“I can’t impress the Dragonwrought if nobody will fight me.”
“You can’t impress the Dragonwrought if you lose either,” Preston said.
“But if Eve thinks she can win anyway, falling to the lower bracket in double elimination isn’t much of a cost,” Wes countered. “It sounds to me like you don’t really lose or gain much by throwing this match.”
“Well I gain a hundred gold,” Eve said, “plus whatever we win by betting against me.”
“And you risk losing reputation, or getting disqualified from the tournament itself if someone finds out,” Preston added.
“Those both sound like things that could also happen if I just kept winning by default,” the Defiant argued. “For all I know, if this deal fell through, Finch’s next attempt would’ve been to outright disqualify me. This is safer, and I make some money off it.”
“Or you could’ve gone to your new friend her majesty the queen and told her what her minister was up to,” Preston said. “You’ve had tea with her, what, four times in the past week?”
Eve groaned, “You know she doesn’t like talking business. Look, I’m not happy about it, but I really think just going along with Finch’s plan is the safest option.”
Preston sighed, “Welp, you’ve already agreed to it, so I guess we’re locked in anyway.”
“Why?” Wes chimed in.
Eve and Preston both turned to look at him.
“Why are we locked in?” Wes continued. “What’s to stop you from just… winning anyway?”
“I already took his money.”
“What’s he going to do, tell the guards you stiffed him on his attempt to rig the tournament?” Wes shrugged. “Your problem is that people aren’t willing to fight you, but that’s solved now because Riah agreed she would. Even better, you can beat her without risking her life to Mana Rush because illusion mages don’t have defenses to overwhelm.”
“I don’t like it,” Preston said. “Making an enemy of the tournament organizer sounds like a terrible idea.”
“So you don’t want me to throw the match, but you also don’t want me to not throw the match?”
Preston shook his head. “It’s just too risky. I think you should give Finch his money back, keep everything above board. Just because you’re not accepting his shady deal doesn’t mean you have to cheat him.”
“But I still need Riah to fight,” Eve argued, “and without Finch’s deal she might not.” Eve neglected to mention the money as it weighed on her decision, but she sure as hells wanted that gold for herself.
“Then give him his money back after the bout.”
“Riah will be pissed.”
Preston shrugged. “I’m less concerned about pissing off someone you just proved you could kill in a head-on fight than betraying a government official. As long as you don’t hit her so hard she needs Divine Intervention, she doesn’t really have anything to complain about.”
“So to get this straight,” Eve thought aloud, “you both want me to fight for real, but Preston thinks I should return Finch’s money once I win.”
The men both nodded their assent.
“Great.” Eve clapped her hands together and rose to her feet, crossing the room to head for the door.
“Where are you off to?” Wes called after her.
“To order some ale,” Eve answered over her shoulder. “I did win a bout today, after all.”
“Win seems like a strong word for watching your opponent concede because she was too scared to fight you,” the fire mage responded.
Eve simply shrugged. “As far as the tournament’s concerned, I won, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s good enough to warrant a night off.” She paused to turn back to the game of crowns the others had been playing. “Now why don’t you deal me in?”
* * *
Paradoxically, while the cut to top sixteen meant fewer matches in any given round, the time between bouts stretched out to a full week. Ostensibly it was to give competitors plenty of time to rest and prepare for their next fight, but Eve got the distinct impression it was more a mechanism for building hype.
The Proving Grounds could better hold the minds of the populace if there were important and exciting matches coming up, so as said matches became more frequent, the need for constant fighting to keep the people entertained diminished.
Preston resented the wait, counting every extra day before the end of the tournament as another opportunity for New Burendia to be exposed as the lie it was. Similarly, Wes just wanted Eve to join the Dragonwrought already so the party could get back to adventuring. Art hated the longer schedule out of impatience to watch more fights.
Roric, on the other hand, took every advantage of the extra time to push Eve’s training further. By the time she stepped into the arena across from a certain Mirage Dancer, she even knew how to properly swing her club, if not her daggers.
Eve tuned out Finch as he announced the match, directing her gaze instead to the crowd that had come to spectate. They hadn’t even reached the quarterfinals and already the stands were packed. Without searching, Eve spotted a dozen representatives from various mercenary companies, many in heated negotiations with either former or current competitors. Apparently, the part of the tournament that really mattered had finally begun.
“Contestants!” Finch’s magically amplified voice returned Eve’s focus to the task at hand. “You may begin!”
The air shimmered, and twenty Riahs appeared in all corners of the arena.
Eve held her ground. She’d been prepared for invisibility, not mirror images. She gripped her club, squinting at each of the copies in turn, starting with the one nearest where the illusionist had been standing at the match’s start. It wouldn’t be that one. Too easy.
Unwilling to commit to a Defiant Charge in one direction or another, Eve raised an open palm at the two Riahs to the left of her starting position. Her Mana Burst passed clean through them.
A chorus of feminine voices rang out in cruel laughter, echoing through the coliseum from every direction. Even knowing it was all a tactic to get into her head, Eve’s face burned. She snarled. Two Riahs down, eighteen to go.
Eve circled Mana through her eyes as she waited for the cooldown of her only ranged attack, keeping a careful watch should any of the duplicates charge her or any other anomaly present itself. Still she hesitated to go on the offensive. Illusionists didn’t attack outright; they laid traps. As long as Eve approached with caution, she had the advantage.
Her second Mana Burst cleaved through three of the illusory Riahs, sparking a new wave of the taunting laughter that so tightened Eve’s jaw. Two more mirror images popped up to replace the first she’d killed.
Shit, Eve cursed. So much for process of elimination. If she had time to eat mid-match, she supposed she could win a war of attrition, slowly running down the Mirage Dancer’s Mana until she was forced to reveal herself, but Eve hadn’t packed scones for her bout. Without knowing Riah’s stats or ability costs, trying to outlast her would be a gamble at best. Mana Burst wasn’t cheap.
Eve took a deep breath, forcing her racing heart to slow. She whispered a silent prayer of thanks that they fought in a neutral arena. If Riah’s illusion magic hid pit traps or poisoned spikes, Eve wouldn’t have a chance. As things were, she was lucky enough illusions lacked in the lethality department.
Tense seconds dragged by as Eve waited for one of the mirages to make a move. None did. Even after the other three she’d destroyed reappeared, the illusions held their ground.
Eve looked them over. Never once letting herself linger too long on a given subject lest she leave her back exposed, Eve analyzed each of the Riahs with magically enhanced vision. She saw no outlier.
Minutes passed. Eve’s heart pounded. Cries of “do something!” rang out from the crowd. Eve ignored them.
Only after her gaze had made two complete passes around the circle of illusions did Eve finally spot it. The duplicates, for all their taunting laughter
and threatening postures, were flawless, but the space between them held some clue.
In the corner of her eye, Eve watched as a footprint impressed itself upon the sand entirely of its own accord. Another appeared just in front of it.
Eve kept her gaze fixed forward, holding back any reaction to the discovery as she carefully monitored the footprints’ winding path towards the center of the arena. Towards Eve. Apparently, invisibility was not without its weaknesses.
Got you. Eve suppressed her grin. She grasped her club, ready to strike as she let the footprints draw ever closer.
Once they were just outside the range of any lunge Riah might’ve been planning, Eve Jetted forward, bringing her griffin-bone to bear with frightening speed.
Her swing found only air.
Eve didn’t see the knife as it came down. Only the searing spike of icy agony at the back of her neck alerted her that she’d been hit. The air flashed gold as Cheat Death saved her life.
Eve fell to the ground. Healers rushed the field. The announcer called her defeat. She registered none of it. She only saw Riah standing not where the footprints had tread, but behind her, clutching a bloody dagger.
Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Learn a Lesson in Humility!
+128000 exp!
The Defiant’s mind reeled as she realized her mistake. The mirror images hadn’t been the only ploy. The footprints had been a trap, designed to trick her into thinking she’d outsmarted Riah’s illusions.
An unfamiliar Priestess touched Eve’s shoulder, flooding her with Ayla’s healing light. She accepted the goddess’s mercy with a heavy heart, cursing herself for her foolishness, for her cockiness.
Riah’s face was blank. She’d found her win, but it hadn’t been as free as she might’ve expected. Perhaps Eve could pass it off as putting on a show.
She let the Priestess guide her off to the edge of the arena, passing the protective wards to where the healer corps had set up shop. Eve’s mind operated in a haze as she went through the various checks to confirm she was unharmed, trying not to relive that moment when Riah’s knife had struck her, when she’d died.
Eve grit her teeth. She couldn’t afford to make these kinds of mistakes. Another in the arena would mean elimination, and one in the field… She didn’t finish that thought. Instead she kept her stride even as she made her way through the coliseum’s underbelly, first to find Roric and then to return to the palace’s practice yard.
She had a week before her next match, and it was starting to look like winning the Proving Grounds would be harder than she’d thought.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Loser's Bracket
“AND YOU COULDN’T hear her?”
Eve paced across the bedchamber for the sixteenth time as she answered Preston’s question. “The illusions can produce sound too. Even if the crowd weren’t an issue, it’s hard to hear someone walking when there’s twenty Riahs making noise all around you.”
“What about smell?” Preston asked.
“If smell were her one weakness, wouldn’t she just… take a bath?” Eve was getting tired of this line of questioning. “Have you ever tried to find something by smelling it? It’s not exactly a viable tactic in battle.”
“She’s only Epic tier four,” the Caretaker continued. “She can’t be unbeatable.”
After a long argument with Roric in which he’d refused to help her train for a hundred and fifty hours straight, Eve found herself back in her suite engaged in one of her least favorite activities: coming up with a plan. There were fifteen other adventurers left in the Proving Grounds, and Preston wanted to formulate a strategy for each and every one of them. Given the day’s events, Riah was first.
“Of course she’s beatable,” Wes offered from his position sitting on the floor coloring with Art and Reginald. “Just flood the arena with fire.”
Eve rolled her eyes. “That’s your strategy for every opponent.”
“Yeah, because it works. And for Riah especially. All she can really do is hide until she gets a chance to sneak up on you and stab you. The illusions are just a fancy distraction.”
“So she’s weak to super large areas of effect.” Eve exhaled. “I don’t have anywhere near enough Mana Density to clear the entire arena with Mana Burst.”
“It’s not just AOE,” Preston thought aloud. “If all she can do to end the fight is stab someone, presumably without any class skills boosting it, then anyone bulky enough to either survive or block her sneak attack would wipe the floor with her.”
“That’s a lot of assumptions about what Riah can and can’t do,” Eve snapped back. “And even if they’re right, surviving a dagger to the neck isn’t exactly easy. Maybe a pure tank could do it, but I sure as hells can’t.” The silent ‘maybe Alex could’ve done it’ went unsaid.
Preston counted on his fingers as he spoke. “Well the three historical weaknesses of illusion magic are that hiding isn’t a reliable defense, it provides no direct offensive power, and against some opponents it flat out doesn’t work.”
Eve furrowed her brow. “Doesn’t work?”
The Caretaker shrugged. “It can be really tricky to fool senses you don’t have. There are some monsters out there that can detect electrical fields or magical remnants or just see through illusions for whatever reason. It’s part of the reason illusion magic isn’t very popular outside of the arts; it’s too unreliable in real combat.”
“So Riah’s just a terrible matchup.” Eve cursed. “Hiding may not be a reliable defense, but my whole strength is in outspeeding and overpowering defenses.”
“Maybe someone else will take her out for you,” Wes chimed in.
Preston nodded. “She’ll need to lose twice because she’s still in the winner’s bracket, but it’s possible.” He flipped through his notes for the page with the full roster. “There’s three mages and a tank that should give Riah trouble, and upsets are always possible.” He exhaled. “We shouldn’t count on it.”
“We might have to,” Eve said. “I can’t think of any ways to counter her.” That was a lie. She could think of a way, but the odds of making it work now after so many failed attempts felt even lower than those of her avoiding a rematch with Riah entirely. “Tabling that for now, who am I against next week?”
“The loser of tomorrow’s match between…” Preston read from the page, “Harold Leon and Priya Estellian.”
That second name sounded familiar to Eve. “The Sword Dancer?”
“Yep. We’re hoping she loses, cause Harold’s one of the mages that’ll probably beat Riah.”
Eve nodded along. “Okay, so what do Sword Dancers do? And why are there so many combat classes called dancers?”
Preston blinked. “We’ve come across two something-dancers out of a competitive field of two hundred and fifty. I wouldn’t call that ‘many.’” He shook his head. “Anyway, as far as I can tell, Sword Dancer is just a high-tier version of a basic sword class. She’ll be fast, but you’re faster. Practicing with Roric should be more than enough to beat Priya.”
“And Harold?”
“Even easier. He’s a Windcaller, basically summons miniature tornados and shit. Most of his wins have come from sweeping his opponent away in one and dropping them from the top of the wards. Even if you couldn’t take him out before he got a cast off, his whole strategy falls apart in the face of Jet.”
The conversation dragged on from there as Eve and Preston discussed each of her fifteen possible opponents, aided by random somewhat useless input from Wes and completely useless, though far cuter, input from Art.
Fortunately enough, most of the competition didn’t seem to pose much of a threat, or at least matched up poorly against Eve’s strengths. The Defiant took some joy in the realization that all four of the fighters that could stonewall Riah couldn’t even dream of defeating Eve.
That said, Preston did suggest a couple of matchups that might prove difficult, including a Blood Baron, Heartpiercer, Acolyte of the Gnas
hing Teeth, and, of course, Riah herself. Of them all, only the latter felt unbeatable.
Even with a plan in mind and the urgency of preparation clearer than ever, Roric insisted Eve take days off, refusing to train her on match days and at the midweek. He was honest enough to admit that he too needed rest but still forbade Eve from practicing without him through those off days.
So it was that on Wednesday, three days before her match with one Priya Estellian, Eve found herself not clad in armor in the practice yard but in a floor length gown sitting across a tea table with her majesty Queen Emeliara Elric the First.
“And then Ma came in waving a pair of Lindon’s underwear like a war banner yelling that he’d better stop picking on me or she’d tell the entire town they weren’t there for repairs but for stain removal.”
Emily let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. “Did he leave you alone?”
Eve grinned. “You should’ve seen how red his face got. From then on, he treated me—” Eve stopped herself before saying ‘like a princess.’ “He was too scared to even look at me wrong,” she corrected.
The queen giggled. “Your mother sounds like an amazing woman.”
“She is.” Eve sipped her tea, an expensive blend pioneered by a local Alchemist that was designed to loosen tongues without any of the inhibitory effects of alcohol. It allowed the ladies in the upper echelon of Leshkian nobility a way to stimulate conversation without a loss of tact or risk of revealing something better left unsaid. It was, as a result, rather popular among those that could afford it.
Eve thought it tasted like dirty socks. She stirred another spoonful of sugar into the steaming mug as Emily asked her question.
“What about your father? I’ve heard so much of Martha but…”
“He died when I was four.” Eve put it plainly. “Went out checking his traps and ran into a el-bear that wanted the rabbit he caught more than it wanted to avoid him.” Eve embellished the name of the beast for the sake of keeping mysticism. No manaheart would die to a mundane bear.
This Class is Bonkers! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Comedy Litrpg Adventure) Book 2) Page 26
