“That is right, folks,” Jeff spoke as the announcer desk landed on the floor. “We are kicking this off with a ga of Jeopardy!”
The mont the desk connected to the floor, a ga stage rose from the ground in front of it. The stage was made from sandstone, or at least an abyssal material that looked just like it, and of Roman design. The main part of it was a giant wall with six rows and five columns, making for a total of 25 rectangular fields on it. These fields had numbers on them, the sa in a row and then ascending downwards. Above each column was the na of the category.
John accepted without thinking about it, might as well profit soway himself if he was going to fight for Lydia. Since these Quests never seed to have a punishnt for failure, there was basically no incentive to ever say no.
“Now, here are the rules. Our teams, in their entirety, will be taking turns at choosing one of the fields on the board. They will then be presented with a clue, upon which they have to present a guess towards the correct answer, traditionally formulated as a question, within 30 seconds. The field is always to be chosen by the Candidatum, while the answer can be given by anyone within the tifra,” Jeff explained.
As he did, the viewing area John and the others were sitting in had a large platform of bright blue materialize at the tip of it. That was their elevator, in all due likelihood. Lydia was the first to get on it, and soon they all followed suit. As did the team on the other side.
The lift was gently lowered to the arena below. As he descended, John felt his connection to Aclysia dull to a point where he could only register her being alive. ‘So, there are more chanics in place here to keep from cheating,’ John thought. Out of interest he checked his phone, which also had no signal. The mana dispersed under their feet, and they made their way over to the ga stage.
Aside from the giant wall, it had two standing areas, towards which the teams were walking as Dra expanded on the rules. “If a team formulates the correct guess, they will be awarded the number of points displayed on the field and they get to choose another field; however, they may only answer correctly up to three tis in a row. Afterwards the opposing team gets a chance. If the guess is wrong or the ti runs out, not only does the team lose the number of points they would have gotten but the other team gets a chance to answer the sa question for double the points it’s worth as well.”
“If they are a bore,” Jeff took over, “they can also choose not to take up the failed clue at all. In that case, the clue and the points attached to it are permanently scrapped. If they, however, pick up the clue and then fail at answering it themselves, it gets passed back to the original team. That circle may repeat endlessly.”
“May I present a question?” Lydia asked, having finally reached the standing area. It was little more than a podium with a standing height desk to lean on. With interest, John noted that just standing there made Lydia’s voice ring throughout the arena.
“Test, test,” he whispered, standing a good bit away from the desk. There was no laughter or any other reaction from the crowd, neither did he hear his own voice. “As long as we stay away from the podium, our conversations will remain private,” John told his group.
Thana looked at Mario in the enemy team with intensity. The sword master, wearing a cloak over his armour of which only the long sleeves were visible, stared back. Sniffing, Thana’s lips broke into a grin, “Oh, now that’s really fucking interesting.”
“What is?” John wondered.
“I will tell you later,” she promised.
“What is your question, Lydia?” Jeff asked.
“You said all participants, does this include familiars, like John Newman’s golem?” the princess inquired.
“As she is a registered part of John Newman in the terms of his powers, the answer is yes,” Dra said and then looked over to Maximillian. “Any questions from your side?”
The gravity king waved off, “Let’s get this show rolling.”
“Very well, I will now flip a coin, heads ans Lydia chooses the first question, tails ans Maximillian gets that honour,” Jeff said and flipped a silver object upwards.
Spinning quickly enough to appear as a solid ball, it shot dozens of tres in the air. The whole arena looked at the coin as it rose, slowed down, and finally fell again. It landed perfectly on Dra’s extended hand, who slapped it on the black surface of the announcer’s desk. “It’s heads,” the lizardman announced drily. “Lydia, please choose your first question. You have 15 seconds.”
Lydia looked at the board. From what John knew of her, and he hoped he knew her personality rather well at this point, he guessed that she would start with sothing on the lower end to gauge the difficulty of these questions.
“Important People for 20,” the princess of steel proved him right.
“Very well, Important People for 20!” Jeff repeated in a much more enthusiastic tone. Lydia’s left eye twitched; it was pretty obvious what she thought of this ga. Dra shuffled through a deck of cards that he produced from nowhere until he found the correct one. “The current emperor of the greater Roman Empire,” he read.
Lydia didn’t even turn around to check with her group. Why would she? “Romulus,” she drily stated.
“That is correct!” Jeff shouted. “The emperor of the greater Roman Empire is of course none other than its founder, Romulus!”
“I must remind you to honour the ga’s tradition to formulate your answer as a question,” Dra added.
Lydia stared at him for several monts, her grey eyes reflecting her annoyance. “Fine,” she finally spat out.
“Great,” Jeff said. “Now, pick your second guess!”
“I will take Magical Knowledge for 40.” Once again, Dra shuffled through his cards. “The magic that concerns itself with death.”
‘Oh, co on,’ John thought, ‘What are these questions?!’
“Necr-“ Lydia stopped herself and cleared her throat, “What is Necromancy?”
“That is correct! The magical school focused around death, souls and the reanimation of corpses is indeed called Necromancy!” Jeff said, “You get to pick one more!”
John, at this point, would have just picked sothing for 100. The trend here was clearly that the questions were pretty easy. Lydia took her whole 15 seconds before saying, “Magical Knowledge for 60.”
“The scientific na of the practice that converts mana into matter.”
‘Okay, I take it back, apparently it is pretty good that we didn’t just jump to 100,’ John thought, looking at Lydia thinking for a mont before stepping off the podium. “Do any of you have the right answer?” she asked, highly doubtful.
“I know of a way to convert mana into matter, not what it is called,” John answered, recalling the knowledge he had gotten from the book that gave him Craft and Enchant.
“I have no clue,” Rave answered. “Don’t even fucking ask ,” Thana shrugged.
“It’s called the Gretham-Convertible-Spin,” Momo said, “Nad after the formula of the sa mage.”
They all looked at Momo with varying degrees of surprise. “Do you REALLY think I spend all my day only reading criminal novels?” the support asked them with a disapproving look.
“Your ti is almost up!” Jeff reminded them, and Lydia, braid flying, whirled back around and walked up the podium, presenting the answer Momo had given her.
“That is correct. The Gretham-Convertible-Spin is most commonly encountered within mana generators. By making mana collide in certain angles at different speeds, matter can be created using the Gretham-Fusion-Formula. This puts Team Lydia at a total of 120 points!” Jeff proclaid, and the crowd cheered.
The cara panned over to Maximillian, who was standing on the podium. The king of gravity’s gaze was downcast. “Your turn, Maximillian,” Dra inford him. The man smiled and spread his arms in a sudden motion that made his red cape flutter in a showy fashion.
“Lydia, my dearest opponent, it seems you still don’t understand!” he said. “Caution makes one weak! You must dive into all opportunities with the certainty that you can make the best out of them! Important People for 100!” In an instant the viewers broke out in applause that made the bit of clapping they did for Lydia pale by comparison. The people loved a good show.
“The person that killed the most mbers of the Blood of the Proletariat in history,” Dra presented the clue, once the crowd had cald down enough.
Maximillian instantly stepped off the podium and let Alexej take the field. “Who is Josef Stalin?”
‘What?’ John thought.
“That is correct!” Jeff exclaid; “While there were a lot of great people in the fight against the Blood, and so not so great mbers of the Purest Front, the man who actually killed the most was Josef Stalin. The dictator was not himself part of the Abyss, and so, as he purged people from his ranks and sent others to the Gulag, he managed to murder quite a number of the upper and lower ranks through his actions! Nothing kills more communists than communism, folks! Fleeing from a prison in an Illusion Barrier is not of great help when they shoot you on sight next ti while you stay in the sa country!”
“Plus it invokes Gaia’s Ire if you’re the only one escaping an otherwise inescapable situation. This is why you should stay out of the mundane in general,” Dra stated.
That was so goddamn stupid that John could instantly believe it. “Now, for my next question,” Maximillian, taking back the podium, announced, “I will take Races for 100.”
“Races for 100, coming up!” Jeff said and looked at Dra, who was hastily shuffling through his cards.
“The theory that explains why magical races that stick to themselves degrade into monsters.” This ti the goblin took the podium. He was seriously tiny, reaching to only shortly above John’s kneecaps. With green, leathery skin that was heavily wrinkled and a giant nose, he was quite the weird sight.
Hiding himself in a multi-layered, black cloak, he wore no visible weapons anywhere. The guy practically scread ‘assassin’. An attempt to Observe him failed. Just flat-out, nothing popped up. John’s eyes darted over to Alexej, who looked at him with a knowing smile.
‘There is no ti like the present,’ John thought and, knowing that he wouldn’t have to fight today, dumped all of his mana into Reveal.
‘Tsk,’ John thought and reprimanded himself. ‘Should have started with that guy. Figures that he feels his wards around his team mber failing and doubles down on his protection afterwards.’ John still learned a few things but nothing of real substance. Still, he could try again when he had more mana at his disposal. It was worth a try, but John guessed that this ship had sailed. ‘Ah well, I got a few things to tell Lydia,’ John thought.
“What is Soul-Mass Theory?” Ankleshanker said in a most unpleasant voice, the human (or inhuman) equivalent of dragging fingernails over a stone board.
“That is correct!” Jeff said and then added the usual explanation; “As you may or may not know, magical races are born from the residue of human souls and then ford by their thoughts. Just one sapience away from monsters, these races often stick to themselves.”
“However,” Dra took over, “as only humans are able to generate Souls, the energy that lays on the foundation of all things magical, also known as Faith, if a community sticks to itself, there is only a limited amount of Soul going around. If the population expands, the Soul is thinned out and eventually the population degrades into monsters. In the sa vein, whenever a mber of a magical race dies, the majority of their soul energy is lost. Over the course of one or two generations, the community will therefore collapse or shrink into nothingness. This sa phenona is also why interbreeding is completely possible, we all co from the sa route after all.”
“While I am sure this is a well-known thing amongst the non-humans in the Abyss, only a few humans know about it,” Jeff then added. “Now, what will your last choice be, Maximillian?”
“Materials for 100!” the king said with a wide smirk. He was already 80 points ahead of Lydia, and he could make this margin even wider right now.
“This material, while incomprehensibly powerful, is warranted to be destroyed on sight and can only be found near the Levante,” Dra read from his card, having sorted them by point values in neat rows at this point.
Nariko stepped up for this one, “What is Sumarian-Cyclostone?”
“That is indeed correct! Sumarian-Cyclostone is one of the few things remaining from the eradicated area of the middle east and has been completely infested by Lorylim due to processes we are not entirely sure of,” Jeff inford the audience. “While it has absorbed an amount of mana that would make it a wanted material for items, it also has Lorylim corruption hanging onto it that cannot be cleansed without turning the stone into a useless rock. Between the two choices, the world agrees that these things should rather be destroyed, which is why possession of such a stone is, with 100% certainty, going to lead to your death. Either because you ca into contact with literal corruption manifest or because your local governing guild will absolutely murder you for using it. So, if you find such a thing, report it or destroy it yourself!”
“And that puts Maximillian at a 180 point lead, with 120 to 300 in his favour,” Dra took over the announcing as Jeff took a sip of water. “We will be back after a comrcial break, don’t go anywhere!”
A few minutes of comrcials rolled over.
“And we are back,” Dra said as the last of them passed. The two teams had a bit of a coffee and tea break as well, which Lydia was very happy about as she sipped her beverage on live TV.
“This is good tea,” she complinted the guy that had brought it to her. There was a smile on her face… well, almost.
“Unfortunately, Jeff has decided to go on a small toilet break,” the audience was audibly disappointed by that announcent, “but he should be back in a few seconds… as a matter of fact, I can see him running back right now!”
The caster with the ridiculous hair was indeed sprinting across the dusty field. That was when John heard sothing from far above. A swelling sound followed by what sounded like a. “What is that?” Dra wondered.
“Is that your bird?” Lydia wanted to know.
“No… looks more like a plane,” Thana said, blinking against the sun.
“It’s a fucking Ultramarine drop pod!” John shouted at them.
‘It is hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim!’ Sylph excitedly squealed in his head.
The drop pod continued downwards. It was headed straight for Jeff coming back from his toilet break. The sound of the acoustic guitar intensified as it played a dramatic lody; a beige filter was put over that part of the world. An arrow appeared in the bottom of John’s field of view, pointing leftwards; the scene froze as the drop pod was about to hit.
To Be Continued.
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