Jeremy the All Devourer, (future) champion of the four arenas surged into the arena floor like a dragon taking flight.

The fires of competition burned in his heart, warming even his ectothermic lizard’s body.

The first obstacle in his path to victory was the Quintuple Step. Five angled platforms lay in front of him, alternating between his left and his right. After the fifth step, a final angled platform waited for him. Below the step lay a pool of water, waiting to catch any contender who fell from the steps.

Not that Jeremy the All Devourer would fall! Swift and agile, the lizard jumped to the first platform, which lay in front of him and to his left. The jump was easy for the fit reptile, and he didn’t even bother using the Leap part of his Athletics skill.

Landing solidly in the middle of the step, Jeremy didn’t wait before jumping again. He’d watched the Gauntlet before, as both a spectator and when waiting his turn as a contestant, and he knew that he would slide down the slippery and slanted platform, if he stayed on it. Leaping directly to the next platform, this one located to his right and angled left, Jeremy’s eye caught movement from above and to his left, and had to contort in the air to avoid a swift paint arrow.

The unplanned maneuver made him miss the center of the platform, and land instead a little closer to the bottom than he’d intended. But Jeremy the All Devourer was far too good to fall from such a tiny mishap! Leaping again, he landed squarely in the middle of the third platform, back in action! Not waiting even a little bit, the mighty monitor leapt trice more, landing easily on the target platform, and scrambling swiftly upwards.

Thus, with barely an effort, the first obstacle was passed!

Onwards, Jeremy the All Devourer ran, for the second obstacle awaited!

Leaping straight upwards, Jeremy the All Devourer grabbed onto the Pipe Slider. A horizontal pipe awaited him at the beginning of a long track. Grabbing one middle of the pipe with his front claws, the lizard began to swing back and forth, sliding the pipe forward and building up his momentum.

Another paint arrow flew at him, this one angling from the right. Jeremy the All Devourer pulled himself up, causing the flying missile to miss him as he rose above its arc, but slowing the pipe down in the process. To make up for slowing down, the legendary lizard scrambled on top of the pipe, and then twisted into a full roll around it, ending up once more hanging down from it. The momentum built up by the spin pushed the pipe forward, faster than before the interfering Sentinels forced him to slow down.

Seconds later, Jeremy the All Devourer had reached the end of the track and used his built-up momentum to jump forward to the next platform in front of him.

With style and grace, the second obstacle was passed!

Next in line came the Jumping Bars. A horizontal ladder stretched above Jeremy the All Devourer, with the bars too far away from each other to easily reach. The first bar was just ahead and above of him, and the rumbunctious reptile had to jump to reach it. Grabbing the first bar with ease, Jeremy the All Devourer used his momentum to immediately jump to the next bar in line. Another arrow flew towards him, and he had to jump again before reaching the optimal point in his swing, or risk getting hit with a penalty, and maybe even falling into the pool and losing time in climbing back up!

Without the full momentum from his swing, the jump would have been too much for Jeremy the All Devourer. But the leaping lizard had an ace up his non-existent sleeve! Triggering his Athletics skill, he Leaped, the skill boosting his speed enough to grab onto the next bar on the ladder! With no other interruptions, Jeremy the All Devourer kept leaping from bar to bar, passing all six of the obstacles’ bars.

With Skill and poise, the third obstacle was passed!

Onwards and upwards, onto the Climbing Wall!

A tall wall rose above Jeremy, the All Devourer. It started out vertical, but curved backwards until fully horizontal, ten meters above the platform. Hand- and footholds covered the wall, too far from each other to be easily traversed, but still enough for an enterprising ectotherm to employ.

Pausing for a fraction of a second, Jeremy the All Devourer examined that statement, not quite sure that “ectotherm” was a proper description. He was, of course, an ectotherm, being a lizard and all. But he wasn’t sure it was a good description.

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Shrugging to himself, he figured it was good enough for his purposes. Back into the action, the enterprising ectotherm swarmed upwards, climbing up the wall with ease. It helped, of course, that one of his lizard specific skills let him stick to surfaces like a gecko. Still, that was but a natural advantage, and far less unfair than many of the other contestants had.

Why, the monkey who’d gone just ahead of him had hands, with actual opposable thumbs!

Distracted by his thoughts regarding monikers and monkeys, Jeremy the All Devourer failed, for once, to notice an approaching paint arrow. Fortunately for the climbing chordate, his Mana Shied skill was on the job, and the offensive missile was blocked, leaving his scales unblemished and his record unpenalized, at the cost of a far too large chunk of his mana. The paint arrows couldn’t do any damage, but the enchantment on them made them far harder to block than any real arrow would have been.

His head back in the game, Jeremy the All Devourer scrambled up the vertical wall with ease. The obstacle did become harder once it began to curve backwards, and his had to focus on both his physical grip on the handholds and his gecko gripping skill.

After all, monitor lizards are far heavier than geckos, and therefore much more subject to the grip of gravity.

Nevertheless, Jeremy the All Devourer climbed like he was born for the job, walking on the now-ceiling without showing any sign of strain, until eventually he’d reached a new platform, and could drop down to it.

With strength and speed, the fourth obstacle had been defeated!

Next in line came the dreaded Rolling Log. Stepping down from the platform, Jeremy the All Devourer grabbed a long log linking the platform to another one, farther away on the course. As soon as his weight fell on the log, the whole thing rolled over, and Jeremy the All Devourer found himself hanging down from the bottom.

Of course, the slick squamate was ready for the log to roll, and didn’t let his grip loosen! Once again relying on his gecko grip, Jeremy the All Devourer crawled underneath the Rolling Log. As expected, a paint arrow flew at him when he was in the middle of the log. But this time, Jeremy the All devourer was prepared! Scrambling upwards on the side facing away from the arrow, he couldn’t quite make his way to the top of the log, but could easily climb the Rolling Log fast enough to remain on the side instead of the bottom, and the penalizing missile missed him once again.

Safe from the interference, Jeremy the All Devourer kept crawling underneath the log until he’d reached the destination platform. Easily climbing up the side of the platform and reaching the top, the courageous contestant reached safety once again.

With guile and grit, the fifth obstacle was now behind him!

Tired from his efforts, but far from the point of giving up, Jeremy the All Devourer faced down the final obstacle.

The dreaded Ring Toss.

A section of upwards angled scaffolding held two rings hanging from wooden pegs. More pegs ran up the scaffolding, for a total of six. After the first section came another, this angled downwards, and bearing five pegs. Finally, a third section, this one with a mere four pegs, angled back upwards.

Without hesitation, Jeremy the All Devourer grabbed one ring in each front leg. Hanging from the rings, the lauded lepidosaur started swinging sideways. At the apex of his swing, he pulled the forward ring away from its peg and moved it to the next in line. Quickly, he moved the second ring onto the now-free peg the first was hanging from, having now moved one peg forward and upward.

Again, Jeremy the All-Devourer tossed one ring after another, moving forward towards his goal, the final platform and the end of the obstacle course.

A paint arrow came flying his way, but Jeremy the All Devourer simply pulled himself up on the rings, and the arrow arced below him.

Nothing else disturbed him, and without any further trouble, even the Ring Toss, from which more contestants had fallen than from any other on this course, was behind him.

With a champion’s will, the final obstacle had been overcome, and Jeremy the All Devourer was victorious!

Or, at the very least, at the end of the Gauntlet. He’d still need to know what his time was, and how it compared to the other contestants, before he knew what place he’d managed to reach.

Fortunately for Jeremy the All Devourer’s piece of mind, he was the last contestant of the day, and as soon as he’d reached the final platform, the event manager began to speak.

What a show from Jeremy the All Devourer! Dear spectators, this magnificent performance marks the end of todays’ Bronze Tier event!

What a wonderful event we’ve had today! What promising new contestants have arrived at the North Arena!

In third place we have Harold the red! Harold crossed our gauntlet with a respectable time of fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds! With a single penalty hit, his final score is eighteen minutes and seven seconds!

Pirooz paused for a second, possibly hoping for applause that never came. If it bothered the event manager that what few spectators watched the game showed a definite lack of enthusiasm, he didn’t let it show.

In second place, we have Chee-Chee! Coming in at nine minutes and twelve seconds, Chee-Chee, too, has a single penalty on her score, giving her a final score of eleven minutes and forty-two seconds!

And finally, the winner of todays event! Please, dear spectators, welcome to the arena a new future champion! Coming in at ten minutes and 5 seconds, without any penalties, is Jeremy the All Devourer!

A faint applause could be heard on the floor. Even in the unexciting venue of the bronze tier, a winner is still a winner, after all.

Unfortunately, Jeremy the All Devourer was entirely unaware of the applause. No, the winner of the day’s event was busy with self-recrimination, angry at himself for missing the obvious.

Magnificent! How did I miss ‘magnificent monitor’?