The Night Tournament!

[undergroundmods]

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The time has come. Sixteen competitors have been chosen to represent their species. Over the next three weeks, they will use all their power and all their skill in a quest for the ultimate glory: to be crowned Night Champion.

It's time to play in the Night Tournament.

Week 1: Single Combat
Between 7th and 12th August the competitors will take part in a single combat game with knockout rounds to determine the winner. Here is the final bracket for the first round:



The venue is the Redbright Institute Training Arena in the basement of the school. Think of it as a cage match: the two combatants enter the arena which is magically sealed so that neither can leave. They are not allowed to take in any weapons. In the arena they will find three items: a wooden chair, a tennis ball and a skipping rope. Do with these as you will.

The crowd are packed in around the edges of the arena, cheering and whooping and generally creating a good atmosphere. The three adjudicators, Sylvia Redbright, Alexandrie Belrose and Yasmine Merad are seated at a judging panel with an excellent view of the arena. They will declare when the match is over.

The only rules are the conditions for victory. The match is over when:

• One of the combatants is killed. (Yes, killed.)
• One of the combatants is knocked out.
• One of the combatants is incapacitated for a minimum of 10 seconds.

A protection spell is cast on each of the combatants before they enter the arena which will bring them back to life if they die. Healer witches and meta human medics are on hand to provide aid after each match. The fights are expected to be brutal, and the crowd will be baying for blood. Better give them what they want, eh?

Week 2: Mystery Room
Between 14th and 19th August the competitors will play a mystery room game that requires them to work together to escape. The game again takes place in the Redbright Institute Training Arena, which has been modified into a set of four rooms that competitors must escape from. There's also raised seating in the arena for the audience to watch the events on a large screen, as all the rooms have cameras in them so you can enjoy the show.

Mystery Room Results
1) Desmond Miles and Evie Frye (13 min 42 seconds)
2) Eames and Lydia Bennet (20 min 56 seconds)
3) Fun Ghoul and Roddy Geiger (21 min 14 seconds)
4) Cole and James Flint (23 min 25 seconds)
5) Mogget and Lancelot (24 min 05 seconds)
6) Maximina Choi and Micheletto Corella (26 min 18 seconds)
7) Matt Murdock and Olin Stacey (26 min 48 seconds)
8) Ban Sidhe (3 min 10 seconds) and Joe 'the Bear' Orsini (DNF)

Room 1: The Dungeon
Room 1 is an old-fashioned dungeon lit by a pair of oil lamps hanging in brackets on either side of the door. You begin with one of you locked inside a large wooden cage and the other outside the cage. The person inside the cage is handcuffed to the bars. (NB. The tournament organisers will always choose the physically weakest character to lock inside the cage, unless of course you're a ghost in which case your partner will be the one inside the cage. The handcuffs and the cage itself are not that hard to break; if your strength is 3 or above you can break them no problem.)

The key to unlock the cage is inside the cage itself, half-hidden in the straw, but it's pretty much in the middle of the floor and therefore should be out of reach both for the person handcuffed to the bars and the person who can walk around outside the cage.

The key to unlock the handcuffs can be found beneath a metal grate outside the cell. The metal grate is stuck so you will have to stick your hand between the bars to reach the key.

Finally, once you're both out and free to walk around the room, you may notice the imprint of two sets of footprints on the floor facing the door. All you have to do is stand on each of the footprints (i.e. one person stands in the correct spot to the left, one person stands in the correct spot to the right) and the door will automatically unlock.

Room 2: The Study
Room 2 is a study which contains a desk, three chairs, several bookshelves, a standing globe of the world, a grandfather clock, a small mirror, three wooden chests, and several oil paintings on both the walls and the desk. If you search the chests, you'll find a lot of random junk but also a couple of flashlights which may come in handy. The desk itself is crammed with random antique instruments and books, several of which seem to have migrated to the floor. There's a lot to take in but if the first thing you look for is the exit, you'll see it straight ahead of you: a heavy door with a combination padlock. You'll need to enter the correct four-digit passcode to open it.

One of the books on the desk is called The Mystery Room. Opening it will reveal a scroll which reads as follows:

Count only that on display.

Fruit - Horses - Shoes - Goblins

None of these are items in the room. But they are items depicted in the paintings. Counting the numbers of each represented in the paintings will reveal the correct passcode.

Room 3: The Dark Room
Room 3 is utterly pitch black. If you haven't found them already, you might want to go back to grab those flashlights. Once you've managed to shed some light on the place, you'll see the room is almost empty except for four large wooden blocks in each corner. These are wide enough to stand on, but different heights: two feet, three feet, four feet and five feet. They're sturdy, but can be dragged around anywhere in the room or even stacked on top of each other.

Meanwhile, there's a locked door leading to the next room, but no key in this room.

What you need to do is look up. This is a room with a high ceiling. There's a ventilation shaft high up on the wall, and the grating covering it is loose and can easily be removed. It's 10 feet up though so you'll probably need to move those blocks around to reach it. Once you've reached it you'll realise it's a very tight fit: just about possible for a relatively small woman to squeeze through, but a large or heavyset man would get stuck.

Crawling through the ventilation shaft will lead you through to the next room, which is...

Room 4: The Sacrificial Chamber
This is a room that appears to have been inspired by black and white horror movies. It's a stone chamber artfully decorated with ripped curtains, stone pillars and a creepy sarcophagus right in the centre. On top of the sarcophagus is the key to Room 3: that's easy enough.

But there's no other exit. Or at least, there doesn't appear to be. The final door out is hidden by a low level illusion spell which can only be detected by those with magic power of 3 or above.

There's writing on the lid of the sarcophagus, but it's indecipherable. In fact, it's mirror writing, so you will need to go back to Room 2 and pick up the mirror in order to read it. Once you've done that, you can read the following:

To reveal the way, a sacrifice must be made. To open the door, wield the bloody blade.

This sounds ominous, so enjoy debating what it means, especially if you open the lid of the sarcophagus and find the skeleton holding a dagger clasped to its chest. In actual fact all it means is that the tip of the blade must be dipped in blood. Once blood is drawn by the dagger, the illusion spell disguising the door will break and you'll be able to see the shape of the door revealed as part of the stone wall, plus the depression in the wall that is clearly meant to fit the dagger. Place the dagger in its rightful place and the door will open.

You've made it. You escaped the Mystery Room.

Rules:
• Do not attempt to destroy the walls of the rooms in order to escape. If you do this you will be disqualified.
• You must go through one room to the next in the correct sequence. If you simply teleport or phase outside you will be disqualified.
• You have one hour to escape the rooms. Your final ranking will be determined by how many of you escaped (both escaping ranks higher than one) and how long it took you to escape.

Week 3: The Race
The final event is a simple one: get from point A to point B faster than anyone else to win the game. The starting point is the Redbright Institute in Hanwell, Ealing. The finish line is in Danson Park in Bexley, which is approximately 25 miles away (around 1 hour 15 min by car). Here's the route.

Race Results
1) Mogget (55 min 18 seconds)
2) Evie Frye (1 hour 35 min 30 seconds)
3) Fun Ghoul (1 hour 49 min 55 seconds)
4) Roddy Geiger (1 hour 51 min 15 seconds)
5) Matt Murdock (1 hour 55 min 12 seconds)
6) Eames (1 hour 59 min 13 seconds) (+ Basket of Kittens)
7) Lydia Bennet (2 hours 1 min 19 seconds)
8) James Flint (2 hours 13 min 41 seconds)
9) Desmond Miles (2 hours 14 min 49 seconds)
10) Joe 'the Bear' Orsini (2 hours 18 min 29 seconds)
11) Micheletto Corella (2 hours 35 min 11 seconds) (+ Balloons)
12) Maximina Choi (2 hours 39 min 14 seconds)
13) Olin Stacey (2 hours 45 min 32 seconds)
14) Lancelot (4 hours 14 min 20 seconds) (+ Sculpture)
15) Cole (DNF)
16) Ban Sidhe (DNF)

The race takes place on 23rd August, starting at 8.30pm. Competitors don't know where the end point of the race is until they're given a map with their destination on it at the start of the race. They'll also discover that there are certain bonus trophies they can collect to get extra points:

• For 5 bonus points: a basket of kittens which you can collect from Cafe Poirot in Barnet. All kittens must be delivered safely across the finishing line.
• For 5 bonus points: a collection of party balloons which you can find at Hillingdon House in Hillingdon. All balloons must cross the finishing line without being popped.
• For 10 bonus points: a glass flower sculpture which you can collect from the Reading Abbey ruins, Reading. You must carry the sculpture across the finishing line without damaging or breaking it.

These are all looked after by a steward at each of the locations and are not hard to find – the challenge is in getting there. Note that there is only one of each of the above items, so if someone else gets there first you won't be able to collect the trophy. If you get there at the same time as someone else, you'll have to get creative and fight them for it.

Rules:
• You cannot bring any items or equipment with you when you start the race. (No one is stopping you from packing whatever you want and hiding it in the car park or cloakroom to collect after you start the race though.)
• You may not use your own personal vehicle, borrow anyone else's vehicle, call a taxi/Uber, or hitch a ride from a friend. You can use public transport.
• You may not kill or injure any of the other competitors. Sabotaging, stealing and generally annoying are all fine.
• If you haven't managed to cross the finishing line by midnight, you'll be marked as DNF.

Leaders' Board
After Week 3, the final results are:

Eames (32 points) (CHAMPION)
Evie Frye (30 points) (Vampire Champion)
Fun Ghoul (21 points) (Werewolf Champion)
Lancelot (21 points) (Meta Human Champion)
James Flint (20 points)
Mogget (20 points)
Desmond Miles (19 points) (Witch Champion)
Roddy Geiger (17 points) (Shapeshifter Champion)
Lydia Bennet (16 points)
Micheletto Corella (15 points)
Matt Murdock (12 points)
Cole (9 points) (Ghost Champion)
Joe 'the Bear' Orsini (9 points)
Maximina Choi (7 points)
Olin Stacey (6 points)
Ban Sidhe (5 points)

[OOC: Please see the information post for more details on this event and to ask any questions! This log will be updated week by week as the games progress.]

Comments

Week 2: Mystery Room Shenanigans

[undergroundmods]

Use this thread to play out the actual mystery room puzzle solving! Good luck.

Roddy and Fun Ghoul

[roddy_reinigen]

They'd gotten through the rest of the rooms easily enough, and Roddy was feeling pretty confident as he hopped out of the ventilation duct into the fourth room, shifting as he dropped to the ground. Once fully in human form, he went to open the door for Ghoul to come join him, mentally noting that this was the second time he'd have to put his clothes back on. Oh, well. He hardly thought he'd get through this competition without using his abilities.

He opened the door for Ghoul, figuring he could, maybe, try to slip by Ghoul and grab his clothes. As if though Ghoul would somehow not notice that Roddy was naked.

Again.

[ghoulaid]

It's really not a big deal. Once you decide to regularly be a werecreature around a bunch of other werebeasties, you get used to casually seeing a bunch of unclothed people real quick. So, no, Roddy's wardrobe predicaments after shifting aren't all that shocking.

But that doesn't stop Ghoul from being himself. By the time Roddy opens up the next door Ghoul is already there, standing with Roddy's bundle of clothes in his outstretched hands and a shit-eating grin on his face. "Hi, honey," he coos, like one of those old-timey housewives to a husband strolling through the door at 5 PM on the dot. So much for sneaking by.

After dumping the clothing in Roddy's arms, Ghoul breezes on by and makes his way further in to the room. Might as well have a look around while Roddy sorts himself out. "So, this one is cozy."

[roddy_reinigen]

Roddy blushes bright red. Ghoul just had to make this moment more awkward. Snatching his clothes out of Ghoul's hands before stepping out of the way, Roddy quickly dressed himself as Ghoul checked out the room. He decided not to say anything until he was fully clothed, and once he did, he decided to pretend the accidental nudity (and the second incident of it this event) never happened.

"Uh, yeah, cozy," he said, approaching the sarcophagus, figuring that as the main feature of the room, it had to be important.

He began examining the sarcophagus, his eyes falling on the writing. What was that?

[ghoulaid]

After a quick sweep of the room, he comes up with nothing- which can't be right, can it? He's looked high and low and behind curtains and pillars, so of course he sounds a little miffed when he says, "I don't see a way out." Not even a hole or a vent like the last room.

Maybe there are hidden stairs inside the creepy coffin thing over there. With that in mind, he joins Roddy next to it, only to pause at the writing as well. The easiest solution would be to dismiss it as a foreign language, but it doesn't look right. It's the letter E in particular that catches his attention, causing him to squint and lean closer... "I think it's backwards?" The small words are easy. To, way, be... Ghoul sounds all excited when he points to the last line and says, "It's about the door!"

Only problem is, some of the letters are just squiggly-looking enough that it makes deciphering the bigger words very obnoxious. It'd be so much faster with a mirror. He makes a bitter face, glancing up at Roddy. "You got a compact?" Look, he never checked Roddy's pockets. Maybe he's got makeup products in there somewhere. Ghoul doesn't know his life.

[roddy_reinigen]

Roddy looked at Ghoul like he was nuts. "Why would I have a--nevermind. I think I saw a mirror a couple of rooms back."

It was while they were looking for the items in the second room. Roddy took off, heading back to the second room to find the mirror. It took him a few seconds, sifting through the items that they'd torn through looking for shoes and goblins, but it didn't take him too long to figure out where they'd left the mirror before he came racing back.

[ghoulaid]

Why wouldn't he have one? It would have come in handy. Maybe next time he'll be prepared for something like this.

"'Kay," is all Ghoul says, tilting his head as he eyes the sarcophagus again. He decides to hang back while Roddy tracks down a mirror, because he has very important business to take care of here.

He really wants to see if there's an actual body inside of this motherfucker.

It's a risky move- what if it's a trap? Or what if it's cursed and the thing inside attacks? But it doesn't stop his curious drive to see something potentially gross. Roddy will return to an open sarcophagus and Ghoul's casual announcement of, "There's a dead guy in here. They went all out for this event, man."

The lid is carefully leaned against the side of the tomb because they still kind of need to read that message, but yeah. Welcome back to Morbid Hour, Roddy.

[roddy_reinigen]

Maybe next time he will. Or maybe he'll consider it such a freak occurrence that a compact is actually needed that he'll be blindsided anew by the need for one each and every time.

When he returned with the mirror and heard about the body, Roddy hurried over to have a look.

"Really? Cool!" He looked at it, handing Ghoul the mirror while Roddy checked out the withered, skeletal remains. He noticed the knife in the hand, and wondered if the corpse was tied in with some sort of clue, or... "I wonder if they dug up the body somewhere, or just checked in the back of the new Night Council president's fridge for decoration ideas."

...vampires kept their old, dried out leftovers in the fridge like everybody else, right?

[ghoulaid]

See, this is why they're friends. Roddy knows how to appreciate gross stuff.

He would have been well on his way to unscrambling the message, but Roddy had to go and be a clever little asshole and mess him up. He fumbles with the mirror as he twists himself in to a slightly weird mirror-reading position, surprised by his own loud laugh almost as much as he's surprised by Roddy's attitude. "God damn, drag him." Roddy's going to spoil his Sweet-and-Quiet reputation among the tournament viewers if he keeps making those sorts of comments. And about the President, no less. What a rebel.

Ghoul's smile fades slowly as he reads the writing aloud. "To reveal the way, a sacrifice must be made... to open the door, wield the bloody blade." He leans over to peek at the body again. Well, there's a blade. But it's not bloody...

"Motherfucker."

[roddy_reinigen]

Roddy grinned when he saw Ghoul's reaction to his joke, although he realized that maybe he shouldn't distract Ghoul when they're trying to get out of here. Really, though, with a Night Council President that ate people, it was kind of ridiculous to expect people to not notice or acknowledge that fact.

All humor faded away when he heard the line, and Ghoul might notice that Roddy was suddenly looking a little paler. His eyes fell on the blade the body held.

"So what? One of us has to sacrifice the other to get out of here? Because that's bullshit. Neither of us is getting sacrificed."

[ghoulaid]

They might not need to make a sacrifice at all if Roddy keels over.

Ghoul considers making a joke about how squeamish Roddy suddenly looks, but ends up forgetting to commit to it a second later. His mind is kind of racing right now, which is understandable. He needs a minute to think...

After a long, awkward stretch of silence, he makes an odd sound as he reaches up to scrub his fingers against his eyes. "Okay, look. It's fine." As soon as his hands drop, they plant at his waist and he takes turns looking between Roddy and the skeleton. "There were healers in the last round, they're probably around for this one too." Is Ghoul seriously considering this?

He is seriously considering this.

[roddy_reinigen]

"Yeah...you're probably right..." Roddy bit his lip, considering. "And maybe we can like...fool the spell if we just get one good stab in. Make it think one of us has been sacrificed."

He looked at the knife.

"But like...I really don't want to stab you, but I really don't want to be stabbed, either."

[ghoulaid]

"'Course I'm fuckin' right."

He has no idea if he's right. God, there better be healers on the other side of that door, because he's pretty sure he's setting himself up to be the one getting stabbed here...

"Okay, well, if you wanna fake it out then you're gonna have to do it, 'cause I'll kill the shit out of you for sure. I've never had to stab somebody gently." He's not the best at being delicate in the first place. Add werewolf strength and a sharp knife to the mix and that's a recipe for death and disaster.

Cole & Flint

[fauxdysseus]

[ Flint and Cole had both gotten through the first room fairly successfully - shackles were easily broken, a way out not too complicated to find. Flint was fairly pleased with outcome number one, all things considered. And this ghost fellow might prove to have some useful talents after all.

When they enter the study however, Flint has to pause — he stares at the shelves full of books surrounding them, and his first instinct is to check them out. ]

[hurtcomfort]

[ As Flint makes a beeline for the books, Cole makes a beeline for the other door. He passes through it, looking in the third room...before coming back a moment or two later, frown on his face. ]

It's dark in there, [ he reports, a little bit annoyed. ] I can't see.

[ Of course, that doesn't change the fact that they need to actually open that door first. As Flint looks over at the books, Cole looks over at Flint, as if expecting Flint to start bossing him around again. The problem though is that he's equally distracted, at least for the moment. ]

There's so many of them. [ He floats over towards the bookcase as well. Where on earth were they going to start? ]

[fauxdysseus]

[ It's like a treasure of goodness for Flint.

He runs his fingers against the book spines, his eyes searching as if the secrets of the universe were contained within all those pages — which, to him, they pretty much do.

He doesn't even glance around the room. ]

The way out is somewhere in these.

[ He says this with great authority. Then he glances at Cole. ]

Maybe look around the dark corners, just in case. [ He reaches for a book and opens it, glancing through its contents. ]

[hurtcomfort]

[ He can do that much! Cole nods, in a very determined way...before he floats off and literally looks around the dark corners for the next few minutes.

Surprising nobody, he don't find shit. So, he floats back to Flint, a little dejected and a little confused. ]

There's nothing there but cobwebs.

[fauxdysseus]

[ At this point, Flint has two books open — one in each hand, and he's pretty much lost in perusal.

He lifts his head, clearly bothered by Cole's interruption. ]

...What?

[ He looks around again, an irritated frown on his face. ]

Then, just. Search for scrolls, something. The code for the padlock must be around somewhere.

[ And he's back to his precious books. ]

[hurtcomfort]

[ Search for something? He can't help if he doesn't know what to do! With a quiet little 'hmmph,' Cole turns to the desk. Might as well start there. And that book called The Mystery Room has certainly caught his eye.

It takes a bit for Cole to actually open the book and unroll the scroll inside--his tangibility is very testy tonight. Once he's done that, he reads the scroll to himself...and then decides to bother Flint again. Fruit, horses, shoes, goblins. Well, there's no horses in here, but both men are wearing shoes. ]

Do you think mine would count?

[ you need to explain things like 'your thought process', Cole. ]

[fauxdysseus]

[ Flint's already speed-read one book and has moved onto perusing a couple more — good God, these are classics, some he hasn't read in decades, and he's quite absorbed.

Quite, quite absorbed. ]

...

..... What on earth are you talking about, ghost?

[hurtcomfort]

Fruit, horses, shoes, goblins. I don't see any goblins yet but two people, two pairs of shoes. Except I'm dead and mine won't come off.

[ As he talks, Cole directly looks at the scroll sitting on the desk. It's hard to touch it and he knows that if he tries to touch it right now he can't, but maybe just staring at it would be enough for Flint to see what he's talking about. ]

And I'm Cole.

[fauxdysseus]

[ Flint's still holding no less than two books in his hands and staring at Cole, half mystified (honestly what is even that thought process), half annoyed.

When he notices Cole looking insistently at the scroll on the desk, he sighs, puts down his books and walks over to the scroll. ]

I still have no idea what you're talking about, Cole, but — [ he unfurls it and starts looking it over, before moving so that Cole might get a good look. ] I assume this is what you're interested in?

[hurtcomfort]

[ Cole nods. ]

Four items for four numbers. Look at the lock.

[ He only got a glimpse of it when he floated through to the other room, but Cole got a better view when he was checking out the corners. There were four numbers on the lock, four items on the scroll, perhaps that had something to do with it!

It's the counting part that's confusing him. Because where are the goblins and horses in the first place? There aren't any statues or figurines in the room, just books and paintings. ]

[fauxdysseus]

[ It is clear that Cole is far more invested in the code than Flint — who's irritably glancing at the books that he left behind, and then at the padlock, because why not just break the bloody thing. ]

Yes, I see.

[ He gives the scrolls a closer look, then looks around, the paintings finally catching his eye. ]

These might have something to do with the paintings. Aren't those goblins on those?

[ Which is probably the only moment of clarity he'll have in this particular ordeal, honestly. ]

[hurtcomfort]

There are.

[ Cole has just realized this. So sorry Flint! You're getting abandoned as Cole moves from painting to painting, trying to see which has goblins and which has shoes and so on and so forth. ]