“And make no mistake, they will be your opponents. Only one school can be the victor in this event. Will you try to take them out at the start and brave the dangers of the forest on your own? Will you backstab them at a critical time? Or will you fight together, raising your chances of reaching your objective, and have an
He said the word with a slight sneer.
Zoe just rolled her eyes. To say that Wallace Redford had an issue regarding honorable fighting would be putting it lightly. Though she wanted to scoff, Zoe couldn’t quite bring herself to demean him that much. Wallace was the leader of the Guild. Before becoming the leader, he had been quite the adept mage-knight. It was entirely possible that something in his past had given him such a cynical view.
Still worth an eye roll, however.
“The starting locations are positioned around a ring. Once you enter, leaving will disqualify you. A ward has been set up along the perimeter that will cause a slight push against you if you try to leave. So do not fear becoming turned around in the forest and accidentally disqualifying yourself.
“Your goal is to reach the center of the arena. Once there, what you should do will become obvious.”
Wallace paused one more time, looking over the group of students.
Satisfied with whatever he was looking at, he drew his wand. Flicking out seven different colored orbs of light from his wand, he finished with a wide wave of his hand.
A large and fairly plain sack materialized before the podium.
The way it appeared with a brief tinge of white light had Zoe narrowing her eyes. Things she pulled from Between had a remarkably similar effect. She hadn’t been aware that he could use the Elysium Order’s magic. The people outside the Order who could were those who had stolen the knowledge. Wayne and herself, for example. While they could teach people, she hadn’t and highly doubted that Wayne had.
“Come,” Wallace said, unaware of Zoe’s thoughts. “Select your marble and stand by the associated light. Once ready, they will lead you to your starting position. As soon as everyone is in place, the lights will flash white three times before moving within the arena boundaries. When they disappear, the event will begin.
“Straying too far from the light or attacking anyone else before the light disappears will result in immediate disqualification.”
As he gave the final instructions, the students all broke their lines and moved up to the sack. One by one, they reached into the bag and pulled out colored marbles.
The television snapped back to herself and Hank, seated on their benches. Zoe, who had been leaning forward to get a better view of the students’ selection, casually stiffened her back to regain her proper posture.
“Exciting times,” Hank said with a broad smile towards the camera.
She could swear that his teeth actually sparkled.
“We’ll be back to go over the chosen teams after a word from our sponsors. Don’t change that channel. The event will be starting next.”
He finished with a finger pointing towards the camera, freezing for a moment until the commercials began.
Drawing Straws
Eva reached into the large leathery bag. By a strange happenstance, she was the first to choose a marble. The first school to leave the ready area had gone to the far left, the second had gone to the far right. Third and fourth went to the left and right leaving Brakket right in the center.
Right in front of the marble bag.
The opening was right at waist height. Despite being able to easily see inside, Eva couldn’t actually see anything. Some darkness spell was keeping everything below the lip of the bag effectively invisible.
Feeling around inside the bag, Eva’s hand swept through hundreds of marbles. Her hand dove deep, burrowing inside the large bag. As it wasn’t on any sort of pedestal, just resting on the ground, Eva would actually have to bend over to reach the bottom. Something she wasn’t willing to do.
But it spoke of how many marbles there were.
Redford had said that there were seven starting locations with a maximum of three people per spot.
For all she knew, this was some kind of test before the test. Not picking one of the colors might disqualify her. Or something else horrible.
Or perhaps it was just an innocent bit of magic. The marbles might color themselves upon being drawn and only so many could be drawn of one color. Something so that the last person to pick would feel like they had just as many choices as the first, even though that was just an illusion.
With nothing else to do, she gripped one of the marbles and pulled it out.
Her hand came out of the darkness with a violet sphere.
She stepped away, allowing her two companions to choose their marbles.
