Post by Wolfe on May 4, 2020 16:14:42 GMT -5
The Amity Colosseum was a real marvel of modern engineering. Introduced six years ago at the 10th Vytal Festival, the structure is an enormous levitating arena that can move vast distances, making the journey to the host Kingdom every time the festival is held, so this time floated all the way from its home base in Atlas to Mistral for the Thirteenth Vytal Festival. The architectural marvel has a distinctive inverted cone shape that tapers to a point at the bottom where an enormous dust crystal powers the structure. Located above the main dust crystal are two levels of docking bays for air buses and other transportation to receive and offload passengers. Large archways lead passengers to the seating area which surrounds the arena. The seating area is the largest of any permanently airborne structure in the world, comfortably able to seat eighteen thousand people from across Remnant. The closest ring of seating to the arena itself are red seats reserved for contestants of the Vytal Festival itself along with other VIPs that typically include faculty members of both combat schools and Huntsman Academies along with the occasional politician or high flight businessmen.
Above the seating area are huge holographic screens, which display the aura monitors for tournament matches, as well as videos of the matches in progress to include action replays and commercials. The tournament presenters in a small booth above the top level of the seating area, and for this tournament rotate out but always form some combination of two individuals who are either current faculty members of a Big Four Academy, or former finalists of the tournament itself.
The audience is protected by an invisible force field which prevents projectiles and other objects from leaving the fighting area powered by hard light dust. When hit, the force field pulses a light blue color and ripples around the impact. It can prevent flying contestants from smashing into the spectator stands and is also able to absorb stray bullets or semblance attacks.
The tournament matches themselves take place in a large octagonal arena measuring 150 meters in diameter. The arena can change its environment into several different "biomes", including grasslands, forest, fire, ice, geyser fields, stormy mountains, desert, an ocean and beach with a wooden ship, city ruins, gravity arenas, and a swamp. The arena also has artificial weather effects, such as thunderstorms and an artificial sun. In all matches, the central octagonal section measuring 50 meters in diameter remains the same regardless of the biome.
During the two on two round, the arena is split evenly into four biomes, which are chosen randomly at the beginning of every fight for each section of the arena. For this this particular match in the first year bracket, the biomes randomly chosen were, going clockwise around the area were as follows: mountains, ocean, mountains, and geyser fields.
To the north and south of the area, and the flanks of either team, the combatants could see a rocky landscape filled with patchy foothills that start only one or two meters above the central combat area that quickly rise into several mountains with peaks that reach dozens of meters high. Atop the tallest of these peaks, at fifty meters up, a storm is constantly brewing, scattering the stony top with fierce lightning and booming thunder every few seconds. With all the mountains, Mistralians will feel most at home in this region and will find traversing the rocks fairly easy.
Behind Team SSAJ’s starting position, the combatants could see a sandy shore leading up to what appears to be a massive wooden pirate ship, 50 meters long with four masts standing 50 meters tall, billowing huge tattered sails, floating in a rippling sea, 5 meters deep at the deepest point, and a meter in the shallow spots, racked with waves and foamy salt water. Islanders won’t feel too out of their element here, but hopefully all the students involved know how to swim.
Behind Team KASH’s starting position, the combatants could see a field that seems to be mostly dirt and patches of dry grass, littered with holes that range in size from most at half a meter across, to one or two especially large ones at 6 meters across. Every now and then, these holes make their true nature known, bubbling up with a loud gurgling sound, before shooting up massive pillars of steam, up to 5 meters high. Traversing this environment will take a good bit of caution, but the treacherous landscape may prove a strategic boon to a creative fighter.
This particular match would be fought between Haven Academy’s Team KASH who came in as their school’s first seeded team and the fifth seeded team from Haven Academy in Team SSAJ. The following graphic flashed up on the big screens as the introductions began, with the graphics for each team member displayed on the screens with only the face of Solomon Moon being grayscaled to indicate that he was not participating in this round. On the commentary team for this particular match was current Haven Academy faculty member Theloria Shadecloak and her former teammate and current Vale Huntress Bianca Hunter. They were teammates on Team CBLT (Cobalt) who were finalists in the Eighth Vytal Festival Tournament.
The first voice over the mic was the boisterous one of Bianca Hunter, reveling in her role as announcer and obviously having a lot of fun in the performance. ”Hello, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to second stage of the Thirteenth Vytal Festival Tournament! We have here two rival teams from the same academy, fighting to see who will represent Mistral in the Final Eight!”
The woman was really animated, and it was clear that she was no stranger to speaking on a live mic. ”You all know who I am by now, so I’ll skip the introductions. The biomes selected for this match are two mountains, an ocean, and a geyser field. The ocean is behind Team SSAJ and the geyser field is behind Team KASH. The great thing about the doubles round and the singles round is that the team doesn’t have to choose who they send out until the biomes are decided, so we can see any number of combinations from either team. Well, not any number because it seems like Team SSAJ is a man down, right Thelly?”
”Solomon Moon is recovering from an injury sustained apparently last night, yeah. He’s in stable condition and I’m honestly not aware of the details, but the combination from Team SSAJ can only include Aegle, Jack, or Seiya for this match.”
”Wild. Heck of a time to be reckless with your health, but live and learn, I guess. Either way, we’ll see who comes out for each side here in the next minute or so as they take their positions. Who’s your early pick to win this match, Thelly?”
”Team KASH.” was the immediate response, without hesitation.
”Dang, I didn’t expect an answer that quick. What if the mountain climbing strategy works a second time, though?”
”It won’t. Everyone saw the trick last time, and bluffs don’t work if the other team knows it’s a bluff.”
”Well, yeah. I guess it wouldn’t work a second time once people already knew about it.”
Both teams would have the chance to be aware in broad strokes of what happened the night before, on April 21st. Kishka and Solomon had met on school grounds and had a fight, but the details were fuzzy and the two told very different stories about what happened. What was known about the incident, however, was shared only on the condition that they didn’t share what happened to anyone else under pain of severe disciplinary action. The academy didn’t want to leave people in the dark, but signed non-disclosure agreements were forced to be signed so the story didn’t leak to the press at the beginning of the Vytal Festival. Solomon had his body cut up by a cannonball that was apparently split in half and was still recovering in the infirmary from pretty substantial blood loss. It was apparently bad enough that they weren’t allowing visitors just yet, which was not a great sign. They were promised a visit that night, but the match was already scheduled before then. There were rumors of police going in and out of the infirmary all morning, so it might just be interrogations – but that didn’t really make sense because the other person involved was right there in the arena.
Kishka was uninjured, and it was clear from a glance that she had no sleep whatsoever from the night before. An investigation was in progress about what had exactly happened, but the purple-haired girl had somehow gotten permission to continue in the Vytal Festival despite her own involvement in the incident. There was surely more to it, of course, but that would be the only information given to teammates who weren’t there.
For now, it was just a grudge match and each side was able to place themselves wherever they wanted. On the spectator view it was Team KASH on the left and Team SSAJ on the right. The former had the geyser fields behind them, while the latter had the ocean behind them. They both had mountains on their left and right flank and could position close to any of these biomes or simply push forward and dare the other team to fight them in the middle.
Above the seating area are huge holographic screens, which display the aura monitors for tournament matches, as well as videos of the matches in progress to include action replays and commercials. The tournament presenters in a small booth above the top level of the seating area, and for this tournament rotate out but always form some combination of two individuals who are either current faculty members of a Big Four Academy, or former finalists of the tournament itself.
The audience is protected by an invisible force field which prevents projectiles and other objects from leaving the fighting area powered by hard light dust. When hit, the force field pulses a light blue color and ripples around the impact. It can prevent flying contestants from smashing into the spectator stands and is also able to absorb stray bullets or semblance attacks.
The tournament matches themselves take place in a large octagonal arena measuring 150 meters in diameter. The arena can change its environment into several different "biomes", including grasslands, forest, fire, ice, geyser fields, stormy mountains, desert, an ocean and beach with a wooden ship, city ruins, gravity arenas, and a swamp. The arena also has artificial weather effects, such as thunderstorms and an artificial sun. In all matches, the central octagonal section measuring 50 meters in diameter remains the same regardless of the biome.
During the two on two round, the arena is split evenly into four biomes, which are chosen randomly at the beginning of every fight for each section of the arena. For this this particular match in the first year bracket, the biomes randomly chosen were, going clockwise around the area were as follows: mountains, ocean, mountains, and geyser fields.
To the north and south of the area, and the flanks of either team, the combatants could see a rocky landscape filled with patchy foothills that start only one or two meters above the central combat area that quickly rise into several mountains with peaks that reach dozens of meters high. Atop the tallest of these peaks, at fifty meters up, a storm is constantly brewing, scattering the stony top with fierce lightning and booming thunder every few seconds. With all the mountains, Mistralians will feel most at home in this region and will find traversing the rocks fairly easy.
Behind Team SSAJ’s starting position, the combatants could see a sandy shore leading up to what appears to be a massive wooden pirate ship, 50 meters long with four masts standing 50 meters tall, billowing huge tattered sails, floating in a rippling sea, 5 meters deep at the deepest point, and a meter in the shallow spots, racked with waves and foamy salt water. Islanders won’t feel too out of their element here, but hopefully all the students involved know how to swim.
Behind Team KASH’s starting position, the combatants could see a field that seems to be mostly dirt and patches of dry grass, littered with holes that range in size from most at half a meter across, to one or two especially large ones at 6 meters across. Every now and then, these holes make their true nature known, bubbling up with a loud gurgling sound, before shooting up massive pillars of steam, up to 5 meters high. Traversing this environment will take a good bit of caution, but the treacherous landscape may prove a strategic boon to a creative fighter.
This particular match would be fought between Haven Academy’s Team KASH who came in as their school’s first seeded team and the fifth seeded team from Haven Academy in Team SSAJ. The following graphic flashed up on the big screens as the introductions began, with the graphics for each team member displayed on the screens with only the face of Solomon Moon being grayscaled to indicate that he was not participating in this round. On the commentary team for this particular match was current Haven Academy faculty member Theloria Shadecloak and her former teammate and current Vale Huntress Bianca Hunter. They were teammates on Team CBLT (Cobalt) who were finalists in the Eighth Vytal Festival Tournament.
The first voice over the mic was the boisterous one of Bianca Hunter, reveling in her role as announcer and obviously having a lot of fun in the performance. ”Hello, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to second stage of the Thirteenth Vytal Festival Tournament! We have here two rival teams from the same academy, fighting to see who will represent Mistral in the Final Eight!”
The woman was really animated, and it was clear that she was no stranger to speaking on a live mic. ”You all know who I am by now, so I’ll skip the introductions. The biomes selected for this match are two mountains, an ocean, and a geyser field. The ocean is behind Team SSAJ and the geyser field is behind Team KASH. The great thing about the doubles round and the singles round is that the team doesn’t have to choose who they send out until the biomes are decided, so we can see any number of combinations from either team. Well, not any number because it seems like Team SSAJ is a man down, right Thelly?”
”Solomon Moon is recovering from an injury sustained apparently last night, yeah. He’s in stable condition and I’m honestly not aware of the details, but the combination from Team SSAJ can only include Aegle, Jack, or Seiya for this match.”
”Wild. Heck of a time to be reckless with your health, but live and learn, I guess. Either way, we’ll see who comes out for each side here in the next minute or so as they take their positions. Who’s your early pick to win this match, Thelly?”
”Team KASH.” was the immediate response, without hesitation.
”Dang, I didn’t expect an answer that quick. What if the mountain climbing strategy works a second time, though?”
”It won’t. Everyone saw the trick last time, and bluffs don’t work if the other team knows it’s a bluff.”
”Well, yeah. I guess it wouldn’t work a second time once people already knew about it.”
Both teams would have the chance to be aware in broad strokes of what happened the night before, on April 21st. Kishka and Solomon had met on school grounds and had a fight, but the details were fuzzy and the two told very different stories about what happened. What was known about the incident, however, was shared only on the condition that they didn’t share what happened to anyone else under pain of severe disciplinary action. The academy didn’t want to leave people in the dark, but signed non-disclosure agreements were forced to be signed so the story didn’t leak to the press at the beginning of the Vytal Festival. Solomon had his body cut up by a cannonball that was apparently split in half and was still recovering in the infirmary from pretty substantial blood loss. It was apparently bad enough that they weren’t allowing visitors just yet, which was not a great sign. They were promised a visit that night, but the match was already scheduled before then. There were rumors of police going in and out of the infirmary all morning, so it might just be interrogations – but that didn’t really make sense because the other person involved was right there in the arena.
Kishka was uninjured, and it was clear from a glance that she had no sleep whatsoever from the night before. An investigation was in progress about what had exactly happened, but the purple-haired girl had somehow gotten permission to continue in the Vytal Festival despite her own involvement in the incident. There was surely more to it, of course, but that would be the only information given to teammates who weren’t there.
For now, it was just a grudge match and each side was able to place themselves wherever they wanted. On the spectator view it was Team KASH on the left and Team SSAJ on the right. The former had the geyser fields behind them, while the latter had the ocean behind them. They both had mountains on their left and right flank and could position close to any of these biomes or simply push forward and dare the other team to fight them in the middle.
1550 total words
KASH on left, SSAJ on right.
Characters who are not placed in their posts are placed by the DM in the next DM post, likely to the PC's detriment.
Kishka starts with 3/4 posts in the counter until the first stage of exhaustion due to sleep deprivation from the night before.
KASH on left, SSAJ on right.
Characters who are not placed in their posts are placed by the DM in the next DM post, likely to the PC's detriment.
Kishka starts with 3/4 posts in the counter until the first stage of exhaustion due to sleep deprivation from the night before.