Chapter 45 – A Rose By Any Other Name

You know the worst thing about suffering a traumatic, life-changing experience?

Having to get up early to work the next day.

“Is this everyone?” the guildmaster’s voice suddenly boomed over the crowd, causing her to violently flinch.

Last night had left her jumpy, and the early morning chaos of her coworkers wasn’t helping. Normally Chiara would’ve mocked her for this by now, letting her take her mind off the event by insulting her back, but whatever mental stuff Rosalina had done to them last night spooked the other girl even more. Now she just stood quietly to the side, grimacing at nothing as light refracted around her.

This left Lorenzo to place a firm, calming hand on each of their shoulders in his own attempt to help. Which was appreciated, really, but not half as effective as a good argument would be.

“We’re only missing Rana!” Amina called back.

“Rana’s not coming,” the guildmaster shook his head, gesturing to get everyone’s attention. “We need someone to hold down the fort back in the guild.”

Currently they were out on the tourney grounds surrounding the coliseum. They were gathered for one last meeting before the big event began, the guildmaster working to make sure everyone knew their roles in the battles to come. The arena itself loomed in the background, a massive edifice of limestone whose early morning shadow cast the grounds in darkness.

Every single active adventurer in the employ of the Rosa Dominae Guild was here. Palmira the Human Fire Mage, Chiara the Half-Elven Crystal Mage, Lorenzo the Half-Tree(?) Druid, Teresa the Human Crusader, Amina the Human Water Mage, Johanna the Elven Ice Mage, Lamezia the Half-Orc Shield-Maiden, Matthias the Dwarven Storm Mage, Endrit the Böceği Janissary, Charles the Human Knight, Kirishi the Dwarven Priestess, Trinitario Human Swashbuckler, Uomo the Human Shadow Mage, Leo the Orcish Barbarian, Jeanne the Half-Elven Squire, Mario the Human Fighter, Jelge the Dark Elven Timariot, and the twins Emilia the Human Archer and Sienna the Human Gravity Mage.

The nineteen of them were the only adventurers that remained after the split from the Ambrosi. The reasons varied, though from what she gathered most like her didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“Right, then let’s get started,” he adopted a serious expression, looking each of them in the eye. Beside him, Ósma and Johanna stood with various degrees of enthusiasm. “As you all know, today is the Tournament of Heroes. Before we begin, I’d like to thank you all for coming this early, I’m genuinely shocked you all made it on time and that we didn’t have to bail any of you out of jail for starting a bar fight last night.”

His eyes darted over to Johanna, who looked visibly hungover and had a dark circle like muddy snow over her right eye. She refused to acknowledge his gaze, instead chugging a tankard of what was hopefully water like her life depended on it.

“Management not included…” he sighed, before shaking his head. “Today is an important day for all of us, and not just because a good showing could set us up for the next year. Today is the day we prove we can stand on our own, to no longer be merely one of dozens of vassals of the corrupt Ambrosi. And we’re going to do that in the only way we know how—by kicking the smug asses of those Rodina bastards until they choke on their own superiority complexes!”

They let out an angry cheer at that, jeers and insults at the Rodina and everything they stood for echoing across the Piazza. Palmira herself made sure to take the opportunity to make her opinions on their hiring process known. A couple other nearby groups of adventurers joined in, sending an echo of insults flowing down the nearby streets.

“Settle down, settle down!” the guildmaster waved them down before it went on too long. “We’ll get there soon enough, trust me. But first, I want you all to know what we’re dealing with. For those of you unfamiliar with the rules, this is a battle of endurance, not just skill. This tournament will be one versus one battles between individual adventurers, with the total knock-outs achieved by a guild acting as the score. Last I checked, there are currently ninety-six guilds in attendance, both local and from allied cities. Of them, over half are owned by the Ambrosi Famiglia.”

“That’s so many…” Palmira muttered. “But wait, doesn’t that mean we’re kind of screwed though? Won’t the Ambrosi guilds just let the Rodina win?”

“Sort of, but not really,” the guildmaster made a so-so gesture. “You have to understand, nobody expects the Rodina Guild to lose. The Rodina didn’t get where they are today on blind nepotism alone, and the Ambrosi also need their other guilds to make a profit too. In the end it’s more of a give and take; the smaller guilds get to show off to potential clients by bloodying the nose of a much bigger guild, while the Rodina gets to show off by proving themselves stronger than dozens of smaller guilds combined. This tournament is a chance for the Ambrosi to advertise all of their guilds, not just their most famous one.”

“It’s still so many…” Jeanne muttered, hands before her eyes as though she could use her fingers to count the number of enemies. “How will we fight them all…?”

“The Rodina aren’t going to be committing all of their adventurers like we are. Sure, the Rodina guild has an active roster of over five hundred adventurers, but I’d be surprised if we see even a quarter of that.”

“Which is, what, still ten times our count?” Johanna pointed out dryly. “There’s a reason they’re able to half-ass something like this and still come out on top. Even if each of their adventurers only take out one competitor, we’d still need to take out ten each just to keep up with them.”

“You’re not helping, Johanna.”

“I’m just being realistic,” she rolled her snowy eyes. “I, for one, am planning to carve a bloody trail through the competition and take the reward for the most individual victories myself.”

“Hah, you wish!” Teresa scoffed. “That prize is mine. You can be satisfied with bronze, after Amina and I!”

Said woman took a step away, rolling her eyes. “Don’t bring me into this, it is too early.”

“Please, you’re two hundred years too young to keep up with me!”

“Wow, two hundred years and still so weak, huh? I couldn’t imagine the shame of living so long only to be outshone by a beautiful young woman in her twenties.”

“At least they’re enthusiastic…” the guildmaster muttered under his breath as frost began to crackle across the street. “Ósma, if you would…?”

“On it.”

“I know this seems daunting, but we aren’t going at this alone,” he turned back to the rest of them as Ósma put the two in a headlock of shame. “I’ve been working with several of the other independent guilds, and we’ve formed a coalition of sorts to help break up the competition. We’ve worked to manipulate the battles so that none of our guilds will be fighting each other, letting us thin the competition and raise our own chances of victory.”

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“That sounds illegal,” Trinitario pointed out, crossing his arms with a frown. Considering what she’d heard of the man, she felt that was hypocritical of him, even if she silently agreed.

“It’s fine, the Ambrosi do this literally every year,” the guildmaster waved the concern off. “They don’t bother banning something only they previously did. Next year though, yeah, it’ll probably be illegal if we pull this off.”

“But why are they helping us?” Charles scowled, palming the hilt of his blade. “What do these ‘allies’ of ours get?”

“Why, the toppling of the Rodina from their gilded throne, of course!” a new voice boomed, loud enough to instantly grab the attention of all the adventurers present. “What greater reward could there be, then to watch our former lords grovel at our feet?”

A bed of roses marched towards them on thorny limbs, carrying with it a new group of adventurers. Front and center was a rose nymph with shoulder length blood red petals on her head and spiked thorns growing from her fingers, likely the woman controlling the walking garden. Behind her lounged two elven men and a younger girl, the three of which apparently… having a tea party?

Palmira ignored them, since they seemed to not be paying attention to them either. Instead she focused on the bombastic nymph, who seemed very… familiar.

“Ah, but like, where are my manners?” the rose nymph sighed dramatically. “We are the Corporazione dei Fiori, the ones who will pave the way for our magnificent coalition’s glorious victory! And it is I, Spinosa, who leads them!”

“Only for today,” one of the elves behind her drawled, taking a sip of tea.

“But what a glorious day it will be!”

“Spinosa,” the guildmaster nodded at their apparent ally, not even blinking at the byplay. Then again, with what their own guild got up to every week… “It’s good to speak with you in person. I hope your trip here was uneventful…?”

“Oh, we only had to kill like, one basilisk on the way! It was practically a snooze! Why, compared to our last trip to Palunera…” she trailed off suddenly, locking eyes with Palmira.

The rose nymph blinked, narrowing her eyes, before they widened dramatically. “My oh my! Like, what a small world this is! If it isn’t little Palmira! Oh, it’s been so long!”

“How do you know everybody!?” Chiara muttered incredulously, before Palmira was dragged into a spiky hug by a person she vaguely remembered.

“Like, look at how big you’ve grown!” she cheered, swinging around a still very confused Palmira. “Why, back in Pedemoa you barely reached my hip! And now look at you dearie, you’ve got a job and everything! Like, it makes me feel so old.”

Pedemoa? Wait, that’s right! Now she remembered, that was back when she and Lenna were travelling the countryside! Spinosa gave her free food! That made her a good person!

“It’s good to see you again as well,” she muttered around a face full of vines. “But we’re also in the middle of something, so if you could…?”

“Oh right, how could I forget!” the rose nymph set her down with a sigh, absently dusting loose petals off her shoulders. “Work must come first, unfortunately. But like, we simply must catch up after!”

“Sure,” Palmira agreed, mostly to move the conversation along. She really didn’t like how everyone was staring at them.

“Damn, Three Dukes, you didn’t tell me you knew such a fine-looking lady,” Matthias laughed, elbowing her in the side. She set his foot on fire in retaliation, not that he seemed to notice. “You should have introduced us before, I would’ve bought you a drink!”

“Three Dukes…!” Spinosa squealed quietly. “She even has such a cute nickname…!”

“Ahem,” the guildmaster coughed in an attempt to regain everyone’s attention. “Right, as I was saying, the Fiori are one of our allies for this tournament. They volunteered to take the first battles, blunting the early push of the smaller guilds this morning. It’ll be our duty this afternoon to finish off the Rodina, hopefully after they’ve already been whittled down by another of our allies. Fiori, are you ready for that?”

“Like, duh,” the rose nymph smiled smugly, showing off her sharp and thorny teeth. “We are more than prepared to show the world the might of the Bloody Rose! We’re going to shred the arrogant bastards to ribbons.”

“Thank the Goddess,” the guildmaster probably hadn’t meant for anyone else to hear that. Coughing into his hand, he nodded at her. “We look forward to watching you destroy our enemies, Bloody Rose. May your ancestors watch over you in the battles ahead.”

“And like, yours as well, Firozzi~” she tittered daintily. “And yours as well~”

--

The Rodina Coliseum—not to be confused with the Rodina Guildhall, which was also an old Coliseum—was a towering construct of limestone to the north of the city. It overlooked the thickest part of the Rozzi River, and today was decorated with the symbols of the many adventurer’s guilds in attendance.

During her studies under Ósma she’d learned that the arena was not technically owned by the Rodina Guild, but instead by one of their founding members: Raum von Weldtraumstadt, an elf who’d used his centuries of life to master the manipulation of space, which he primarily used to change the size and shape of the arena. For particularly special tournaments—like the current All Saint’s Day tourney—it could be expanded to squeeze up to a quarter of the population of the city into the stands.

Personally, she was glad being part of a participating guild gave them preferred seating. Getting crammed like sardines into the upper parts of the stands by a space mage didn’t sound very fun to her.

The battles took place in a circular sandy pit below them, where individuals could wail on each other without worry of collateral damage. This was because—unlike the practice fights she’d fought back in her own guild—there was no ‘out of bounds’ in this arena. Thanks to the aforementioned space manipulator, no matter how far the battle strayed from the center of the arena the combatants never got any closer to the edge, a large bubble of isolated space giving them infinite room to maneuver despite the relatively small area they had to work with.

Currently, Spinosa the rose nymph was duking it out against a fire mage down below. One that—in her unbiased professional opinion—was painfully average.

Or maybe that was just because they were only a dozen fights in and this was already the third fire mage she’d seen take the field.

Maybe the Rodina had a point. Maybe there were too many fire mages in the world.

Spinosa yawned dramatically as pillars of roots twisted around her like slithering snakes, batting away fireballs with contemptuous ease. The woman caught her eye and shot her a wink, before with a wave of her hand the thorny vines snapped taut around her opponent’s legs, launching him into the air with a flourish.

He flew high, arcing straight towards the stands until he hit the ‘boundary’ of the arena. The man appeared frozen in the air as space was spun around him, holding him in place and warping everyone’s perception of him until he finally began to fall, landing exactly where he was thrown from with a dull ‘thud.’

“Fuoco Tristi has been defeated!” the referee shouted as space was manipulated one more time, allowing a Rodina priestess to quickly step into the arena to heal the loser. “Spinosa Fanciulla wins her third match, knocking out the Pateticia Famiglia from the Tournament!”

The rose nymph blew kisses to the cheering crowd, and Palmira made sure to clap extra hard, since they were probably friends. She was pretty sure. Chiara, of course, did not clap, because she was a grouch who didn’t cheer for anyone. Lorenzo was banned from clapping, in case he accidentally seduced Spinosa.

She loved her friends, she really did, but sometimes she wished they could just cheer like normal people.

“Now introducing the next competitor: Asino !_Culo, representing the !_Culo Famiglia!”

A man swaggered into the arena, fancy sword at his hip and a smirk plastered on his face.

“FUCK ‘EM UP, SPINOSA!” both she and Ósma roared at the same time, lunging to their feet to shout over the edge of the arena. Their words boomed like a physical wave as hundreds of others joined them throughout the Coliseum, spiteful glee etched onto their faces.

It was like every bureaucrat, pencil-pusher, and administrator in the city suddenly came together for one beautiful moment to watch the smug pricks who ruined paperwork everywhere get their faces beaten in by a pretty plant girl.

So this was why people loved watching tournaments! She got it now!

The !_Culo adventurer, now looking somewhat more afraid for his life, uneasily took position across from the grinning rose nymph.

Then the battle began, and Spinosa swiftly proved herself to be the much more vicious combatant.

“This is the best day of my life,” Ósma whispered in awe. Palmira laid an understanding hand against his thigh, sending a quick prayer of thanks to the Goddess herself.

Chiara side-eyed them even as the screams of the !_Culo adventurer rang out like music in the pit below. “You guys are so weird.”