Chapter 3: Festival

    Morning came too quickly.  Generally, Deklos didn't have any problems with mornings that a nice strong cup of hot tea couldn't fix.  Today, however, morning brought tension and anxiety, neither of which he could deal with easily.  This was the day of the Tournament of the Magi, an event that Deklos had prepared for for years.  Today he could very well gain fame and power, and with it the honor of the citizens of his city.  On the other hand, he could also very well be disgraced and lose whatever respect others had for him. 

    Deklos pulled himself out of bed slowly as he battled his emotions for control.  Fear and trepidation welled up within him, but he pushed down his fickle feelings and forced himself to prepare for the events of the day.  He walked over to his wardrobe, and pulled out the dark blue robes of an archwizard.  After donning his clothing, he walked over to his dresser and pulled a pair of medallions out of the top drawer.  These were beautiful pieces of silver jewelry, identical except for the design engraved on them.  One of them bore the design of a staff with a brilliant light shining forth from the tip, the other had a picture of a fireball and a sword.  The former marked the wearer as an archwizard of applied magic, with the latter indicating that he was also an archwizard of combat magic.  He put both of these medallions on so that his opponents would know what manner of mage that they would be fighting this day.  Before he left, he also grabbed one of his better pairs of caster's gloves and donned them.  Now that he was dressed, Deklos poured a basin of water and went through the daily ritual of hygiene. 

    Fully prepared for the day, Deklos made his way to the kitchen, and prepared a quick breakfast for himself.  Since he was in a bit of a rush to get to the Tournament Hall, he simply ate a few pieces of toast and a cup or two of hot tea.  With this done, Deklos left his apartment and descended to the street to begin his trek to where the Tournament of the Magi would take place.

    The Tournament Hall was located half a mile to the west of the city limits, so getting there took anywhere from ten minutes to an hour on foot, depending on where in the city you lived.  Since Deklos' apartment was near the center of town, it was a twenty minutes walk.  The street that wound its way out of town to the west was quite crowded today, with throngs of people joining in the pilgrimage to the Tournament Hall.  Since the tournament only occurred once every two years, the event was something of a holiday celebration for the people of the Dark Lands.  On this day, they celebrated their heritage and way of life by watching the best and brightest wizards in all the land struggle with each other for leadership of the Dark Lands.  Though most simply watched the combat that would take place, many entered the tournament even if they were no where near skilled enough to win any positions of authority.  These lesser wizards entered the tournament for many reasons, but mostly to gain the respect of their friends by means of their skill.

    At last, Deklos arrived at the Tournament Hall.  He moved along with the crowd, up the stone steps and into the immense building.  Upon entering, the first things that struck him were the size of the Registration Hall and the amount of activity in it.  The registration hall was immense, easily twice as long as the longest of hallways at the university and three times as high.  In the center of the hall was a long line of tables where entrants could register their names and be placed into a particular bracket of the tournament, according to their skill.  The rest of the hall was filled with a chaotic assortment of stalls, each offering a different commodity to those who would watch and those who would compete.  There were the standard food stalls that sold the staples of festival days: meats and wines, breads and juices.  Also to be found were stalls that sold various artifacts, the merchant hawking his wares as 'necessities' for those who would overcome in battle this day.  Yet others rented out cots, places for those who were waiting for their next match to rest up.  In all, this place truly appeared to be less a waiting room for a combat area than a festival pavilion where the masses could enjoy themselves.

    Not knowing what the protocol for entering the tournament was, Deklos took a wild guess and walked up to the registration table marked "Archwizards and Magi."  The bored looking government lackey who was sitting behind the table looked up and greeted him.

    "Hello, sir.  How can I help you today?" the under worked employee inquired.

    "Uh...yes, I'd like to register for the tournament," Deklos replied.

    "Name?"

    "Archwizard Deklos."

    The worker looked down his list of known archwizards and magi until he came across Deklos' name.  Upon seeing that Deklos was an archwizard in two very different magical disciplines, he let out a low whistle.

    "Wow, two archwizardships..." the employee said, not knowing that 'archwizardship' was not actually a proper word.

    "Yes...quite...now can you please register me for the tournament?" said a slightly exasperated Deklos.

    "Oh, of course, sir.  Could you please present proof of archwizardship?" the lackey asked.

    Deklos groaned, and removed his two medallions and put them down on the table.  The lackey looked from one to the other, and back again.  He did this a few times before looking back at Deklos and speaking.

    "Do you have a second form of proof of archwizardship?"

    Deklos groaned before replying, "Is that really necessary?"

    "No, not really, but my manager might prefer it.  Would you rather just register for the tournament with only a single proof of archwizardship, then?"

    "Yes!" Deklos very nearly shouted.

    "Very well...we'll add your name to the archwizards bracket, and when it's time for your first match your name will be put up on the smaller boards spread throughout the hall," the government employee said in a very bored tone of voice, as though he were reciting a litany that the powers-that-be made him memorize, "When your name comes up, please get into the line in front of the staging area over there.  Right now, the non-professional mages are competing, so it'll be a quite few hours before they start the match ups for the archwizard bracket.  Have a nice day."

    After listening to this minor speech, Deklos wandered off, literally cursing the government employee under his breath.  This curse caused said employee losing his ability to speak for a few hours, which  made Deklos feel a little better.  Seeing as he now had a few hours to kill before he could participate in the tournament, Deklos decided to amuse himself by watching a few of the current matches.  He walked toward the south wing of the hall, and entered through the door marked "Spectators."  As he walked up the stairs and into the spectators' hallway in the south wing of the tournament hall, Deklos noticed that the style of architecture changed somewhat.  Whereas the registration hall was built on a grand scale, with arches everywhere to support the weight of the building, the south wing had straight hallways and much lower ceilings.  There were still a few arches and pillars here and there, but mostly there were flat walls, floors, and ceilings.  The oddest thing of the architecture of the hallway that Deklos found himself in was that there were no doors except for the doorway back to the registration hall.

    As he walked along the spectators' hallway, Deklos saw crowds gathered around some rather large windows.  He walked over to one, and looked out the window.  It overlooked a small, stone room with shielding artifacts all along the sides.  In the middle of the room were two young men wearing the clothes of field workers.  At first, Deklos thought that they were just standing in place doing nothing.  Upon looking closer, though, he saw that in reality the two were levitating about a foot off the ground and hurling taunts and insults at each other.  Shaking his head at this absurd spectacle, which seemed to have captivated the attention of a crowd of young boys, Deklos continued on.

    The next window he came across looked down on a room identical to the last one, but the entrants below were actually dueling here.  Below were a pair of non-professional mages wearing some rather interesting garb.  One was dressed in a plain white hooded robe that obscured all of the mage's features.  The mage wore a pair of elaborate gray caster's gloves, and appeared to be in the middle of a rather involved chant with complicated hand motions.  The other mage was dressed in a blood red robe, and wore three bronze caster's medallions on his neck.  He was grasping one of the caster's medallions with one hand, and with the other pointed at his white-robed opponent.  Deklos stood and watched, curious as to what style of magic combat these amateurs would use.  The white-robed caster's hood fell back as the chanting continued, revealing a rather feminine face.  As she finished her chant, the mage in white held both of her hands in front of her.  A few moments later, a fireball formed in front of the red-robed caster and flew toward his opponent.  It gained speed, and reddish-yellow light engulfed the room as the fireball struck the spot where the white-robed mage stood.  As the light dimmed, Deklos saw the sorcerer in red standing there, staring at his opponent, while the mage dressed in white continued to hold her hands out, maintaining the barrier spell that had blocked the fireball.

    'At the rate those two are going, they're going to be here all day,' Deklos thought to himself, 'One can probably lob fireballs as long as he wants, while the other maintains that barrier to keep from being hurt.  If that defensive mage would actually go on the offensive, she could win, but right now they're locked in a stalemate.  How sad.'

    Continuing on, Deklos walked over to the next window overlooking a duel.  In the room below him was a rather entertaining sight.  First of all, both combatants were wearing rather outlandish outfits.  One wore a full set of leather armor complete with a set of leather caster's gloves, giving Deklos the impression that he was a guard of some sort.  The other wore an ill-fitting and overly-extravagant lime green robe and a matching set of bronze caster's medallions.  The combatant in leather armor opted to use a method of casting spells that focused heavily on arm movements and tended to rely on earth and fire elemental spells, whereas the robe-garbed mage decided to use a strange form of chanting that used a nonsensical language to cast water and air based spells.  The two of them were completely immersed in their battle, making it quite fast-paced.  The one prepared an earth based spell that rapidly sprayed gravel, and the other chose to use an air spell to try to push away his opponent.  The two spells collided, canceling each other out and creating a good sized pile of small rocks on the ground.  Then they mages would repeat the performance but with fire and water spells instead, resulting in a mist of steam obscuring the room for a while.  Occasionally they would choose spells that were not opposite elements, and the collision would cause a spell fusion that would send both mages running as forces of destruction engulfed the center of the room.  With all the impressive pyrotechnics, one mage moving his body about in some sort of strange dance, and the chanting of the other mage, this battle almost seemed like some sort of magically charged song-and-dance performance.  Laughing softly at the antics of the two mages below, Deklos moved on.

    The antics of the amateur mages was amusing, but by now Deklos was starting to get a bit restless.  He turned around and walked briskly down the hall toward the doorway connecting the south wing to the registration hall.  Once in the registration hall, he turned around and looked for the doorway leading to the practice rooms in the south wing.  After a couple of seconds of looking, he saw it.  It was on almost the exact opposite end of the room, as far from the entrance to the combat cells as the spectators' doorway.  He made his way across the hall to this other door, which was no easy feat considering the chaos in the room resulting from all the vendors and spectators treating the registration hall as a festival pavilion.  Once across the registration hall, he ducked into the doorway marked "South Wing Practice Rooms."

    The hallway leading to the practice rooms in the south wing was very similar to the spectators' hallway, but it was on ground level rather than being elevated.  The other noticeable differences were the lack of crowds in the hallway and the presence of doors leading into the practice rooms.  There were small windows alongside the doors, allowing people to see into the room so that they would know whether or not it was occupied.  The first ten or so rooms were occupied by various wizards, a few of whom Deklos recognized from his time teaching at the university.  Eventually, Deklos found an unoccupied practice room.  Entering the room he had found, he looked around to see what was available to him to help him practice.  The room was for the most part identical to the combat cells that he had observed earlier.  The only thing that was different was a target dummy sitting in the middle of the room.  It was a simple target made of wood and straw, and it's stand was not bolted into the ground, allowing it to be moved around.  A small artifact was embedded in the dummy, creating a rather powerful anti-magic barrier around it, allowing it to be targeted with destructive spells without being damaged.  Seeing that everything was in order, Deklos closed the door and began to practice.

    He started out slowly, practicing his barrier spells.  Since he would be dueling other skilled wizards, he concentrated on casting without using any "crutches," such as chanting or arm movements.  To the untrained observer, he seemed to be standing perfectly still with his eyes closed for the longest time.  In reality, he was practicing casting barrier spells around himself while forming the spell completely in his mind.  At first, it would take a few minutes to construct his barriers, but after twenty tries or so, he managed to cast the barrier spell in only a few seconds.  True, it wasn't even close to the 'instant barrier' he had perfected while still a student, but then again he'd been out of practice in combat magic for at least two years.  After practicing barrier spells, he worked on offensive spells.  At first, he allowed himself to use his caster's gloves, and went through some basic elemental spells.  He attacked the practice dummy with fireballs, tried to smash it with stones and crush it with water pressure.  Air-based spells he used to try to push back the dummy, and finally he used light- and dark- based spells to try to fry it with pure energy.  He went through this routine once with caster's gloves, and then he took them off and did it several times without them.

    As Deklos practiced his basic spells, a crowd began to form around the observation window for his practice room.  Those with barely any skill with magic paid him no mind, but the mages and wizards watched him with awe.  Very few were able to cast any non-trivial spells without a caster's aide, and almost none were able to do it for a prolonged period.  This, Deklos was doing.  He was casting spell after spell without a caster's aide, and he was doing it very quickly.  After ten minutes, he was casting simple offensive spells in a matter of seconds without his caster's gloves.  After he had managed to fire off an air spell after a mere three seconds, Deklos noticed that he was being watched.  Rather amused that it was his turn to entertain, he decided to give them a magic show.  He put his caster's gloves back on so that he could do larger spells in a reasonable amount of time, and then cast a quick barrier spell around himself.  He chose to cast a non-destructive variant of an offensive spell that he had developed for creating distractionsd.  Drawing air and light element as for its components, the archwizard focused it into a variant of an whirlwind so that it would affect the entire room and minimize its destructive potential.  At last he released it, and the entire room was filled with a whirlwind that was sparkled due to the binding of light and air element.  The crowd was captivated.

    For his next trick, Deklos decided to have a bit of fun.  First, he dispelled his personal barrier, and replaced it with a simple stealth spell that manipulated the light to fool human eyes.  Next, he gathered fire and earth element, and molded them into a tangible form with a variant of a summoning spell.  A long flaming sword formed before the eyes of his onlookers, and then it began to move as though by its own volition.  In reality, Deklos was wielding the earth-born weapon, and his invisibility made it seem like the sword was swinging about by itself.  Finally, he ceased to concentrate on the stone weapon and his invisibility, effectively dispelling them, and returned to his spell practice.  This time, he worked on casting unique spell variations with his gloves on.  First, he worked on causing a small globe of flame to materialize in various points in the room.  This was not an easy trick, as he had to gather the element to some point other than in front of him and form it into a spell there.  His first try failed miserably, causing a mere flash of light and a puff of smoke.  The second time it materialized completely, but vanished as quickly.  After practicing this spell variation for a while, however, he managed to hit the practice dummy with a minor fireball spell that had materialized on the side of the room exactly opposite Deklos.  By this time, all but the more advanced wizards had stopped watching his practice, but those that still watched were amazed at his magical talents.

    Content with the amount of practice that he managed to get done so far, Deklos decided to check when his first match would come up.  He cast one final spell around the room -- an field that dispersed element so that it could not easily be gathered to form a spell -- and left for the hallway.  The practice hallway was now much emptier than it had been when he had come in.  Most of the rooms were empty, and those that still practiced were almost all archwizards, magi, and other high ranking wizards.  Noticing this trend, Deklos rushed toward the exit to the practice hall.  As soon as he passed the doorway separating the practice hallway from the Registration Hall, he looked at the nearest board listing the upcoming matches.  His name was close to the top of the list.  He slightly paniced upon seeing this, and all but ran over to the line of wizards in front of the staging area.