“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know how else I can explain it, sir. As the Dust Worms are no longer with us, the Useless Drags will have to be rewarded a bye into the next round.”
Colin Halsey rubbed the bridge of his nose, his fingers pressing hard enough to leave red marks. He was not enjoying the responsibility that came with overseeing this tournament. Sure, he understood that, hour by hour, he was gaining epic amounts of XP which was likely to set him up for life – whatever ‘life’ meant in this post-integration world.
But, right now, he didn’t think the trade-off with his peace of mind was worth it.
“A bye? That… that wasn’t in the handbook.”
His assistant, a Tiefling NPC called Marie, raised an eyebrow. “There’s a handbook, sir?”
“Of course there’s not a fucking handbook!” Colin snapped, throwing his hands up. “It’s a metaphor! Or it would be, if I didn’t have to make up every rule and contingency plan on the fly while also dealing with a whole host of people who don’t appear to think health and safety regulations matter anymore!”
“To be fair, sir, I don’t think any of your fellow humans right now care about health and safety. They care about XP and loot drops.”
“Well, excuse me if I’d like this tournament to not turn into an all-you-can-massacre buffet! You know, maybe—just maybe—we could aim for a little grown-up professionalism here? A bit of structure? I’m not asking for much. Just some basic appreciation of how things are supposed to go.”
“If I may, sir, I do feel like that may be asking rather too much in a Tournament where sudden, appalling death is a built-in feature.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” Colin said. “So, in your opinion, it really is too much to expect that participants actually make it to their matches without being murdered in the practice grounds? Because, let me tell you, from where I’m sitting, it looks like this entire operation is being run by a committee of gremlins!”
“Well, that’s just ridiculous, sir.”
“I know!”
“Everyone knows that gremlins cannot function in a committee. Entirely solitary little buggers – industrious, of course – but you wouldn’t be able to get them to work in concert in any meaningful way.”
Colin ignored her, standing and moving to the window to gaze down at the shambles developing beneath his office. It was descending into absolute chaos incarnate out there. A medieval fayre organised by a drunk dungeon master who’d accidentally hit ‘randomise all’ and invited some passing Vikings.
The central square was a riot of activity. Well, certainly a riot . . .
Hundreds of NPC-manned stalls lined the cobblestone paths in and around the stadium, and Colin was quite sure what they were selling was making everything worse. One vendor was hawking “Potion Samplers,” tiny vials of glowing liquids that, from what Colin had been able to ascertain, contained liquified Rage. They were selling like hotcakes amongst those who had gone for Berserker builds.
Another stall boasted “Mystical Relics,” most of which appeared to be cursed. He’d been forced to watch in horror as one overexcited Necromancer purchased a glowing goblet, only for it to immediately start shouting ‘Yo Mamma’ jokes at everyone in the vicinity – which pissed off a Death Knight enough for things to get – briefly - bloody. Nearby, a Level 25 Warrior was trying on a “Crown of Eternal Knowledge,” only to fall to the ground clutching his head as though someone had just crammed an entire encyclopedia into his brain at once. Meanwhile, a third customer fled the stall clutching what looked like a perfectly ordinary spoon—until it sprouted legs, ran up his leg and forced its way up the shrieking man’s arse.
Tearing his eyes away from the sight, Colin made out a group of Level 30s stumblig past below, clearly pissed, singing a bawdy tune while trying to cast spells in time with the rhythm. The result was an impressive amount of sparks, one massive conflagration, and a completely unnecessary lightning bolt that incinerated a Centaur who was trying to introduce a second hammered group in his Horn of Plenty.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“I’ve tried to implement rules, you know! Rules that are supposed to keep this whole thing from devolving into total chaos!”
A loud crash interrupted his moaning.
In one corner of the square, a full-on brawl had broken out. A group of Paladins were locked in combat with what appeared to be a team of rogue Chefs, their weapons a mix of frying pans and enchanted rolling pins. Interestingly, considering the Class disparity, one of the Paladins was already staggering away, dazed, after taking a skillet to the helmet with enough force to leave a dent.
Colin pointed out the window. “Look at that! Do you see what I’m dealing with? That’s a full-on melee happening right next to a stall selling ‘Instant Critical Hit Arrows.’ What sick bastard thought that was a good idea?”
“Think of it like this, sir. You get a cut of every transaction and at least people are engaging with the local economy.”
“The local economy is about to catch fire!” Colin shouted, gesturing emphatically toward the blaze now creeping perilously close to a stall labelled “Unstable Mana Crystals: Handle With Care.”
As if on cue, a loud boom echoed through the square as one of the crystals exploded, sending a rainbow of sparks cascading through the air and flash-frying half of the Chefs. Colin groaned and returned to his chair, his face in his hands.
“I give up,” he muttered. “This isn’t a tournament. It’s a shambles.”
The Tiefling patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “Well, at least it’s a fun shambles, sir. I understand the powers that be are very happy with how things are going.”
“Oh yes, it’s all fun and games to watch humanity wipe itself out, I’m sure. I tell you what, I am this close to instituting a mandatory risk assessment before every round.”
“And I am sure that will go over famously, sir.”
“I used to manage supply chains. Supply chains never argued back.” He ran a hand through his hair, which seemed to have grown greyer in the past twenty-four hours. Sure, he understood the appeal of the “Tournament Administrator” evolution to his Class when it had been offered. His Guide had made it sound so… simple. A nice, low-stress role, far away from the messy business of stabbing monsters or dodging arrows. At the time, the alternative—running into the woods with a stick to fight acid-spitting snakes—hadn’t exactly been appealing.
What he hadn’t anticipated was the sheer madness of coordinating what amounted to a hyper-competitive death carnival for hundreds of newly integrated adventurers keen to strut their stuff.
Colin prided himself on being a man of order, someone who could take a chaos-ridden office and turn it into a well-oiled machine by lunchtime. His pre-integration job had been built on deadlines, spreadsheets, and managing Karen from Accounts without losing his sanity.
But this? This was something else entirely.
Case in point: the Useless Drags.
The assistant shuffled a stack of papers, glancing up at Colin with the deadpan expression only NPCs or the truly stoned could summon. “Details are rather scarce, but it seems like the Dust Worms met their untimely end while preparing for their match with the Useless Drags.”
“So, I’m not sensing it takes much of a leap of deductive reasoning to suggest the Drags obviously did something nefarious and killed them, then? They don’t get a bye for that. Murdering your opposition is very much not in the spirit of today.” Colin paused. “Well, no. Obviously that’s not true. It’s actually the whole point. What I mean is that murdering your opponents without a paying audience being able to watch is very much not on.”
“Although I agree with your general sentiment, sir, it does seem that on this occasion this was not the case. The Drags are… well, largely useless. Most of them are extremely underpowered and they only just completed the obstacle course. They were going to be D.O.A. the moment they stepped into the ring with the Worms. From my reading of things, there is simply no way they’re responsible for this. From what I can gather, it appears to have just been a series of very unlucky events.”
“Unlucky events?” Colin said. “What kind of unlucky events?”
His assistant hesitated. “There may have been a hurricane. And some collapsing scaffolding. Possibly a rogue lightning strike.”
Colin stared at him. “You’re telling me the Dust Worms got taken out by faulty infrastructure and the weather?”
The assistant nodded solemnly. “That’s the current theory, sir. Just bad luck.”
“So, just to clarify,” he said, “you would like us to reward a team called the Useless Drags with a bye to the next round for surviving longer than a team that weirdly died on the practice grounds in a series of unlikely events?”
“Yes, Well, technically, sir” the assistant replied, “we’re rewarding them for not being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Oh, well, that’s fair then, isn’t it,” Colin said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You do understand the rewards for making it into the second round are quite significant?”
The Tiefling shrugged. “I don’t think there’s any real reason to deny them. Think of it this way, with better gear, they may have more of a chance in the next round and make a better showing of things.”
Colin’s eye twitched. “Great. Fantastic. Because nothing screams ‘balanced tournament’ like skipping the survival of the fittest and jumping straight to the ‘survival of whoever wasn’t there when some bad random shit happened.’ I need a holiday.”
“Well, good luck with that,” the assistant said, his tone entirely unhelpful. “Now, about the brackets for the next round…”