Tavern Brawls S06WK01

Despite the immense buildup between the Draft and the beginning of the event, the first week of the Brawl was rather quiet to the average observer.  Some might have called it boring.  During the first rounds of competition, the participants were asked to curtail some of their natural talents and skills.  Officials watched for banned techniques in order to mimic a progression to the more advanced skillset the participants possessed.  This led not only to more nuanced fights in the beginning as the brawlers struggled with how to win using more basic maneuvers, but also helped to build excitement for the later rounds.  Thus it was that even though many of the wizards had a good week, most observers understood that eventually even the rangers would have their moment.

Fletch, Cantrip, and Selena sat at a small table on their first quiet morning since the Brawl had begun.  Unlike the casual audience members, they understood the first week had been anything but dull.  All three of them were decorated with small battle scars of their own from the natural chaos of running security at an official Brawl, along with severe cases of sleeplessness.

Some hiccups, such as a no-show to the brawl, causing JayCollins to arrange a last minute teleport for his sponsored brawler to arrive, were pretty typical.  ‘I’m so glad they were fighting for that last spot in the Draft,’ thought Fletcher to himself.  Another potential disaster was averted when a half-demon cleric named Raven began shouting at Chris and Kevin to put her name at the top of the scoreboard instead of the wizard Daemonic Tulip, who had also won 2 of his 3 matches.  While Chris tried to calm the cleric down, Kevin poured over the viewing portals and found a ranger named Trackbreaker who had won all 3 of his matches and promptly stuck him at the top of the scoreboard instead.

Other issues were a little more unusual.  The scoreboard itself had been contracted out by one of the sponsors, Lunapig, and was beautifully constructed out of richly stained maple to display the scores of the teams and individual competitors.  Chris and Kevin had placed it prominently inside the door of The Two Brothers, but a man entering the building had snagged it with his satchel and knocked it over, crashing down on a nearby table.  The table had upended, catapulting the dishes and cutlery across the room where two forks and a knife had stabbed an elf ranger by the name of Racassetout in the arm.  Thankfully, his teammate Demy Nuih had been nearby to mend his wounds, but the situation left Fletch uneasy.

“I hear the wizard for Labella Magic tried to call out the wizard from The Crotch of the Chimera,” Selena said with an obvious lack of energy.  “We should keep an eye on those two.  One of the other wizards said they had some sort of rivalry back home.”  Cantrip nodded and brought her tea up to her lips to drink, but missed and instead dribbled liquid on the table.

Fletch pointed at the table reserved for Mistfire’s Misfits, Miscreants, and Misanthropes.  ‘Miscreants indeed’, his face showed.  He had watched Ms Anne Thrope stop her teammate The Fallen from actually killing his opponent.  When will these brawlers learn that the event was NOT to the death?

They had also had to monitor for issues of fair play.  A smallfolk rogue nicknamed “The Cheat” had to be searched thoroughly after spending an extraordinary amount of time in the outhouse (which Selena never wanted to think about again) and a ranger named ArrowGone had attempted to use banned skills in the first match and had to be given a warning by the officials.

Finally, old racial distrust still reared its ugly head, a new feature for this rendition of the Brawl as it was the first to allow non-humans.  The orcs in particular were bearing the brunt of this prejudice from the elves, though the half-demons indentured mistrust from all of the other participants.

Finishing the boiled oats and eggs that Kevin had prepared for him, Fletch pushed the bowl away from himself.  This was getting them nowhere.  They had been so busy doing their job as security this week that they had been unable to do any work looking for the Murchadha family.  They HAD to be here.  They could not resist showing themselves forever.

He set the thought aside as people began wandering back into the tavern for the next round of fighting.  Selena and Cantrip turned their eyes blankly to the door, groaned in unison, then slowly got to their feet along with Fletcher.  Round 1 may be over, but Round 2 and the rest of the Brawl was just getting started.  As they got up from their table to watch the patrons and brawlers enter the tavern, a commotion below them captured their attention.

In the center arena below the tavern tables, Fletch saw Relax from The Tithe Collectors wrestling with a middle-aged man that Fletch did not recognize.  They both shouted loudly as they grappled with what appeared to be a short wand.  After an agonizing moment, the fragile piece of wood could no longer handle the stress and exploded in a flash of green light.  Both Relax and her opponent flew backward as the force of the explosion pushed them violently into the air.  The middle-aged man disappeared out of view, but the onlookers all took in the gruesome scene of Relax as she arced upward towards the floor of the tavern.  There was an audible gasp from the gathered crowd as she collided with a support beam where her arm met her shoulder.  Her arm hit one side of the beam while the rest of her body hit the other, resulting in a loud ‘POP’ accompanied by dual thuds before Relax fell back to the ground in a heap.

As none of the officials were yet at The Two Brothers for the day’s competitions, some of the early arrival clerics from the various teams rushed down to the arena to tend to the rogue.  Cantrip and Selena hurried to the scene as Fletcher ushered patrons back outside and some of the wait staff came out with buckets and mops to clean up the mess made by several patrons unable to hold the contents of their stomachs at the sight of a woman losing her arm at the shoulder.  He was just shoving the last of the crowd out the door when Selena and Cantrip ran back up the stairs.

“He’s gone,” Selena panted.  “The other man is just gone.  We couldn’t find any trace of him.  He just vanished.”

Fletcher raised his eyebrows and gestured emphatically.  Surely there had to be some clue to who he was or where he had gone.

Cantrip picked up her friend’s tale.  “I swear, we looked everywhere we saw him fly to in the explosion.  There was nothing there, unless you count the chicken that must have gotten loose from my brothers’ pen.”

“We don’t keep chickens anymore,” another voice came from behind the bar.  Chris was leaning over and obviously listening to their conversation.  “We used what few we had in the first few nights of the Brawl and have been getting more from some of the local farms.  But since no one around here raises hundreds or even dozens of chickens, even those are only going to last for so long.  We’ve already sent word to other villages nearby for more.  I hope we don’t run out before the end of the Brawl.”

“Well, it could have come from nearby then,” Cantrip reasoned.  “Can you give us the names of the farms still supplying you?”

Chris’s face brightened a little bit.  “I sure can.  Anything to help you out, Philomena.”  He turned his head to the back and shouted, “Kevin, can you grab the chicken vendor list and bring it out here for Philomena?”

A moment later, Kevin appeared from the back, an apron around his waist and sweat lining his face.  He handed a folded piece of paper to Cantrip, then turned to Chris.  “Cook called in sick.  When you open the doors again, tell anyone who wants food they can have the eggs – just the eggs.”