Kaeso ran into the closest alley to evade the latest volley of arrows from his team’s opponents. Wishing in vain that his reflexes were quick enough to shoot down the arrows with his fireball spell, he ventured a peek around the corner, only to duck his head back in response to the arrow that now thudded into the crate resting on the opposite wall of the alley. Looking across at his teammates in the other alley, he noticed that Drake and Angband were talking about something, with Crunch making the same cautious peeks. Looking behind him, he noticed Lloyd and Saagnasar hiding in the same alleyway he was. Gorak had just appeared, and was busy standing around, looking around stupidly, wondering why they were still in the cramped alleyway, surrounded by old, crumbling buildings that looked like they might fall over any second…

Kaeso looked at Gorak once more, smiled, and when asked what they were doing by the confused Hork-Bajir responded with,
“Hiding.”
“…why?” asked Gorak, still confused.
“Because arrows hurt.”
“…really?” asked Gorak, still confused.
“Yeah, you should try it sometime.”
“…really?” asked Gorak, still confused.
“No. You’d die.”
“…so?” asked Gorak, still confused. Ignoring his question, Kaeso explained the situation as simply as he could.
“There are people out there who want to kill us so they can enter the tower and win the game. We want to win, so we need to enter the tower, and to do that, we need to be alive, so we need to stop those people from killing us, so we need to kill them.”
“Why they not dead yet?”
“Because they’re over there, and we are over here, and they will kill us if we try to get over there, and we will kill them if they try to come over here.”
“So…time-out?” asked Gorak. Kaeso narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher whether the Hork-Bajir had made a joke or not. Desperately hoping that all was still right with the world, he went with not.
“As much as I wish, I don’t think they will agree to a time-out. And I don’t think either of us have the skill or the power to make time stop.”
“So…what do?” asked Gorak. Sighing, Kaeso peeked out once more at the archers, who this time didn’t immediately fire at him, as they were conversing amongst themselves, well within range of bowshot, well outside of spell casting distance. Turning back, he continued his explanation.
“We can either go around this building, and risk getting lost completely in the ruins, letting Pink team get into the tower, or we go through this building, and surprise the Pink team. The problem is, we can’t go through the building.”
“…really?”
“Really.”

Chuckling, Kaeso watched as the archers confusedly tried to figure out what was making the noise from Gorak’s seemingly effortless destruction of the walls of the building his team was hiding behind. The archers seemed completely bewildered, but nevertheless quickly readied their bows, notched their arrows, and got into a rough semicircular formation in the general direction of the noise. Looking again at the path of destruction through the buildings, Kaeso thought the same question that Lloyd asked aloud:
“Where did he come from?”
“What, you mean in general, or just now?”
“Both.”

--

Gorak awoke to a headache. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t punctuated by the large, almost fatal wound erupting from his side. Remembering how he got there, Gorak sat up, breaking the part of the metal-frame bed that was impaling him off, stood up, pulled out the sharp metal with a grimace, searched through his small pack for the potions he knew from previous experience healed him, and drank his last remaining potion. Still amazed at the potion’s power, Gorak walked out of the building he was in, closed the door behind him, apologized to the building for breaking its door on accident, looked at the horizon, and headed off towards the only tall building in sight, which he was sure was in a different place.

He meandered through the ruins quickly, surprised at the similarities that this urban jungle had to the jungle he grew up in, and was almost at the base when he saw some of his friends in a small alleyway, peering around the corner. Walking slowly up to them, he turned around, made sure the tower was still there, and wondered why they hadn’t tried to enter it yet. He worked up enough intellect to ask what they were doing, and got a long and boring answer, which he didn’t really pay any attention to. He continued speaking, and tried to make good “conversation” which he remembered Angband telling him was necessary for people to do what he wanted without him having to hurt them. Ignoring all the words, he made sure to make some response when the person he thought was Kaeso stopped talking and looked at him.

Proud that he had accomplished this monstrous task of social networking, Gorak celebrated by doing what he remembered Kaeso had some idea about, but never really did. He ran. Through the walls. Loudly.

As he went, he remembered the previous day, and recalled that he was fighting the Green team before they sent him far away, and decided to attack them. He ran towards the large street he had noticed, and ran right into a little girl. She was about 5’ 9”, and had a bow in her hands, a pink armband on her arm, and Gorak’s knee blades in her unbreathing, now broken chest. Gorak knelt down, picked her up, and decided to give her back to her fear-paralyzed friends, and continue his search for the Green team.

The result of Gorak's gracious gesture confused him even more. Another of the girls fell unconscious after getting the body of her teammate tossed at her, and one of the other girls finally snapped out of it, shot an enchanted arrow at Gorak's feet, causing him to fall into the deep, narrow, dark pit created by the magical arrow.

After trying and failing to jump out of the pit, which is quite impressive, considering a Hork-Bajir’s innate abilities, Gorak resorted to another one of his skills, and began digging his various blades into the compact earth that made up the walls of the pit, and hauling himself upwards. About halfway up, Gorak glanced up, noticing that the same girl that had trapped him in the pit was now aiming another arrow at him. Not knowing what the arrow was, Gorak began climbing faster. The arrow turned out to be a regular arrow, lodging into Gorak’s shoulder harmlessly. Gorak chuckled once more at the pitiful weapons of this realm, wondering why these creatures never realized that small, sharp things hurt less than large, blunt things. Slightly shocked at the uselessness of her previous attack, the girl notched another arrow, muttered the arcane words of a spell, and fired into the darkness.

--

Lloyd ran out into the street along with Crunch, weapons drawn, and silently charged towards Pink team, who had somehow caused Gorak to disappear into a dark hole in the ground. Unfortunately, that meant that their attention was back on Lloyd and Crunch, who jumped to the side as arrows pincushioned that space they had been standing in. At this, the rest of their team ran out of the alley, which meant that the opposing teams arrows were being traded for quickly cast spells, and the battle started.

Unfortunately for Lloyd, he had no long or medium ranged weapons, which meant he was an easy target for one of the magically enhanced arrows of his enemy. Fortunately for him, the arrow transformed into a heavy wind mid-flight, causing Lloyd to fly towards the tower and land flat on his back. Lloyd began running back towards the fight, only to realize that another magical arrow had been launched, causing a thick wall of vines to rush at them, but stop at Angband because of his paralysis ability derived from his undead nature. The vines attached themselves to the walls on opposite sides of the street, completely blocking the view of either team.

Frustrated, Lloyd riffled through his possessions, and pulled out a red potion he had purchased in the city. After yelling at Angband to move away from the vines, he threw the potion, watched it ignite itself, and begin burning the vines away. Kaeso grumbled that he could have just as easily done that by himself, but stopped when he realized that Lloyd’s actions saved one of his daily spells for later use.

Astonished at the speed with which the potion did its work, Lloyd once again looked down the street at where the Pink team was supposed to be, noticing that his enemy was no longer there. Expecting this, Lloyd looked up at the roofs of the buildings and noticed that his enemy had taken up firing positions on either side of the street, in which he stood.

--

Saagnasar looked down quietly on his enemy who was otherwise preoccupied. Inside of the tower, on the second to last level from the bottom, there was an ogre, who was currently scratching his rear end with the dirtiest claw known to man while sleeping on a club the size of Gorak. The rogue Saagnasar had chased into the tower was busy trying to find a way to get the ogre off of the trap door that led to the next level, and hopefully, the end of this tournament. Satisfied that the rogue would have to attack the ogre to reach his goal, and knowing that the rogue was about as likely to take on the ogre single-handedly as Saagnasar was to declare himself a friend of a Goblin, Saagnasar turned around and looked at his room once more. Again finding the same set up of levers in 8 directions as in the higher levels of the tower, Saagnasar remembered that he had yet to check this level. Walking nonchalantly over to one, he pulled on the lever, and felt the now-familiar rumbling of the tower whenever he pulled on a lever, and observed that he had caused the granite blocks that made up the tower to rearrange themselves in such a way that formed window-like holes along the walls. The drow heard the ogre wake up, grunt loudly at the sunlight streaming in through the holes, find the rogue, and then squash him.

“I never thought I’d actually be thanking the sunlight for anything,” thought Saagnasar.

Noises from outside quickly ruined his good mood when he learned that one of the teams that was unaccounted for in the previous night’s discussion had happened upon the rest of his team and was preventing them from entering the tower and helping Saagnasar deal with the ogre. Sighing dramatically, Saagnasar readied his bow, cast an explosive spell identical to the one that had helped defeat Green Team, and fired the arrow at one of the Pink archers currently on the roofs of some low buildings.

Satisfied at the rain of bowstrings, arrowheads, and female limbs that he had caused, Saagnasar looked around, pulled a lever next to the one he had pulled, causing the holes to grow in size, and crawled out, levitated down to the ground outside, shrugged at not being able to enter the all-important bottom floor, because of the lack of openings in the wall. He laughed at the clumsy attempts of the ogre’s reaching for him. He turned around, launched several more arrows, and then joined the battle, scimitars drawn.

--

Gorak had expected to be shot by an arrow that would perhaps finally deal some damage to him, but was surprised when a thick wall of vines pushed him back down to the bottom of the pit, and attaching itself to the vertical walls of the hole, creating an airtight pocket that was slowly suffocating him.

Thinking as quickly as he could, Gorak pulled the collapsible polearm out of its place on his belt, extended it to its full length, marveled at the Kender craftsmanship that had created this weapon, and began desperately attacking the vines for air. Continuing even to the point that small drops of blood began forming on his face, Gorak punctured the wall with his last effort, happily ignored the vines falling on him, and noticed for the first time that the blood was not his, and he had been stabbing at the body of one of the archers that had been kicked into the pit, presumably by his teammates.

Jumping as high as he could, Gorak climbed the remaining 10 feet with ease, pulled himself out, and roared at the arrows that met his efforts. Blindly rushing the reloading archers, he jumped to the top floor of the building, grabbed one of the archers by the neck, crushing windpipe, and then ripped the limbs off of the lip body, and proceeded to attack the nearest archer with it. The Kender female shot her previously enchanted arrow at Gorak, pushing him straight across the street into Lloyd and Kaeso, who were busy trying to climb the building to reach their elusive opponents. All three fell to the ground, and then were frozen in place by another archer’s arrow that enveloped them in its chill wrath.

--

Crunch ducked into an alley, narrowly escaping being caught in the frozen area. Catching his breath, he heard his enemies on the roof above him. He ran at the wall of the alley, jumped upwards for 3 light steps and pushed off, flying through the air across the alley, rolling onto the roof, and standing at the feet of a very surprised archer, whom he dispatched by sticking both his short swords into. Then turning to face the archers on the other short rooftops, he deftly intercepted their arrows by placing the body of his dead opponent between him and certain death.

Running towards the nearest occupied roof, Crunch jumped, body ahead as a shield, and landed on the edge of the wall, causing a sick snapping sound to emanate from the vertebrae of the body he was holding. Attempting to climb up, he realized that the force of his landing had stuck his swords into the rotting wall, and he jerked at them to pull them out as the archer rapidly approached, pulling back her loaded bow. The archer looked down at Crunch, aimed her bow, and then fell lifeless to the ground, silently breathing her last as V reappeared, holding a bloody dagger. V lifted Crunch onto the roof, helped him pull out his swords, then looked around, noticing that the battle was over as quickly as it had begun.

--

Angband stepped out of the shadows, healed Drake of his major wounds, dispelled the frozen area, freeing Kaeso, Lloyd and Gorak once more, and did a quick body count, and noticed that one of the Pink archers was unaccounted for right before Drake pointed a tired finger in the direction of the tower, where everyone saw the remaining enemy enter the tower.

He ran off, followed by the rest of his team, and stopped when he heard the ogre’s roar of pain. Saagnasar, who could now see into the tower, quickly explained that the ogre was guarding the bottom floor, and that the enemy archer had sidestepped the ogre’s clumsy but devastating blows and jumped into the bottom floor, which Saagnasar could not see into.

Panting as he walked closer to the tower, Kaeso caught the last of the conversation, then sighed exhaustedly as the rest of the group looked to him for an answer. He tiredly summoned scorpions from their extra-planar dimension, enlarged them with a quick spell, and sent them in to attack the ogre. Another roar startled him out of his concentration as he realized that Lloyd and Gorak had already climbed the short distance up and entered the tower.

Kaeso shook his head, and sent the scorpions inside to do battle. The rest of the group climbed up to the first window-like opening, peeked their heads over, and just caught the last seconds of the battle, Gorak was single-handedly wrestling the ogre’s weapon out of its hand while Lloyd stabbed at the ogre repeatedly from his position, seated on the ogre’s shoulder, straddling his neck like a mount with his legs, while the scorpions constantly stabbed at the ogre’s legs and backside. The ogre reluctantly let go of its club to desperately pull Lloyd off, but Gorak kept him occupied by breaking the ogre legs with its own club. Lloyd then stood up as the Ogre fell, and dealt the finishing blow to the back of the ogre’s head.

Extremely proud of himself, Lloyd stood beaming at his teammates, who largely ignored him, cleared the ogre away from on top of the trap door, then had Saagnasar and V enter silently and invisibly to see where the last Pink team member alive had gone.

--

V looked down at the open trap door, seeing stone steps leading down to a room that was glowing with a strange white light. Invisible to all but himself, he ran silently down the steps. When he reached the bottom, he saw the source of the strange light. A large golden key was floating inside of a transparent casing on a pedestal. There was a strange pad with buttons on it that seemed to be connected to the casing somehow, and a Pink team ranger at the pad, quickly tapping buttons to open the box.

He felt Saagnasar next to him, and put a hand on his shoulder, signaling that he should wait, and Saagnasar ignored him. He had seen the book on the desk at the opposite side of the room, and saw the 6 letters in invisible ink that no one else present could see, because of their lack of ultraviolet vision, that Saagnasar so fortunately possessed. He pulled his bow back and fired at the archer, who looked up just in time to see Saagnasar pull off his cloak to shoot at her, and hid behind the pedestal. Saagnasar ran towards the pedestal, only to be launched by the archer’s own arrow out of the room, up the stairs and across the room, hitting the wall of the tower and falling unconscious. V walked forward cautiously, only to be blocked by a wall of vines that had suddenly appeared, creating a cylindrical barrier around the pedestal just big enough for the ranger to fit. He called for the rest of his team, and when Kaeso entered behind Angband and Drake, he burned the plants away quickly, just in time to see the archer enter the correct code, and open the box.

--

Drake immediately attacked the archer, who took the attack full in the chest, flew back towards the desk, and stopped moving. Angband walked forward, looked at the pedestal cautiously, as if waiting for something, visibly confused. Crunch walked up to his side, looked at him humorously, and grabbed the floating key, walked around the pedestal to the book, closed it, and locked the book’s lock with the key, at which point the book shook in Crunch’s hands, and began to glow white from within, to the point of blinding everyone in the room, then the tower, then the entire ruins as the giant beam of light exited the tower, hit the heavens, giving everything in sight the color and intensity of the sun at noontime.

Everyone then fell unconscious.