“Something interesting is... ” Brug began happily, but was interrupted.
"I haven't finished!" Gunther said coldly.
“Oh, I just..." Brug was embarrassed.
“First of all, I will draw up a decree on their amnesty and send it out today,” Gunter began. "Secondly, the only judges at this event will be I and the Queen. Thirdly, I, perhaps, will add fifty thousand to the fund of team fights, so that the reward would be equal. I suggest choosing the date next week, I think everyone will have time to come here and we will get ready. Do you have any questions?"
“None,” Skull said shortly, bowed and went out.
"It will be a great adventure! I will inform everyone I know,” Brug said happily and went out of the Throne Room.
"What?" Gunther saw that Salazar didn't hurry to leave, but he didn’t say anything either.
"Do you remember I told you about Shooter's group?" He began.
“Of course,” Gunter nodded. "The oldest group of extremists. They were here before I came to this world. I understand that the group is one of the most dangerous among them. Do you want me to give a bigger reward for them? If you manage to kill them before the tournament starts - I won't mind..."
“Shooter is dead,” Salazar interrupted.
“Congratulations,” Gunther said happily. "I understand that you came for a reward. Twenty thousand coins are waiting for you."
“I didn't kill him,” Salazar said gloomily. “I’ve been chasing him for a long time, but when I went to the supposed place of his group, I saw that there was a battle recently. I found him nearby, he was tied to a tree, and there were signs of torture on his body."
“When have you found him?” Gunther asked with interest.
“A couple of days ago,” Salazar answered.
“Why didn't you come to me immediately?” Gunther asked suspiciously.
“I thought someone came before me,” Salazar began to defend himself. “And I will soon find out the name of the one who managed to kill the most dangerous extremist...”
“But nobody came for the reward,” Gunther mumbled. "What could Shooter know?"
“They say he knew where to take non-standard quests, and he also negotiated with other groups of extremists,” Salazar recalled. "It is also rumored that he wanted to join them all."
"Strange,” Gunther shook his head blankly. "Okay, thanks for the information. I'll think about it."
“I don’t really believe in this, honestly,” Salazar admitted. “That's why I've just told it.” He quickly bowed and left the Throne Hall.
On the next day, a decree, inviting everyone to the tournament, which was to occur in a week, was published. Tenants arrived at the capital. Extremists, interested in a reward or amnesty, came from the forest. The tournament was to be held on the small city square. They destroyed some houses with the help of magic and threw wrecks on the square, so the competitors could use them as barriers or shelters. The tournament started in a week, when everyone arrived. I didn't watch team competitions. The outcome of the battle depended on the setup of the group and the ability of the tenant to command. But I've seen enough single battles..."
"Sounds as if it is an interesting and exciting event." Alex interrupted.
"The first fights were like that," Turk nodded. "The warriors, fighting with swords, made many extra movements, magicians threw fireballs randomly, and archers shot lots of arrows. As a result, a couple of houses were destroyed, several spectators were even injured on the first day. Magicians usually defeated alchemists, alchemists defeated warriors, and warriors fought magicians.
"Usually?” Alex asked.
“Not only the profession decides in single duels,” explained Turk. "Level, equipment and the ability to use them are the key to success. Team competitions ended on the second day. Salazar won them without any troubles. But the single battles lasted a day longer due to the greater number of participants. Tenants took equipment of their assistants and sold them all in order to buy one, but very good weapon for themselves. But only few of them could fight alone, even a high level or a good armor didn't help them. On the third day only two participants remained...
“Surrender, Needle.” Skull looked at the enemy, standing a dozen steps away. "I heard you invested all your money in your equipment and even dismissed the assistants. If you lose, you won't have money even for repairing the armor and buying the cheapest things."
“I'm not going to lose,” the tall, brown-eyed brunette with a neat small moustache answered. He was holding a bow and an arrow.
“I see that you have already said hello to each other and are ready for the fight,” Gunter smiled. "According to the rules you are allowed to use three bottles. Needle chose three healing pots. Skull chose two healing pots and one manna. You can start after the signal," Gunther waved his hand and one of his guards blew into the pipe.
Participants usually waited for the sound to stop and only then began to fight. But this time everything went differently. As soon as the sound of the pipe was heard, Needle immediately shot an arrow into Skull. He didn't expect such a trick and dodged at the very last moment.
"This is against the rules!" Skull yelled, touching the wounded shoulder and drinking a healing pot. He hid behind the wrecks of the house, waiting for the judge to answer.
“It was after the signal,” Gunther said. “But you can surrender, and I will stop the battle."
"I will kill you!" Skull shouted angrily and shot fireball at the Needle.
"How many bottles do you have now?" Needle shouted cheerfully. He also managed to change position and hid behind a pile of stones.
"I have enough for you!" Skull yelled. He left the shelter and began to fire at the stones, behind which the Needle was hiding. "Die, bastard!" Skull was shooting fireballs and lightnings at his enemy extremely furiously.
Needle continued to hide behind the stones and drank the first healing pot; some spells caused damage. But as soon as Skull stopped his attacks and took out a jar of manna, Needle took advantage of it and hit him with an arrow again.
"Mean bitch!" Skull shouted. He drank the bottle of manna and immediately drank the last healing pot, which healed his wound immediately. "Die, knobhead!" Skull screamed furiously and started to fire at the stones again, behind which Needle was hiding.
“Well, well,” Needle mumbled. After a couple of minutes Skull stopped shooting at him. "What about manna?" Needle yelled sarcastically and drank the second healing pot. He realized that Skull attacked rarely. He shot a lightning or fireball and then waited for thirty seconds. When the situation happened a couple of times, Needle moved closer to the enemy. In thirty seconds he made it again.
"You will lose!" Skull shouted, but there was fear and uncertainty in his voice. “You can't fight me.”
“Just accept your defeat,” Needle yelled; he was already a few meters away from Skull and was hiding behind a wall of ruined house. "Accept it or I will kill you."
“Never,” he shouted and shot a strong lightning, which broke a piece of the wall, behind which Needle was hiding.
“It's time for you to die,” Needle said. He didn't give Skull time to restore energy. He took an arrow, put it on a string and jumped over the wall. He quickly walked around another obstacle and saw Skull, who was leaning tiredly against a wreck. It took only five seconds. He smiled, looked into the huge green eyes of his enemy and was surprised to see that he's calm.
“Yes, it's time to die,” Skull said calmly and shot an air whirlwind into Needle. It raised him above the ground and threw violently into the wall of the nearest house. “I am at higher Level that you think,” Skull said, keeping calm. "I was just trying to mislead you."
“Noooo,” Needle tried to use the last healing pot. He obviously had some fractures, so he could only get it with a slow, awkward movement.
“I don’t think so,” Skull stepped on the hand, in which the Needle held a bottle of healing pot, so he let it out. "Do you want to say something?" Skull pointed
a staff at him.
"Stop!" Gunther shouted. "I stop the fight, because of obvious victory of one of the players." He bent down to Lera, and she whispered a few words to him, Gunther nodded and continued. "And the winner is - Needle!"
"Why Needle?" Skull was shocked and stared blankly at Gunther.
“He has more pots, so he is a winner," Gunther explained sarcastically.
"He does not even have it in his hand, it lies nearby!" Skull protested.
“This decision is final and executory,” Gunther answered. "As the Chief Judge of the Tournament, I congratulate the winner. The tournament is over, you can go." He shouted to the griping viewers.
The city was partying all night. The winners celebrated and treated their friends. The losers drank a lot of alcohol, brawled and fought among themselves. On the next day Skull asked for an audience and came to the king. There were about 10 tenants with him.
“We have an offer,” Skull, who was the head of the tenants, started speaking.
“If you came to ask me to change my decision, I won't do it,” Gunther said firmly and looked at his wife. He understood that he should always call Lera on such negotiations.
“Our new offer has nothing to do with your decision,” Skull said calmly.
“Well, then I'm listening to you” Gunther shrugged his shoulders.
“We all invested a lot of money in this tournament,” Skull began sadly. "Some of us dismissed all the assistants, spent the last money on the coach and equipment, but didn't get anything in return. Now we don't have money even for healing pots and some weapons, nobody can complete quests. As you know I also invested a lot of money." He looked around at the people who came with him and they nodded.
“We don't have enough money to make amends,” Gunther said gloomily.
“We don’t ask for money,” Skull explained. "We are independent people and we're not going to accept charity!" He said proudly and everyone agreed.
"What do you want then?" Gunther didn't understand.
“I suggest killing the Dragon,” Skull said.
“Nonsense,” Gunther replied. "The dragon is very far away and nobody can get him. We can see him only when he takes off, but this isn't enough to fight with him."
“I have completed the secret quest, so I will be able to lead you to the dragon,” Skull explained. "Quest opens a special tunnel through the mountain. But that's not all. A lot of armor and weapons fall out of the dragon, it will be enough to improve our financial situation, and I ask you to be the head of our campaign."
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Gunther answered quickly, having whispered with Lera.
“But we think it's a good idea,” Skull looked at the people who had come with him and they nodded approvingly. “And about fifty people outside think that it’s a good idea,” Skull pointed at the street. "Either you go with us, or we go without you!"
“Okay,” Gunther said after speaking with Lera. “When do you want to attack the Dragon?”
“Now,” Skull said shortly. “It’s not good to make so many people wait,” he turned and exited.
In ten minutes a huge crowd of people, willing to kill the Dragon, left the city. Someone was walking, someone was richer and rode a horse. When they approached the mountain, Skull took out a red crystal and put it to a small niche. After a strong rasp, mountains, which seemed to be unmovable, started moving. Small stones fell and a small cleft appeared in front of the road. Skull stepped there.
We walked up to the small valley of stones of various sizes. There was no plants. A huge Red Dragon saw us and released flame towards us.
"Let's fight!" Gunther shouted.
“Don't hurry,” Skull said calmly. "The dragon attacks only close targets, now we are in the safe zone. Let's wait for the rest and attack together.
” Skull suggested.
“Of course, we will wait,” Gunther nodded. “But he doesn’t seem to be an easy prey. Do you think we can fight him?"
“I am sure that it will be easy,” Skull waved his hand.
"You told me the same thing about your victory in the tournament," Gunther reminded.
“It was said in the quest.” Skull wasn't happy to hear about the tournament. "The dragon is terrible, but weak" Skull quoted the quest.
“Why don't you want to fight him yourself then?" Gunther asked sarcastically.
“I want to help the people who lost everything,” Skull said calmly. "They don’t have money now because of me, and I hope to fix this situation."
“Well, well,” Gunther mumbled mistrustfully.
Meanwhile, the last tenants came to the valley. Most of them looked at the dragon frightenedly, and only a few high levels were trying to understand how strong he was.
“Guys,” Gunther turned to them. "I didn’t like this whole idea initially, and when I came here, I finally realized that it was a bad idea. You are exhausted because of the tournament, we don’t have enough pots with us.” He was pleased to see that most people nodded. "I offer to come back and have a rest today. Tomorrow I will take money from the Treasury to buy healing and energy pots. We will return here and kill the Dragon easily." When he finished his speech and everyone had already turned towards the exit, the mountains began to move and blocked the cleft.
“Looks like we can't get out of here until we kill the Dragon,” Skull threw up his hands.
"Did you know that it would be so?" Gunther asked threateningly and walked up to the Skull.
“This is the first time I'm carrying out this quest,” Skull took some steps back. "How could I know this?"
“Okay, we'll deal with you later,” Gunther promised. "Warriors, move forward and cover the battle magicians and the archers! We have only three alchemists, so there is no enough pots for everyone. Carl, at what level is your alchemist?"
“At Level Ten” one of the tenants answered gloomily.
"Skull, what about your alchemist?" Gunther looked at the assistant who always accompanied Skull.
“She is at Level Fifteen,” Skull answered soothingly. “I think we will fight the Dragon easily.”
"When did you manage to get such a high level?" Gunther looked at the girl and then at Skull, who shrugged the shoulders. “Okay, we will deal with it too. Let's give out healing pots to every warrior and start."
Having given out bottles, we went closer to the Dragon. Having approached him, the warriors began to beat him with weapons, and mages and archers started to fire. The dragon beat off with his front clawed legs. Firstly, everything was going well, the Dragon attacked dully and magicians easily healed deep cuts. But the more we hit him, the angrier he became. He began to bite and fire small fireballs. I was with the rest of the infighting warriors and stood in the front row. Fireball hit the warrior on the left, his heavy armor caught fire, and we took him to the healer. Warrior on the right side had no armor. He definitely spent everything on the expensive ax. During the next attack, he was distracted and dragon bit him in half, so no one could heal him. Then the dragon began to fly up into the air and release a stream of fire on everything under him. Those, who were caught by this fire, burned immediately, and the first such attack was so unexpected that we immediately lost a quarter of all the warriors and several magicians who were within the radius of action of the fire. The others managed to hide behind various stones and rocks, and when the Dragon landed again, we continued to attack. But the beast either became wiser, or managed to figure out what was happening... He jumped over a row of the warriors and attacked the magicians and the archers. It was obvious that he was hardly alive, but many of us were frightened and tried to escape, the line broke down and we started to make panic. People began to run in different directions, and some even tried to climb on the nearby rocks. By the way, some warriors gathered together again and continued attacking the Dragon, and some magicians and archers continued firing at him. But there was no coherence in our actions. Gunther shouted, swore, threatened, tried to stop panic and to talk some sense into them. Bec
ause of uncoordinated actions some magicians and archers hit warriors or escapees. The dragon hit only the attackers, he wasn't interested in runaways. After five minutes of such battle there were eight tenants left, which stayed at different edges of the valley with their assistants. Others were either injured, or killed. The dragon fell on his cut belly, he was able only to release fireballs from time to time.
“Let's make a final effort,” Gunther shouted. His assistants, Lera and Salazar with his group gathered around him. The Dragon caught fire, he began to blacken quickly and became smaller.
"What are they doing there?" Salazar pointed at the group of people, who were coming closer to the dragon.
“I'll find it out now,” Skull said. "Lera, stay here and help the wounded. Salazar, look after her. Kyle and Turk, go with me."
We got to the dragon at the same time with another group. Skull was there with his alchemist and Grock, extremist, with his group.
"Well, where is the reward?" Gunther asked angrily.
“Here it is,” Skull gave Grock the nod. Grock was a swordsman at the Level Thirteen, his team consisted of an archer and two magicians, battle and healing. He was an extremist, who participated in the Team Tournament. He lost the final battle to Salazar's group.
“Get it,” Grock smiled broadly, took his sword and put it into Kyle's stomach.
“I knew that I shouldn't have issued pardon for you,” Gunther jumped away and hid behind me. "Skull! Salazar! Help!"
“Of course I will,” Skull nodded. “I'll help to kill you,” he said. Grock, stall them." Skull nodded at Salazar, who running towards them with his group. And I will deal with Gunther and his assistant.
“I’ll tear him into pieces,” Grock roared. "Now we are not on a tournament and I am not limited by stupid rules. Group, follow me." He ran towards Salazar.
"Turk, take it!" Gunther threw me a yellow bottle.
I drank it and felt that the characteristics upgraded and I didn't feel fatigue anymore. I ran in his direction, but apparently he also drank a pot, because he had an alchemist in his team. He reacted immediately and shot three lightning at me. I managed to dodge first one, the second struck the armor, and the third hit me in the chest and I, paralyzed, fell and dropped the sword. I was still alive when I saw that fireball hit Gunther and he burnt immediately. The mountains started to move again and opened the way out of the valley. Some people immediately rushed there, they hope to leave this place. Having seen what was going on, Salazar also decided to escape. Meanwhile, Skull approached the Dragon. But there was only a long black thing, which was stretching, becoming smaller and fuming. After a couple of minutes Skull bent down and picked it up. It turned out to be a completely black staff with a small dragon's head on its end.
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