The crowd seemed bigger and louder and for some reason Isran felt more nervous for the second competition. It was a fairly simple game. They had to find tempered steel eggs. She could do that. If she had to fight? She could do that.

  But she wasn’t feeling very amazing as they were ushered into the arena. It had been wrecked. Several random things were scattered around, with free space to move and fight. The worst part was the fact that almost everything was tempered steel. Finding small tempered steel balls in a sea of tempered steel was going to be very hard.

  The next issue was even though Isran could hear the crowd she couldn’t see them, at least not from where she and her team were standing, in front of a twenty-foot wall of tempered steel and wood furniture.

  “Fuck.” Alden murmured. Isran agreed.

  “And the second round of today’s hunt begins in four!”

  The crowd began to count with him.

  “Three!”

  “Two!”

  “One!”

  They wasted no time. Twenty minutes was all they had and wasting it would cost them the hunt.

  Alden and Isran went towards the wall while Darcy and Isabelle searched around them. Darvin had took off running, taking a left turn when he reached the wall. For the purpose of splitting up Alden and Isran took a right turn and began looking for eggs.

  They each had a small pouch to carry their eggs.

  After five minutes Isran had found four eggs and Alden six. It was almost impossible to find any of them when all Isran could see was tempered steel. They were moving slowly but surely. And even though the arena was blocked off by the walls of junk, the crowd's cheering never stopped.

  Fifteen minutes in, with a total amount of twenty five eggs they spotted members of the opposing team.

  Alden motioned to Isran to y low and with a nod she withdrew her sword and watched as Alden walked towatds the three adventurers. He froze like a deer in headlights. Putting on a very convincing dispy of fear.

  “You know how this goes.” A gruff dwarf spoke, his hair bck and his braided beard almost touching the ground.

  Alden chuckled nervously. “You guys probably have a lot… let me keep my dignity at least.”

  The two human men beside the dwarf drew out their swords and slowly approached him.

  “Sorry pal. This ain't the pce to be preserving dignity.”

  Alden withdrew his great sword. He had given all his eggs to Isran and though he hadn’t said anything Isran was guessing she was back up. He would try to hold his own, and when it was looking bad she could be his knight in shining armor.

  The dwarf turned away from Alden and continued searching for eggs while his human companions attacked together.

  Alden blocked their strikes with the ft side of his sword before kicking the knee of the man closest to him. He quickly shoved back against the second man, who stumbled, his footing clearly not strong enough.

  The man whose knee had been kicked was already up, swinging at Alden’s head. In a very admirable show of special awareness, Alden ducked. The man’s sword hit his friend and in an effort to mitigate the damage, he dropped his weapon, leaving him vulnerable. Very vulnerable since he had essentially kicked his teammate out of the fight.

  Alden--still ducked low—elbowed the man sending him to the ground.

  The dwarf, who Isran was watching more than she was watching the actual fight turned to and picked a spear from the ground. Isran hadn’t noticed it before.

  But before didn’t matter anymore. She had noticed it, and that was more than enough to ride in on her galnt horse.

  Alden grunted as he fell to the ground, the man he elbowed had kicked his shin. Very hard. But Isran couldn’t focus on Alden. She watched quietly as the dwarf inched near him. Alden and the dwarf’s human companion literally wrestling in the ground.

  As soon as the dwarf lifted his spear, Isran pulled out the dagger she had taken that morning, Maximum two weapons they had said.

  She hoped that since the dagger was a bded weapon her throw would not miss, hoping her loyal bde skill came in clutch.

  The dagger didn’t travel very far and with a surprised, startled grunt the dwarf fell to the ground, the dagger partially embedded in his lower stomach.

  Isran rushed out of her hiding pce and without changing pace, kicked the man Alden was wrestling off him. She then grabbed their bags and ran. Alden wasn’t very far behind, a smile on his face and a light ugh.

  “Well wasn’t that fucking epic!”

  Isran thought it was more dangerous than epic, and was hoping the protection spells meant the fatal wounds they had inflicted on their opponents were not indeed fatal.

  A minute to the end of the match they bumped into Darvin, he was grabbing a bag from a green-haired elf, he was also bleeding a little bit, murmuring. “Gods damned mages.”

  “Hey,” Alden called out.

  Darvin looked up at them and nodded.

  “Have you seen the other two”? Alden queried.

  Darvin shook his head. “Don’t matter anymore, does it? Time’s is a good as up.”

  Isran agreed. They searched around them for the st few seconds till the countdown to end the match began.

  “Three!”

  “Two!”

  “One!”

  Then the walls vanished… like magic... well it was most definitely magic.

  Isran winced when they did, the sound of the crowd had become much louder and rattled her a little.

  Isran walked up to the guards standing around the arena area, together with her teammates to hand over the bags for counting.

  With everything gone she spotted Darcy and Isabelle, both holding two bags. It seemed they didn’t even have to count. Team two had taken everything from team three.

  They still counted though. Probably for theatrics or precaution.

  Other guards rushed towards the injured adventurers. Isran gnced nervously back at them. Hoping that they were ok. For the first time in that day, she lifted her head to look into the crowd. And like fate, she immediately found the only people she was concerned about seeing.

  The eggs were counted rather fast. They hadn’t found that many, then the gnome announced to the crowd what everyone had already figured out.

  “Team two wins.”

  While the crowd cheered Isran continued to look at the women she cared the most about in the whole of Neos, maybe even the entire universe.

  pic 3