Ignite the Sun

The rest of the road was rather uneventful, and at some point most of them decided to take a nap since the wagon had enough room to do that.

They were only slightly surprised to find Nickolas waiting for them at the entrance to the Order.

"I think you lost someone." He chuckled.

"Ellie stayed with Sylara to train, she'll come with her to the tournament and we'll go to our next destination together." Calen explained as he left the wagon. "Anything interesting happened on your side?"

"Not particularly, pretty much just prep for the tournament."

"I suggest we catch up over a cup of something liquid." Damien said. "I'm quite parched after this run and we don't really need to stand here."

***

Calen expected that they would go to the mess hall but no, Nickolas led them to his office – which was so big it could barely be classified as such.

Considering how it looked it was more correct to say it was Nickolas' home that happened to also contain his office.

"Make yourself at home." Nickolas gestured at the few couches and armchairs scattered around the room. "I'll get us something to drink and then you'll tell me how your visit went."

A few minutes later he returned with a few cups and bottles, setting them on a large coffee table between them.

"Since there were no problems in Mountainfall, do you even have anything to report?" Nickolas asked, taking seat in the biggest armchair.

"Not really." Damien shrugged. "They accepted the invitation, threw us a banquet and we went on our way. What about the other settlements?"

"I send someone to inform Greenheart, we should have answer from them any day now. As usual I couldn't contact the Riders, and the Enlightened thanked us but declined on account of some internal issue."

"Where have I heard that before..." Greg chuckled. "I'm assuming the Tower ignored our invitation as usual?"

"Actually, this time someone responded."

Greg and Damien looked very surprised, almost as if even getting in contact with the Fallen Tower was something extremely unusual.

"Well I'll be..." Damien snorted. "What did they say?"

"That they'll send someone to attend."

"Truly unusual indeed."

"I thought you guys traded with them, why is this contact such a big deal?" Calen frowned.

"We do trade – and that's literally all we do, unlike the other settlements Fallen Tower kept its relationship with us purely transactional and refused to engage in any diplomatic behaviour... untill now that is."

"Do you know what might be the cause of this sudden change?"

"No idea honestly." Nickolas admitted. "But it's not the first time they did something weird out of nowhere so I don't question it as much."

"Could it be because of Cal?" Isara suggested. "Maybe they somehow heard that you host the Flamebearer and want to send someone to check if it's true."

"I don't think they would be interested – besides, didn't you tell me that they stripped that Koravel guy of his archmage status when he was specifically looking for the Flamebearer?"

"It wouldn't be the first time the high council turned out to be a bunch of hypocrites, but then again if they wanted to confirm something they wouldn't try to look for an excuse. They might actually want something from the Order."

"Maybe they want some really nasty corrupted beast for an experiment and hope that coming to the most important event of our organisation will be a good look when they ask as for help."

"Speaking of that important event, where are you even going to host it?." Calen asked. "I haven't seen any place suitable to do so in the castle."

"It's not easy to find it, but we do have an arena. We can show it to you if you want...?"

"Sure, it's not like we're going to do much else today."

***

Nickolas guides them to a part of the fortress most extended to the north, somewhere they haven't been before – it was a fairly big tower which didn't serve any particular purpose in it's own, it was the thing below it that interested them.

The arena was completely underground; it wasn't located as deep as the archmages' project, but was as big, if not slightly bigger.

It was equipped with the things one would expect from a place like this: stands for the audience, pit for the contestants and some backstage space.

There was one burning question on Calen's mind when he saw it:

"How the hell did this place not collapse yet?"

The other giant underground space he saw simply used magic to retain its structural integrity, but such an excuse couldn't be use here since the mages worked only on their secret project.

"I don't actually know to be completely honest." Nickolas admitted. "The arena was a present from Tharion just like the knowledge reservoir and many other things, so either he somehow used divine power or there's actually an architectural design that can keep this place from collapsing and he simply used it."

"How many people can this place fit?" Isara asked.

"No one ever bothered to count how many exactly, but based on past events and some rough estimates it should be around ten thousand seats, but we can probably cram much more if people stand."

"Do all events take place here?"

"Yep, the duels are a no-brainer and the aura control competition sometimes requires quite a lot of space – as for the tactics game, well that actually needs the most area."

"What's the game?"

"Ever heard of the Crown?"

"Of course we have, it's a... wait, that's a board game." Isara frowned.

The Crown was a popular board game before the invasion, its rules were relatively simple but that allowed for easy scaling of the game and an addition of new parameters should the need arise.

At its core it was a turn based game, somewhat similar to chess; the biggest difference was the fact that there were no squares – the figures could move in any direction according to their assigned speed.

As such the rules didn't allow figures to take each other out of the game with a single interaction, there were strict guidelines describing how each type of unit interactrec with every other.

It was a game often played by military commanders to sharpen their decision-making skills.

"In its original form yes, but we asked the Tower to make us a life-sized set as a part of one of our trades." Nickolas explained.

"You took that idea from that party Count Gretto hosted, didn't you?" Cassian realised.

Nickolas looked at him in surprise.

"That's right, but I'm surprised you can remember that thing, you were seven."

"A battle between two armies made of animated stone isn't something easy to forget. How many figures do contestants have?"

"Twenty – any more and it would result in something more akin to a brawl than a legitimate test of tactical abilities."

"Do you fix damaged figures between the fights or do the contestants have to deal with the damages from their previous matches?"

"We restore them if the figure is only partially damaged, but if it's completely destroyed then we don't – after all you can heal a soldier between battles but you can't really resurrect them."

"I suppose this adds an additional layer of planning to the matches." Cassian nodded. "But if that's the third contest, then what exactly are you even preparing during this week? It seems like all the elements for the tournament are already in place."

"Well, the preparation period isn't for the leadership, but for the contestants – we give them a week to make sure all their equipment is in top-notch condition and to give the commanders additional time to train, since they don't get as much due to their busy schedules."

"So what you're saying is that the forge will be busy maintaining all the equipment for the next week?" Calen frowned.

"I'm afraid so, you probably won't get much time to make your own things – but I think you could learn how to fix and maintain weapons and armour, something like will probably come in hand in the future."

"Eh, you're probably right, although I'm not sure whether Thomas and Greg will let me touch real equipment, especially when it belongs to people high up the chain of command."

"Even if they don't then you can at least watch, I'm sure they'll gladly explain the process as they work. Also it might not be that bad, unless someone's equipment is banged up pretty badly all they'll need to do is sharpen the sword and polish the armour, you might get some time to work by yourself, I just wanted to warn you of the possibility that you might not."

"How many people are going to compete anyway?"

"Forty, and most of them will join every event."

"That's less than I expected, why are so many commanders not willing to join the tournament?"

"It's simple really, some of them know for sure that they either can't win or won't get elected so they opt out of the competition in exchange for having essentially two weeks off."

"Not a bad deal actually." Calen chuckled.

"As long as it's not too many people it's fairly beneficial for the event as well, since it makes the whole thing shorter." Nickolas looked at the arena one last time and then turned back to them. "Let's get out of here, this place feels a bit wrong when it's empty."