Chapter 304: Something Worth Competing For.

Max set the report from the White Stone waystation beside his breakfast plate and moved his cup before Anna could point out the wet ring forming beneath it.

"They paid for information, flew into the woods, settled a dispute, and came back with invitations to a town most people have never heard of."

Anna cut a piece of toast. "You sound pleased."

"I am. Tessa found something she couldn’t handle herself and made money by finding someone who could. Rod got work worth doing. Nobody needed me to explain where to go."

"Are you planning to leave more things for them to find?"

"There are plenty already."

He turned the report around. A list of proposed freight charges filled the last page. The Five Knots had included room for fragile goods from Lethren and an extra charge for waiting at the terrace. They had also added a limit on the time they would wait without payment. Whatever else had happened in the woods, it had improved their contracts.

Anna read the first few lines while Max reached for the bread.

"I’d like to get more of the groups together." He said. "We see them come through Sanctuary, then they spread out again. Some spend most of their time in Corathen. Some go back to the earlier levels for materials. They hear about each other’s work, but they rarely get to try the same thing at the same time."

"The arena has competitions."

"For fighting. The races are for flying. I was thinking of something for a whole adventuring party."

Anna put the report down.

"What kind of something?"

Max had only meant to mention the idea. Her question made him pull a clean sheet from beneath the freight report. He drew a square, added a gate, and placed a small circle at the far end.

"Get in, take that, and get out."

"You’re drawing a burglary."

"A competition burglary."

She watched him add a second gate.

"Set a task, give everyone time to prepare, and see which group does best." She said. "Does that remind you of anyone?"

Max looked up. Anna waited, her toast still in her hand.

"Yes. I borrowed the idea."

"From the Elder God."

"He put quite a lot of work into it. I think the adventurers will have fun."

"You didn’t describe your own challenge as fun."

"I didn’t get to choose whether to enter."

Anna considered that, then reached across the table for the pencil.

"Voluntary entry. Published rules. Prizes people can actually use."

She wrote the three points beside his square.

"And you decide what you’re willing to spend before announcing anything."

Max pulled the sheet back before she could add a fourth condition.

"I haven’t announced anything."

"You were reaching for the interface."

He lowered his hand.

They finished breakfast with the paper between them. By the time the plates were cleared, Max had crossed out a straight obstacle course and a timed monster hunt. Both would work, but neither offered much that an experienced party had not already done. He wanted a reason for someone to take a rope, a crowbar, or a convincing story into the event and be glad they had brought it.

Anna suggested inviting Quin before Max became attached to the drawing.

Quin arrived with a piece of apple in one hand and examined the square.

"How thick are the walls?"

"I haven’t built them."

"Can I tunnel under them?"

"Possibly."

"Then I need to know whether the object can pass through a tunnel."

Max pushed a chair out with his foot. "Sit down."

Quin sat, finished the apple, and asked what happened if somebody reached the object first and simply waited beside it to attack the next party.

"No attacks on other competitors." Max said.

"Then I’ll stand in the doorway."

"They can go around you."

"It’s a narrow doorway."

Anna turned her sheet over and began another list.

By midday the simple square had acquired enough notes that Max could no longer find the second gate. He left the table to look at possible ground, bringing Anna and Quin with him.

They stood on an unused stretch of dungeon terrain that Max could develop without disturbing a road, a farm, or somebody’s hunting ground. He brought up the dimensions and placed a low stone wall across the nearest rise. Beyond it, a broad platform marked the space a central building might occupy.

Quin walked to the wall and peered over.

"Is this the final event?"

"Probably. I’d like one or two rounds before it."

"To remove people who aren’t ready?"

"And to give more people something worth entering. Eight parties in a final is manageable. Eight parties in the entire competition would leave a lot of disappointed people."

Anna stood on the platform while he adjusted its height.

"Who can enter?"

"Anyone who has reached the fifth level."

"Every member?"

"Every member. Five people to a team."

Quin rested an elbow on the wall. "Golden Axe will ask whether they can bring twenty-five."

"They can choose five."

"They’ll ask anyway."

Max recorded the answer before he forgot it. Groups could prepare with friends, trainers, or guild members beforehand. Once an event began, they would have to rely on their registered teammates. No replacements halfway through a round, no messenger running back to the guild for the solution to a lock.

Anna asked about injuries. That question stopped the discussion of entrances for a while.

They already had rules for deaths in the dungeon. The competition did not need a separate resurrection system, and Max had no intention of suggesting that it did. A dead competitor would be out of the event. If the remaining four could finish, they could continue. If they withdrew, they were finished. Waiting for a teammate to return from the hospital and rejoin would not be allowed.

"Put that in the entry notice." Anna said. "Before anyone pays for supplies."

Max nodded and added it.

He raised a second platform, then lowered it until a shallow yard lay between the two. A team entering from the west would see the main gate. A team circling north might notice the service court. He could already imagine someone climbing the drainpipes, which meant the drainpipes needed to be strong enough for climbing to be a real choice.

Quin watched a window take shape.

"Are they all stealing the same thing?"

"That would make it a race to grab one object."

"And seven groups would spend the rest of the event following the eighth."

Max made eight marks on the floor.

"Separate targets. One assigned to each party. Small enough to carry, hard enough to reach that getting there matters."

Anna crossed the yard and stood beside a mark.

"How do you make those fair?"

"I test them."

Both of them looked at Quin.

He studied the eight marks, then the windows.

"I’ll need more than one afternoon."

"Would people be able to watch?" Anna asked.

Max looked back at the empty platform. "I’d like them to."

"Then decide how before you promise a spectacle. A hundred people following Rod through a doorway would change the task."

"Viewing screens in Sanctuary. No audience inside the course."

Quin asked whether competitors would hear the crowd. Max shook his head. The screens could show selected views, with enough delay to prevent a friend in the square from calling useful information through a communication item. Personal messages would be blocked within the event boundaries, apart from contact between registered teammates and requests to withdraw.

Anna wrote that down, then drew a box around the viewing proposal.

"This has its own costs."

"I can use the equipment again."

"I know. I still want the cost."

Quin leaned closer to the page. "Can the people watching choose which party they see?"

Max considered the amount of space that would require. He pictured eight screens, eight crowds, and nobody able to hear the person beside them.

"Selected views for the main square. Smaller rooms can follow particular teams if there’s enough demand."

Anna added another line. Max watched her finish before asking for the pencil back.

They returned to Sanctuary before Max began creating the upper floors. He wanted a budget first, partly because Anna had asked and partly because he could see how easily a competition building could turn into a second country. Eight vaults did not require eight towns around them.

The afternoon brought ordinary work. A delivery had arrived at the wrong storage yard. A request for a new shop needed a decision about its entrance. Max dealt with both before opening the competition notes again. The idea survived the interruption, which he took as a useful sign.

Anna found him comparing prizes after supper.

He had listed coin, equipment, and training. Each had drawbacks. Coin alone would make a fine prize but gave the event little identity. A powerful weapon would favor whoever happened to use it. Training could be useful, but a course chosen months beforehand might be useless to the winner.

"Let them choose." Anna said.

Max looked over the sheet.

"A prize allowance?"

"Within a published selection. Weapons, armor, tools, supplies. Something a party can divide without selling the whole prize."

He added a coin purse for each finalist who completed the task and a larger award for the leading places. The winners would have first choice from equipment prepared for the competition. A practical tool could belong in that selection beside a sword.

Anna pointed to the first qualifier, still an empty heading.

"You know how they finish. How do they start?"

Max leaned back. Through the window he could see people crossing the street with packs over their shoulders. One pair stopped to let a cart pass. Its driver had piled folded canvas beneath several crates, and a loose strap trailed near the wheel. An adventurer caught it before it snagged and handed it up.

"A rescue." Max said.

Anna followed his glance, then looked back.

"What are they rescuing?"

"People. Trapped in a place where fighting everything is possible and probably a bad use of time."

He pulled the pencil toward him. The first building he drew had a broken staircase. The second had a cellar with a door at street level. He connected them with a lane that narrowed beside a fallen wall.

Anna moved the lamp so his hand no longer cast a shadow across the page.

"How many people?"

"Enough that carrying them all won’t work."

She took another sheet and began writing what an injured traveler might need. Max stopped drawing long enough to read the first line.

"Water?"

"Were you planning to send them out without any?"

He opened a space beside the starting gate and drew a supply table.

"No."

Anna added cups.

Max took a second pencil from the drawer and placed it beside her hand. Then he turned his page and began drawing the street from the rescuers’ side.