“Well, that’s pretty amazing.” Caeden couldn’t help but whistle. Everyone, including Unc, had gathered in the command room of the Hearthhome. The ship, with its ancient and ridiculously advanced ethertech, could fly itself for the most part. Caeden had gotten hold of the coordinates for the Tournament and fed it to the ship. Whether it was down to luck or good design, the Hearthhome had understood the set of numbers and letters used by the wider Starry Sea community. Caeden would guess good design, considering Erik was a black hole for good luck.
It still was strange to him that the nations of the Starry Sea could fight and die but then turn around and cooperate on creating a universal designation system for all landmasses. The Starry Index, or SI, as it was called, could be accessed by anyone with enough money to buy a map.
Then again, the answer wasn’t too hard to figure out. Not being able to find an island was inconvenient. If there was one cardinal sin that no shrouded of any power would abide, it was an inconvenience. It helped that the Church of the One Shroud had sponsored the Starry Index and did all the surveying necessary. Plus, it was only a record of position. No details about the island or continent beyond its name were given. So, it wasn’t exactly a repository of classified information.
Lily had fed Caeden all this information when he had wondered aloud how they were going to find the Tournament Island on their own. Of course, she had already known about the Starry Index, having traveled with her father when he did his whole island-suppressing-asshole business.
The island they were heading toward was called Baserock. Apparently, it wasn’t claimed by any nation. Caeden had found that happened a lot more than he had thought once he saw a map. It happened most often very close, and very far, from the Pillar. The closer a landmass was to the massive, gargantuan beam of light, the smaller it got. And the farther away, the bigger it got.
At the ends, you had landmasses the size of a dinner plate or ones that could encompass the entire territory of the CA on its own. Both had limited value. The tiny islands were essentially worthless, seeing as there was nothing there. And the massive continents held monsters so powerful and numerous that it simply wasn’t worth the upkeep of holding them back.
So, while Baserock was nominally in the territory of the Fire Kingdom, they never actually claimed it. It was a small, barren, flat plain of greyish-black rock roughly a dozen miles across. At least, that’s what it was in the descriptions Lily had found.
The island before them was utterly transformed for the Tournament. The flat rock had formed the perfect basis for the massive city that now sat atop it, slightly spilling over the sides to rest on the fringes of the Starry Sea. Caeden couldn’t help but be impressed.
It was far different from the other cities he’d seen. It lacked the sheer diversity and chaos of Central City. Nor was it as drab and depressing as the port city where his team had fought the Plague Rats. And it didn’t have the same charm as the overflowing vitality and wonder of Mining Station 003, with its vertical city covered in clinging vines and potted greenery.
No, the Tournament City was impressive for its sheer designed grandeur and mass. The most noticeable element was, as with many cities, the ethership docking towers. Towers, plural. Most cities of considerable size had more than one, but this city had ten. They ringed it in, keeping the mass of air traffic from clogging the city skies too badly.
Each tower was done up in the same material as the rest of the Tournament City, a green stone with a metallic sheen to it. Orichalcum, one of the best base materials out there. A self-healing stone with the tensile strength of metal and none of its brittleness. Whatever shrouded had been called on to make this city must have been immensely skilled, as producing magical materials was always harder than base stone and metal.
The towers were at least twice the size of any Caeden had seen, even the massive one used as the Bronze Seat at the Academy. It needed that extra size, as the number of ships waiting to dock numbered in the thousands. Five nations were going to be sharing this island for several months, with all their most prominent figures joining in.
No doubt, most of this traffic was a slew of personal etherships for the rich and powerful. Scattered among them would be mass transit for the regular citizens to come and see the sights. The Tournament of Powers, for all its political maneuvering and overwhelming importance, was still open to the public.
The rest of the city was no less massive and impressive as the towers around it. Everything had been designed just slightly bigger than it needed to be. Caeden was anticipating a chance to walk around at least a little. He would be busy with the Tournament, but they had to have breaks sometimes. A little walking date with Lily later on sounded wonderful.
“How long are we going to have to wait to dock?” Cat asked, ruining his happy thoughts.
Caeden rolled his eyes at her slightly petulant tone. “What’s it to you? I didn’t think you were planning on leaving the ship.”
Cat snorted. “Are you joking? We’re about to arrive at a meeting of a ton of different nations. There are going to be a lot of pretty boys and girls out there. People I’m very interested to meet. I’ve heard that the Fire Kingdoms berserkers are all built like you but less…” Cat looked him up and down. “Boring.”
“How can I be built boring?” Caeden huffed, trying not to laugh.
“I know; I didn’t think it was possible either.” Cat shrugged. “Until I met you and Lily. Both of you are built boring. Honestly, it makes sense why you two get along so well.”
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“Hey, don’t bring me into this!” Lily protested. “I’m looking much better now.”
“Oh, hun, no one is debating that.” Cat ran her eyes up and down Lily's figure. Even covered by her robes, worn conservatively, it was easy to tell how much Lily had changed from her skin-and-bones appearance a year ago. She wasn’t as well endowed as Cat, and Cat was by no means the most overly endowed woman Caeden had seen, but she was at a much more healthy weight, and it did wonders for her.
“Good.” Lily nodded sharply. “I like the way I look.”
“Still boring, though,” Cat muttered under her breath.
{}
It turned out that docking took over a day. Most of the arriving dignitaries and leaders had picked the same day to arrive, causing the massive air traffic Caeden and his team had found. Caeden and Lily could only imagine that it was planned that way, as each convoy of airships moved at different speeds and came from different distances. Arriving at the same time would have taken serious coordination.
Their time waiting to dock revealed some of the reasoning. Massive arguments that devolved into actual brawls had developed around docking rights, causing a portion of one of the towers to be destroyed. Many ships were damaged, and several were outright destroyed. That alone indicated the power of the fighters. Etherships were built tough, and no low-level fight could outright destroy one.
Besides that, official word arrived with a messenger saying there had been delays on docking due to a disagreement. Apparently, the leaders had decided to turn docking rights into a pissing contest. The partial destruction of a tower was them flexing.
Caeden could only think of what a waste it was. Etherships weren’t cheap. A lot of ether went into them.
Lily decided to take a look at the records of previous Tournaments she’d carried over to the Hearthhome’s library to see if this had happened before. It took some looking, as most of those records focused on the events rather than anything surrounding them. And there were a lot of records. Eventually, she found a reference to some parking difficulties. It was only noted because one of the contestants died in the incident. The casual wording of the report made it seem like the fighting was routine.
A day later, docking was complete. As a smaller ship, they ended up relatively close to the ground. Exploring or sightseeing in the new city was set aside, as the opening ceremony for the Tournament was set for noon when the Pillar was at its brightest.
Once more, the Headmaster directed all of them, a ghost arriving to tell them where to gather. As a group, the Central Authority delegation made its way to the main stadium, where the main combat event would take place.
Suitably, it was massive. Though not as tall as the docking towers, the stadium took up more space than all the towers combined. Before they even arrived, from almost a mile away, Caeden could hear the roar of millions of people crammed into the seats, waiting for the participants to arrive.
There was a passageway waiting for them, one that started far outside the combat stadium and took them underground. Caeden wondered why they hadn’t seen any other nations’ delegations while they walked under the harsh white of the ether lights reflecting off the smooth green walls. One thing he’d noticed about the Tournament city just coming from the docking tower, everything was completely unadorned. It was a city, but not one that had been lived in, and it felt like it.
Finally, they had up to a massive set of double doors, thick slabs of orichalcum. At the head of their procession, Damon Vestigious turned to face them all. Their numbers had swelled as the various shrouded from across the CA who would be part of the main events had joined them at the city. Their number dwarfed the youth participants.
“Conduct yourselves well. Stand tall and proud.” That was all he said. Despite the short message, many backs straightened, and many heads were raised. Even the older shrouded responded just the same as the students.
Tense moments passed as they waited for some unknown signal.
Finally, the doors rumbled, shifting with the heavy grinding of stone. The moment they parted, the sound of the stadium beyond slammed into them with an almost physical force. Cheers and jeers poured through without the super-dense magical stone to block it.
“THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY!” A voice rang out, boosted to overwhelm millions of voices.
Already prepared for this, everyone in the delegation enhanced their senses and leaned on their auras. They stepped as one, forming perfect marching rows and moving in unison, their rhythm forged by raw power rather than relentless practice.
The youth group was set at the back, less prominent than the returning shrouded. It was several long moments before Caeden finally emerged. He kept his gaze straight forward, but his aura senses roamed around. The orichalcum had been thick, thick enough to make his senses a little hazy from all the Ki the magical rock had running through it.
With his investigative sense, Caeden sized up the other delegations, as the CA had been the last to be called out. Each country had its own entrance, placed equidistant around the circular arena. It seemed they were also set according to their counties’ positions, with neighbors next to neighbors. As such, the Ten Thousand Empires were to their right and the Fire Kingdom to their left. Farther out past them were the Dread Federation and the WIld Queendom, respectively.
Going around the circle, Caeden started with the Fire Kingdom. They were all men, not a single woman among them. Each man was taller than him and just as heavily muscled. They all wore the bare minimum of clothing, a cloth slung around their waste. Intricate tattoos covered their skin, barely hiding the needle marks that covered every major muscle group. Caeden had no idea what that was about, but it didn’t look good.
The Wild Queendom was a stark opposite. Though they had some men among their delegation, they were few, and had thick bands of infused metal around their wrists, ankles, and necks. The women wore green pants and shirts with animal and plant designs woven in. Many had monster companions with them.
The Dread Federation were the oddest bunch, smaller than the other delegations. The men and women were equally mixed, but they were all wearing blacks and reds with long cloaks and several belts wrapped around random places for no apparent reason.
The Ten Thousand Empires had the only people wearing armor out of any group. Each delegation was dressed in traditional clothing rather than their battle armor. The Empires finery was armor. Though they were impractical pieces, overly elaborate and storied sets of plate mail that told stories through their embellishments. Caeden frowned. The Empires was the largest country here by land and population, so why was their delegation only slightly larger than the others?
Before he could think on that any further, a man appeared in the center of the arena, covered in cloth of magical terrestrial gold and ether crystals. A priest of the Church of the One Shroud.
The opening ceremony began.