Curse of the Crystals

Chapter 17: The Last Stretch - part 1

Ambrose was losing what little motivation he still had at an alarming rate. Three more days had passed, during which they hadn't discovered any trace of either Vural or Shamash. It was like both of them had vanished from the tournament altogether, which was an actual possibility. Neither of them still had reasons for being here, after all. Shamash only wanted to speak to one of the princes and Vural only wanted to prevent him from doing so. The failed search attempt were starting to make Ambrose doubt all his previous choices, as he wondered if they should've pursued Vural from the start, or if they shouldn't have ran during the first attack, or... He sighed. Questioning himself wouldn't get him anywhere, no matter how easily it was to get lost in his doubts.

During their search, they had kept up their previous efforts. They defeated any team that challenged them and tried to keep casualties as low as possible by having Ambrose heal whomever he could. Most of the battles were only won thanks to Ambrose's healing, and even then, they were lucky to keep the amount of battles relatively low. By counting the amount of defeated teams they encountered, whether by their own hands or by the hands of others, and by keeping track of the amount of surrendered contestants and dead bodies the Blue Guard escorted out of the area, they were able to estimate that the battle was coming to an end. The area was still as big as it was at the start, but there were less and less teams to inhabit it, meaning they had increasingly fewer chances of encountering others during these last moments of the preliminary round.

Now, on the seventh day of the tournament, they felt that the end was truly near. The latter was almost entirely confirmed when the Blue Guard started monitoring the entire city far more actively. Ambrose figured they were ready to force contestants to stop the moment only ten of the teams remained. However, in order to make sure they knew the most recent count, they had messengers run through-out the city through-out the day. Where they were counting down from wasn't easy to estimate, but considering the low rate at which their group had encountered other teams, Ambrose assumed there were less than twenty teams left. Truth be told, he was somewhat surprised they were still in the tournament. After all, no matter how useful his healing was, he was useless as a fighter, meaning they only had two active combatants, and their strategy of trying to save as many lives as possible wasn't optimal for making it far either. It wasn't the main reason for him to lose motivation. No, it was the fact that all three of them were fully aware that the remaining teams were either the strongest ones or the most clever ones. At this point in the tournament, it was highly unlikely for a team to be left thanks to luck alone, as even their own team would've lost due to being wounded long ago, if it hadn't been for Ambrose's constant healing. In fact, he...

"Watch out!" Olve suddenly yelled.

The call snapped Ambrose out of his thoughts, but it was too late, as an arrow had pierced him. The pain quickly spread through-out his body, making him realize this wasn't a normal arrow. It had been poisoned. Considering it was a poison he didn't recognize, it wasn't easy to heal himself from its effects, as it took him all his energy and focus. As a result, he was unable to get into cover. Olve, noticing this, held up his shield and tried to block a possible follow-up arrow.

Isra had already managed to find cover behind a nearby tree, getting her bow ready while hiding safely behind cover. A mild rustling of the leaves was the only sign she got that this tree was far from safe, as someone suddenly jumped out of it. The High Elf managed to capture her completely by surprise, landing atop her and knocking her out while at it.

Just as Olve started to panic slightly, he heard a voice behind him.

"We've got you surrounded. Give up peacefully and we'll let you surrender to the Blue Guards peacefully."

After a sigh, he dropped his weapon. He knew Ambrose could heal himself from the poison, but they hadn't been able to spot the location of the enemy archer yet, and they didn't know what the man behind them was capable of. Being taken out so close to the end of the tournament, and in this terribly anti-climactic of walking into a trap felt pretty horrible, but at the very last they were taken out by decent enough looking people.