Chapter 306: The Face of Success

The first medal had no face.

It lay on Max’s desk beside a stack of costs, a round piece of bronze with a plain rim and enough space for an inscription. Anna picked it up while he compared the expense of temporary viewing screens with making a permanent installation.

"This is sensible." She said.

Max looked up. "It isn’t finished."

She turned it over. The reverse carried the words DUNGEON GAMES above a small open gate. He had left a place below for the event year and the number of the station that awarded it.

"What are you adding?"

"Something recognizable."

The bronze warmed in her fingers. A profile rose from the blank surface, then turned until a cheerful version of Max looked out at her. Beside the face, a hand gave a thumbs-up.

Anna laid it down.

"Your face."

"Everyone knows it."

"And the hand?"

"Encouraging."

She looked from the medal to him. He held up his own thumb so she could compare them.

"You have made your hair better."

"It’s a small image. Some details need to be clearer."

Anna pushed it back across the desk. Max reduced the hair slightly, though he left the thumb where it was. When Quin arrived, he examined both sides, asked whether the metal could be melted, and suggested making the raised portrait shallow enough not to catch on a pouch.

Max took the useful part of that advice. The medal became thin enough to carry easily and thick enough that someone could not fold it by accident. The contest would recognize it even if the surface became scratched. Once earned, it belonged to the party, including after delivery at the finish.

"They can keep them?" Quin asked.

"They earned them."

"Then make a few practice pieces without the mark. I want to see whether they survive being dropped from the tower."

Anna handed him the first sample before Max could object to testing his portrait against stone.

The rest of the morning went into the announcement. Max wanted the rules short enough that people would read them. Anna wanted them complete enough that reading them would help. They settled on a public notice with the essential conditions, followed by a booklet available free at registration.

The entry requirement came first: every member had to have reached Corathen. Five registered competitors formed a team. A team could withdraw at any point, but could not replace a member after its first event began. No entry fee would be charged for the first Games. Parties supplied their own ordinary equipment within the published restrictions.

Max read the prize section aloud.

"First place gets first choice from the equipment selection, plus the largest purse. Second and third get reduced selections and purses. Every final team that makes a valid delivery gets a completion award."

"And the rescue distinction?" Anna asked.

"A separate payment for getting all eight people out. Enough to cover a useful part of the supplies they spend."

She checked the figures. Max had already allocated the equipment budget. Winners could divide their award among weapons, armor, tools, and consumable supplies rather than being handed a single object that nobody used.

"Publish examples." She said. "People will want to know what selection means."

He added a reinforced shield, a bow, climbing equipment, protective clothing, and several kinds of tools. The actual stock would be available for inspection before the first qualifier. Nothing in the list promised a new class, a private dungeon level, or an ability Max had not established he could provide.

By noon, the notice was ready.

Anna stopped him before he gathered the pages. The gap between events still needed settling. People would require sleep, repairs, and time to obtain whatever they discovered they lacked. A qualifier ending at dusk could not fairly lead straight into another one at dawn if some teams had run that morning and others were still being treated.

They scheduled a full rest day after the last rescue attempt and another after the medal hunt. The final would allow three days from entry, including time spent gathering information in the surrounding district. Its clock would begin for all eight parties together.

Max checked the sequence against freight bookings and ordinary access to the dungeon. The competition would have its own entrances and grounds, leaving the established levels available to people who wanted nothing to do with it.

"Someone will need those jobs while everyone else is watching." Anna said.

He nodded. They left the market schedules alone and sent the revised dates to the registration desk. Before they departed, Max read the entire notice from the perspective of someone who had never attended an event in Sanctuary. He found one sentence that said the second round began after qualification without explaining whose qualification mattered. Anna replaced it with the date and time.

"That saves us the same question twenty times." She said.

Max read the next line aloud, found nothing wrong with it, and finally picked up the stack.

Max carried it to the registration hall himself. The gnome taking the first shift read it at the counter, then turned the booklet to the section on outside help.

"If a guild pays for a team’s equipment?"

"Allowed."

"If they send somebody into the medal grounds with more equipment?"

"Not allowed."

"If the somebody is registered with another team?"

Anna reached for her pencil.

They added that parties could bargain over information and cooperate within an event, but could not enter solely as a supply crew for another registered team. Competitors had to pursue their own objective. Officials would judge actions, not whether two teams happened to belong to the same guild.

The gnome read the change and put the booklet on the public side of the counter.

"We will get questions."

"Send the useful ones to us." Anna said.

Max posted the notice.

The first person to stop was carrying a sack of flour. She read the heading, shifted the sack to her other shoulder, and called to a man outside the door. Within minutes, a small crowd had formed beneath the announcement.

Max stepped aside before anyone could pin him against the board.

"When does it start?" Someone asked.

"Registration closes in ten days." The gnome replied. "The first qualifier begins four days after that. Read the dates at the bottom."

A young man stretched to see past the flour sack. "Do you need to have cleared the fifth level?"

"Reached it."

"Does getting carried through count?"

"Every member’s eligibility will be checked. Passing the first qualifier will still be your responsibility."

Anna caught Max smiling and guided him toward the side door before he could answer every question himself.

Outside, a second notice was already drawing readers. One adventurer copied the dates onto his wrist because he had no paper. Another went straight to the equipment examples and began arguing with a companion over whether a party should choose five modest upgrades or save its whole award for one exceptional item.

"They haven’t entered yet." Anna murmured.

"They’re considering their options."

Across Sanctuary, copies reached the arena, the Skyyard, the Undercity, and the places where Corathen travelers bought provisions. The notice did not interrupt anyone’s private conversation or appear before every pair of eyes. People carried the news faster than Max needed to.

He returned to the office to find three questions waiting. By supper there were nineteen.

One asked whether summoned creatures counted toward the team limit. One asked about flying over the treasury walls. Six were different versions of whether the no-attacks rule permitted pushing somebody into water.

"No." Anna said, reading the sixth.

Max added the answer to the public clarifications.

Flight would be allowed where physically possible. The treasury had roof guards, covered courts, and narrow service access. Owning wings or a spell did not grant access to the inside of a locked vault. A full-sized airship could not be brought into the competition grounds; the contest was for five-person parties, with portable equipment only.

"Tessa will ask about that." Quin said from the doorway.

"She can still enter."

"I think she might."

He put the practice medal on the desk. The rim had a flat place and Max’s nose was scratched.

"It survived the tower."

Anna inspected the damage. "The portrait suffered."

"The recognition mark still works." Quin said.

Max set it beside the undamaged sample.

That evening he and Anna went to inspect the viewing square. The screens would stand above head height, with clear lanes between the gathering areas and nearby shops. Vendors could apply for temporary spaces. Anna rejected a proposed stall immediately beside the first-aid access route and shifted two screens so their crowds would not block a main street.

A carpenter who had come to measure seating asked what people would be watching.

"Rescue work first. A race for medals next. Then a treasury robbery." Max said.

The carpenter looked at Anna.

"With permission." She added.

He returned to measuring, apparently satisfied. Max watched him mark the ground and thought about the spectators trying to follow five people through a building. They needed a way to know which room mattered without being shown everything before the competitors found it.

He placed a small trial screen above the square. It showed Quin in an empty treasury corridor. The view changed when Quin opened a door, but the next angle looked directly through a wall and revealed a guard waiting on the far side.

"That tells the audience more than he knows." Anna said.

"That’s sometimes useful."

"Sometimes. Keep the important discoveries with the teams."

Max adjusted the selection controls. The screen could show routes and reactions without turning the entire complex into a map. Officials would see everything they needed for judging. Spectators would receive views chosen to make the attempts understandable.

Quin opened the door and was immediately challenged by the guard.

"Maintenance." He said.

"Your work order."

Quin looked up toward the unseen viewing point.

"I need a work order for tomorrow."

Max ended the trial before the carpenter could ask why maintenance staff carried lock picks.

They walked home through the market. Two people outside an equipment shop were discussing the medal hunt, and somebody had already repeated the phrase Max’s face on a coin with enough confidence that Anna turned toward him.

"Did you tell them?"

"Quin had a sample."

At the shop window, a young adventurer held his thumb beside his cheek to demonstrate. His companions laughed, then went inside to compare rope prices.

Max stopped at the door long enough to look at the posted notice. Someone had copied the final event’s name in larger letters on a separate sheet.

THE TREASURY HEIST.

Beneath it, in another hand, somebody had written: Need fifth. Must be able to keep quiet.

Anna read the addition, glanced toward Max, and continued home. He took one last look at the empty space where the medal illustration would go, then followed her with the scratched sample in his pocket.