The corridor was long enough to think about things you didn't want to think about.
Like the forty thousand people on the other side of that gate, or that I was level one. or that I was still carrying my cup because I had nowhere to put it and at this point, it was mine.
The candidates moved as a group. Maybe sixty of us.
Most of them were properly equipped with swords, staffs, armour that probably costs more than everything I had ever owned in my two lifetimes. One woman near the front was carrying two weapons at once and making it look easy.
Then there was me.
Thin clothes and a Cup.
"Oracle," I said quietly.
"Yes."
"How many of these people could beat me in a straight fight?"
He hesitated to respond.
"Fifty one of the sixty three candidates present could end a direct fight with you quickly."
"What about the others, huh.?"
"They would probably still win. Just slower."
"Great!" I said. "Really helpful. Thank you so much for your support."
That was not the answer I was hoping for.
Sable was walking beside me. She could walk with me to the gate and then she had to stay behind.
The corridor ended at the gate.
Old iron. Four meters high. Bars as thick as my forearm. Through it I could hear the crowd already, not just as sound but as pressure, the kind that comes up through the floor before your ears even catch it.
A horn sounded above us.
The gate opened slowly and the reality of the situation started to hit. I felt the immediate difference between knowing forty thousand people are waiting and actually hearing them.
We walked out.
I knew the number. Forty thousand. I had heard it and processed it and moved on. What I had not done was picture what around forty thousand people actually looked like from the ground up.
It looked like the world had grown its own walls and filled them in with tiny little faces.
The arena floor was massive and had these dark flat dirt with chalk lines and stone pillars around the edges with magical lights at the top. The candidates spread into a messy mosh pit in the middle without anyone deciding that was the plan.
I looked back once.
Sable had stopped at the gate. She stood just inside it watching. She gave me one nod when she saw me look.
I turned back around.
Seph was six people to my left. Arms crossed, chin up, looking at the crowd all cocky, the same way someone looks at something they have been expecting and feel they deserve.
Then the sound of an announcers voice appeared around the entire stadium .
Everywhere at once, filling every corner of the stadium.
"CITIZENS OF VELTHAS. HONOURED GUESTS FROM THE KINGDOMS OF DRENMARK, SOLHAVEN, CARATHOS AND BEYOND."
The crowd responded with cheers shaking the stadium walls.
The announcer let it run for a few seconds.
"WELCOME. TO THE ROYAL GAUNTLET!"
The roar that came back hit me in the chest.
"BEFORE WE BEGIN," the announcer said, "WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE PRESENCE OF THE SEVEN RULERS OF AETHENVEIL, WHO HAVE HONOURED US TODAY BY ATTENDING THE ROYAL GAUNTLET IN PERSON FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOURTEEN YEARS."
I looked up and stared. .
The royal viewing box sat at the safest and highest part of the stadium.
It was large and was framed by stone arches, draped in banners. You could see seven figures sitting in a row behind a low barrier. They looked more like little shapes more than faces from down here.
"REPRESENTING THE KINGDOM OF VELTHAS. HIS MAJESTY, KING ALDRIC THE THIRD."
The crowd cheered.
"Oracle," I said
"Yes."
"Aldric the Adequate is here."
After all I've heard about this King, I was amazed he would attend.
"Yes." Oracle said.
"In person!"
"That is what in person means."
"REPRESENTING THE KINGDOM OF DRENMARK. KINGDOM OF WAR AND IRON. HIS MAJESTY, KING VORD ASHENMERE."
There was a very different response this time. Heavier. The kind of applause that has a lot of respect and passion behind it.
"REPRESENTING THE KINGDOM OF SOLHAVEN. KINGDOM OF THE SEA AND TRADE. HIS MAJESTY, KING CASSEL TIDEBORN."
Lighter, but still more passion than our own King. The kind of cheering that comes from people who have done business with Solhaven, which based on the crowd was a lot of people.
"REPRESENTING THE KINGDOM OF CARATHOS. KINGDOM OF MAGIC AND KNOWLEDGE. HIS EXCELLENCY, ARCHMAGE-KING SEREL DUNVEIL."
The mage section of the crowd got very loud, very fast, but then quickly hushed up when nobody else matched there energy.
"REPRESENTING THE KINGDOM OF EMBRATH. KINGDOM OF FAITH AND THE DIVINE. HIS HOLINESS, HIGH-KING ORATH SOLEN."
It was silence first but then a roaring applauses that shook the ground. The kind of response you get from people who weren't sure whether to clap or bow and quietly did both.
High-King Orath Solen sat completely still. He didn't acknowledge the crowd.
"REPRESENTING THE KINGDOM OF NHOVARA. HER MAJESTY. QUEEN MIRA VOSS."
The crowd did something interesting. They werebt loud but not really quite either.
Just a murmur.
Queen Mira Voss was the only one of the seven watching the candidates on the floor instead of the crowd around her.
Gutter Intuition flagged her.
[ GUTTER INTUITION: Viewing box. High assessment. Not hostile. She came here to see something specific. Probability that something is you: not zero. ]
I kept my face neutral.
"REPRESENTING THE KINGDOM OF VAELSTROM. KINGDOM OF THE WILDS AND ANCIENT THINGS. HIS MAJESTY, KING BRENN EARTHWALKER."
Warmer applause than the others. Less formal.
Seven kings. One box. First time in fourteen years.
"Oracle," I said.
"Yes."
"Why are all seven of them here?"
A slightly longer pause than usual.
"Unknown. The last time all seven attended simultaneously was fourteen years ago. Before that, records can go back all the way to a thousand years to the Hollowcrown Tournament that produced the hero who sealed Valgrax the first time....
I looked at the box.
"Nobody told them to come today?
"No," Oracle said. "They came on their own terms."
I didnt say anything to that.
The announcer moved on.
"THE RULES OF THE ROYAL GAUNTLET ARE AS FOLLOWS."
He said everything Sable had already told me. Three phases. The Measure, The Trial, The Ranking. Top two candidates from today go to the Hollowcrown Tournament. I listened anyway because hearing it in a stadium with seven kings and forty thousand people made it feel different from hearing it in a corridor twenty minutes ago.
"ONE ADDITIONAL NOTE!"
The announcer waited a moment...
"THIS YEARS GAUNTLET HAS ATTRACTED SIGNIFICANT ATTENTION DUE TO AN INCIDENT AT THE CALDENMERE ADVENTURERS GUILD YESTERDAY EVENING! FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THREE HUNDRED YEARS A REGISTRATION STONE HAS RETURNED A CRIMSON READING. THE CANDIDATE IN QUESTION IS REGISTERED AND PRESENT ON THE FLOOR TODAY!"
The crowd shifted immediately. Roughly thirty seven thousand heads scanning the floor at once.
Seph's jaw went tight. I saw it without looking directly at him.
"WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS YET!" the announcer said. WE WILL FIND OUT TODAY!"
He paused.
"CANDIDATES. PHASE ONE BEGINS NOW!!"
The pillars activated.
All at once. The light at the top of each one shifted and I felt a scan move through the air. Slow and invisible, passing through every candidate on the floor at the same time.
It passed through me and stopped.
"Oracle." I said
"The scan has hit your Magic Capacity," Oracle said. "It is trying to work out the number."
"How long does that normally take?"
"Four seconds for a normal candidate."
The pillars were already responding to everyone else. Different colours, nothing dramatic and the crowd watched intensely.
My pillars hadn't done anything yet.
"Oracle!"
"Still processing." Oracle said.
Ten seconds passed.
Then twenty seconds passed...
The candidates around me were getting their results one by one with the crowd reacting to each one.
Meanwhile every pillar around me stayed completely dark and people were starting to notice because of course they were.
"Oracle!!" I said
"The number doesn't fit in the space the system made for it," Oracle said. "It is producing an error."
I stood very still and said nothing because there was nothing useful to say.
The pillars flickered.
The crowd noticed quickly.
Then they lit up gold like everyone else's.
For exactly one second...
I thought that was it.
A normal reading.
Everything settles down. I stop being the most looked at person in the building. Then the gold shifted to white. Not a soft white. A sharp bright white that made the people nearest to my pillars start to look over at my pillars.
The crowd went quiet.
Same wave as the guild. Starting from the floor and rolling up through the stands.
The white held.
Then the pillars went dark.
Not flickering. Not fading. Just off. Every other candidates pillars still lit. Mine was gone. Like whatever was inside me had looked at the scan, decided it had no interest being scanned, and walked away from the whole situation.
Complete silence.
Then something from somewhere deep inside me woke up
A warm, quiet and steady pulse. It felt like something had been asleep for a very long time and decided to open one eye and look around.
[ SKILL ACTIVATION NOTICE ]
[ Unknown Skill has awakened. ]
[ Classification: Unknown. ]
[ Name: Unknown. ]
[ Effect: Detecting and absorbing ambient magical energy from high level sources in immediate vicinity. Reserve spike in progress. ]
[ Oracle note: Oracle has no data on this skill. Oracle suggests remaining calm. Oracle also suggests not dying. ]
My Magic Capacity number spiked into uncharted territory.
I watched it happen inside my own head the way you watch something that you have no control over and no explanation for. It went past three hundred and then past four.
It kept going and Oracle went very quiet.
I looked at the seven kings in the viewing box.
I looked at the sixty three candidates around me, some of the most powerful people in the kingdom, all standing within range.
The pulse of energy ripping through my chest kept coming.
The crowd was still silent.
And then one of the kings stood up.
Not Aldric. Not Vord Ashenmere with his war kingdom and his heavy applause. It was Brenn Earthwalker, King of Vaelstrom, Kingdom of the Wilds and Ancient Thing.
He looked like he had never been surprised by anything this world had to offer.
He walked forward from his chair and looked down at me.
Then the next king noticed.
Seconds later, I had all seven of them looking at the same spot on the arena floor, at ME!
Nobody in the stadium had ever seen seven kings look uncertain at the same time before.
The crowd erupted.
I stood there in the middle of it.
Thin clothes and my cup.
"Oracle," I said, very quietly.
"Yes."
"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPEND?"
Oracle said nothing.
I looked at my cup. I looked at the seven kings. I looked at the crowd.
"Righ....."
The announcer's voice cut in.
"PHASE ONE RESULTS HAVE BEEN FLAGGED FOR IMMEDIATE ROYAL REVIEW. ALL CANDIDATES, HOLD POSITION!"
"Oracle," I said.
"Yes."
"Has this ever happened before?"
"No," Oracle said slowly. "That has never happened before."
.