“Do you have any idea where we should start?” Lysa whispered into Jose’s ear. The two of them were standing in their corner of the waiting room, silently watching the remaining competitors lick their wounds with courtesy refreshments and snacks.

“I’ll be honest. Not really.” Jose said. One of the few solace that came with his job is that he didn’t have to deal with people most of the time. Beyond the occasional freighter mishap or gushing about item discussions with the odd adventurer, he had closed himself off from a majority of the people in Ileah.

For good reason.

“Should we ask Radolfo and Laura for help? They seem to be better equipped to handle this espionage stuff than we are.” Lysa offered. He had thought about doing just that after leaving the tunnels but there were some issues to that idea.

“We don’t know if Radolfo will blab out that information to his own social circle. We also don’t know if Elder Isabella is the kind of person willing to target our families and friends if we become as involved as we are now.”

Lysa frowned, “Jose, you’re being paranoid. If she had the power to target our people, she’d have done it before the event, right? Avoid the risk like most merchants would? And even then, keeping them in the dark still puts them at risk because we are already involved.”

Her points made sense. He thought of alternatives to avoid bringing in the rest of the cabal and they didn’t really bear fruit. He wanted to have brought Emma in on this, but she’s in the middle of Vanguard activity and unreachable. He liked to think between the two of them, they’d have enough insight and charisma to gather supporters to their cause but Lysa was too forward and blunt in discussions and he was too standoffish to be approachable or amiable.

Jose sighed, “If we bring the cabal in on this, we have to obfuscate some stuff. We can’t let them know about the Isabella stuff. Just go up to them and ask which groups are affiliated with who and highlight which people we can talk to.”

The less Radolfo has to meddle with, the better.

Lysa pulled out her journal and scribbled a message to the cabal room. A few moments later, Lysa and Jose were receiving notifications on their end. Jose pulled out his own journal and read up to the current moments of the conversation.

“Listen up team! Jose and I need some help for this event now that it’s a competition.” Lysa opened the conversation. She had continued “We need some details on the remaining contestants and any idea of what the third event should entail. What have you got so far?”

“Oh? I think we should talk about this in person if the two of you are thinking of learning more about your opponents they will be too.” Laura replied with a run on. “Especially with the whole Jose situation.”

The reveal of being an Arcanist. He was heartened that she’d been worried his secret was blown but there wasn’t anyone in Ileah, as far as he knew, that could handle his spell casting in a traditional fashion.

“Hey, great job winning! I’m so proud of the both of you.” Radolfo interjected.

“He bet gold that you two would win in your events and is happy to be rigging the next bet more in his favor.” Laura provided insight to the two of them. Lysa and Jose shared a look with one another before moving on from that topic.

“So what if I bet that they’d win? It goes to show I believe in them enough to risk my own hard earned gold to represent my people.” Radolfo replied defensively.

“Where do you want to meet up,” Jose ignored Radolfo’s defense, “We’re currently in a waiting room in the arena.” Jose looked up from his journal and scanned through the groups around him, trying to make cursory connections based on the people’s appearances and who they were acting chummy with.

Nothing he could really glean from aside from the apprentice and the two others in her entourage being affiliated with Elder Tessa. He was nudged by Lysa who gestured back at the journal.

“Er… I guess meet us outside of the arena? Unless you’ve made some friends and are waiting for their matches to finish, we can meet up at the gate we entered from.” Laura suggested. The path from the waiting room to the outside arena was a little roundabout if they wanted to avoid cutting through the open arena proper, but manageable.

“Sure. We should have enough time to talk and come back to make use of the info. Thanks Laura.” Lysa wrote back. With that confirmation, the two of them inconspicuously left the waiting room with the assistance of some visual maps courtesy of the planning team of the event.

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Lysa and Jose walked out from the side of the arena through a door and looped around to the front of the building. The riotous crowds cheers and cries quaked through Jose’s bones, each chant for victory or uncertainty bombarding his body with a rhythmic thump of noise. More than anything else, it caused his fatigued muscles to ache and his stomach to churn, the faint hints of nausea bringing him to the cusp of dizziness.

The two turned a corner and saw Laura and Radolfo around the front gate. Laura was eagerly surveying the landscape for their arrival, standing firm and vigilant. Radolfo was resting his back on the arena in a sitting position, rifling through a burlap sack in between his knees with apt attention.

“Guys!” Laura spotted them and waved them over. Before either of them could give their greetings, she wrapped their necks in a lopsided hug. “You two were amazing out there! I didn’t know what to expect out there but you two pulled off some impressive moves.”

“What did you expect from our dear leader and his number two? Didn’t doubt them for a second.” Radolfo chimed in, eyes transfixed by the glittering mound of coins in his burlap bag. “It helped that people were betting twenty to one that the other Archivist was gonna win for the first match. Made the risk on that pot so much sweeter.”

“How much were they betting on me?” Lysa asked. Jose elbowed Lysa to not encourage the behavior but Radolfo was quick to offer up the information.

“You were much less lucrative, honey. It was beauty versus beast out there and although she gave you a run for your money, the odds you were going to lose was a little less than a coin flip.” Lysa’s expression soured at the mention of her opponent. Jose was still curious about what exactly happened in her fight but didn't pry. She’d tell him when she was comfortable enough to talk about it or their situation pressed her to talk.

“Anyway,” Laura shifted the subject once the air around Lysa got heavy, “It’s a good thing you roped us in on this when you did. I’ve been-”

“She’s been talking non-stop about the participants, digging up whatever she can about everyone through public records. It’s scary how good she is at finding out about someone when she wants to.” Radolfo cut in, staring at Jose with a suggestive smile. Laura gave Radolfo an evil eye but he was unphased.

“It’s a competition, Radolfo. Getting to know the history of each contestant is half the fun in following their stories. It's half the reason people keep up with individual adventurers or full-on caravan groups throughout their careers this side of the Veil and beyond.” Laura was very passionate in her justifications. “Anyway, assuming the remaining competitors in the arena shake out the way they’re expected to, the affiliations for each lineup is rather interesting” Laura pulled out her journal and linked with their journals to share her display with them. The remaining 28 volunteers were color coded with dots on their names, an organizing key found at the bottom of the image. Most of the names were lit up, suggesting a file for these participants had been fabricated. The amount of work she’d have to put on this… it couldn’t have been done over the span of today. How long had she been working on this?

“What am I looking at here? It looks like confetti exploded all over the image.” Lysa squinted at the names in each column before shaking her head and giving up interacting with the list outright. Jose looked through the key. Gray meant the participants were overtly unaffiliated with a group and Jose was surprised to see how few remaining participants were in this category. There were five different colors attempting to categorize the connections each participant had.

“This is a pretty diverse group of people.” Jose said. The number of different colored dots overall and on each participant meant their job rooting out six other compatriots was going to be more complicated than their group expected.

“Yeah. I didn’t add a key for anyone affiliated with the Annals since it was just you two and that other guy. Richardt doesn’t seem like the guy to care about these events unless it directly impacts the Annals so there wasn’t a motivation I could think of for him to sponsor any of you in this event. The Elder’s, on the other hand, have taken a pretty keen interest in which representatives get on that boat and with what motivations.” Laura stated. If only she knew how close to the truth she was.

“If you’re worried about facing off against the big guns, try to avoid facing off against Vallejo, Irizarry, or Matteo. Those three are almost a shoe in with getting a spot on that boat.” Radolfo provided. Jose recognized Matteo and was curious to know why he was such a guaranteed pick but he focused his attention on the other two he didn’t recognize.

“Vallejo is the union leader for the Smelters cooperative and Irizarry is the apprentice of Elder Tessa. The man was a former adventurer turned scrap smelter who carved out a piece of territory for himself and retired folk like him in Barnacle Bay. There isn’t much known about the woman since her apprenticeship with Tessa began a few years ago, but she filled the position at fourteen and was prodigal with the craft before then.” Laura detailed. Looking further into their connections, there were about 4 others sharing their affiliations for a total of ten participants. That meant that at the moment, there were 16 other participants with affiliations favorable to Isabella or dubious affiliations altogether.

“Is there anyone else we need to be worried about?” Lysa asked. Laura and Radolfo pondered for a moment.

“Maybe the farm hand? I believe his name was Damiello. If the next event is more of this, you don’t want to be put up against him.” Laura offered.

“Dude’s a gentle giant in every sense of the word. Sponsored by Elder Isabella herself so you know he’s a good pick to bet on.” Radolfo added.

“Most of the other participants have tenuous connections that I could identify. There’s an older woman who’s friends with Elder Nero acting as his representative in the event. There’s the other half of Matteo in Carmina and her affiliations are deeply tied to Barnacle Bay.” Laura trailed off trying to recount the remaining participants by memory. Jose looked through the list and agreed that their connections were sparse, a majority of them having tenuous connections to multiple factions or just not having connections at all. If he were thinking like Isabella, it was probably best not to have direct connections with the participants she wanted on the boat, so he couldn’t be sure any of them were on her payroll as a conspirator.

His train of thought was cut short by the deafening cheer of the audience and the sonorous ring of the combat bell.

“And with this, we have our 30 remaining volunteers,” Elder Isabella’s muffled voice echoed out from the arena, “This concludes our second event!” Claps and cries sent a shockwave through the building. “If I can have our remaining participants congregate to the center of the arena, I would like to begin outlining the rules for the third event and bring this wonderful display of skill and determination to a close.”

The cabal looked at one another.

“That’s our queue.” Lysa motioned her head at the arena.

“We only just started getting into things though…” Laura frowned in displeasure.

“The show must go on,” Radolfo kicked up his legs and threw himself into a standing position, “We did what we could.” The sound of coins jingling in his pockets trailed behind him as he walked towards the audience entrance of the arena.

“Good luck guys. We’ll be here to give you support however we can.” Laura lingered for a moment before running off after Radolfo. The two participants watched their work friends enter into the arena before they began hightailing it back into the waiting room.

“What’s the plan now, chief?” Lysa asked.

“Depends on the specifics of the third event. If it starts directly off the heels of the last event, I’d say recuperating our strength matters more than gumming up Isabella’s conspiracy. If we have time to intervene, we’ll do what we can with the information we got and bring some people on our side.” Jose replied.

Jose and Lysa entered the waiting room as volunteers began filing out of the space and into the floor of the arena. Following everyone else's behavior, Jose got back to his starting position from the first event and waited, swivelling his head from side to side to take in the quality of the number of people left.

And count his personal blessings that he was still among them.

“Before I deliver the rules, would everyone give a round of applause for the remaining volunteers! They have allowed us to indulge a bit in what those fancy wall dwellers experience in their coliseums and for that, they really do deserve all of our admiration.” A torrent of claps and hollers came from the crowd after Elder Isabella’s request. “Our final event will be simulated within the Vanguard headquarters. Those with golden circles on their tickets are the lucky few who will be capable of experiencing the volunteers' displays of camaraderie and teamwork live!” The cheers and adoration showering the volunteers subsided as the audience members began inspecting their tickets for that golden dot.

Was this something else she was rigging in her favor?

“Our final event will take place in two hours. Within that span of time, our remaining volunteers will converse with one another and form a five person team, giving each member of their team a role similar to how the Vanguard are split up. They will go through a simulated course that matches the conditions that will be experienced on the ruined vessel and attempt to acquire the main objective at the center while handling the Infected that have made their nests in the dormant fortress. The group with the best time wins the five seats on the boat and each member earns a vote to enlist a volunteer from the remaining twenty five losers.”

Elder Isabella droned on some more about the rules but Jose, zoned out, feelings of validation and pride coursing through him for creating an advantage he and Lysa were sure to abuse against the remaining conspirators.

Carmina and Jose locked eyes again and neither of them could replace the smirk that crept on their faces.