third Gate’s speeches beyond the comprehendible event horizon of lore blackholes. Adding to the difficulty for listeners, the German was continuously interrupted throughout by a stoned duellist from the party offering him baked potato chips.

“I don’t want any chips.”

“They’re good, though. Spiced giraffe flavour!”

“I'll eat giraffe, but NEVER potato. I hate potatoes...”

“…what?! How can you hate potatoes? It’s so neutral.”

“Later...I’ll explain the metaphysical shortcomings of the potato later...but,” the German returned to the audience, “as I was concluding, revisiting Yasunoke’s statistical challenge over the lottery selection, this so-called impediment dissipates upon a recognition of the anomaly matrix’s conspiratorial schema. A doppelganger of Mayonnaise is already on the field. Why not substitute that doppelganger with a second doppelganger on the payroll to fudge the draws? With that one ploy, the randomness that vexes Yasunoke is summarily determined.”

Where everyone else had long conceded, the figure skater alone had stayed upon the ice, building up through her struggle a thick sheen of browsweat.

“But why,” she asked, “would this anomaly matrix coordinate around our 1v1s and not the higher-level 1v1s after us? Are there any other…what did you call them…’nexus points’ in the Standards or the Opens? How about Mayonnaise?”

The German froze. Having immersed so deep into the amateur 1v1, he’d lost all regard for the parallel categories. He was genuinely stumped.

The Japanese stats nerd smiled at the camera with a told-you-so smugness. “That’s why we ground ourselves in evidence. One may be endowed with a towering intellect, yet it will always sink when built upon a swamp of self-validating mysticism.”

The German shook his head fiercely against that quip and the terrifying summons of an even higher cognitive challenge. “The truth, Yasunoke…the truth is sometimes mystical…just like…I continue to stand by this claim…just like the winner of this series…”

London Tremor used that as a convenient segue to collect predictions. The stats nerd called it for the wrestler. The figure skater—after much hesitation—went 2:1 in the same direction but more as a wish than a conviction. Channel 5’s drama intern, given a few seconds unmuted, predicted 2:0 for the mystic, assigning SaNguiNe’s defeat to his SCANDALOUS inability to overcome—

The couch was joined by the baked-potato-chips-offering stoner, high off his face on a post-death tab that’d tinged his cheeks violet. He prophesied an easy series for the mystic. Duplicating the German’s take from a different angle, he argued that SaNguiNe’s pursuance of Boulderfoot Wrestling was a vestige of duelling’s martial antiquity, and such old arts were—if one deciphered the runes—doomed to collapse in the apocalypse of technique triggered by The Cripple/The Second Gate and continued by The Third Gate.

London Tremor noted the unbalance caused by this intrusion to his stream. To compensate, he gave a quick prediction in SaNguiNe’s favour. Truthfully, he had no clue.

Arena-side, the coinflip for first map choice landed in the mystic’s favour, rousing a mixture of applause and groans from fans and gamblers. The Third Gate, anomalously, didn’t pick her comfort arena, the kid’s playground where she’d slain The Tyrant. Sniffing the breeze and scenting the smoky fumes of change, she switched to the replication mini-village, Hamlet.

London asked the German if this switchup played into the matrix thing.

The German, giving up on the wider enigma, answered that it was a mundane adaptation to SaNguiNe’s grappling skills. Hamlet had a greater density of obstructions and elevation change for a spell-kiter to avoid entanglement. As Grandma Ru had demonstrated on the map, an Earthfriend rationing their stamina for escape manoeuvres was near uncatchable.

The Japanese stats nerd, reviewing notes in his Mental Library, gave a titter of negation. “Like Victor theorising magic from a loser’s couch, The Third Gate has over-cerebralised the matchup and forfeited her home-field advantage. The raw fact is that SaNguiNe has racked up hundreds of more duels on Hamlet while she was off preaching. That grants a foundational intimacy that will sweep away the rest of this minutiae like crabs in a tidal wave. A 2:1 outcome may have been possible with a Playground starter. Now? This series is a 2:0 wash.”

The German, offended by being called a loser, responded with a catty retort about Y-A-III’s failure to qualify for the brackets. After an escalating back-and-forth, including the Japanese player boasting about his superior 6v6 finish, the pair drew knives. Locking limbs, they rolled around the couch stabbing each other and bleeding all over the fabric. They thrust with much more violence than the argument required, thrusting out the greater frustration of defeat. The other party-goers in the background huddled around to cheer.

London Tremor never stopped filming. Now, this was duelling commentary.

The stoner, eating a baked potato chip, discretely sneaking a bump that was observed by millions, studied the fracas from afar. His drugged-out, connection-forming mind perceived it as all being a downstream consequence of the mystic’s abrupt map change.

“A small spring of chaos grows into a flood of chaos…” he whispered.

Down in the arena.

The glass dome provided by the Church filtered most of the crowd’s volume and caused the air recirculating inside it, like water in a fishbowl, to pick up a stagnant odour of sweat and viscera.

This transparent barrier enhanced the unique mood already habitual to the duellists. As they occupied the stage, the muscular bloom of each was at once on display for the world, for the fans collected by their wins, for the friends who’d offered guidance on their path, and yet each was also utterly alone. In the end, the ring had space for two at most, and that company was temporary, the goal state being one of isolation.

SaNguiNe, the wrestler, embodied the solitary essence of the duellist perfectly. He entered the ring in focused silence. His head turned in acknowledgement of no one else, not the audience, not even his opponent, as he kept it trained firmly on the task ahead. For the next quarter of an hour, there was only himself and the limits to which he could push his body.

The Third Gate didn't seem to get the memo about duelling and solitude.

The stadium band started up an intro hype track, a bombastic, apocalypse-bringing banger.

With all the roided-out energy of a pro-wrestler, the Somali girl sprinted in, swinging her snakestaff around the top of her dirt-covered dreadlocks like a cowboy's lasso. Using just her legs while the staff whirled, she hopped up the side of a tavern and launched onto its roof to greet her people in the stands.

As her hype track suddenly stopped, her staff disintegrated into her inventory. Around the sparkling motes of its summoned replacement, she twirled her fingers mystically, conjuring her show's first prop.

The prop was a human skull. Its cranium had been sawn off.

Waving this skull spookily, she began.