Kabel finds a letter from Captain Riley in the morning thanking him for the help with the mimic. There’s a pouch with 200 gold.
Kabel successfully recharges the snow pendant and practices his psionics more. He sends a sending to Sarita asking about mithril daggers, and she offers to stop by Utopia if she can to visit.
As they head downstairs to the lobby, they see a group of five guards surrounding Sarita because she teleported into Utopia. Kabel vouches for her to Captain Riley, and he gives her a blue lapel as a tourist.
They accompany Sarita to buy a sending stone, and then they talk to Sigfried to get some armor that he was preparing for Artair. Sarita gets nervous and blushes because of Sigfried. She leaves, and the party heads to the Pavilion.
Kabel hides in an alley and places an Arcane eye close by, and Artair stays close. A hooded figure walks up and begins speaking in gibberish to Nero.
The man pulls Nero aside and takes him to a guard and asks the guard to look into Nero Wentworth because he tried to abuse a girl.
The man then walks up to Artair and introduces himself as Gremlin. He’s very friendly to Artair and says that he’ll be a competitor in the competition. He tries to intimidate Artair a bit and threatens to call the guards on him, but Artair stands firm. Gremlin stands down and tells Artair to mind his own business.
Kabel is suddenly hit with a catapulted rock, and a magic mouth on the rock tells him to mind his own business or face the consequences. His arcane eye is dispelled.
Artair takes some time to practice with his new armor from Sigfried, and Kabel studies his psionics more. He is finally able to move the candle itself with a spectral hand. Kabel now has psionics.
They head to the Warrior’s Cove and sign in. There’s a magical suite that they walk into, offering a view into the arena. There’s an hourglass counting down until the event starts. Kabel offers some items to Artair that could help him in the fight, then Artair walks down to start the fight.
Artair is cast into a bubble and is surrounded by 24 hatchlings. The warriors who defeat them the quickest advance to the next stage.
One of the bubbles around a contestant who died begins to shatter, and spider hatchlings attack the crowd. The guards make quick work of the spiders that escaped. Artair casts wall of fire and immediately wipes out all of the hatchlings, becoming the first competitor to finish. Kabel notices that for every competitor who dies, the bubble breaks prematurely and spiders escape.
Competitors who advance past the first round:
- Artair
- Kilo
- Gremlin
- UW - Mathias
- Trent (last year’s champion)
- UW - Chionpam - guard from 20220710 - Under-Wilds trials
- Malik
- Bryce - guy who ran away from 20220710 - Under-Wilds trials
The announcer then says that instead of tournaments, there will now be a battle royale.
Artair teams up with Kilo and takes out everyone except Malik and Mathias. He then walks to the middle of the arena and uses the Scroll of Scatter, throwing everyone else out of the arena. Kilo resists for a moment, then winks at Artair and lets himself be thrown. He tells Artair after the fight that he wouldn’t fight a child, but he looks forward to fighting him later.