Chapter 16 - Day 1: Start Of The Tournament
The team name was "White Wolves".
How we arrived to this name was funny really. A traveller named 'Chaos_Chan' was setting on table next to us, while we were arguing about the name, she said "how about 'Gwynblidd'." which meant 'White Wolf' so we accepted it.
[A/N: Thank you 'Chaos_Chan' for helping with the name, I took the most liked comment, Thank goodness I didn't steal a team name from the king's avatar]
[A/N: The Hammer will be Agni-Ra, Gods of Sun from Hindu and Egyptian mythology, Thanks for AlexTolo suggestions. As long as it has something Egyptian in it, it works]
.............
After a day Svidi and Jon Battle-Born came back to the inn with high spirits.
Both have been accepted after passing the test of the college.
Svidi already had a recommendation from five years, and Battle-Born has been singing for long time. Both passed from the first test.
One of the teachers in the college advised Svidi to make a more artistic name, as her name was fine and all but it was plain and people may not remember it well, so it would be better for her to make a more catchy name.
Svidi came back to the inn and took suggestions from us, another naming battle occurred but Svidi already had a name in mind.
She named herself Lynly Star-Sung.
I was amazed for a second from her choice. The name was the same name she used to hide herself from Sibbi Black-Briar after he killed Wulfur in the game.
I didn't know why, but fate was kinda scary. Once upon a time she choose that name to hide, once upon a time she choose it to be famous.
Let's just say that things are going for the better this time.
.............
I toured the city for a while yesterday alone and spotted few 'Shadow Marks' of the 'Thieves Guild'. I tried to find a fence but all I could find was an Argonian from the 'East Empire Company' his name was 'Gulum-Ei' and he offered the information I needed.
What I was after was information about the other 31 participant from the Juniors' Tournament. I had to buy a booklet with the info for 8 gold Septims.
The booklet contained accurate information about each participant and their origins, ages, sponsors, what skills are they known for and their possible helpers.
Most of the sponsored participants and the high end gamblers already had these booklet, and the Argonian told me that the gambling on the Juniors' stage is much more fiercer than the one in the Seniors'. The juniors are new blood and not as known as the seniors so people tend to gamble more on the unknown participants.
And the known seniors duels are less in number than the hot blooded juniors, also most of them don't even bring helpers.
So, from all that, all the junior matches are the important ones, while the seniors is only in the name of honor of fighting against the best opponents. That also explains why the rewards of the Junior stage is much better from the seniors.
Once I looked at the names in the list I found many interesting ones.
Each clan, organization and faction has sponsored someone.
From Solitude there were five teams most of them have the word 'Wolf' like us as it was the city symbol, four were sponsored.
Whiterun sent four teams three of them are Companions, all were sponsored.
Morthal sent three teams, one was sponsored.
From Riften four teams including ours, two were sponsored.
Falkreath sent three teams, only one was sponsored.
Markarth sent three teams too, two were sponsored.
Windhelm sent five as much as the king's city, and Jarl Ulfric sponsored them all.
Winterhold sent only two teams, one was sponsored by the Jarl and to my surprise one was sponsored by the College of Winterhold itself which meant there will be mages.
Dawnstar sent three teams which all of them were sponsored.
Jarls, weapon shops, mining companies and guilds could sponsor many teams, even the king himself can. Of course none of that was official but sponsored teams would have much better gear and potions compared to other teams.
Ulfric Stormcloak himself sponsored five teams, this man was aggressive as ever. One of the teams directly called themselves the Stormcloaks.
The Companion sponsored three teams but that wasn't strange for the fighting guild of Skyrim.
The king sponsored a team of the best Juniors in Solitude called 'Golden Swords'.
In our section in the booklet my name was written and was mentioned as 'a talented kid who grew up in the orphanage of Riften as for the skills then this boy has many rumors about him but we could say he is trained for only five years. As for his helper we could only suspect a blacksmith boy who always followed him, the boy is talented as a blacksmith which only means he has a strong build. No sponsor was found.'
So no one knew about Jon Battle-Born yet. The Battle-Born Clan is big and old but they don't compete because the Grey-Manes don't compete too. The Grey-Manes are the clan that was paid by the king to make some of the prizes of the tournament.
Jon Battle-Born competed under a no sponsored team of a different city so no one will make fuss about it.
I was reviewing the booklet information with my team, as we reach the castle's main yard.
Castle Dour front yard, the place where the fights will be held, also allowed the participants to enter the place for training.
We had four days left for the tournament so we went to train and see the other participants.
This place in the game is the place on must go to for joining the imperial legion so I kind of knew how it would look like, but it was larger than I thought.
I also thought it would be strange to make and arena here but the preparations I saw made me in awe, it was a good job making all that. They made places for the spectators and one got the VIPs, there were enough places to take 5000 spectators with ease.
We picked a corner and started our warming up. Some teams were here already but there armors and weapons were poorer than even ours. After all we have a personal blacksmith, me a coin digger and also an apprentice alchemist, Battle-Born was from a rich clan and have brought his coin purse with him so we all were at a good standing.
After training we went back to the inn as.
...........
Four days has passed and many people gathered in the arena.
High King Torygg and Lady Elisif, as well as the Jarls and the Thanes of all the holds were here.
High King Torygg thanked everyone who came and wished for a fair and a good tournament.
The Jarls made the same and congratulated the High King for another year of his reign, Ulfric Stormcloak wasn't that nice to Torygg but he said the customary speech.
After that was done, the famous warriors of the holds and the Jarls started challenging each other. Jarl Ulfric challenged Jarl Balgruuf, Galmar Stone-Fist challenged Bolgeir Bearclaw, Thane Brylyn challenged Irileth the famous dark elf and close aide to Jarl Balgruuf, Unmid Snow-Shod last year Junior champion challenged Brunwulf Free-Winter last year's Senior champion.
All these matches were to hype up the tournament and to make things more spicy, they all ended with draw except for the champions matches. Brunwulf Free-Winter sent Unmid Snow-Shod flying with a his hammer.
What brought an end to the day was King Torygg's match with Jarl Igmund of Markarth.
The king of course won, what a sham.
The people cheered and all then the participants and their helpers were invited to the middle of the Arena to listen to the king's speech which was directed for them.
He said few words of courage and honor then we had to cheer and make ourselves look like some crazy Nord warriors, only after that we could challenging the hell out of each other.
An hour later I was bored and wanted to slip away and do some reading or anything just to discover that Wulfur received a challenge, and to my surprise the challenger was from team 'Black-Snow' of Riften and he was none other than Sibbi Black-Briar.
Black-Snow team was made of Sibbi and his brother Hemming along with Asgeir Snow-Shod.
The three rich brats of Riften or as I like to call them in order. The Annoying, The Wimp and The Idiot.
So that bastard came here. And he came all the way by himself to pick a fight, Fine.
"Wulfur, have his head." I said to Wulfur who nodded with a sneer. Of course killing is not allowed.
He thought he can win against his truma if he won against my friend, too bad what was known about Wulfur is only that he is a blacksmith boy.
Well, Unless you are a troll, you can't do anything about Wulfur's shield, 'The High Dam'.
The High Dam is a shield one 1.5 meter of smooth steel enchanted with 'Fortify Block' effect, and its weight is something that scares me, I barely can carry it. Of course Wulfur's physical strength is above that of mine. He can carry the damn thing and run around with it. I also suggested to him how to make a charge so he can bash people away.
Wulfur always carried few normal axes that can be thrown and fought with, and no one would want to receive an axe thrown by him.
He also liked to wear heavy armor, and one of his dreams was to create one of the sets in my skitch notes as his armor using Skyforge of course.
His style was that of turtle that can jump at you any moment and may throw scary axes at you. He also can use a 'Flail' which was a morning star mace with a chain connecting the stick and the mace itself. Let's just call his style the 'Hopper Juggernaut'.
Wulfur carried his shield with one hand. How admirable! He walked to the middle of the arena and stood front of Sibbi, then he walked left the walked right like a lion sizing up his opponent.
The people were taken aback by the Ironman, Wulfur's behavior, he really was acting a bit cocky for a 15 years old going against someone older.
He took the flail from his side and positioned his shield ahead of him.
Sibbi was a sword user and also carried a shield and was donned in an expensive looking armor, he made a pose and stode face to face against Wulfur.
The announcer came voice sounded, "Here comes Sibbi of Black-Briar Clan, fame is his name, shiny is his armor and sword is not plain. He issues a load challenge to an iron man, with a shield too heavy so what's his plan?"
The artistic words of the announcer made the people anticipating the fight even more, bets were set and the judge voice sounded, "Sibbi Black-Briar of team 'Black Snow' and Wulfur of team 'White-Wolves', fight with honor, don't kill, don't poison, don't use dirty words in the presence of the High King and the Jarls. any of these actions will revoke you from the tournament, understood?"
The two nodded and looked at each other fiercely, that's the spirit.
The judge gives them the permission to fight and Sibbi charges like a mad person.
He tried to kick the shield but Wulfur was as steady as a rock and didn't attack back, Sibbi tries to clash shield to shield but Wulfur bash his shield against Sibbi who was about to fall.
Wulfur was smiling, he could hear his sister speaking among the crowd cheering for him. She used some artistic lines as the announcer a while ago and some people was actually liking his heavy shield style.
After few clashes between the two I could feel Wulfur already had enough fun and was going to wrap this up.
He bashes away Sibbi whose face was red after being played around so much. The he takes few steps back and puts himself in a charging posture.
This was something You can see at RPGs known as 'Knight Charge' and Wulfur kinda liked to do it.
Sibbi was huffing and looking at the big shield and its bearer and was glaring as if his eyes were about to shoot out fire then her ran to Wulfur.
Wulfur was waiting for this, as soon as Sibbi ran he jumped ahead in a charge and closed the distance in a second. What could Sibbi see was a shield growing so big in a second that it strangely felt so close. what the people saw was a beeline of a human and a shield the was about to bump into another human.
A sound of clash could be heard and someone flew. That was Sibbi flying away after being charged at. In my past life we called that hit and run but the culprit was a car usually. This time it was a man with a shield.
Sibbi fell to the ground and the whole arena went silent, they thought it was going to take a bit longer but Wulfur was as if a car had hit a person and couldn't stop his charge that easily so he had to take a second to stop.
The judge looked at Sibbi and found him unconscious. This was all to it.
A fast win is a fast win, this was expected to happen but it was reversed in some people minds.
Everyone thought that the Black-Briar boy would play around with his heavy opponent and tire him slowly, but that charge was just too absurd. Even some of the Jarls were discussing how to deal with such a thing.
After a while people came to carry Sibbi. Wulfur came from the stage and stood with a dissatisfied face.
"What?'' I asked.
"Tch, too easy, That evil bas*ard was just played with." Wulfur was expecting some more.
"Man, you are just that good." I sighed and refuted.
Some people looked at him from the VIP stage, this was a good opportunity to pick up good talents from the unsponsored teams.
Few matches later we received another challenge and this time it was me.
The challenger from the Companions first team, Farkas.
Why is that ice brain is looking for me?
I carried my hammer which was named 'Agni-Ra' and headed to the stage.
The announcer started spewing some b*llsh*t about the companions and how unlucky the opponent is.
I looked at Farkas and raised my brows, he smiled at me and said "I saw you in the Jorrvaskr before but I didn't know you were coming here, Aela said you are a good fighter and it happens I don't have anyone to challenge."
"How arrogant! you don't have any of those great fighter in your eyes?" I asked while laughing.
"Bah! these are some rich milk drinker or people who are trying to be picked by the rich. you don't look like that to me." Farkas was serious though.
"Fine, game on." I raised my hammer which was resting on my shoulder while saying that.
Farkas carried his two handed broadsword and took his posture, I also made my stance and held the hammer with both hand.
The judge gave the permission to fight but we didn't move.
We just kept glaring at each other.
The first to give up at this staring contest was Farkas, he tried to swing his sword horizontally but I swung the same time with him while taking a step back. My aim was not his body but the sword's pommel in his hand that was still in swinging motion.
My speed was higher than him and I could land the hit accurately, Farkas was surprised as the sword flew away from his hand and his hands became red and started shaking, I tried to take the opportunity and strike him again but he was still ready and he kicked me in the torso sending me back.
I barely recovered from the kick, this guy is stronger than me but a bit slower.
He jumped back to take his sword and I gave a chase. Once he reached his sword, he swung it back at me which I had to dodge away and retreat a bit back, but that was the beginning of my headache.
Farkas relied on his strength to push me back again and again, I couldn't find a good opportunity to make a comeback at him. On this rate it will be bad for me.
I slowed a bit and waited for him to charge at me, with a step to the right I dodged him and attacked with a kick to his knee. I could see his face turn agunish from the sudden kick.
His armor covered most of his upper body but his lower half was not that much guarded. I, on the hand had a full armor of reinforced leather leg and arm guards which were made of leather and bars of metal, and enchanted as well, I had a good piece of plate armor on my torso and chest as well as a helmet.
My armor was light and protective, Wulfur's best work.
After few tries of pulling and pushing with each other, I found an opportunity while he was making a side step and ambushed the leg he was leaning on, soon after his posture crumbled and I found a chance to hit him with the hammer on the right side of his upper body armor.
His breathing worsened but he was like a maniac, he threw away his sword and jumped at me from two meters away. I hurriedly took a step back while spinning my body around itself and in the process sent my hammer to his other armor's side.
His jump changed direction midair and he fell down holding his side.
The judge comes to him and check his injury, then he ends the match was me as the winner.
Farkas was hurting but he smiled while he was being taken to the healer.
This guy likes to fight I am sure of it, let's just get along with the companions from now on.
After a while Jon Battle-Born was challenged and he won with style. After his name was announced as a Battle-Born, the VIP area was in a stir but they calmed down when they found out that he wasn't even in a sponsored team let alone representing anyone, he was here on his own.
The day came to an end and people reevaluated the participants once again. let's just say that my team has got a better standing and we won many of today's gambles.
[A/N: not a long chapter but I was not in any mood to write today, I may start writing smaller chapters to make it easier on myself for the time being and to be able to continue longer.]