69. Tournament

Authors Note: Sorry about the absence.  I kind of got hooked on a few stories and got behind in my writing.  I'm trying to get back on schedule.

“You’re going down, Ice-Man,” Lyra said, facing her opponent head on, psyching herself up for their final confrontation.

“In your dreams, Harlot,” came the answering taunt.  ‘Ice-man,’ or Gregory, was a burgeoning [Cryomancer], while his opponent was some sort of rogue.  Normally, in a duel, Lyra would be at something of a disadvantage at the start of the fight if she was unable to begin in stealth.  Simultaneously, Gregory would be disadvantaged by the fact that they were standing within arms reach, or in other words, easy stabbing range.

However, this was not a battle of arms, but of wit and chance, and all parties had agreed to abide by the outcome of the combat.

“Paper, rock, scissors, shoot,” the combatants said in unison, slamming their fists together in the ritualized manner that the Travelers had brought with them from their world.  Gregory chose paper.  Lyra chose scissors.

“And the crowd goes wild!” she shouted, extending her arms above her head in victory.

“Whatever.  You’ll never make it to the final round,” Gregory predicted, unable to take his loss with grace.  He moped back out into the audience, leaving the remaining matches ongoing as the impromptu tournament continued.  I watched the organized chaos taking place in the yard outside the constabulary with bemusement.

“I don’t see why everyone is going through all of this trouble to figure out who gets the letter,” I commented to Tarisha.  She simply shrugged.

“Everyone wants it, but only one person can have it.  Since you don’t have a preference, your guild had to come up with some sort of fair method.  Personally I would have just had everyone roll and leave it up to Are En Gee, but this tournament is as fair as anything else,” she explained.

“Yeah, but I don’t get why so many people are fighting for it,” I clarified.  “I mean, the last time I asked for messengers everyone ended up in prison.”

“Actually, some of them are still in prison,” Tarisha informed me.

“What?” I asked, surprised.  “But I told everyone to burn the letters days ago!  They even said that the guards would let them out as soon as they did so!”

“Yes, they can leave at any time.  However, that would cut off their access to the Beggar Court.  I’m not certain if anyone mentioned it to your or not, but those who were imprisoned on your behalf actually got a significant boon.  Building reputation with the Beggar Court is normally a very difficult and tedious process which very few people have actually attempted.  The half dozen or so of your messengers who are still imprisoned have access to a few repeatable quests which are allowing them to farm it far more effectively than any other method I’ve ever heard of.”

“The Beggar Court?  Wait, that’s real?” I asked.  “Beckah always told me that it was just a fairy tale.”

Tarisha simply shrugged.  “There is most certainly a faction which calls itself the Beggar Court, but as I said it’s very difficult to find quests and grind rep with them, so not very much is known about them on the Traveler side of things.  I guess I wouldn’t know the lore behind how the Natives see them, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if most Natives consider them a rumor or myth.”

I frowned, unsettled by this new wrinkle in things.  The Beggar Court, supposedly, traced its origins back to the last time the succession of the throne was in doubt.  Two cousins, both with equally strong claims, had agreed to settle the matter peacefully with a game of chance.  The winner ascended, while the loser claimed that he had cheated and spent the rest of his life undermining the government.  In the end, all of his supporters had their lands and property confiscated.  Many were executed for treason, while their families were condemned to live in poverty.

That much was history and was beyond dispute.  What wasn’t in the history books, and remains a topic for bards and poets, are the fates of the noble bloodlines which were dispossessed.  While it was common for upstarts and troublemakers to claim a link to one of those five families, there were also many tales of scions becoming heroes and patriots to make up for the deeds of their family’s past.

I had enjoyed the stories as much as anyone else, but never believed they were true.  As I considered it, I also considered the possibility that the Beggar Court which the travelers interacted with needn’t actually be linked to the real noble families from the past.  It could, in fact, be a reclusive group which was simply using the name.

I made a note to ask more about the players who were gaining reputation with that faction.  They might be benign, or they might be a threat to the kingdom.  Not that it would necessarily fall on me to root them out if they were malicious, but I might want to ask my friends to distance themselves from them if they were.

“Hail,” Tarisha began, interrupting my thoughts.  “There is a topic I have been dancing around for some time now.  That of documenting your actions for posterity.”

“Have you been recording me again?” I asked calmly.

“Not since the last time the topic was broached,” she assured me.  “However, many of the Travelers who are in leadership positions in my guild and yours have been discussing the matter among ourselves.  We have something of a framework we would like to discuss with you.”

“I’m listening.”

“First of all, I would like to remind you that this matter only applies to Travelers in <Nethersong Mavericks> and their allied guilds.  Unaffiliated travelers will probably continue to record you whenever they realize they are in your presence, and we have no control over what they will do with those recordings.  We can only police ourselves, we cannot enforce this policy on anyone outside of our alliances.”

“I understand that,” I agreed.  I knew enough about Travelers to know that getting them all to agree to something would be like expecting a bucket of sand to spontaneously become a stained glass window.

“The basic proposal is of two points.  The first point is to have a process for gaining approval for the release of any recordings of your person or actions.  SubtleGhost and Bandit have volunteered to be the point person on this matter.  With your permission, they would like to begin reviewing and categorizing all of the recordings which have thus far been made without your knowledge.  If there are any which are notable or exceptional, they would ask for your approval before allowing the person who recorded or edited them to release them.  The only recording which they have agreed on so far which might be worthy of releasing is the one of your confrontation with Storm.  We feel that releasing this video now would help many Travelers make up their minds on who to support in the succession.”

“That’s fine with me,” I agreed.  “If that’s all there is, then I guess I might have overreacted a bit.”

“That’s not all there is, Hail,” Tarisha admitted nervously.  “Hail, you must understand, it’s actually very common for Travelers to record their game play and share it, both with other travelers and with people who don’t even play this game directly.  A few Travelers in both our guilds, and in <Ragtag Muffin>, fall into this category.  You’re not exactly the exclusive topic of their videos, but you have appeared in a number of streams and compilations.  In turn, those videos have been compiled by others who have been looking for information about you.  While the members of our guilds have all agreed to take down their own videos, there isn’t anything we can do about the third parties who have already copied them.  Truthfully we didn’t realize how serious the situation was until just recently, and I must apologize for not bringing it to your attention sooner.”

I frowned.  “Did they leak anything important?”

“Not really.  A few scenes of you training or fighting, but mostly it’s just you being you,” she explained.

“I see,” I said.

“As I said, Hail, it’s very common for Travelers to record themselves while they’re in this world.  A lot of them actually record everything they do, and then delete everything except for highlights of particular interest.  I’m actually in that category as well, although I do not publicly share my recordings under most circumstances.”

“Are you recording me right now?” I demanded.

“No.  And as I said before, I delete more than 90% of what I do record.  I only keep important battles or interactions.  However, since we became allies, so much of my time has been spent with you that I do have a significant backlog of our interactions.  As I mentioned, I was hoping that, one day, you would consider releasing an anthology of your early actions so that your story might be known.  If you ask me to, however, I will delete everything.”

I was quiet a moment, watching the paper rock scissors tournament continue.  There had been almost eighty participants to start with, but it was quickly approaching the championship round.

“You should have told me sooner,” I said.

“I’m sorry.  Truthfully it’s simply so much of a habit for me to document my actions this way that I never considered your feelings on the matter,” she admitted.  “Most professional players do the same thing, as do most aspiring pros.  Even among the amateur player base, a lot of people record themselves just in case something cool happens, then they delete the recordings at the end of their session if nothing of note occurs.”

“So I should just assume that everyone is recording me everywhere, all of the time?” I demanded, growing annoyed.

“For unaffiliated Travelers, yes.  However, that is the second point I of the new policy which I wanted to discuss with you.  Namely, that everyone in our allied circle of guilds will have to disclose whether or not they record or stream their game play, and that they will inform you when they interact with you if they are currently doing so.”

I sighed, as that was another headache I didn’t really want to deal with.  So I decided to just get over it.  “I don’t care.  I really don’t need the distraction of trying to figure out who is recording me or not, and I’m not going to do anything different just because someone is.  Just, I don’t know.  You guys figure it out.”

“I assure you, we are working on it.  I’m relieved that you’re less troubled about the matter than you were when Corinth broached the subject last week, but we really do need to make certain that our resident streamers aren’t unintentionally giving away valuable intel to our rivals and opponents,” she explained.  “And, as I said, we will certainly ask your permission before publishing any videos of particular note.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and that was the end of the matter as far as I was concerned.  The others were finishing up their tournament, and as I watched the champion emerged.  It was, in fact, Lyra who emerged victorious, and she spent a few moments basking in the congratulations or the envy of her audience before stepping over to me.

“Right, here you go,” I said, handing over the missive without much fanfare.

“Oh come on,” she challenged.  “Where’s your sense of showmanship – oh shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Tarisha asked, and the others gathered around as the champion examined the quest screen that had popped up for her, and her alone.

“It’s not just a simple delivery quest.  It’s a challenge quest.  And it requires a group,” she explained, groaning.  “Recommended levels sixty to eighty, recommended party size of ten.  Teleportation, fast travel, and flight are restricted.  We need to actually deliver this to the capitol the hard way, and if I’m reading this right we can expect resistance.”

The Travelers burst into discussion as those who had lost the contest began elbowing their way forward to try to get a place in Lyra’s group.  I frowned, but ultimately lost interest in the topic.  As I saw it, it wasn’t actually all that important; even if the missive was intercepted, I could simply make another one.  And with the skills I had gained from my week with Auroras, the document couldn’t be altered or forged.  It’s not like the document contained any secrets or anything, so the worst that the bandits could do by harassing my messengers was slow me down.  And, well, it seems that my Traveler friends were actually quite excited by that prospect.

I shook my head in bemusement.  Sometimes I really didn’t understand Travelers at all.